. .
Alexandre: . . .
Great. My assumption was so ridiculous he can’t figure out how to respond.
Alexandre: I will come by your place at 9 p.m. I will bring no bags.
Leila
The wind in my mouth, I fight back tears. If my Giaour is alive, I will go find him. If Pasha has already struck him down, then it will be Pasha’s last night on earth.
At the dock, a skiff awaits us, ready to carry us the short distance to freedom. The poet takes my hand, but I resist.
From the east, a charge of hooves. The poet pulls me down onto the sloping, sandy bank, his arm around my shoulders and his breath on my neck. My Giaour bursts through the night, his white horse a beacon in the darkness. Pasha rides on his heels, his black steed snarling fire. I scramble from the bank, screaming my Giaour’s name. He pulls back on the reins, and his horse’s neighs echo out across the water. He turns to me. I stand and remove my turban. Pasha blanches and slows his horse when he sees me.
My Giaour raises his hand to his lips, brings it to his heart, and then gestures toward me. With his other hand, he unsheathes his kilij.
He turns and charges at Pasha. Their blades clash and send sparks into the sky. I try to run toward them, but the poet holds me back. I kick against him, but he grips me tighter.
Pasha and Giaour circle each other in an arabesque of death, an elegy of swirling white robes and blades and bodies. Their horses fight, loyal to their masters, baring teeth, their muscles tense beneath their hides. Pasha pushes his steed into the side of my Giaour’s mount and then skims the edge of his kilij just beyond the white steed’s saddle. The horse cries out and rears and bucks, my Giaour clinging to the reins, trying desperately not to be thrown.
The Pasha arcs his kilij through the air—a single motion that slows time, makes the earth stand still—and brings it down against my beloved’s throat. For the briefest of moments our eyes connect, and then he falls, a river of crimson at his neck.
Khayyam
“You’re quiet this evening. Everything okay?” Alexandre asks as we round the corner of my block to Quai d’Anjou, steps away from the H?tel de Lauzun.
It’s true. I’m quieter than usual, but I don’t think I can explain to Alexandre that I’ve been at home alone, waiting for my phone to ring or hoping that maybe Zaid would show up at my door so we could resolve things better, find some semblance of closure. The story of us wasn’t all bad, and we deserved better than slammed doors and angry words. But I can’t control all my endings—or beginnings, apparently. And now I’m all exposed nerves and bruised ego. The sadness of, well, everything growing on me. Not growing, exactly, more like burrowing a hole where all my memories live.
I stop walking about twenty feet from 17 Quai d’Anjou and look up at Alexandre. “Sometimes saying goodbye is difficult. Even if you think you’re ready. Even if it’s right,” I say. If I were talking to Julie instead of Alexandre, I might’ve added that part of me is wondering how I’ll say goodbye to him, to Alexandre. It’s not going to be today, but it’s coming, and I’m not sure how I feel about that.
Alexandre simply nods, then tilts his head in the direction of the H?tel.
As we approach, a man with light-brown skin and salt-and-pepper hair steps out of the street door that leads to the courtyard of the H?tel, talking loudly on his cell phone. Alexandre grabs my hand and pulls me closer. I feel the warmth of his body next to mine and the familiar scent of his home—old books and oranges—as he hurries us toward the entrance. All smiles, he says, “Monsieur, s’il vous pla?t.” The man turns to look at us and then catches the door; he pulls the phone away from his mouth and says, “Bonne soireé!” Then he wiggles his eyebrows. Alexandre nods at him and grins as we slip through the door. I pull my hand away as soon as we are safely inside the courtyard and