Between Before and After by Jessica Stilling

Author:Jessica Stilling
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: paris, mother son, troubled youth, family tragedy, estranged mother
Publisher: DX Varos Publishing

XXI

1994

The city of Paris has a history with barricades. The people have erected them, they have stood as a symbol of protest, since the Viking invasions that drew in the bridges from the city walls. During the French Revolution they brought in the barricades, in the revolution of 1848, there were more barricades, before the Nazis came in the late 1930s the citizens lined the streets with piles of wood and bricks and when the students protested in May of 1968, turned over cars and broken furniture served the same purpose. Barricades had become such a part of the city’s culture that even the police adopted them. The day of the fire, what I remember most, the image singed in my mind, are the barricades. They were plastic and bright orange, they were professional, and police sanctioned, but I didn’t know how bad it was, in fact I didn’t know what was going on, until I saw the barricades.

I was out with Maja the day it happened. It was just a day like any other until it wasn’t. Maja had gone from a girl I kind of liked to someone I thought about all the time and called every day. I waited for the phone to ring and prayed it was Maja on the line and I got excited at the prospect of seeing her. Maybe in a few weeks I would have called her my girlfriend but instead I didn’t see her again until I ran into her at The Cluny.

I left the house early, taking my Discman so I would have some time to walk and think before meeting her. Lucy was playing in the living room when I left. “Don’t you want to stay and play with Princess Evelyn of the Red Awning?” she asked, holding up two teddy bears. “They’re her ladies in waiting.”

“Since when do you care about ladies in waiting?” I asked, fixing my headphone band across my head. I felt the foam on my ears, but I didn’t turn the music on.

“Mr. Rogers talked about them,” she replied. “Princess Evelyn likes you, Bastian. You’re her favorite brother.”

“Tell her I said hi. Or better yet, have her ladies in waiting tell her.”

“Okay!”

“I have to go.”

“Can we play tonight, Bastian? Can we play?”

“Sure,” I replied, not even thinking about it.

Quentin came in; I know this now because there’s video. I’m starting to remember seeing him only because of the video. Before it was always Pierre’s words, “No one was there before the fire.” Before the video I hardly ever thought about that day. I certainly didn’t want to remember. But now I remember. Quentin said a few things to me and then started talking to my mother. I went to my camcorder and took out the tape before I left. I must have put it back in my room with my other tapes before I met Maja. Some of that day is still fuzzy. I didn’t say good-bye. My mother was in the kitchen. She

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