Mona Lisa Effect by David L. Updike

“The Mona Lisa effect is the illusion that the subject of a painting follows you with her gaze, despite where you stand.” —Christopher Intagliata, Scientific American, January 17, 2019

I should never have gone to Paris. Having gone to Paris, I should never have set foot in the Louvre. Having set foot in the Louvre, I should never have followed the crowds to that room where she, she . . .

How different things would be if I’d just stayed home.

They say those eyes follow you wherever you go, and they’re right. They watched me as I entered the gallery and was carried forward, sheep-like, toward the bulletproof case from which she holds court. I marveled at how, in that press of bodies converged from every corner of the globe and shuffling forward to pay our obeisance, her eyes seemed to be focused on me and me alone. This I chalked up to the genius of her maker, who is said to have labored over her form and countenance for as much as fourteen years—but also to the spiritual shortcomings of my fellow visitors, many of whom turned their backs on her to take selfies, casting the radiant Gioconda as distant planet in the orbit of their own lives. As the impassive guards funneled us toward the exit to the right, I locked eyes with her, curious to see how long she could hold my gaze. She played along in this game—but really it was me who was being played.

As we dispersed into the adjacent room, a rectangular hall of large and forgettable Renaissance portraits, I was amazed to find that she was still with me, hovering at the periphery. Even when I closed my eyes, I could feel her gently mocking stare. As I exited the Louvre into the harsh sunlight and made my way across the Jardin des Tuileries, my amazement began to tilt into panic. At some point, I broke into a run, jostling my way through the strolling families and street vendors hawking cheap replicas of the Eiffel Tower as though I could outrace my own vision. A little boy holding a red balloon pointed and laughed as I stumbled past. I snarled, and his mother pulled him in close.

Mona accompanied me in the Uber back to the hotel. The further we got from the Louvre, the more physical form she took. She now had hips and legs and feet, stretched out on the backseat of the Prius as we crawled down the Place du Concorde. I tried to distract myself by making small talk with the taciturn young Nigerian driver in my bad tourist French, but in my distressed state, everything came out mangled. I had to tell him my address three times before I realized I was asking to be taken to something like “Death Mountain” rather than Montmartre. This seemed to amuse my traveling companion to no end—not that she outright laughed at me; she’s too refined for that. Just that smug, knowing little smile. Embarrassed, I fell into silence and slumped against the opposite window. Together, we watched the gleaming city slide past.

Back at the Joke Hotel on the rue Blanche (poor choice, in retrospect, as though I were asking for trouble), we sat together on the edge of the bed. She dangled her bare feet—which were, even in peripheral view, exquisite—and regarded me with an air of expectation that had the disappointment already baked in. Was her disdain a playful form of seduction? Why else would she have followed me here? But whenever I turned to face her, she slid to the opposite side of the bed, so she remained always at my side, never face to face. I thought of all those silly phrases I’d practiced in my car along with the Pimsleur Basic French course I borrowed from the library. Voulez vous boire du vin ou de la bière avec moi ce soir? The whole thing seemed to be tailored toward getting a woman alone with you. Here I was, ensconced in my room with perhaps the most beautiful woman of the ages, and I was at a complete loss for words.

Then, it occurred to me that if she spoke at all, she probably spoke Italian.

On the plane home, I traded my aisle seat for one next to a window on the left side of the plane. I had some idea that maybe if I nudged her to the other side of the glass, I could leave her behind in Orly, or at least on her side of the Atlantic. Surely, she didn’t want to travel to a continent barely known to her contemporaries on a machine that even her visionary creator could not have imagined? To the contrary, she seemed to enjoy the flight immensely. As we ascended into the night sky, the city of Paris spread out below us like a giant nebula, and she glided alongside the plane, arms outstretched, head thrown back, long hair whipping in the wind, her dark robes billowing around her. If she thought I was her ticket to a better life, she was headed for a serious letdown. I closed the shade, washed an Ambien down with two gin-and-tonics, and slept. Her smile haunted my fitful half-dreams all the way to Newark.

At the airport, she dogged me through customs. “Do you have anything to declare?” asked the bored attendant from behind her desk. Mona hovered nearby, smiling.

“No. Nothing,” I said. Was that disappointment in her eyes, perhaps even a teardrop gathering at the corner of one? She’s so hard to read, this one.

She’s watching me now as I type this in my office at home, where my life waits patiently for me to take it up again. In the weeks since I returned, I’ve discovered that her ever-shifting expression operates on me like a mood ring in reverse, my state of mind adjusting to whatever she projects in the moment: enticement, amusement, suspicion, scorn. Right now, it’s disillusionment, which is maybe the worst of all. Scorn I can work with—it makes me want to fight back, and stand up for myself. But that misty, imploring look in her eyes, that soft little twist of her mouth, that’s what kills me.

I’m right here, she says. Why can’t you love me?