Delphine

Karim Julien
Its been too humid to sleep for nearly a month. Delphine says our mattress is like a relaxed tongue, warm and wet and twitchy when we shift, and the bedroom is a mouth that hasnt opened in a long while. I think of it as a damp sponge, pushing up moisture wherever we press. My hearts beating loudly, I tell her, Can you hear that? You know I cant, she says. I place my hand on her slick chest to compare, but instead end up concentrating on the ceiling fan whining above. Its working so hard to cut through the wet air and push coolness down to us. A few days after the doctor had told us Delphine would never bear children, she placed a chair atop our bed, and wobbled herself stable on top of it. She reached up to the fan and taped strips of legal-pad paper on each blade. Though they cant be read in motion, on them is written, Today you care. When it spins, the four imperfectly aligned pieces of paper form a yellow oval that looks like half an infinity symbol. Shed posted a number of these signs around the apartment over the course of a seemingly endless, depressed few weeks after the doctors visit. She spent whole evenings without saying a word, only giving me a cursory glance when Id come in after work or from the store. Like a fly crossing her line of sight she would consider me briefly then go back to reading as if she were still alone. The first posting was on the bedroom door. I was in bed, watching daylight rise up in our room, changing the walls from a faded navy-blue to cream. I didnt even feel her get out of bed when suddenly she appeared in front of the door with her back to me, pulling out strips of scotch tape that sounded like unique cricket calls. I stared at her tall, dark body in a private moment of sleepy admiration. She wore white underwear and a loose, white tank top. She is long and thin like a distance runner, though with crescent hips and heavy breasts, and with the sunlight up to her neck, her skin was a rich glowing brown. She shaved her head a few months back, as she does every year on the anniversary of her little brothers death. Three years ago a crazy person in the metro station pushed him in front of an oncoming train. He was twenty two. Its eerie how much he looks like his sister in the only picture Ive seen of him. Now, in place of the neat dreadlocks Delphine has in the picture, a dense black moss has grown atop her head. When I push my hand down into it the imprint fills itself back out, erasing all trace of my impression. She has a lazy but graceful walk, each elongated step overlapping the last. We used to spend hours strolling around Belleville and Montmartre and the Marais. It took a while to get used to walking that slowly, but once I did I felt as if I understood something others buzzing past didnt. Mostly I was impressed by my ability to decelerate. As for Delphine, rushing is only reserved for emergencies, and why simulate the stress of an emergency when simply late for work or if the ice cream is melting in your grocery bag. When she talks about Franco-African history or the education system or the treatment of nonregularized immigrants her hands move with startling suddenness, fiercely disconnected from her slow gait. She hardly ever volunteers to talk about her own story, but others history always seems pertinent for her to learn and speak on. When I glance into her European History class, I sometimes see her boxing the air with explanatory swings and jabs, as though she were teaching history a lesson it had better never forget. Thats how we first met; she caught me staring through the little window of her classroom door. I was new at the American School of Paris, and preparing my freshman Biology course. On my way to the copy room, I saw her framed by that little window, sitting on her desk, vehemently orchestrating the French-Algerian War to Tenth graders. Seemingly still engaged with her students, she got off her desk and ambled out of the windows view, where Id assumed she went to approach one of them. Suddenly the door opened, and I sucked in air. May I help you? she asked. I. Sorry. I was looking for the photocopier. My French is nearly fluent, but when Im nervous I still search for my words.

She tilted her head to the side like shed heard an unusual sound she was trying to place. Just a moment, she said and looked over her shoulder to ask her class, Hey, is there a photocopier in here? After a beat of incomprehension, a few of her sharper students said, No! in pleased unison. She looked back at me and said, Guess its not in here. I did my best to avoid her over the next couple of days. When we did cross paths in the hallway I always made sure to pretend I was concentrating on whatever handout or test I carried. But thinking about not making eye contact all the time became too much to bear. At every corner I was preparing for a morbidly awkward encounter, so I decided to just force myself to sit down with her at the cafeteria and excuse myself. We sat at one extremity of a long cafeteria table, loud seniors crowding the other. After wed exchanged hellos, I stammered on about being new and how theyd recently moved the copy room and how Id gotten turned around, and where are the sign posts when you need them? Where I taught back in the States everything was marked, maybe too much marking, kind of cluttered really, but I guess if you think about it theres useful clutter and not useful clutter. Thats where Im from, by the way, from the U.S., well, I mean my mothers French, so, but I grew up over there, you know. And so on. Like an idiot. I was conscious of the fact that I didnt actually need her to cut me off for me to stop but was still unable to. And she just observed me. I wasnt even sure she recognized me from the other day. She blew the heat off of a spoonful of soup and watched me flop about like a landed fish, in a distantly entertained way, though without any trace of cruelty. She smiled almost imperceptibly. She has bright misshapen teeth that shes thought of fixing with braces before. I hope she wont. Her smile is my favorite kind of beautiful, a little bit unexpected, cracking her solemnity nicely. I cant make sense of why exactly, but she agreed to let me take her out that night. When I speak about her to friends or family back home, I dont tell them how she knits her eyebrows together in focus as she slices grapes in half, because theyre better that way. I dont tell them about how I wait in anticipation for her to put Stevie Wonders Superstition on in the bathroom each time she takes her shower, or about her teenage infatuation for Bruce Willis, and what joy it brings me to hear her say Bruce Willis with her French accent. I dont talk about how she dances slowly and with aplomb even to the fastest, most agitated music, or how her sunlit bare arms look immortal, or the look she has in her eye when she kisses the neighbors dog, Aubergine, between the eyes and whispers, I love you so much, with severity. I do tell them about her dead brother though; about her never having had a father and her losing her mother to lung cancer when she was eighteen. Its as if Ive decided, that for the outsiders, her struggle is what best defines her. I share these things as though they are what make her real to those who dont know her, or rather make us more real, more convincing, more significant. When Delphine and I first made love a week or so after the doctors visit, everything seemed to hurt her, physically, no matter how slowly I moved. She said it was only because it had been a longer time than usual. I asked if we should stop and she said no. It seemed like something she was forcing herself to get through, and her obvious lack of pleasure made me stop anyway. When we tried again a couple nights later it no longer seemed like she was in pain, but instead like she may be asleep, having a bad dream. She lay heavily on her side with her eyes closed and a slight frown. Again I stopped. Today you care. I knew the sign on the door that morning was addressed to herself because it wasnt in the billowing, sail-like cursive she uses when leaving me notes around the apartment, or when she writes to her students on the blackboard. When she writes to herself its with scolding, sharp strokes, and sometimes with double and triple underlined words and biting exclamation points. The way she yells at herself in her writing makes me wonder how she speaks in her head. At first the signs appeared one at a time, something that was suddenly there after turning a corner, or closing the fridge door. But then they spread and grew together. In the bedroom they tracked the walls rapidly, lines of them like yellow stitches snaking out and into the kitchen, some taped to the floor even, and beginning to spread up and across cabinets and drawers. Id never seen Delphine express herself so redundantly and obsessively. The first few signs were just an unpleasant surprise, but as they multiplied I almost felt a sense of betrayal. Like shed become someone else. I had a great argument prepared in my head, comparing the signs to the health warnings

on cigarette packs. Maybe at first they are striking, but then the letters become part of the usual backdrop, an alteration in the packages design that just as soon becomes unremarkable. When were used to seeing things too much they risk becoming invisible. But the notes werent invisible at all; they were suffocating. All they did was remind me she had a problem remembering, engendering more despair, and making me feel insufficient. So instead of using my rehearsed pedagogic tone, I opted for nonchalance (my natural defense having always been to feign indifference), and casually advised her to put up pictures or paintings in place of these words. After all, I thought, people say if they put pictures of blackened lungs or yellowed teeth on cigarette packs it would be much more powerful than words. I told her she could put up whatever she thought was beautiful to see all that was worth caring for. She answered dryly that this would just be typical apartment dcor, and added it was the act of making the signs, writing the words, thats important. The repetition echoes like a mantra humming through the apartment, both distinct and white noise at once. She spoke so formally. Formality always creates distance, but in a love story it is a first step toward severance. As if to prove a point, she then went to the bathroom and stood around the ledge of the sink to write and post Today you care at each corner of the mirror, only this time with the careful strokes of a calligrapher, still not forward-leaning and loopy like her usual writing, but not cutting either. The letters were elongated and fine now, with exaggerated curves in places, like little caricatures of her body. When shed finished with that, she tied a blue rubber band around a wooden spoon where shed written it and hung it around the faucet. It hurts to watch someone express pain in such an orderly, and composed way. It seems more dangerous somehow. Since Ive known her, Delphine has occasionally endured spells of darkness, and the need to crawl inward to repair for a while. Usually these moments of introversion last a couple of hours, and never during the day, at school. At first my response (admittedly a childish one) was to try and remain quiet a little longer than her, but I soon learned this was useless. Her silences werent punitive in any way, not intentionally. She wasnt trying to teach me anything or wound me; it was an authentic sadness that simply had to be waited out. But those first weeks of summer after the doctors visit had been different, relentless. A few days into this period I felt myself becoming needy. In a weaker moment I told her she owed it to me to explain her wordlessness, not because she didnt have the right to be sad but that I didnt want her doing this alone anymore. We were in it together. It sounded foolish the way I said it; as if I were demanding that her grief be more inclusive. Do what alone? she said. I wasnt capable of summarizing the effects of her silence, the notes, or the way I felt less human than her for not mourning our infertility with the same intensity, so I just said, Oh Delphine, you know, and waved my arms around to express everything around us. You would tell me if you wanted me to leave, wouldnt you? she said, looking me hard in the eye. What? Why would I want you to leave? I was revved up to have a good, cathartic argument. She only looked back at me, maintaining complete quiet. As if to say, if youre not intuitive enough by now to know what Im talking about then its your problem, not mine. *** Its probably going to smell like mildew in here soon, I say, still staring at the quivering yellow circle above, realizing that its been a veritable steam room in here for weeks, and the sheets and clothes have surely soaked up heaps of water from the air. For a split second I imagine my shirts in the closet swelling discreetly into life, like amoebic monsters, preparing to stare at us menacingly the moment we fall asleep, maybe even touching us with their mopy skins. Its like a Petrie dish for mold! I say a little more panicked. Why dont you get up and open the window? She has the relaxed speech of a late night blues radio show host; an intonation that is at once exhausted and arousing. We both know opening the window wont improve anything. The window closed means stuffy recycled air, and the window open means new drenched air will be let in, carrying the dank smells and sounds from the street. But instigating change, however futile, has become a ritual during these sleepless nights that makes us feel proactive, as if we have some say in our comfort. I push out an exaggerated groan and get up in the fuzzy blue darkness. I step on a sock that might as well be a clump

of algae, and inhale fearfully. Delphine shakes her head and makes a clicking noise with her tongue thats meant to remind me Im naked and standing in the window. I cant be bothered to find clothes and pull them over my sticky skin. I open the curtains and let the orange street lamp flash on me. I squeeze my eyes, preparing for a strain from the light but remember that street lamps never hurt your eyes. My skin looks like an apricot soaked in a jar of water. The glow individualizes every distinct hair and crease, each birthmark and scar, as if they are separate from my body. I open the windows and the swampy city air rolls in like a giant dog panting in my face. It stinks of sour waste and exhaust and strange oils. I look down at the white delivery van parked on the street below. Its roof has been covered with a thickening layer of pigeon shit since I moved in here a few years ago. Its an extraordinary amount, concentrated dead in the center like a giant spinach omelet, green and white and yellow. The cars parked in front and behind it are spotless. I cant imagine what it is about this van that attracts pigeons to take aim at it so incessantly. Its going to require some kind of metal scraping tool, a strong spatula of some kind, to remove it, and surely boiling water and soap too; minor surgery of sorts. I understand why the owner of the van doesnt clean his roof. I might avoid such a job myself, considering so few people look closely at roofs anyway. Thats much better, Delphine says now that the windows open. I turn to her and yawn and smile at the same time, No, its not. You wanta know how to fall asleep, baby? Its like in that movie. I drum a little beat on my belly, What movie? I dont remember. The American one about war, she says, as though there are only a few films like this. They said the trick is to try as hard as possible to stay awake. And when you convince yourself you absolutely have to stay up, sleep takes you. But now I know its a trick. It doesnt matter. Why not? My right eye is closed more than the left. The outside corners of the eyelashes are crosshatched with sleep and feel like theyre pulling together. I dont know, but thats what they said. It works even when you know youre lying. Her eyes, even larger without her hair, reflect apostrophes of orange light coming in from behind me, and whatever lights caught in them during the day. Then why dont you do it? I say. Why dont you convince yourself and sleep? I step further away from the window and collapse onto the mattress like a felled tree. Camaraderie, sweet boy. Im waiting for you. Once weve agreed to go through with the plan well execute it together. Right. I clap my hand lightly against her stomach. You forgot to close the curtains. No, I didnt. I want to see you. Oh, so youre fully awake now? Im applying your method. It doesnt work if you talk. She rolls into me and lets her nose smash into my shoulder, her mouth drops open and breathes like an oven opening and closing on soundless hinges. I turn my head and yawn into her forehead, letting my teeth bump her skin. She sniffles like she does right before temporarily nodding off, or crying. I took an unusual route back home, to get bread from the bakery a colleague of mine swore outdid all the boulangeries in Paris. The bakery was on the same block as Delphines old apartment, so after getting two baguettes I decided to pass in front of the building. Approaching it, I saw light coming from her window. I counted and recounted the floors to make sure I wasnt mistaken. The friends whom Delphine had sublet to were spending the summer in Portugal with family. The light coming from her window wasnt electrical; it flickered against the pane as though an assembly of candles had been set up on the floor in there. I called Delphine a couple of times but it went straight to her voicemail. I saw one of her old neighbors going into the building and impulsively followed him in. At first I imagined catching burglars emptying her place (as if burglars light candles) and the ensuing fight. Maybe I would have to tie their wrists together with my shirt and step on their backs while calling the police. Maybe they would have a lead pipe. I winced away that image. An immense anxiety started through me. What if shes in there with another man, I thought. I knew that couldnt be, but my imagination fleshed it out anyway: her on top of this man. The door

opening almost by itself and revealing her naked back to me. His powerful, black legs coming from under her. I began feeling tired, and walked up the stairs heavily. At her floor I forced my teeth to clench in preparation; my molars felt like they may crack, and a cold pain shot through. There were two whispering voices coming from behind the door. The muffled, clarineted voice of a woman and a grumbling man. Delphine and her lover. No, of course not, you shit. I sat down on the steps, and leaned my head against the wall. I closed my eyes and saw them just talking now, lying there and conversing and understanding and empathizing with each other. There was no ceiling to his compassion. I felt I was being watched and opened my eyes. There was some shuffling and grunting coming from the other side of the door like people arguing without speaking, and a black eye pointed at me from the peephole. I stared up to it weakly, signaling that I knew it was there. There was a welling of sadness inside me that I tried to contain by taking a deep, expansive breath. My ribcage turned into a giant frail barrel, and I stood up. I spoke to the eye, Delphine, its me. Samuel. The door unlocked with an echoing click and revealed a handsome black man that looked about forty. His skin was oily and reflected the corridor lights brightly. He had the creases around his eyes of a person whos spent most all his life squinting. The whites of the eyes themselves were as yellow as chickpeas and speckled with tiny black dots. I said, Where is Delphine? my heart clapped into my chest. He didnt answer, just narrowed his eyes. I heard his hand playing with the knob on the other side, preparing to resist my entrance in case I suddenly became a threat. And then her muffled voice came from behind him, her sweet staticy voice that sounded like it had traveled so far to reach me, Who is it? Who is there? I barely made out. She sounded younger somehow, or maybe much older, I couldnt tell, but there was fear in her tone, I was sure of that. He opened the door to let me in, and show her who I was. A small fire lay between a circle of wool blankets in the middle of the living room. The fire was in a cooking pot, covered by a charred grill and another small pot on top. Then I saw the silhouette standing in the frame of Delphines bedroom door. The silhouette smiled twisted bright teeth at me and took a step forward into the light. She was a young girl, about sixteen, very pretty and with worried eyes. Hello, she said in a shaky voice, You are a friend of Delphines? Yes, this was the voice Id heard from the outside. I am a friend of Delphines and you are not Delphine. It was like driving in the pounding rain, hardly realizing how loudly it poured, and abruptly passing under the quiet of a bridge. So calm I may as well be floating in space. I nodded my head and she seemed only slightly relieved. Her straightened hair was tightly pulled back in a ponytail; she had high, chiseled cheekbones, and large canoe-shaped lips. Then I noticed there was a woman, about the same age as the man who sat in the corner of the living room. She had short hair and puffy half-moons cradling tiny eyes. Her cheeks sagged, and shadows flowed over them like black water. She sat cross-legged, nursing a little boy in her arms that looked to be about three. Her breasts were long, and the boy wore old sneakers and jeans. It was only then that I noticed I was inside the apartment and the door had been closed. I looked back at the man who was shorter than he first seemed, with a solid but hunched body. He looked forty, but was probably more like an overworked thirty, thirty-five. Whats going on here? I said. Immediately after Id spoken, I forgot what I sounded like. I couldnt recall if it was an accusatory tone or simply sounded curious. I thought about calling the police but it must have been the way the girl suddenly looked down at my shoes, glancing up once more at my eyes as if only to apologize for having made eye contact in the first place, that drowned the thought almost as soon as it surfaced. Maybe my tone was a bit accusatory, I thought. We wont stay long, the girl said. I was more careful this time, Who let you in here? Delphine. Where is she? I dont know. I could hear her accent clearly now. They were probably from some West African country. It seemed absurd that Id mistaken her for Delphine when they sounded nothing alike. She paused to stare at me for a moment now, evidently noticing something on my face that confirmed I wasnt a danger to them, and she released a broad youthful smile. What I took to be her

father said something in another language, and she responded in a way that seemed to alleviate his stress too and he sat down on one of the blankets next to the fire. She wore an oversized, faded, Titanic t-shirt that she put her hand down, and pulled out a key that was connected to a chain around her neck. It was the key to the apartment and she held it between her fingers as though it were fragile. We wont stay long, she repeated. Theyd already cooked a stew on their fire. I handed her my two baguettes to accompany it. On my way home I strolled the way Delphine taught me, and imagined the rest of the story. This family had been sleeping under a bridge at the Canal St. Martin when Delphine approached them. They talked a little and then she invited them to dinner. She told them to order whatever they wanted and asked all about them: where they came from, how they got here, what their plan was, who theyd left behind and who they knew in Paris to help get them papers. Delphines curiosity about their story was sincere and the girl told her everything. She told her about the silent nights crossing borders, and waiting for strangers who took their money in exchange for a promise of help, and the precious bottle of water that had to last weeks. Delphine told them all the places for immigrants to go to get food and clothes, at churches and other gathering areas where they can be supplied with the basics (toothpaste and soap and clothes and so on) and how to get in touch with the African associations. She told them about the shelters too, but warned that they were often unsafe, and poorly controlled. After dinner she walked them to the gate of her building and gave them the keys. She gave them money too, and said they could stay until the end of summer and afterwards she would help them figure something else out. Then she came home to me and said nothing. I admired her so much. I didnt see this as her hiding something from me, but marveled at how her kindness, and all the risks implied, needed no dialogue or recognition; it was assured and selfless. I decided to never mention it to her either. We would become closer this way. When I got into the apartment, Delphine was humming and stirring something in the pot, on our stove. She turned, Hey, I was wondering when youd show up. Hi, I said with all the love Ive ever felt in my life. We hardly spoke after that. *** Its 2am now. I know because the African bar downstairs has just spilled out its agitated Cameroonians and Ivoirians and Senegalese men, debating over politics and women and soccer. It always sounds like a fight is brewing down there, though it never comes to that. We lay awake, and somehow over the barking men and our rustling and our skin sticking and unsticking like fly-paper the fans weary heaving has become white noise, but I can hear her blinking, like individual hands clapping in on themselves. The night carries on like a boat on placid water, going some place better that may or may not exist. We find ourselves in new and improbable positions. Delphines long limbs unhurriedly splay outward, like a firework exploding in slow motion. Its as if only in half-slumber, she knows to release heat by distancing her limbs from her core. I find myself pushed to an extremity of the bed with a feverishly hot knuckle or toe of hers sticking me somewhere. Im more or less aware of the discomfort but dont say anything about it, knowing it will change to something else soon anyway. A sheath of orange light cuts across her cheek. Her skin glistens, and she smells of salt and wood and something else that doesnt resemble anything Ive known outside of her. My hand gravitates toward her chin, as if by its own accord, cupping it from below. My fingers grow up her face, caging her lips and spreading open for her nose. She kisses and then ever so slowly nibbles the meat of my palm and scoots it up with her nose to her brow. My fingers lay on her hair like a lazy benediction. Im ready now, I plan to say, Lets try to never fall asleep.

Karims a fellow at the Michener Center for Writers in Austin, Texas. Before that he was an English teacher at a high school in Paris and spent much of his free time editing and translating for various academic journals and working as a staff fiction writer for Indieoma.com.