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After the phone call, Anjali strolled along Quai Saint Michel to settle herself. She didn’t have to make a decision today, so she walked and slowly relaxed. The sun’s light on the towers and flying buttresses of Notre Dame caught her eye. How much French paperwork would be necessary to make a film inside that cathedral? She’d skip that step. She’d find the most rabbit-warren part of it and shoot there, among the mysterious winding hallways. Not realistic. Some security guard would find her and her crew. But a pleasant daydream. Maybe some other Gothic church...
She doodled along, past the stalls owned by book and postcard sellers. She had once asked one of them if he had a copy of Madame Bovary in English. A look of annoyance had crossed his face.
She was wearing a shorter skirt than she’d ever tried before—just above her knees. It flipped up a bit in the breeze, and a man gave her brown legs an appreciative glance. As the hard heels of her flats rang out on the pavement along the quai, she thought of Ravi and his parents and their lie. It was not the right foundation for a relationship. And if they were capable of that, of lying not only to her but to her parents, what else were they capable of? The article about “stove bursts” came to mind.
She turned to walk down Boulevard Saint Michel. At a café near the fountain, she saw Pearl, sitting with yet another corpulent man. She appeared sober, but she had a small glass filled with an amber liquid. Anjali walked up to their table, anxious to connect with this skinny little girl who had lived for weeks in her ten square meters. She wanted to protect her, bring her back to hearth and home.
“Pearl.”
She looked up, saw Anjali, and flinched.
“Come home with me.” Pearl paused.
Maybe she’s thinking of the walks we had, Anjali thought, the fun of sneaking up and down the stairs past Madame de Denichen. Come on, Pearl, we’re friends.
Then Pearl reached a skinny arm for the shot glass and shook her head. “It’s too late for that. No.”
Anjali thought of all the evil that could happen to Pearl on the streets. Untold abuse, psychic scars, horrors beyond Anjali’s experience and ken. To be spared, all Pearl had to do was give up alcohol and come with her. Obviously she wasn’t ready, and in spite of the abuse she was enduring, she might never be. In that case, Anjali thought, she’d be washed away in a flood more powerful than the Seine, a flood of the raw sewage of life.
Anjali’s heart broke as she turned with heavy steps and left Pearl to her dangerous preferences.
