Concrete Flowers

by Wilfried N'Sondé

  —Parasite, you don’t work. I better not see you hanging around outside with those Negroes! They’re a bunch of monkeys. You’re just like them, lazy, good-for-nothing. There’s no reason to drag your sisters into your schemes!

  Salvatore had started worrying when he’d noticed that at around twelve, thirteen years old, Antonio was developing a passionate interest in literature and spending long hours immersed in novels, a world that was completely foreign to this factory worker. He would have much preferred doing odd jobs around the apartment with his son or both of them getting into blue overalls and lying on the asphalt parking lot and rebuilding a car engine. But Antonio showed no interest whatsoever in what Salvatore felt he should be passing on to his male descendant. Manual labor was boring for Antonio, a humiliation for Salvatore, and the more he read and studied, the more he spoke a French his father understood less and less. Frustrated, completely clueless about how to communicate and express himself, Salvatore was often irritated, and when he was short on ideas, he would immediately resort to beatings.

  He would violently slap Antonio before telling him to take off his belt. Terrified, his son would obey and then tremble while bringing his hands to his face to protect himself. Antonio put up with it without ever daring to say a word. The wretched dance of the Native American belt buckle would begin. It would whirl in the air and brutally strike his skin, once, twice, becoming frenetic and interminable. Worn down, Antonio would clench his teeth and emit only stifled groans, louder and louder, his jaw tense and reddened face marked by tears and sweat.

  His three sisters, Sonia, Rosa Maria, and Anna, hiding away in their room at the other end of the apartment, would bury themselves under the covers or nestle up next to each other and cry, in silence, so as not to stoke the paternal wrath. Angelina, their mother, expressionless, managed to swallow her tears by keeping busy doing housework, a zombie with a broken heart, practically jumping out of her skin every time the leather and metal of the buckle struck the skin of her firstborn child. She would hesitate but never step in. Salvatore was convinced that in order to make a man of his son, the dreamer with crazy ideas who didn’t even contribute an income to the household, he had to be iron-willed. Antonio could very well play the intellectual with his friends outside the home, but at home, Salvatore was still the boss, and as the father, he had the last word.

  Salvatore refused to attend the funeral of the wreck found on the asphalt somewhere behind the supermarket. When the police officers asked him to identify his son, he basically responded with a quick, contemptuous glance at the dead man whose face they revealed, before agreeing with a slight nod of the head. He left the morgue without saying a word.

  The bus dropped him off in the city center, in front of the bakery next to the African hair salon. Worn down to the core, this family man went past the Halal meat market, weighted down in his stride, feeling dispirited, then sat at the counter in the café PMU, with his back turned to the huge television screen where the horse race had captured the attention of most of the other clients.

  Tides of bitterness and sadness tortured him, a rush of images streamed through his memory: his immense happiness after hours of agony during the delivery in the maternity ward, the exhausted yet radiant face of Angelina, her emotion when the midwife handed her the baby, pink, crumpled-up features buried in a cocoon of white linen, a warm smell of cleanliness and milk, his tiny eyes, fists closed; his first smile, his faltering first steps toward his father’s wide-open arms, the velvety kisses on tender, chubby skin, the feeling of pride during their first trip back to Italy after settling down in France. Then adolescence came, the misunderstandings, the contempt, screams replacing tenderness, the snapping sound of doors slamming, suggesting retreat and estrangement, voices screaming out, confirming the ever dangerously widening distances. The violence. Blows to the body as forms of caresses, childhood disappearing, hope losing its momentum before falling flat, lifeless on the dirty, wet asphalt.

  Today, Salvatore is at the end of his rope. Laid off from the automobile factory where he worked for more than twenty years, a semiskilled worker, the system of three eight-hour work shifts, fingers broken, back thrown out.

  Despite the strike, management had decided to go ahead with the inevitable debt-restructuring plan in light of the current economic crisis.

  According to the study made by an independent auditing firm, they would need to relocate to save the company. In the official statement sent out in the mail, it was about unfavorable circumstances for investments, deficits, early retirement for senior workers, and redeployment for the junior employees . . . Back at home, this factory worker had a hard time finding the words to explain this disaster. Uncertainty hung over the family for several days. Seeing her husband heavyhearted coming through the door wearing a worried and evasive expression, Angelina felt sick to her stomach, her face appeared lifeless. Fragile, she placed her hands at the edge of the kitchen sink, the gray strands of hair fell forward when she lowered her head and began to cry. She turned her back to her husband, miniscule beside her, humiliated, defeated, stunned by the coup de grâce of his dismissal.

  The shadow of long-term unemployment hung over Salvatore. Nothing would be like it used to be, no more summer vacations, no more long afternoons killing time at the café, frustrations every day, misfortune!

  —Ah, the bastards, always looking out for number one, it’s always the little guys and the poor who have to suck it up!

  The union representative, red with rage, roared in the corridors. He’d checked in with Salvatore, who’d just left the office of the head of human resources, in order to slip an envelope with a couple of bills in his pocket.

  —Don’t worry buddy, your coworkers and me, we won’t abandon you and the others, we’re going to fight. Come on, take this, don’t be too proud now, good luck . . . We’ll go get a drink when you’ve got your new job!

  Lost in a confusing ballet of incoherent internal chatter, Salvatore is stuck in an impasse of inactivity, the wind knocked out of him. His production unit relocated somewhere in Eastern Europe. Forever silent, useless, watery eyes fixated, stuck, staring at his big, knobby fingers, idle, a question mark, Salvatore is slowly going off the deep end.

  Idleness and the inability to meet his family’s needs have emasculated him. The shame of having become unemployable, someone no one needs, chills the conjugal bed at night. Silence, filled with reproach and unexpressed thoughts, has lodged itself between him and his wife, created an abyss where the embraces and tenderness of their youth remain buried. The heart racing wildly and butterflies in the stomach of their first moments are now far away, a faint memory, a forgotten dream.

  Salvatore’s wife, exhausted from fighting a losing battle against the hardship of meeting month-end expenses that keep piling up every day, doesn’t even allow him the caresses he can basically no longer lavish on her anyway. His virility is now a foregone conclusion, a memory from another time. Off-kilter, their family is falling apart. Angelina keeps her disapproval to herself. She expresses her contempt in the distance that becomes greater and greater between them over time. She’s angry with him for having placed the burden of their material needs squarely on her shoulders. She alone takes responsibility for the humiliation of having to live on a life support system from welfare services, depending on handouts, joining the line alongside those abandoned by a consumer society at the Catholic Relief Services or at various other charities. Groveling, with a sickly complexion, lifeless eyes, old-fashioned cheap clothes, averting her eyes from the caring smiles of volunteer charity workers.

  Salvatore ended up at the neighborhood bar, with a glass of red wine, the cheapest, at the counter, his expression sad and low, holding a cigarette butt. Beneath his eyelids, the nightmares of the belt marks on his dead son’s body, the screams, but also the repressed longing for tenderness. In his fantasy, a need for affection, for gentleness in the touch beneath his fingers, of a sensitive caress delicately posed on his cheek. The scents of
his youth come back to him at times; he dreams of someplace else, of a new spring.

  Ever since her brother’s passing, Rosa Maria no longer speaks to her father. His presence disgusts her. She can bear neither the sound of his voice nor his smell, convinced that he never really loved Antonio and never accepted that he was different. He’d killed Antonio with the relentless hounding he subjected him to. Antonio had left home prematurely to get away from Salvatore’s constant harassment. His departure had created a huge rift between Rosa Maria and Salvatore.

  At night, when she’s in bed, the young girl jumps up the moment she hears heavy footsteps on the kitchen tile leave the window before going back to the bedroom.

  A part of Rosa Maria died when her brother passed away in the back of the supermarket parking lot. Antonio, so kind, so dynamic with his jokes and his crazy ideas, always just the right words, cleverly distilled, impeccably dressed, white shirt and black pants held up by his faithful belt with the Native American buckle. He was the one who’d had the idea of investing in the big basement in tower C, which was no longer being used, to make a nightclub for the young people in the neighborhood, so that they could go dancing without having to pay, at least once a week:

  —Too bad for the owners. We’re going to show them we don’t need anyone. Let’s stop moaning and groaning and get to work! The police have no reason to come by and bother us. We have rights. We live in a democracy here, right?

  Open up a club, this was his last great feat, a huge success. Antonio encouraged residents to take responsibility, to create opportunities for themselves, grab them, to not remain passive, to stop complaining and waiting around for the hypothetical government intervention to improve their situation.

  Young people danced hassle free from the beginning of summer vacation; the authorities put up with it. As usual, the guys from project 6000 listened to Antonio, dubbed The Good Man. Everybody respected and trusted him . . . The whole story about drug trafficking and overdose, nothing but lies and malicious gossip. No one believed it. Even today, the opinion is unanimous. Antonio was too clever for them, he was. It’s simply impossible that he died all alone.

  Rosa Maria tries to bandage her wound by loving even more intensely. Her feelings for Jason have become a real obsession. She’s hanging on for dear life, a lighthouse in the storm, a glow in the darkness, a lifeline. In her eyes, he represents both reality and an opening onto a dream.

  At Black Move, she devours him from a distance, her eyes riveted to his swaying pelvic movements. Jason intensifies the back and forth, the circular moves, slow, sometimes fast, convulsive moves, an erotic symphony accentuated even more by the expression on his face. He’s closed his eyes and lightly bites his lower lip. A circle is forming around him, the others are clapping, they want more and are chanting his name:

  —Jason! Jason!

  Rosa Maria struggles to hold back the impulse to jump out onto the dance floor and cling to him, to wrap her whole body around him in his dance, to feel him close to her, her head resting on his chest, to blend in completely with his perfume. She’s reveling in the moment, Jason is smiling with her, she’s sure of it. He spins on his heels, surrounded by three admirers. African girls. Rosa Maria dreads them the most. For her, it’s unfair competition, especially when they follow Jason in his choreography and can go along with the moves of his rhythm and keep him going. These girls show off proudly in the middle of the room with their great hairdos of ebony and blond highlights. Rosa Maria tells herself that they must have spent the whole night and a good part of the morning getting ready. She stares at the tallest, who also happens to be the prettiest one, the one they call Fatou. Rosa Maria has already come across her in the neighborhood, not that Fatou could even be bothered to say hello to her. A young woman of about five foot seven, brown silky skin, almond-shaped eyes with a delicately sketched face. A magnificent way of carrying herself, huge chest barely hidden beneath her plunging neckline, legs that won’t quit, outrageous curves, and round buttocks molded into a pair of white jeans. Rosa thinks she’s quite simply drop-dead gorgeous, perfect. She wonders how in the world Fatou managed to squeeze into those tight jeans that are so close to her body they’re practically showing a bit of her lace underwear at the waist.

  —Hey, you over there, what’s with you looking me up and down like that? You want something or what?

  Annoyed by Rosa Maria’s fixed gaze on her, Fatou moves toward her, fire in her eyes, threatening. Drowned out by the loudspeakers, Rosa Maria doesn’t hear the provocation, she just sees her rival coming toward her, shoving her way past the other dancers. There’s total confusion, and things are heating up. Hunched on her stool, Rosa Maria is ready to get roughed up, unable to defend herself, resigned. She shrivels up into an imaginary shell. Jason pulls Fatou back, before she has a chance to strike, by grabbing her at the waist:

  —Come on, it’s OK, Fatou, let it go. It’s Antonio’s little sister, you know, don’t be stupid, she doesn’t mean anything, come on, it’s not a big deal. Come, let’s keep dancing, it’s a party, isn’t that what we’re here for?

  —OK, but she better cut it out. Next time, I’m taking her down, you feel me? You better watch out with your nasty face!

  Jason is all nice and sweet, his voice is calm, he looks in Rosa Maria’s direction with an expression full of compassion. He then takes Fatou by the waist back to the middle of the room.

  —Cut it out, Fatou. Shit, come on, let’s go dance.

  They go back to the middle of the dance floor, and the party picks up, even better than before, feet in the dust, young muscular bodies shaking it up to Caribbean sounds. Alone in the back of the room, forgotten in her corner, her heart cramped, Rosa Maria just wants to disappear, she thinks about leaving, frozen in her steps, and goes back to her daydreaming.

  Patient, certain that Jason will be her first, her cheeks blush. She thinks about that day with the sun on her irises. Her slightly curved figure, her eyes black from routine sadness, a star will shine when Jason takes her into his arms! She’ll be happy, the afternoons will look like those summers of some years ago now, during the last vacations in Sicily, the days when the factory used to sign checks at the end of the month and the whole family would return to their little village built on a hill. Salvatore was treated like the mayor. They were welcomed in a big celebration of hugs and an overwhelming outpouring of love. The elders would pick up the kids and spin them around in the air. The men would grab each other by the shoulders and agree in a man-to-man nod that clearly everyone was doing all right! On Sunday, the family and neighbors walked together in procession up the narrow path that led to the church, all cleaned up and dressed in white, the men, closely shaved, stood upright and dignified, while the women, especially the single women, took advantage of the uneven terrain to let their long shiny curls dance in the wind. They moved their hips slightly, dressed in their flowery skirts, never abandoning their radiant smiles. Then they would dine outside, a table of more than twenty people, a real feast of fresh vegetables, cold cuts, slices of salami, smoked ham, pâté, sauces, spaghetti, seafood. They stuffed themselves and laughed at Antonio’s jokes; he was always charming, wearing a smile on his face. Everybody enjoyed him. Later on, they would relax and let the food settle, listening to melancholic love songs intoned by the women that they’d all repeat together, eyes half-closed. Salvatore paid for the wine and didn’t even count how much they drank! In the afternoon, after the cups of black coffee, half the village enjoyed themselves on the beach. The little ones ran happily around every which way, sticking their feet in the water to splash their parents. The young girls would raise up their dresses thigh high to refresh and show themselves a little bit, an explosion of joy under the sunset, breathlessly running along the water’s edge, the men sipping liqueurs. Sitting aside, mothers swapped stories about their problems all in good spirits. They were good together, as a family, happy.

  Today, in the winter of unemployment in the heart of project 6000 tucked away in th
e Île-de-France region, amid a little bit of hope, there are fights, drugs, puddles of spit in the stairways, modern comforts in the apartments, young lazy boys sitting on half-broken benches or crowding into the halls of the buildings, talking, laughing, annoying other residents. Sometimes, their eyes beam with joy from being together, at other times, their eyes are gloomy and mean when boredom settles in. Teenage single moms forgotten by family planning. Social ascension for some. Racists. Police on the lookout. No cash flow, television every day to forget. The humiliation of accompanying moms to the child welfare office. The squalid waiting room, always so crammed. Infants crying . . . Impatient people who get all worked up at the counter. The poor, their arms weighed down by administrative documents, incomplete forms that no one understands. Educational failure. Gray hair, ugly faces of those who haven’t succeeded. Social outcasts. Life keeps on going without them in magazines and TV commercials. Foul language scribbled on the walls next to the entrance doors. And especially Antonio’s horrible and mysterious death behind the supermarket.

  Project 6000 swallowed up the family, lost forever within high rectangular sentinels, enclosed like so many in human cages gridded by glass windows.

  The commuter town took them in under its reinforced concrete blocks of melancholy and suffering, and holds them down on the asphalt. The projects provide lodgings in a functional apartment in the heart of a gigantic building with straight angles, constructed way too fast, to deal with the most urgent cases.

  Rosa Maria stumbles around in the new tormented neighborhood still looking for its soul, disoriented. She makes every possible effort to flee the gloom and grasp a sliver of happiness by reaching for hope, however feebly.