He speaks to me in French with an accent that I almost mistake for a lisp. How am I, why am I alone? I invent a history of lies; I come from Montpelier and am in a committed homosexual relationship. I don’t like men, and I don’t want to go for un boisson. He tells me he can be my husband, provide for me and make me love him as une fille trop jolie like me should.
Je suis un peinture. He shows me his hands, the speckles of color on his faded brown coat. I ask what he paints, and he hesitates. His skin is dark, his clothes mismatched and pungent. He rubs the stubble on his chin, producing a sound like grinding and looks into my eyes. He tells me he paints the walls of Marseille, though what he really loves is to paint women. His hands reach out to my cheeks. He wants to paint me.
Je dois aller. I stand up to go, uncurling his fingers from my wrist. I know he will follow me; I scan the Vieux Port for an escape. He wants to come with me.
We’re surrounded, though no one seems to be speaking French anymore. Everyone is darker. The men gathered at the tiny tables of café terraces are not fragile men chain-smoking over a glass of red wine but groups of Arabs in suits, emptying tiny espresso cups down their throats. Their conversations are not soft; their voices sound shrill, even over the clanking porcelain. The Port is loud, full of smoke and the scent of the day’s catches. I don’t comprehend the store signs—written in a chicken scratch from right to left. I can’t see the Mediterranean fish from beneath the rainbows clinging to the surface. There is no Calypso to set sail in search of curiosity; there are only catamarans full of overweight passengers snapping photographs of boats and cliff sides.
The hair of my skin stands on end while I feel myself sweat. My breathing has changed—my throat tightens. I feel as if I could sink through the planks holding me above the churning salt.
I tell him to get me an espresso and to meet me back here; we can watch the sunset over the port. Je promets, je promets. His hand is on my shoulder, and I swallow to keep from shuddering. He walks away, and I wait for him to disappear into the crowd of tourists disembarking from a trolley tour of hills they didn’t want to climb. I could walk into a brasserie on a side street—to the hostel up the hill, to the palace along the shore and bury myself away from hungry men. I look down across the water—the colors of the boats and the setting sun are inverted across the surface like a Monet painting, and I breathe in.
I don’t want him to come back and find me in waiting. I turn to ensure that my suitor is out of sight but, he never left; he’s marching back and forth, just beyond the tourists, shouting syllables into his phone in a language much harsher than French. He’s watching me, motions for me to wait, delivers a smile I don’t believe, and I begin to feel scared. I start to run into the crowd of tourists, and he calls after me.
Mademoiselle, mademoiselle! He doesn’t know my name, but he weaves through the crowd more quickly than I and pulls me back. There are two of them now; the other puts his arm around me. His dirty nails dig into my wrist, his affection a false gesture. Ça c’est mon ami, Hamid. They pull me towards the street, laughing. I tell them we should stay—I don’t want to leave. I have to meet my girlfriend; she will worry. C’est pas grave, they coo. C’est pas grave.
A van pulls up. Their grip grows tighter; they start rubbing my hair as one would a dog. I begin to yell. Laissez-moi tranquil! Aide-moi! Ayuda me! Help! No one turns around; everyone blurs past, indifferent to my screaming in the city center bursting with life.
I keep my breathing steady; my eyes keep searching. There’s another two of them in the van; they’re smiling. I don’t want to go with them, but I can’t shake their grip from my limbs, and we keep getting closer to the open door along the curb.
I don't want to go with them. I don't. But no one says a word, and my body drifts across the cobblestones like a ghost.
My feet start to kick, and I can't control them. My elbows thrash, grazing rib cages and necks. The mens' hands attempt to steady my fervent motions, but my head juts into shoulders. These men were built to be stronger; my entire body is throbbing, my heart too weak to keep fighting. Somehow, I feel my arm slip from the grasp of a hand.
Without contemplation, I shove a fist I never learned to make into a stomach, throwing my weight into the movement. I feel its warm breath spew onto my back; my foot smashes into its groin. The body begins to lose balance--he starts to lean towards me. I throw all of my weight into pulling my foot away from him and into his companion.
He collides into the other, the sound of their heads clashing silences the crowd around us; I turn my head away from their rolling bodies; I can only run forward, screaming.
I feel someone run behind me—short blonde hair, dressed in black. My head turns. A stranger has gone to push the men back down. Caisse-toi! Les Cons! Caisse-toi! He throws his burning cigarette at them.
I keep running. I can feel everyone stopping around me. I see their eyes from the corner of my vision, but the only thing I focus on is moving forward, progressing further into humdrum of conversations in languages I don’t know and the city I’ve read about for decades but can’t seem to recognize. These docks have seen the Greeks, the Romans, the Celts; Alexandre Dumas romanticized these very seaside cliffs amid stories aged into folklore and here I am, being swallowed into the ruins of what once was a beautiful city.
Suddenly I feel myself rising, climbing uphill towards the Palace and into the crashing sun. The Mediterranean is engulfed in reds and purples and oranges. The trees seem to be fading into something darker and the wind has picked up. I can hardly breathe, but my head is spinning, and I reach the summit where I confuse the emblazoned windows for part of the sky.
I stop. I’m shaking, and I collapse onto the cobblestones, legs fold beneath me. Onlookers whisper and turn away from the sunset. My eyes close, and I think about Arthur Rimbaud coming to Marseille to die—how he thought he would be healed but instead passed away alone at night with fevered hallucinations and severe pain. And here I am surrounded by the ghosts of those who came before me—the history of a city founded in 600 B.C. overwhelms me, and I feel tired.
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