Atheists Who Kneel and Pray

by Tarryn Fisher

  “All right,” I say. “I’m a narcissist and a coward. But, there isn’t really a cure and I’m not always sure what to do. Can we take into consideration that there’s a good chance I’m going to fuck things up with Ethan anyway, so maybe it’s better if I just walk away now.”

  “Are you behaving this way because David’s back in the picture?”

  “No. And he’s not back in the picture. He’s just reminded me of how awful I am.”

  She drums her fingers on the counter as she considers my words. “But not everything needs to be focused on how awful you already are. That’s what makes you a narcissist. Even in the middle of hurting other people you’re focused on yourself.”

  “You’re right,” I admit. “What do I do?”

  “Stop overanalyzing yourself, first off. You spend enough time thinking about yourself, and even after you obsessively overthink everything you do, somehow everyone else lands up being the bully.”

  “Do you think that’s why all of my relationships fail?”

  “See, you’re doing it again.”

  I sit up straighter. “Okay. Sorry. I’m going to practice not thinking about myself. I’ll call Ethan and apologize for my thoughtlessness.”

  “Good,” says Posey. “The first step was admitting you’re a narcissist. Now you need to change the way you think of things.”

  “Yes,” I say, determined. “And I’m not allowed to think of myself, right?”

  “Well, think more about how your behavior affects others, you know? Don’t be so focused on your feelings that they’re all you see.”

  By the time Posey leaves I’m a new woman. I won’t even look at myself in the mirror. I call Ethan and when he doesn’t answer, I send him an e-mail begging for his forgiveness.

  He e-mails me back and says we can meet for lunch the following week. We make arrangements and I stumble to bed still half drunk.

  The following day I leave work, and instead of taking the Tube, I decide to walk to clear my head. Usually when it’s time to clear my head, I pack up my things and move to a new city…a new continent. New cities give new perspective. You leave all the old stuff behind, the stuff that was corroded with memories, and you start again. New starts are unlimited. Don’t like your friends? Go find new ones nine thousand miles away. It’s easy when you’re a bartender to just up and leave. Bartenders are needed, if you are good that is even better. Things aren’t so bad if you keep moving.

  I’d told myself I was going to stop running. I’d become accustomed to it and I didn’t like the power it held over me. I read this book while I lived in Seattle, the author was local and that’s why I picked it up. It was mostly shit—the characters drove me nuts—except there was this one line that struck a chord: Live barefoot and fucking fight. I decide to do that here in London. It is my home and I am going to stay.

  There’s a server at work we call Howie, even though his name is Stephen. We call him that because he looks like Howie Mandel and is as equally afraid of germs as the original Howie Mandel. I see Howie on the opposite side of the street. He waves at me and I pretend not to notice. He waves harder so I turn my head to the left. To avoid a conversation I don’t want to have, I abruptly change my mind about crossing the street and wander in the opposite direction. I have no clue where I’m going except that I need to keep walking.

  In Leicester Square I stop and sit on the wall to smoke a cigarette. A little brick wall for weary tourists. A musician is playing a guitar and singing “Stand By Me” as an Orion truck beeps incessantly nearby. In between verses he plays the kazoo. He looks like an unkempt Michael Bublé and he knows it too. Middle-aged female tourists giggle like schoolgirls as they stop to watch him. One drops twenty quid into his guitar case and then scurries away. He reminds me of David in the early days. I don’t know what David is like onstage nowadays. I’ve avoided looking as to not cause myself injury. I imagine his presence has improved, much like his sound.

  I can’t stop smoking. I haven’t smoked since I moved back, but I left work and went right to an off license for vodka and cigarettes. I feel as if I’m unraveling. I imagine myself as a spool of yarn rolling down the street. I roll until a bus squashes me. It’s a lovely thought. I’m being dramatic, I know that. I blow the last of my smoke through my nose like a French girl and stand up to leave. The Michael Bublé lookalike smiles at me. I tell him to fuck off with my eyes. I hate musicians. They have no boundaries between their lyrics and real life. They think everything is supposed to be good enough to sing about. Maybe that’s why I left David the way I did. I didn’t want to be his temporary shiny thing.

  I don’t want to go home. I don’t know why. I get on the Tube and ride it all the way to South Harrow and back again.

  I can’t stand it. I wish he’d just hand me the paperwork and disappear again. Marry that fucking bitch and be done with me for good. That’s not true. I’m hurting and I don’t know how to deal. It sucks.

  I take my vodka home and get drunk on the floor in between the boxes. I don’t even like vodka, but there was a sale and I like sales the same way druggies like drugs. I don’t need or like half the things I buy. When I wake up I’m in my bed and I have no recollection of how I got there. I immediately think Ethan came over at some point in the night and put me to bed. I rush from my room despite the sharp pain in my head and the sick feeling I get in my stomach, but Ethan is nowhere. I put myself to bed. My phone is dead, but even after it’s charged I see that no one has texted or called. I deserve it. I’m awful. I am the type of person that drives other people away.

  I stare at the pink concrete of the bar and wait. David doesn’t come back, not after one week or two. Not even after my lunch date with Ethan, who is cold but hears me out. I think something terrible has happened to David. I Google his name expecting to see headlines like: Lead Singer Dies in Terrible Accident. But, there’s no such headline. There are, however, dozens of articles about him. I decide to save reading them for later. First, I have to find out if he’s alive. It takes me a while, but I find a recent article online, a tabloid that has photographed David in New York. David was in New York, not London, about to deliver divorce papers. Maybe he never had them, I think. Maybe that’s where he is now—having them drawn up. I suppose there are a lot of complications involved. He has a lot of money now. I don’t want a thing from him, but his lawyers don’t know that. They’re trying to find a loophole, get him out of giving me anything. In the picture he’s with Petra. The photo is grainy but I can see that she’s wearing a light blue coat over a black dress that goes mid-calf. They are walking arm-in-arm and her head is down, but I know her profile, her lips. I spent enough time thinking about the way they were all put together, why they had to be so perfect. Her coat is blowing out around her like they’re walking fast, perhaps trying to get away from the paparazzi. I bet Petra the skank loves that, having paparazzi follow her around and snap pictures. David looks exactly the same as the last time I saw him. He’s wearing a white V-neck T-shirt and a grey beanie that covers his hair. He looks like a beautiful, greasy hipster. There’s a tattoo I hadn’t noticed when he came to see me, on his forearm. It makes me feel sick to look at them together; her so beautiful and doll-like, him so sexy. He doesn’t give a fuck, that’s the best thing about him.

  “Hey David,” I say to the photo. “You have terrible taste in women.”

  Petra smirks at me. I slam my phone face down on the counter and walk away.

  Ethan and I have many talks over the next few weeks, during which time he seems to forgive me. He tells me that the offer to move in with him is still open on two conditions: I have to let go of David, and he wants me to get divorced. One of those things I can do, and one of those things I cannot. On the day before I’m supposed to move in with Ethan, I buy a train ticket and move to France instead. Divorce is easy, anyone can get divorced—the letting go part is next to impossible. Hearts are wild, uncontrollable things, you can’t just instruct them. I imagine he’ll burn my things when
they arrive with the movers, but there’s nothing I’m that attached to anyway. Not even Ethan. That’s a hard ugly truth. It’s sad how much of an asshole I am, but there it is. I thought that after David I could be more open to love, but as it turns out, I’m lost in him.

  I have a friend in Paris. Well, friend is a stretch. We roomed together in college and barely spoke the first year, but then decided we liked each other enough to do it again the next. She once told me that if I ever ended up in France I could crash at her place for a while. I’ve never been to France. My determination was for America, so when I step off the train at Gare Du Nord, my eyes are as wide as my mouth. I have the sense that I’ve arrived somewhere familiar. The buildings tower, old and important. They’re snobbier than London’s mismatched buildings. Much of London was destroyed during the war, rebuilt in a different way. The Parisian buildings are not showing off, they’re too gothic to care. I want to be like them. I walk with my head bent back so I can see everything closest to the sky. I walk into people, they swear at me in French, but I don’t give a fuck; I’m a Parisian building now. Paris is going to change my life. I stop for a bite to eat at a cafe and check my e-mails. There’s one from Posey.

  Where the fuck are you? she writes.

  Ethan is a bloody mess. You’re a real arsehole, you know that?

  I am. I know that. I’ve never let it get in my way.

  I didn’t want to hurt Ethan. I just panicked at the last minute, per usual. I send Posey an e-mail telling her I’m fine, not mentioning anything about Ethan or where I am. It’s none of her business anyway, she just wants a reason to chew me out. I write Ethan a letter, handwritten on the pages of a notebook I bought at the station. I’d intended to write it on the train, but I spent the whole trip crying and staring out the window. I tell him that I thought I had changed, that I was ready to stay in one place, with one man and grow with someone. I tell him that I’m a coward and a fool, and that he deserves more than some broken runaway. I tell him that my life would have been better with him, in our little flat, but that in my heart I really didn’t believe I deserved that type of life, so I kept running from it. It’s not an excuse, I tell him. It just is. I ask for his forgiveness and sign the letter Yara—no love, no sincerely—just Yara. That’s all I am, isn’t it? Yara without love. I decide that I’m a sociopath.

  I arrive at Celine’s little flat late in the afternoon. She’s at work, but she’s left the key with her neighbor. I’m to knock on the door and ask for Pierre. Pierre is an older man, he silently hands me a key and closes the door in my face. Celine warned me that the French aren’t initially warm—they make you work for it. I respect that. I didn’t feel like talking to people anyway. I’m in love with her flat as soon as I walk in. She’s decorated everything with only black and white. There’s no other color, I search for it. I welcome this monochrome existence.

  My first task is to find work. So I set up my computer and search for jobs. I don’t want to be a bartender anymore. There is a family looking for an English-speaking nanny for their son. They want him to learn the language. I have no experience with taking care of children, but I send them my resume anyway, and say I’ve spent two years in America and can speak with a southern drawl as well. It’s a joke, but the woman, the mother, e-mails me right away and asks if we can meet the following Monday. Her name is Celeste. I picture her as being tall, and blonde, and…well…celestial. Her son is Lucifer, I think. They can’t find anyone else to take care of him so they’re desperate. Then I wonder if Celine’s monochrome flat is making me feel these extremes of good and bad, heaven and hell. I will fall in the latter in my mind, always.

  Celine comes home around nine p.m. I’ve heard this is normal for the French who work long hours, then sit at cafes and drink wine until they have to work again. She is different than she was in college, which is no surprise, yet I am still surprised. In college she was mousy, she wore beiges, which melted into her beige skin. Now her hair is cut into a sleek bob, and she wears makeup and elegant clothes. I hug her, which we also never did in college.

  “It’s so wonderful to see you,” she says in her perfectly accented English. “Are you comfortable? Can I get you anything?”

  I need so many things: a new personality perhaps, a lot of perspective, a time machine, a mother—but I shake my head and take the wine she offers.

  “I eat wine for dinner,” she says. “You’ll feed yourself, yes?”

  “Yes.”

  I love it here already.

  On a sunny morning four months after I move to Paris, I’m just leaving a cafe that I frequent every Thursday morning. I have a bag of croissants and a black coffee in my hand, and my plan is to take them to the park before I have to work. A few stolen moments of peace and nature before a four-year-old uses me as a human jungle gym. On Thursdays Henry has his Spanish and maths lessons with a snotty tutor who always looks like he’s been sniffing sour cheese. I think he’s too young, but his mother is raising a prime minister, as she tells me. Far be it from me to curb young ambition.

  I’ve just pushed through the door of the cafe and stepped out onto the sidewalk when I look up and there he is. A jolt runs through me and I stop abruptly. I see his face everywhere nowadays. Last week I stepped off the train and he was right there on the back of a bench, smiling at me. There are posters of him all over the city and in store windows. But right now, he’s standing on the sidewalk looking at me. I see someone, a woman, turn her head to look at him as she passes. Something crosses her face and she nudges her friend. They shake their heads like it couldn’t possibly be the David Lisey. He’s still just David, my David. Petra’s David, I correct myself. I threw off love like it was a blanket in the middle of summer. Irritating, stifling.

  I say his name as someone bumps into the back of me. I stumble forward. For a moment I think David is going to step forward to catch me, but he stops himself. I’m fine anyway, just a little jostle. He’s wearing a beanie—that does something to my heart.

  “Hello, Yara.”

  I think that’s what he always says when he shows up like this. Hello, Yara. Just another day of running into you.

  “What are you doing here?” I look around like I’m expecting someone else. Maybe Petra. What would I do if I saw Petra? Shady ass cow. I’d slam her damn face into the sidewalk.

  “You know why I’m here,” he says softly.

  I nod. The business of divorce. Yes. Solemn, but necessary.

  “Did you bring the paperwork?” I ask, trying to keep my voice steady.

  “No.”

  I stare at him, confused. The fuck?

  We stay like that for a few minutes, just staring and being confused. I think he’s playing games with me, just showing up like this every few months with no explanation. People walk around us, but neither one of us moves.

  Finally he says. “Would you like to get a drink?”

  “It’s nine o’clock in the morning.” And then I add, “I have to work.”

  “Later,” he says. “When you’re done.” The shade on his jaw is dark. He hasn’t shaved in at least a week. He looks like the first time I saw him, when he pulled the splinter from my finger.

  “Okay.”

  “Where?” he asks.

  “I know a place.” I rattle off an address and I know he’ll remember it. He’s like that. You only have to say something once.

  “Is Petra here?” I ask.

  He shakes his head. “She’s…in Los Angeles.”

  What was that on his face? Regret? I don’t know him well enough anymore. He has new expressions. I wonder if Petra knows we’re still married? If he’s sneaking off to get this sorted out without her knowledge.

  “Does she know about…?”

  “Yes,” he says quickly.

  “Okay,” I say, relieved. “Okay.”

  “I have to get to work,” I say.

  He doesn’t move as I walk past him. His eyes are soft as they watch me and then he slips on his sunglasses. I turn aroun
d just as I pass him and he turns too. We’re just inches apart and I can see myself reflected in the blue/green of his lenses. I look scared, a deep line etched between my eyebrows. And I am scared about why he came all this way when he could have just slipped the papers in the post. There are better ways to divorce someone than showing up every few months out of the blue. And how does he find me? That is the fucking question of the hour, isn’t it? I’ll have to remember to ask, won’t I?

  “David,” I say softly, as I cross the street. “David is here, in Paris.”

  It’s been a long time since I allowed myself to say his name freely without the pain attached.

  A few blocks down the street there is a gypsy woman standing with her back to a wall. She’s holding a baby against her chest and her fingernails are black like she’s been digging in the dirt. She stares at me through hooded eyes as I pass her. The baby is no more than a few weeks old and it wails in that thin way new babies do. Celine has told me not to give them money, but I can’t help it. I pull the spare euros from the bottom of my bag and walk them over to her. She doesn’t take her eyes from my face as I drop them into the paper coffee cup at her feet. I am kneeling in front of her, trying to ignore the smell of incense and body odor when I see that she has written numbers on the cup, scribbled in blue pen. I stare at the numbers, a tingling sensation sliding up my back like an invisible hand. 49. Why has this number shown up again on the same day David did? Is it a sign? A strange coincidence. I point to the number and ask, “Qu’est-ce que cela signifie?

  What does that mean?

  She gives me a strange look and I realize I probably should have asked: What does this mean?

  “This number means something to you?” she asks in a strange accent.

  I stand up so that we’re on eye level. The baby has stopped crying. It’s latched onto her breast and is making noises as it eats.