You Deserve Nothing - Alexander Maksik [13]
But nobody seems interested in the answers to these questions. No one seems compelled even to ask. It’s all simply understood—the lovely couple, the brilliant young man, the beautiful young woman, one day in the Louvre.
And I can understand leaving with him—the clean entry into a place she’d never been, the exotic idea of Africa, the spontaneity of it. The pleasure of the phone call home, “I met a man. I’m moving to Pretoria.” Oh, our reckless daughter. But why did she stay? Why did she let herself get pregnant? Why did she follow him around the world for so long?
* * *
August came. I loved my new city. I went everywhere. I found the Goutte d’Or, hidden down the hill from Sacré-Coeur, a village really. Little Africa. I wandered those streets day after day feeling nostalgic for Senegal. The markets swarmed with people wearing leather sandals and boubous. There were makeshift mosques, small restaurants serving cheap bowls of Thiébou Dien.
I didn’t have a single friend that summer but I don’t remember ever feeling lonely. It was a kind of religious experience. I felt, for the first time in my life, a new sense of possibility, hope even, and belonging. That summer I was, I’m sure, as happy as I’d ever been.
The emptiness of Paris in August allowed me a new sense of ownership, of possession. There was a laziness about the city without traffic. So little noise. More and more I moved through the streets, sliding in and out of métros, fluidly transferring from train to train, bus to bus. I rarely used my map. I invented games for myself where each decision I made about where to go was determined by a flip of a coin. A bus would pass. Heads yes. Tails no.
I’d never had many friends in other cities, but there had always been people around. The compounds where we lived—heavily guarded, walled neighborhoods—forced us to interact. There’d always be a pool. There were always parties, somebody’s mother serving lemonade, somebody’s father grilling chicken breasts.
There was nowhere to go. You couldn’t leave without your driver and, in some places, without your driver and bodyguard. If you want to see the city you’re living in you do it through the bulletproof glass of your car. When we did go out shopping in local markets or to restaurants or museums, we were made so conspicuous by our attendants that I only wanted to leave. I always hated the spectacle we made. We were isolated in the countries we lived in. It was like living in a wealthy, American suburb—nice homes, swimming pools, maids, alarm systems, and so on. The friends I had were just kids who were around. Kids from school, kids who lived next door, kids from the neighborhood and somewhere I lost interest.
It wasn’t until Paris that something shifted. Paris was the beginning. Paris was everything.
August passed slowly. And then there was school.
MARIE
On the weekends I’d usually sleep at Ariel’s because she lived in Paris and her parents were never around. Her apartment was in the sixteenth on the rue La Pérouse right near the Kléber métro. On Fridays I’d bring an extra bag and we’d go straight there after school. Maybe we’d go shopping before or see a movie on the Champs-Élysées. Otherwise we’d just sit around talking and eating, doing our homework and smoking our cigarettes out the window.
We’d get a little drunk on vodka and Coke and get dressed. My whole high school life starts to feel like an endless dressing room. Always standing in front of mirrors, checking my breasts, putting on makeup, turning around to look at my ass.
I hated the way I looked when I was alone and I hated myself more when I was next to Ariel, who was beautiful. I mean that she was really beautiful. It’s a fact. I don