Hungry Woman in Paris (24 page)

I remained silent, not sure what to say since I was barely awake.

“We’ll pay you double,” Gina replied, taking my silence as me playing hardball with her. I thought about it for a few more
seconds and then my stomach growled, trying to answer for me. I could sure use the money.

“Okay. I’ll do it. How many words and when do you want it?” I said, caging in a yawn. Gina explained all the details and I
couldn’t sleep that night, scheming how I was going to get into a predominantly Arab neighborhood without speaking French
or Arabic. When I had to go to South Central for a story I was never afraid, because I acted like I belonged. I was constantly
mistaken for an Arab in Paris, but would people in the
banlieue
see me as one of them if I could barely speak French? Like them, I too felt like I didn’t belong in Paris.

I called Henry first thing in the morning and he refused to help me. He claimed he was busy, but I quickly caught him in a
lie.

“Do I have to tell the police about all the truffle cans in your kitchen cabinets?” I wheedled with a girlish voice.

“Darling, you’re threatening me; that’s not nice. Is it because of Bassie?”

“I couldn’t care less about you and Bassie. But she’s a nice kid, so just don’t mess with her heart.”

“She’s a big girl. She does all right for herself,” Henry replied, teasing me.

“Henry, just come with me. I need you… to help me translate,” I begged him.

“Fine. Just so you know, I’ve already sold off the truffles and there is no evidence in my flat, but I’ll do it.”

We took the metro to just outside of Paris where black and Arab youths were burning up cars. As we approached the neighborhood
I heard loud music coming from cars, including a song in Spanish called “Gasolina,” which I would later come to know as a
classic reggaetón song. It served as a wonderful anthem even though it was in Spanish because the cars were up in flames and
they kept throwing gasoline on more cars and setting them on fire. I took pictures from a distance until a group of teenagers
approached us. Henry stiffened up and I said,
“Salut! Ça va?”
—the equivalent of “What’s up?”—to them, acting like I belonged and was so happy to see them. I’d dressed down, in jeans,
and I pretended I was simply back in South Central during the riots. Let me just add that a riot in Paris bears no resemblance
to a riot in Los Angeles. Sure there were fires, but the difference is they didn’t have weapons. In L.A. the riots were so
violent and vicious even heroes like firefighters got shot. On the fringes of Paris, only cars were getting burned and an
occasional person was getting hurt. When my editor had mentioned “riot” I’d seen glimpses of Los Angeles in flames, smoke
visible from a distance, looting, violence—the end of the world. Here it was just young dark men pissed, but without enough
resources to do much damage. That’s how oppressed and poor they were; they couldn’t even afford to take the riot into the
city and really burn down Paris, like the U.S. media was claiming they were.

“Why are you doing this?” I asked with an open and receptive face, free of judgment. I introduced myself as a reporter from
Los Angeles, letting them know that I wanted the United States to know about the mistreatment of Arabs in France. So what
if we were mistreating them all around the world? We really wanted to know how bad the French were to their Arabs. They hesitated
at first, but I informed them that in Los Angeles the riots in the sixties and in the nineties all started because African-Americans
felt the system was unjust and were so outraged by the injustice they saw they had to do something.

They quickly got that I was a passionate sympathizer with their cause and the teenagers felt empowered by my comparison. One
whispered to another and they told Henry they had a friend who was a rapper who could really tell it like it is. We went into
the
banlieue
. It was worse than the projects my high school friend Maria had lived in. It was mostly a concrete structure with no style.
You would think that in Paris, the capital of the art world, they could design prettier buildings to stack up people. The
teenage boys knocked and Mohammed, who went by “M. C. Momo,” came out. He was twenty-one and good-looking, trying to make
himself out to look like a French version of an American rapper. Henry introduced me and he looked me up and down with attitude.
I checked him out up and down and smiled, unafraid of his bravado. He wasn’t the first rapper I had interviewed, so I knew
how to speak his language and asked him what kind of rap he performed. He was impressed by my knowledge of the different rapping
styles and I told him my favorite rap group was NWA. To Henry’s amazement, M. C. Momo welcomed us into his parents’ apartment.
The teenage boys excused themselves. We went into his parents’ apartment and his mother ignored us and continued watching
a Brazilian soap opera my mother had already seen. He escorted us to his tiny room, which was also his homemade studio, with
synthesizer and all.

“So why aren’t you out there, rioting?” I asked him. He laughed at my boldness, but Henry hated translating my brash questions.

“I wait until it gets dark—I’m not stupid,” Henry translated.

“So why are people doing this?” I asked.

Mohammed explained that he’d been born in France, his father had been born in France, and his grandfather had been born in
France, but they were not treated with the rights promised to them as French citizens. They would always be treated like foreigners,
like scum, he said. I explained to him that I was Mexican-American and what that meant and he instantly had an affinity with
me. He understood what it was like to have a double identity: “We don’t have any opportunities and we’re constantly harassed
by the police.” He put on a CD of his rap song about
les flics
-—the cops—and sang along to it. Henry took deep breaths, wondering how much longer he’d have to endure this urban anthropological
investigation. I tried singing along to Mohammed’s song and he continued, playing his next song.

After a while, Henry looked at his watch and I told him he could go. He muttered that he wouldn’t leave my side because he
was scared for me. I assured him that I felt safe singing along to music. He told me to call him if I got into trouble. It
was going to get dark soon and anything could happen, he warned me. I assured him I could take care of myself. Mohammed told
him good-bye and continued playing his songs and I threw in questions. He got ready to go out that night and I asked him if
I could go with him. Mohammed told me to put on a baseball cap and hide my hair under it. I dressed myself as a guy and went
out to see the fires with Mohammed. We mostly watched on the sidelines. At the end of the night Mohammed gave me his number
and told me to call him if I needed more information. I thanked him for his interview and gave him my number.

I rushed home and found Altair crying. She was discovering that freedom was not so nice. She spent her days taking care of
rich women’s children and she missed her own children. Altair showed me pictures of her children, and it broke my heart. I
would have cried next to her, but my deadline was pressing. In the morning I sent the story to Gina via e-mail. In the afternoon
I got a call from her telling me it needed to be “sexier.”

“Americans want the French to be embarrassed and exposed. We want to laugh at them and point the finger back,” Gina confessed.
I tried to explain to her that things were not as bad as people in the United States thought they were. Yes, they have a race
problem, but Paris was not burning up in flames like my little sister Rosie, who had just called to check on me, thought.
Yes, the U.S. embassy had issued a threat alert to all the American tourists in Paris, but only because the train to the airport
went through the area where the cars were being burnt. Nobody was targeting Americans.

“Nobody seems to be affected except the poor people in those neighborhoods,” I explained. “I walked down the Champs-Élysées
in the heat of the so-called riot and nobody stopped shopping,” I insisted. I finally had to tell Gina I was not going to
write lies to save my story. I hung up and turned on the TV.

The minister of the interior, whose last name sounded like a disease, and who would later become the president of France,
had infuriated the rioters by calling them
racaille
—scum. The boys in the
banlieue
continued their rioting with more fury until President Chirac felt obligated to say a few kind words that hinted at the identity
crisis France was going through. He told the rioters that they, too, were children of France. He promised more opportunity
and equality, and assured them that change would come.

A few days after the rioting stopped Mohammed called me to see if I wanted to come over and listen to his new rap song about
the disturbances. I knew it was an excuse to get into my panties, and I reminded myself that he was only twenty-one and this
could only lead to disaster.

I went over to his apartment anyway and entered his room unnoticed. He played the song and sang most of it for me. I clapped
and sang along. Then he kissed me. There are kisses and then there are kisses, the kind that awaken you to your divinity.
How could this young guy I could barely understand electrify me with his kiss? I kissed him back and we whispered things in
Spanish and English and Arabic and French. I caressed his high cheekbones and rubbed my face on his face. In his dark eyes
I could see my soul. When he penetrated me we gasped together and at that moment we were both worshipping the same God.

“Ay Dios, ay Dios, oh God, oh God,” I whispered in ecstasy.

“Oh Allah, oh Allah,” he grunted in between humps. God by any name in the heat of passion is still God.

Two weeks after I had sex with Mohammed his mother figured out my age and the fact that I was American and said she didn’t
like me hanging around. Mohammed had to come over to my apartment during the time Altair was working. One day I came to the
apartment with him and we found her crying.

“Altair, what’s wrong?” I called to her, making hand gestures. She looked up and I introduced her to Mohammed. Mohammed said
something and she smiled with recognition. They began a conversation that I could not understand, but I was happy that Mohammed
knew several Arab dialects; he’d grown up hearing them in the
banlieue
.

“Au revoir,”
Altair said in her heavy accent and left the room to give us privacy, but Mohammed remained disturbed. He was silent for
a while and did not respond to my caresses.

“Why did you interfere with her life?” he asked me, shaking his head.

“Her husband was abusive. She needed to escape. She needed to experience life and have a baby—” I blurted out.

“Baby?” He raised his eyebrows.

“I mean her health was bad and she needed to get out or it would kill her—”

“What are you saying? Who are you talking about?” He asked perplexed.

“Luna—I mean Altair,” I corrected myself. “She asked me for help and she finally had the strength to leave and I had to help
her escape and she wanted my help!” I talked rapidly, trying to get Mohammed to understand, until he walked up to me and put
his hands on my shoulders so I would stop talking and listen.

“You had no right to interfere. You had no right to do what you did!” he scolded me.

“She asked for my help. She was desperate. I had to help. I didn’t want her to die!” I yelled and started crying. He shook
his head violently and practically spat at me.

“You egotistical American! Can’t you respect other people’s cultures! What gave you the right to impose your American views
about what women should think and be?” I couldn’t believe how sexist he was. Yes, I knew he was an Arab, but I thought he
was acculturated and a modern Arab-Frenchman.

“What about equality? What the hell are you fighting for? Oh, yeah, equality for Arab men!”

“Mais de quoi tu parles? T’es folle!”
he exploded. What are you talking about? You’re crazy!

I yelled back and pointed him to the door. He was about to say something when I shook my head and kicked him out.

I waited for Altair to come back that night, but she never did. In my dreams she would come in through the door and explain
that she’d run into a friend. I would wake up and see if she was back, but only her belongings were still there. Had Mohammed
found her and convinced her to go back to her husband? Had she been deported? Had she killed herself? I walked around the
arrondissement
looking for her at night, but she had vanished. Maybe she went to the Turkish embassy in the neighborhood and turned herself
in. I kept imagining every scenario, and all the answers I came up with were more frightening than the last.

One day I arrived at the apartment building and saw police officers interviewing Madame Bodé. She had been robbed; all her
jewels had been stolen. She cried as she explained that she’d stepped outside for only an hour and someone had broken into
her apartment.

Several neighbors came down to pay their condolences and informed the police that two Arab girls had knocked on their doors,
asking for someone. They kept changing the name of the person they were asking for as they went down the floors, and since
Madame Bodé was not home they or someone else working with them broke into her apartment. I imagined Mohammed wearing Madame
Bodé’s gold necklaces with his rapper look, but I erased the picture from my mind. I walked quickly past the scene and Madame
Bodé took the opportunity to tell the police officers about all the suspected
sans-papiers
living upstairs who might be responsible for this.

“We are sorry,” one officer explained in French, “but we are not connected with Immigration and are not authorized to search
for
sans-papiers
.”

I stayed in my room, frozen in self-pity. I felt so sad and lonely, even sadder than Edith Piaf on her deathbed… Okay,
maybe I’m exaggerating, but that was the worst I had ever felt in my life. Luna’s suicide became Altair’s assumed suicide
and I hadn’t been able to save either one of them. I couldn’t even rescue myself from the abyss of depression I was sliding
into. Not knowing what had happened to Altair was worse than knowing that she’d died at the hands of her husband or by her
own hands. I felt ashamed for interfering with Altair’s life. I cried for hours, until my eyelids burned. I wanted to drink,
but then I realized that since I’d gotten to Paris I drank every time I felt pain. Had I become a high-functioning alcoholic
without even noticing it? The saddest part was that this realization didn’t stop me from drinking. I drank a bottle of wine
and when I reached the bottom of it I thought I heard Altair calling out my name to buzz her in. I went out to the balcony
and looked down. There was no Altair. I wondered how it would feel to jump off the balcony. Would my spirit fly out of my
body as it was falling and crashing to the pavement? As drunk as I was, I knew that if I ever committed suicide it would be
painless. Why kill yourself painfully when the whole point of dying is to escape pain?