right after christmas, i moved out. after a year and a half of living with the most perfect french family imaginable, it was finally time to move out and brave the strange oddities of franceland all by my lonesome. goodbye to three hour lunches (or in my case, breakfasts at 2pm… i have eaten far too many raw oysters and drank far too much red wine at "breakfast" that it has become frighteningly normal to swallow things that are still alive within an hour of waking up) and giant orange cats that sleep in the bathtub and adorable siblings with whom i had extremely in-depth conversations about both lego pirate ships and jared leto. knowing my time with them was limited, i ate everything on my plate and hung annoyingly around the kitchen like a sad puppy, trying to absorb nathalie's cooking skills through osmosis. i lived in constant fear of being homeless after christmas, but after three months of stalking the french version of craigslist morning noon and night, i find two girls looking for a roommate via facebook, of all godforsaken internet things. i visit the apartment for the first time the day of thanksgiving, so i ditch the american profs' thanksgiving party and wander tipsily through winding streets and cafe tables. i ask for directions from three drunk students, and we play the game "where are you from?" after they give me shit for not even knowing my own city. they're still shouting "south africa? the netherlands? iceland?" after me as i nervously ring the buzzer to hang out with the potential serial killers i met on the internet.
the kitchen is minuscule: the stove is covered in pots and pans and questionably old pasta, the washing machine doubles as a cutting board and spice rack and mailbox and is home to seven bic lighters for the range and louise's cigarettes. wooden ikea bookshelves hold couscous and chickpeas and at least five bars of very expensive chocolate. good to see priorities are in order here at place du maucaillou. i think i'm going to fit right in. dishes are haphazardly piled in the sink; glasses blatantly stolen from the bar stand in line next to jelly jars that are now multipurpose wine glasses/espresso cups/ashtrays. but by far the most impressive thing in the kitchen is the opposite wall: over one hundred post-it notes stick all the way to the ceiling, curling from the open window and months of international living. the post-its are vocabulary words, quotes, toungue-twisters, and an extensive ongoing list of famous mustaches in history. the vocab is in french and spanish, accompanied by stick figure illustrations in various states of appropriateness, depending on the word. the french girl is learning spanish from the spanish girl and vice versa, and i become the token american in the third bedroom. soon, english post-its fight for space, explaining tea and crumpets and swag and various obscenities that can't be repeated here but have become permanent fixtures while eating breakfast. "make a post-it!" becomes our catchphrase, and the guys upstairs think the girls on the fourth floor are certifiably insane, as they came to tell us to shut up one night when we were in a particularly loud post-it frenzy.
rana is spanish, and is on exchange for a year in bordeaux. she is vegan and has longer dreadlocks than bob marley, and a "stop fracking" flag flies from her window. she has multiple piercings on her face, and every time she comes home with another one, we stare openly at it, in shock and horror and amazement. she makes the most delicious walnut banana cake after finding the weirdest electric mixer at the flea market. we ponder its cleanliness until we try the cake, and say "to hell with questionable kitchen appliances, this is delicious." she makes most of our meals, a change from my meat and egg-loving host family, who ply me with protein every time i "pick up my mail," which is code word for "stay for dinner because you're looking a little skinny, what do you eat in that apartment anyway?"
louise is french, and studies at the exclusive political science university. i learn this the hard way, when during my roommate interview, i tell a story of my own time at the university, where i am universally shamed for walking into a lecture hall carrying a little green child's notebook to take notes, and every other student is sitting behind a state-of-the-art macbook. "next time, you should probably bring your computer," says a friend sardonically and rolls his eyes, meant to be both helpful and condescending at the same time. i tell this story, and louise bursts out laughing, telling me she goes to that exact university. as my eyes widen in horror and embarrassment and i calculate the closest escape route, she goes on to say she makes fun of the richy rich student population at least twice a day. i quickly learn she is an anomaly in the regimented political science culture, arriving fifteen minutes late on a regular basis, "but never sixteen, because that's when they kick you out." her notes are strewn around the apartment, and i read about voltaire and education laws while brushing my teeth, because a lecture from november is permanently wedged behind the bathroom sink. my morning routine isn't complete without hearing a crash from her bedroom, then her hopping around, talking to herself: "shit, louise, shit shit shit, where are your shoes? shit." one day, she almost runs to the corner store for cigarettes in her bra, and made it out the door until i catch her as i'm leaving for work, sending her back upstairs where she gets dressed and i return with her cigarettes. she is a mess, but the best kind, and we joke about how one day she'll be a swanky government official and make the front page of the paper, and i will absolutely know better than to believe it.
the three of us spend far too much time drinking cheap wine and listening to gypsy jazz and ordering pizza from the moroccan place down the street, but hold the cheese on one, please. the pizza guys know us by name, and see us in the city and yell our pizza toppings after us, which is either a sign of extreme customer loyalty, something to be proud of, or an extreme embarrassment, a clear sign from god to eat less pizza. we're still undecided at this juncture. rana and louise tell me it is perfectly acceptable and in fact necessary to be lazy, or "avoir la flemme." it is a unversal excuse, one that covers schoolwork procrastination to lesson plans to why we're eating pizza again to why showering today didn't happen. rana is in the middle of making a complicated hairpiece made of soda can tabs and bottlecaps, and throws it onto the table, exasperated. "la flemme!" she explains, rolling her eyes and sighing dramatically. i nod sagely, for it is sunday afternoon and i got up at 4pm and still have yet to plan my lessons. i understand.
it is quite a new concept for me, sleeping until 4pm in france, for i am used to my host brother sacha's recorder concerts, that only seem to happen at 8am on saturday and sunday mornings. though, there is no shortage of musical instruments in the apartment, for louise plays the saxophone, but conditionally. plays the saxophone conditionally. what does that mean exactly? exhibit a: i am sitting at the kitchen table when she comes home from school, bursts in the door, and throws her books all over the breadcrumbs and jelly and drops of espresso left over from breakfast. "putain de journée de merde!" she exclaims, which roughly translates to "what a terrible, horrible no good very bad day," with far more colorful language worthy of "the departed." "are you okay?" i venture, terrified of scary louise. she doesn't answer, just goes to her room and pulls out her saxophone, and proceeds to let out the most heinous, earsplitting noises i have ever heard. even to my untrained ears, there's no tune, no melody, just very loud noise. the saxophone is her stress relief, and after thirty minutes of what sounds like a herd of elephants committing suicide, she returns to the kitchen, a smile plastered to her face, as she asks "...and how was your day?"
there is a post-it on the back of the kitchen door that says "état des lieux 14h30" but means "kimberley moves into the apartment." it is the post-it note to remind us to clean our rooms because marzat the landlord is coming to make me official, and months later, once i am a permanent fixture in the apartment, we have a party and someone tries to take down the post-it. "what is this? wasn't this months ago?" he asks, and starts to pull it off the door. "NOOOO!" shout rana and louise, and louise tackles him into the stove while rana whips around and hits him in the face with her dreadlocks. "that's the post-it note for when kim moved in!" says rana. "that's never coming down, absolutely not," says louise, and at once i am hit with the realization that the three of us living in a subpar walkup where we have to shower in the dark because the light bulb blew one day and we make up ridiculous stories to piss off marzat the landlord and we eat reheated pasta at 1am has become my life; the realization that these girls i met on the internet will defend me from post-it note snatchers and practice their english with godforsaken accents and drag my suitcases to the train station at 6am, hungover from too much goodbye wine and running after my train as i leave france for the definitive future, waving and trying to follow me to paris on foot, if not for louise's pack a day habit that leaves her wheezing in bordeaux. banging on my window, a conductor is yelling at the two of them as they call "à la prochaine!" or "until we meet again!" i think of my vegan protein deficiency and the white blouse i lent louise that i'll never get back, and i sincerely hope we do indeed meet again, the girls at place du maucaillou.
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