by Sasha Martin
“You mean Paris, France?” I asked, feeling the words drop from my mouth like marbles. France sounded far away and dreamy, like a fairy tale … or an idea, nothing more than the Mona Lisa or the Eiffel Tower, firmly fixed to the pages of history and geography class. Not real life.
Pierre nodded.
“You’re going to learn to speak French. You’ll go to a French school.” He looked at Toni. “Toni will finish her last semester of high school there.”
Toni sat back in her chair. “Why can’t I just finish school here?” she cried. Her hand played with the necklace her boyfriend had given her on Valentine’s Day.
Patricia stared down at the brocade tablecloth, an intricate swirl of rust, mustard, and plum ornamentation that recalled Aladdin’s carpet. “Can you please pass the rolls, Sasha?” She didn’t look up, slowly tracing her finger along the designs.
“Sure.” My words felt louder than usual. I sat taller. “No problem,” I added, a new edge to my voice.
“Don’t worry, you’ll be able to spend your 13th birthday here. We won’t leave until August. You’ll have a month and a half to say goodbye, Sashita,” Pierre added, using the Spanish nickname they often called me, meaning “Little Sasha.” “Even though we’re going to be in Europe, we decided to let you spend your summers with Connor, Tim, and Grace in New Jersey.” He looked over at Patricia, then back to me. “We’ll make sure of it. You can keep up your horseback riding, too … or maybe you’ll find something else you’d like to do once you get there.”
Since Michael’s hospitalization, the Dumonts had made a considerable effort to make sure I spoke more regularly with my half siblings. As I considered spending several weeks in a row with them, I wondered why I couldn’t just live with them. But I knew the truth. At 24 years old, Grace had her own budding family. Finances were incredibly tight. Tim was in film school; when he wasn’t studying, he was working. Connor was about to get married, wrapped up in his own new beginning.
Who the hell moves to France at a time like this? I thought, shocked by the violence with which the words spun in my head. Feeling like an ingrate, my cheeks flushed with shame. Why couldn’t I just be happy for the opportunity to see the world? I looked up the stairs, past the landing, toward Michael’s bedroom.
“What about my mom?” I spoke up, working to flatten the tremor in my voice. “Will I see her?”
I felt the air leave the room. Patricia pressed her lips together. No one had heard from Mom since her last letter, not even Connor, Tim, or Grace. It was as if the emotional vortex of Michael’s death had finally battered my mother’s spirit past the point of no return. She was gone, physically and emotionally.
“Here, have some juice,” Pierre said. He splashed a little into my glass, his eyes fixed on the rush of orange swirling up to the top. “You can always write her any time you want.”
There was a pause.
“Finish up your breakfast, Sasha; it’s almost time for school,” Patricia said quietly.
I stared down at the roll on my plate, contemplating the stillness between goodbye and hello. It no longer mattered if the popular kids teased me. My life would never be the same. My hand floated over to my glass. I brought it to my lips slowly, on autopilot. As I chewed the cold pulp, my mom’s words skated through my mind:
All is well.
All is well.
All is well.
Up until that moment, I’d taken all the turmoil of my childhood with the buttoned-up obedience of an innocent schoolgirl. Though I’d cried and prayed for different outcomes, at the end of the day I always did as I was told, no matter how sad it made me. But moving two months after losing Michael felt wrong.
Feeling different does not guarantee a different result; one has to act to invite change. I had neither the power nor the will to speak out. Perhaps it was a bit of fatalism taking over; nothing I could do would stop the move. I certainly couldn’t call Mom or hope to return to her. She’d told me more than once during her visit that my best chance at a good life was with the Dumonts.
And I couldn’t talk to Patricia and Pierre. The mere mention of Michael’s name was met with averted eyes, as though I’d uttered a curse word. I knew that if no one wanted to talk about him, there was certainly no talking about Paris.
As the move approached, I didn’t bargain with the universe as I had in Rhode Island. I didn’t pray. In fact, I didn’t even pack my boxes, except to make sure my big white teddy bear made the trip. The movers took care of the rest. Instead of bracing myself for the inevitable tremors that would come with a cross-continent move, I simply laid myself open and waited for the earth to swallow me up and spit me out wherever it would.
Before I knew it, I was carrying my suitcase through the glittering glass tunnels of Charles de Gaulle Airport and out into the pulsing heart of Paris. That night, I wrote Mom a postcard, squinting through the jet lag.
September 7, 1992
Hi Mom,
I made it to France! I’m tired, so I drank a coffee on the plane to stay awake. (Ew, I know.) Paris is beautiful. But there are so many buildings all around me.
I miss you and Michael so much.
I love you.
The chipper tone was purely for Mom’s benefit. Without the comforting embrace of the familiar, I’d lost all my bearings, like a ship traveling through a moonless night. I washed up in Paris a hollow vessel. I could feel only one thing: complete, all-consuming emptiness.
When Mom didn’t write back, there was nothing to do but hole up in my room in our new, suburban town house and cry for hours.
Eventually Paris called to me, luring me out of my room and away from my self-pity. Trains, whistling along the track, delivered me from our quiet banlieue (suburb) into its bristling heart, near the Arc de Triomphe, the Tour Eiffel, and the Trocadéro. After the thick heat of Atlanta, the city’s foggy coolness slid over me, pulling me along damp sidewalks into cheery boulangeries loaded with macaroons, croissants, thick slabs of flan, and velvety chocolate truffles.
My first encounter with a baguette, torn still warm from its paper sheathing, shattered and sighed on contact. The sound stopped me in my tracks, the way a crackling branch gives deer pause; that’s what good crust does. Once I began to chew, the flavor unfolded, deep with yeast and salt, the warm humidity of the tender crumb almost breathing against my lips.
I inhaled entire baguettes while walking along those wide, tree-lined avenues, in awe that a country had developed bread so divine out of nothing more than flour, yeast, water, and salt. The key, I would learn, was giving the dough time to develop. After a slow, cool ferment, it was blasted with an inferno of heat and steam, giving the crumb chew and the crust crackle. This is why, if I were to believe my eyes, no French person deigned to muddle it up with a careless smear of butter.
Hundreds of baguettes later, I cannot understand how the French limit themselves to one trim slice with dinner (though perhaps that was unique to the families I dined with). I suppose it’s the result of having eaten good bread for an entire lifetime. In those early days I could never be so moderate; I ate as though the bread held some secret I could only uncover by obsessive consumption. Inevitably, I gained 15 pounds.
Artisan French Bread
It is possible to make very good French bread at home. Slow and cool yeast development is the secret to big flavor (no warmer than 65°F). I do this by mixing the yeast with a little flour and water ahead of time into a “poolish” starter. For a soft interior and thin, shattering crust, the French use steam-injected ovens. At home, a spray bottle and baking stone are the best tools for the job. This recipe—based on techniques learned at King Arthur Flour—takes three days, though there’s barely 30 minutes active work. (It’s certainly easier than packing a few bags and hopping on a flight to Paris!) Start on Thursday, and Saturday’s dinner will be magnifique.
For the poolish:
2 cups flour
1 cup cold water
⅛ teaspoon active dry yeast
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon yeast
2¼ teaspoons salt
Cold water (about ¾ cup)
Day 1 (5 minutes active): Make the poolish around bedtime. In a large bowl, stir together 2 cups flour, 1 cup cold water, and ⅛ teaspoon yeast into a pasty mass. Cover with plastic wrap and set in a cool spot (60° to 65°F) for 16 to 24 hours. Try on a shelf in the basement, by a drafty window, or—if it happens to be summer—over a bowl of ice.
Day 2 (10 minutes active): The next afternoon or evening, when the poolish is full of bubbles, knead in the remaining flour, yeast, salt, and water. The dough should be very wet and sticky.
Use the “slap-and-fold method” to form a dough ball: Stretch the mass up with the hands, then slap it with vigor onto a clean counter, and fold over itself. After 20 such folds, I like to wash and dry my hands, then pat the dough. The surface should be tacky and soft, but not leave gunk on the hand. A dusting of flour might be needed if it’s rainy or humid, but I prefer not to add any—wet dough makes bread with bigger air pockets. Cover with plastic wrap. Return to the cool spot for another 16 to 24 hours.
Day 3 (15 minutes active): The next afternoon or evening, the dough will be full of large air bubbles. Slap and fold the dough a few times. The gluten will have developed quite a bit since the previous day; the dough will be smooth and elastic. Divide in thirds. Gently shape into 2-inch-wide logs taking care not to disturb the air bubbles. Nestle them between the folds of a floured cotton dish towel. Cover and let rest in a warm spot 20 to 30 minutes.
Preheat oven to 450°F (with baking stone, if using). Immediately before popping the baguettes into the oven, slash each one three times with a razor (or sharp knife) and spray with water. Cook on a sheet pan or directly on a baking stone until the baguettes are golden brown and the inside is cooked through, 20 to 25 minutes. Cool a few minutes before slicing to keep the crumb from mashing down. Enjoy, without so much as a trace of butter.
Makes 3 baguettes
CHAPTER 9
The Better Part
of a Minute
THE BAGUETTES WERE the amuse-bouche to Paris’s living banquet. I consumed every morsel of that city, sniffing out the creamiest Camemberts, the fluffiest omelets—even the great citrus squeeze of a bubbling Orangina. I found myself stopping more than once to inhale the Nutella-slathered crepes sizzling on every street corner, filling the air with the scent of chocolate. So much of the food was a teenager’s dream, though much of it challenged me as well.
When I was too afraid to indulge in more exotic dishes, I simply ate with my eyes. I’d watch as fleets of trim women in black pants and colorful scarves carried home their daily parcels, trailing sharp scents in their wake (possibly from an especially stout blue cheese or gamy duck liver pâté). I’d stand agape in front of butchers’ windows, taking in the sight of long, wet cow tongues or embarrassingly elongated sausages. I’d hold my breath while admiring voluptuous rounds of stinky cheese, which unapologetically buttressed thick pâtés and quivering gelatins.
If the food of Paris was heady and salacious, so, too was the noise. Every few minutes the pop and whine of mopeds and scooters challenged car bumpers at every turn. When outside got to be too much, I slipped inside or away, into dark, candlelit cathedrals that had taken half a millennia to build, or onto stately bridges carved with the heads of long-lost kings. This city was both alive and ancient in a way I’d never seen, never touched, never felt before. I was small in her embrace—safe.
I disappeared into Paris’s unquestioning rhythm, lulled by the babble around me, letting the confusion wash over me. I couldn’t communicate with anyone, and I didn’t want to. It was the perfect vacuum.
The week before school began, Patricia and Pierre bought Toni and me bicycles, giving us the freedom to continue exploring Paris in our own way. I clung to Toni—her laughter, her smiles, and the unspoken solace that she’d lost a brother that spring morning, too.
As Paris’s boulangeries and landmarks became our everyday vistas, the urgent call to explore them was quelled. We settled into our neighborhood, pedaling for hours through the farmland that quilted right up to our small town house on the outskirts of Paris, where we’d pluck snacks right off the land: a few leaves of lettuce, a spicy crimson radish, or the aptly named horse carrot. If I was really lucky, I’d forget about Michael for the better part of a minute.
Then school began, and with it the requirement to communicate. I could no longer play the perpetual tourist. French schools are organized around ability. By segregating the students, teachers were better able to target the learning needs of each group without anyone getting bored or restless.
Since I didn’t speak a word of French, I was placed in the bottom tier of eighth grade with the “difficult students”—those who didn’t care, or who simply weren’t capable of earning the highest marks. We were called the “C” students. The only level below ours was the special-needs class and, if I were to believe my classmates, I’d end up there if I didn’t learn the language quickly enough.
On day one, our immersion class chanted “Bonjour” in unison. By the end of the week, I could stumble my way through several sentences. The words piled into my brain, faster and faster. Science was in French. Math. Language. Social Studies. Music. While the rest of my classmates took notes with silver-tipped fountain pens, I poured over the photos and charts in the textbooks to decipher the day’s lessons. Sometimes it helped, but usually it didn’t.
For the first time in my life I was failing, not just one subject, but every one. Teachers’ comments were always the same: “Travail insuffisant. Poor effort.” My grades were consistent: 0/20, or the even more infuriating 0.5/20. But I was trying. It’s just that my grief interrupted my studies, and my studies interrupted my grief. I was a girl divided.
In an attempt to create some sort of cultural familiarity, I’d gravitated toward the handful of Americans at my school. We commiserated about how difficult French immersion was—but I was still doing more poorly than any of them.
After seeing my grades, Patricia and Pierre encouraged me to make friends with some French kids. “They can help you learn the language more quickly,” Pierre said, “Your grades will improve.”
So against my shyer inclinations, I brought my tray of steak hache, pommes frites, and fromage blanc to the only open spot at a table of French kids. Their impossibly skinny hips dripped into vintage bell bottoms, baby doll dresses, and tuxedo “tail” shirts that reached the back of their knees. Doc Martens’ fireproof soles and steel toes finished off their grunge ensembles and signaled that we were entering the mid-nineties.
No sooner had I sat down than everyone turned to me. One of the girls finally spoke up. “Can I have your fromage blanc?”
Fromage blanc is a mild form of cultured milk, like yogurt in texture but sweeter. The school typically served it with a dollop of raspberry preserves. Every day I’d scan the cafeteria, hoping to see it on the buffet line. Though it was my favorite dessert, I passed it to her without hesitation.
From that moment on I was one of them. They taught me “argot” (French slang) by the wrought-iron fence after school as quickly as I learned proper French in the classroom. I could rarely distinguish between the two types of speech, and often offered crass comments to my teachers, only realizing my mistake when the class erupted with giggles and the teacher flushed.
At recess my new crowd, the Doc Martens, clamored around me to gawk at the things I’d said. They slapped me on the back and taught me new words with knowing smirks, promising they were clean. Though this didn’t do much for my grades (which had now been eked up to 9/20), I liked being the “funny” friend.
Before Toni left for college, she came in to my room and sat on the rumpled edge of my bed.
“Sasha, I know you miss him. But be careful not to fall into the same trap he did. You can get through this.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“You just remind me so much of him, sometimes.”
“That’s a good thing, right?”
I watched her eyes, looking for a telltale wince. But before I could read her, she pulled me into a hug and tickled me until I laughed.
“Of course, Sash.”
In Toni’s absence the house fell silent. Instead of coming together in our grief, Patricia, Pierre, and I drifted apart. Pierre worked longer and longer hours, often not coming home until after 10 p.m. Business trips whisked him away for weeks at a time.
When Pierre was home, Patricia would pack picnics and we’d eat in the car, juggling china plates, real silverware, and cloth napkins while rumbling along to some famed site, like Mont Saint-Michel—a good four-hour drive. The contortions of the gargoyles were the only therapy we had.
But when Pierre left again, Patricia drifted through the kitchen, anchoring herself with French recipes. French cooking suited her. I think it’s how she mourned Michael and processed the fact that her youngest had left the nest. The grimmer her mood and the longer Pierre’s trips lasted, the more elaborately she cooked. Soon she was torching oblong ramekins of crème brûlée until their razor-thin sugar crusts all but shattered on sight.
I’d find reasons to walk through the kitchen into the back garden just to catch a glimpse of her artistry. After my fifth appearance, she’d huff, “You’re letting the flies in!” or “Inside or outside, which is it, Sasha?” I’d tiptoe to my room or the fields beyond.
Increasingly unsure of how to connect with the Dumonts, I sought out other ways to feel—something, anything. I took my first drink of whiskey at 13 in the girls’ bathroom with my new friend Monique. Being a little girl was no barrier to buying booze directly from French liquor stores.