Concrete Flowers

by Wilfried N'Sondé

  He’d had a day like that on the bank of the Seine with friends not so long ago . . . It was a picnic, no one spoke, the guys just watched the water gleaming. Rosa, he’s got to offer her a life where she doesn’t even feel the ground when she walks, he’s gotta take care of her like she deserves, yeah. There’s got to be water, sun, for the baby, that’s what’s best, and no towers and not too many highways. The child shouldn’t grow up to become one of those asshole dealers, no, no, never! He should be laughing. Mouloud understands that the best thing to do is to leave, get away from the neighborhood, maybe move just a little farther out, over there where there are no more projects, beyond Paris. He looks at the bridge on the freeway, the steel, the concrete, much closer, the state highway, all around rectangular bars, the supermarket just in front of his eyes and, to the right, the bus stop. The ad might not be there anymore, but the image is carved into his head!

  The sun, the pretty woman, her generous hips and smile, the beach, and the calm turquoise sea. The clear blue sky, palm trees, the good life, someplace else, over there where the days go by gently, barefoot in the sand, heat wave, the island at the end of the world, Bora-­Bora, to start all over from scratch! Clearly, that’s where he should take Rosa and her baby.

  MOUSSA TRAORÉ AND Laurence da Silva now know the identity of the young people who took part in the riots, the fires, those who threw dangerous objects, and especially the person responsible for the bottle of beer that was thrown at Lucien Marchand. Several witnesses have confirmed that it was a certain Jason Lafleur, eighteen years old, employed, French, born in the department of Guadeloupe, with no criminal record. The individual who went after the riot police officer who fell to the ground has also been identified. Mouloud Zayed, twenty-five years old, no known profession, French, born in Paris.

  MOULOUD WALKED AND reflected all night long. He’s convinced of it: Bora-Bora will be the beginning of a new life. First, he walked all over the neighborhood, for several hours, then, at dawn, he paced the dirt roads between the fields on the other side of the state highway. Morning came, the young man put his thoughts together, he knows more or less what he’s going to say to Rosa, now he’s only got to find the right words to talk to her. Mouloud retraces his steps. A fleet of police vehicles go by on the main road. He’s not paying attention, his mind is elsewhere. Mouloud gets back to the complex at about ten o’clock. In the state Rosa’s in, she’s got to be home . . . He sends a friend of her little sister to ask Rosa to come down and meet him on the bench. Minutes go by, he’s smoking his last cigarette.

  —Hey, Mouloud, what’s up?

  —You OK, Rosa, everything cool? You weren’t sleeping, at least?

  —No, you know there’s all this nonsense going on in my head, it’s going to explode, for sure! Plus the nausea and all that mess, I’m not sleeping, but I’m really tired!

  After kissing him hello, Rosa Maria sits down beside him, her shoulders shudder and she huddles up, it’s cold and humid. Mouloud is energized by the new prospects, overcome with joy, carried away by the thrill of taking off to the island of happiness.

  —I know what we’re going to do to get through this, Rosa, we’re going to go really far away from here. You love the sea, right?

  —It’s funny that you should ask that, of course I love it. When I was a kid, we would go to Sicily, that’s my island, the sea is so beautiful over there, blue and everything, and we always had our feet in the sand . . . But with my pregnancy, it’s not worth it, they’ll kill me over there, they’re worse than my father.

  —Me too, I know about an island, I swear. There was that ad at the bus stop, do you remember it?

  — . . . No, I don’t recall.

  —One day, I even saw a TV report on it, that’s where we have to go, word, for the baby and you and all, yeah, you’ll be OK over there, you’ll get your color back.

  —Mouloud, is it far? How is it over there?

  —Well yeah, it’s far because it’s like a thing you can escape to, you know. It’s an island that’s really stunning on the other side of the world, it’s like you’re walking upside down, it’s called Bora-Bora. It’s so great, with really fine, completely white sand, blue sea, really special, you can see the fish through it, you have every single color, yellow, orange, green, I swear, Rosa, I saw them on TV, on my mother’s life! Can you imagine the two of us with the little one? That’s where we have to go, Rosa, it’s going to be so good, oh yeah! Apparently when the explorers discovered the island, they thought they were in paradise, well, I don’t believe that, it’s not good to say that, but it means that it’s really classy, that’s all!

  Rosa Maria already feels the pleasant tingling of the sun burning her skin, her chocolate baby dressed in white, together they are floating in an immense, calm, crystal clear ocean, lying comfortably on a bed of algae and moss, alone on a huge beach in the Pacific Ocean, surrounded by wild flora. She listens to Mouloud and takes off with him. Rosa Maria closes her eyes, the ugly gray towers in project 6000 have disappeared, the horizon opens up, she forgets the state highways, the bridges, the cars, and the trucks. A mild wind takes her on imaginary paths filled with exotic flowers in her nose, the music of sparrows high up in the sky, the sounds of the tide smashing against the cliffs, a certainty of being elsewhere and living well, the desire to travel, a one-way ticket with no possible return to the filth, the dream of a new destiny with her child and Mouloud, a big brother, someplace else, on the other side of the world, to be on the opposite side of what she has always known. Simple days of freedom, peace, and love.

  Rosa Maria snuggles up against his shoulder:

  —Yes, Mouloud, please, take me right away wherever you want, so long as it’s good and warm . . . You’ll take me, right, Mouloud, for real?

  —Great, Rosa, you’re a really nice girl. You know, your brother, Antonio, had told me a secret, he also wanted to get out of here, that’s why he’d got into doing some business, and he even had a girlfriend, he was in love but he never said who it was!

  —Poor guy, he never had a chance to leave . . . Take me far away, Mouloud!

  —Go on home, Rosa. I’ll take care of everything!

  With a little leap, Rosa Maria gets down from the bench, gives Mouloud a long hug, and heads home. He finds himself all alone, feeling emotional. So much tenderness and enthusiasm, something very difficult for his disturbed mind to digest. He loves this unique situation with Rosa, these unfamiliar feelings make him feel good. On the other hand, he’s taking her pregnancy very seriously, which means that he has to act fast, for the well-being of both mother and child. He tightens his fists to give himself the courage, he swears to make it all happen and to protect them!

  MOULOUD TRIES TO make a list of what both he and Rosa will need to go away. First problem, huge, money, a snag in his plans, a serious obstacle. He hunches his head into his shoulders, pushes his fists into the jacket to his sweat suit, and starts to pace up and down. Leaving for Bora-Bora or anywhere else requires money, but he has none. He’s the man, the oldest, his first role is to be able to provide for his family. He’s focusing, how’s he going to get some? His last paycheck, a paltry sum for a soldier in the desert. No, he dismisses the memory of it, he needs to give this his full attention, an inspiration. Unemployed for a long time, his father doesn’t work anymore either. He won’t do a woman’s job like his mother, who does housecleaning, or his sister Fatima, who washes the asses of sick people in the hospital. Mouloud squints his eyes and frowns. Ideas are coming together and bouncing around in his muddled brain.

  Suddenly, the sound of hurried steps shakes him out of his slumber; it’s Boubacar, the hairdresser.

  —Shit, man, Mouloud, I’ve been looking everywhere for you, the police too, what the hell you doing here? They went by your place, searching it and everything, fuck man, you’re a real top dog, boss man now! As for Jason, they took him in with the other guys this morning pretty early! That asshole, apparently he was crying like a girl, a real jerk!

>   Mouloud is dazed, his knees buckle, he stumbles a moment before leaning on the bench to regain his balance, and then sits down. Shortness of breath, a huge weight on his chest, speechless, the blood leaves his face, pale, he stares into space, at the breaking point.

  —What, you don’t know? Where were you? Be careful, they’re patrolling in every corner. There’s so much hate, I swear. In my opinion, someone from the neighborhood ratted because I don’t see how they could’ve got Jason, someone had to have told them about the bottle. Son of a bitch, if we catch whoever ran their mouth, we’re gonna skin them! Watch yourself, bro, oh yeah! You gonna go into hiding or what?

  Mouloud is no longer listening. His eyes are open, but he doesn’t recognize anything. He needs silence, some quiet, some time to really take in this information. The activity in his head has momentarily stopped, suspended. First, he needs to clear his head. Stop the crazy blood racing, beating on his temples. He gets up without answering, ignores Boubacar, whom he looks at like a complete stranger, then covers his head with his hood before taking off.

  LATER ON, IN the early evening, after dinner, Salvatore decides to take a walk. He leaves his building and strolls toward the periphery of the projects. It’s still early but already dark, pretty ideal to not be seen. Rosa Maria’s father moves slowly on the rare low-cut grass area between the parking lot and the safety rails of the freeway. His gaze follows the sinuous contours of the asphalt decorated with full or dotted white lines, further along the roundabout and the bridges.

  Salvatore rekindles his memories to avoid thinking about the young woman. He hopes she’s come back and is waiting for men down in the basement. He imagines the tender hours next to her, a bit of company and sweetness. Skin firm and tight, generous curves, shapely, ready to satisfy his desire. Madness consumes him . . .

  He observes project 6000, standard concrete architecture near Paris, a landscape of questionable taste in the middle of the plain, at the center of an intersection of state freeways and surrounded by grain fields. Everyone lives next to each other, one on top of the other, no privacy, very little hope of hiding.

  A lack of privacy, that’s the real culprit, throwing this barely clad girl right in front of him and cramming his head with twisted ideas, a kind of sickness, a spell of pouting lips, skirts too short in the summer, making it all too easy to imagine the lace and the torrid smells where the skin is moist and delicate.

  It wasn’t so long ago that the kid was still having fun with Rosa in the kids’ playground, close to the annex to the mayor’s office, on the swing, the steel slide, or running around the concrete Ping-Pong table.

  Get away from her, forget that image, stay loyal to Angelina, devoted wife of so many years. Take the opposite direction away from the basement. But Salvatore continues toward the Pablo Neruda school complex, a complex with a kindergarten and a playground separated from those belonging to the primary and middle schools. On the other side of the street, the father looks at the secondary school, a flat building, a block in the shape of a parallelogram, of discouraging austerity. The multipurpose room juxtaposed to the main building, constructed with provisional materials, has stayed like that for thirty years.

  He struggles against the desire to plunge his face, at least one time, into the blond hair and close his eyes while taking in its perfume. Relive a moment of sensual pleasure. Lose his mind to the sound of the groans in cadence with the pleasure . . . Whisper loving words as he becomes intoxicated by the savor of sweat.

  Salvatore recalls the mornings, coming home, after dropping the kids off at school, they were pretty young then. He would take the day off to accompany everybody. Angelina prepared the youngest of them, shampoo and Savon de Marseille on every body part, even the inaccessible ones. The little girls held back the tears when the time came to use the unforgiving comb through the length of the mops of curly black hair. Their clothes, in tip-top shape, just like for Sunday mass, were obligatory, new, navy blue, white. That period when things were going well before unemployment, adolescence, drugs, the death of his eldest . . . Then everything went to hell. The gestures of love are sorely missing, the longing, his inner muscles are stiff, his bones frozen.

  The obsession rises up again and blurs the memory of the fifty-something-year-old man. The attraction persists, irresistible. Salvatore is hoping to be resuscitated by the contact with Margarine’s pulpous lips. He swallows saliva, taking in the idea of the beautiful naked body beneath the blond hair, fragile and ready. In his desire, he imagines the embrace, a languorous body-to-body contact, him rubbing his poorly shaved cheeks, his paunch, his small waist, and the wide neck on his narrow shoulders on the girl’s soft skin.

  Salvatore inhales on the end of his cigarette butt for a long while, his throat, his lungs, the world around him drowns in a cloud of nicotine-flavored smoke. He coughs noisily and spits on the asphalt. His decision’s been made, he advances, heavy-footed, inelegant toward the basement of tower F!

  MOULOUD HAS BEEN hiding out for several hours in the darkest corners of the complex . . . thoughts more confused than ever. Rosa. He promised her he would take her away from here, the baby, the riot police waiting for him at his parents’ home, those bastards, Bora-Bora, the shame for his family, the white sandy beaches, his mother’s tears, the magical reflection of the sun on the Pacific Ocean, the dishonor for his father, the blue sky at the end of the world . . . The police on his heels. The urge to scream. Money. He hides behind the angle of a building and raises his eyes, his gaze lingers on the crescent moon. Steps come closer to him, faster, haltingly, heels clicking sharply on the asphalt. His pulse is racing again, Mouloud presses his back against the wall, weakened kneecaps, a violent discharge of adrenalin rises up in his torso, he closes his eyelids, someone’s there. He has to save Rosa, it’s his duty, she needs him. Terrified, the young man bites his lip until it begins to bleed, a pearl-shaped tear at the corner of his eye. Courage, don’t flinch. She’s very close to him, maybe five yards or more, he dares to look while staying hidden.

  Margarine, blond hair flowing loose, black coat and fishnet stockings, descends the steps of the little staircase that leads to the basement. She quickly opens the door decorated with graffiti and disappears inside.

  A few moments to regain his breath, Mouloud calms down. He’s thinking, this time really fast. He just got a glimpse of Rosa Maria’s friend, she’ll be willing to help him. Farther along, a group of young people he doesn’t know settle onto a bench. From that distance, they can’t make him out. Fear of being busted. Unsure of his footing, he heads for the exit Margarine used. In turn, Mouloud descends into the basement. He closes the door behind him without making a sound, follows a faint light, and walks along practically feeling his way amid foul-smelling odors. Having played hide-and-seek here many times, he knows this place pretty well. The smell of a burning cigarette leads him directly to his target.

  Once he plants himself in front of the frame to the door, Margarine absentmindedly turns her head and gives him a cold stare with eyes from which tears have just been dried, of dreams and illusions.

  —What d’you want?

  Margarine fixes the cloud of blue smoke she’s just spewed out beneath the shade of her little bedside lamp. She automatically follows the slow round movements that dissipate into the air and filter the dust. The smoke reminds her of the logs that burn in a fireplace, like in a chalet somewhere in the Savoy mountains, childhood vacations.

  She is sitting on a wooden stool near the mattress on the ground, absent, exhausted, lost. Her hairdo is in place. Margarine leans her elbows on her bare thighs under a bright red miniskirt, high up on her hips. Her black lace tank top barely hides her big chest, she is not wearing a bra. Her voice snaps sharp and final:

  —What is it you want now? Go away!

  —Oh, it’s OK, I got something to ask you.

  —What? You too, I can’t believe this . . .

  The disgust and contempt written on her pupils, Margarine gets up and lets out a
huge cynical laugh. In this moment, she hates Mouloud and the whole world. She takes her breasts in her hands with a deliberate obscene pout, her tongue on her lower lip:

  —You want to fuck, eh, is that it? Then come, at least you can pay?

  She comes closer to him, provocative, places a hand on his zipper.

  —So Mouloud Zayed, I’m no longer a slut for you, a whore that should be stoned? You check me out all the time as if I were something filthy, you say shit about me to Rosa, and when it’s time to get off, you play all sweet and nice.

  —Cut it out, shit! Damn, we know each other, word, I didn’t come for that, I swear on my mother’s—

  —No, Mouloud, you don’t know me anymore ever since I’m a whore, you’re not worth much more than the others, your shit principles with your sisters, your women, and your mothers, then you want to come here to get blown, go on, get out, Mouloud, you disgust me!

  Mouloud already regrets having come by, nothing is going as he had hoped, countless thoughts are confusing him. He blinks his eyes faster and faster to try to gather his thoughts. He panics. His right hand begins to tremble. He finds himself in a basement with a half-­naked whore who’s yelling at him like his father and the officers over there, back in the desert did, long before her. His brain is jamming up. The images of the soldiers in uniforms, the color of the sand, suddenly appear in his thoughts; it’s all happening too quickly. He feels the burn from the paternal slap on his cheek mixed in with the daily bullying in the barracks, the flashbacks scramble around at full speed before his eyes, kicks in his sides from the officer, orders barked in a language he doesn’t understand well, he’s on the ground screaming, the humiliating fondling in the shower, Mouloud is losing it. With his sleeve, he wipes the sweat from his forehead, trying to stay lucid. Something is stinging his eyes. He manages to focus by thinking of Rosa, the baby, the sun on the beach, Bora-Bora, indulge yourself, get away!