Mad, Bad & Dangerous to Know

by Samira Ahmed

  I manage a half-hearted smile, but Alexandre doesn’t notice. He quickly kisses me on the cheeks before slipping out the door.

  As I close it behind him, the magic of the evening fades away. I’m left with the same lingering questions every time we part. He mentioned staying in Paris for work this summer, but what’s his job? And what’s up with the eccentric, enigmatic uncle? Maybe it’s all boring crap he doesn’t want to get into. I need to focus on the real mystery at hand.

  Still, there’s this irksome voice in the back of my head reminding me that I’ve also only been honest with Alexandre to a point. In that case, maybe I’m not the only one hiding things.

  I pause. I don’t want to go upstairs yet, so I linger in our building’s cobblestone courtyard. In medieval Paris, the courtyards housed a shared pump or were a place to dump garbage. Later, all the fancy hôtel particuliers wanted them for inner gardens and privacy and stables. Our courtyard has the garbage and recycling bins hidden off in a corner, surrounded by a wooden picket fence and potted pines. The rest of the courtyard has large containers of red-and-yellow lantana that blooms in colorful clusters the size of large buttons, overhanging the terracotta pots. Around the perimeter are weatherworn metallic troughs of lavender that scent the entire little square. It’s amazing because you can’t even smell the garbage on the hottest days of August.

  The apartments facing the courtyard are mostly dark. I look up and see stars. The sky is clear and crisp, making the stars seem brighter. On nights like this, when I was little, I would come out here and make one wish for every star I could spot until I ran out of stars or things to wish for.

  I want to wish for something now, something besides proving that I’m smarter than Celenia Mondego and that I deserve to be in her stupid program.

  But I don’t know what.

  To find Leila? To discover more about her? To know how Zaid truly feels about me? To understand what Alexandre thinks? Too many questions unanswered. Unasked. Unfortunately, they’re both good kissers. And that fact mucks up my thinking. But I need clarity and focus. I need to decide the best thing for me and my future. Zaid and Alexandre should be beside the point. Are beside the point.

  That’s what my mom would say if she knew all the details. Julie, too, probably. Zaid was never Julie’s favorite. I wonder if Alexandre would be? No. Her favorite in this whole saga would be Leila—the one who really deserves my undivided attention. Leila might have a sad story, but she seems like she was a force, and, according to her letter to Dumas, she knew how to make a decision. And stick to it. Lesson learned.

  Leila

  I step lightly and quickly toward the Hall of Guests.

  A cold fear grips me, tendrils wrapping around my ankles, pulling me back. But this is no time for my courage to fail. I have chosen my path.

  When I reach the poet’s quarters, he races to meet me and grabs me by the arm. “We must leave now,” he says. “Your Giaour has been discovered.”

  The blood leaves my face, my entire body.

  I imagine Pasha’s cruel laugh. His fury.

  The poet takes my satchel, the vestiges of my entire world, and hands it to his valet, who hastens their departure.

  “I cannot . . . I cannot leave without him. There is no life without him.” I speak, but I am already a ghost.

  “You have no choice. Your Pasha will kill you, too, if—”

  I break free from the poet and run out into the courtyard.

  Torches light up the arches between columns.

  Pasha’s janissaries surround me.

  Khayyam

  It takes a sleepless night for me to come to terms with the realization that my restless uncertainty isn’t about what I want—well, some of it is—it’s really about Alexandre and what he wants. About who he is. And what we are together. There are moments when he’s warm and present and others when he’s aloof. Why does he hedge when I ask about his uncle? Why is he busy on so many evenings and kind of cagey about it?

  I guess he has the right to be busy. Technically we haven’t defined what we are. Par for the course, given my relationship with Zaid. But how does Alexandre see us? Nerdy researchers who make out? An unusual, amusing summer fling? Transatlantic friends with PG-rated benefits? What he does in his free time is not my business. Maybe Alexandre doesn’t owe me any explanations, but I still want the whole story.

  Facts are reliable. People aren’t.

  I learned that from Zaid, who first ghosted me and now is bombarding me with texts. I want to believe this speaks volumes about his feelings for me, but in reality, it means nothing. The messages aren’t a hand to hold. They’re not a romantic picnic in a pocket park. Even so, there was another one waiting for me this morning.

  I’m planning a surprise.

  Zaid’s surprises are usually last-minute, like, Picnic at the Point—I got tacos and Mexican Cokes. Or, Meet me at 57th Street Books, the new issue of Ironheart is in! Besides our first date at the Music Box, I don’t think he ever really planned a single outing for us. Did he take our relationship for granted? Julie only mentioned that, oh, a thousand times, and I always made excuses for him. Maybe Zaid regrets how he’s treated me. This time apart, the pictures of Alexandre and me, maybe it all made him realize he was wrong.

  Gah. I don’t like surprises. I don’t do well with ambiguity, either. I only count on what I know for certain.

  Neither Zaid nor Alexandre should be a factor in terms of my future, much less part of the absurd conversation inside my brain. Where the through line is doubt. What if I try again with the contest and still bomb? What if I am a failure? Are these dumb romantic distractions enough of an excuse to crash and burn again?

  Something is not right. When I walk out of my room, my parents are already dressed. They’re not lazily reading in the sun at the table on our balcony, their usual morning routine.

  “Where are you guys going?” I ask, rubbing the sleep from my eyes.

  “We’re taking the train to Jouy-en-Josas to see an old friend of my mother,” my dad says.

  “Who?”

  “It’s a woman who went to school with Maman. I haven’t seen her since the funeral. She doesn’t haven’t any kids or much family left . . .” My dad clears his throat.

  “We thought we’d pay a visit,” my mom adds. “Your papa heard that she isn’t in the greatest of health right now. It’s not far—close to Versailles. We’ll probably have a late lunch at the hotel near the palace grounds and then head back in the late afternoon or early evening.”

  I nod. “Sorry about Grand-mère’s friend, Papa. That sucks.”

  My dad sighs. “C’est la vie.” My mom reaches for his hand and threads her fingers through his own, which seems to give him the strength to smile at me. “We did enjoy meeting Alexandre last night.”

  “Sure. It was perfect and not awkward at all.” I have never been able to hide my sarcasm, and I’ve never wanted to, either.

  “Well, you did catch us by surprise.” My dad raises an eyebrow at me.

  I tense. “It’s not like we were doing anything.”

  My mom steps forward. “We know, beta. We do hope we get to see him again. He was certainly charmant.” My mom giggles a little. Giggles. Then she turns to Papa, then back to me, and snaps her fingers. “Oh. I almost forgot to ask! The woman with raven tresses you mentioned? Did you ever find out anything else?”

  I shake my head. “Not much. Only that the letters were around the 1840s.” I wonder if I’ve given away my criminal activity, but there is no way my mom could know where we were last night—or what we found.

  “That makes total sense,” my mom says.

  “It does?”

  My mom wags a finger, her favorite way to make an academic point. “I thought it was funny when you mentioned Delacroix and Dumas using the English phrase ‘raven-tressed’ to describe the woman’s hair.”


  “Because that’s not proper French. The word for raven is corbeau,” my dad finishes. “Anyway in French, the construction would be—”

  “‘The lady with tresses raven,’” I finish for him. “The noun before the adjective. But they constructed it the English way—the adjective before the noun. So?” I shrug and stare between the two of them, at a loss.

  My parents exchange a look. “Byron,” they say at the same time.

  I frown. “It’s from a Byron poem? It’s definitely not The Giaour.”

  “No,” my mother replies gently. “I know how well you know that one. It’s from ‘She Walks in Beauty.’ Not sure what year he wrote it—maybe 1814? 1815? There’s a woman that he describes as having waves in every ‘raven tress.’ The French literati—even three decades later—would surely have been familiar with that poem, as they were with many English Romantics. Maybe that Byron connection to Delacroix and Dumas runs deeper than you think.”

  Delacroix’s words to Dumas come rushing back to me: “And see the words of the poet come to life.”

  Holy crap.

  How did I not even consider this possible connection? Celenia Mondego, head judge, pops into my brain with the answer: slipshod research—a catastrophic inability to grasp obvious facts.

  Ugh. Screw you, Celenia. I’m not going to repeat the same mistakes. The puzzle pieces are in front of me, and I swear to God, this time I’m going to make sure they click into place. My heart, my stomach, every cell in my body flutters and buzzes and whatever other words can describe being struck by lightning. I take a breath.

  Be calm, Khayyam. Think.

  As my parents leave, only one thought occupies my brain: Forget Zaid and Alexandre. I have a date with Lord Byron.

  I googled the Byron poem the minute my parents left. But I want to hold the book in my hands, too. Papa always says I am my mother’s daughter, and maybe he’s right, because poetry feels more alive to me when I can touch the page. Besides, it gives me an excuse to visit my favorite bookstore in Paris, and probably the most famous: Shakespeare & Company.

  It’s a mostly English-language bookshop on the Left Bank on a small, one-block street that dead-ends on a pretty square a stone’s throw from the Seine. I’ve spent hours here with my mom, and I adore the charm of its uneven floors and the friendly cat that winds its way through your legs or makes its way onto your lap as you’ve sat down to read a book. It’s a crooked, rickety old indie that’s been around since the 1950s. It was built in homage to the original store that opened in 1919 on a different street that was shut down by Nazis when they occupied France. When you meander through its rooms, the history of this place feels alive, tangible—you’re literally walking in the footsteps of famous writers and artists—expats in search of a community who found a home.

  My favorite part of the store is the second floor. The short, narrow, twisting stair-bookcase (yes, a diagonal shelf of books runs along the outer rails of the stairs) spells out a message on each step: I wish I could show you when you are lonely or in darkness the astounding light of your own being. A quote from Hafiz, my mom told me on one of our annual visits. A fourteenth-century Persian poet. A Muslim. “See,” she whispered to me at the time, “we’re everywhere.”

  Up those well-worn, possibly not structurally sound red stairs are the old books. And the nook I adore the most—a cozy typewriter alcove with a single chair and tiny desk that can fit exactly one person, its three walls lined with scraps of paper people have typed on. I love ducking into that niche and reading people’s anonymous notes. They’re all wishes and dreams and words to lovers, and it feels like you’re reading someone’s diary, except that you’re also helping them bring those words to life. I wonder what the store does with the old notes. I hope they burn them in a bonfire so that all those hopes can travel to the stars on a trail of smoke. Those anonymous dreams deserve a happily ever after.

  I know I told Alexandre I’m a realist and not a dreamer, and that’s true, but I’m not completely oblivious to the poetry of life. That’s the too easily wounded part of me I keep hidden from everyone.

  But today, I don’t let myself linger over other people’s secrets. Today I’m leading with my head, not my heart. I walk right past the typewriter to the poetry section.

  I have a mission. Find that Byron poem.

  I run my finger across the spines until I come across a simple black paperback: George Gordon Lord Byron: Selected Works. I pull it from the shelves; flecks of dust catch the light. Byron might have been the most famous and flamboyant of the Romantics, but apparently even his books can sit on shelves untouched for ages. Still, at least we know his name.

  I search the table of contents and find the title of the poem my mom mentioned right away:

  She Walks in Beauty

  She walks in beauty, like the night

  Of cloudless climes and starry skies;

  And all that’s best of dark and bright

  Meet in her aspect and her eyes;

  Thus mellowed to that tender light

  Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

  One shade the more, one ray the less,

  Had half impaired the nameless grace

  Which waves in every raven tress,

  Or softly lightens o’er her face;

  Where thoughts serenely sweet express,

  How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.

  And on that cheek, and o’er that brow,

  So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,

  The smiles that win, the tints that glow,

  But tell of days in goodness spent,

  A mind at peace with all below,

  A heart whose love is innocent!

  There she is on the page—the woman with the raven tresses. I whisper across time, “Leila, could this be . . . is it you?” I run my fingers over the words on the page like they are something sacrosanct, a relic to be prized and guarded. I read the poem again, slowly this time, my index finger underlining each word. Leila, if this is you, if you are Dumas’s raven-tressed lady and Byron’s, could you be the Giaour’s Leila? The one the Pasha killed? But how? I pause. These questions are too simple. Leila isn’t defined by the men whom she inspired. She is the inspiration. Some men tried to shape her into their fictional fantasies; others tried to muffle her voice. But she had her own story.

  I feel that melancholy again—what I felt when reading Leila’s letter to Dumas. When you’re living, when you’re alive, especially when you’re young and feel immortal, you don’t always think about what comes after you’re gone. I don’t mean heaven or hell. But what comes after on earth, when you’re dead and buried and the memory of you fades from the living.

  I flip absentmindedly through the pages of the book. My thoughts fly from Leila to my grand-mère and her old, sick friend who my parents went to see this morning. What happens when a person dies and there’s no one left to remember them? I see my grand-mère’s apple-cheeked smiling face. She always had a bloom about her, a youthful roundness even as she got older. At least that’s how I remember her. Maybe I need to write that down sometime, make her a character in a story. Maybe that’s the best thing we can hope for after we’re gone—that someone tells our story and makes it true. Or true enough.

  My eyes stop on the poem I have to read again: The Giaour. God. This poem is twenty pages long. But this is where Leila’s story, inexplicably, improbably, first crossed my path. And I didn’t even know it. I can’t wait to blow Alexandre’s mind with this.

  I’m a bit lost in a research daze and with the dizzying realization that maybe, perhaps, my Leila theory might actually be right. I step out of the dimly lit store, shielding my eyes while they adjust to the brilliant daylight. I blink a few times. A couple of pale-skinned, red-headed kids—brother and sister?—splash each other by a Wallace Fountain, one of the iconic green cast-iron fountains that dot the city landscape. I
t was a gift from an Englishman in the 1800s so the Parisian poor could have access to free, clean drinking water when the city was riddled with disease. They’re the prettiest drinking fountains ever. And there it is again, the history of Paris still alive, still working in the present day.

  I jump back a step when a few droplets land in my direction. The parents scold the kids in English—tourists, as I suspected, because in France, redheads are “exotic.” I laugh and tell them it’s no problem. They seem surprised I speak English, also happy. It never fails when you’re in a foreign country: you’re probably friendlier to folks from back home than you’d be otherwise. Maybe it’s like Alexandre said when I was snippy with the American couple that asked me to take their photo. They’re only trying to enjoy their vacation and maybe everyone wants a little feeling of home when they’re far away. The kids wave at me as they set off.

  I turn right and take a few steps to the café.

  As I take in the tourists sitting outside, enjoying their coffee in the sun, I spot a Parisian. My Parisian. Alexandre huddled close over a table with a waify blonde girl.

  I feel like I’ve been punched in the stomach.

  I stare at them. The detritus of afternoon coffee—empty sugar packets and milk froth–stained spoons are spread casually across their tiny, intimate table. They’re laughing, and she leans into him and whispers something in his ear. His arm is causally draped across the back of her seat.

  No. No. No.

  Time decelerates enough to painfully draw out every excruciating detail of this . . . stranger. Perfectly painted red lips. Flawless fair skin. Diaphanous blue silk scarf knotted on the side of her neck—an exact match for her eyes. Audrey Hepburn sunglasses positioned like a headband. As the breeze rustles her hair across her face, she tucks a few silken blonde wisps back behind her elfin ears.

  Dammit.