new romance.” Jack looks amused.
“What’s her name?” says Matthew.
“Pawena. In fact, you should meet her. Come over for dinner. I’m going to cook and Jack’s coming. What do you say?”
“Sure, why not? Thanks for the offer.”
“Jack, you working at the hostel Saturday night?”
“Nope.”
“Okay, Saturday night then.” With that, Suzi comes out of the bathroom, and Anthony reaches out and takes her hand. “Suzi, you want to come to dinner with us? At my place? I’m cooking. You can meet my girlfriend.”
“You want me to come to dinner?”
“You working Saturday night?”
“She always works nights, asshole,” says Jack.
Suzi arches an eyebrow and puts her hand on her hip. “This Saturday I will take off. Can you really cook?”
“I can cook.”
“I would love to come for dinner. Give me the address.”
Anthony gives her an address and she whistles. “Oh-la-la! You live in an area I know very well. Good area for girls.”
Anthony throws his head back and laughs. “Not on my street!”
When she walks away, Jack slaps Anthony on the back of the head. “What are you doing?”
“Pawena’s going to bring her girlfriend, and with Matthew coming I thought it would be nice to have an even number. What?”
“Listen, Brainiac, how do you think your girlfriend’s going to take to you inviting a hooker?”
“Oh, she won’t mind.”
“Geez, I hate cops.”
“Present company,” says Anthony and waits.
“Excepted,” says Jack, rolling his eyes and grinning.
Chapter Nine
The Ferhat family live near the Barbès-Rochechouart Métro on rue du Faubourg Poissonnière, a street split down the middle between the 9th arrondissement and the 10th. Si, technically, the Ferhats live in the 10th, which the bourgeoisie consider not as good a neighbourhood as the 9th, which in turn is not as good as the 8th. The Ferhats live on the top floor, the sixth floor, where former maids’ and cooks’ quarters have been converted into tiny apartments. The conversion happened in stages as the neighbourhood became less genteel. First, four or perhaps five decades ago, the tiny rooms under the eaves were rented out to people other than domestic servants. Then, thirty years ago, the landlord knocked down walls and made small independent rooms into four two-room apartments with kitchenettes. At that time the sole bathroom was down the hall, shared among the tenants. Now improvements have been made. Each apartment has a bathroom with a toilet and a shower – not an actual bath for, having been partitioned from a corner of the main room, there is no space. Still, they are pleased not to have to go down the hall, not to have to smell the shit of strangers.
The same cannot be said for all converted chambres de bonne in Paris. Immigrants, refugees, students, the poor in all forms, take what they can get. Wave after wave of people arrive from everywhere in the world, looking for safe haven, for inspiration, looking for the famous liberté, egalité, fraternité. They come from America, from Romania, from Vietnam, from Algeria, from Cambodia, from Iran, Argentina, Russia . . . from everywhere life has either been too dangerous, too difficult, or too dull.
They sleep in rooms too cold or too hot, rooms with no insulation between the walls, and they fall asleep to the sounds of someone else’s snoring, or their love-making, or their weeping, their whimpers, their flatulence, their rage. They hang their clothes out of windows on racks to air out the stench of cooking fat and cigarettes. They grow geraniums and lavender and basil in pots on the sills. They put on extra socks before they go to bed in the winter and suck on ice in the summer when the pollution is so thick the inside of the mouth tastes of diesel fuel and all the wealthy people have closed up shop and gone to Deauville or Cannes or Annecy.
Some bedrooms are in the back of the building, facing the courtyard where it is relatively quiet—only the gardienne remains down below, shaking the dust off her broom, flapping her table cloth, scolding her children. Or the sound of the neighbours’ radios and guitars and, during the day, the sound of construction: jackhammers and drills and sandblasters that make up the endless soundtrack of Paris. Saida’s bedroom, however, is at the front; she puts wax plugs in her ears so she can sleep through the rattle and clank of garbage trucks and car horns and the motorcycles and the arguing voices from the street below.
It is four o’clock in the morning now, and the garbagemen yell to each other, banging the large green bins against the side of the truck to empty them. Their yellow swirling lights send strange patterns across the walls. In her restless sleep, Saida rolls over onto her back and the sheet tangles around her crossed ankles.
She does not understand it is only the bedclothes that have imprisoned her and three beads of sweat appear on the top of her lip. She tries to kick her feet, but she cannot move them. She tries to reach down and see why she cannot move her feet, but her hands will not move. She hears her heart in her ears, loud with blood. With enormous effort she opens her eyes and it is then that she sees him. A figure in grey overalls, smeared in gas station grease. Something on his head. A hood? In a rush like electricity through her limbs she knows who it is. It is Anatole Mariani. It is her husband. Her ex-husband.
But it cannot be him. He is in jail. But it is him. How did he get in?!? She opens her mouth to scream, but no sound comes out. Her panic increases. She feels as though she is flailing, but her arms will not move, her legs will not move. She does not know if he has tied her down, because she cannot turn her head to look. She thinks perhaps he has drugged her.
Anatole has something in his hand. Saida does not need for him to step into the light slanting through the blinds to know what it is. She knows hot oil, hot enough nearly to be burning, by the metallic smell. Knows the smell of scorched iron from the pot, knows the other smell, the sick smell of melting skin. She hears his whispers in her head. Arab garbage. I thought I was marrying a good girl, not a useless bitch like you. You’re the reason I don’t get ahead. I’m tainted by you. In her head she screams for her father, for her brother, for her son. Joseph! She screams silently, willing him to hear her even if she makes no sound, Joseph! Run! Run! Run!
How did he get past Joseph without waking him? What has he done to Joseph? Anatole steps closer, so slowly, he is torturing her. He smiles, his thin pale tongue rubbing against his top teeth, as though she is something he will enjoy eating, once she is properly cooked. He stands over her, lifts the pot, his face is blackness, shiny, empty. She hopes she will die this time, and quickly.
“Maman! Maman! Wake up. You’re dreaming! You’re dreaming again."
The sound coming from her throat is like that of an animal, bellowing with the lion at its throat. Strangled. Wordless. As though her throat had been cut. Joseph shakes her and then takes her in his arms and pushes her hair back from her sweaty forehead. Slowly she comes to herself and wraps her arms around her son.
“It’s okay,” she says, “I’m all right.”
“Wake
