by Samira Ahmed
I raise the large brass ring knocker and tap it against the door. It might be open, but I still have some tameez.
“Entrez.” Alexandre’s velvet voice floats out the door that creaks as I push it farther open and step in, shutting it behind me. “I’m in the study,” he calls.
I walk by the Delacroix sketch in the entry foyer, pass the large front room where we sat last time I was here, and enter the central hall of the apartment. It’s dark and not helped by the overcast day. The air outside is humid and charged, like thunderstorms are approaching. It’s a little charged in here, too. I pass two closed doors and then come to a third on the right that opens into an expansive room.
The study (do they call it the library?) faces the street like the front room, but instead of wispy white curtains, heavy dark blue drapes are pulled back from the tall windows to let in what little light there is. The other three walls are all bookshelves, floor to ceiling. There are so many books, some of the smaller ones are stacked horizontally on top of the larger ones.
Looking around, I feel like I’ve stepped through a portal into the past. I know Dumas never lived in this apartment, but it’s easy to picture him smoking on the beat-up leather sofa that looks two centuries old or shuffling through piles of paper on the worn wooden coffee table that’s piled high with books. Alexandre sits cross-legged on the nearly threadbare scarlet dhurrie rug. He’s deep into a book, and I have to clear my throat to get his attention. He pops up to kiss me hello—on the cheeks.
A distinct old library smell wafts over me. “Are all these books, like, two hundred years old?” I ask.
Alexandre gently shakes his head, and his smile is a mile wide. I notice this uncharacteristically large smile gives him the slightest dimple in the lower half of his right cheek. He’s wearing a T-shirt that has a picture of John Lennon wearing a T-shirt that says New York City on it. He might be the hottest dork ever.
“That shirt is really meta,” I say.
“I got it on the street in SoHo when I was in New York last year.”
“The famous cheese-in-a-can discovery trip?” I ask.
Alexandre nods. “I want to live there one day.” He absolutely beams when he says this.
“I’ve been a couple times with my parents. It’s a great city, even though the pizza is totally weak.”
“I thought the pizza was quite good.” It’s cute how he’s defensive about New York. He’s totally wrong, but still cute.
“That’s because you’ve never tried deep dish from Chicago. I know the perfect spot to take you. It will blow your mind.”
“Are you asking me on a proper American date?”
My cheeks flush. I open my mouth to say something but clamp it shut and rub my forehead like it has a streak of marker I’m trying to erase.
“Um, does your family go to New York often?” I’m trying to change the subject to allow my body temperature to return to normal. I didn’t come here to flirt, even if it’s a definite bonus.
“I didn’t go with my family. I went with a . . . friend.” He looks away for a moment. “And you didn’t answer my question.”
I take a breath. “Fine. If you ever make it to Chicago, consider it a date. I’ll even pay.”
“You’re inviting me to visit you in Chicago?” A sly grin spreads across his face.
“Oh my God. How forward. Don’t push your luck.”
“I can see my French charm has no power over you.”
“Does it work with the other Americans?”
“Oui, bien sûr.” Alexandre’s roguish smile appears, accompanied by the little dimple.
“I’m immune to your charm—and to your ego as well.”
He laughs and moves closer to me. “Touché,” he whispers.
I look down at my sneakers. I smile. Wide. Too wide. With too many teeth. Totally American. Alexandre hooks my chin with his finger, and I look up to meet his gaze. He bends his head closer to mine and kisses me on the cheek, allowing his lips to linger. I take the final step that closes the distance between us and run my fingers slowly down his arm. I hear him catch his breath, which means at least one of us is breathing. Then he slowly moves his lips to my jawline and kisses me there, and then lower to my neck. Goosebumps pop up all over my skin, which is odd, because I feel like I’m on fire. He raises his head and looks into my eyes. I tilt my chin toward him. He cups my cheek with his palm.
We kiss.
It’s slow and warm and tastes like old books and Orangina and promises.
It is perfect.
I don’t understand the saying time flies when you’re having fun, because I’m pretty sure this kiss has stopped all the clocks in Paris.
I could live in this suspended animation forever. But I stop before I completely lose myself in a frenzy of kisses, because I know why I’m here. That would be déjà vu all over again.
I clear my throat. “You wanted to show me something?”
He smirks. “I thought I just did.” I elbow him. “Okay, yes. You’re very businesslike for a French girl in August. But I do have some books and papers for us to look at.”
Alexandre walks to the desk while I take a seat cross-legged on the rug. The wool is tatty, and when I run my fingertips over it, there’s still a slight roughness to the fibers. The texture feels weirdly comforting against my palms. Alexandre grabs two beat-up volumes from a tall pile of books and hands them to me. The covers are stained and scarred, the spines mostly faded. But I can still make out the embossed titles: Revue des Deux Mondes 1844–1846. Revue des Deux Mondes 1847–1849.
I glance up at him. “Around the same time as our letters.”
He nods. “They’re bound volumes of a magazine. My uncle dropped a dozen books off earlier this morning—he thinks they may be helpful. He’s been busy with other family stuff and hasn’t had time to look through them.”
“I thought he lived in Arles? Aren’t your parents there, visiting?”
“Oh, um, yes. My uncle had to make a quick unexpected trip here for the day. Some boring real estate stuff.”
“Do I get to meet him?” I’m still nervous about meeting the real Dumas scholar of Alexandre’s family, but I also can’t let this opportunity slip by.
Alexandre squints at me. “Sorry. He’s terribly busy this trip, but he does want to meet you. You’d like him. In some ways I’m more like him—closer to him than I am to my dad. Like me, he believes we should preserve our family legacy. Aggressively.”
I’m not sure what it means to aggressively preserve your family’s heritage—it’s not like there are duels involved in archival maintenance. I’m starting to believe that Alexandre’s uncle is either massively introverted or a figment of his imagination. “I’ll skim through these Revues, and you . . .” I lose my train of thought because I’m staring at Alexandre’s lips, which are even redder than usual, and I suppose it’s from all the kissing. I bite my lip wondering if I’m sporting the just-kissed look, too.
Alexandre picks up where I left off. “I’ll try to see if I can find one of Dumas’s old journals.”
“You have his old journals?”
“Apparently my dad thinks we might have one that wasn’t destroyed or scooped up at auction by other collectors.” Alexandre winces as he says this. I can see how it’s almost physically painful for him to acknowledge the history his family has lost. “I couldn’t find it in storage, but Papa thinks it might be in there.” Alexandre points to a large cupboard with a glass door.
“It could’ve been sitting in this library for years without anyone knowing?” All along, I’ve been curious how people and ideas fall through the cracks of time, and this is one of them—the quotidian acceptance of the extraordinary as commonplace. Taking what you have for granted or just not caring. I guess Alexandre’s dad is a perfect example—it’s probably why Alexandre seems frustrated with him and closer to his
uncle.
Alexandre touches my cheek, then walks to the shelf and opens the door with a creak. That old sweet-musty book smell I noticed when I walked in doubles in strength. I wonder how long it’s been since someone has opened that cupboard.
I run my fingers over the spine of the book I’m holding. A light brown dust rubs off on my skin—I can almost taste the rusty oxidation on my teeth and tongue. I flip open the heavy book, and a cloud of dust puffs out of it, making me cough. Alexandre turns to me to ask if I’m okay. I wave him off, not wanting to open my mouth and suck in any more of the pungent past of this book, but I like that he was worried about me.
The table of contents only lists the Revue issues by date, but when I flip to the back, there’s an index. Bless. The first volume turns up nothing that seems relevant. I pick up the second, heading straight to the index and trailing my finger down the two-columned page. The print is tiny, and some of it slightly smudged; I kind of want reading glasses, and I’m only seventeen. I stop at a name. The name:
Dumas, Alexandre
Fils, naissance . . .
Hashischins, Club des . . .
Scribe de duc d’Orléans . . .
I turn to the Hash Eaters page. It’s an article; I quickly scan down the lines. Honestly, it’s not that quick. My French reading is only half the speed of my English. My heart is actually thumping a little—from a passage in a two-hundred-year-old book. Fine, it’s not only finding a possible clue that’s giving me palpitations. The incredibly hot, charming boy a few steps away from me, the one I’ve just kissed, he has a little something to do with this elevated heart rate, too. Probably. Maybe. Seriously, though, I’m such a nerd. I could’ve spent the next hour making out with Alexandre, but I stopped to heed the siren call of research in a musty old book. May the gods of academe favor me for this sacrifice.
“Boom.” I beckon Alexandre with a finger hook. He takes four giant strides over and takes a seat next to me. His shoulder grazes mine, and our knees touch as he peers at the page. The thud of my heart grows stronger; it’s the discovery. And the boy.
“There’s an entire article on the Hash Eaters Club by Théophile Gautier.” I glance up at Alexandre, whose eyes narrow in focus.
He taps his finger on his lips. And now I’m staring at his lips again. “Gautier was some kind of writer then, too, I think. Maybe a poet?”
I force my eyes off his lips and onto the page. “Anyway, look.” I point to a line and give him a little nod so he’ll read it. He obliges.
“I arrived in a remote quarter in the middle of Paris, a kind of solitary oasis which the river encircles in its arms on both sides as though to defend it against the encroachments of civilization. It was in an old house on the Île Saint-Louis, the Pimodan hotel built by Lauzun . . .”
“Our apartment is, like, right around the corner from where they used to meet. Isn’t that weird?”
“Destiny, perhaps?” Alexandre grins. “But you don’t believe in that, do you?”
“Keep reading,” I urge and move his finger down a couple paragraphs on the page. He turns his hand around, pulls my fingers into his palm, and then flips it back over so his hand rests on mine as we follow the words on the page. I suck in my breath. It feels . . . intimate. Is that possible, when all we’re doing is reading?
“Delacroix spooned a morsel of the greenish paste from a small crystal bowl, and placed it next to the silver spoon on my saucer that I then added to my strong coffee with moderation. He’s describing how they got stoned. Here it says the paste was a mix of the hash plus cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, orange juice, butter—”
“Orange juice and butter? Disgusting. I wonder why they didn’t smoke it.”
“Hash wasn’t exactly the same as weed now. Definitely not like what you have in the States. Here it’s almost like a resin. Most of the time we crumble it and mix it with tobacco.” I raise an eyebrow at him. He grins. “It was research.”
I nudge him a little; he nudges back. He’s still holding my hand.
“Keep reading,” I say. “We haven’t gotten to the good part yet.”
“I disagree,” he says while grazing the back of my hand with his thumb.
I smile, then tip my head up to kiss his neck.
He keeps reading. “Slowly, our soirée was joined by the most extraordinary figures, a disarray of fantastical beastly and human shapes in rags and tatters. All seemed aware, moved by the phantoms, save Dumas. He had thoughts only for her, the dark-haired beauty with melancholy eyes, the high priestess of our séances. Dumas would retreat into the shadows, a corner, wholly unto himself, allowing quiet to reign over him. Besotted by she, who though with us, was always apart. La belle dame aux cheveux raven, he would call her, using, always, the English word.”
Besotted.
Alexandre slips a piece of paper between the pages and puts the book down. Then he leans his body into mine, bright eyes twinkling. “You found her.”
“She wasn’t even that hard to find. She’s literally right here. Who knows how many people read this and didn’t even give her a second thought? She’s just some random, unimportant woman—window dressing in the life of important men.”
Alexandre knits his fingers through mine. “Maybe it was your destiny to find her. La belle dame aux cheveux raven,” he says and takes a few strands of my hair between his fingers.
“I still think it’s weird how Dumas uses an English word in that phrase to describe her. ‘The beautiful woman with raven hair.’ It’s romantic, though.”
Alexandre grazes my cheek with his thumb. “This time I’m the Dumas using that endearment, and I’m talking about you.”
Leila
We step into the courtyard at the magic hour. The golden rays of sun descend onto the trees, setting the hollowed trunks aglow like they are lit with fire from within. The poet’s eyes fill with the wonder of this place. He walks between the trees, running his hands across the trunks and stepping into their carved spaces.
“A garden of hollow trees. It is poetry,” he says.
“Yes, my lord.”
“Please call me Byron,” he asks, nay, commands. It does not escape me that my own name does not pass his lips. He turns to face me. “May I be so bold as to ask you to detach the veil from your hair?”
So it begins.
I raise my fingers to my head, but the poet stays my hand and instead plucks the pins from my hair himself. Gently, he unwinds the chiffon scarf from my hair, revealing my braid that I’ve plaited with a golden tassel. He wraps my pale blue scarf around his own neck. Then begins to unbraid my hair.
I step away, startled at the intimacy of the gesture. He smiles like a schoolboy. I nod at him; anything else is death. He begins again, slowly, slowly unweaving one section of hair from another. I softly shake my head, and my hair unravels down my back.
“You smell like roses,” he says and then walks around to face me. “But the rose envies the color of your lips and the night your raven hair.”
“Is it true what they say about you?” I ask. He raises an eyebrow. “You are mad, bad, and dangerous to know.”
He throws his head back and laughs. “I see my reputation precedes me. My misfortune.”
I am emboldened, because for most of my life in the serai, my only choices were bravery or fear. “They say you have appetites.”
“Your beauty and your self-assurance demand my candor, and thus I willingly give it. Yes, I have certain passions, as a poet and as a man. My faults are many, but I am determined that if I am to be alive, then I must live and live fully. Taste all the fruit life offers, in all the ways it offers them. To some, I am stern and artful. To you, I hope I am more, as your charm and exquisite loveliness and, indeed, your courage compel it of me. I present myself to you, then, merely as a man humbly at your service.” With his words, the poet sweeps his hand to his heart and bows before me.
> I take his offered hand in mine, and he brings it to his lips. He wraps his arm around my waist and bends to kiss my cheek, then hooks a finger under my chin, brushing his lips over mine. His is the first clean-shaven face I have felt against my own, and his skin is smooth, supple, like a woman’s. He tastes of tobacco and coffee.
I flinch. He pulls his head back. Pasha could lash me for this.
“My lord, forgive me. I . . . I . . . Pasha has bid me to avail myself to you. To make you comfortable and answer your needs . . . your desires—”
“But you cannot. Your heart belongs to him.”
“No, my lord. Not to him.”
“To another, then?” The poet’s eyes widen.
“To another,” I whisper.
“And this is why your Pasha offers you to me? Your punishment for a clandestine lover?”
I laugh. “If my deception were exposed, it would be death. To lie with Pasha means you can be with no other.”
The poet’s face turns paler than it already is. “And yet he gives you to me? What awaits you on the ’morrow, then?”
“I was the favorite, the haseki, but I have borne no children, and so . . .”
“You are to be employed in this manner as a price for being barren?”
“I am not barren. A jinn’s curse protects me from being with child. As I have asked. As I have prayed. I will not bring a child into a world such as this.” I instinctively bring my finger to my opal. Si’la slips out of one of the tree hollows. I raise my hand to stay her. I need no intervention.
The poet shivers and glances around but sees nothing.
I clutch his hand. “I must escape with you when you leave. There is nothing left for me here. My life is forfeit.”
“And your lover?”
“I will see to him.”
“And how do you propose I remove you from here without notice?”