“I'm sorry, Mamma.”
“It's okay, love.”
“We try to help as much as possible.”
“Go ahead, horse, and shit,” says Zoli, and the engine catches and the car pul s away.
By the motorway Zoli catches sight of the camp, strung out along a half-finished piece of road. The doors of the caravans are open and four burnt-out vans stand nearby, their front bonnets open. Three barechested men are bent over one engine. A teenage boy drags a stick in the dirt; behind him, a wake of pale ash. Some older men sit on chairs, like stone figures quarried. One of them dabs at his mouth with a flap end of shirt. Smoke rises from sundry fires. An array of shoes are strung on a telephone wire. Tires lie strewn around an upended wheelbarrow.
They pass in a raw, cold silence.
Zoli stares out at the blur of the cars, barriers, low bushes, the quick whip of white lines on the road.
“Who are al these people tonight?”
“Mamma?”
“At the conference, who are they?”
“Academics,” says Francesca. “Social scientists. There are Romani writers now, Mamma. Some poets. One is coming al the way from Croatia.
There are some bril iant people about these days, Mamma. The Croatian's a poet. There's a man from the University of—”
“That's nice.”
“Mamma, are you okay?”
“Did you see that wheelbarrow?”
“Mamma?”
“Someone should turn it the right way up.”
“We'l be home soon, don't worry.”
In the apartment she fal s asleep quickly, hugging the pil ow to her chest. She wakes in the afternoon, the room silent. In the adjacent bathroom she drinks deep from the cold-water tap. She dresses and lies on the bed with her hands on her stomach. She could stay like this, she thinks, for quite a while, though she would need a view, maybe a chair, or some sunlight.
In the early afternoon Henri comes breezing through the door. He stops at the sight of her, as if he ‘d forgotten she ‘d be there. He is dressed in crisp white trousers and a light blue shirt. He clamps a phone to his ear, smiles broadly, blows her an air-kiss. Zoli has no idea what to do with the gesture. She nods back at him. This is his room, she thinks, these are his shirts, his cupboard, his photo frames, one of which she herself inhabits.
In the bathroom, she sprinkles some water on her face and readies herself for the living room. She is glad to hear the sound of Francesca's voice, from the kitchen, talking about some catering accident. Henri, it seems, is on the lookout for a band of musicians, drunk somewhere and due to play at tonight's opening tonight.
“Scottish,” he shouts into the phone, “they're Scottish, not Irish!”
Across the room Francesca winks at her, circling her hand in the air as if to hurry her phone cal along. In the background the television is on, mute. Zoli sits at the coffee table and flips open the photographs of India. The dead along the Ganges. A crowd in front of a temple. She turns a page as Henri begins clicking his fingers frantical y, first at Francesca, then at Zoli. “My God, my God, oh, my God!” he says as he slams the phone down and turns the volume of the television up high. On the screen he appears tight and nervous. The camera sweeps away from him to a group of young girls in traditional costume, dancing. The screen flashes with the title of the conference, then back to the dancing girls once more.
Francesca sits on the couch beside Zoli and when the report is finished she takes her mother's hand and squeezes it.
“Wel , did I foul it up?” says Henri, combing back his hair with his fingers.
“You were perfect,” says Francesca, “but you might have been better if you'd taken off that straitjacket.”
“Hmmr?”
“Just joking.”
Mother and daughter lean into each other, hands clasped. Light slides through the curtains and seems to spread itself out at their feet.
“Wel , you might have just loosened it a little,” Francesca says, and then she lays her head on Zoli's shoulder and both of them laugh together as one.
“Wel , I think I did just fine.”
He turns on his heels, stomps back to the kitchen.
The two women sit, foreheads touching. It seems to Zoli the perfect moment, unbidden, unforced. She would like to freeze it al here, rise up, leave her daughter on the couch, in the warmth of laughter, walk through the apartment, pick up her shoes at the door, strol down the stairs, through the quiet streets, and leave al of Paris frozen in this one moment of strange beauty, floating through the city on the only moving thing in the world, the train, heading towards home.
Zoli showers by sitting on the edge of the bath, facing the rain of it. The water mists her hair. She hears stirrings in the bedroom, the fast shuffle of feet, the quick closing snap of the door. Henri's voice is harried, looking for his cufflinks. She can hear Francesca insisting that he hurry up and leave. There is silence from Francesca and then a long sigh.
