“I am ever watchful,” I say. “Vigilant. I am biding my time until I can escape this place.”
“The time will come,” she agrees, “but I am afraid it will not be as you wish.”
“Nothing in this world is as I wish.”
“Nothing but your beloved.”
“Nothing but my beloved.”
“At your father’s dying breath,” she reminds me, “I swore on my love for him to shelter you, but this world offers few protections to abandoned baby girls. Even fewer to women cast out from the serai by their pashas. Fewer still to those who betray their masters. For them, there are only watery graves.”
“Better a grave than this living death,” I counter. “I cannot grow old here. I can no longer wear the mask of love for another when love has shown me its true face.”
Si’la smiles enigmatically. The flames in her eyes diminish, and she disappears.
Khayyam
I’m a creature of habit. Painful ones. Yesterday I spent what can only be described as a romantic afternoon with Alexandre, but even as I’m on the way to meet this charming French boy, I can’t stop myself from checking Instagram. Of course, I find more shots of Zaid getting friendly with Rekha.
What did I expect? I swear, I’m going to unfriend him on everything. Tomorrow.
I slip my phone into my bag as I turn the corner. I spot Alexandre sitting at the corner table of Café de Flore. He doesn’t see me yet, so I take a moment to study him. His sienna eyes are hidden behind the same tortoiseshell sunglasses he wore when we first met. He’s oozing a kind of French languor—he’s slouched back, legs in skinny khakis stretched out in front of him, crossed at the bare ankle as he drinks a cup of coffee and watches the world pass by. There’s a hint of stubble along his chin and jaw. He’s at ease. Content with himself. Zaid is the same way, always comfortable wherever he is because he carries that sense of self with him. I guess I have a type—the opposite of me.
As I walk up, he grins demurely, then stands to kiss me on both cheeks.
“Salut.”
“I was surprised you picked here to meet,” I say.
He gives me a quizzical look as we settle into our seats.
“Café de Flore? It’s a little touristy and cliché, don’t you think?”
“It’s August in Paris. Everything is touristy and cliché,” he says with a smirk.
The waiter comes by, and I order an Orangina and grenadine.
Alexandre bursts out laughing. “You’re drinking l’indien?”
“What? I love the drink, but I refuse to say the name because it’s ridiculous and, like, racist.”
“Orientalist, even?”
“Oh, so you were paying attention to me yesterday?” I gently nudge him in the arm.
“It was the best part of my afternoon.” He smiles that rakish smile I saw at the museum. He pauses. “Can I ask . . . Is it difficult being so aware of yourself all the time?”
Maybe he only means to tease me. But I look at his face and realize he’s genuinely curious, which might actually annoy me more. I take a breath. “You don’t understand. It’s different here. Not that France doesn’t have prejudices. I mean, being Muslim here isn’t exactly a picnic, especially if you’re hijabi. Or Black and poor and living in the banlieue. But in the United States, you’re forced to be aware of the color of your skin and constantly reminded of your supposed otherness.”
My words linger in the air. It’s hard to explain to people who aren’t American sometimes how I’m always conscious of being othered but also want to make sure I’m aware of my own privilege. “Look, it’s not like almost all the white people get off the Métro before reaching a specific neighborhood in Paris, not like they do in Chicago.”
He hasn’t taken his gaze off my face. It’s intense, but his eyes soften. “I see. But I guess I can never totally understand? I hope I’m trying, though. One of my ancestors was an African woman enslaved in Haiti. I can’t ignore my family’s past.”
I nod.
Alexandre continues. “She’s actually the one who gave us our family name.”
“Wait. What?” This is totally new info to me. The waiter brings my drink. It looks like sunset in a glass. I take a long sip, letting what Alexandre said sink in. Even though my essay was about finding a Dumas-Delacroix connection, I didn’t exactly do a deep research dive into Dumas’s personal life. Here I am going off on racism and sexism, and I totally missed this part of Dumas’s identity. Maybe Celenia Mondego was right. I’m a crap historian. I look at Alexandre, unsure how to respond.
“I’m a descendant of slaveholders,” he says, “with at least one rapist in the family who was also nobility, about seven generations back. That was Alexandre Dumas’s grandfather. Dumas’s father was biracial and was one of the highest-ranking Black men in any European army—ever. He served under Napoleon.”
“Whoa. That’s, like, major.” God, I sound like an idiot, but I’m blown away. “Napoleon had a biracial general leading the entire French army. Wow.”
“And he’s still one of the highest-ranking Black generals ever in Europe. Still.” A scowl crosses Alexandre’s face. “Trust me. We don’t exactly live in some perfect post-racial world here, either.”
I take a breath and lean back.
Alexandre puts his empty coffee cup down with a thud. “Dumas is one of France’s greatest writers, and he wasn’t even permitted burial in the Pantheon until 2002. Because he was Black. They reinterred his ashes there so he could be buried with the other great artists of France. He should’ve been there from the beginning.”
I nod. “Totally. But there’s another lost story here, too, see? The highest-ranking Black general in France’s history and one of your greatest writers both bore the name of a woman who was enslaved. The same name you have.” I wonder if there’s some angle here I could use in my essay reboot, connecting Delacroix and Dumas and lost women. Then I catch myself. Maybe not everything has to be about my essay and me. “How did you end up with her name, anyway? How are you a Dumas?”
“The story goes that when Dumas’s father wanted to enlist in the army, Dumas’s grandfather, who was French nobility, pushed his son to take a nom de guerre because he didn’t want to be embarrassed by his half-Black son, who was only a private. Even though he should’ve been an officer due to his ancestry. But French race laws made it impossible for him to claim his nobility because he was mixed race.” Alexandre’s jaw tenses. I can hear the anger rising in his voice. “Instead of Alexandre Antoine Davy de la Pailleterie, he joined the Dragoons as Alexandre Dumas.”