Paris, Dark and Cold

Lost at Defense. We look at the board. It is written in French: “this train is closed.”

Behind me, she reads it with confidence and begins to walk away. I notice she stopped. I glance at her, and then ask my son: “what shall we do? wait for an hour and maybe it will open?”

The woman begins a conversation: “an hour ago, it said it would be open by now.”

Okay. Where now? I ask her for directions to another bus. She invites us to follow her. It was a long walk, and she knew her way, to another train, elsewhere. We got on, separating a few times during the trip, getting lost in the crowd, and then as I go the wrong way, she catches my attention from the distance and motions to come with her again.

On the train, we begin to ascend to the upper car while she is busy communicating with those in the lower car. I discover that she was asking them to move so that she could produce enough seating for all of us. We joined her.

The conversation was very “Before Sunrise.” I speak to her in Arabic. I learn about her Moroccan roots. I learn about her experiences as a Muslim in Paris. We exchange stories for what felt like an hour. And then she gets off at my stop, and we wander again. We motioned to hug, and then shook hands.

As I left my son said: “Dad, that was like a story from a love film: man and woman meet while lost in Paris, fall in love, …” Except I didn’t give her my number.

“Well, shall we go? Yes, let’s go.”