“Now you know a secret of mine, why don’t you tell me one of yours?” she looked at me with her round smiley face and continued “You seem always reserved, I trust you but you do not put your trust in me”. I hummed and hawed, and tried to think of something that qualified as a secret to tell her but I failed. I cleared my throat and said I did not have secrets and my life was an open book. I did not know if I sounded convincing to her or not. I hoped I did. She added “I hope revealing my secret would not let you look down upon me”. I affirmed her I would not.
We were sitting, that evening, in an almost empty brasserie. Lights were dim and the two coffees on our table were half finished.
I felt for moments that it must have been heart warming to trust someone. That relaxing feeling of lying the head on a comfortable pillow and be ready to sleep. A clean-scented warm fuzzy pillow. But I also wondered if revealing her secrets to me reflected her inability to bear her burden alone more than her trust in me. Few days earlier she gave me a letter related to her secret and asked me to send it by fax for her because she did not want to take the risk by sending it from her home. She was not a cautious person, I thought. Was she right in putting her trust in me? She did not know that I copied the letter and kept it in my drawer before giving her back the original the following day. What was my motive in doing so? I really did not know but what I knew was that I should not have done it.
Fast forward to many years later and by the time I completely forgot about the letter I found the copy in an old dusty box of books and papers. I tore it up.
I wanted to get the conversation out of its serious mood so I asked her “Suppose I might have a secret, can you guess what it could be?” She looked amused and embarrassed for seconds and said “I do not know, tell me at least in which direction should I go and guess?” Every direction was open was my reply. She kept silent for few minutes, and sounded hesitant and a little embarrassed again when she said “I do not know”. She gazed at me, laughed nervously and repeated: I do not know.
30 March 2011
15 March 2011
Thousands of Afternoons Ago
I was given the train ticket and told to be at Gare de Lyon at least 15 minutes before the train departure. The lady, who looked like Dalida, added that another student would take the same train heading also to the city of Vichy and we would have two adjacent seats.
The other student turned out to be an early forty man from Sri Lanka. One of his eyes was artificial or what we call a "glass eye". We communicated in English because he could not speak French well. Few minutes after the train started to leave, two loud arguing voices were heard. The louder sounded like angry African French female and the other was a calmer old female. It turned out that an old French lady did not like the noise caused by the African lady's children who occupied wrong seats next to her, and she asked the mother to behave her "monkeys". The whole fight/argument focused on using the word "monkey" which made the mother furious but I could not understand exactly how the old lady justified using the word. What surprised me most was the passivity of the passengers because similar situations in the Middle East would have attracted at least 2 or 3 persons to give their views or to support one party or another, but at the time I was not used yet to life in Europe.
We arrived Vichy and it was hot and the air was thick. We found a driver waiting to transfer us to the administrative building of the school. I paid farewell to my companion because from that point our routes were different. I went through the registration procedures, and at the end an energetic secretary gave me a map of the city and a paper on which she typed addresses of hotels, and asked me to search for a suitable residence. My class was scheduled to start the following day at 9.00 AM.
I left my suitcase at the office and went out with the map in one hand and the paper of addresses in the other. All the hotels were located within a walking distance. I started with a shabby hotel where the girl at the reception was wearing very short shorts and holding a cigarette in her hand. A few kids of hers, I assume, were running around. Nothing seemed appealing, neither the hotel nor the room but I wanted to feel settled down as quickly as possible, so I checked in immediately and went back to get my suitcase. In a matter of hour I was in my room, lying in bed. The big window was open to a calm courtyard and the heat started to cool down a little bit in the afternoon. I could hear the radio from afar and Joyce Sim singing Coming Into My Life.
At that moment I felt my stay of one month in Vichy would be long and boring. Very long and boring
The other student turned out to be an early forty man from Sri Lanka. One of his eyes was artificial or what we call a "glass eye". We communicated in English because he could not speak French well. Few minutes after the train started to leave, two loud arguing voices were heard. The louder sounded like angry African French female and the other was a calmer old female. It turned out that an old French lady did not like the noise caused by the African lady's children who occupied wrong seats next to her, and she asked the mother to behave her "monkeys". The whole fight/argument focused on using the word "monkey" which made the mother furious but I could not understand exactly how the old lady justified using the word. What surprised me most was the passivity of the passengers because similar situations in the Middle East would have attracted at least 2 or 3 persons to give their views or to support one party or another, but at the time I was not used yet to life in Europe.
We arrived Vichy and it was hot and the air was thick. We found a driver waiting to transfer us to the administrative building of the school. I paid farewell to my companion because from that point our routes were different. I went through the registration procedures, and at the end an energetic secretary gave me a map of the city and a paper on which she typed addresses of hotels, and asked me to search for a suitable residence. My class was scheduled to start the following day at 9.00 AM.
I left my suitcase at the office and went out with the map in one hand and the paper of addresses in the other. All the hotels were located within a walking distance. I started with a shabby hotel where the girl at the reception was wearing very short shorts and holding a cigarette in her hand. A few kids of hers, I assume, were running around. Nothing seemed appealing, neither the hotel nor the room but I wanted to feel settled down as quickly as possible, so I checked in immediately and went back to get my suitcase. In a matter of hour I was in my room, lying in bed. The big window was open to a calm courtyard and the heat started to cool down a little bit in the afternoon. I could hear the radio from afar and Joyce Sim singing Coming Into My Life.
At that moment I felt my stay of one month in Vichy would be long and boring. Very long and boring
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