We sit on the floor eating pizza and Anna sings “Avanti Popolo” at the top of her lungs. Is that really a song that goes with pizza? Is it possible to say yes and no at the same time? I want and don’t want? Can you curse your home economics class while touching up your lip gloss in the bathroom? Dream of freedom but be unable to find your own vagina? That night, when Anna and I crawl into bed in the attic room, I speak to her in a disjointed rush, still tipsy from the morning beers and the vodka we drank at Raoul’s. Anna crosses her arms over the comforter and listens to me carefully. She’s thinking.
“What do you say, Anna?”
She doesn’t say anything. And it’s not because she’s still thinking.
She’s asleep.
I pad downstairs to the bathroom in bare feet. Anna is still sleeping, but her father is awake, sitting in his velvet armchair with the worn upholstery. It’s as if he stepped right out of the photographs: he’s smoking a pipe and reading Liberation.
“So here I am, finally meeting my daughter’s alter ego,” he says, and holds out a hand to me. His handshake is so warm it makes my knuckles crack.
“I propose we go out for breakfast. What do you say? It’s a beautiful day today.” He points out the window at a little café across the street. “That’s my favorite place right there.”
“What about Anna?”
“She’s not a cripple. When she wakes up, she’ll come find us.”
We sit in the window and look out at the passersby, and they look back at us. I order hot chocolate and a croissant, Anna’s father drinks a coffee but doesn’t eat anything. I try to picture him with Antigone, in one of those moments that grown-up couples share. Him putting a finger in her vagina, for instance.
“What are you laughing about?” he asks.
“Nothing, I just thought of something funny.”
“You’re not going to tell me, are you? That’s fine, I respect people who protect their thoughts.”
Anna’s father doesn’t talk about leftist politics all the time, as I had imagined, about separatist movements and revolutionary tactics. He mostly just strokes his beard and tells me funny stories about when he first moved to France, how he got the metro stations confused, or would forget his keys and have to spend the night on the steps of his apartment building. He does tells me a political joke, though: “A leftist gets into a taxi. He tells the driver: turn left here, then left again, then the other way.” At some point his face clouds over. He takes off his glasses, rubs his eyes and stares at me, deep in thought. A minute or two pass before he speaks.
“What’s all this about the earthquake? What do you think, Maria?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never seen Anna so scared.”
“Scared? Just scared? Hopeless is how I’d describe it. Terrified. What did she say to you? Is she going back with you when you leave?”
“We haven’t talked about it yet.”
“It’ll be a shame if she doesn’t. She’ll have to repeat a whole year of school.”
Anna in middle school while I’m already in high school? Impossible!
“How about the two of us make a deal? Can you persuade her to go back? You’re the only person Anna ever listens to—”
Me? Anna listens to me?
“—and when the two of you graduate, I’ll bring you both here to Paris. The two of you can live here with me, all expenses paid. What did Anna say you two wanted to study? Psychology?”
“I haven’t decided yet.”
“Well? What do you say to our deal?”
He shakes my hand again, even more forcefully, and again my knuckles crack. Anna’s father tells me to speak to him in the singular and call him by his first name, Stamatis. The world is suddenly simpler. Free studies in Paris. A warm croissant across the street from the house, Stamatis’s treat. Art school. Boys like Raoul and Michel. A human shield in support of the Arabs. Pizza on the floor. Beer in the morning, as if we’re characters in an avant-garde French film. And my best friend Anna by my side.
Speak of the devil — here she is, wild-eyed, pushing through the revolving door.
“If you ever do that again, I’ll never speak to you!”
She’s not talking to me, but to her father. She doesn’t just love him, she adores him, and wants him all to herself.
Her anger at me, too, doesn’t let up all day. We walk through Buttes-Chaumont Park as if we were racing, Anna deliberately keeping a few steps ahead.
“Anna, I would’ve woken you up if I thought it would matter so much.”
“You should’ve known.”
“But why does it matter?”
Anna can’t explain it to me, she just shrugs her shoulders. She’s perfectly willing to share her only sandwich during recess, but her dad is a different story.
“I’ll forgive you, but only if we switch boys tonight.”
“Are you crazy? You like Raoul.”
“I like Michel more. I hadn’t realized he was so smart.”
“Take both of them if you want, I couldn’t care less!”
“No, that’s not how it works. Since you wanted to share my father, you have to share Raoul, too.”
“How do you know Raoul won’t mind?”
“Oh, he won’t. We’re in Paris, remember? People here aren’t bourgeois.”
The four of us meet at a café in Les Halles. Anna leans over and whispers in Raoul’s ear, and he turns and winks at me. They’re depraved. And in the name of liberation, or just in order to make a statement, they’re making me do things I don’t want to do. We go to the movies, it’s something by Wim Wenders, I sit on the aisle, Raoul next to me, then Anna and then Michel. I’m worried that the poor guy has no idea what’s going on, that he won’t know what hit him. But soon enough, in the darkness of the theater, I see him and Anna kissing and feel Raoul’s breath on my neck. I lean my head on his shoulder, try to relax and just let whatever’s going to happen happen. I see Michel’s hand on Anna’s knees, pulling her skirt up and groping around. Now I’m the one who doesn’t know what hit me.
I’m worried that Anna has a vagina and I don’t.
I now avoid Stamatis systematically. Shielding myself from view behind Anna’s back, I just throw him a quick hello or goodbye when we pass in the hall.
“Hold on, where are you going? Go and get Anna, I want to tell you guys a joke.”
Anna comes down the stairs, sighing. “What do you want, Dad?”
“Don’t get all worked up, I just heard this great joke I wanted to share.”
Stamatis gets a tea bag from the kitchen. “Okay, so this is an American missile,” he says. “When the Russians see it they want one just like it. They ask the Americans how much it costs. Ten million dollars, the Americans say.” Stamatis tears off the tab where the brand name is. “What if we take off this piece? Then how much? the Russians ask. Seven million dollars, the Americans say, but without that piece the missile won’t launch.” Stamatis pulls off the little string, too. “And without that piece, how much is it then?” Finally he rips open the tea bag, dumping the leaves, which supposedly represent the fuel, onto a saucer. “Now the missile is dirt cheap, but what use is it without any fuel? the Americans ask.” Stamatis stands the empty bag on the table, lights one edge with his lighter and starts a countdown, from ten to one, in Russian. The tea bag slowly rises toward the ceiling, then falls gently back down to the table — a soft pile of ash.
I clap enthusiastically.
Anna glares at him through slitted eyes. “It’s insulting to the Russians, Dad!”