Rachid at work. After transferring at the Saint-Lazare station, I leaned into my plastic seat, and a newly familiar face came into view beyond the Plexiglas window.
It was Cato, standing across the tracks on the opposite platform still wearing last night’s clothes.
I’d thought about him since waking up with the sunrise, touching the banister where he’d stood the night before as I descended to the dining room, taking my coffee alone while the rest of the house slowly rumbled awake.
I’d thought of him as Naomi and I walked the cobblestones of our desolate block glistening from the street cleaners’ nightly rinse, picturing him hours earlier, making his way home after our shared night, not entirely sure how, since we’d only exchanged a few words, he had penetrated my consciousness.
And there he was.
“Look,” I pointed him out to Naomi. “There’s Cato from last night.”
“Where?” She made a vague effort to look but was distracted by the old woman who’d boarded the train at Concorde and sat beside her, complaining in whispered English that she could smell her whole apartment down to the sardines and cornichons she’d probably left out on her kitchen counter.
“There,” I said. I waved to him just as the train started vibrating forward, and to my surprise he waved back before our train rattled down the track into the dark tunnels.
Naomi came to the Saint-Ouen flea market every Saturday, and the veteran vendors were used to the sight of the waifish American girl with the large camera hanging from her neck, with her pastiche French, hanging around the Egyptian boys. She led the way through the labyrinth of kiosks, barns, foldaway shops, the fortress of carpet shops, vendors of shoes, and leather goods, as streams of shoppersdrifted through improvised aisles as if on a slow conveyor, behind every turn the start of another serpentine market row. Naomi told me about the boyfriend she left behind in New York, a boy she’d been with since tennis camp who expected to marry her upon graduation. I tried to see her as a young would-be bride, but only saw the Naomi she was now with Rachid, spending afternoons hanging around Les Halles, smoking his Gitanes, getting by on both ends of their broken Franglais.
She brought us to the booth where Rachid and his friends sold Rai CDs, hats, and T-shirts emblazoned with FREE PALESTINE, GAZA RESISTANCE, and ILLEGAL OCCUPATION slogans, with red, white, green, and black flags whipping in the wind overhead. She’d been photographing Rachid for as long as she knew him, with an entire wall in her bedroom dedicated to her
Rachid dans Paris
oeuvre; photographs of Rachid and his friends working at Les Puces; Rachid performing his hip-hop-argot poetry at smoky clubs and cafés in Saint-Denis and Aubervilliers; Rachid at the boxing club training for night fights on the amateur circuit, Naomi documenting the subsequent broken noses, missing teeth, and eyebrow tears.
“Lita!” Rachid grinned when he saw us. “I’m happy to say I’ve found you a job. A friend of mine needs a salesgirl at her antiques stall and she’s agreed to try you out.”
We followed him down the path to the barns and he explained that she was an older Ukrainian woman who needed someone trustworthy and I had an honest enough face, but after our introduction it took only a minute of small talk for the lady to start apologizing to Rachid that the arrangement would not work out.
“I can already tell she doesn’t have the personality to sell a thing,” she told him before turning to me. “I’m sorry. I can’t afford to lose money on you.”
“You could at least give me a chance,” I said. “I’m a very hard worker.”
She looked skeptical. “Have you ever sold anything before? Hand to hand?”
I considered lying, but my pause was proof enough and she shook her head emphatically as I sputtered, “I can learn. I can learn to do anything.”
“Rachid,” she was more clearly comfortable
It was Cato, standing across the tracks on the opposite platform still wearing last night’s clothes.
I’d thought about him since waking up with the sunrise, touching the banister where he’d stood the night before as I descended to the dining room, taking my coffee alone while the rest of the house slowly rumbled awake.
I’d thought of him as Naomi and I walked the cobblestones of our desolate block glistening from the street cleaners’ nightly rinse, picturing him hours earlier, making his way home after our shared night, not entirely sure how, since we’d only exchanged a few words, he had penetrated my consciousness.
And there he was.
“Look,” I pointed him out to Naomi. “There’s Cato from last night.”
“Where?” She made a vague effort to look but was distracted by the old woman who’d boarded the train at Concorde and sat beside her, complaining in whispered English that she could smell her whole apartment down to the sardines and cornichons she’d probably left out on her kitchen counter.
“There,” I said. I waved to him just as the train started vibrating forward, and to my surprise he waved back before our train rattled down the track into the dark tunnels.
Naomi came to the Saint-Ouen flea market every Saturday, and the veteran vendors were used to the sight of the waifish American girl with the large camera hanging from her neck, with her pastiche French, hanging around the Egyptian boys. She led the way through the labyrinth of kiosks, barns, foldaway shops, the fortress of carpet shops, vendors of shoes, and leather goods, as streams of shoppersdrifted through improvised aisles as if on a slow conveyor, behind every turn the start of another serpentine market row. Naomi told me about the boyfriend she left behind in New York, a boy she’d been with since tennis camp who expected to marry her upon graduation. I tried to see her as a young would-be bride, but only saw the Naomi she was now with Rachid, spending afternoons hanging around Les Halles, smoking his Gitanes, getting by on both ends of their broken Franglais.
She brought us to the booth where Rachid and his friends sold Rai CDs, hats, and T-shirts emblazoned with FREE PALESTINE, GAZA RESISTANCE, and ILLEGAL OCCUPATION slogans, with red, white, green, and black flags whipping in the wind overhead. She’d been photographing Rachid for as long as she knew him, with an entire wall in her bedroom dedicated to her
Rachid dans Paris
oeuvre; photographs of Rachid and his friends working at Les Puces; Rachid performing his hip-hop-argot poetry at smoky clubs and cafés in Saint-Denis and Aubervilliers; Rachid at the boxing club training for night fights on the amateur circuit, Naomi documenting the subsequent broken noses, missing teeth, and eyebrow tears.
“Lita!” Rachid grinned when he saw us. “I’m happy to say I’ve found you a job. A friend of mine needs a salesgirl at her antiques stall and she’s agreed to try you out.”
We followed him down the path to the barns and he explained that she was an older Ukrainian woman who needed someone trustworthy and I had an honest enough face, but after our introduction it took only a minute of small talk for the lady to start apologizing to Rachid that the arrangement would not work out.
“I can already tell she doesn’t have the personality to sell a thing,” she told him before turning to me. “I’m sorry. I can’t afford to lose money on you.”
“You could at least give me a chance,” I said. “I’m a very hard worker.”
She looked skeptical. “Have you ever sold anything before? Hand to hand?”
I considered lying, but my pause was proof enough and she shook her head emphatically as I sputtered, “I can learn. I can learn to do anything.”
“Rachid,” she was more clearly comfortable
Similar Books
