"Ah, salut, monsieur, voulez-vous?"
Distracted, I jabbed anxiously at the cigarettes and matches behind the counter. I was too frazzled to attempt speech, let alone my halting French. The thickly accented Congolese reached behind him, pinched the items from the rack, and thumbed them down in front of me. His movements were lazy, his eyes drawling out of the grimy window. He held out a hand, demanding, expectant for my change.
I jangled the cents into his palm and feverishly tore open the packet. I had the match burning and held to my lips before he spoke.
"Ah, monsieur... ne fumez pas ici, s'il vous plait." The shopkeeper's voice was bored as he gestured to a sign.
I shot him a look of anguish, and paused, mind racing, while the aircon rattled and whirred in a 1970s plastic sort of way. With a snort of disgust I stalked out and the 102-degree heat slammed into me like a wall.
The air shimmered while I huddled in the shade on my side of the Chausée de Vleurgat, the cracked, bleached slabs baking. I lit the cigarette. Attractive women in short business skirts and men with wet patches under their shirt-arms strolled purposefully past me, the dialysised blood of this soulless city. The pasty concrete, the crumbling art nouveau townhouses, the dirty tangle of tramwires above, all of them now crowded in on me, throttling me. I sucked on the cigarette, which was already half gone.
It was intolerably hot, and I could feel tickling trickles down my back. I squinted out of the shadows, feeling a sunbright headache threatening.
A police siren sounded two or three blocks away, and I jumped. It echoed over the municipality of Ixelles, and I glanced frantically about, from the slow, unconcerned cross-flow of traffic and pedestrians at the junction with the Rue Américaine, to the imposing wallend of the church at the other end of the block. Everyone milled, all unconcerned. My heart was >>
Distracted, I jabbed anxiously at the cigarettes and matches behind the counter. I was too frazzled to attempt speech, let alone my halting French. The thickly accented Congolese reached behind him, pinched the items from the rack, and thumbed them down in front of me. His movements were lazy, his eyes drawling out of the grimy window. He held out a hand, demanding, expectant for my change.
I jangled the cents into his palm and feverishly tore open the packet. I had the match burning and held to my lips before he spoke.
"Ah, monsieur... ne fumez pas ici, s'il vous plait." The shopkeeper's voice was bored as he gestured to a sign.
I shot him a look of anguish, and paused, mind racing, while the aircon rattled and whirred in a 1970s plastic sort of way. With a snort of disgust I stalked out and the 102-degree heat slammed into me like a wall.
The air shimmered while I huddled in the shade on my side of the Chausée de Vleurgat, the cracked, bleached slabs baking. I lit the cigarette. Attractive women in short business skirts and men with wet patches under their shirt-arms strolled purposefully past me, the dialysised blood of this soulless city. The pasty concrete, the crumbling art nouveau townhouses, the dirty tangle of tramwires above, all of them now crowded in on me, throttling me. I sucked on the cigarette, which was already half gone.
It was intolerably hot, and I could feel tickling trickles down my back. I squinted out of the shadows, feeling a sunbright headache threatening.
A police siren sounded two or three blocks away, and I jumped. It echoed over the municipality of Ixelles, and I glanced frantically about, from the slow, unconcerned cross-flow of traffic and pedestrians at the junction with the Rue Américaine, to the imposing wallend of the church at the other end of the block. Everyone milled, all unconcerned. My heart was >>
