You Deserve Nothing

by Alexander Maksik

  Know anything about poetry, Ariel? he said. She didn’t say anything, or not that I remember anyway. She looked pale. She shrugged her shoulders and went to take a shower. She barely spoke to me the rest of the day.

  * * *

  Ariel never said a thing about it, but you could tell she hated me. It was over, you know? A week later we went out to this bar in the fifth, The Long Hop. Aldo was there, Mazin, and some other people I don’t remember. We were all drunk. The place was crowded and there were maybe, I don’t know, five of us at this little table. And then Colin shows up and sits down on some girl’s lap and smiles at me. I ignored him.

  I mean he’d been around. It’s not like it was the first time I’d seen him since. But God his face made me sick. Seeing him there that night, I wish I could say that I only felt anger but the truth is that when he sat down I was afraid too. It’s a blur but at some point Ariel says, How’s Mr. Silver? And I think she’s talking to Colin because they’re both in his class but then I see she’s looking at me. And everyone’s looking at Ariel waiting for the point. So she asks again and I say, I don’t know. She says, Oh come on, Marie tell them. I look at her horrified and she says, Fine I’ll tell them.

  Marie hooked up with Mr. Silver. After that I don’t remember what happened exactly. Just that Colin said it was bullshit. In your dreams, he said. Then I didn’t know who I hated more. My face was so hot and everyone was staring at me. They must have seen it. I turned to Ariel and I called her a bitch and I left.

  I went to the river and walked fast and then I stood out on that bridge, it was the Petit Pont I think, or the Pont au Double and I stood there not knowing what to do feeling completely alone. Like it had never quite occurred to me before, the idea that I was really alone. Or that’s how it felt. And there I was in my stupid skirt, in that fucking outfit Ariel had chosen for me, and I was shivering and I just thought fuck it and I sent him a message. I wrote, “I’m in your neighborhood should I come?”

  I waited looking down into the river watching the boats go by. Then, like a miracle, he said yes.

  I walked along the river on the quai side past all the locked up bouquinistes. It wasn’t until I reached the Pont Neuf that I really thought about what I was doing, where I was going. I’d been walking in a fury thinking about Ariel. She knew what had happened with Colin. She’d promised to hate him. She’d wanted to call the police. Tell her parents or something. And there she was sitting in that bar with him laughing at me. It’s all I could think about, but when I reached the Pont Neuf and I crossed the street to walk up the rue Dauphine I realized where I was going. It slowed me down. I took my time walking up that street but I didn’t once think I wasn’t going to do it.

  He lived on the top floor. No elevator and this little uneven stairwell that went around and around, up and up. At the top the door was open. When I walked in he didn’t do anything but look at me. I was a mess. My heart was beating so hard. The minute I saw him, all I wanted was for him to wrap his arms around me. Just walk over and take me in your arms. But he didn’t and I didn’t know what to do with myself.

  Somehow I ended up sitting on his kitchen counter. I don’t remember. I just tried to be tough. I told him I came there to fuck him. I mean if you can imagine. I came here to fuck you, Mr. Silver, I said. He must have thought I was a joke. He watched me with those eyes and that smile like he was so fucking smart. Like he pitied me a little bit. As if he saw everything, knew everything about me. The prick.

  At some point he touched me. He came forward and slid his hands into my hair and then it was over. I mean never in my life have I felt so out of control as I did with him. It isn’t as if he was some big super-masculine guy who just wrapped me up and took me away. But there was something about him I swear to God. I could feel the warmth of his hand against my neck, you know, his fingers touching my skin and all I felt, I swear, was thank God, thank God, thank God you’re touching me. I was so grateful. With my whole body I was grateful and relieved. And then he kissed me the way he kissed with that soft slow fucking tender gentle you’re the love of my life way so that I could barely stand.

  I took off my clothes. He made me do it for him while he watched. I was so cold and the window was open and the apartment was cold too, and it was as if I’d been shivering for hours. But I did it and he smiled at me and there was something in that smile that reminded me of the way my mother looked at me when I came down the stairs the first day of school. Then it became a game. I mean I relaxed and I pushed back a little bit, I told him to take off his own fucking clothes and he liked that I think. We laughed together and Christ what a relief that was, the two of us laughing, and then I was so glad to be there. Then all I wanted was him to take me up to his bed. There was nowhere else I wanted to go. Nowhere else.

  I watched him. He never looked away from me. Not even to step out of his jeans. He was in O.K. shape. I mean he was stronger than I’d imagined. He had hair on his chest and on his legs. It frightened me. Not that I found it unattractive. Or attractive. Or anything really at all. Just that I noticed it. Then he pulled off his underwear. I was embarrassed as if it was too much for me to see even if I did see. I mean it was the first time I’d seen a man standing naked like that. I turned away and started climbing up. I noticed he’d made his bed and I thought that was nice, that the sheets were clean and the pillows were in their place. Then I got under the comforter and it was maybe the most wonderful thing I’d ever experienced in my life up to that moment. I mean I was so cold and then there was this man there, and I was sliding into his bed, slipping in like that with the sheets cool against my skin.

  Then he was there behind me, his arms, his body. He was hard against me. He held me so tight. He was very warm and smelled good like lemons and ocean water and I closed my eyes and just waited there. I could feel the hair on his chest pressed against my back. Then there was his mouth against my neck. He wasn’t really kissing me, just sort of holding his lips against my neck and I could feel him breathing, could hear him sort of sigh and I thought, maybe this matters to him. Maybe he feels something.

  The way he touched me, I mean everything he did was strong you know? He seemed so certain of himself. Or maybe it was just that he was practiced. I don’t know. It felt good. I was afraid for a lot of it. Afraid of him. I felt out of control. I mean I would have let him do anything he wanted to me. Anything. He was so slow the way he put it inside me like that, just a millimeter at a time, that I felt like I was losing myself. I didn’t even think about the condom. It didn’t even occur to me. He was the one who said it. I’m going to put a condom on, Marie. But at that moment? I didn’t care. Do what you want, I thought. Do whatever you want.

  I had this sensation of falling, or maybe flying, of being in motion, of being in motion and somewhere else, away. And then all I wanted was for him to come, as if his coming would confirm something. When he did, when I felt him give in, he lay down next to me, and he was sweet. He kissed me and took me into his arms and we lay there together for a long time listening to the night outside with him stroking my back, my head on his chest.

  I had to leave. I’d have never asked to sleep there, though that’s what I wanted more than anything. I wanted to stay there and never leave the way you want things like that. But I got up and dressed and left him there. I left without having any idea where I was going. I didn’t even think about it until I got into a cab and realized I’d have to go back to Ariel’s. There was nowhere else to go.

  She was asleep when I got there. I took off my clothes and got into bed with her and lay on my back looking at the ceiling feeling happy, so happy that I laughed out loud. I mean just a little laugh but it woke Ariel up.

  I’m sorry, she said. I told her it was O.K. and she asked me where I’d been. I rolled over onto my side and looked at her. I mean I looked at her right in the face, right in the eyes, and told her everything.

  GILAD

  He was standing there with that leather bag slung over his shoulder. I’d s
ee him walking into school returning a book or a magazine to its place, watch him buckling the straps. He didn’t miss a thing that guy, paid attention to every detail, always played the part. I never saw him with anything ugly. He never would have shown up at school with a nylon backpack or an old computer case the way other teachers did.

  That morning I saw the bag and I knew it was him. I was trying to figure out what I might say if I walked over. It’s a long train ride and I couldn’t imagine sitting with him all that time.

  I didn’t have the courage. When the train came ripping up the tracks I was disappointed. I was facing the train as it came and I saw the guy who’d been wandering around talking to himself charge toward Silver. I said, “No.” I said it aloud, my eyes wide, everything slowing down. I saw the man bend where he was hit, square in the lower back so that his body looked like a loaded bow. He was so unprepared for it. His arms flew upwards, his head snapped back and then he went forward. There was a heavy thump and very fast he disappeared beneath the train.

  I was sure it had been Silver. When I saw him still standing there I felt, at first, a brief surge of joy—because it hadn’t been him, yes, but mostly because this thing that had happened would mean we now had to talk. It would be something between us, something shared.

  He took me to a café across from the Luxembourg Gardens. Au Petit Suisse. We sat together at a table and drank coffee. I pretended to be more moved by what’d happened than I was. It was thrilling to be there with him, just two friends having coffee. I couldn’t think about the man who’d died without being grateful for being there. I knew that I should have felt something. Sadness or shock. I played at it a little and the act made me feel comfortable in the long silences. I stared at the table and tried to think of something important and interesting, something impressive to say to Mr. Silver. He took this as sadness and tried to comfort me.

  Not that I wasn’t scared by what had happened. The violence had been sickening. The speed of it, the randomness, all of it scared me. But I was grateful to have been there, for that bond with him. I wouldn’t have traded it. Not even for the guy’s life. It was ours, exceptional, incredible, terrifying, and it connected me to him in a way none of his other students could be. I wouldn’t have given that up. Never.

  I remember wondering why he hadn’t moved, why he’d done nothing, why he’d stood there staring, frozen in place.

  * * *

  When I returned home that afternoon my mom stood up from the couch and wrapped her arms around me. She’d been crying.

  “The school called. They said you never showed up today. Jesus Christ, honey.”

  We sat on the couch. I told her about the train and about him. She listened and cried, holding my hand while I spoke. The leaves had turned but still it was warm enough to keep the windows open.

  “It could have been you.”

  “Mom, I’m fine. He wasn’t near me.”

  “Still. I’m so sorry you had to see that. Oh sweetie,” she said squeezing my hands with hers. “I’ll send a note to Mr. Silver. It was nice of him. You like him, don’t you?”

  “He’s the best teacher I’ve ever had.”

  She smiled at me and touched my face. “I’m glad. That’s lucky.”

  “Does Dad know?”

  “No, not yet. He’ll be home later. You can tell him then.”

  I shrugged.

  She looked at me for a moment longer, “You know, honey, what you saw . . . ”

  “Mom, it’s O.K., I’m not ruined, it’s just something that happened.”

  She took my hand. “I’m not talking about today. I mean July.”

  I looked at her, anger rising.

  “Listen, you know me, I’m not a victim, and I’m not one of those women who sits cowering in the corner.”

  I withdrew my hand.

  “Gilad, you know very well that I’m not.”

  “I don’t.”

  “You do know that.”

  “And yet you’re still here.”

  “I should have left?”

  I stood and looked down at her.

  “You should’ve left,” I said. “You should leave now. We should leave now.”

  WILL

  I slept fitfully, finally gave up and got out of bed at five. The sky was that dark morning blue. The moon was up, some fading stars.

  There were very few people on the streets. I stopped at Carton to buy a pain aux raisins from the humorless woman who pretended not to know me. I walked up rue de l’Ancienne Comédie past the unconscious homeless men on the grate, crossed Boulevard St. Germain, bought a copy of Libération and descended into the station. I stood alone on the platform. Across the tracks a man slept on the floor with his back turned toward me. There was a bottle on its side, wine in a black pool by his knees.

  When I heard the train deep in the tunnel I turned and watched it come sweeping fast out of the dark. It arced toward me and blew into the station. As it passed I felt a chill of vertigo as if I were standing atop a very tall building looking down on the streets below. The car was empty. I took out a photocopied packet I’d put together for seminar and tried to read.

  When I arrived at school the English department was locked. First in, I left the fluorescent lights off, turned on the lamp at my desk and made a pot of coffee. Outside the sky was turning pink. There was frost on the field. I sat at my desk with the paper and a cup of coffee and ate my breakfast.

  The United States was preparing to invade Iraq. There had been protests throughout Europe and an enormous manifestation was planned for the coming weekend.

  Toward the end of the paper was a short article about what had happened at Odéon the day before. A homeless man had shoved thirty-two-year-old Christophe Jolivet, a marketing executive from Nantes, in front of a train. Dead by the time emergency workers arrived. I took a pair of scissors from the ceramic cup on my desk and carefully cut out the article.

  The fifteen-minute bell rang. I collected my things and walked down the hall to my classroom. Inside, the morning light was beginning to fill the room. I wrote the day’s quotation on the clean white board and then I waited for the bell to ring.

  * * *

  They were all there except for Gilad.

  “Has everyone read the packet?”

  They nodded except for Colin who smirked at me. I raised my eyebrows.

  “I didn’t have time, sir.”

  “You didn’t have time?”

  “No.”

  “So why’d you show up today?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Why are you here? In class today. Why’d you come?”

  “It’s not like I have a choice, sir.”

  I laughed. “We’ve covered this, haven’t we?”

  “Just because you say I have a choice doesn’t mean I do.”

  “Ah, I see. I’ll tell you what, challenge the idea. Why don’t you get up and leave?”

  “Because, sir, if I get up and leave, you’ll report that to Mr. Goring and I’ll end up in detention for skipping class.”

  “I won’t tell anyone.”

  “How do I know I can trust you?”

  “You have to make a choice Colin—you have to make a choice to trust me, in the same way you have to make a choice about staying in this class. I know you’d rather believe you’re the subject of great oppression but the fact remains that you have a choice. Despite the powerful forces you seem convinced are keeping you down, you still have a choice. That may not be the case for Abdul but it is certainly the case for you.”

  Upon hearing his name, Abdul glanced up from his desk.

  “Why would it be different for Abdul?” Ariel asked.

  “Because, Ariel, Abdul believes in God.”

  “And?”

  “And Colin doesn’t.”

  “And?”

  “And, Ariel,” Rick said, shaking his head, “someone who believes in God might believe that God makes all their choices for them. They might believe that they’re not resp
onsible for their actions, that it’s God who’s responsible. But if you don’t believe in God then who the hell else would be responsible for the choices we make?”

  “Excuse me, Rick, but, I believe in God but I don’t believe he makes my choices for me.”

  “And that’s why I said might.”

  Abdul raised his hand.

  “You don’t have to raise your hand, Abdul,” I said.

  “Ummm, I just believe in God’s plan. God has a plan for all of us and we just, you know, live that plan.”

  “So you’re not responsible for anything you do? You’re just a little puppet and God’s pulling your strings? I mean, like what you just said? God made you say that?” Hala said looking at him in disbelief.

  “Pretty much, yeah,” Abdul said looking down at his desk.

  “Are you kidding?”

  “No,” he whispered.

  “God,” Hala said in disgust. “You give us such a bad name.”