Read The Gap of Time for Free Online Page B

York, USA, and raised in Paris, France. Her father was a Russian diplomat and the family travelled extensively. Her mother was American and she grew up bilingual in French and English. She performed her first original song, “Une Femme Abandonée,” at the age of sixteen, after her parents separated, and while attending a wedding.[1] In the early 2000s, she developed an interest in bossa nova music. Performing at jazz clubs in Paris, she soon began to attract the attention of record companies. MiMi made her acting debut in 2002 onstage at Théâtre National de Chaillot in Deborah Warner’s adaptation of
The PowerBook
—a novel by the British writer Jeanette Winterson.
    MUSIC CAREER
    In 2001, MiMi signed a recording contract with Virgin Records. She released her first studio album,
Les Fleurs du Mals
, in 2002, incorporating new wave and bossa nova music.[2] In 2005 she released the album
Rage
. All of the songs on this album are based on solo voice, with a single instrument accompaniment.
Rage
quickly became a gold album. The song “Dark Angel” is understood to have been inspired by the French poet Gérard de Nerval—who dreamed that an angel fell from heaven and was trapped in a narrow courtyard. Some say it is a reference to her stormy relationship with her husband, Leo Kaiser.
    PERSONAL LIFE
    MiMi married Leo Kaiser in 2003. The couple lives in the UK.
    On April 1, 2004, MiMi gave birth to a son named Milo.
    Leo fazed out of MiMi’s Wiki entry.
Dark Angel. Dark Angel. Dark Angel.
    New Year’s Eve 1999 and Leo was twenty-five and in Paris with a bunch of drunk bankers from BNP Paribas. The six of them had spent 4000€ on dinner. Leo hadn’t eaten his—somewhere between the courses he had gone out for a kebab and a Coke from one of the vans on the Seine. He sat in his Hugo Boss suit on the stone steps leading down to the river. There was a boy with a tinny guitar singing that song about where do you go to, my lovely, when you’re alone in your bed? Leo gave him a 50€ note just to make him shut up.
    The bells were ringing at Notre Dame. He could hear canon fire a long way off. The year 2000. Wasn’t the world supposed to end soon?
    Leo finished his kebab and stood pissing against the wall. He felt a hand on his bum. There was a woman behind him, asking for money. How much? Fifty or a hundred. Depending.
    They walked without speaking under the arch of the Pont Neuf. In the dark, the woman backed against the wall and got a condom out of her bag. She unfastened her coat and unhooked her breasts from her bra. Leo pumped them while he got hard. The woman hitched up her skirt, squeezing his dick between her thighs for a minute. He liked that. Then she pulled on the condom and slotted him inside her. She wasn’t wearing knickers. He was vaguely aware that the only part of him present was his dick. The rest of him was unnecessary, elsewhere. Still, she was warm and tight and she moved well. He came quickly with his face in her neck and his hands on her breasts. She smelled of jasmine.
    As soon as he was done she took her wipes out of her bag, gave him one and cleaned herself up, throwing the used tissues into the river.
He had a thought that he would be the father of mermaids.
    He paid her. She kissed him lightly on the cheek and wished him a happy new year, walking away, her heels echoing against the stone.
    Leo wanted to call out. To ask her to wait. He didn’t know why. Maybe he liked her. Instead he watched her passing out of the darkness, back up the steps. On impulse he followed her.
    At the top of the steps he saw her join an older woman, not up for business. There was a sleeping toddler well wrapped up in a pram. The bus came and the women were gone.
    Leo walked unsteadily back to the restaurant. No one seemed to notice he’d been away. They were talking about the Château d’Yquem that to him tasted like golden syrup mixed with mould.
    His head was spinning. He wanted to go home.
    But the boys were piling