The Silence of the Spirits. Wilfried N'Sondé

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      On the bridge, I gathered whatever courage I had left to confront the test of the train station, filled with patrol officers and anti-riot officers, residence permits, criminal investigation operations! I was so anxious, my stomach was knotted up and my jaw was clenched. I waited for darkness to fall so that I could sneak my way into the crowded Gare de Lyon and take a train heading to a shelter for homeless people way out in the suburbs.

      Once I entered the huge concourse, my pulse was racing at my temples, literally like a furnace in my head, totally obsessed with the idea of not standing out. The mere sight of the blue of a police officer’s uniform immediately set off a terrible panic in me.

      My muscles stiffened suddenly when I saw a police roadblock about ten meters in front of me. Plainclothes cops, with cold penetrating gazes, orange armbands that read police, examining the crowd suspiciously, randomly choosing candidates for an ID check.

      A rush of adrenaline exploded in my chest. Completely derailed by fear, I found the courage to turn back and head in the opposite direction, away from the crowd, as discreetly as possible. I quickly took off, wandered, and got lost several times. My brain was bubbling over with anxiety, to take off, disappear into the racket of the early evening rush hour. My stomach and throat were seized with cramps. Butt in gear. Do not get caught. My knees wobbled beneath the weight of my fear, and my legs were trembling. Leave this corridor as quickly as possible, toward wherever!

      In my distress, I had to hold on to the fight for life with the tenacity of a pesky insect, stand up to the law, be a nuisance, live regardless!

      Overcome by a strange intuition, I instinctively got on a train. Convinced that I had become invisible by blending into the crowd, I took a seat next to a window, which would not close properly.

      A cold draft gripped me once the train took off, all the more unpleasant because it was mixed in with the scalding heat rising up from beneath the seat. With my hands buried in my pockets, I tried to wedge my body into the soft spot the seat offered. I kept twisting and turning and finally gave in to the discomfort, unable to really relax. I have always been able to live peacefully with suffering.

      Busy watching other passengers, on the lookout for a ticket inspector or a police officer, my attention finally zeroed in on the woman sitting in front of me.

      CHRISTELLE LET HERSELF get carried by the rhythm of the moving train, in spite of the bumpy ride and the sudden violent shaking caused by trains going in the opposite direction. Her eyes were closed, and her mouth revealed an expression that was difficult to read, a mixture of fatigue and sadness. I looked at her for some time. While staring at her, my breathing gradually slowed and my pulse stabilized. In her simplicity, this woman had touched me. I managed to get a whiff of her scent, a blend of cleanliness and cheap perfume. This universe pleased and comforted me. Seduced, I kept taking her in, her pale face and red hair highlighted with gray strands.

      The base of her nostrils was red and irritated, left over from a bad cold. I noticed creases at the corners of her eyes. Christelle’s melancholic features moved me, and I was surprised by my reaction. She enveloped me in a whole new feeling, full of sensitivity and kindness.

      I looked at her delicate hands, the skin worn from work, but their wrinkles had not made them ugly. Some of her fingers gripped the collar of her coat, and the others held on to her scarf. Melancholy suited her somehow. She was sitting gracefully in her seat, in a way that I had rarely seen in my turbulent life. In her sleepiness, her lips somewhat pursed, she was undoubtedly trying to dismiss, at least for a while, the boredom and lassitude that accompanied her everyday life. She was so amazing to me that I forgot my own fears and began to dream.

      Christelle inspired words I had never known, inaudible exchanges between couples I saw walking through the city at the end of the day, hand in hand, immersed in a passionate discussion. I envied them especially when they were kissing. Secretly, I admired the women laughing their hearts out, throwing their heads back while in the arms of their beloved. Her lover passes his hand through her hair, they look each other intensely in the eyes, a quick, gentle kiss, she rests her head delicately on his shoulder.

      I have always experienced happiness as a spectator, like one who intrudes on its beauty, a poor ignorant bastard. I was never the good friend, invited home to dinner, or the guy you presented to your mother.

      After several stations, as we sat there alone in front of each other in a one-of-a-kind face-to-face, the silhouettes of two uniformed police officers appeared at the back of the car. Brutally jolted from my dream, I suddenly returned to my skin as the absent one, illegal, the monster who frightens, the villainous beast no one wants to resemble. Consumed by the fear of an uncertain future, I was suddenly overcome by a violent urge to scream out the rage lurking deep within me.

      I wanted to plead humbly with arms outstretched to the sky. I repressed my cry; fear suffocated my desire. Resigned, sadness flooded my eyes, and in the end I just lowered them.

      When I raised my eyes a few seconds later, Christelle timidly reached out and touched my leg with her fingers and smiled!

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