Amanda Michalopoulou - Why I Killed My Best Friend

“I’ll forgive you, but only if we switch boys tonight.”

“Are you crazy? You like Raoul.”

“I like Michel more. I hadn’t realized he was so smart.”

“Take both of them if you want, I couldn’t care less!”

“No, that’s not how it works. Since you wanted to share my father, you have to share Raoul, too.”

“How do you know Raoul won’t mind?”

“Oh, he won’t. We’re in Paris, remember? People here aren’t bourgeois.”

The four of us meet at a café in Les Halles. Anna leans over and whispers in Raoul’s ear, and he turns and winks at me. They’re depraved. And in the name of liberation, or just in order to make a statement, they’re making me do things I don’t want to do. We go to the movies, it’s something by Wim Wenders, I sit on the aisle, Raoul next to me, then Anna and then Michel. I’m worried that the poor guy has no idea what’s going on, that he won’t know what hit him. But soon enough, in the darkness of the theater, I see him and Anna kissing and feel Raoul’s breath on my neck. I lean my head on his shoulder, try to relax and just let whatever’s going to happen happen. I see Michel’s hand on Anna’s knees, pulling her skirt up and groping around. Now I’m the one who doesn’t know what hit me.

I’m worried that Anna has a vagina and I don’t.

I now avoid Stamatis systematically. Shielding myself from view behind Anna’s back, I just throw him a quick hello or goodbye when we pass in the hall.

“Hold on, where are you going? Go and get Anna, I want to tell you guys a joke.”

Anna comes down the stairs, sighing. “What do you want, Dad?”

“Don’t get all worked up, I just heard this great joke I wanted to share.”

Stamatis gets a tea bag from the kitchen. “Okay, so this is an American missile,” he says. “When the Russians see it they want one just like it. They ask the Americans how much it costs. Ten million dollars, the Americans say.” Stamatis tears off the tab where the brand name is. “What if we take off this piece? Then how much? the Russians ask. Seven million dollars, the Americans say, but without that piece the missile won’t launch.” Stamatis pulls off the little string, too. “And without that piece, how much is it then?” Finally he rips open the tea bag, dumping the leaves, which supposedly represent the fuel, onto a saucer. “Now the missile is dirt cheap, but what use is it without any fuel? the Americans ask.” Stamatis stands the empty bag on the table, lights one edge with his lighter and starts a countdown, from ten to one, in Russian. The tea bag slowly rises toward the ceiling, then falls gently back down to the table — a soft pile of ash.

I clap enthusiastically.

Anna glares at him through slitted eyes. “It’s insulting to the Russians, Dad!”

“Since when are you Russian?”

Anna heaves a sigh, takes the stairs two at a time and shuts herself in her room. I run after her.

“Leave me alone, merde!” she says, her head under a pillow.

“Anna, why don’t you come home? Isn’t it time we were both back in Athens?”

“I don’t know.”

“How about we go across the street for a hot chocolate and maybe you’ll figure it out?” We wrap scarves around our necks and clomp down the stairs.

“I supposedly came here to bring you home,” I say to her, stirring my hot chocolate.

“I don’t know.”

“You’re completely impossible, but I can’t live without you.”

We’re sitting in the window with the latest issue of Actuel , on Michel’s recommendation. Anna shoots daggers at an old man reading Le Figaro across the way, then turns to me with a huge grin, as if what I said has just sunk in.

“Really? You really can’t live without me?”

She adores hyperbole. She swings from one emotion to the next as if all flipping a switch in her brain: rage, tenderness, jealousy, love. Whereas I need time to collect my thoughts, to swallow my anger. This time Anna has gone too far. I don’t like the way she tells me who to kiss and for how long. I wonder: do I really want her to come back to Athens? Or am I only doing it for the free studies Stamatis promised?

“Can you live without me?” I throw the question back at her.

“I don’t think so.”

“Well?”

“Okay, fine, I’ll come.”

We hug. But instead of relief, what I feel is unease.

Michel and Anna kiss. Raoul opens cans of beer with his teeth and flips through Bourdieu’s La Distinction . I’m sitting in Stamatis’s armchair, fingernails sunk into the worn velvet. I don’t want to read, I don’t want to be kissed. I don’t want to drink beer, either. I want to cry. I jump to my feet, throw open the front door and slam it behind me.

The air outside is freezing and I’ve left the house with no coat. I need to find an Ikeja, whatever Ikeja still has room for me. By now I’ve learned how to pack a suitcase properly, I won’t try to bring eggs or other breakables, I won’t ask bus drivers irrelevant questions. I’ll board a train, slide my suitcase onto the rack above my seat and watch as one landscape gives way to the next. As the trees whip past into the distance behind me, my thoughts, too, will fly out of my head one by one— zzzmmm, zzzmmm —until my mind is entirely empty— sssssshhhh —and I’ll be nothing more than a girl on a train.

It’s cold, absurdly cold. So I tweak the story slightly: a boy comes into the train car and wraps a blanket with red flowers on it around my shoulders. It’s my baby blanket, and I’m sorry to have been defeated by my own limitations, but I needed someone to come and cover me with something. The boy’s eyes are as liquid as Raoul’s, he has Michel’s bicycle with him, and he metes out attention with an eyedropper, like Angelos — just enough for me to fall in love without his lifting a finger — and because I don’t like the story I’ve invented, I duck into the metro station and huddle in its relative warmth, shake my head so that every last thought will leave, curl into a ball on the tiled floor and start to cry. No one talks to me, no one asks me what’s wrong. We’re in Paris, after all, and — how did Anna put it? — people here aren’t bourgeois.

“Where were you?” Anna asks. She’s at the sink washing dishes and doesn’t even turn to look at me.

“I wanted to be alone.”

“You should say something first, so people don’t worry.”

“What’s the sense in talking it over when the whole point is that you want to be alone?”

“You’re a member of society, not a wolf. Besides, even wolves travel in packs.”

“You’re right, I’m not a wolf. You’re the wolf.”

“Excuse me?”

“You tear everyone else to pieces. You want everything for yourself!”

Anna turns off the tap and puts her hands on her waist. Her eyes are spitting fire, her one white eyebrow is raised. The dimple in her cheek deepens.

“What you’re talking about is called communalism, it’s called liberty. It’s everything we’ve been fighting for, merde!” Right, like she’s been out digging trenches. Like she only just put down the shovel this instant.

“You only say those things when it suits you, Anna.”

“Try me. Ask for something, anything.”

“I don’t play those games.”

But Anna does. She looks around frantically — for what? A rope to hang herself with, to show me how much she’ll sacrifice for my sake? A weapon to use in the next revolution? She grabs a back issue of Actuel and holds it up to my face, pointing to a phrase by Foucault: Our action, on the contrary, isn’t concerned with the soul or the man behind the convict, but it seeks to obliterate the deep division that lies between innocence and guilt .