by Susan Conley
The trick at the Arc de Triomphe is to stay in the outer ring of cars around the first half and then veer off quickly—as if shot from a cannon—over to the wide start of Victor Hugo. Luke stares through the windshield. His eyes are blank. I park two blocks from his apartment.
“Custard,” he says. “Let’s get custard at Madeleine’s.”
“You really want to do that?”
“I’m starving, and it’s delicious.” He climbs out of the car and waits for me to lock up. It’s crowded inside the café. But we find a table in the back corner. The custards come in small, ridged, blue bowls. Creamier than flan. I eat all of mine. Luke has two bites. “I think I’m too nauseous.” He puts his head down on the table. “I’m glad you’ll take me to Chartres soon. We got terrible news today, Willie. What are we going to do?”
He’s sentimental and broody, and I’m afraid he’s going to completely lose it in the café.
“I’ll take you to Chartres. I’ll take you anywhere you want. It’s going to be okay.”
One Easter Mom forced us to drive to the Congregational chapel on Sycamore in dress-up clothes. She was trying to find a church that fit us. Dad stayed home. I sat in the pew between my mother and brother. I was ten, and I knew church was supposed to feel good. The people sitting closer to the preacher were smiling, but I had this numbness in my arms and legs, as if I swam above my body. I wanted to pick the scabs on my knees—anything to connect my head back to my body. But my legs felt too far away. I think I was too young to understand prayer.
There’s a part of me now that wishes I had some ritual. It would be so nice. As much as I can tell Luke that I’m with him, I also know that he’s alone. I can’t change places. I can’t even find words to tell him how afraid I am for him. My words would only scare him. So when he needs me to be the most honest with him that I’ve ever been, I’m hiding things. And it distances us—just when Luke needs closeness.
“We should go back to the apartment now,” he says. “I have to lie down.” He reaches for his raincoat.
Why did I think it was a good idea to bring him to the café? He needs bed. When I motion to the waiter for the check, I see a blond man walking in the door. “Oh, God.”
Luke is staring out the window, so at first he doesn’t see who’s making his way to us. Then his face turns and registers the surprise of it.
“I knew I would find you here chatting. You two are always talking.” Gaird reaches out both hands to me.
Luke looks down at the floor and begins to weep. It’s just too much for him. I want to scream at Gaird. I want to hit him. But I stand and give him two polite kisses on each cheek. It’s so crowded at Madeleine’s that there’s hardly any room next to our table. Luke won’t look at him. Gaird finally says, “Can I sit, or are you going to make me take my inquisition standing?” Luke points to an empty chair two tables over.
Gaird weaves through the people and grabs the chair and carries it back over his head. “I want,” Gaird says slowly as he sits down, “to explain.” Luke stares at some place behind Gaird’s right shoulder, tears spilling down his cheeks. “I want to say that I did get stuck in Amsterdam. The boat was a fucking disaster. Bad engine. Captain with an expired license. Leaking hull. I thought it was better not to call. I did not have the intention to stay away, at least at first. Then I decided it was easier for you to live without me because you have your sister here and your language and I was a fumbling idiot. I was not seeing it clearly.”
“I’m HIV positive, Gaird,” Luke says and sobs.
Gaird runs his hands through his hair and reaches for Luke’s shoulder. “Oh, Luke,” he says. “I’ve been so goddamned afraid of this. I’m so scared.”
“But you didn’t say anything? And you left me? How could you?”
“I was a coward. I was seeing it too clearly—too far to the end. I see the whole movie. This is the way I think. I see the entire film. You were sick, and I was unable to fix you. I decided that maybe you have another lover in Paris and that this is how you’d gotten sick. Because I can’t understand how else it happened.”
“But that’s just not true, Gaird. There’s no other man. And there are so many ways to get HIV. It could have happened long before I met you.” He starts crying again. “They need to check you. You’ve got to get checked.”
“I know. I know. And I was weak. I was very weak. It is what they say in France, bad wine. Would you like to go home and have some lunch with me?”
There’s a minute while Gaird’s apology settles into the space around Luke and makes its way under the black scarf wrapped around his neck and inside the lining of his raincoat. Gaird left us, and I understand why more now. My own mother left us for a while. It took an act of God to bring my father back after he left. Life is long. Luke and Gaird are doing the best they can. We need Gaird now.
Luke says, “Soon I’ll be a heap in the bed. In fact, I’m falling asleep right now, and truly you are a dream. You’re a sad, sad dream of mine. How could you? How could you? Now take me home.”
20
Palace of Justice: built on the site of the former royal palace of Saint Louis; justice of the state has been dispensed at this site since medieval times
The courtroom sits inside the Palace of Justice, which looks like a small city within a city—an ornate masterpiece of yellow stone at the end of a packed street of shops and cafés on Île de la Cité. The cab drops me off where three sides of the palace open up to a large courtyard cordoned off by a tall, black iron gate. It’s Monday afternoon in Paris. One week since Luke’s diagnosis. I taught at the academy this morning, and now I’m filled with unexpected grief as I climb out of the car. Grief for Luke and for Gita. Guilt, too. That I’m not sick. That I’m free to leave the palace later and go to my apartment with my new lover, who I cannot get enough of. This is what makes me feel very guilty.
I enter through a huge wooden door on the side of the palace and walk down a wide, polished stone hallway where portraits of French justices hang in gold frames. Courtrooms peel off on either side, wooden benches outside the rooms begin to fill with families—mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, husbands, older children, babies, and toddlers, who run back and forth through the people and yell. Everyone’s waiting for the lawyers.
When I find Gita’s courtroom, I feel so much relief. At least there’s a room now—a place where the hearing will really happen. The walls inside are painted slate blue. The blue, white, and red French flag hangs on a metal pole in the corner. A giant clock ticks on the wall above the flag. A court stenographer with dyed auburn hair sits in a chair underneath the judge’s platform rifling through her purse. I perch on a bench behind Macon at the lawyers’ table. It’s finally happening. He looks older. Last night we made love silently, both willing away the fears we have about today.
A police officer walks in with one hand on Gita’s shoulder. She’s wearing a blue sari and handcuffs. Her face is pointed down to the ground. She looks young and shy, and I want to yell to Macon about the handcuffs. She isn’t a criminal. I stand up from the bench, but Macon turns halfway toward me while he waits for Gita, and he catches my eye. I sit back down. I promised to be quiet. I gave him my word.
I look to my right and there’s Pradeep, two rows back. What’s he doing here? He gives me an enormous smile and I smile back, but my heart sinks. He’ll only make Gita more nervous. How did he find us? The judge walks in then, a tall, heavy woman in her forties with a brown pageboy, black pumps peeking under her robe. She has the frame of someone who takes thin for granted and can’t account for a recent thickening.
The representative from the United Nations refugee agency is next. He doesn’t wear a robe and sits to the right of the judge, up above the stenographer, in a gray pin-striped suit. Macon told me the representative is weak and always votes with the judge. The man from the French government walks in last and sits to the left of the judge; an older man in his sixties, with a beaklike nose, who keeps shuffling files.
&nbs
p; How could anyone listen to Gita’s story and not be swayed? There’s a big French coat of arms or something hung on the wall above the judge. The judge smiles at Gita and asks her kindly to come forward. Good. The judge is nice. Gita stands slowly and looks at Macon and back at me for the first time, and I nod to her. This is when she sees Pradeep. Pradeep waves, but she doesn’t wave back or smile at him. She glares at him. I want to get up and say, Leave, Pradeep. Go back to school. This is not the place for you.
Gita walks around the lawyers’ table until she’s below the wooden platform where the judge sits. “Please say your name out loud to the court,” the judge says in French.
A translator stands a few feet from Gita’s right shoulder—a college-age woman who’ll turn all our English sentences into French and the French ones back into English. “Gita Kapoor,” Gita says quietly in English.
The judge asks, “Why do you think you should be granted asylum status in the state of France?”
Gita will get exactly five minutes to tell the story we’ve practiced. Gita nods and looks down at her black sneakers. Her only shoes. I should have bought her better ones, because the sneakers make her look even younger in her sari. I’m afraid she won’t dare tell the whole story about Manju because Pradeep is here. She smiles one of her nervous smiles and puts her hand to her neck and finds the Krishna medallion. “I love the country of India. I was born there. My memory is of my pitaa and maa and my brother and sister in our house in Jaipur, eating lamb biriyani. This is a good memory. But my sister, Morone, married Manju, and he had work here in France in the stores he owns. Gem stores. I came to France on a tourist visa and I planned to go back to India when it ran out, but then my pitaa died. We received a letter from his employer at the palace in Jaipur. He died of a disease called malaria, while we were in France.”
Things are going well. The judge says, “Gita, please tell us why the French government should grant you asylum in France. Tell us exactly what dangers await you if you return to India.”
“Because my pitaa is dead, there is nothing for me in India. I am not safe with my own family there. Manju has harmed me. He has arranged for his brother Daaruk to marry me in Jaipur. Daaruk has already hurt me.” She looks down at the tile floor again, deciding whether to say anything more. “Please do not send me to India, where there is no one but a man twenty-three years older than me who my brother-in-law is forcing me to marry. I will be a good French citizen. I have already found a job at the Academy of France. I already know how to speak some French.”
Now she needs to explain exactly what Manju did to her in the apartment and how often. We’ve practiced it many times. But why is she stopping? “Please, Your Honor,” she says. “Please believe me.” She hasn’t even used the full five minutes, but she’s done. Maybe it’s because Pradeep is there. Or maybe it’s because there are so many strangers in the courtroom. But I don’t think her testimony has made anyone cry or want to change their life to save her, except maybe me.
The judge says, “Thank you, Gita. Now the lawyers may want to ask you some questions.”
Macon stands and smiles warmly at her. Then he says in English, so she can understand him, “It must not have been easy to tell the story you just told. Thank you, Gita. You’ve known a lot of struggle in your life. You never meant to live in France, did you?” The translator spins his words back into French.
“No. I just came here to visit.”
“This man, Manju—he raped you in your apartment in Paris, yes?”
“Yes,” Gita whispers and looks ashamed.
“Did his brother Daaruk also rape you before you came to France, Gita?”
“Once,” she says with her eyes on the floor. “One time in the shop where he keeps the gems. It was very soon before we came to France to visit. He said it would make me remember him while I was here. He said I was going to be his wife.”
“I think you’re remarkable for what you’ve been through. Are you scared by the prospect of living in France in the foster care system?”
“I will be very good. I will do work and help cook.”
“I have no further questions, Your Honor. We have here a very talented, bright girl who’s been preyed on in India by a man who would marry her against her will if she returns and who’s been preyed on here in Paris by that man’s brother. The only reasonable thing to do is to grant her asylum by way of the persecution clause. We seek foster care for three years, until the girl is eighteen. Thank you, Your Honor.”
The OFPRA lawyer stands up from the table across the aisle from Macon. He is short and stocky, with the jowly face of a bulldog. He says, “Thank you for your testimony, Gita. Tell us about the tourist visa. When did it run out?”
“I can’t remember exactly. I think back in October maybe.” She’s begun shifting her weight from leg to leg, and I can tell she’s getting tired. There must come a point where you just want to sit down and hear the decision.
“So you were living on an expired visa for eight months in France?”
“We had no way to get home. My pitaa died and we had no way to live in India any longer. We couldn’t leave Paris.”
“I see. Is Daaruk the only person waiting for you in India? Isn’t there a grandmother who would take you in?”
She looks surprised by this last question. “I don’t know if my grandmother is alive.”
“But you think she might be? Because she was alive when you left, and you’ve only been gone a little under a year. So there’s a good chance she’s at your old house, where you left her?”
“It’s possible,” Gita says. “She was very old and sick.”
“Anything is possible,” Macon calls out in French.
“Quiet from the defense,” the judge says, also in French. The practical parts of the hearing are so confusing. Why can’t Macon talk more now? Why can’t he interject? What are the rules of who goes when and who gets to say what?
“But, Your Honor,” Macon argues, “the prosecution is working off a hypothesis. The defendant will not be any safer from the man named Daaruk if she’s housed with her eighty-year-old grandmother.”
“If I need analysis of the prosecution’s argument, I’ll ask for it,” the judge says quickly. Then she looks at the opposing attorney. “Please continue.”
“We seek reunification with the defendant’s grandmother in India. OFPRA has a history and a preference for family reunification. The girl won’t be safe in Paris on her own. She’s only fifteen. I don’t think her case warrants foster care. I would like to approach the bench, Your Honor.”
“Request granted,” the judge says.
The attorney walks over to the judge, and they confer in whispers for several minutes. Then the lawyer goes back to his table and says, “We rest our case.”
Gita makes her way back to her chair. Macon leans over to her and smiles, but it’s a forced grin. The judge asks Macon to approach. Now he and the judge have their own muffled conversation. When Macon goes back to his seat, he looks furious. The judge says in French, “We have been informed by the prosecution that the defendant’s grandmother is alive in India. She’s been located at the defendant’s family house. Were you aware of this fact before you came into my courtroom today, Gita?”
The translator finishes and Gita’s eyes widen with surprise. She stands at the table and speaks so quietly it’s hard to hear her, but what I think she says is “No, ma’am.”
The judge nods. Then she leans back in her chair and talks in hushed tones with the U.N. rep and French government rep. It’s very quick. Next the judge leans forward. “It is deemed by the state of France that Gita Kapoor be voluntarily reunited with her grandmother in her home country of India, in the city of Jaipur. Transport will be determined under the auspices of OFPRA and the asylum center at Rue de Metz.”
Oh, God. Why didn’t Macon say more? Why didn’t he argue harder with the judge? He sits in his chair, making notes on one of Gita’s forms. Then he stands and walks toward the judge with the
form in his hand. The OFPRA lawyer rises too, and he and Macon begin arguing in French. I think they’re arguing about Gita. Maybe there’s still a chance she might win. I hear the word “deportation.” It’s over. No hope. Macon seems to be trying to secure Gita a bed at Rue de Metz until she’s flown back.
The judge stands abruptly and walks out. Then everyone else stands. The representative from the U.N. leaves, and the stenographer and the translator and the government lawyer, until Gita’s left at the table with Macon. She turns to me and puts her hand to her mouth as if she can’t breathe. “Gita.” I try to keep my voice steady. “Look at me.” But she won’t. I walk toward her. “Look at me.” I don’t let myself cry. “We will fix this.”
The same police officer snaps the handcuffs back on her thin wrists. She starts sobbing while he leads her out. I wait for Macon to explain, but he gathers his papers up and puts them in his saddlebag and jogs to catch up with Gita, who’s already out the door. I turn to find Pradeep, but he’s vanished. The hall at the Palace of Justice is even more crowded now with families and lawyers and crying babies. And it’s gotten hotter in here. Everyone’s waiting for their allotted slot to meet the judge and tell their story. Nothing inside our courtroom went the way I thought it would. There was so little time to make a good case. I walk until I reach a wooden door with a metal push bar that opens to the inner square lined with steep flights of cement stairs. People sit on the steps and hug and cry. I lower myself down and put my hands over my face and sob. Where’s Macon? No one on these steps seems to have good news. No one is laughing or celebrating the French summer. I’ve got to call Sara. I’ve got to talk to Sophie and Rajiv. Macon still doesn’t come. It’s starting to get dark, and the iron gate around the palace looks more forbidding. Finally, I wipe my face on my sleeve and walk down the steps to the street.
He’s already at the apartment when I walk in. “How did you beat me?” I ask. “I waited for you in the courtyard.”
“You waited? Oh, you shouldn’t have. I’m so damn sorry for the way things went in that courtroom. I didn’t tell you the lawyers leave through a back door.”
