You Deserve Nothing - Alexander Maksik [51]
I opened my eyes and when I saw him I thought he was going to cry. He wasn’t acting. He couldn’t have been. It would’ve been impossible.
He looked out the window, then returned to his yellowed paperback. “‘There are women in Genoa whose smile I loved for a whole morning. I shall never see them again and certainly nothing is simpler. But words will never smother the flame of my regret. I watched the pigeons flying past the little well at the cloister in San Francisco, and forgot my thirst. But a moment always came when I was thirsty again.’”
There were only a few minutes left before the bell. He looked, after reading this last line, the same line he’d read on Monday, wistful in a way I’d never seen him.
“What was it that Camus was thirsty for?” he asked. “What are you thirsty for?”
Hala raised her hand, but he shook his head, “Have a good weekend,” he said. “And read.”
* * *
Friday after school I walked with Colin to the métro. It wasn’t planned. We simply didn’t avoid each other. I’d seen him before, walking ahead, lighting a cigarette as he passed through the gates, calling a casual good-bye to the guards. Countless times I’d walked behind him among other kids wandering along the street, laughing and shouting, free from school. We poured out of there. The joy of temporary freedom. And I didn’t mind those walks alone, among but not with the rest of them. I liked watching and not participating. It made me feel stronger, and for months I was convinced that I wasn’t lonely. I also liked to be alone because I thought it might endear me to Silver, whom I’d occasionally see walking with other kids, waving, exchanging jokes with other kids as he made his way quickly away from school.
Perhaps he’d find me more interesting if I were alone, pensive, pondering great ideas—a young philosopher, an independent mind. But at best, he patted my shoulder in passing. See you tomorrow, Gilad. See you tomorrow.
So that Friday, finding myself side by side with Colin as we left the school, I was surprised by how grateful I was for his company.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey.”
Then I was as they were. Which is to say with someone else. All those months of isolation, all those months alone, and then here was Colin.
He offered me a cigarette. I shook my head.
“I should quit,” he told me. “Silver’s always giving me shit about smoking.”
“Really?” I felt a shot of jealousy.
“Yeah, you know. We had this talk one day where he said how I thought I was a rebel for smoking. Like, I was all tough smoking cigarettes. And then he gives me this whole lecture about how smoking is totally not rebellious, about the tobacco industry or some shit. He was fucking right too. As always. So anyway, I’m going to quit. I’m trying to.” He laughed.
I waited for the jealousy to pass. The sense of betrayal even. As if, all this time, Silver had been mine alone.
I said, “You know the day that guy was killed, Silver took me to a café. We spent the afternoon there.”
Colin looked at me, “Yeah? That must have been intense, man. Seeing a guy like that. Fucked up.”
“Yeah it was.”
“What’d it sound like?”
“I don’t know. It was. To be honest? The noise was hidden by the sound of the train. It was fast. Then there was nothing. Then there was crunching. Like branches being broken in half. But all of it was kind of far away. Like it was underwater. Or I was. I don’t know.”
“Fuck,” he said and glanced at me sideways. He seemed impressed.
We walked quietly for a while, Colin blowing smoke. We walked down the stairs into the métro.
“So you going to this protest on Saturday?” he asked as we slumped down into two forward-facing seats.
“I guess. You?”
“I was thinking about it.”
“We can go together if you want,” I said, after a long pause.
He nodded. “Yeah, O.K. Sure, that’d be cool. All right. Cool.”
We exchanged numbers and he got off the train at Nation. He raised his chin at me as the train rushed on. For the first time since arriving at ISF, the fact that it was the weekend meant something to me.
* * *
I opened the door. My mom was