Inside the unrenovated interior, the walls were covered with rainbow-colored graffiti of Nique le flic—screw the cops. Colored handprints were imprinted over doorways, in the Muslim style, to guard dwellings. A narrow winding staircase, the steps grooved and worn, mounted upward. She wondered what it would be like to live here. Or to grow up looking at this graffiti every day.
Samia Fouaz lived above the tiled rex de chaussée, on the first floor. A stroller, string shopping bag, and a shiny four-wheeled cart filled the landing. Once polished and exquisite, Aimée-imagined.
After several bouts of knocking, the door opened to a curvaceous figure in a peach lace teddy unself-consciously scratching her rear. Samia’s light-honey-colored face was puffy, her eyes bleary, and she yawned loudly.
“Sorry to disturb you, Samia—”
“Pas de problème,” Samia said, eying her up and down.
Samia took a breath, pursed her mouth, then seemed to come to a decision. “Let’s make this quick.”
Nonplussed, Aimée recovered quickly. “Sounds good,” she said, aiming for casual.
Inside, trying to bury her nervousness, Aimée followed Samia’s sashaying down the yellowed hallway, its walls littered with calendars from local Arabic butchers on boulevard Menilmontant. Samia’s scent, a mixture of musk oil, sweat, and something by Nina Ricci, trailed in her wake.
Raï music pounded from a room in the rear. At the far end of the apartment Aimée saw violet gauze billowing from the ceiling, bordered by curtains embroidered with tiny mirrors.
Samia gestured to a chrome metal stool fronting a counter. A galley-style kitchen lay behind that, small, scrubbed, and spotless. On an upper shelf sat a glazed earthenware dish covered with a pointed lid, a tajine. Above that stood a qettara, a copper still for distilling rose- and orange-blossom water. Aromatics with rosewater, Aimée knew, drove away the dj’inn, protected against the evil eye, and attracted good spirits. Aimée hoped the good spirits were with her—she needed all the help she could get.
Against the gray linoleum, Aimée noticed Samia’s bare feet hennaed with intricate swirling patterns.
Aimée wondered about Samia’s connection to Morbier. Samia looked young and tired, like a housewife who’d tarted up for a husband with little result. She gestured again for Aimée to sit down.
“Tea?” She smiled, her face opening up like a flower.
“Merci,” Aimée said, accepting the de rigeur small glass of steaming mint tea, sweet and fragrant. Acustom, she knew, observed even among enemies at the Mideast peace talks.
The fading afternoon sun shone into an open window overlooking the courtyard. Several women, their Arabic conversation echoing off the stone walls, entered the hammam door below.
“You mentioned Khalil when you called,” Samia said. She looked even younger in the kitchen’s light.
“True. And Eugénie, part of Khalil’s—”
“Tell him this for me,” Samia interrupted, turning and pounding her fist into her palm. Her gold bracelets jangled. “Zdanine’s doing all he can, eh? Compris?”
Surprised at Samia’s change of manner, Aimée stopped short, her mind racing. She hoped Samia couldn’t check with Khalil about her. Why had she accepted Morbier’s story that he’d “fed Samia information?”
“I’m not sure what you mean.” Aimée barely kept her voice steady.
“Last month was the last time,” Samia said, determined. “No more. Lay off!”
For a vulnerable-looking thing she packed a punch, Aimée thought. Her friendly demeanor had vanished.
“Tiens, Samia,” she said, trying what she hoped was a winning grin. “I’m just the messenger. Don’t shoot me.”
Samia expelled a whoof! of air in disgust. She talked tough for eighteen, Aimée thought, or however old she was.
“Khalil isn’t patient,” Aimée said, improvising as she went along. “Poor mec, he’s stuck in Algiers.”
She had to persuade Samia to talk, pass on her plastique connection.
“Not my concern,” Samia said, a petulant edge to her voice. But her quick anger had deflated. “You tell Khalil to deal with me himself,” she said. “I’ll get word to Zdanine.”
“Khalil said to tell you I speak for him.”
Samia half smiled, showing the edges of little white teeth. One of them was gold-capped and caught the light. “I mean no disrespect to a fellow sister, bien stir, but business is business,” she said. “And time for me to get dressed.” She was about to usher Aimée to the door.
I’m blowing this, Aimée thought. Time to forget subtlety when the opportunity is walking out the door. “Samia, let me speak for Khalil and you for Zdanine,” she said. “I need to arrange more plastique. Eugénie was supposed to help.”
Samia’s eyes widened; her round shoulders tensed. “I don’t like this.”
“Who does?” Aimée made her tone businesslike and shrugged. “The last delivery man blew himself to Mecca before his ticket was punched.”
“That’s history. Zdanine was only a distributor,” Samia said, shifting from one bare foot to the other as she scratched a calf with the opposite big toe. “He’s washed his hands of it now,” she said, her eyes level as she sipped tea. “Where it goes and to whom…” She let that hang in the musk-scented air of her kitchen.
“From what I hear,” Aimée said, leaning closer, “this is the beginning.”
Samia shook her head. “My clients are waiting. I’ve got to go-”
Aimée wondered what kind of clients.
She lowered her voice to a whisper and brushed her arm against Samia’s. “Wholesale,” she said, nodding her head. “Khalil understands profit margins. Do you?”
Samia’s gaze wavered.
“Wholesale,” Aimée said, growing more confident at Samia’s reaction. She drew out the word to underscore the importance. “No dropoffs. No francs and centimes. Just thousand-franc notes and bank accounts. Big ones. That’s wholesale.”
“Zdanine deals with this, not me,” Samia said, but her dark brows wrinkled—unsure.
“Sounds like you’re not equipped to handle orders,” Aimée said, pulling back, glancing again at her watch. “Khalil misinformed me. Forget I came. I’ll outsource this.”
Aimée shouldered her bag and stood up. She’d put the offer out there, sweetened it, and waited expectantly.
Samia’s full lips tightened.
“Outsource?” she said, pronouncing the word slowly.
“Khalil prefers to work with family, of course. However, it looks like I’ve no choice,” Aimée said and sighed. “Other roads lead to phstique. He assumed Zdanine’s linked to the supplier.”
Samia’s eyes narrowed. “He doesn’t tell me about business.”
“Just remember we came to you first,” Aimée said. “Later on, don’t say Khalil didn’t offer his family a fat slice of the tart.” Aimée studied her nails, trying to remember graffiti slogans on the Belleville Métro. “Like he says, ‘Brothers of the bled ‘countryside’ should unite!’”
Samia snorted. “Bled!? The closest we’ve been to the countryside was when the colonials massacred those who couldn’t emigrate as servants. Khalil went back for his ‘roots,’ and now he can’t wait to get out.”