You Deserve Nothing (16 page)

The whole scene had been done—the Gauloises and the black turtlenecks—but to me then it was a secret gift handed to us one Friday afternoon at the beginning of our lives.

I read the way you read when you’re young. I believed that everything had been written for me, that what I saw, felt, learned, was discovery all my own. I read for hours without rest. That man who barely flinches at the news of his mother’s death—that morning he let me abandon my own mother, to leave her, without guilt, to her own life, her own choices.

When I looked up, it was nearing eleven. I ordered an omelette and another coffee. The café had begun to fill. I was surprised to find people around me, reading newspapers, chatting. I was part of that place, part of that moment, one Saturday morning. I didn’t think about the night before. I shut it out. Camus was mine that day. Silver had given him to me. Meursault and all the rest.

I walked up Boulevard Beaumarchais, hands deep in my coat pockets. Close to Place de la République, there were dark blue police vans lining the Boulevard du Temple, hundreds of them it seemed, riot police strapping on their armor, smoking cigarettes, drinking coffee from thermoses, preparing themselves calmly for battle. I saw one brushing his teeth, spitting into the gutter. I took my time so I could watch them.

Those men were strong, waiting for a violence certain to arrive.

Later they’d use their batons, their fists. They’d be attacked, barraged with bottles. They’d throw people to the ground.

There were already signs on the statue of la République. People milled around, waiting for the protesters who would march en masse from Bastille. The wind had picked up and was blowing leaves across the square. Groups of kids hung around wearing the Paris street-tough uniform of the day—nylon track suits, pants tucked into white socks, fanny packs slung around their waists, and little caps worn backward, or with hoods thrown over their heads. A crowd was gathered at the base of the statue looking up at some boys who’d climbed halfway to the top and were hanging a large banner—“Anti-Bush/Anti-Guerre
.
” There were girls sitting on top of a bus stop drinking beer. Pretty students with peace signs painted on their cheeks wandered through the crowd handing out anti-globalization stickers. Vendors sold
merguez
from a makeshift grill.

It felt like a carnival, the crowd so young. They were jubilant. I’d never been to a protest and I was thrilled to be in the midst of so much enthusiasm, all those kids, not much older than me, singing, chanting, and hating the United States together. A girl wearing a military cap, her hair in pigtails and a T-shirt—fuckUSA—smiled at me. When I smiled back she pushed a T-shirt into my hands and insisted I put it on. I tried to refuse but she was too beautiful. I pulled it over my head. She kissed me on the cheek and danced into the crowd.

There were banners everywhere. Signs plastered to walls, bus stops, and lampposts. People were pouring in from every direction. Traffic had been stopped and the wide streets were a mass of protesters. There was a constant buzz of sound and motion and all of it seemed to be accelerating as I made my way across the
place
to meet Colin. In my new T-shirt I felt connected, part of the wild crowd around me.

They raised their fists in the air. “FuckUSA,” they chanted, laughing.

“
Oui mon vieux
,” a bearded man said as he passed.

“
Non à la guerre, non à la guerre,
” people sang.

“
La paix, pas le sang, la paix, pas le sang, la paix, pas le sang.
”

There was the faint sound of far-off chanting and the steady beating of drums.

Colin came up the steps, out of the
métro
, lighting a cigarette. He grinned when he saw the T-shirt.

“In the spirit aren’t you, mate?”

“Find the right girl and you can have your own.”

I put my hand out to shake his but he slapped my palm twice, and then offered me his fist. I followed his lead and touched my knuckles to his. He laughed his sharp laugh and shook his head at my clumsiness.

“Don’t get out much do you?”

We’d started walking and I looked straight ahead. “I’m out all the time,” I told him.

“Yeah? I never see you clubbing, man. Or at the
Champs
.”

“Not really my thing.”

“That’s cool. So where do you go?”

“I don’t know, just out in the city. Walk around. Go to cafés. I listen to music sometimes. You know.”

He gave me a look and nodded his head as if coming to understand something. “You’re a bit of a fucking loner then aren’t you?”

I shrugged my shoulders. “Maybe,” I said. “I guess.”

“I mean that’s cool. Most of those fucking cunts at school aren’t worth your time anyway. That’s sort of Silver’s trip, you know? Being fucking in it. Out there. Connected and shit. Not wasting your time with fucking idiots, doing fuck all.”

The way he spoke made me nervous. Walking with him I felt polite, mild. Colin spit. Flicked his cigarettes into the street. Swore. Talked loudly. He was tight and angry and I was drawn to him, envious of his disregard for the world, his easy swagger. I was also embarrassed by him, by his crassness, the amount of sidewalk he took up, the volume of his voice and even by his clothes. He dressed like a kid from the
banlieue
, those white nylon track pants tucked into his socks. He had the same bravado, the same arrogant gait.

“Yeah,” I said. “I guess that’s what I’m trying to do, you know. Like he says, ‘live bravely,’ fight against, I don’t know, whatever.” I glanced over at him sideways as we walked, expecting him to laugh. I felt like a fraud, but he just nodded.

“It
is
brave. The way you’re doing it. Going it alone. That’s a hard fucking life though, man. What about girls? You have a girlfriend?” He looked at me and then said, “You’re into girls, right? You don’t have a fucking boyfriend, right mate?”

“No,” I told him. “No boyfriend.”

“And?”

“No girlfriend,” I said.

“Fucked up, man. I know there are chicks at school who’d fuck you. You’re that mysterious kid. They love that shit. Even if you have some of that Columbine thing, man, chicks fucking love mystery.”

I laughed.

“So what’s up?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know, really. I’m just. I don’t know.”

“What?”

“I don’t know. I just want to do something else. I’m tired. Like I’m a hundred years old. Like I was born bored. Bored of people anyway. I don’t know. I’d like to meet someone wild. Interesting.”

Which was half true. But despite my desperate, painful, adolescent sexual desire, I never had anything to say to the girls who smiled at me. I was in a constant state of longing. My body hummed with need and all of that yearning, that stifled desire—to fuck, to tear the apartment to pieces, to escape, to break my father’s jaw—the only relief came while I was lying in bed at night. There, with my eyes closed, I’d draw an image from my memory—one of those ISF girls running to class, or lying in the sun, or raising her hand—and I’d masturbate angrily until I fell asleep. Often it was Ariel, late in the afternoon, the school empty. I’d bend her over Silver’s desk and fuck her violently from behind. Or little giggling blond Julia, always talking with Silver out on the field, she’d be on her knees in front of me in the bathroom, her hair in my fist, or Marie de Cléry with her famous breasts heavy in my hands. There was an invariable violence to those fantasies and with every ejaculation came the slight release of rage, the faintest relief from anger. In my bed, in the shower, even once in a bathroom stall at ISF, I’d grit my teeth and masturbate until the skin was raw and still the erections would return again and again.

“Silver’s fucking
alive
. I’ll bet that guy is crazy wild,” Colin said.

I nodded. “He’s the first person for a long long time that’s really got to me, you know? He’s always in my head.”

“He’s the only reason I’m here today. No offense, but last year, I wouldn’t have been here. On a Saturday? Sorry but fuck that. I’d still be asleep.”

As we arrived on the
place,
a massive crowd was moving slowly up the Boulevard du Temple. All along were cheering spectators. We pushed in and stood at the edge of the sidewalk where we watched as wave after wave of protesters came up the boulevard. Various groups marched behind their banners—socialists, Union des étudiants juifs de France, other student unions, Democrats Abroad, Marxists, communists, Christians for Peace, Iraqi refugee groups, Hezbollah, Americans Against the War. There were girls wrapped in rainbow peace flags who danced unaffiliated. They held speakers above their heads and sang “Imagine.”

I watched stern-faced men and women marching behind bright-yellow Hezbollah banners decorated with green fists clutching AK-47s. Bouncing university hippies flashing peace signs followed behind and I felt I was in the midst of something important, but I was chilled when I saw those yellow flags, having been taught early in life to fear Hezbollah, and to hate it. Standing so close, I felt immersed in a dangerous and exotic world. I was part of a true rebellion. All of us were together there in the greatest city in the world, all of us from everywhere, raging against the world’s bullies. Raging, engaged, participating in something. We were there. Present. Alive. I knew he’d be proud of me. For chanting “
Non à la guerre, non à la guerre
,” my fist in the air. And my parents? If they’d known I was cheering as Hezbollah marched past, they’d have been furious. American diplomat father, Jewish mother—with all our time spent in Arab countries, the ever-present anti-Semitic undercurrents, and then those years in Israel. They’d have been furious. Cheering was an ecstasy. Louder and louder I chanted “
Non à la guerre, non à la guerre
,” until the refrain took on a violence all its own. Colin leaned against a lamppost, smoked and watched the scene, keeping his eye on a group of hippie girls dancing braless a few yards away.

“Really into this, aren’t you, mate?” he yelled.

I turned to him, my throat raw, and nodded. “Got to be engaged,” I told him, mimicking Silver.

“Fuckin’ right,” he said, bowing his head and putting his fist in the air.

Flowing from Boulevard du Temple, the protesters spilled out onto the place, which served as a sort of estuary. The order the boulevard provided to the marchers was immediately lost as they flowed outwards around the statue of la République
.
Banners, which had earlier been drawn tight, drooped. Now red-shirted communists filtered among dancing rainbows. Eventually the last straggling protesters arrived, followed by city workers methodically picking up garbage, spraying the asphalt clean. And behind them a slow parade of CRS was flanked by their creeping blue vans.

People distributed leaflets, chanting, screaming into megaphones. What had been a single massive protest had become a sea of smaller ones. We found a man selling sausages, bought our lunch, and ate sitting on a curb.

“Who
are
all these people?”

“Don’t know, man.” Colin shook his head.

“They’re so
into
it.”

“I bet most of them are just here for the fucking party. I mean look at those girls running around with their rainbow flags. In a couple years they’ll be looking for a job in a bank just like all the rest of us. Maybe those hairy fucking Marxists are in for the long ride, and those guys with the AK-47 flags, but mostly? Come on, it’s a street party.”

“Those guys were Hezbollah,” I said, watching members of the Union des Étudiants Juifs de France form a small group across the street. “Anyway, maybe you’re right, but I’ve never seen anything like this, man. Look at how young most of them are. They’re like us. They’re out here.”

The students wore white t-shirts with the words
Juifs Contre la Guerre
written across their chests. They were talking, laughing, leaning on their signs. They had a sort of glow, which I saw then as one of purpose and confidence. It was the same look I saw in a thousand people that day. Faces that seemed to radiate certainty, a passion for their cause, they were out there doing what they believed in. Living their beliefs, assuming responsibility, acting in accordance with their desires. They were all the things I was sure I was not. They were all the things that Silver expected us to be. As the crowd grew, there was a slow rise in volume, megaphones raised to the sky, chanting from across the
place
. I watched the faces, the backslapping camaraderie, and felt, yet again, challenged by a world that existed outside of myself, by a version of life I was not part of, a version of life I saw as infinitely more pure than my own, and by the growing sense that it was a life I’d never possess.

I wanted to say something like this to Colin. I wondered if those people I saw as young, fiery, passionate examples, tempted him, seduced him the way they did me. I turned and was about to speak when, a hundred meters away, I saw Silver forcing his way through the crowd. I watched him weave in and out, moving in our direction. He stopped on the other side of the gathering Jewish student union to wait in line for a sausage.