On Fire

by Thomas Anderson

“Really, I don’t think I can go any further,” Kim confesses, pulling on Zak’s coat.

  “It’s just a few more blocks,” he replies, wondering how he has made it this far. They have just walked from the Latin Quarter, where they found last minute lodgings, across the Seine, past the I.M. Pei at the Louvre, through the Tuileries, to the Great Ferris Wheel and Paris Christmas market at the Place de la Concorde, and now down the Champs almost all the way to the Arc de Triomphe.

  It’s a chill, misty and glowing night on the Champs de Elysees. The pavement glistens with street lights, building coach lights, and seasonal tree lighting. They walk between two rows of chestnuts with strings of white lights looped onto their branches, each creating the shape of a tulip. The Christmas lights reflect cheerily off the windows of the staid 18th and 19th century stone buildings, which are ornate and luminous. Zak and Kim stand near a cylindrical glass kiosk but neither he nor she understands the French posters inside. Is that a musical? Or is that a concert? The intense traffic on the street pays them no mind and noisily rushes past.

  Kim and Zak had agreed to hold off on what their next steps should be. Better to find a place to stay, for however long, and sort things out from there. The view from the Ferris Wheel known as la Grand Carousel had been relaxing, and the Christmas market shopping at beautifully decorated booths had helped to ease the tension of not knowing what to do next. There had been block after block of arts and crafts, food and wine, cookies and candies. The crowds had been cheerful, full of families and kids running around.

  The long walk down the Champs however had exhausted their every last nerve. Nothing could dispel the unmistakable feeling of options rapidly narrowing.

  “There’s a Cartier’s up there somewhere,” he offers.

  “By time we get there I don’t think I’m going to care. Let’s go back to the Di Roma and get something.”

  At this, the evening mist decides it’s a good time to start up again. Arm in arm, they stop for a last view of the Arc surrounded by a sea of rushing cars and sweeping headlights, before they turn around.

  “You know, we’re going to figure this out,” he says, breaking the temporary taboo on the subject.

  “Let’s not rush it,” she replies, too tired to think.

  They take their time getting back to the Di Roma Café, its awnings dressed in icicle lights, its broad windows effusing a warm and welcoming glow. They slip behind a line of bollards on the sidewalk before walking up to the wooden front door, opening it and being greeted by a rush of warm air filled with the smell of hot food, being quickly lead to their seats, ordering pizza and wine before letting the waitress get away. They sit in silence with their wine until the pizza arrives.

  Kim pulls her hair back and picks up a slice with both hands, contemplating it while her fingertips burn.

  “Ok. No point in delaying the inevitable any further,” she says as she bites in.

  Zak balances his own piece of pizza.

  “I’m open to suggestion,” he says.

  “Oh, is it my turn then?”

  “Your turn.”

  Kim arches her eyebrows in a sign of concentrated thought.

  “Hmmm. I guess our plan to stay dark failed,” she speculates.

  “The whole whereabouts unknown thing?”

  “Exactly. Not a success. You’ve got something on your chin.”

  She reaches over with a napkin.

  “Thanks.”

  “On the other hand, it’s a question of resources.”

  “Resources?” he asks.

  “Sure. How many resources do these people have anyway?”

  “Plenty, it looks like.”

  “Okay, but we’re not without some resources of our own.”

  She gulps the last bit of her piece of pizza and goes to work chewing it. She raises a finger glistening in pizza sauce as if to stop the conversation.

  “Uh oh,” he says, “I think I know where you’re going with this.”

  Kim finally finishes and takes a sip of her wine.

  “Brilliant minds think alike,” she says archly.

  “Rarely,” he retorts.

  “I wasn’t even talking about us.”

  “Sure you were.”

  “Honest Injun,” she holds up her hand, the fingers together.

  “That’s racist.”

  “Sorry. Say, who were all those people at the airport?” Kim asks.

  He is forced to do a double take as she performs conversational kabuki.

  “What people?”

  The restaurant is fairly full but no one is seated next to them. It’s loud and he believes it unlikely that they can be overheard. He has watched the door since they arrived and nobody entering has thrown even the slightest interest in their direction.

  “You know, all the people in the heavy coats waiting around the terminal. Didn’t you see? They were putting up cots for them and giving them donuts,” Kim tries to get him to remember

  “Donuts? Really? I suspect a Patisserie conspiracy!” Zak jokes.

  “I think you’ve got it. It’s clearly an attempt to explode the French diet,” she returns, giving him a small kick under the table.

  “Dastardly! But they weren’t French. They were African and I did see them. Conflict in central Africa has people fleeing. The people you see are the lucky ones. They could afford to get out.”

  “But what are they doing staying in the airport?”

  “For many, getting to an airport in the West was probably the only goal. Either they had no plans to go further or they simply couldn’t afford to.”

  “What’s going to happen to them?”

  “The French government will have to act. They’ll have to provide for them until they can safely return.”

  “And it could be a while?”

  “Nobody has the answer for all the many conflicts around the world.”

  “I get it. I really do. Too many failed governments.”

  “And there are too many ways to communicate. It’s no longer possible to keep people in the dark.”

  “Transformative.”

  “Sea change.”

  Chapter 45