Concrete Flowers

by Wilfried N'Sondé

  BY EARLY EVENING, the party at Black Move is starting to wind down. Rosa Maria is thinking about Jason, but he’s vanished. The crowd prevents her from seeing him. She silently cherishes the warm feeling comforting her and summons up her perseverance. It’s a calling, the most beautiful of them all! For the two of them, she hopes they won’t make love in the sleazy basement that smells of piss, decay, and lubricating oil. She imagines a huge bed, silk sheets, like in the song she heard when she was a child, when the king’s horses drink in the middle of the bed, a bouquet of periwinkles draped on the bedposts, Beauty and the Beast style, if you know what I mean, and peaceful sleep until the end of the world.

  To bring the night to a close on a high note in the basement of tower C, the music changes, the sound system releases a final series of romantic melodies. Far in the back of Black Move, Rosa Maria taps her feet nervously into the space below her sad throne, boys rush to ask girls to dance, last chance to score before heading home. Newly formed couples embrace each other, cling to each other, tightly, take over the dance floor and begin a ballet, their pelvises playing the lead roles, holding on to each other firmly in the low light and dust, blood pumping from being so close to another person’s body, a frenetic waltz, swirl of fabrics rubbing against each other, inner thighs touching in step, sweat intermingling, the bass vibrating right into the heart revs up the excitement, electric shocks in the spinal cord, some sweet words, a few compliments risked in the brouhaha of the basement, the hope of seducing.

  No one invites Rosa Maria to dance, but she doesn’t lose hope. Jason doesn’t notice her. He doesn’t come to her. She knows he’s the specialist in the art of gallantry. In the neighborhood, it’s said that no girl can dance twice in a row with him and walk away with virgin lips. Abandoned, she coils up, her hands between her legs, chin on her chest; her beloved still hasn’t approached her. A little lamb completely lost, afraid, terribly sad, it’s an unfair game. She knows she’s helpless, alone, without any particular appeal, transparent, a stranger to beauty, gives the impression of suffering permanent discomfort. The world has forgotten her! Still, she does not give up hope. And what if he actually came up to her, really close, took her by the hand and gallantly invited her to dance with him in the humble, charming style of the well-dressed gentlemen in the balls of the olden days that she so admires in the movies on television . . .

  Her dream is here, right in front of her. He’s kissing the beautiful Fatou on the lips, his hands are moving like crazy all over her back, her sumptuous hair sways with the rhythm of the kiss, the caresses go right under the T-shirt and then on to explore her belly and navel. At the end of the song, they both head for the exit, hand in hand. The crowd makes way for them, he’s upright and as proud as a cock, she’s shaking her rear end in the faces of her defeated rivals.

  Rosa Maria bites her lip and is once again the little dreamer girl, two long braids on either side of her head, an old Sicilian lullaby playing in her ears. She sees her mother again, making her tender, measured gestures with her morning hairstyle before breakfast. Those were the first years living in the projects, when everything was brand new, when there was hope after all the tough times in Sicily, the departure for France, all the modern comforts in an area close to the Parisian periphery.

  JASON HAS LEFT. Minutes go by and temper Rosa Maria’s ardor. Her legs are heavy. She gets up and heads out with the others. The young girl crosses the alley of the railroad station; it’s already nighttime. Rosa Maria melts into the crowd of passersby rushing to get back home. She goes by unnoticed in the middle of the shopkeepers’ rackets, selling off their final merchandise cheaply before closing up, poultry, fruit and vegetables, clothing in unseemly colors, of mediocre quality.

  She tries not to think about anything as she’s crossing the main artery of the housing project between the supermarket and the mayor’s annex. Then she goes past the crossroads, with the huge multicolored flowerpot in the middle, walking quickly and quietly to avoid being noticed, on her tippy-toes, her head slightly leaning forward, hands in the pockets of her blue sport jacket, over jogging pants in the identical color, wide, a refuge for hiding her femininity, which is sorely lacking. Rosa Maria isn’t precocious. She smiles while tightening her lips to hide a disgraceful set of teeth that she much prefers to wearing braces, which would make her a laughingstock at school.

  On the concrete bench in front of her building surrounded by black wire fencing with several holes in it, Rosa Maria recognizes Mouloud. Alone, perched on the back of the bench, cigarette in his mouth, he takes a long drag before sending the smoke into the air, then spits a trickling of saliva while smacking his tongue between his lips, and remains in that position contemplating the ground, his legs spread apart and his elbows on his knees. Such moments of solitude take up most of his days, preoccupied with vain attempts to reorganize the disorder in his head. Distracted, he slowly turns around when the young girl comes up to him.

  —You already here, Mouloud?

  —Yeah, I got freakin’ bored, I had to make a move. For a club it sucks . . . You know, Rosa, to be honest, your brother wouldn’t want you hanging around there, you know that, right?

  Pensive, Rosa Maria sits down next to him. Mouloud moves to make room and avoid physical contact with her.

  —He would have understood my reasons. Antonio, he understood everything, you know that well enough. He was your buddy, wasn’t he? Oh well, better head on home. I’m late, my father’s going to kill me!

  —Yeah, Rosa, you have to listen to your father, it’s about respect, you know! Your brother’s not here anymore, but you’re lucky, you still have your father!

  She hesitates a moment.

  —Do you really think it was drugs that killed Antonio?

  —Leave it alone, Rosa, don’t try to go there. Some shit you just have to let slide. Even me, his homey, he didn’t tell me everything. Think about yourself, let it go, don’t get caught up. You’re like a little sister to me. I swear on my mother’s life, I got your back. I promise, you can count on me.

  Mouloud gets up, stands up straight, in an official and dignified position, his chest upright with his right hand placed on his heart. Rosa Maria smiles and touches him on the shoulder:

  —Thanks, Mouloud, honestly, you’re so nice!

  Mouloud also has his head down often. He speaks very little but spits a lot, a propulsion of little transparent bubbles at regular intervals, the result of a skilled movement between the teeth, the tip of the tongue, and the upper lip. In twenty-five years he’s become a real master in this respect, it’s second nature to him. His father had ordered him to do his military service in the army of the country of his ancestors, to avoid him turning into a sissy. Mouloud stayed for more than a year in a barracks in some far-off location in the desert somewhere in North Africa.

  Since that time, the young man produces a maximum of twenty sentences a day. Over there in the desert, he learned the hard way that he was French. Trauma, abuse, bullying, blows, and daily humiliation. To avoid becoming the housemaid and the whore in his group, in a leap of pride, he reacted by hitting and biting, out of intense desperation, and imposing his will with the strength of his fists.

  These days, there’s a dryness in him, a kind of gaping wound that affects him mentally and partly impacts his normal ability to speak. Since Antonio’s death, he feels more or less OK in Rosa’s company, even if he can’t express his feelings. At times, he concentrates for a while and then explains to the guys in the neighborhood, who’d never even dare to contradict him:

  —You see, she’s a nice girl. I respect her and all, you know. She doesn’t pray, but she does the right thing, you feel me? She’s nice, you know, on my mother’s life. Plus, we’re talking ’bout my homey’s sister. Now that he’s dead, I gotta watch out for her, you feel that?

  He often avoids looking directly at her so that his eyes won’t betray the compliments stuck on the tip of his tongue. He prefers to spit in silence and admire her when she’s
not looking.

  Mouloud hardly ever smiles and never dances. He’ll randomly beat somebody up for showing a lack of respect or giving him a funny look. His fists clenched so tight they could almost perforate the palms as he violently swings to strike the faces with a crash of bones and flesh, swollen skin, red knuckles, the impact of bodies falling to the ground, kicking in the ribs, screams of pain, stop, shit, stop! Your basic brawl, taking off long before the police show up. Mouloud is practically indifferent to pain. On his return from the army, he got closer with Antonio, who saw in him a young man alone and somber and took him under his wing. Mouloud listened to him talk with real fascination and followed him around like a shadow, proud to be his right-­hand man.

  Mouloud often sits on the bench listening to the others talk or watching them play football. The moment they start talking about girls, he gets uncomfortable and takes off.

  —Anyway, they’re all just a bunch of bitches, oh yeah, swear on my mother’s life!

  Most of them resolve the issue of love with about twenty or so euros, a little less for fellatio, more for extras, well, all depending on the means and the moods that day. Margarine, the blond with the big tits, forever wearing skirts that are way too short, waits for them in the basement of building F.

  After a moment of silence on the bench, Mouloud turns toward Rosa Maria:

  —You shouldn’t waste your time at Black Move, it’s too seedy for a girl like you. Antonio would never have wanted you moving in those circles.

  —Yet he was the one who set up that club, he’s the one who even negotiated with the electrician to turn the power back on.

  —Yeah, but he didn’t do it so that you would go there, he arranged it for the others. You remember when your sister wanted to show up the first time, how he threw her out? Now that he’s not here anymore, look at the way they treat you, they don’t even respect you anymore, the bastards. The whole thing disgusts me, you know, that’s why I got out of all that shit, I swear!

  —That’s not true. Even Patrick, the DJ, recognized me, he waved to me, yeah. Everybody saw him.

  —Patrick? He’s a clown. Gimme a break!

  He spits on the ground between his legs then raises his head toward her. Rosa Maria holds her hands together between her knees, shoulders pulled inward, rocking back and forth trying to get warm.

  —He’s gone, Antonio. For me, it kills me, I think about him all the time, I’m so sad. I have to enjoy myself, Mouloud, you understand. I’m still young after all, gotta live my life, you know . . . and it’s really for the music. When I listen at home, my father screams at me, he tells me to stop the savage shit. Well, look who’s coming!

  Fifty yards away, Marguerite, nicknamed Margarine, turns the corner of the middle school and heads toward the bench. Rosa Maria recognized her silhouette under the dim light of the streetlamp. Mouloud clenches his jaw into a pout of disgust then spits furiously to the left of the bench.

  Rosa Maria calls out to her friend and waves at her to come over:

  —Margarine, Margarine!

  Margarine smiles, raises her arms in the sky too, and rushes over. Her long blond hair sways on her shoulders. Huge, intense, bright blue eyes illuminate her little pointed nose, which sits above her plump, turned-up pink lips. Every morning, she exaggerates their sensuality by carefully putting on dark red lipstick. Margarine, a pearl, stunning, one of a kind in the neighborhood. You can see her strutting up and down the little alleys in the hood, always happy, smiling, head held high with a big proud chest beneath, dramatically indecent flattering outfits. She walks in heels way too high that accentuate her voluptuous waistline and hips. She shakes her well-rounded rear end, a veritable moving temptation. She provokes and arouses desires. The young woman mesmerizes her admirers, makes men go crazy. Her generous curves and suppleness of a grass snake blows their minds. When she passes by, it’s a hypnotizing spectacle for the male sex and a scandal for the women. Housewives curse her and barely hold their tongues, filled with insults of the lowest order:

  —You not ashamed to dress like that? Slut, fucking machine, wait till you get old, whore, bitch in heat. Wait till you see your face when I get a hold of you!

  When serious family men bump into her, they first tense up, and then they have a hard time swallowing their saliva. Margarine hypnotizes them, they go crazy in their pants, a moist and humid tornado in their routine and boredom. She opens them up to a forgotten and frightening universe, the raw desire to possess a young supple body and to lose their face in her ample bosom beneath her firm skin. One last chance for folly, to be intoxicated, the appetite for a wild ride, to forget and pant in cadence to the point of complete exhaustion, having traversed many skies.

  When she left high school on her sixteenth birthday, she started her activities in the abandoned basement of tower F and has since serviced many with the power of her flesh. This is how she earns a living. A reasonable number of daily tricks to shelter her from being in need, in a discreet location below the building, a mattress covered in dark sheets, a small coffee table with a lamp that gives off a pale light, thus creating the illusion of mystery and privacy.

  Mouloud is uncomfortable with Margarine coming over to them; he’s clearly agitated:

  —Why do you talk to that whore?

  —Cut it out, Mouloud, she’s my friend, don’t speak so loudly. Even my brother really liked her, he left her alone, he used to say that we should respect her and not cause her any harm. It’s not her fault, you know, if she’s sometimes with boys, she wasn’t lucky with her mother, who took off, and her father, who drinks like a fish.

  —OK, Rosa, be careful with this slut . . . I’m outta here!

  With one final spit, Mouloud crushes his cigarette and takes off. No money in the world would make him say hello to Margarine. A few minutes later, she arrives at the bench.

  —Hi, Rosa, how’s it going?

  Four kisses on the cheeks, then the two young ladies hug each other affectionately, clinging to each other for a while.

  —Cool, and you?

  —Making do. What you doing hanging with that part-time Islamist? He’s lost it, he freaks me out. Be careful, he’s not working with a full deck!

  —No, it’s because you don’t know him. He runs his mouth, but honestly, he’s so kind, all heart, and really sensitive, I swear! And he’s my neighbor, he lives two doors down from me. I’ve known him since I was a kid, you know?

  —OK, it’s your business, Rosa, but be careful all the same . . . Say, when are we going to take a trip, just the two of us?

  —Cut it out, let’s not even talk about it. You know as well as I do that things aren’t like before.

  —What, Rosa, weren’t we good together the last time? OK, whatever. By the way, I saw your sister Sonia working on the checkout line at the supermarket. Did she leave school or what?

  —Yeah, with my father unemployed and everything, you know, things are tough, so Sonia decided to make some money so she can help us out. With the housework that my mother’s doing, we’ll be in a better position to pay the bills, you know.

  Margarine is taken by a fit of the giggles:

  —Hey, tell her to do like me. We could share the basement. She would make a whole lot of dough. Oh yeah, I promise you that!

  —I don’t like it when you get like that, please cut it out! You liked my big brother, Antonio, very much, didn’t you? I’m sure he wouldn’t want to hear you talking like that!

  Margarine pauses, her features freeze and become sad, her blue eyes become misty, clouded by bitterness. Tones of regret can be heard in her voice, fear too. She bites her lip, breathes deeply, and responds in a serious manner:

  —Don’t bring up Antonio anymore, Rosa, he’s gone, that’s all, there’s nothing more to do, there’s no point. It hurts, Rosa, when I think about him . . . just don’t, please.

  For a moment, she disappears into the pain of a bad memory, her sad eyes look up toward the sky, sorrowfully recalling all the great moments she h
ad with him right up until the tragic end.

  —You know, Margarine, I think about him a lot. It’s just not possible that he died all alone . . . It’s not possible, somebody did it. For me, that’s how I feel.

  Margarine exhales slowly like someone getting rid of a heavy weight on her chest. She turns toward her friend and adds in an exasperated voice:

  —Forget it, it’s the drugs, Rosa, it’s really serious shit, this stuff, it makes people crazy. Even the best of them, like your brother, they don’t know what they’re doing after a while. Don’t ever get into it, that’s all! You know, Antonio had started hanging out with some shady characters, dangerous guys. That’s what made him lose his way.

  —How do you know that, Margarine? He talked to you about it? You sure he was taking drugs?

  —No, I don’t know anything . . . I mean, I’m not sure . . . He’s gone, Rosa, let it go . . . it’s the kind of stuff that gets repeated all around . . . They say he started using coke shortly after leaving home, you know, that’s why you never saw it, he didn’t want to get your family mixed up in it, Rosa.

  —But why, shit, I don’t get it . . . Why?

  Silence overwhelms the bench surroundings. Images of the past scroll by with the strong feeling of waste . . . Everything was going so well when he was still there. Rosa Maria daydreams and sees herself sitting on her brother’s knees again. He’s tickling her while pinching her with his index fingers on the sides above her hips, she wiggles all around without ever really stopping him, the scene continues and drags on eternally. Every so often in her crazy movements, she touches his cheeks and enjoys the rough touch of his five-o’clock shadow growing in.