lower-class start in life.
As I turned onto the rue Serpente, I spotted a rather charming café and decided that if I found the book, I would treat myself to lunch there. Arnaud wouldn’t mind. Even though we were only engaged, I was already drawing an allowance from him. It was generous, but not too generous—he was an economist, after all.
I never found the book. I didn’t even make it to the store. But I did make it to the café.
I was just a few paces past it, still on the rue Serpente, when I saw him. He was a student, I thought, since he was carrying an armload of books, but nothing else about him blended in with the surroundings. Not his clothes, not the way he wore his hair. For others, the fact that he was the only homme Asiatique on the street might have made him stand out, but not for me. It was his carriage, the way he walked, even the way he held so many books with ease. Everything about him was elegant and effortless. I stopped to look at him, holding him too long in my gaze, and when he looked back at me, I didn’t turn away. Perhaps because of my boldness, he walked up to me and asked whether I was lost. Whether I needed help. And in that moment, I felt as if I was lost; I did need help—just not the kind he thought I did. What I needed was to be saved from the life I was about to make for myself.
As soon as he spoke that first sentence, I knew everything was going to change for me. I knew it the way I had known I was not going to spend my life in the wrong corner in Lille, and the way I had known Arnaud was going to ask me to marry him. I was just sure.
Because of that, I did the oddest thing. I started to laugh.
He looked at me oddly, then started to laugh, too.
“I know why you’re laughing at me,” he said, without any hurt in his voice.
“You know?” I repeated, suddenly worried that he could hear my inner thoughts.
“Yes. Because I am a foreigner, while you, I am assuming, are French, and here I am offering you help,” he explained. “You think that’s quite strange.”
“That is why I’m laughing,” I said, though it wasn’t. “But I don’t think you’re strange. I think it’s very kind of you.”
“The secret is,” said Khoi more softly, his French as pointed and perfect as a Parisian’s, “that you should always ask foreigners for directions. We had to learn the city, not just have its compass automatically built into our French souls. So, I’ll repeat my question. May I help you find something, mademoiselle?”
“I was searching for a book,” I said, staring at the stack in his hand. “But then, to be honest, I glimpsed this little café a few steps back, and I stopped thinking about the book and started thinking about how lovely the place looked and how much I would like to have lunch there. And then I saw you, and I suppose I started thinking about something different altogether.”
“Café du Soleil, yes? With the red-and-white-striped awning? I’ve eaten there several times and it is quite good.”
He hugged the books closer to his chest and added: “I’m Nguyen Khoi. Or Khoi Nguyen, as the French prefer to say it. As you might have guessed, I’m a student here.”
“I did, but only because of the books,” I said. “Nothing else about you says student.”
“No?” he asked. “And I’ve been trying so hard to look like one. It’s embarrassing to admit, but I’ve been in Paris for years. I went to the Lycée Condorcet before coming here, but I’m still trying to conquer the student look. I even scuffed up these old shoes to get the right effect. How is it you all describe it? The shabby intellectual.”
I looked down at his wing-tip oxfords, which were immaculate except for a small scuff on the side of the left one, and laughed. “Are you trying to look poor, Nguyen Khoi?” I said, trying to pronounce his name the way he just had. “Because I don’t think you know how to. And from what I’ve learned in Paris, poor boys certainly don’t attend Condorcet.”
“I think I’m just trying to get these to blend in,” he said, waving at his clothes, “because this never will,” with a gesture toward his face.