Matthew has developed a loose pattern to his days, one divided into blocks of time. He sleeps in the mornings, tries to write in the afternoons, and generally fails. Late afternoons are for Chez Elias, when he feels calm and friendly. Evenings are for the Bok-Bok. Unless he is in what he almost laughingly calls the Emotionally Hopeless Forest. Then it’s alone in his apartment with the phone off the hook. Now he is on his way to the Bok-Bok. Or at least he was, until the phone rings.
“Hello?”
“Matthew!” Brent. Only Brent pronounces his name Mat-you.
“Hey, Brent.”
“Don’t hey me. What did you write today?”
“I’m working.”
“So send me something.”
“Fine, I’ll send you something.”
“You said that last week.”
“And I sent you a chapter.”
“I didn’t get it. Big surprise. You didn’t overnight it.”
“French mail is whimsical.”
“I’m laughing.”
“I like to make you happy.”
Brent heaves a huge sigh. “Listen, Matthew. Listen to me. You got an advance. A very nice advance. Your editor is expecting to see something from this. You are not an international charity. If you don’t start producing—”
“I am producing. I’m just not ready to show anything yet.”
“This isn’t fiction, Matthew, where timing doesn’t matter. Timing matters. You’re hot for only so long and then somebody else comes along and does something else that everybody’s talking about and nobody remembers you. If nobody remembers you, nobody buys the book, get it?”
It is Matthew’s turn to sigh. “I get it. I get it, Brent. And really, I am working. It’s just a little rough yet. I want to impress them, you know?” His insincerity is like thistles in his throat.
“Impress the hell out of us. Write something.”
“I have to go.”
“Don’t make me come over there, Matthew.”
“See you, Brent. I’ll get you something in the next couple of days.”
All the way over to the 20th on the metro, Matthew mutters to himself about avaricious agents and bloodsucking publishers. The seat next to him remains empty.
When he arrives at the bar, someone calls out to him. “Hey, Matthew, over here!”
His eyes have not adjusted and he cannot make out the face, but he knows Jack’s voice.
“Hey,” he says, blinking and squinting into the smoky gloom. Soon he can make out Jack’s bulk, sitting at his usual table with his back to the wall. “I’ll get a drink. You want one?”
“Draught,” says Jack. “And bring a Coke for my pal, Anthony.”
“Hey,” says another voice.
“Fair enough.”
Matthew orders two beers and a Coke from Dan, who pours them into thick glass mugs and hands them over without saying a word. There is a tired-looking woman sitting at the end of the bar, her blond wig slightly askew. Matthew nods and she smiles back. It takes him a moment to realize it is Suzi, the girl wearing the black wig the first time he came to the Bok-Bok. “Nice look for you,” he says. “I like it.”
“You’re sweet. You buy me a drink, too?” She pats the seat next to her.
“Get Suzi whatever she wants, okay, Dan?”
Suzi gets up and comes over to him. Although he has lied about how flattering the wig is, it strikes him, not for the first time, what a pretty woman she is. Her eyes are huge and look even larger because of the dark circles underneath. Her mouth is very small, and overall she looks like a girl from another time, from the twenties, perhaps, when Betty Boop was the It girl.
“Coupe de champagne,” she says. “You join me, yes?”
“Maybe later, okay? I have to deliver drinks to the boys.”
“Let me know, Matthew.” She pronounces it in the French way, Matte-u—which, although similar to Brent’s pronunciation, is infinitely more pleasing to the ear. She runs her green painted fingernail under his chin. “Merci,” she says and toasts him with her drink. Dan snorts.
Matthew makes his way between the tables, most of which are empty. John and Charlie sit together, as always, and, as always, before the end of the evening they will be arguing loudly. Three men Matthew has not seen before scribble something on the back of a paper napkin, and whisper. As he walks past, they stop talking and cover up the napkin. Matthew ignores them.
Jack takes his beer, drinks and wipes foam from his moustache. Three mugs stand empty on the table. Next to him is a man almost as large as Jack, wearing a broad-shouldered black leather coat. His forehead is high and his hair black, cut close to the scalp. His skin is the colour of red rice and strong tea. He wears an open, unguarded expression, which is unusual in a place like this. When he smiles, which he does as soon as Matthew approaches, his gums are predominant, and his teeth disproportionately small. There is no defence against such a sincere smile, and Matthew immediately smiles back.
“Thanks. I’ll get the next round,” says Anthony, and he holds out his hand for Matthew to shake.
“Pleased to meet you,” says Matthew.
“Anthony’s been down south in Marseilles.”
“Ah,” says Matthew.
“Anthony used to be a cop in New York City.”
“Tough place to be a cop,” says Matthew. He has trouble reconciling this occupation with the man who sits before him.
“All places are tough when you’re a cop. It was a long time ago.” He reaches up and taps his head. “Wound up with a metal plate.”
“Ouch.” Matthew winces.
“I was moonlighting as a guard at Bellevue. One of the inmates got all whacked out and picked up this big table. Whammo! Cold-cocked me.”
“Jesus,” says Matthew.
“I don’t remember it.”
“Anthony was in a coma for, what, two weeks?” says Jack.
“Thirteen days. When I woke up there were these spaces where things used to be. Can’t plan things or remember some things like I used to. And I can’t drink the way I used to. I’m better than I was. Some headaches, dizziness. Been eleven years. Now mostly I just have trouble with new situations. Like, when I’m travelling, right, I can read the train ticket fine, and I can read the station board where they list the track numbers. Problem is, sometimes I can’t figure out how one thing relates to the other. Connection synapses don’t fire.”
“Doesn’t mean he’s stupid, though,” says Jack.
“Well, no stupider than before.” Anthony smiles. “I just like to tell new people what’s what, so they don’t draw the wrong conclusions if I draw a memory blank. Worse thing isn’t the head, though, it’s numbness.” He flexes his fingers a few times. “Nerve damage. Not exactly conducive to handling a firearm. Not that I want to do that anymore. If I never see a gun again—fine by me.”
“Hell of a story,” says Matthew.
“It’s not a story.” Anthony looks puzzled.
“No, I didn’t mean that it wasn’t true, just that it’s hard.”
“I guess. But I got off light. You should have seen some of the guys in the head ward. Acting like five-year-olds in a grown man’s body, or couldn’t walk, or talk. Naw, a little confusion, a little numbness, it’s all right. I get a cheque from the city of New York. I get to come to Paris and all. I’m studying food. That’s what I was doing in the south, but it didn’t work out. I got a job as a kitchen grunt. A crappy job, but it was a start. Good restaurant. But I didn’t catch on fast enough.”
“Sorry to hear that,” says Matthew, but Anthony just shrugs.
“Language problem is the way I choose to see it. I make it a practice not to hang on to resentments. Keep calm. Kind of a vow I took when my life derailed. No more violence, you know?”
Jack snorts. “Anthony had a spiritual awakening. Turned over a new leaf. I knew Anthony back in New York. Made a fair penny together back in the day.”
“Long time ago,” says Anthony and he drops his eyes.
“At least not in here,” says Anthony. “Think that’s why I took to this place, the first time Jack brought me.”
“I’ll drink to that,” says Matthew.
Suzi passes their table on the way to the toilet and ruffles Jack’s hair.
“Jack’s got a girlfriend,” Anthony says.
“Grow the fuck up,” says Jack.
“Suzi’s all right,” says Matthew.
“Hell, yes. No problem there,” says Jack. “I wouldn’t mind a piece of that.”
“Yours for the asking, I’d say.” Matthew takes a long pull of his beer.
“Mine for the paying, actually. And I don’t pay.”
“I don’t think she’d make you pay. She likes you,” Anthony says, then smiles. “I got a girlfriend. Vietnamese girl.”
“Anthony’s new romance.” Jack looks amused.
“What’s her name?” says Matthew.
“Pawena. In fact, you should meet her. Come over for dinner. I’m going to cook, and Jack’s coming. What do you say?”
“Sure, why not? Thanks for the offer.”
“Jack, you working at the hostel Saturday night?”
“Nope.”
“Okay, Saturday night, then.” With that, Suzi comes out of the bathroom, and Anthony reaches out and takes her hand. “Suzi, you want to come to dinner with us? At my place? I’m cooking. You can meet my girlfriend.”
“You want me to come to dinner?”
“You working Saturday night?”
“She always works nights, asshole,” says Jack.
Suzi arches an eyebrow and puts her hand on her hip. “This Saturday I will take off. Can you really cook?”
“I can cook.”
“I would love to come for dinner. Give me the address.”
Anthony gives her an address and she whistles. “Oh-la-la! You live in an area I know very well. Good area for girls.”
Anthony throws his head back and laughs. “Not on my street!”
When she walks away, Jack slaps Anthony on the back of the head. “What are you doing?”
“Pawena’s going to bring her girlfriend, and with Matthew coming I thought it would be nice to have an even number. What?”
“Listen, Brainiac, how do you think your girlfriend’s going to take to you inviting a hooker?”
“Oh, she won’t mind.”
“Geez, I hate cops.”
“Present company …” says Anthony, and waits.
“Excepted,” says Jack, rolling his eyes and grinning.
CHAPTER NINE
The Ferhat family live near the Barbès-Rochechouart Métro on rue du Faubourg Poissonnière, a street split down the middle between the 9th arrondissement and the 10th. So, technically, the Ferhats live in the 10th, which the bourgeoisie consider not as good a neighbourhood as the 9th, which in turn is not as good as the 8th. The Ferhats live on the top floor, the sixth floor, where former maids’ and cooks’ quarters have been converted into tiny apartments. The conversion happened in stages as the neighbourhood became less genteel. First, four or perhaps five decades ago, the tiny rooms under the eaves were rented out to people other than domestic servants. Then, thirty years ago, the landlord knocked down walls and made small independent rooms into four two-room apartments with kitchenettes. At that time the sole bathroom was down the hall, shared among the tenants. Now improvements have been made. Each apartment has a bathroom with a toilet and a shower—not an actual bath for, having been partitioned from a corner of the main room, there is no space. Still, they are pleased not to have to go down the hall, not to have to smell the shit of strangers.
The same cannot be said for all converted chambres de bonne in Paris. Immigrants, refugees, students, the poor in all forms, take what they can get. Wave after wave of people arrive from everywhere in the world, looking for safe haven, for inspiration, looking for the famous liberté, egalité, fraternité. They come from America, from Romania, from Vietnam, from Algeria, from Cambodia, from Iran, Argentina, Russia … from everywhere life has been too dangerous, too difficult, or too dull.
They sleep in rooms too cold or too hot, rooms with no insulation between the walls, and they fall asleep to the sounds of someone else’s snoring, or their lovemaking, or their weeping, their whimpers, their flatulence, their rage. They hang their clothes out of windows on racks to air out the stench of cooking fat and cigarettes. They grow geraniums and lavender and basil in pots on the sills. They put on extra socks before they go to bed in the winter and suck on ice in the summer when the pollution is so thick the inside of the mouth tastes of diesel fuel and all the wealthy people have closed up shop and gone to Deauville or Cannes or Annecy.
Some bedrooms are in the back of the building, facing the courtyard where it is relatively quiet—only the gardienne remains down below, shaking the dust off her broom, flapping her tablecloth, scolding her children. Or the sound of the neighbours’ radios and guitars and, during the day, the sound of construction: jackhammers and drills and sandblasters that make up the endless soundtrack of Paris. Saida’s bedroom, however, is at the front; she puts wax plugs in her ears so she can sleep through the rattle and clank of garbage trucks and car horns and the motorcycles and the arguing voices from the street below.
It is four o’clock in the morning now, and the garbagemen yell to each other, banging the large green bins against the side of the truck to empty them. Their yellow swirling lights send strange patterns across the walls. In her restless sleep, Saida rolls over onto her back and the sheet tangles around her crossed ankles.
She does not understand it is only the bedclothes that have imprisoned her and three beads of sweat appear on the top of her lip. She tries to kick her feet, but she cannot move them. She tries to reach down and see why she cannot move her feet, but her hands will not move. She hears her heart in her ears, loud with blood. With enormous effort she opens her eyes and it is then that she sees him. A figure in grey overalls, smeared in gas station grease. Something on his head. A hood? In a rush like electricity through her limbs she knows who it is. It is Anatole Mariani. It is her husband. Her ex-husband.
But it cannot be him. He is in jail. But it is him. How did he get in? She opens her mouth to scream, but no sound comes out. Her panic increases. She feels as though she is flailing, but her arms will not move, her legs will not move. She does not know if he has tied her down, because she cannot turn her head to look. She thinks perhaps he has drugged her.
Anatole has something in his hand. Saida does not need for him to step into the light slanting through the blinds to know what it is. She knows hot oil, hot enough nearly to be burning, by the metallic smell. Knows the smell of scorched iron from the pot, knows the other smell, the sick smell of melting skin. She hears his whispers in her head. Arab garbage. I thought I was marrying a good girl, not a useless bitch like you. You’re the reason I don’t get ahead. I’m tainted by you. In her head she screams for her father, for her brother, for her son. Joseph! She screams silently, willing him to hear her even if she makes no sound, Joseph! Run! Run! Run!
How did he get past Joseph without waking him? What has he done to Joseph? Anatole steps closer, so slowly, he is torturing her. He smiles, his thin pale tongue rubbing against his top teeth, as though she is something he will enjoy eating, once she is properly cooked. He stands over her, lifts the pot, his face is blackness, shiny, empty… . She hopes she will die this time, and quickly.
“Maman! Maman! Wake up. You’re dreaming! You’re dreaming again.”
The sound coming from her is like that of an animal bellowing with the lion at its throat. Strangled. Wordless. As though her larynx had been cut. Joseph shakes her and then takes her in his arms and pushes her hair back from her sweaty forehead. Slowly she comes to herself and wraps her arms around her son.
“It’s okay,” she says.
“I’m all right.”
“Wake up, wake up,” he murmurs. “Wake up.”
Their tears are impossible to separate. Rain from the same sky, making the flames of her terror sizzle and hiss and steam, until they are nothing but grey ash.
CHAPTER TEN
It is Saturday and Matthew lies on his bed, staring up at the midday ceiling. The dull dishwater light shows up the cracks in the paint. Last night he dreamed about women. Ghost women with long fingers and pale, bruised legs. Friendly. He dreamed of Kate, and now he aches for her, knowing it is irrational. Something about holding each other. Forgiving each other. Tears. He presses the heels of his hands into his eyes and searches for an argument compelling enough to make him get out of bed. Here he is, come to the City of Light, and what does he do? Skulks in the shadows of basement bars with ex-mercenaries, with broken-down ex-cops, with hookers. Well, at least tonight he’ll be going to dinner at Anthony’s house. A change of scene from the Bok-Bok, right? Only sort of.
He moans. Sits up. Enough. Get out of bed. He smells sour. The bed smells sour. Take a shower. Do a wash. The idea of lugging his laundry to the launderette on rue de Clichy is enough to make him roll over and go back to sleep. Agreed, then. No laundry. But there must be something. There must be a reason to get out of bed.
You could write something. He moans again, louder this time. Brent leaves messages every second day. He should write something. Why not write anything and send it to him? Shut him up at least?
He drags himself to the bathroom, pisses loudly. Brushes his teeth and talks himself into taking a shower. The small shower is built into one of those fantastic French jokes, the sitz bath: a thigh-high square tub just large enough for one dainty Frenchmen to squat in, with a shelf for sitting, if one could figure out where to put one’s legs. For Matthew, at his height, it is impossible. From the ceiling hangs a chrome ring with a white plastic curtain around it and a jury-rigged plastic hose attached to the faucet below. At least there’s lots of hot water. He strips off his underpants and steps in. The water pricks at his skin and the steam softens the air. He looks down at his hard-on. Soaps up his hand. He begins to believe there may yet be hope for the day.
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