seventy-five

18:18:18

I'm sleepless on Ligne 12.

Crossing Paris from point A to B, to reach an X. I'm calm, yet unsure of his motives. The last time I saw him he was leaving to work, disheveled and in his dorky glasses, and I was leaving to the airport.

I refrained from contacting him while in Beirut, to let him know that I had indeed moved on, and to spitefully put him in the same drawer with all the other Parisian flings.

Ever since I've been back I've been so disinterested by the opposite sex. In one month I had had collected enough to last me all through the summer and more.

I told that to Lucifer. I had to be honest. And it's not only out of empathy, by telling lies to others or by not saying anything at all, you are also lying to yourself. Slowly, the truth you know becomes harder and harder to discern against the background of lies that you have woven for this and that, for him, for her. Being frank also allows you the freedom to concentrate on details that matter rather than the details that serve as decoration.

Lucifer, despite being a "technical" catch was clearly not the guy for me. He has a sadness that is not within my power to dissipate, and I know that somewhere down the line, the smile on his face or the passion in his eyes will prove to have been a temporary reaction.

I exit the underground: I'm in the suburbs but it doesn't look like the other side of the wall, newspapers and news channels built up so many expectations that crossing the peripherique was a near peripeteia. I thought I'd see cows.

"Je suis en route, attends moi à la croissement".

Crisses and crosses, my fingers fiddled with the possibilities that were about to ensue.

I saw him at the red light. I'd finally see the new home I had heard so much about.

We drove through the narrow winding streets. I was disoriented, had no idea where I was, where we were going, when we would arrive. It felt like a long time. My right hand held my left fist, left thumb trying to calm them both down. He noticed it, but I could not help it.

We drove into the garage. A portrait of his brother hung on the wall.

"C'est ton frère?"

"Non, c'est son ami."

The white living room looked out unto the forest.

"Have you seen Twilight? This room reminds me so much of their house!"

"Non, je ne l'ai pas vu, mais tu n'es pas la première de le dire."

I told him about my holidays in Beirut. I gave him the olive oil soap he had asked for. He talked about his next trip, his dislike for London, politics... I was so focused on his fast French that I had no time to form an opinion. Not that I had any. Global politics I could never retain in that little head of mine. I felt ignorant and noted to myself that I should read more news, for dinner conversation's sake.

We needed to get physical. "Tu sais jouer?"

He handed me the racket and the empty white ball. "A toi de servir."

We hit the ball back and forth, the only extra rule was not to interrupt the eye contact between us. It wasn't so hard, although eventually I lost, 13-21, but it helped to sew back the gap of the few weeks between the last time we had been together and now.

He opened up a wine of Alligote. Same as last time, only better. The hour long match had warmed me up, I had my legs up on the L-shaped sofa tucked under me. My elbow was up on the backrest, my head resting, hair falling on shoulder. Comfort, finally.

Comfort, is worth it. There is nothing better in human relationships. I'm done with formalities, done with power struggles, done with labour, done with stiffness. Why seek mediocre company? Why talk about the weather when it can be warm inside?

["Pas de prise de tête", says the girl beside me into the telephone on the adjacent table at the cafe de trottoir]

Exactly. No heads held high, no writhing hands, no tapping fingers, just comfort.

But with Pope, it was always a final destination. A journey to get there was inevitable. The weekend headlines, the weather report, the future forecast. Slowly, our polarities would begin to change so that we could both become one large magnet pointing to the South.

With cooking dinner out of the question, we moved straight for the dessert. Good ole recipe of home-made fondant au chocolat-like skin, natural, familiar, butter-smooth, equator warm, tantalising, mouth-watering...

Simply divine.

Sometimes, it is the best choice to go for your favourite dish on the menu.


"I didn't think a human voice could be so loud," I later told Flutterby during one of our Skype sessions.

seventy-three

19:28:24

I'm sleepless at Gate 72C.

The restaurant I wanted to take Pope to was closing. It was one of those cozy hipster hangouts that transported me straight to Shoreditch, minus the jolly chop chop of British conversations.

He was unfamiliar with the area, which I found quite surprising, since it was one of my favourite neighbourhoods in Paris. We climbed on top of one of the arched-cat bridges to see both sides of the Canal. It was a hot, uncomfortably sticky evening, we were still odd with one another: it had to be a quiet terrace. After a few minutes walk, we spotted a hive of people on the corner of a street and decided to stick with it. Better to stuff our mouths than to continue babbling emptily about what we did that weekend.

It took over a year to get here, but that's how it works. It took us miles and months to walk a few hundred metres in fifteen minutes to sit down and touch knees. It took us space and time. And now it was effortless, like a ball rolling downhill.

But most importantly, it took a few words of honesty.

We bumped into each other the night I met Lucifer. I saw Pope in the crowd, at one point, we were even back to back, but we avoided contact. And then I saw Brooklyn and the friend whose swank party we had debauched and I turned to Laydi and told her I wished I could disappear. I met Brooklyn back in Beirut when he was visiting Pope. I had only met him briefly, both times at the airport, but enough to have given the two room to discuss our relationship, they were close, so close in fact that if you threw them into a closet, they could stay there for days, happy. I always had the feeling that he did not like me...much...and he had somehow helped the disintegration of the relationship.

Our eyes met. Brooklyn's face lit up with suspicious over-enthusiasm.

"Salut! T'es à Paris? Putain, ça fait longtemps!"

Earth, swallow me now. I was certain that small talk would follow and I would not find a graceful distraction to save me in time...

...and then Pope appeared. Brief hello. Insignificant news. Dispenser details. A leaf is falling somewhere, would you look at that.

"C'est quand ton Big Day?"

"Fin de Septembre."

"Oh, je serai sur Paris, je viendrai te féliciter."

"Ah bon. On s'est pas vu pendant toute la durée de ton séjour, et là t'as envie de me voir..."

"Come on, I still care..."

"Même si on n'est pas sur, comme tu m'as dit, same wavelength?"

"C'est vrai qu'on se comprend jamais. Faute de mélange de langues, surtout quand on envoie des textos!"

"Tu veux me dire que pendant tout les trois mois qu'on est sorti ensemble on s'est jamais compris?!"

"Bein, presque. Je me souviens bien des moments où j'étais tellement frustrée car je ne comprennais pas ce que tu me disais par téléphone, ou quand tu ne lisais pas entre les lignes de mes messages..."

And we did not stop talking.

The misunderstanding beneath my house.

"I thought you knew where I lived...and then you told me "je ne suis pas comme ça", I wasn't sure what you meant by that...and all of you were laughing in the street, looking at my messages on your phone..."

"J'avais vraiment envie de te voir, si non, je n'aurais pas t'envoyé un message...on était bourré, on rigolait du fait que j'étais en bas de toi, mon ex..."

The short fling between me and Sobriquet.

"Dites-moi que vous étiez amoureux, mais c'était juste pour baiser quoi. T'as voulu me chercher. C'est mon ami quand même..."

"I didn't think he'd tell you. What an asshole. For what it's worth, I regret it. It was pointless."

The never-calling him back after his friend's party.

"I was embarrassed..."

"Il faut que tu restes un peu en France! T'avais honte? De quoi? Tu n'as pas encore vu comment les gens boivent ici?"

"...and besides, you were being mean to me the whole evening. About my hair, my shoes. You even told me, "Personne ne te regarde". That wasn't really nice."

"Moi je t'ai dis ça? C'était pour te dire que tu peux te détendre, que voilà, sois à l'aise."

The break-up.

"Je n'ai jamais voulu te faire mal"

"Tu te souviens de la dernière fois qu'on s'est vu? On n'avait rien à dire! C'était l'horreur...après les trois mois de tout ce qu'on a eu, de n'avoir rien à dire...ça m'a marqué ce soir là...je ne te trouvais plus le même..."

"C'est toujours délicat ce temps après. Comment réagir? Comment garder des bonnes relations? Je ne voulais pas te faire plus de mal..."

"And from my side, I didn't want you to think that I wasn't over you, but if I was trying to prove it to you, it would look like me trying to prove something that is false, and if I didn't get in touch with you, you would think that I was getting over you...ahhh..."

That we should see each other more often. Hang out. Dance. Talk. Eat.

Our knees were touching. He excused himself. I didn't budge. It's only boney knees, slimy cartilage.

He ordered my wine for me, a glass of Alligote, arranged for a change to a better table once the other couple was ready to leave, called the waiter by his name, joked around, called me Mademoiselle, and halfway through my ratatouille I remembered why I once liked this guy and why I was glad to be able to like him again.

With the elephant out of the room, conversation was flowing, forks in mid air, neatly cut up parcels of food cooling down, plates half finished, wine order, encore, "Jacques, deux verres, s'il te plait", santé, a nod here, a nod there, mirroring, smiling, preening, point of emphasis, a hand, a finger, pokes to emphasise the point of the anecdote on the upper arm, shoulder, slap on the thigh, touching, and coming to realise that we were  flirting, measuring the distance, offsetting the limits inch by inch.

"Ils sont là tes amis?"

"Oui, je crois, on a dit vers 23:00...tu veux rester avec nous?"

"Je ne suis pas venu pour les voir."

"Ok, comme tu veux"

One of the guys was already waiting for me, sitting on the bank of the canal, hunched over his sketchbook, headphones blocking out the world, pencil lines deliberate...

We sat down for two beers and a glass of wine, quelque chose un peu plus sucré pour Mademoiselle. We sat at the edge of the row of tables, beneath a street light, they spoke in French, one faster, the other with pronounced last letters, and I listened to the calm patting of peaceful hands building a sand castle for the sake of raising up a white flag high enough to announce a safe place...

The other two were two hours late. Drunk, lost and shirtless, and still eager for adventure seconds. I had to go home, finish packing, and for once, I'd choose the easy way to go home. No walking, no Velib, no running after cabs, no skidding through the tunnels to catch the last fish about to slip through the labyrinth... Paris looks different through the windshield. It shrinks to half its size, especially at night, when you drive beneath the surface of oily tungsten yellow, its clingy film hiding the upper floors from your sight, the unknowns multiply, the streets divide amongst themselves until there are four: the dark, the lit, the full, the empty.

"Regardes, il y a même un espace pour stationner..."

He squeezed his car in front of the large archway that led to my house.

"Bon, I had a wonderful evening, I'm glad we're back to normal, on se vera quand je revienne..."

I kissed his two cheeks.

"Ne m'embrasse pas comme ça..."

"Ciao"

I was tempted to let the night unroll, like a wallpaper of beautiful, golden, intricate motifs repetitive in a continuous crimson sea. But it wouldn't be one of those nights were we'd spend the hours talking until we'd both fall asleep one next to the other, someone's head on someone's lap or shoulder. It would be one of those nights we could possibly regret, one of those decisions we'd wish we didn't take. Were it inevitable, it would have happened, but at this exact moment it felt too...scripted.

Nights like this should come easily.


I kicked off my shoes and the phone buzzed.


"Putain, il y a plein des flics..."


"Alors t'as peur des flics!?"


"Il avait l'air méchant"


"Fais pas un accident"


"Mais bon je suis passé à travers. Moi je suis cool c'est eux les salope"


"Ouais, ouais, t'es toujours...cool. C'est un don ;)"


"Et t'as l'air de l'apprécier de plus en plus"


"Tu n'as pas perdu ton charme. Ca te dérange si je l'apprécie? Je crois pas!"


"Non, continue"


"Il y avait vraiment des flics? Dimanche soir?"


"Oh que oui et plein ils arrêtaient tout le monde"


"Je pensais que t'étais créatif..."


"Si je suis toujours la c'est que je le suis..."


"Là où exactement?"


"Dans ma voiture à t'écrire"


"Mais tu conduis pas, j'espère..."


"Pas devant chez toi, et si je conduis"


"C'est dangereux."


"Je vais te texter après. Me fait pas des bisous comme cela, pour me dire on se voit quand tu rentre..."


"Tu veux dire?"


"C'est cruel"


"Hahaha, me taquine pas, c'est cruel vu que t'es vers Alésia"


"C'est toi qui me taquine. Presque chez moi"


"Ah oui, c'est loin..."


"A 10 min"


"De moi? De toi?"


"De nous"


I made sure he was home and in bed. Only then would the night come easily if he made the effort to go all the way back to see me.


Goodnight Paris, with fire, the works, and all.

seventy

21:00:05

I'm sleepless in Paris.

One of the main reasons why I was so looking forward to coming to Paris was the facility with which I could leave my past behind. Here, I'd be nobody and anybody.

Wrong.

My past was here and too frequently in my vicinity. I'd often cross paths with The Pope. Now technically that wouldn't have been problematic, but we had had a few misunderstandings, unresolved issues and a slip of tongue in the first weeks of my being here, that by now we avoided each other and we both knew it. It was for our peace of mind.

Wrong.

Those issues needed to be sorted out. I hated feeling negatively towards him and I wanted him to know why I was avoiding him: not because I could not stand the sight of him, but because I thought he couldn't. Besides, if I were to bring up all our issues out of the blue, he would undoubtedly call it my "cinèma".

True story.

Our last and final misunderstanding was the direct result of bad translation and insecurity.

“Tu es chez toi?? Je suis en bas…”

Was this message for me? We hadn’t spoken for a month after the unfortunate night at his friend’s swank house party. I say swank because I had never seen a Parisian home this cool: right on the street in the 1er, ground floor, jazz band playing for the guests and passers-by. It looked more like a cozy bar than a house. I had brought along two friends and we let loose. I recall the punch bowl with forest berries that I kept revisiting, the buonissimo cheese platter I could have called my own, the stumbling, the bumping into people, the spinning room, the iPhone videos of other people, the loud laughter, the obnoxious poses for the camera. Let’s just say it was one of the most fun nights I had had in a long time, minus the social decorum. The next morning, I woke up not with a hangover, but a perpetual blush, a blush you’d wear if you were caught looking through a key-hole.

His message was definitely a surprise.

“Yes, what are you up to?”

“Je bois un verre”

Indeed, when I looked out the window to the street below, there he was with his friends standing outside the bar.

“Je bosse un peu, tu veux passer?”

“Pourquoi pas”

“Dernier etage 829b”

10 minutes later.

“Tu veux que je passes??”

“Si l’absence d’un ascenseur ne vas pas t’etouffer, oui, passes”

“Alors??”

Why was he repeating himself? Something was off…

“Je suis pas comme ca enfin Sleepless…”

Je suis pas comme ca. What? What was that supposed to mean? I am not like that. Like what? Like I don’t go up to my ex-girlfriend’s house?

I was home with a friend, not with rose petals on the bed.

“Enfin, je crois que tu m’as mal compris.”

“Mal compris explique moi.. C est quoi ton adresse etage et code??”

“Ca veut dire quoi “je ne suis pas comme ca”?”

“Allo??”

I started ignoring him. I could hear their laughter echo all along the street. Drunk and on the crawl for tonight’s headline. I’ll pass.

“Ba tu me propose de passer alors je viens…tu veux pas? En plus j ai un cadeau”

A gift? His friend was holding a rose wrapped in plastic. With my sense of humour leeched out of me, I thought it best to continue ignoring him.

“Sleepless tu me laisses, dans mon coin… Tu me donne l etage, le code mais pas le numero…Apres tu fais ton Cinema. Je te propose de te voir. Je ne pense uniquement a coucher avec toi!! Mais si tu veux pas que je passe dit le moi au lieu de me faire attendre. Merci”

Only the next day, did I come to realize that he never actually knew where I lived. He had dropped me home once, at the end of the street and I walked the rest.

“Pope, bonne nuit et bon spectacle a toi et tes amis”

“C’est toi qui as le spectacle vu d’en haut…”

Shit. Did he see me? No, that was impossible. I had to deny it.

“I wish, would’ve been interesting.”

“Ca reste un spectacle, apparament tu interpretes mal…”

“C’etait et ca sera toujours un malentendu entre nous. It’s a pity really that we speak on different wavelengths.”

It went on for a little longer, we were talking in circles.

“On peut oublier cet episode? Sans rancune”

“Je n’ai aucune rancune, mais toi oui pour reagir comme cela…”

He was right, but I couldn’t be wrong.

“Quoi dire, j’adore le cinema…mais franchement, aucune rancune”

“Et bien parfait alors la prochaine fois tu m’invitera chez toi simplement…”

And that was that. We never spoke again. We would avoid looking in each other’s direction. We tried to be friends and failed.

But the more I’d avoid him, the more reason I had to want to leave Paris. It was likely that after that, I’d never see him again.

Wrong.

sixty-four

00:25:33


I’m sleepless in Paris.


Last night – a tragicomedy, a by-product of French vineyards.


An extraordinary transformation took place, eight bottles of wine for each methuselah of truth, unspoken, unadvertised, just out there for everyone to swivel and smell.


Stereotypes were affirmed, hypocrites had their mug shots taken, archenemies were befriended, strangers became soul mates – social labels stood knee high to human complexity, looking up in wonder and fascination at what is at once simple, empirical and sophisticated, obscure.


Behaviour can be most revealing. She laughs after everything she says because she wants you to think that she is funny and easy-going. She laughs because she wants your mirror neurons to laugh with her. And you do. But take a second to think it through and you discover yours was a vocal expression standing in line behind LOL, a giggle in vain, a laughter for the sake of laughing because, well, this situation is quite sad and sadness at cocktail parties is most unseemly.


As she laughs and you laugh, your smiles speak of social conformation, but your eyes speak of different things. You don’t notice this explicitly, but you feel it. You feel discomfort, you feel a lack of connection, and you feel like you would rather talk to someone else, to someone whose eyes smile in sync with his or her lips.


To tell you the truth, I have never heard her laugh, seen her body laugh and when I laugh so hard I need to run to the ladies’ room, I feel her sadness burn my back.


It’s vain to call it jealousy, but I have been her and I know the burn of envy.


She is insecure about her height in a crowd of shoulders to her nose.


I have been insecure about my outdated Mango shirts in the glare of the latest DKNY must-haves. I wish I had recognized that insecurity earlier, early enough to learn to laugh with my body and laugh with one of the sweetest girls I used to know in school.


Our insecurities poison too many relationships to not be talked about.


I wish I could tell Pope that I always thought I was not pretty enough or well-dressed enough or French enough to be comfortable around him and his jet-setter friends. He denies being that shallow, but I only see him in that light, in that spotlight of beauty and glamour of which I will never be a part.


And it has poisoned our relationship; we avoid each other every time we are within view of each other, we don’t even make the effort to say “Hello” anymore.


I don’t want to be that insecure girl and I don’t want to see him in the reflection of shiny surfaces. I don’t want to see him. I choose not to deal with it.


I want to deal with them in secret; I do not want anyone to know: that I struggle, that I am vulnerable, that I am susceptible to countless petty paranoias.


But just in the same way I sit in a corner watching people drink and talk and try to cover up, other people watch me and they know. There is no use in pretending. Most of us have good X-ray vision for discrepancies between what we say and how we say it.


I think we should talk about it, rather than leave it at the mercy of Sauvignon or Pouilly-Fumé.


The highlight of my last night was a conversation that took place up on the roof.


“I like older men.”


“Why?”


“I think I have daddy issues.”


“Tu sais, je l’ai toujours senti.”


“C’est vrai?”


“Oui, parce que, moi aussi, je suis un peu comme toi. Daddy issues. J’étais toujours attiré par des hommes, plus que des femmes, en effet, les personnes qui prennent soin de moi.”


As soon as he said that a flash of “I wish I didn’t” appeared in his eyes. It’s a sensitive subject in the Arab community, I don’t need to stress on that. But I was touched: this wonderful person was opening up to me. He was a little anxious, unsure, but he did it. And I didn’t bite his head off. By the end of the evening…


“Quand est-ce que on va se voir?”


“Quand tu veux. J’ai toujours envie de t’écrire un message, mais j’ai l’impression que t’aura des choses plus interessantes à faire.”


“Je te dis: I really enjoy your company. If you want to do something, you will be a priority.”


If I knew how to do magic tricks, I would have made it rain little hearts.


That was all it took.


The highlights of Paris weren't the parties, the macarons, but the moments when a slightly trembling hand took mine and let it open a secret drawer that was kept in the bedroom when the party was happening downstairs.


Those are the only moments that feel real, that matter.

fifty-nine

22:53:12


I'm sleepless in Paris.


The smell of something metallic would occasionally waft over from the right. It couldn't be braces. Would he taste of coins if I were to kiss him? His chair kept squeaking and he would sigh once in a while. I had chosen the movie and I was beginning to feel a little guilty.

"Oui, j'ai bien aimé, c'était assez fort comme histoire...les vrais rednecks, une vie dure..."

We walked to the metro station next to my house. Two cheek bounces and he disappeared into the Parisian underground network.

Phone buzzes.

"Je t'aurais bien embrassé, mais le film et toutes ces images s'y prétaient pas trop je crois..."

"Mais il y avait des chatons et des poussins!"

"Tu as dit que tu croyais que les chatons étaient des rats..."

"Pour un murmure je dirai n'importe quoi"

"Murmure"

There is something about the French language that let's slide the cheesiness. Nounours, chou, poussin - I'll sign upon delivery. But you can't put "baby" on my corner, I'll take the long way home, merci.

Yet, I couldn't figure it out. That Friday night out I didn't capture any signs of interest, at least not something that a couple of beers couldn't explain, so I began to spin my own web of ex's and why's.

Sobriquet, he knew Pope well. They were buddies, they walked in front of each other naked, they slept to each other's midnight moans and sighs, they might have even shared more than just circumstances and what if, I was to be a continuity of this brotherly sharing is caring saga?

I always introduce suspicions to my beautiful boys. Skin like wax, planted stubble, a spritz of cool, an I-know-where-I-come-from swagger, opinions to declare and stories to wear, a walking-talking best supporting actor replica and this is where I pause the film to think, "Was I cast for the right role?" because hey, I've got insecurities too and preconceptions about facial symmetry and your The Kooples shirt. Beautiful boys remind me of Calvin Klein campaigns, a lot of promises on a piece of paper and a pair of socks for stuffing.

Am I handsomacist? Perhaps. And I blame the media, in part, just as I blame the media for one-sided preconceptions about race and religion and foreign societies. But if media has the power to turn people against people, it takes the power of medium to turn people into persons 
and that medium is conversation.

We spoke and soon enough I picked up on signs of shyness and insecurities not so foreign to my own and I said to myself that posters are permeable and that this boy is beautiful, glossy print or not. That this Beninian knows about my problems too. That this Jew doesn't wish for my death either. That if we speak and listen, we might hear our own echo. That this world isn't ours, but yours is and it's a small plot of land to purge of contempt and prejudice.

So I'll pick up my mop, wipe those suspicions away and take Sobriquet at face value: someone without a hidden agenda, someone who has enough time for me in his agenda to merit enough trust on my part. It's only a little bit of cleaning.

fifty-seven

22:43:48

I’m sleepless in Paris.

Today I came across the term “touch and go woman”. If you search the term online, you will come across a wide range of interpretations, but I’ve come to adopt my own: someone who likes to get a taste of, but never stick around, her departure being vague and non-finite.

If I retrospect, it’s something I’ve been guilty of, but without the burden of guilt. Most of my relationships dwindled; that is to say, their endings never as abrupt as the snipping off of an umbilical cord. And I like that. I like that because I have come to amass an address book of worn down, yet unbroken ties.

There is a place of memory that I like to call The Morgue. It is a basement of past relationships and depending on your own story, it goes down a couple of levels.

A level for your broken or lost family ties.

A level for your handicapped friendships.

A level for your shattered hearts.

The Morgue is not the same as The Cemetery. The Cemetery holds those we will never forgive or those who will never come back to life. The Cemetery is not void of life. You revisit now and again, when something triggers the memory of that person, you pause at their tombstone and then walk away. Some things just cannot be undone.

The Morgue is that in between zone, where we house those we cannot let go of. Cadavers are at our disposal to be revisited, dissected and scrutinized, to be pardoned, to be chilled for a Cryonic Era.

My mnemonic landscape is comprised of a tiny cemetery and a very large morgue. I have troubled letting go.

The skewed confession of a monophobe.

Perhaps confessing to monophobia is taking it a little far, but then again, what are all those blue bodies doing in my closet?

Lulu, Botticelli, Freud, Capitalyst, Leon, The Pope, Imaginary-Extraordinary-Him not even Balding, have been buried. I even see them from time to time, outside The Morgue, where it smells of fresh beginnings. To paint them better, to turn their skin pink.

I saw The Pope the other week. We had drinks in Le Marais. He is the only one that stands out amongst the list. We called it quits back in Beirut, an official break-up.

I was a little shaky about meeting him, but all that got buried beneath the layer of getting lost and walking up and down wrong streets until I finally found number 78.

We sipped on white wine and caught up with each other’s lives, all the while seated, the cold slowly gnawing through the layers of coats and sweaters and T-shirts, until we could sit it through no more. He dropped me home and we promised each other a homely dinner in the weeks to come.

But as one corpse rots, other beings come to life. Out of the blue, or perhaps from underneath a pretext I have yet to trip on, Sobriquet, a friend of The Pope’s who I knew only vaguely, decided to put an end to my social emergency. He has opened the doors to a Paris that I would normally need a couple of months to arrive at.

I consider myself lucky, for Sobriquet has not been the sole hero. Roquette and Bonbonheur have allowed me to play my anonymous little game until the moment we found ourselves face to face. There is nothing more thrilling than meeting a walking definition of stranger, although I must say I did envy their position. I knew enough to know they were not psychopaths, too much information for thrills and chills, while I kept them guessing till the very last minute. 


I'd like to not know for a change.

It takes a certain amount of fascination, a certain humbleness in the face of the unknown and a certain amount of trust in goodness and sincerity. If there should ever be a pandemic, it should be of this unbruised mindset.

twenty-eight

00:31:56

I’m sleepless in the jabal.

“Tu sais qu’en deux jours sera notre anniversaire de 30 ans?”, she asked, the smoke following each word.

“Wow”, I replied. Should I tell her that I wowed all relationships that lasted up to and beyond 3 months? The words were about to fly out of my mouth, but I withheld them just before take-off. Keep your commitment issues to yourself this time. The last time we spoke about love was half a year ago, when I was still attending mass with The Pope. Only recently did she find out that The Pope and I were long ago committed to the pages of history.

“Is there any difference between say the 15^th year and 30^th year of being with someone?”, I wondered out loud.

“Bien-sur, ca evolue, ca devient plus fort. C’est tres fort.”, she answered, leaning her head forward and turning her chin towards her left shoulder.

I looked across the table at her husband. He was still handsome, with gray hair and a whitish beard, slightly tanned skin, eyes tired but sparkling and a gentle smile that was hard-to-read. He wore a stylish double-button jacket, its light blue colour brought to life by the mustard yellow leather strap of his wristwatch. His kind deep voice was worth just as much. He considers me as his daughter, but I sometimes wish for him to be unmarried.

I looked back at her. I couldn’t imagine either of them with somebody else, they fit really well. She was the kind of lady who always looked elegant, who encouraged me to be strong, but who never confronted her husband in public, who never spoke about herself in fact and here I was witnessing a foxy dreamy smile that spoke of a different woman altogether as she uttered, “Rien n’est plus beau que la passion” under her breath. I barely grasped the words they were so hushed.

I have seen that look on her face once before, and have wondered ever since if she had not taken on a lover during some point. I have also seen, a countless number of times, the way she looks at her husband and I cannot imagine her allowing herself anything more than a stray thought.

30 years! A war, three kids, a grandson and a granddaughter in the belly. 30 years. That’s longer than I have been on this earth. WOW.

I tried to remember what the 3 months with The Pope were like, how did I not suffocate, how did we keep it afloat?

All I can recall is the beginning, the love-making and the moments we had taken pictures of. The rest is a blur, or not long enough to fill up a span of one hundred days. Give me a couple of moments…

…it’s all coming back to me now.

We woke up the next morning broken. It had been an exhausting yet loveless night. Not only had we gone back home late, but we stayed up talking about the La Connasse incident and talking about us. He tried to hug me when I had put out the lights, but I resisted until I felt his abs and chest on my back: his skin was killer. He could overthrow the Johnson & Johnson baby. He certainly made me take back my words. See, I was one of those prejudiced cretins who thought that chest hair was the zenith of attractiveness…until I touched The Pope that is - it was then that I forgot the nightmare of the hairless rat I lost my virginity to.

Neither of us wanted to leave the other. He didn’t want to leave me alone with my thoughts, and I didn’t want to be left alone to them. We went to Paul for a late breakfast; it would only take a couple of please before the waiters would give in and bring us bread and jam, which is idiotically served till midday only. Full and lethargic, we plunked down with the rest of the Sunday crowd to watch Avatar in 3D. That was our romantic afternoon.

Back home and alone, everything came back to me, including my pride which I had somehow managed to shut up the previous night. How could he do this to me? How did I let him get away with it? And all other fairly typical questions that cross a cheated gal’s head. So how did I deal with it? I wrote him a letter.

I wrote him a letter that was a little extravagant, a little too poetic for the simple message it was trying to convey. His English was good, very cute when spoken, but not enough to read me beating around the bush with a Shakesperean quill. Alas, he never understood my text messages that ventured beyond “Where are you”s and “I miss you”s. It went the same for me; I thank Larousse and the French slang online translators for allowing us to communicate over the phone. So to understand me better, he came over the following day.

We read the letter together. He would read a paragraph, ask me to explain a certain this or a certain that and then give me his point of view. We did this for the nine or ten paragraphs that the letter was made of. I was travelling to Paris that night and I wouldn’t be back before two weeks. We separated on a positive, yet uncertain note.

I missed him, he missed me, and before we both knew it, we couldn’t wait for my trip to be over.

“Je veux te rammener de l’aeroport,” he told me. It would be the first time a lover would greet me! I don’t know what I was more excited about: seeing him again or experiencing a movie cliché.

I landed twelve hours later only because I lost track of time in the duty free shop and missed my connecting flight from Frankfurt. An extra six hours of waiting for 50ml of skin foundation, guilty as charged.

He was waiting for me just as how I had picture him, in his leather jacket, with his tousled hair and looking out of place because he never waited for anybody.

“Tu m’as trop manqué,” he said squeezing the air out of me.

He had to return to the airport in a couple of hours to see his friend off. We dropped of my bags at my place, I grabbed a fresh change of clothes and we headed for his flat. His friend was already up, packing his things and shooing my cat out of his suitcase. I said hello before disappearing into the bathroom. Nothing comes between me and my shower.

They were ready to leave by the time I dried my hair. We loaded the car and went back to the airport. By the time we got there the sky was already beginning to show signs of a new day to come. They hugged, exchanging a couple of words and his friend trundled off into the departure lounge to return to Paris.

I offered to drive; he looked depleted. I suggested we go to Tyr and he did not resist so long as I agreed to drive us back and forth. He fell asleep by the time we reached Khalde, and he would wake up every now and then just to see where we were. The highway was practically empty after Saida and the desolate scenery that stretched out before us basked in the splendor of the rising sun. I hadn’t seen something so beautiful and moving in a long time.

I’d turn to my right every once in a while to take in the comfort of the sleeping Pope. He was entirely at my disposal and whatever upper hand I gained through this, I wanted to use it to take care of him and shelter him. You could say that as my lover fell asleep he awoke the mother in me.

We walked around the old town for a while. Our camera attracted a small group of kids who took it upon themselves to show us around. They showed us where they lived, where they played, where their families went shopping in the old souk and where they went diving in the summer. The walking, the intensifying sun and the hubbub of children wore us down. We found ourselves a table at a café overlooking the sea and ordered some coffee. It was January, but the heat, the azure blue waters, the sandy shore and the palm trees spoke of a different time and place.

The coffee gave us enough energy to walk back to the car and drive to the entrance of the Tyr Nature Reserve (separated by nothing more than a street from what seems to be a plastic bag and tire plantation). We dragged our bare feet along the path, over the wooden bridge and unto the warm sand of the shore. The Pope collapsed as soon as we spread a piece of cloth on the ground. I threw my clothes into a pile next to him and ran straight into the waves. The first contact with water was like running into a wall. The cold seized my entire body in one tight shockwave and I let out a noise that is usually reserved for The Pope’s and insomniac neighbours ears only.

It only took a couple of moments before I felt one with the sea. All my senses opened up: my eyes saw high and wide, my ears heard every drop crash and every shell drag, my nose smelled the sea, the tall grass and the city, my tongue collected the salty droplets and brought them in to spice up the traces of coffee and dough, my body felt the push and pull of the sea, its cold grip, its soft caress, its mass and its foam and I felt limitless and alive and I ran into and out of and along and I jumped and I rolled in the sand like a madwoman.

I collapsed beside him and he woke up for long enough to put his arm around me.

“T’es toute mouillee, et froide. Viens, viens…”

I heard voices. I raised my head to see. There was a family, or two. One kid was carrying a kite, the other a plastic bucket and the parents were carrying small backpacks. They did not look local, which was a relief since I was in my wet underwear and trapped beneath a sleepy arm of a male siren.

It was then, with my wet and shivering body against his warm side, that I felt the desire I had kept locked up for two weeks suddenly jump out and lock me in a trance. The entire world receded in a big whoosh, like water retreating from a rising submarine. I wanted nothing more. At first I allowed myself a nibble on his ear, a few kisses on his neck, but I hadn’t vouched for the same beast to take over him as well. Lying on our bellies we struggled and the only force keeping us apart was the sharp children’s laughter only a few meters away from us. Just enough decency not to perform.

Defeated and famished, we got back into the car. He fell asleep with his head on my lap, and I held him close against me whenever we approached bumps and dips in the road. It felt nice to know that I had it in me to be gentle and caring. There is so much aggression out there that it hardens you up and rapes you of your altruistic instincts. Before The Pope, I was at a point in my life where I was convinced that I wouldn’t be able to succumb to my feminine nature. With Mr. Keller, I couldn’t stand being in the same bed as him, if he’d touch me, my breathing would become pronounced with rage and he would ask me what was wrong, and I’d tell him to not touch me and he would retreat into his black hole of rejection and I would stay awake all night wondering what the hell was wrong with me. It took his tears and a look of complete dejection to move me. Now, I only needed to look at The Pope and my blood would turn to wine.

That night, like so many others, we spent stealing each other’s hours of sleep. I could summarize those three months as a constant state of sleep-walking in a day dream. I am still compensating for the lost hours with afternoon naps.

Three months. Thirty years. How wonderfully exhausting.

twenty

22:12:46

I’m sleepless in Beirut.

I was travelling in a couple of days to join my family for Christmas vacation, so the plan for that Saturday night was to have lots and lots of memorable fun.

I picked up The Pope, and we headed straight to the Mashrou3a Leila concert.

We arrived late of course; punctuality is not my forte. The place was packed, the energy was unbelievable; you could almost touch it.

Since The Pope and I were still at the very beginning of our “being together in public”, I let him have his space, while I danced and mingled, my feet on fire. Frankly, I never enjoyed dancing with him; we could never seem to find the right rhythm or the right fit, except for that one occasion at Acid…

In an hour or so, Mr. Nawfal started directing us towards the exit. The party was to go on. I was still bobbing my head to the beats as we drove to Gemmayzeh.

BTGD was packed with the same faces that we saw at the concert and that we usually see anyway. The Pope’s friends were there, people I didn’t yet know, and I unwilling to make conversation over loud music, remained with my group of friends.

As the night went on, The Pope was still not by my side. I scanned the room to see where he had disappeared to. He wasn’t far ahead, making casual conversation with some girl. I was always amazed by his ability to make friends wherever he would go. He was magnetic.

A friend of mine noticed the two of them and commented on the girl in red: she’s so sexy, isn’t she? I always see her talking to a different guy each night. She’s on such an ego trip. She tried to flirt with me, but I didn’t give her any face. I don’t like girls like that.

Well, neither did I.

What were my options? Walk over and break up their conversation and appear like the jealous girlfriend? Or, leave them to it and hope that not all women are Eve and evil?

I chose the latter. I was always convinced that if you start acting paranoid and possessive, it will work against you.

So I preoccupied myself with watching my drunken friends’ antics and checking up on the two of them every now and then.

Beyonce was crazy in love by now, and from where I was looking, they were standing closer. The Pope looked at me, I smiled and thought that I had taken care of it. I had let him know that I was thinking about him.

A couple of moments later, they had disappeared from my view. Alert.

They were not outside. They were not anywhere near the bathroom, nor in the women’s cubicle, nor in the men’s. After having taken several lessons in the history of The Pope, I knew that nothing was off limits for this sex god. As a matter of fact, he could start a blog of his own and place his bets on an early retirement. Too many stories.

They were at the bar.

The Pope’s back was towards me, so I gave him a playful tickle. Patient: unresponsive.

I was leaning forward to put my chin on his shoulder when I witnessed the unthinkable act: The Pope and La Connasse commiting lingular blasphemy.

Connard!

I marched straight out the door, sat down on the steps, got straight back up, went right back in, walked straight to The Pope, in front of La Connasse, kissed him oh so sweetly and debouched back into the street.

My friend saw the state I was in, so he dove after me. We walked to my car, while he preached great truths about how The Pope wasn’t man enough, wasn’t mature enough and wasn’t worth the half of me.

“Let us see how he manages without me now. His stuff is in my car, his stuff is in my house, let us see how he’ll manage now. Yalla, let us see.”

As we were getting into the car, from the corner of my eye I saw Judas running down the street towards us.

I hurried my friend to get in as fast as he could. We shut the doors. I locked them. I turned the ignition key, put my gear in reverse, pressed hard on the pedal, changed gears again and turned from the parking space. The Pope had caught up, he was now banging on the passenger window, shouting my name as I started driving forward. The Pope then grabbed unto the roof bars, jumped unto the little step that sticks from beneath the car door and we were one, in perfect kinetic harmony, roaring down the street.

Naturally, I wanted to keep on driving, but fortunately, my friend, made it very clear to me that I would have the boy killed. So I stopped the car, The Pope clambered off and I rolled down my window.

“Quoi?”

“J-j-j-j-j-j-je p-p-p-p-p-peux te parler?”, he said panting.

After a moment’s consideration, I couldn’t find it in me to just leave him like that. He looked like an illustration of “pitiable”.

I thanked my friend for coming along, we hugged and I got back into the car. I started driving.

“J-j-j-je suis desole”

He looked a right mess, and for a moment there, I believed him. Well, I did believe him; there was much to be sorry about.

He made me stop the car so we could talk. I thought there was nothing to talk about. What was done was done. It was irreversible.

“Je suis desole. Je sais pas.”

The funny part was that in less than half an hour I was smiling. It was just the right amount of comical for my sense of humour and I had to indulge. I saw the situation for what it was and I understood it.

He thought I didn’t care enough to break up their conversation.

I thought he was just making friends.

He thought that was stupid because I knew how much attention he attracts.

I thought that was normal for his age and since we hadn’t really laid down any grounds for our relationship (“do whatever you want, as long as I don’t find out” – you can quote me on this jewel of a line, please), it didn’t come as such a big shock. The saddest part of all was that were I in his place, I would have done the same. As long as there is no love, we owe nothing to the other person, except respect. And it was in that precise department, that he was up to his ears in debt.

Of course, what followed next was a speech about how deeply he was sorry, that he would understand if I never wanted to see him again, that he was sorry he disrespected me, that in fact he respected me very much, more than himself actually and that he really enjoyed my company.

“Je suis bien avec toi”

Well, that was a first. He had never said anything of the sort before. It was a much appreciated upgrade from “je ne suis pas ici pour faire des relations”.

We arrived home.

“Good luck”, I said as he walked in after me.

I went to brush my teeth. He sat on the bed, not knowing what to make of it.

That night we had our first sincere conversation about how we felt for one another, and in a way that made up for the whole thing. Here was a guy I got along with really well, who inspired me to be the best I could be, who was great company, who was going to leave in a couple of months, so I pondered: what did I have to lose?

I saw it as an opportunity to learn something about myself by being in a relationship with a set expiry date. It would be another one of my social experiments.

“Un regard doux sur les barbares”, wrote Gymnase. And now I could see why.

Mais un regard vicieux pour La Connasse!

I knew she wasn’t to blame, I knew it was The Pope who had to say “No” (“I told her – twice – that my girlfriend was in the room. She kissed me!” He was good with numbers like that, Einstein.), but I had forgiven him, and I had to release the anger somehow. So the next time I was on a girls’ night out in BTGD, I was 31 going on 13, pointing her way and turning my friends’ ears red with female solidarity. Anger is a force that blinds and my creative tactics didn’t go beyond high-school shoves and squinty stares.

So I’m officially letting go. Pope: Amen. La Connasse: God blitz. May peace reign behind the green door.