“Your mother decided to take you away.” She flicked her wrist into the air. “I told your father that if he were to leave with her, he would not be welcome back. He chose her. He chose her over me. He wanted the fancy American, with the fast cars and big houses. She seduced him away. Even his own mother could not save him.”
She brought her hands to her eyes, sobbing wildly into them. Mascara ran down her cheeks, turning her hands muddy and black.
“If it was not for her, my son would still be here. She poisoned his thoughts. That’s the problem with you Americans: you take what you want. You think everything belongs to you. Mark my words, when she gets tired of her French man, she will take someone else. Spit him out into the garbage.”
“That’s not true!”
I was standing now, blood boiling. Her words were sharper than glass, cut deeper than anything I had ever felt before. It took all of my willpower not to spit at her.
In that moment, there was no one I hated more than this woman who claimed to be my blood. I saw nothing of my father in her. I didn’t want her anywhere near me.
“My mother did not come here to take from you,” I spat, “she came here to learn from you. And you closed your door on her and turned her away. You want to know why my father chose her? He chose her because you pushed him away!”
“No. He chose her because of you.”
If the room was cold before, it was colder still now. I was standing in a freezer, my blood boiling and ice cold all at once.
“Your mother told him she was pregnant,” she said, and she was smiling now. No, sneering. “She came to the house. I told him she was using you as a way to tie him down. That if she were not with child, he could not want her near him. She tricked him. He went for you. He chose her, for you. And I never saw him again.”
Me, me… it was always my fault. Since before the day I was born, I was here, ruining lives. I caused the rift between my grandmother and my father. I’m the reason he chose my mother over his own blood and left his homeland for good.
Me.
My fault.
Always my fault.
“Do not make the mistakes I made,” she said, her sentence punctuated by a small hiccup, “your heart belongs to Provence. Do not be seduced by America. All they want is for the world to be their theme park. They don’t care about the people who live anywhere else. They don’t care about our culture. All they care about is themselves.”
“Mamie, please, you’re scaring me,” I said, taking a step back.
“Go back where you came from,” she hissed, “I don’t want to ever see you again. Tomorrow I want you out of my house, I want you gone. You are no blood of mine.”
Maybe I proved her point by leaving her alone. Maybe I did care more about myself and my breaking heart than my mad old Mamie sobbing drunkenly on the living room couch. I ran up the stairs to my room and locked the door shut, heart racing.
Trembling, sobbing, I picked up my phone, turning on the data and dialing the only number I knew by heart. Jazz. Jasmine always knew what to say. Even after the accident, she had been there for me.
But the phone went to voicemail after a single ring.
She had hung up on me.
Even my best friend didn’t want me. I was spoiled goods, born rotten. A curse to everyone I met.
I was the reason everything was wrong with my world.
The ride to Arles was a silent one.
I was getting used to the buses now. Admittedly I was liking the trains better, but these rides weren’t far off in terms of comfort. I would even have been enjoying myself if it wasn’t for Mamie’s voice signing circles in my head.
Just like my mother… just like my mother… I’m the reason my father never saw France again…
I had stuffed odd clothes in my backpack, along with my computer and a toothbrush. I would have to find another place to sleep tonight. Maybe I could reach into my savings, find a hotel, or an Airbnb, something, anything. I couldn’t go back to that house: I didn’t know what Mamie would do to me if I went back, if she would even let me on the grounds.
What did she tell you? Was she sending me back? Returning me, for not matching the description?
If Valentin had noticed something was off, he didn’t say anything about it. He was good when it came to silence. He never had to fill awkward moments with words. One hand resting lightly on his lap, the other hanging in the aisle, he stared out through the window straight ahead, letting me have my moment.
I wanted to wrap myself in his arms and sob. If our kiss the night before had meant anything, he should be here for me now. But I couldn’t ask that of him, not after every bridge I touched burned to ash. I had been destroying lives since conception.
The bus stopped, and instantly the quiet was broken. Three teenagers stepped onto the bus, the guy in a Hawaiian shirt and the two girls in practically see-through white blouses and mini shorts. Sunglasses and sunhats snugly on their heads, nothing about them walked by without screaming ‘tourist.’
And that wasn’t counting the actual screaming.
“I’m getting so good at paying the bus drivers,” said one of them, leading her friends down the aisle of the bus. Valentin straightened up, retracting his arm. She brushed past him.
“Still, it’s like, so dumb we have to haul all these coins around. Hello, paper money exists, people!”
They took a seat near the end of the bus and we got back on the road. I thought that would be the end of it, but no: they just somehow, unbelievably, got louder.
“God, I hope there’s a Starbucks in Arles,” said one of them, “like, the coffee here sucks. Mom said we needed to stop at a cafe but all they have are these ridiculous tiny cups!”
“It’s like drinking coffee sludge,” said the guy, “and it’s like none of them know what a latte is! It’s summer? Can you not put ice in coffee for me? It’s that easy!”
Valentin’s hands tensed into fists. His eyes never left the road, but I could see them bulging in their sockets even from here.
“When I get to Arles, first thing I do, I’m going to find that Starbucks,” said the first girl, sighing heavily, “I need to wash that taste out of my mouth.”
“Sasha, they don’t have one there,” said the other girl.
“No Starbucks? What is this place?” she said, her voice somehow rising a higher pitch. “Look, if I have to have another one of those disgusting little cups…”
“Just ask for a café creme,” said the guy.
“I can’t drink cream. It’s bad for my complexion.”
“It’s not actually cream, it’s milk,” said the second girl.
“Then why the hell do the call it cream?”
I sank lower into my chair. The more outraged she was, the more shrill her voice became.
I wasn’t the only one having trouble with her, though. The people around me I could tell were tensing up too. Cringing, if I could say so. Valentin’s fists were tight as lead.
“I have to say something,” said Valentin, turning to me.
“Please don’t,” I mumbled, “It’s not worth it.”
He climbed out of his seat, making his way to the back of the bus. I leaned forward, breathing deeply. Hopefully they wouldn’t see me if I was hunched over like this.
“S’il vous plait,” he said, calmly, “on n’entend que vous.”
“What?” one of the girls laughed in response, “piss off. We’re not bothering anyone. Speak English, dumbass.”
“I do speak English,” he replied, “which is more than I could say for you. Now please, there are other people on this bus, could you tone it down?”
“OOOOH!” the guy of the group sounded like Valentin had just dropped an epic rap burn. “Shorty’s got attitude!”
“Shorty has no patience,” said Valentin, “please. There are other people here than just you.”
“Yeah!” yelled someone from up front. A girl clambered over her seat, “keep it down back zere!”
; “If you don’t like it, get a car, loser!”
“Next time you want to see France, go to ze EPCOT, you’d ‘ave a better time!”
She sat back down. My face was hot, red with embarrassment.
Stupid American, stupid American… my Mamie’s voice danced circles in my head. I needed to be anywhere but here right now.
“Bon, Merde, passez une bonne journée,” said Valentin. He slipped back into his seat beside me, having changed absolutely nothing. He was fuming, though. While my face was red with shame, his was hot with rage.
“I just had to say something. I couldn’t hear myself think.”
“I know,” I replied, half wishing they would keep speaking in their obnoxiously loud voices. At least I wouldn’t have to hear the words in my own head.
“Are you doing alright?” he asked, then. “You look a little…”
“I’m fine,” I lied, “I don’t think I was ready for merguez quite yet. I just… feel ill.”
“Do you have a gastro? Do you need smecta?”
I shook my head. I didn’t need anything. Just to be left alone.
Maybe so I could die under a rock.
The bus dropped us off and we piled off, trying to get as far away from the loud trio as possible. Luckily, you didn’t need to be a bat to echolocate them. I kept my head down as I shuffled through the town, hands stuffed in pockets. I was the reason you couldn’t come back, so I didn’t deserve to see a single thing here.
“You shouldn’t have said anything.”
I don’t know where the words came from. At first, I didn’t even think I had been the one to say them. We stopped, and I finally looked up, only to see ruins rising from the earth behind the tall iron fence. I preferred to look at them than make eye contact with Valentin right then.
“Why not?” he asked, opening the door to the visitor’s center of Theatre Antique of Arles. Air conditioning hit us in a wave, and for a second I was able to relax just a little. Then I saw his face, and the nerves came right back.
“They were annoying, but you didn’t have to confront them about it.”
“Deux moins de 18 ans,” he said to the grey-haired woman behind the desk. I flashed her my driver’s license, and she nodded. We paid cash, argument on hold until we dealt with the fee.
Outside, the sun was back with a vengeance. But who cared about the sun when two thousand years of history stood before you? Argument on hold indefinitely. Fuming placed on pause. There was nothing I wanted to distract me from this.
A semi-circle of stone seats rose up towards the sun in front of a raised wooden stage. Two columns were all that was left of the original back, but they stood beside state-of-the-art sound equipment. I didn’t know what impressed me most: the fact that the entire semi-circle was still intact, or that the stage was still being used, two millennia after it was built.
“Look,” said Valentin, “most of the time, I am fine with tourists. They are cool. But today they just… what is the expression? Got under my skin. They annoyed you, too.”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I muttered, climbing over a carved piece of rock. The park was strewn with chunks of the theatre, ruins with no place to go.
“What happened to you?” he asked, “yesterday you were happy. And now…”
“I said I don’t want to talk about it!”
I marched off in the direction of the larger chunks of stone, hoping to leave Valentin behind me. Not a chance. I could hear him still on my tail.
“Was it something I did?” he asked, “it wasn’t what I said to the tourists, was it? You would have said the same if the situation were backwards.”
“No, it’s not you, ok?” I said. This wasn’t the place from the letter: the edge of the property was another fence like the one at the entrance, so no brick wall here. The hunt just was not happening today.
“Was it because I kissed you?” he asked, earnestly. He seemed to sink into the earth. “Because the last thing I wanted to do was hurt you.”
“No, no,” I replied, shaking my head, the phantom memory of the kiss dancing on my lips. Any other day, it would have made me smile. But today there was just too much.
“Then what? Jamie, I’m worried.”
“It’s just…” I didn’t know how to ask it. How to ask why my grandmother thought calling my mother a whore was the right way to go about things. How to ask why I felt so ashamed of my heritage when I was here. Why I was embarrassed to be from America, when I shouldn’t have cared.
“Why do you all hate Americans?” I blurted out. “I mean, you’re nice to me, but then you seem to hate everyone else from my country. I’m not different just because my dad is French, ok? I am an American.”
“I know that, Jamie…”
“But seriously, why?” I stuffed my hands into my pockets gingerly. “Last night, my grandmother went on a rant – more than a rant - about how we were all trying to destroy her home. My own grandmother. I just… I don’t understand, Valentin!”
Just then, I heard a voice I recognized bounce off the wall. Well, three voices. On the stage, the three tourists from the bus were laughing, their voices amplified by two-thousand-year-old perfect masonry. I would have been impressed that the acoustics withstood the test of time, but now the girls were taking towels out of their bags and wrapping them around their chests like togas, urging their guy friend to do the same.
“Oh Romeo, oh Romeo, wherefore art thou, Romeo?” said the girl who just really, really needed her Starbucks.
“I right here, right here, I just stepped in a pile of shit!” replied their friend. The three burst out laughing.
“You want to know what we hate about Americans?” said Valentin, pointing at the stage. “We get hundreds of thousands of tourists here every year. But the ones who treat the place like it’s their own personal theme park tends to be them.”
He marched towards the stone ring, and for a second, I thought he would call the Americans out again. But instead he stormed up the seats, making his way to the very top of the seats. I followed him, trying not to hear the butchered lines of Shakespeare flowing behind me.
“You see these seats?” he asked. “My family is Provençal. All the way back. Which means my ancestors sat here, once. My back-back-back-back - who knows how far back - parents came here to see plays. Plays I learned in school. You’re half French: your family is local, your ancestors would have been here, too. When I come to see this place, I see it as my heritage. I see it as a history my family built, and I will continue to build. I see it as something I can proudly say belongs to my patrimoine, and that I must try to be worthy of it.”
He turned to stare down the theater at the stage, shaking.
“And then tourists like them come here,” he said, thrusting his arms wide to scoop up the vision of the three teens in their towel togas, running after each other on stage, “and they think is all for show. That this place was made for them. That we are all animators for them to play with. When I was a boy, a woman asked me if I was an actor because I lived in Lourmarin. She thought the entire place was a ghost town, and the locals were hired to fill the set. Actors! I was eight years old!” He was breathing heavily now. I couldn’t help but feel a little scared: I had never seen him like this before.
My eyes fell off him, fell off the edge of the seats, and I saw it: a wall of bricks, lining the homes behind the theatre. The place my parents had had their own fight. The place my father had hidden the clue.
But I couldn’t leave now. Valentin was still on the point of exploding, and I had to defuse him before he got any worse. Not that I got the chance to speak; he was already moving through to his next point of contention.
“You know why I learned to speak English?” he asked, “because I wanted to watch your series. I wanted to watch Game of Thrones! I wanted to play your video games and understand your memes. I want to go to university to study poetry, and there is no chance I can afford your American schools. Not that they will take me: I had a f
riend with 17 on their Bac and they were told everyone had a baccalaureate. No! So I will go to school here, learn to speak English because everyone must. I speak English, French, and Spanish: I have online friends in America who haven’t even tried to learn French. So you know why I am mad at Americans? Because they are so annoyingly entitled. To everything. To my home, to my food, to my culture. They do no appreciate it, they simply take it, and I…”
“Please, calm down.” A man in a grey uniform stood on the steps, hands raised. My heart leapt to my throat.
“Je suis calme,” Valentin smoothed down his shirt, wiping his sweaty palms off in the process. The Americans were nowhere to be found.
“Je dois vous demander de partir,” the man continued, “vous perturbez la visite.”
“Sérieusement?” Valentin snapped. “Nous, nous perturbons la visite? Et eux, alors?”
I carefully stepped away. I didn’t want to know what was going on. The guard guy didn’t seem to care about me, anyways. As he and Valentin argued about who knows what, I left through one of the theater’s exits, arriving before the old brick wall. This was it: this is the place my mother and father almost called it quits. This is where a turn of fate might have stopped me from existing. Which would probably have been better for everyone at this point.
I wondered if it was worth it, me continuing to hunt for these ridiculous clues. I knew, deep down, that they were just pieces of paper. There was no such thing as a miracle cure, especially not for what you just want through. And I am sorry, sorry every day for what I did to you.
I can’t yet fix what’s wrong with us. I will figure it out as I go. I’ll never stop trying.
The walls were tall, so I tried to imagine what it would have been like to fight here, instead of up on the arcade. Where would you have leaned, where would dad have pushed. Where would the grout be crumbling from centuries of use. Where would your letter be…
Guesswork wasn’t working. So I pushed.
I blocked out all other sound around me and focused on the wall. I pressed and jiggled every brick on that wall, as my phone vibrated itself into oblivion in my pocket. Valentin must have been trying to call me. I didn’t care. Call me the entitled American, but I needed this time to myself.
Aix Marks the Spot Page 16
