It is Ramadan in Saint-Denis, the banlieue north of Paris. It is almost h on a June Sunday, and the sun hangs a hazy orange in the sky. There is a cigarette lighter for the stove, but I am too clumsy for this, so Amir manages. First he heats the water in the tank above the kitchen sink, waits for the electric whine that signals hot water has begun to rise.
I make us two plates of fried mushrooms and potatoes, leftovers from the dinner I cooked for the French family I work for. There is no table; I eat perched on the counter by the sink while Amir leans against the stove opposite, our knees close enough to touch. We eat slowly and smile often. We are still hungry when we finish. Amir is tall, lean, and longer than the bed.
He plays soft music from his phone, and we dance together across the small room. Princesse the cat is quick to join us, angling her tiny body between mine and his. She is clearly in love with Amir. But I know how she feels, and I too make Amir lift me by my waist to spin above him, until he tires and gently taps my head against the ceiling. Behind the open window, streets come alive. Amir stops his music, and we listen to the slow exhale below: a breath of noise given space to exist.
It is now dark outside, and the neighborhood awakens. The men kneel on the sidewalk for prayer, spilling out from the masjid on the corner. A crowd forms outside the halal shop, lit up by the restaurant in the otherwise unlit streetβa Maghreb festival in the overflowing, abandoned suburbs of Paris. My room is sparse and romantic. Not cozyβan electric heater next to the bed is the only touch of warmth in the space, an end table and lamp the only other furnishings.
What makes the room beautiful is the window. The attic sits atop a two-story French villa and looks out above its carefully manicured gardens. Below the window, a stone path lined with wildflowers leads to a modest fountain and rows of beech trees. Eloise, the matron of the house, tells me it used to belong to the Sabouraud family. In these rooms, Jean de Brunhoff created and wrote the stories of Babar, the orphaned elephant who brings European civilization back to the jungle.
