You Deserve Nothing (11 page)

She was asleep when I got there. I took off my clothes and got into bed with her and lay on my back looking at the ceiling feeling happy, so happy that I laughed out loud. I mean just a little laugh but it woke Ariel up.

I’m sorry, she said. I told her it was O.K. and she asked me where I’d been. I rolled over onto my side and looked at her. I mean I looked at her right in the face, right in the eyes, and told her everything.

GILAD

H
e was standing there with that leather bag slung over his shoulder. I’d see him walking into school returning a book or a magazine to its place, watch him buckling the straps. He didn’t miss a thing that guy, paid attention to every detail, always played the part. I never saw him with anything ugly. He never would have shown up at school with a nylon backpack or an old computer case the way other teachers did.

That morning I saw the bag and I knew it was him. I was trying to figure out what I might say if I walked over. It’s a long train ride and I couldn’t imagine sitting with him all that time.

I didn’t have the courage. When the train came ripping up the tracks I was disappointed. I was facing the train as it came and I saw the guy who’d been wandering around talking to himself charge toward Silver. I said, “No.” I said it aloud, my eyes wide, everything slowing down. I saw the man bend where he was hit, square in the lower back so that his body looked like a loaded bow. He was so unprepared for it. His arms flew upwards, his head snapped back and then he went forward. There was a heavy thump and very fast he disappeared beneath the train.

I was sure it had been Silver. When I saw him still standing there I felt, at first, a brief surge of joy—because it hadn’t been him, yes, but mostly because this thing that had happened would mean we now had to talk. It would be something between us, something shared.

He took me to a café across from the Luxembourg Gardens. Au Petit Suisse. We sat together at a table and drank coffee. I pretended to be more moved by what’d happened than I was. It was thrilling to be there with him, just two friends having coffee. I couldn’t think about the man who’d died without being grateful for being there. I knew that I should have felt something. Sadness or shock. I played at it a little and the act made me feel comfortable in the long silences. I stared at the table and tried to think of something important and interesting, something impressive to say to Mr. Silver. He took this as sadness and tried to comfort me.

Not that I wasn’t scared by what had happened. The violence had been sickening. The speed of it, the randomness, all of it scared me. But I was grateful to have been there, for that bond with him. I wouldn’t have traded it. Not even for the guy’s life. It was ours, exceptional, incredible, terrifying, and it connected me to him in a way none of his other students could be. I wouldn’t have given that up. Never.

I remember wondering why he hadn’t moved, why he’d done nothing, why he’d stood there staring, frozen in place.

* * *

When I returned home that afternoon my mom stood up from the couch and wrapped her arms around me. She’d been crying.

“The school called. They said you never showed up today. Jesus Christ, honey.”

We sat on the couch. I told her about the train and about him. She listened and cried, holding my hand while I spoke. The leaves had turned but still it was warm enough to keep the windows open.

“It could have been you.”

“Mom, I’m fine. He wasn’t near me.”

“Still. I’m so sorry you had to see that. Oh sweetie,” she said squeezing my hands with hers. “I’ll send a note to Mr. Silver. It was nice of him. You like him, don’t you?”

“He’s the best teacher I’ve ever had.”

She smiled at me and touched my face. “I’m glad. That’s lucky.”

“Does Dad know?”

“No, not yet. He’ll be home later. You can tell him then.”

I shrugged.

She looked at me for a moment longer, “You know, honey, what you saw . . . ”

“Mom, it’s O.K., I’m not ruined, it’s just something that happened.”

She took my hand. “I’m not talking about today. I mean July.”

I looked at her, anger rising.

“Listen, you
know
me, I’m not a victim, and I’m not one of those women who sits cowering in the corner.”

I withdrew my hand.

“Gilad, you know very well that I’m not.”

“I don’t.”

“You
do
know that.”

“And yet you’re still here.”

“I should have left?”

I stood and looked down at her.

“You should’ve left,” I said. “You should leave now.
We
should leave now.”

I
slept fitfully, finally gave up and got out of bed at five. The sky was that dark morning blue. The moon was up, some fading stars.

There were very few people on the streets. I stopped at Carton to buy a
pain aux raisins
from the humorless woman who pretended not to know me. I walked up rue de l’Ancienne Comédie past the unconscious homeless men on the grate, crossed Boulevard St. Germain, bought a copy of
Libération
and descended into the station. I stood alone on the platform. Across the tracks a man slept on the floor with his back turned toward me. There was a bottle on its side, wine in a black pool by his knees.

When I heard the train deep in the tunnel I turned and watched it come sweeping fast out of the dark. It arced toward me and blew into the station. As it passed I felt a chill of vertigo as if I were standing atop a very tall building looking down on the streets below. The car was empty. I took out a photocopied packet I’d put together for seminar and tried to read.

When I arrived at school the English department was locked. First in, I left the fluorescent lights off, turned on the lamp at my desk and made a pot of coffee. Outside the sky was turning pink. There was frost on the field. I sat at my desk with the paper and a cup of coffee and ate my breakfast.

The United States was preparing to invade Iraq. There had been protests throughout Europe and an enormous
manifestation
was planned for the coming weekend.

Toward the end of the paper was a short article about what had happened at Odéon the day before. A homeless man had shoved thirty-two-year-old Christophe Jolivet, a marketing executive from Nantes, in front of a train. Dead by the time emergency workers arrived. I took a pair of scissors from the ceramic cup on my desk and carefully cut out the article.

The fifteen-minute bell rang. I collected my things and walked down the hall to my classroom. Inside, the morning light was beginning to fill the room. I wrote the day’s quotation on the clean white board and then I waited for the bell to ring.

* * *

They were all there except for Gilad.

“Has everyone read the packet?”

They nodded except for Colin who smirked at me. I raised my eyebrows.

“I didn’t have time, sir.”

“You didn’t have time?”

“No.”

“So why’d you show up today?”

“What do you mean?”

“Why are you here? In class today. Why’d you come?”

“It’s not like I have a choice, sir.”

I laughed. “We’ve covered this, haven’t we?”

“Just because
you
say I have a choice doesn’t mean I do.”

“Ah, I see. I’ll tell you what, challenge the idea. Why don’t you get up and leave?”

“Because, sir, if I get up and leave, you’ll report that to Mr. Goring and I’ll end up in detention for skipping class.”

“I won’t tell anyone.”

“How do I know I can trust you?”

“You have to make a choice Colin—you have to make a choice to trust me, in the same way you have to make a choice about staying in this class. I know you’d rather believe you’re the subject of great oppression but the fact remains that you have a choice. Despite the powerful forces you seem convinced are keeping you down, you still have a choice. That may not be the case for Abdul but it is certainly the case for you.”

Upon hearing his name, Abdul glanced up from his desk.

“Why would it be different for Abdul?” Ariel asked.

“Because, Ariel, Abdul believes in God.”

“
And
?”

“And Colin doesn’t.”

“
And
?”

“And,
Ariel,”
Rick said, shaking his head, “someone who believes in God might believe that
God
makes all their choices for them. They might believe that they’re not responsible for their actions, that it’s God who’s responsible. But if you don’t believe in God then who the hell
else
would be responsible for the choices we make?”

“Excuse me, Rick, but, I believe in God but I don’t believe he makes my choices for me.”

“And that’s why I said might.”

Abdul raised his hand.

“You don’t have to raise your hand, Abdul,” I said.

“Ummm, I just believe in God’s plan. God has a plan for all of us and we just, you know, live that plan.”

“So you’re not responsible for anything you do? You’re just a little puppet and God’s pulling your strings? I mean, like what you just said? God made you say that?” Hala said looking at him in disbelief.

“Pretty much, yeah,” Abdul said looking down at his desk.

“Are you kidding?”

“No,” he whispered.

“God,” Hala said in disgust. “You give us such a bad name.”

He turned to her, “What do you
mean
?”

“Arabs. You make Arabs look like lunatics. You make us all look crazed with, like, Korans and bombs and,
God
, I mean wake up!”

Abdul’s eyes were wide.

“O.K., that’s enough. Hala, surely you’ll grant Abdul the right to believe anything he wants to believe, right?”

“I guess. Maybe.”

“Good. All of this began with Colin, so let’s end it there. I’m giving you the choice, Colin. You can leave or you can stay. If you stop coming to class it will influence your class participation grade. However, I will not report your absences to the administration. A student shouldn’t come to class if he or she doesn’t want to. Frankly, arriving here without having read the material your class participation grade suffers anyway. You may as well leave. You seem to be sure you have better things to do. As I’ve said several times already, it’s your choice.”

Everyone stared at Colin. He stared at me. After a few moments he stood, took his backpack from the floor and left the room.

Lily let out a loud breath. “Oh my God.”

The door closed quietly behind him.

It was the first time a student had ever called my bluff.

Abdul shifted in his seat. Ariel’s expression suggested genuine surprise. Rick studied me. Jane smiled her shy smile. Aldo looked at Ariel for a cue. Cara tried to contain a rising laugh. Lily shook her head and said, “Dude,” in disbelief. Hala watched me and chewed on her pen.

I took the photocopies from my desk and began handing them out.

“Each of you has the same right,” I said. “I offer you all the same deal. If you feel that this class is somehow being imposed upon you, please don’t come. My feelings won’t be hurt. There are enough of you here who are interested in what we’re doing, who have demonstrated real enthusiasm for the material. Those of you who feel that your time would be better spent doing something else, go do it.”

When I’d finished handing out the article I sat on the edge of my desk and looked directly at Ariel.

“You’re all free to do as you like.”

She smiled at me as if I’d invited her for a drink.

I looked away. “Well, that’s what I believe. What you have in front of you is an article from today’s
Libération
. Hala, will you translate?”

“Sure.” She took a breath and read the headline, “Man Killed: Pushed onto the Tracks of the
métro
.” She looked up at me.

“Go on.”

“Thirty-two-year-old Christophe Jolivet died Monday morning at the Odéon
métro
station after he was pushed in front of an arriving train. The attacker, twenty-nine years old, was psychologically . . . I don’t know, I guess it would be, unstable. He’s being held at the Sainte-Anne psychiatric hospital. He didn’t seem to know the victim. The police say that he wasn’t under the influence of drugs or alcohol but that he was in an excited state when he was arrested. According to the Police, he’d acted on a ‘sudden impulse.’ The attacker had a long history of violence. He was stopped and held by several morning commuters. Anne-Marie Idrac, speaking for the RATP, complimented the commuters for their courage and their composure. That’s it. More or less.”

“Thanks, Hala. Does anyone know why I’ve given this to you?”

“Because it sort of proves the point.”

“What do you mean Cara?”

She was looking down at her desk making a wide circle with her finger around the article.

“It’s just another example of how random the world is, how nothing makes sense, how you can’t make sense of anything. Everything’s just, I don’t know, a mess.”

“How do you get that from this one story?” Ariel asked. “I mean, maybe the guy deserved it, maybe he was a horrible guy. I don’t know maybe he was a drug addict or something.”

Jane, who had barely spoken since the beginning of the year, jerked her head up and glared at Ariel, “That’s just, that’s, I’m sorry, but that’s just the stupidest idea I’ve ever heard. You can’t be serious.”

“Excuse me?” Ariel snapped.

“Jane, perhaps there’s a better way to disagree? Try to explain yourself.”

“Sorry,” she said to the desk, tapping her finger on her notebook.

“Go on, Jane.”

“Well, I just, I don’t know. It’s hard to explain.”

“Try anyway,” I said.

She sat there looking at the whiteboard behind me. Her round face was bright red and a rash was descending from her chin down her neck. She took a long breath, “I just think the idea that this guy somehow deserved to die like that because he might have been a . . . a . . . what? What did you say? A drug addict? That’s just, it’s just like something, it just makes no sense to me. I just don’t believe that everything that happens can be, I don’t know. Like you can explain it.”

“But wasn’t that the point of what you read for class? That
you
can’t explain it but God has his reasons and that we must simply trust in God?” I asked.

“I’m sorry but that’s just . . . ”

“Bullshit, man.” This was Lily.

Aldo laughed and Lily turned to him, “Dude, do you
ever
say anything intelligent or do you just grunt and follow Ariel around like a puppy?”

“O.K., O.K., O.K. Enough. Everyone calm down.”

The door opened and Gilad walked in. He handed me a note. I read it, gestured for him to sit down and gave him a copy of the article.

“We were just discussing this.”

He glanced at the headline and looked up at me and nodded. “I saw it.”

Abdul raised his hand.

“You don’t need to raise your hand, Abdul.”

“O.K., the thing I wanted to say is that we don’t, it’s that, I agree. I agree with her.”

He said this looking at his hands.

“With whom?”

“With her,” he said shooting a glance over at Ariel who was glaring at him.

“O.K.,” I said. “Go on.”

“Well, God does everything for a reason. Everything that happens on earth happens because, because God has a plan.”

Ariel, obviously sharing none of Abdul’s conviction, looked out the window. Hala dramatically dropped her head into her hands. And Gilad, quiet Gilad, turned to Abdul and asked very simply, “What?”

Abdul looked so meek and frightened. It took such energy for him to make his proclamations, yet he couldn’t seem to help himself, as if he were afraid he’d be punished for being silent.

“Yeah,” he said, nearly whispering. “Everything happens for a reason. It’s, just, it’s, um, it’s what I said. God’s plan.” He scratched the back of his hand.

“I was there.” Gilad looked up at me. “We were both there. Yesterday, we were on that platform. I was there with Mr. Silver. We saw the guy get pushed. I watched him die. I
watched
him get smashed by that train. I
saw
that man push him. I saw it. And you’re saying that
God
was punishing him for, for what? For something he’d
done
? That there was some reason? That God has a plan? That
this
was part of his plan? Abdul, it could have been Mr. Silver. Do you understand that?”

Abdul looked at the ceiling and took a deep breath, “Yes. It wasn’t. You saw it. It was part of his plan.”

Gilad shook his head.

“Dude, Mr. Silver,” Lily said, “you guys
saw
that yesterday? That’s fucked
up.
Sorry.”

Aldo snorted, caught Lily’s glare, and went immediately silent.

“Yes, that’s why Gilad and I weren’t in school yesterday. And that’s why, in part, I brought in the article. Everything we’ve discussed so far, even the question of choice, is relevant to the text you read over the weekend. If you’ll take a look at the board, you’ll see God’s first question to Job and his subsequent command, ‘Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? Declare, if thou hast understanding.’ Everything that’s happened to Job—God’s seemingly cruel and random acts—simply can’t be understood by any man, not Job’s friends, not his wife and not Job. What’s God’s point, Abdul, when he asks ‘Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth?’”