Radiant City

by Lauren B. Davis

  At the corner, Jack waits for the light to change and there is a space around him that other pedestrians do not enter. A no-go zone, it seems, picked up by osmosis. Matthew wonders how he might cultivate one of those.

  Matthew stands and they greet each other, shaking hands.

  “How’s it hanging?” says Jack.

  “Too crowded. Too hot. Otherwise fine.”

  “Tourists, huh?” says Jack. “Any movies?”

  They scan the offerings at the three nearby theatres—a selection of French comedies that neither speaks French well enough to enjoy and three American action films: Independence Day, Chain Reaction, Mission Impossible. They look at each other. “Nah,” they say.

  “Let’s get out of here, then,” says Jack. “Up to the Seine. It’ll be less crowded there.”

  They head along Saint-Germain, but as they walk they hear a commotion of some sort ahead of them, and Matthew’s skin tightens. He glances at Jack who, frowning, peers over the heads of the sidewalk crowd. There are voices, some shouting. Car horns. Someone has a bullhorn. Matthew tries to make out the words and cannot.

  “Can you see what’s going on?” he says.

  “I don’t know.” Jack has picked up his pace, and as before, a space opens before him. “Demonstration of some sort, I think.”

  Matthew follows, thinking that they should be slowing down, should be running in the opposite direction, but they do not do that. They head into whatever is before them, on instinct, on adrenaline, on training.

  People are unable to pass. Cars are at a standstill. Horns honk impatiently. A taxi driver gets out of his cab, yells something at the people in front, slaps his open palm on the roof of his cab, gets back in and slams the door. Then he presses the horn. The sound goes on and on until other drivers join in creating a furious clamour, and Matthew fights the urge to put his hands over his ears. People mill about, some turn back, some duck down side streets. Whistles blow. The bullhorn squawks and squeals.

  Perspiration runs into Matthew’s eyes and he wipes the saltsting away. He feels the weird calm settling over top of the adrenaline, his vision distancing, as though looking at things through the wrong end of a telescope. Panic rises, but it is off to the left somewhere, happening to someone else. He follows Jack and within moments, they are at the corner of Saint Michel.

  It is a large demonstration, thousands, probably. There is something pagan about it, like a parade of some sort. The crowd is mixed—French, North African, young, old. A number of women wear the hijab. The clothes of the Africans are like bright flags in the burning sun. Matthew knows immediately who they are. These are the sans-papiers and their sympathizers. A few days ago, riot police stormed the St. Bernard church, which three hundred illegal African immigrants had occupied for the previous seven weeks while they demanded the right to stay and work in France. People had been hurt. The papers had carried pictures of the police using tear gas and clubs on the immigrants and their supporters.

  Now the demonstrators carry banners. “XENOPHOBIE!” “Unies et solidaires!” “Sans papiers—Made in France!” People play djembe drums carried around their necks. They shout slogans. They march arm in arm. Traffic snarls Saint-Germain as far as Matthew can see. Police in black jumpsuits and high-laced boots stand around in groups of five or six, talking to each other, smoking cigarettes. Their white vans are parked at the corners.

  Jack begins snapping photos. “Good,” he says to no one in particular. “That’s good.”

  Matthew senses a change in the atmosphere, as though the air pressure has dropped. He scans the crowd—looking for the source, looking for conscious confirmation of what he has noticed at a subconscious, animal level. Finds it. A group of Frenchmen push their way to the front of the crowd. They yell taunts and jeers. It is easy to guess that these are Le Pen supporters—the political polar opposites of the demonstrators, dedicated to stopping immigration and “returning France to the French.” Two years before, skinhead followers of Le Pen murdered Brahim Bouarram by throwing him into the Seine.

  Within seconds, a group of demonstrators breaks ranks and confronts the Le Pen supporters. An African man walks calmly up to the biggest of the thugs and spits at him. The slime hits him squarely in the face. Although it takes only a nanosecond after that for all hell to break loose, Matthew sees it coming, as though in slow motion. People run, some of them scream. Someone shoulders Matthew and he spins around, and is struck again. This time he falls to the ground and immediately the weird calm of a moment before is shattered into a million explosive percussions that go off inside his head like machine-gun fire.

  Paris disappears. He tastes dust. The world reduces to the need to seek cover. He hears shots, people screaming, sees small bursts of flame around him. He covers his head and crawls on his elbows and knees, kicking out where he must. If he can just get to the wall, inside a doorway, he will be safe. Everything pinpoints to the idea of this safety. He screams. Obscenities. Loudly. Someone trips on him and he scrapes his knuckles. Floundering, Matthew grabs a metal pole with one arm and holds onto it as though it is a wooden spar. He wraps his legs around the pole and puts his hands over his ears, closes his eyes. He wants the noise to stop. Just make it fucking stop!

  Then there are hands on him, huge, heavy hands, lifting him up off the ground. He goes to swing, to strike out at whoever it is. Something traps his hands, a great bear hug traps his arms. Someone speaks to him.

  “Okay, Matthew. All right, Matthew. Everything’s fine, Matthew. You’re in Paris, Matthew. Nice summer day. You’re all right, Matthew.”

  Whose voice is that?

  “Come on, pal. Come on. Come on back.” The voice is familiar, but he cannot place it.

  Gradually, the world begins to quiet.

  “Breathe in. Breathe out. Not a problem. Okey-dokey. All right, Matthew.”

  Oh, yes. That’s Jack.

  “I’m gonna let you go now.”

  “Let me go.”

  “I’m gonna let you go.”

  The bands around Matthew’s chest loosen, but the hands are on his shoulders, turning him around. Jack’s face is close to his, looking into his eyes.

  “How you doing, buddy?”

  “Shots,” says Matthew.

  “No shots,” says Jack.

  “No shots?”

  “Nope.”

  The world is quiet again, or at least, quieter. The altercation seems to have dissolved. The demonstrators are walking again. Even the car horns are muted. “Oh,” says Matthew. The sidewalk dips and dances beneath his feet. He is afraid he may throw up. He reaches out and grabs the front of Jack’s shirt. People pretend they are not looking at him.

  Jack keeps an arm around Matthew’s shoulders as he turns him toward two approaching cops. “Just be cool,” he says.

  “Ça va?” one of the cops says, nodding in Matthew’s direction.

  “Ab-so-lu-ment,” says Jack, smiling broadly. “A little too much sun and vin,” he says, making a tilting gesture toward his mouth with his hand, thumb extended.

  “No problems?” says the cop.

  “No, no,” says Jack.

  The cop looks at Matthew. “Okay?”

  “Sure. Parfait.” He feels glazed over, empty, a thin eggshell with nothing inside. If Jack moves away, the weight of the air will crush him.

  “Okay. You stay out of sun, okay?”

  “Sure,” says Matthew, and the cops move slowly away.

  “Let’s get you out of here,” says Jack.

  Matthew lets Jack lead him up rue Hautefeuille to place Saint-Michel. They walk slowly, and Jack keeps talking to him. Nonsense talk. “Doing fine. Doing good. Just walking. Walking in Paris. On a nice sunny day.” The way you would talk to a skittish horse. To a frightened child. Just the sound of the deep voice keeps Matthew moving forward.

  Jack points to the underground pedestrian walkway, which will get them through the demonstration. “Think you can do that?”

  “I think so,” says Ma
tthew, but he is not entirely sure.

  “Atta boy,” says Jack.

  The underground passageway reeks of urine and is dark after the bright sunlight. Matthew stiffens as they descend, but Jack’s hand on his shoulder is comforting. They pass only two other people, both women. They come up on the other side of place Saint-Michel, next to the Seine. The demonstrators pass behind them now, across the Saint-Michel bridge on their way to the Palais de Justice on Île de la Cité. Jack is protective, his hand on Matthew’s upper arm, walking just slightly in front of him, clearing a path like a giant plough through a field of humanity. “See,” he says. “All over now. Nothing to worry about. All over now.”

  They walk along the Seine, past the booksellers in front of their green wooden booths. The sun dazzles on the water. Notre Dame rises like a galleon. Matthew is afraid he may begin weeping and makes a sound. Jack gently squeezes his arm. It gives Matthew strength and the tears recede.

  As they near the Square Tino Rossi Matthew hears music. Singing. A man’s voice.

  “Hmm,” says Jack. “That’s Gardel.”

  “Gardel?”

  “Carlos Gardel. The Argentinian saint of tango. They don’t dance to him in Argentina. Out of respect.”

  “How do you know that?” Matthew says.

  “Picked it up in Argentina,” says Jack. Then he smiles. “Along with a very pretty girl named Clara.”

  There is a blue-and-white striped awning set up for shade, and the dancers move about under it in that passionate, rhythmic foreplay that is tango. There are not many dancers at this time of day. Things do not really heat up until nighttime. Since they are not there to dance, Jack and Matthew do not pay the admission that would get them entrance to the actual dance floor. They take seats on the green metal chairs along one side of a railing that separates the dancers from the curious. Jack produces a slim flask from his back pocket.

  “Drink.”

  Matthew does. Some time passes. Perhaps thirty minutes. Maybe more. They sit side by side watching the dancers prowl. Music changes, the sound like waves.

  “So, nobody had a gun, I’m guessing,” Matthew says at last.

  “Not that I could see, anyway.”

  “I heard shots.”

  Jack reaches over and pats Matthew on the knee, as if he were a father and Matthew his son, although there is no more than ten years between them. “Listen, I’ve heard those very same shots before. Lots of times. And mortar fire. And don’t get me started on low-flying airplanes.” Jack laughs softly. “I’m better than I used to be, though. This the first time?”

  “Third.”

  “Ah. Well, let me tell you. The trick is, as far as I can tell, and fuck what the doctors tell you—wait, you seeing a shrink?”

  “Nope.” Matthew’s leg trembles only in fits and starts now. The shaking in his hands is practically unnoticeable.

  A girl in a red dress, her hair short and slicked back, gleaming with pomade, dances backward past them in the arms of a wire-thin man who looks like a pimp. Their eyes remain locked onto each other and their bodies move in perfect harmony, as if they are preprogrammed. Jack raises the camera to his eye. At the last second, before she turns, the dancer snaps her head around and stares upward. Jack clicks the button. “Good,” he says, and it is unclear if he means the shot, or the fact that Matthew is not seeing a therapist. “I guess they help some guys, but I gave up on ‘em too. Anyway. The trick is not to let it define you. You get an episode, you get up, you dust yourself off, and you keep going on with your day. You don’t let the fuckers live in your head. You don’t let that present-tense thing get to you. You know what I mean?”

  Matthew does not, and listens hard, for he suspects this is a secret he must learn.

  “One good thing a shrink told me was this: there’s a part of the brain that always lives in the present tense of the trauma, whatever it is. Like some little lizard part of your brain doesn’t realize that whatever shit happened to you isn’t still happening. So, if you have an episode, and you spend the rest of the day, or the week, or the fucking month dwelling on it, I figure you’re reinforcing that shit. Key is to kick the little fucker out as soon as you can. See what I mean?”

  “Yes, possibly.”

  Jack looks over at Matthew and then takes a handkerchief out of his pocket and polishes his lens. “It may do no good to talk about the fucking episodes, but sometimes it does help to talk about whatever’s causing them. Say what happened, and then what happened next, you know? And then what happened after that. Train your brain to realize it isn’t still going on, that you got past it. Like, I got shot, then I woke up in hospital, then I ate some crappy hospital eggs, pinched a nurse’s ass and went back to sleep. Tell the story over and over again, lead the mind through, and convince your lizard brain that time’s moved on.” Jack pauses, holding the camera up to his eye. “So, if you do want to talk about what happened … well, you know.”

  “I’ll keep it in mind.”

  A couple stops near them and executes a series of complex moves with their legs, intertwining them and stepping first right and then left at fantastic speed. They are both dressed in black, she with a red rose in her hair, he with a red rose in his lapel. Jack’s camera clicks happily away.

  “Anyway,” says Matthew, feeling deeply vulnerable and foolish because of it, “thanks for saving my ass back there.”

  “No problem.”

  “Remember Kosovo? Seems like you’re always saving my ass, doesn’t it?”

  “You can do the same for me one day. Have another drink.”

  And Matthew does, his hand damn near steady.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Saida swirls olive oil over the top of the hummus and sets it inside the refrigerated display case next to the bowls of eggplant moutabal, taboulé, moujaddara and spicy potato salad, as well as the platters of falafel, safiha—little pizzas with meat and pine nuts—two kinds of sausages, both manakiche and makanek. She arranges the pastries, the baklava, maamou, with either pistachios or dates, and macaroons flavoured with orange water. An oriental bakery near their apartment delivers fresh sweets to Chez Elias every morning. Saida herself is a fine pastry-maker and would prefer to make them herself, but there is no time for such things, nor is the kitchen nearly adequate. Already the savoury dishes must sometimes be cooked at home in the early hours of the morning. Since she left her husband, such responsibilities have fallen to her. Ramzi handles the coarser tasks, such as grilling the skewers of chicken and lamb or stuffing the pita with falafel while she makes the rest in the minuscule kitchen, just an alcove really, behind the counter. Saida does not mind that the kitchen is not private. She wants every customer to see how spotless and well organized the little space is.

  In fact, the entire shop gleams. The floor, the four tabletops, and the counter—everything is spotless. Her father is her ally in this. She and Ramzi were raised to believe that a clean mind and clean body are intertwined, that a clean house is the outward manifestation of good spiritual health. If, however, Ramzi has relaxed his diligence as he grew into manhood, Saida lives with a bleached rag in one hand, ready to pounce.

  Her father, of course, is not helpful in any practical sense. But he is her father and he is old and if he chooses to spend his days sitting by the window watching the world go by, reading Lebanese newspapers, then Saida feels he has earned the right.

  She wishes Ramzi would leave her father alone. Every day the same thing and this morning is no exception. She listens with only half an ear to father and brother argue. The same old argument.

  “We can’t stay here forever,” says Ramzi. “We’ll never get ahead.”

  Her father shrugs. “No place is perfect. This is not so bad. We eat.”

  Ramzi makes a sound of disgust.

  “You want to go back to Lebanon?”

  “No. I didn’t say that. But, well, maybe.”

  “I’ll never go back. It is the land of the dead for me. And you are saying nothing. Wind across t
he sand.”

  “There are more opportunities elsewhere. There is more sunshine elsewhere.”

  “There are opportunities here. You think you have it so hard? You own this business. You can take a wife. Feed your children. The stores are full of things to buy.”

  “This city is depressing. People are so unhappy.” Ramzi stands with his hands in his pockets, his stocky back and strong shoulders hunched. He looks out at the rain streaming down the window. “And unhappier still to see an Arab get ahead.”

  “Bitterness will only make your breath sour! I will not move again. How many times do I have to say this?” The old man strikes the table with the flat of his palm just as a girl walks in; she looks at them, hesitates.

  “Good morning,” Saida says with her friendliest smile and gestures with her hand to the sky. “Such dreadful weather.”

  “It’s September, fall already,” says the girl, stepping in, not looking at the men. “It’s the season. October will be worse.” She shakes her umbrella in the street and leaves it propped up against the door.

  “What can I get you?”

  “Espresso. A double to take out.”

  “Have a pastry to go with it, yes?”

  “No. Just the coffee,” says the girl, but she eyes the confections. “Oh, all right. Just one.”

  Saida wraps the baklava in wax paper, then she picks out a fat piece of pistachio maamoul. “I give it to you. For later. You’ll like it.”

  After the girl leaves, the men resume their never-ending argument. To go. To stay. Finally, her father calls Ramzi ungrateful, which gives him an excuse to take off his apron and throw it on the floor. He walks out, leaving the old man in the doorway calling after him.

  Elias turns to Saida; his arms open wide as if he could catch understanding trying to escape. “What does he want? What does he want?”