Read Online Dreams of Bread and Fire by Nancy Kricorian - Free Book Online
Authors: Nancy Kricorian
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really.”
Ani filled the kettle from the tap and set it on the stove.
Tacey slumped into a chair at the table. “You’re lucky, Ani. You had a bad boyfriend, but you didn’t marry him, did you? When I was your age, I was already married. Mrs. John Barton. Did I ever tell you the secret of a successful marriage?”
“No, you didn’t,” Ani replied, sitting down across from Tacey.
Tacey leaned forward and whispered dramatically, “The secret of a successful marriage is that the man has to love the woman more.”
“Why is that?” Ani asked, not sure she wanted to hear the response.
“Isn’t it obvious? Otherwise the asshole is feeling up his secretary and treating you like a doormat.”
Ani didn’t say anything.
Tacey continued. “When you get married you start out dewy and fresh and full of hope. His comments are amusing and his gestures are sweet. Then as the years go by his jokes turn mean. And the way he flicks the dandruff from his shoulders makes you want to crack him over the head with a golf iron.”
Ani heard the wall clock click from one minute to the next.
“Jesus.” Tacey sighed, her face suddenly haggard. “I’m so goddamned tired.”
a lost rope is always long
Sitting in the first-class compartment of the train, Ani rode the metro to its far northern end. If the police checked her ticket she would pretend not to speak French and play the ignorant American. Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité. It rankled her notions of democracy that there should be separate classes in the subway. It also appalled her that people were required to show identity cards if the cops requested them. It was one thing to be asked for a driver’s license if you were in a car, but the notion of having to produce official documents for merely ambulating in public was bizarre. No one had yet requested to see either her carte de séjour or her passport. This ordeal seemed reserved primarily for young men whose skin tones ran to shades of brown: copper, cocoa, and coffee.
Ani walked the last half mile to the university at Saint-Denis. There was a network of star professors whose seminars and lectures American university students flocked to in a kind of cerebral tourism. She had vowed not to do it herself, but here she was, making the pilgrimage to Saint-Denis to hear Professeur Julien Cafard, the renowned philosopher. Both Zed and Sondage made frequent reference to Cafard’s work—they belonged to the same intellectual constellation—so Ani felt compelled to hear the great man’s words coming out of his own mouth.
Thirty minutes before the seminar began students jammed the classroom, standing along the walls when all the seats at the tables were taken. Julien Cafard entered, surrounded by an entourage of acolytes. The white-haired professor chain-smoked his way through a lecture on Truth while Ani jotted down phrases she hoped were at the heart of his argument. Suddenly Cafard stopped mid-sentence and went into a spasm of ragged coughing.
The student next to Ani whispered into her ear, “He has only one lung. Philosophy is a cruel mistress.”
Ani glanced at her neighbor. With enormous dark eyes and a drooping mustache under a prominent nose, he looked like a reincarnation of Marcel Proust. At the end of the lecture he introduced himself as Philippe and invited Ani to come to his home for tea. His place was only a short walk from the campus so Ani agreed.
The apartment’s shutters were drawn, thick drapes covered most of the windows, and the wallpaper was ruby red. The place had a dark womblike atmosphere. Philippe, switching on an antique floor lamp over which hung a red silk shawl, explained that he suffered from severe asthma, hence the sealed windows. There were two side chairs in the room, a box spring leaning against one wall, and towering stacks of gray cardboard egg crates.
“What are those for?” Ani asked, gesturing at the egg cartons.
“Follow me,” he said.
They went into the next room,
Ani filled the kettle from the tap and set it on the stove.
Tacey slumped into a chair at the table. “You’re lucky, Ani. You had a bad boyfriend, but you didn’t marry him, did you? When I was your age, I was already married. Mrs. John Barton. Did I ever tell you the secret of a successful marriage?”
“No, you didn’t,” Ani replied, sitting down across from Tacey.
Tacey leaned forward and whispered dramatically, “The secret of a successful marriage is that the man has to love the woman more.”
“Why is that?” Ani asked, not sure she wanted to hear the response.
“Isn’t it obvious? Otherwise the asshole is feeling up his secretary and treating you like a doormat.”
Ani didn’t say anything.
Tacey continued. “When you get married you start out dewy and fresh and full of hope. His comments are amusing and his gestures are sweet. Then as the years go by his jokes turn mean. And the way he flicks the dandruff from his shoulders makes you want to crack him over the head with a golf iron.”
Ani heard the wall clock click from one minute to the next.
“Jesus.” Tacey sighed, her face suddenly haggard. “I’m so goddamned tired.”
a lost rope is always long
Sitting in the first-class compartment of the train, Ani rode the metro to its far northern end. If the police checked her ticket she would pretend not to speak French and play the ignorant American. Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité. It rankled her notions of democracy that there should be separate classes in the subway. It also appalled her that people were required to show identity cards if the cops requested them. It was one thing to be asked for a driver’s license if you were in a car, but the notion of having to produce official documents for merely ambulating in public was bizarre. No one had yet requested to see either her carte de séjour or her passport. This ordeal seemed reserved primarily for young men whose skin tones ran to shades of brown: copper, cocoa, and coffee.
Ani walked the last half mile to the university at Saint-Denis. There was a network of star professors whose seminars and lectures American university students flocked to in a kind of cerebral tourism. She had vowed not to do it herself, but here she was, making the pilgrimage to Saint-Denis to hear Professeur Julien Cafard, the renowned philosopher. Both Zed and Sondage made frequent reference to Cafard’s work—they belonged to the same intellectual constellation—so Ani felt compelled to hear the great man’s words coming out of his own mouth.
Thirty minutes before the seminar began students jammed the classroom, standing along the walls when all the seats at the tables were taken. Julien Cafard entered, surrounded by an entourage of acolytes. The white-haired professor chain-smoked his way through a lecture on Truth while Ani jotted down phrases she hoped were at the heart of his argument. Suddenly Cafard stopped mid-sentence and went into a spasm of ragged coughing.
The student next to Ani whispered into her ear, “He has only one lung. Philosophy is a cruel mistress.”
Ani glanced at her neighbor. With enormous dark eyes and a drooping mustache under a prominent nose, he looked like a reincarnation of Marcel Proust. At the end of the lecture he introduced himself as Philippe and invited Ani to come to his home for tea. His place was only a short walk from the campus so Ani agreed.
The apartment’s shutters were drawn, thick drapes covered most of the windows, and the wallpaper was ruby red. The place had a dark womblike atmosphere. Philippe, switching on an antique floor lamp over which hung a red silk shawl, explained that he suffered from severe asthma, hence the sealed windows. There were two side chairs in the room, a box spring leaning against one wall, and towering stacks of gray cardboard egg crates.
“What are those for?” Ani asked, gesturing at the egg cartons.
“Follow me,” he said.
They went into the next room,
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