by Imran Hashim
1.00pm
Three more hours. This is torture…
1.13pm
…of Guantanamo Bay proportions.
3.57pm
I’m finally seated for Patrick’s lecture (third row, centre). Any minute now…
5.30pm
Patrick’s class has just ended, and my mind’s in turmoil because things aren’t at all the way I thought they would be. I was as excited about a lecture on glasnost, perestroika and the demise of communism as a girl could ever be, but Patrick didn’t even once look in my direction. Not once. I was staring him down the whole lecture, hoping…I don’t know…at least for some sort of acknowledgement. I knew that after our date, things would be different—but to become invisible? I did not see this coming.
At the end of class he was out of the room quicker than mercury, leaving me feeling poisoned in the stomach and wondering what might have happened between Sunday evening and today that might have provoked such an icy turn in relations. Why is he acting this way? Part of me is panic-stricken, yet another part of me (the part that wears a habit and answers to the name of “Mother Superior”) is gleeful because I have got what I deserve—a huge slap in the face.
Patrick obviously regrets what happened on Sunday. And if I had any shame left in me, I should too. I’ve lost my moral compass and all there is left to do now is to wake up from this foolishness.
“How’s the food? Is it too spicy for you?” I ask.
Thierry wipes away the beads of sweat on his forehead with the back of his hand. “No! I like spicy food,” he says, before taking a big sip of his mango lassi.
It’s Sunday, and I’ve arranged to meet Thierry for a biryani lunch at Passage Brady in Paris’ own Little India, to take my mind off things a bit and also to pick his brains for an essay because, here in France, even engineers are forced to study philosophy in school. Sometimes this country really scares me.
After lunch we walk a bit along the Canal St Martin, stopping on one of the many iron bridges to watch a small barge navigate a lock. It’s a beautiful winter day—crisp cold air, blue sky and light like lemon popsicles. There are people about, but not too many, and it’s mostly families who have come to take a stroll alongside the canal. Some couples are browsing the independent boutiques lining the quay, and one starts to kiss and it seems like I’ve never felt lonelier my entire life. I look away and start to move again.
“Ça va?” Thierry asks, as he catches my arm.
“Ça va,” I say, almost choking on the words.
“Hey, what’s wrong?” he says, looking concerned.
I feel really vulnerable and, against my better judgement, tell him what has happened—my feelings for Patrick, our movie rendezvous the week before, the kiss, the cold shoulder he’s been giving me since then, my confusion over this whole thing, whatever it is.
Thierry listens to all this, his face hard and unfathomable. Finally he leans back against the bridge and says, “You mustn’t let him get to you. You came here to get your Master’s, so maybe you could focus on that…”
“You don’t get it, do you? I’ve been searching for someone like him my whole life; that’s why I came to Paris. And I’ve worked so hard for this.” A sigh of defeat escapes me. “Paris was supposed to be kind to me, but now I feel like I’ve been let down.”
Thierry laughs a bitter laugh, as if I just told him that the Right cared for the poor. “But Paris isn’t kind,” he says, folding his hands across his chest. “Paris is a bitch. But she’s your bitch and you’ll love her, and if you’re lucky, she might even get you your man. When I first arrived from Rouen, I had a hard time finding my place, and a friend told me, ‘You’ve got to go back to when you had your first Paris-moment. And whenever you’re down, just go back to that same spot, and Paris will remind you why you’re here.’”
“What’s your Paris moment?” I ask, turning to face him directly.
“Running in the Parc des Buttes-Chaumont at six in the morning, before the city comes to life. What’s yours?”
I think for a while, and as it turns out, I do have a Paris-moment too.
“Mine is when I turn into Boulevard Saint Michel to take the Metro home from school as the sun is setting.” I start to smile at the thought. “It turns the grand Haussmanian facades on both sides of the road all pink and vermillion and orange and gold. Every single time, I can’t help but stop in my tracks and think to myself how lucky I am, to be at that spot, right that very moment.”
I’m finally on the phone with Dad. I ask him what’s going on, and at first he says nothing is going on, absolutely nothing.
“Then who the hell is Meifen?” I say in a sudden flash of bad-cop inspiration. I’ve never used that kind of language with my parents before.
He falters, and my heart sinks—I know he’s going to tell me the truth and I’m beginning to fear that maybe he has cheated on us after all. After a long silence, he says, “Meifen’s my masseuse. I started going for massages two months ago because of all the stress. I knew that some of the masseuses at the centre offered ‘extras’. But I never did anything like that with Meifen. She just gives me acupressure massages, and she’s become like a friend. We chat during the session, and I tell her my problems. She listens. She’s a good listener.”
“Then why did she send you a Valentine’s Day card?”
“That was the massage centre’s policy. All the clients got one.”
I lean against the kitchen sink and grab a bag of chips (emergency supply). “So you’re not having an affair?”
“No.”
“Have you explained all this to Mum?”
He sighs. “I tried, but she won’t believe me.”
I munch and crunch for a thoughtful moment. “Maybe it’s because of the card. You should lodge a complaint to the centre and demand a letter of apology. That would clear the air, wouldn’t it?”
Dad is bowled over by this idea, and very soon I am too. I can’t help but wonder sometimes where my parents’ marriage would be without me.
Five minutes after I hang up with my Dad, I receive a text message.
“Comment ça va? T’es libre le weekend prochain?”
It’s from Patrick. He wants to see me again! I pick up my phone—my instinct is to call him to ask why has he been ignoring me this past week. Why blow hot and cold? It’s so confusing! But I pause just as I am about to dial. I desperately want to know what’s going on in his head, but will he think I’m being needy? Insecure? Besides, what am I going to tell him when he asks me out for next weekend? Should I give in to my heart like last time? But I’ve just been reunited with my moral compass, for God’s sake!
I put the phone down. I take a deep breath.
Oh God, please tell me what to do.
I close my eyes and wait for a minute in silence but it looks like God’s busy right now. I’ll have to give Patrick a holding statement until I get some guidance from the Big Boss.
I pick up my phone and text: “Ça va bien, merci. Afraid I’m not free next weekend. Kind of busy with personal stuff. Will get in touch when things calm down, okay?”
I hit “Send” and switch off my phone.
Exam results are out this morning! I rush to school and make my way straight to the Political Science Department. I ask the clerk for my results slip (the Sorbonne, ever the stickler for tradition, still communicates in hard copy). She looks at me like I’m a moron from another planet and tells me to check the department notice board.
“You pinned the results on the notice board?” I say in a querulous voice. Nobody warned me about this. Nobody said anything about public shaming. “But isn’t it sensitive personal information?”
“Only if you do badly,” she says without looking up from her computer screen. “The notice board is on the first left, beside the vending machine. And close the door behind you.”
I follow her directions with some trepidation, and when I turn the corner, I see that there’s already a crowd huddled in front of the no
tice board. The people right at the front exclaim in surprise, delight, shock and anger, while those at the back tiptoe and shove to get a glimpse of the grades on full display.
I spot Gula standing to the side, along the corridor, looking rather grim, while Yannick hugs her from the side and strokes her hair. Oh my God. This is just too much to handle.
“Salut,” I say as Gula and I air kiss. “So, how did you guys do?”
“I did all right,” Yannick says, keeping his eyes on Gula.
“And you, Gula?”
Instead of answering, Gula breaks free from Yannick’s arms, takes a few steps to the coffee machine and gives it a ninja kick to the side. It leaves a small dent on the machine’s white surface, next to a few other similar looking scars. She strides back to me and says, “No good. I’m very upset.”
Okay. Time to face the music. I brace myself and push my way to the front of the notice board. I scan it quickly, and when I see my name, I zoom in on the row of numbers lined up beside it. Since the maximum score in France is 20 (don’t the French just love doing things their way) I need an average of 10 points to pass, but the very last column indicates that I have an average of 8.9. I run my eyes down the average grade column for the rest of the class. 12.3, 10.5, 11.2, 13.5, 11.8, 10.3, 11.4, 14.1 (Yannick), 9.7… At the same time, I know everyone is doing the same, pausing at my 8.9, tracing it to poor, stupid Annabelle. I already feel their pity, and it’s brutal and humiliating. The loss of face couldn’t have been greater, save for the university pinning up a photo of my lady-parts.
Didi appears beside me and says, “Salut chérie, how did you do?” as his eyes search out his own results.
“I failed. I totally fucking failed,” I say, fighting back tears. “I’ve got to go. I’ll talk to you guys later.”
Sitting at my kitchen table later that night, pushing peas and baby carrots around on my plate, I contemplate my academic future. How did Legally Blanche, a plan so full of promise, go so awry? The answer comes back crystal clear—I haven’t worked as hard as I should, and besides, my French still has a long way to go. I’m going to have to do much better in Semester 2 to make up for my results in Semester 1. In Semester 2, the thesis counts for three modules, and the last I checked, I was still tinkering with the title. I am so skewered.
Just then, my phone beeps, and I see that a message from Patrick has come in. It says, “Saw your results. Don’t feel too bad about it; I know you’ll make up for it next semester. Come talk to me, I’ll help you take your mind off things.”
God… Is this a test? Or is it a lifeline? I’m already such a failure at school, and now more than ever, I can’t afford to be a failure in love as well. I’ve been working so, so hard to meet the right guy, and now that I’ve found him, I can’t let this chance slip by. I just can’t.
So God, I’ve made my decision—I’m going to seriously date Patrick and see where things go. I know that it’s a problem that he’s my professor, but I’ll find a way to make it right. I don’t know how, but I will. I promise.
Chapter 7
IT’S ANOTHER COLD, gloomy March day in the most beautiful city in the world. The skies are grey, there’s a damp chill in the air, and I pull my winter gloves on tight and tuck them into the sleeves of my coat as I emerge from under the Art Nouveau canopy of Abbesses Metro station. I pull my scarf up to my chin, put my head down, and trundle up Rue des Abbesses to meet Thierry for lunch.
When I reach Le Relais Gascon, I ask for a reservation under the name of M. Lefort, and the cheerful young waiter leads me up a narrow wooden stairs to the second floor dining room, which offers a vibrant and colourful contrast to the street outside its windows. Surrounded by bright murals of life on Montmartre, patrons eat and chatter cheek by jowl. Nobody seems to be bothered by their physical proximity to strangers; I guess it’s nice to huddle in the dead of winter. Thierry is at a small wooden table at the back of the room, sandwiched between an elderly gentleman and a white lady with a Rastafarian turban, and stands up when he sees me. I go over and we do the bise across the table, his beard tickling my cheeks.
“Il fait froid dehors!” I say, taking my coat and gloves off before settling into my chair.
“N’est-ce pas? I listened to the radio this morning, and they say the temperature will be around -3 to -5 degrees for the rest of the week. But it’s warm in here, no?”
“Yes, it is. Very cosy,” I say, looking round and smiling.
We get round to the business of going through the menu and ordering, and talk about the horrid weather a bit more. But by the time the food comes though, I am ready to dispense with the chit chat because today, I have an agenda. Resolute in my ambition to not be the worst student for two consecutive semesters, I am hoping to give my political science vocabulary a good workout, and am all psyched up to casually bandy words like “epistemic” and “autarchy” around in the manner of Foucault’s love child.
I am just about to launch into the latest antics of Nicolas Sarkozy as my opening gambit when Thierry tells me that he has broken up with Estelle, his Taiwanese girlfriend.
“Oh Thierry. I’m so sorry to hear that. When did this happen?” I ask.
“Sometime towards the end of January,” he says. “We’ve been together for a little more than a year, but the last few months have been very difficult. Actually, I’m going through a rough period, and I feel like she’s not giving me the support I need.”
I ask Thierry what the problem is, feeling rather guilty myself for not having detected his troubles.
“My dog’s dying; she’s got kidney problems,” he says, his lips pressed together in a taut, grim line.
My heart goes out to Thierry—I’ve never seen him look so sad before, and I reach out to touch his forearm. It’s hard enough for normal people to lose a beloved dog, but for the French dogowner, the anguish is felt as keenly as losing a family member. No nation on Earth loves its dogs as much as the French—here, dogs have a winter wardrobe, their own medicine cabinet, and get better treatment than English-speaking tourists in shops, restaurants and the occasional hotel.
“But why did you break up with Estelle?” I ask, failing to see the connection.
“She was jealous of my dog,” he says, a look of disgust colouring his face. I fight off an alarming image of Estelle coming to his apartment unannounced and finding Thierry and his labrador engaged in a moment of illicit intimacy. He must have caught my expression, somewhere between shock and confusion, and explains that because of his dog’s worsening health, he has had to spend more time caring for it, which Estelle resented. It all came to a head when, in a fit of fury, Estelle spitefully suggested that Fifi be sold to a restaurant, a fate not unknown to dogs in Taiwan. To rub it in, she loudly lamented that Fifi wouldn’t fetch a good price on account of her “tough meat and diseased kidneys”. Thierry, who had never before witnessed such wanton cruelty, broke their relationship off on the spot.
“And how’s Fifi doing these days?” I ask.
He shakes his head, saying that the news from the vet isn’t encouraging. “It’s just that she’s been my constant companion for the last 12 years, you know?” he says, looking positively grief-stricken.
I nod sympathetically and give his hand a squeeze. I pause to think. After some effort, I manage to say, “I know. Nobody can live in complete autarchy.”
When I reach home later, I find an official-looking letter from Singapore in the mailbox, sealed in an envelope marked Private and Confidential. I love receiving such pompous mail, holding it and wondering about its mysterious sender and contents, imagining that I am the privileged recipient of some secret intelligence to be brought to the grave, preferably about someone else. But I always set myself up for disappointment, because it’s almost invariably from the phone company or some other dodgy institution offering me money for a lottery ticket I never bought or breast implants I don’t need (do I?). In this case, it’s a letter from my bank in Singapore, announcing in no uncertain terms that my accoun
t balance is not to their liking and that I better start topping it up, unless I want to pay extortion fees (which they refer to politely as a “service charge”).
This information comes as a bit of a shock, primarily because my savings are supposed to last me the entire year. Upon careful scrutiny of my bank statement, it dawns on me that I have carelessly omitted two essential items from my initial budget: gym membership and shopping, which have insidiously eaten away into five months’ worth of rent and groceries. Fortunately, I have cunningly stashed away €4,000 in a separate account in preparation for such an emergency, which now means that I have, let’s see…
Oh my God. €900 a month. How the hell am I supposed to live on €900 a month? Isn’t that lower than minimum wage?
The letter from the bank is definitely a sign telling me that I need to act soon vis-à-vis Patrick or risk having to go back home in August broke, older and still single, not to mention the possible ignominy of being a Sorbonne drop-out. I pick my phone off the kitchen table to confirm that I have a meeting with him tomorrow. There it is—his text asking me to drop by his office on Monday afternoon to “discuss your thesis”.
I change out of my black jeans and red knit sweater dress into comfortable home clothes, and make myself some tea to warm myself up. As I take small sips at the kitchen table, my mind wanders to Thierry. The poor thing. I wonder if he’s feeling lonely these days, now that he’s single again. And I imagine it will be quite difficult for him to meet girls, given his, erm…grooming habits, shall we say? Which is a pity because he’d make a great catch for any Communist girl. Socialist even. I mean, he’s smart, decent, interesting...
Maybe what he needs now is the support of his friends. He did look terrible just now. I shall do my good deed for the day and give him a call later tonight just to see how he’s doing.