Stop! Don’t tell me! Let me guess!

The year was 1988. K and I were in Paris, walking down some street whose name had several silent vowels in the some-number arrondissement, on our way to some place or event K had undoubtedly decided we should see, when I noticed a familiar figure walking in the opposite direction on the other side of the street.

“I know that person!” I said, excited at the prospect of running into someone I knew in an such an unlikely place.

“No, you don’t,” K said, confidently.

She must have sensed some change in my body language because she grabbed me by the elbow and said, “Stay here.”

It was too late. The grip was too tentative. Thirty seconds later, I was standing in the middle of the sidewalk facing this person, eager to discover in the next few seconds our mutual connection.

When he was a few yards away some part of my brain that is somehow related to my ready-fire-aim history of moving myself through the world took over. I raised my hands in a friendly way, grinned widely, and said, “Stop! Don’t tell me! Let me guess!”

He stopped. His eyes widened just a bit. The smallest smile animated his face. I took that to mean that he remembered exactly what our common kinship was and was amused that I couldn’t put a finger on it. But it was also clear that he was happy to see me again and would therefore be willing to indulge me in a game of “Ten Guesses.”

“Do we know each other from business? Did we meet at a direct marketing convention?”

He shook his head, still smiling, still amused that I couldn’t guess how I knew him.

“Okay, so maybe we’ve never met. Maybe I know you because I’ve seen photographs of you.”

He opened his mouth as if he were going to spill the secret.

“No! Don’t tell me!” I was happily shouting now. “Let me guess!”

He relaxed his posture as if to say, “Go ahead. Give it a try.”

“I’ve seen your photo in magazines. Maybe you are… No, you’re not a politician. I wouldn’t have a good feeling about you if you were.” And then looking him up and down, I said, “And you’re not an athlete.”

His smile widened.

“You’re an actor!” I said. “Is that it?”

He nodded his head and began to speak.

“No! Don’t tell me!”

I hit him with a few more qualifying questions – an actor on the stage or in movies, a dramatic actor or a character actor. (I was quite sure he wasn’t a leading man.)

With each question, his interest in our game was diminishing. I could see him looking over my shoulder and past me as if he was looking at whatever it was he was headed to.

“Can I give you a hint?” he said.

Feeling his impatience, I agreed.

“I won an Academy Award for Places in the Heart.”

I thought about it. I’d seen the movie several years earlier. I remembered that it was sad. And that Sally Field had starred in it. But I couldn’t remember this guy.

“Okay,” I said. “I give up.”

My name is John Malkovich,” he said.

He could see that I didn’t recognize the name.

“So, what are you doing in Paris?” I said.

“I’m making another movie.”

“Oh,” I said. “Interesting. What’s it called.”

Now he was looking over my shoulder more urgently.

“It’s called Dangerous Liaisons – and I’m afraid if I don’t get going, I’ll be late.”

“Oh,” I said, snapping out of whatever it was that had taken over my mind. “Oh, yes. I didn’t mean to…”

“That’s fine,” he said. “It was fun. But I have to go.”

“Right,” I said, coming fully into consciousness and feeling a tidal wave of embarrassment.

That was the moment to let him go. But somehow, I couldn’t do it. My mouth started moving again and a sentence came out.

“Do you know John Savage?” I heard myself saying.

His eyes narrowed. “Yes, I know John.”

I nodded my head as if I’d finally figured it out and could finally make my new friend John Malkovich feel he had not wasted his time.

“Yeah, I was hanging out with him last month at the China Club in Manhattan.”

He nodded. “Oh, great. Well, say hello to him for me next time you see him,” he said. And he rushed off.

Had he stayed he could have heard about how it happened that I ended up hanging out with John Savage.