Salaam, Paris (27 page)

I looked up at him.

“But that’s how it started. I just wanted to see Paris.”

“And you did. And you will again, I’m hoping.” Tariq smiled. He leaned over and kissed me on the forehead, wiping away a tear that had escaped from my eye.

“What are we going to do?” I asked.

“Don’t worry. We’ll figure it out,” he said, putting his arms around me, both of us turning to gaze at the gleaming reservoir.

Chapter Thirty-four

We don’t celebrate Christmas in our religion. But in Paris, you couldn’t not. So there was a big tree in our living room, more for decoration than anything else, reaching almost to the ceiling, with that fresh pine smell that I had only ever read about. Tiny red lights sparkled on the lush green branches, a stack of presents beautifully wrapped and beribboned piled underneath.

The sun had set already. But I loved the evenings, when we would light a fire and cuddle up in thick knitted sweaters and drink from a large pot of herbal tea.

I glanced around the room, which glowed from the lights on the tree and the fire in the hearth and the warmth in Tariq’s eyes. He was looking through his CD collection, his back toward me. Next to him, on a long wooden console, was our wedding picture from three weeks earlier at Tariq’s home, just he and I with a mullah and a smattering of friends. Shazia was there, my only link with my old life, the one who had started all this. She had hugged me as the mullah recited prayers, reminding me that she had, long ago, tried to convince me that everything would turn out OK. Next to the picture was a folder containing flyers announcing a charity I had set up, a group for Muslim youth living in Paris who were confused about their cultural identity. Through it I had already met girls like the one I once was, girls who didn’t know where they belonged, who felt alone, clashing with a culture they didn’t know how, or whether, to embrace.

Tariq found the CD he was looking for. It was Edith Piaf, and her classic rendition of “La Vie En Rose.” He slipped it into the player. I smiled at him across the room and moved toward a mahogany desk that nestled close to the window. A tasseled lamp shone brightly onto it. The windows were closed, but beyond I could see the dark surface of the Seine running its course through the city, the lights in other households shining in the distance.

I sat down at the table. I closed my eyes for a second and imagined Audrey Hepburn when she was Sabrina, in her white nightgown, sitting down at her table, in that scene that would never leave my memory.

I pulled out a letter pad, picked up a fountain pen from Tariq’s collection, and began:
“My dearest Nana.”

And I wrote until the sun came up.