Affirmation of the day: I am not what happened to
me. I am bigger than that.
BELLEVILLE, 20 TH ARRONDISSEMENT, PARIS, 7:00 P. M.
I did not end up in Costa Rica. I decided that it was too small a place, and a
single woman, traveling alone, would easily be noticed.
I needed a big city, awash in immigrants, a place where my limited skills
could be utilized. So I flew to Paris, the City of Light, but not the city that
the tourists visit. In that Paris, hotels and Airbnbs ke ep meticulous records
of their guests. In that Paris, a legitimate apartment rental requires reams of
paperwork, which I did not have.
To truly disappear, I would have to live in the immigrant housing
projects beyond Boulevard Périphérique, the ring road that circles the old
city — but I found that prospect terrifying. Instead I rented an apartment in
the 20 th arrondissement, in Belleville, amid the hippie artist squatters, the
Sub - Saharan Africans, Moroccans, Algerians, Tunisians, and Vietnamese.
An illegal sublet in one of those grand Second Empire apartment buildings:
slate mansard roof, dormers, lacy wrought iron balconies.
Passable, I suppose, from the outside — but inside, the vast old
apartments have been chopped up and rented out room by room. The tiny
coffin elevator is forever out of order; the air is thick with the fug of
cooking. There is constant wailing music, shouting, squabbling. It is a place
out of Dante’s Inferno, and I am a resident here, among the damned, with
my new passport — French — in the name of Yasmine Nawaaz. It is an
excellent facsimile that cost me two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. I
also have a fake French national identity card with a price tag of one
hundred thousand euros. Funny how fast money will disappear when you
are on the run.
My life here is simple, structured by routine.
Early each morning, I like to walk up the hill and sit on a pew inside the
cavernous, murky interior of the Sacré - Cœur. The American tourists have
not arrived yet; only the penitents — elderly women in headscarves — light
candles and pray in their cracked, soft voices. I do not join them; I do not
pray to God and beg for forgiveness. In my mind, I did what I had to do.
Still, on bad days, I’ll be out on the street, and a dark - skinned bald man will
pass by, and I’ll swear I just saw George. Of course I’m mistaken, but my
heart rate will go up, and it will take hours for that panicky feeling to fade.
After the Sacré - Cœur, I’ll head to the boulangerie for a freshly baked
baguette — which I eat on the way back, tearing the warm bread into pieces.
I’ll treat myself to an occasional affordable lunch on the top floor café of
the Galeries Lafayette, sitting alone among the shoppers. At night, I do not
venture out. After dark, the northern Chinese streetwalkers line the
Boulevard de la Villette, with their homely round faces and fishnet
stockings, attracting customers in cars — and then there are the men who
prey on the streetwalkers and the johns, who loiter at street corners, hoodies
drawn up, waiting for opportunities.
Mine is a small, dull life, but with the amount of money I have left, I can
sustain it for years.
Or at least that’s what I thought, till this morning, when I returned from
the boulangerie.
Just inside the front door, in the dark lobby, I caught a flash of metal —
too late — and a blade was at my throat. Three men, maybe Senegalese,
surrounded me. My French has improved in the last year, but these three
men were speaking in thick slang, and all I got was “salope” and “à l’étage”
and “argent”: “bitch,” “upstairs,” “money.”
One man pressed the knife into my throat and he and his two
companions marched me up the stairs. I knew that they wouldn’t just be
satisfied with money; once we got inside my apartment, things would get
much, much worse. Under my breath, I cursed myself — for getting sloppy,
for thinking that I would be safe here. As the three Senegalese men pushed
me up the stairs — they were already cackling in delight, chattering in rapidfire French — I
realized that the street had figured me out. It was always
going to happen; it had just taken a year, that’s all.
First, I was a single woman, an aberration. Second — while everyone else
rented single rooms or made do with a chambre de bonne high up in the
attic — I had an entire apartment to myself, with many tall windows. I
needed the light and had set up a large table overlooking the street; it was
here that I made my jewelry: brass and bead modernist concoctions, wittily
named after Picasso, Braque, Gertrude Stein, and Hemingway. Once a
month I took my creations to a trendy boutique in the Marais, where a
middle - aged Frenchwoman bought my earrings, chokers, and bracelets in
cash for a fraction of the price at which she sold them.
So, the Senegalese men had watched and waited and hypothesized: I was
not a hooker. Not employed. Ergo, said the logic of the street, I must be
wealthy and on the run, and my wealth had to be in cash, up in my
apartment.
The three men marched me slowly up the stairs, and I did not resist. The
main stairs are broad, but to get to my apartment, one must go up a
narrower staircase, and after one landing, it narrows yet again, until there is
only room for one person. On this dark stretch of stairs, the man behind me
removed the knife from my throat and told me to lead the way, and no
funny business, comprends?
I appeared compliant, but then I sprinted up the stairs and banged on the
door next to mine, an apartment that housed four young, courteous Algerian
brothers who happened to be drug dealers. I’d met them a few months ago
when a brown - paper package was mistakenly delivered to me, and I’d
brought it over to them. It must have contained something very valuable,
because the brothers thanked me profusely, and later, the youngest had
brought me a pot of couscous and a chicken tajine with olives and preserved
lemons.
That day I pounded frantically on the Algerians’ door. The eldest opened
it, holding a sawn - off shotgun, and I ran past him, gasping out something
about the men and a knife. He cocked the gun and ran out onto the landing,
and his brothers followed, carrying a collection of pistols. I sat shivering in
their kitchen, listening to the sound of rapid - fire French followed by cries of
pain and retreating footst eps. A few minutes later, the four Algerian brothers
returned, smiling, and said that these Africans would not bother me
anymore. I tried to give them money for saving my life, but they
charmingly declined, putting their hands over their hearts.
Now I have to find a new place to live. (The Algerians politely said that
I should move away from this neighborhood — it would be too dangerous to
stay here.) Now I dare not leave my apartment and must have my daily
bread and groceries delivered, which is expensive. The whole situation is
untenable, but I have never said anything about my troubles to Kyle. As far
as he knows, I’m living in luxury in Paris in a vast apartment on the
Champs - Élysées, with a uniformed doorman and vases of fresh flowers.
Yes, Kyle, as in handsome Kyle Nowak, vice president at Tiger Corp.
I needed a way to stay informed about what Papa was up to, and I
arrived at Kyle through a process of elimination: I knew that he had no love
for the Khans and wasn’t awed by Papa. I sent him a one - line email via a
server in Helsinki, and he r eplied, “Damn, girl, so you’re alive! You caused
a real commotion over here!”
I emailed him back a sob story, and Kyle said that he understood how
the family could be stifling and how I needed to make a clean break. He
promised to ke ep my secret, to tell no one that I was in Paris. At first, I was
wary, but gradually I realized that I’d reached out to him at a perfect time:
He told me that he’d been completely sidelined on the West Side Project,
and Ali was now running the show. He said that Ali was a quick learner, had
picked up all sorts of skills from Papa, and was really asserting himself.
Incredible — Ali! So old dogs can be taught new tricks!
On that first call Kyle talked about how unhappy he was at Tiger Corp,
how Ali had usurped Papa’s attention. A few days later, he called me back,
and to my surprise, we began to chat regularly. He told me about the
women he was seeing — gaunt, blonde Eastern Europeans. After a few dates,
these women demanded Uber Black rides home and then started hinting that
they were behind with their rent. “They just want to make bank. They treat
me like an ATM,” Kyle said.
“Well,” I teased him, “you need to stop dating women from the
Bergdorf’s perfume counter,” and he laughed. “Besides,” I said, “what’s
this obsession with blondes?” Kyle thought for a minute and said, deadpan,
“Oh, too much porn,” and we both cracked up.
We talked a lot, Kyle and I. Eventually our conversations turned back to
childhood, and those dull Tiger Corp office parties that Kyle’s mom
dragged him to. Kyle, Maryam, and I were the only kids there, and we’d
often end up in some corner office, trying to entertain ourselves. One night
while Kyle and I were talking on the phone, he remembered the time we’d
stolen a bottle of Baileys Irish Cream and hidden in a closet to drink it; I
was seventeen, about to head off to college, and Kyle was a tall, precocious
fifteen - year - old.
“Oh yeah,” I said, “you were so sick afterward,” and he said, “But
remember before?” I drew a blank, and Kyle said, “I kissed you, remember?
And we made out a little?” Then it all came back to me: the stuffy, dark
closet; Kyle’s mouth sweet with liquor and coffee; the desire between us so
strong that eventually I pushed him away and said, “Hey, stop that, you’re
just a kid,” and he’d said, “Well, if I’m a kid, why were you into it?” After
that, things were awkward for a while — but then we drank more Baileys,
and Kyle threw up, which allowed us to treat the whole episode as a joke.
On the phone, Kyle and I laughed about this memory, but it affected us
both. Our conversations no longer took place during daylight. We only
talked in the evening, after Kyle got home to his apartment in Queens; it
was very late at night for me, but I had no commitments and could sle ep in
the next morning. And it was during those late hours that all his shtick fell
away, and I finally saw the real Kyle: The lonely boy, growing up with a
needy mother. The poor kid, looking in at the wealthy Khan family and
envying us. And in turn, I began to tell him what I had gone through, and he
swore softly under his breath and said, “Farhan, these people did a real
number on you, I swear. You deserve better.”
How odd, right? This thing with Kyle — it’s the first real relationship
I’ve ever had. Zero sex, just talking. And I’ve come to really d epend on
him: his familiar Noo Yawk accent, his guffaws, his pragmatism. He has
become my one connection to reality. And lately, he’s been telling me stuff
that gives me hope: Kyle says that the West Side Project has been set up so
that all the major decisions run through Papa, and he isn’t making them, so
things are a mess. It seems as though Papa had a heart attack a few weeks
ago: diffuse damage, inoperable. Now he has the heart of an eighty - fiveyear - old man,
and it is making him crazy. Kyle says that Papa is in denial
about his health, still eats steaks and smokes his Cubans. Maybe he doesn’t
have that much time left on Earth. What a strange feeling: A daughter
wishing for the demise of her father — but I’m not the monster. Papa is. I
have to remind myself of that.
Maybe Papa’s weakened state is an opportunity. Maybe I can use this
moment to make my way back to my real life in New York. And Kyle is a
strong ally; he will do anything for me. What’s the next move? I have to
think it all through, figure out a plan of action.
Oh boy, this has been a long diary entry. Funny, isn’t it? Dr. Bajaj forced
this journal onto me, and I hated it — but for the last two years, these entries
have k ept me sane. Now I’ve run out of pages. This is my last entry, and I
won’t be buying a new notebook.
The time for writing in journals is over. Now I need to act.