was waiting to hit me over the head with a club. But the alley was clear. I finished locking the door. I walked quickly into the street. No cops, no heavies in parkas and balaclava helmets, waiting to have a few words with me. The rue du Faubourg Poissonnière was empty. I turned left and kept moving until I came to a little boulangerie that was on the rue Montholon. This took me a few minutes past my own street, but I didn't care. I was hungry. I bought two pains au chocolat and a baguette at the boulangerie . I ate one of the croissants on the way back to my chambre . Once inside I took a very hot shower, trying to get some warmth back into my bones. Then I changed into a T-shirt and pajama bottom, and made myself a bowl of hot chocolate. It tasted wonderful. So too did the second pain au chocolat . I pulled the blinds closed. I set the alarm for 2 p.m. I was asleep within moments of crawling into bed.
I slept straight through. It was strange waking up in the early afternoon – and knowing that I wouldn't see bed again until after six the next morning. Still, I had things to do – so I was up and out the door in ten minutes. Much to my relief – because the paranoid part of me wondered if, indeed, I would get paid at all – an envelope was waiting for me at the Internet café. As agreed there were sixty-five euros inside it.
'Where's Kamal?' I asked the guy behind the counter – a quiet, sullen-looking man in his late twenties, with a big beard and the telltale bruise on his forehead of a devout Muslim who prostrated himself several times a day in the direction of Mecca.
'No idea,' he said.
'Please tell him I picked this up, and say thanks for me.'
I headed off to a paint shop on the rue du Faubourg Poissonnière, and bought two large cans of off-white emulsion and a set of rollers and a paint pan and a tin of white gloss and a brush and a large bottle of white spirit. I would have preferred bringing all the decorating gear to 'my office', but I had to obey the 'No Arrival Before Midnight' rule. So I made two trips back to my room with the gear, then headed out back to the Cameroonian dude who had sold me all the bedding and kitchen stuff. Yes, he did have an electric radiator in stock – all mine for a knockdown price of thirty euros.
Getting all the paint stuff to my office that evening proved tricky. Before setting out, I made a pit stop by the alley at around eleven and discovered that, at the start of this laneway, there was a large crevice in a wall: currently filled with rubbish and animal droppings. Never mind – it was perfect for my needs. I returned with two cans of paint and some old newspapers. As I bent down to place the newspapers on the ground inside the crevice – I wanted to avoid getting rat shit on my stuff – the fecal smell became overwhelming. I shoved the two cans of paint in, and returned to my room to bring the next load of stuff over. It took a further run after that to have everything in place.
Then I sat in a bar on the rue de Paradis, nursing a beer and waiting for midnight to arrive. The bar was a dingy joint – all formica tables and a battered zinc counter, and a French-Turkish barmaid dressed in tight jeans, and a dude with serious tattoos also working the bar, and the jukebox playing crap French rock, and three morose guys hunched over a table, and some behemoth splayed on a barstool, drinking a milky substance that was obviously alcoholic (Pastis? Raki? Bailey's Irish Cream?) as he was smashed. He looked up when I approached the bar to order my beer – and that's when I saw it was Omar. It took him a moment or two for his eyes to register it was me. Then his rant started. First in English: 'Fucking American, fucking American, fucking American.' Then in French: ' Il apprécie pas comment je chie .' ('He doesn't like the way I take a shit.') Then he pulled out a French passport and started waving it at me, yelling, 'Can't get me deported, asshole.'
I slept straight through. It was strange waking up in the early afternoon – and knowing that I wouldn't see bed again until after six the next morning. Still, I had things to do – so I was up and out the door in ten minutes. Much to my relief – because the paranoid part of me wondered if, indeed, I would get paid at all – an envelope was waiting for me at the Internet café. As agreed there were sixty-five euros inside it.
'Where's Kamal?' I asked the guy behind the counter – a quiet, sullen-looking man in his late twenties, with a big beard and the telltale bruise on his forehead of a devout Muslim who prostrated himself several times a day in the direction of Mecca.
'No idea,' he said.
'Please tell him I picked this up, and say thanks for me.'
I headed off to a paint shop on the rue du Faubourg Poissonnière, and bought two large cans of off-white emulsion and a set of rollers and a paint pan and a tin of white gloss and a brush and a large bottle of white spirit. I would have preferred bringing all the decorating gear to 'my office', but I had to obey the 'No Arrival Before Midnight' rule. So I made two trips back to my room with the gear, then headed out back to the Cameroonian dude who had sold me all the bedding and kitchen stuff. Yes, he did have an electric radiator in stock – all mine for a knockdown price of thirty euros.
Getting all the paint stuff to my office that evening proved tricky. Before setting out, I made a pit stop by the alley at around eleven and discovered that, at the start of this laneway, there was a large crevice in a wall: currently filled with rubbish and animal droppings. Never mind – it was perfect for my needs. I returned with two cans of paint and some old newspapers. As I bent down to place the newspapers on the ground inside the crevice – I wanted to avoid getting rat shit on my stuff – the fecal smell became overwhelming. I shoved the two cans of paint in, and returned to my room to bring the next load of stuff over. It took a further run after that to have everything in place.
Then I sat in a bar on the rue de Paradis, nursing a beer and waiting for midnight to arrive. The bar was a dingy joint – all formica tables and a battered zinc counter, and a French-Turkish barmaid dressed in tight jeans, and a dude with serious tattoos also working the bar, and the jukebox playing crap French rock, and three morose guys hunched over a table, and some behemoth splayed on a barstool, drinking a milky substance that was obviously alcoholic (Pastis? Raki? Bailey's Irish Cream?) as he was smashed. He looked up when I approached the bar to order my beer – and that's when I saw it was Omar. It took him a moment or two for his eyes to register it was me. Then his rant started. First in English: 'Fucking American, fucking American, fucking American.' Then in French: ' Il apprécie pas comment je chie .' ('He doesn't like the way I take a shit.') Then he pulled out a French passport and started waving it at me, yelling, 'Can't get me deported, asshole.'
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