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Marcel will never forget the day he meets Emmanuelle Mimieux.
It is not love at first sight.
It is confusion—he did not know the Mimieuxes had a niece, a slight-looking thing a few years younger than him. But there are many things that the Mimieuxes (or, just Madame, now) do not know about him, even after being in their employ for four years. He does not take it personally.
It is concern—do they mean to replace him, since he's being informed that Emmanuelle will eventually be taught how to operate the projectors? He's punctual and efficient, but those traits do not matter in Occupied France so much as the color as his skin. An irrational fear, when it comes to Mme Mimieux, but these days, logic is not applicable to most situations.
It is curiosity. Emmanuelle is unremarkable—she looks like many girls he's seen throughout Paris, but she does not look at him the way most girls do. Mostly, she doesn't look at him at all, her gaze attached to the floor or sneaking uneasy glances to her aunt as they're introduced, and Mme Mimieux tells her brusquely that Marcel is an excellent resource, should she wish to learn more about the behind-the-scenes operations of the cinema.
Emmanuelle is not disinterested; she is not present enough to be interested or not. Which, to Marcel, makes her interesting.
He knows where Emmanuelle's from—the outskirts of Bourdeux, where M. Mimieux's oldest brother lives, and why she's here—that, since Monsieur's untimely death, Madame is in need of the company that can only be provided to her by family, not a first-rate projectionist who has become a second-class citizen.
But he would like to know who she is. Not just Emmanuelle, Ada's niece, but the young woman who is acting the part of the sedate, obedient demoiselle.
Marcel's seen enough films to pick apart even the most skilled performance.
“It's been a pleasure meeting you,” he tells her kindly, truthfully, when Madame announces they must depart and finish unpacking Emmanuelle's belongings.
“Oui, likewise,” she says before following her aunt to the lobby's stairs. Though she walks guardedly, as if protecting herself, she peeks briefly over her shoulder at Marcel, who is still watching her. Gives him a stilted abbreviation of a wave.
He returns it, wondering what it is Emmanuelle needs protection from. Wondering if she might find this cinema, and the stories told within it, something of a refuge from the bleak reality of the world outside its walls, like he and Mme Mimieux have.
He more than wonders.
He hopes.
Marcel will never forget the morning he sees Emmanuelle smile for the first time.
It's been six months since she's arrived, and though she is pleasant most of the time, she is not, necessarily, friendly.
Marcel doesn't mind terribly; he's never thought of his job as an avenue to make friends. He has all the various cafes, bookshops and patisseries scattered throughout their arrondissement to form friendships, and over the years, that's exactly what he's done.
Two such friends are Auguste and Yvonne LeClerq, who own La Levée, a patisserie that sits approximately eight blocks from Le Gamaar. It's a favorite of Marcel's, and even now as they've added items like lebkuchen and Linzer cookies to their menu, he still visits once or twice a week, never wavering from what's been his order for years: an almond croissant and a noisette to wash it down with.
He's invited Emmanuelle several times; she's only accepted in the early evenings after a weekend matinée, when the winter night has already begun to descend upon the sky, and always keeps her head down during the walk there.
Marcel's initial invitation was all light-hearted and without pressure: he merely wished to prove to her that La Levée's croissants were the best in Paris (and he's all but certain he's succeeded in this).
Now, he asks because he feels she could use the company—and because he likes hers. Though he knows she might blanch at the term, Marcel considers her a friend simply due to the constant she's become.
Hundreds of movie-goers flood in and out of Le Gamaar each week, and it is not like when M. Mimieux was alive, where they were all friends, allies. Regulars, like Marcel is at La Levée. Now that it's been infiltrated with Germans, Mme Mimieux disallows any interaction beyond selling tickets and ushering patrons to their seats—which only she and Emmanuelle handle.
Marcel welcomes separating himself from the cinema, and he knows Emmanuelle does too, given the volatile temper her aunt's developed since the blitzkrieg, the Occupation.
They don't often talk—and it's not for Marcel's lack of trying. When they do, it's about movies, about Marcel's preferences and what kindled his interest in them. (“I needed the job. Then, I needed the escape. Finding passion in my own life isn't always easy; finding it on film—well, it's easier.”)
When he asks her about her earlier life on the edges of Bourdeux, she's quick to bite into her éclair or steer the subject back to the cinema.
And so, despite the numerous outings, Marcel knows very little about Emmanuelle Mimieux. He feels as though he's closer to Danielle Darrieux, his favorite actress whose career he's told Emmanuelle all about, than he is to the girl he sees nearly every day. All he's learned about Emmanuelle is that she likes her coffee black, and that she always picks the éclair with the most chocolate icing (which he finds incredibly endearing).
Until last night. When she, for once, had something to say to him.
“Show me how to work the projector.”
She's worked at the ticket booth, and in a custodial capacity: sweeping the aisles, polishing windows as well as the marquee letters, replacing broken bulbs. Anything and everything her aunt asks, Emmanuelle completes without question, and does a thorough job of it.
He has no reason to deny her, and so he doesn't. And seeing how the corners of her lips inch upward, out of the neutral line they're always flattened into—he isn't sure he has the will to, either.
Two days later, he makes an early trip to La Levée, right when they open. Buys the fattest, most chocolate-covered éclair they have.
“Your motivation,” he explains, placing the wrapped pastry on one of the higher shelves of the projection room that she's unable to reach.
She eyes it, approving. Then Marcel, disapproving. “I am my own motivation. Not... outside factors.”
“In that case, you won't mind if I...” Marcel reaches for the éclair.
“Non.” She swats his arm down, fixing him with a glare that could only be inherited from Mme Mimieux. “That doesn't mean I won't accept it... if I earn it. Only if I earn it.”
“I didn't agree to teach you expecting an 'if', Emmanuelle.”
She smirks, but quickly becomes the engaged student as Marcel shows her the parts of the projector most crucial to its operation, in the order in which they're used.
It's been years since M. Mimieux taught him, but the comprehensive way in which he broke the process down has been engraved in Marcel's mind—it's the patient, encouraging voice that guides his muscle memory through the actions, night after night. It's what he tries to repeat for Emmanuelle, who already has the advantage of having worked in the theatre for months, and of being sharper than Marcel was when he began (and, if he's being honest, sharper than he is now).
The hands-on approach is what worked best for him, and so it's what he uses for Emmanuelle; he'd rather her make her mistakes when the audience is just the two of them, not a packed house.
He teaches her using Montmarte, a romance starring Edith Piaf that Le Gamaar will be screening starting tomorrow. Marcel doesn't care much for romance films anymore; it's too much a suspension of belief, that love might be an end-all and be-all goal in this day and age. He's more content at the thought of finding those he can trust.
He watches Emmanuelle as she loads the next roll of film, cumbersome but getting the job done. She throws the lever right on cue.
Over her shoulder, she gives Marcel another smirk, one that says I've earned it.
And when the light flickers out from the lens, and Marcel pulls the chain switching on the bulb above, Emmanuelle tells him, “I've earned it”, while putting out an expectant hand.
“You nearly dropped the final roll!” he reminds her.
“Oui, and...? You told me that you tore a Chaney film in half the first time Oncle had you practice. I would say nearly dropping a roll, and not doing so, is a decisively better outcome.”
“This was never a competition,” Marcel argues, but he's smiling. “You never said anything about besting me—only earning it yourself.”
“Fine, then we'll split it,” she says. “I suppose you've earned it too—a stellar teacher, far better than Tante would've been, at least. You didn't call me useless or lazy once.”
“Because you're neither of those things.” He retrieves the éclair from and unwraps it, dangling it teasingly in front of her. “Your reward.”
They haven't anything to slice it with, and settle on ripping it in two. Marcel takes one end between his fingers, and Emmanuelle, the other.
On the count of trois...
The éclair does not tear easily; they're practically fighting it as a glob of custard spatters out. Emmanuelle shrieks out a laugh, comes away with the slightly larger half, that she immediately takes a huge bite of.
Her lips curl around her thumb as she sucks a bit of custard from it. Marcel swipes a dollop of custard ready to spill from his own half, and daubs it on the tip of Emmanuelle's nose.
She grins up at him, teeth stained with chocolate and a blob of custard on her nose. It's in that moment that Marcel realizes how beautiful she is. Always was, but he's seeing it projected now, a moving picture versus still frames.
No longer the aloof, distrustful girl he met months ago, Emmanuelle is something else, far more important than beautiful; she is genuinely happy.
Marcel is too.
Marcel will never forget the night he sees Emmanuelle cry for the first time.
It's a Thursday. German movie night. Every cinema in Occupied France is required to host one if they wish to remain open.
They're screening Wunschkonzert for the fifth time since it's premiered. Every time, it packs the theatre full of Germans; every time, Marcel wants to tell them va te faire foutre. Emmanuelle's come dangerously close to doing just this as she's shown some of the soldiers to their seats, he knows, and it is the two of them who should be awarded for their performances, for their deference and willing smiles as the German pigs happily wallow around in their own filth.
Emmanuelle's operating the projector. She's been doing so for a few months, once or twice a week, partly because she enjoys it but also, Marcel can sense, to prove her value to Mme Mimieux. Being her niece doesn't give Emmanuelle any leeway when it comes to escaping Madame's critical eye.
So Emmanuelle's given her nothing to be critical about.
Both of their grasps of German are extremely limited. They understand all they already need to; there's no reason for them to be fluent or ever halfway respectable with knowing the “romantic” dialogue or the sweeping musical numbers extolling, undoubtedly, alles für Deutschland. This phrase is among the German Marcel and Emmanuelle have absorbed, despite their best efforts.
Marcel watches the bell, preparing for it to ding! Emmanuelle's attention is honed through the viewport—a morbid curiosity, perhaps?
The bell jingles, signaling the final changeover is due in a matter of seconds. Emmanuelle stays where she is, motionless.
“Emmanuelle?” he whispers, slowly rising from the chair he's been seated upon.
She's not moving. She's not doing anything except—there is just enough slant of light shining from the projector, onto her cheeks—crying.
He becomes as thoughtless a machine as the projector; he has only instinct telling him to pull the changeover lever, and immediately does so. There's no reaction from the audience; his timing was perfect.
He's so glad he doesn't have another reel to swap out. Emmanuelle is obstructing the first projector, and telling her to move is not something Marcel feels comfortable doing.
He makes a coaxing, 'come here' gesture, hoping she sees him. She's trembling like a leaf in the breeze, and just when Marcel thinks she's gone catatonic, she gasps loud and desperate.
She stumbles past him, to the door. Tries to twist the knob but doesn't seem to have the strength or ability, and her hand slips away. She turns, back against the door, and slides to the floor. Crosses her arms over bent-up knees and buries her face in them, still crying slow and silent.
Marcel doesn't ask “What's wrong?” because he knows she can not tell him. He doesn't tell her “It's alright,” or anything else calming, soothing. None of this has been “alright” for a long time.
Her tears are not for what is on the screen. They might have been born from it, but her sadness reeks of something deeply rooted; something no film could ever evoke.
Marcel crouches down across from Emmanuelle, leaving enough space that she can still see around him when she lifts her face. But her eyes are so distant that he isn't sure she's seeing anything from the here and now.
“It's difficult to watch,” he says, finally. Because it is. To the Germans it's just a film. To him, Emmanuelle, millions of others, it's a reminder of this prison they wake up in every morning. This sentence of a life filled with fear and uncertainty—with no guarantee of how long that life might be.
“It's...” Emmanuelle gulps in a wet breath, her first words since her episode began. Her last words too. She slams a hand over her mouth but it doesn't hide the scream that forms. She pitches forward, curled in on herself.
Marcel folds Emmanuelle into his arms. She's limp against him, but as accepting as she's able to be, and he holds her for the remainder of the movie. Her shaky sobs are muffled by the applause erupting from the theatre below, where the Germans cheer the soaring ending.
Marcel will never forget the evening Emmanuelle kisses him.
It is a dreary mid-March day, made drearier by the fact that Mme Mimieux is still sick. A fever has kept her out of commission for most of the week and she's not faring any better this morning, Emmanuelle tells him before they open for a Sunday matinée. It will be just him and Emmanuelle today, and they will have to make do.
They more than make do; the cinema is packed with families, couples and soldiers wishing to steer clear of the rain and take in Au Bonheur des Dames. This is the busiest Sunday in some time, and it goes off without a hitch. Marcel in the projectionist's booth, Emmanuelle everywhere else—they are a team. They've been for a while now, but today it feels especially so.
After the cinema's emptied and they've finished sweeping the place clean, he's ready for their visit to La Levée. He no longer has to ask; it's weekly tradition and makes the curfew immensely more tolerable, spending the last few hours of it indulging in good food and good company.
She pauses with her jacket half on, staring unfocused into the empty lobby.
“Emmanuelle?” he asks, cautious. He can't blame her for being troubled, the pensive crease her mouth has been set in all week as Mme Mimieux lies alone in her bed, struggling for relief as the fever ravages her.
And while a trip to La Levée will not fix it, all Marcel can believe is that it will not make the situation any worse.
Emmanuelle shrugs off her jacket, moves to sit at the foot of the stairs. She looks to Marcel, her blinking eyes imploring that he join her. He does.
“Tante...” Emmanuelle starts. Stops. Shakes her head. “Her illness... she's not recovering.”
She needn't say anymore—
“It's likely she won't,” she finishes, voice hoarse and cracked. “We... I think we should close tomorrow. I need to be with her.”
Marcel waits, for if she has anything else to add. He takes in the lobby as if doing so for the first time. Wonders if Madame will ever see these salmon-pink walls and shiny brass rails again.
“And after that? What will happen to the cinema?” Perhaps this isn't the most tactful question to ask first, but he must know.
“She wishes to leave it to me.” Emmanuelle says this plainly, as though what she's being bequeathed is a box of jewelry or a collection of hats. “And you... you would stay. If you choose to.”
Le Gamaar is not special; there are dozens of theatres in France, more up-to-date, with newer equipment and fresher accommodations, and though it'd be quite the task, he could find work somewhere else.
But he does not want to. No other theatre in France, in the entire continent, has Emmanuelle.
“I choose to,” he says without hesitation.
He knows Emmanuelle possesses a significant amount of boldness, but even so, he's unprepared for her next action. She slips her hand, pale and slender, over his. Into his. Curls it gently.
He looks at it. Then at her. She's looking back at him, that coy little tug at the edges of her lips.
“You know how she is—giving herself so much credit for this place.” Emmanuelle rolls her eyes, a forced act, as if it's yet another night when Madame has worked on her nerves. “And rightfully so, of course.”
“Le Gamaar would not exist without her,” he agrees.
“Non, it would not exist without you. And I don't exist without Le Gamaar. And that's all I care about. It will be just us; I'm not bringing anyone else on board so long as these Nazi fils de pute are swarming around. The thing is...” Emmanuelle exhales heavily. “The thing is, if we're to run this place together, we can not keep any secrets from each other. I refuse.”
Marcel nods. He doesn't think Emmanuelle is accusing him of anything; he's been nothing but open with her, albeit careful about it, and has let her decide, in her own time, how open she might be with him. But he's never viewed it as withholding secrets from him. Who is he, that he is entitled to demand she share her life story with him?
“I've only been honest with you," he says, "and I'm not planning on that changing anytime soon.”
“Non, I don't mean you. You're right; you've been honest—and so kind and good, Marcel.” She squeezes his hand, and sighs again. “I'm talking about myself. There's something I must tell you—something that could change your mind about wanting to stay at Le Gamaar.”
“Nothing...” Hand still in hers, he uses the other to sweep long blonde strands away from her cheek. Emmanuelle's mouth is already tilting towards his, and the permission he means to ask for is granted. Her kiss is soft, with a trace of salt from the popcorn she sneaks handfuls of during the films.
“You were saying?” she asks, biting back a cheeky smile as she pulls away.
He laughs; should he have expected any differently with her? No, nor would he want to. “I was saying—before I was interrupted, by the way—that nothing will change my mind.” He draws her hand up and drops another kiss onto her knuckles. “I'm not choosing to stay at Le Gamaar; I'm choosing to stay with you, Emmanuelle.”
“Non...” She extracts her hand from his, presses her fingertips to his lips. “Not Emmanuelle.” She blinks. Swallows. “I am not Emmanuelle Mimieux. And I'm not Ada's niece. My name is Shosanna Dreyfus.”
He listens, quiet and rapt as she tells him not everything (he can't imagine it's everything), but... so much. There's a dull pang where shock should be—it's not shocking, at all. It's completely unsurprising, to hear of a Jewish family being executed in such a manner, and also unsurprising to hear that Emmanuelle—Shosanna—clawed and kicked every inch of the way to be here, beside him today.
Heartbreak, agony; those are not strong enough words to describe the depth of what he feels regarding Shosanna and her family. But reverence, awe—a burning admiration—he feels that too.
By the time she's done, she's crying, but not like the night in the projection booth. The relief is radiating from her, and her shoulders are a bit squarer, her chin a bit prouder. He can not comprehend how she has carried these horrors with her for so long, and maintained the ability to not only survive, but live as much as one might, given the circumstances.
“I don't expect you to turn me over, for anything.” Shosanna nudges off a tear ready to drip from her chin. “But if you can't bear the burden of knowingly helping a Jew remain in hiding, and you wish to leave, quietly and unceremoniously... I can't blame you, after all I've just told you. Whatever you decide... I trust it. I trust you, Marcel.”
“All you've just told me?” Marcel repeats, stroking another tear away with his thumb. “You make it sound like you told me something that would change my mind—not make me adore you even more. I already told you: I choose to stay with you... Shosanna.”
The rest of the world falls away and she is the only subject in the frame as he brings her body, supple and warm, close to his. A soft, happy gasp escapes her, heralding another kiss, one that shames anything that he's seen, or will ever see, on screen. When she pulls away, her eyes are damp and the smile she gives him causes his heart to swell; to cheer and rejoice and give its own standing ovation.
Marcel will never forget the moment he meets Shosanna Dreyfus.
It is love at first sight.