Smile

The boy looked up at the girl for she was slightly taller than him. She smiled and the boy smiled back. He was literally speechless: he was English and she was French and they did not speak one another’s language. He had observed her for weeks and longed to be with her. He didn’t know in what form this togetherness would take but he did know that he wanted to open himself completely to her and for her to do the same. One morning, two weeks ago, he had seen another boy leaving her apartment. He didn’t know who this other boy was (a brother, a friend, a lover, a cousin?), but he desperately wanted to be him, to take his place, to live in his world.

The boy’s hand dived into his pocket and produced a small, white piece of paper, perfectly folded down the middle. The piece of paper had a message for the girl that he would have never dared to speak. He could not have handled the heart-break if she mistook his meaning. He handed it to her. She opened it and then she smiled. The boy then allowed himself to breath. She thanked him in her own tongue and left, for she did in fact have an urgent appointment that could not wait any longer, even for a situation as deeply important as this. She hurried across the street and onto the tram. Once she had found a seat she opened the note and read it again. It said: Tu es la seule qui me sourit. You’re the only person who smiles at me. It was the truest way of him describing his love of this girl.

He never saw her again.

The boy knew nothing more about the girl’s feelings for him other than what she had told him by her smile as she first read the message. He also never knew why she disappeared from the edges of his world. He found it strange (as well as excruciating, for he loved her as much as he could have loved anyone) that in the two weeks that he remained in her country he never saw her again. He did not know anyone and couldn’t speak to them in any case to discover her whereabouts. This was the one saving grace of his linguistic ignorance: bliss. For as she sat on that seat reading his message, the tram collided with a car sat on the tracks, causing it to roll onto its side. He never knew that as her body flew through the inside of the number two carriage, the note was clasped firmly in her hand. He never knew that only after her head had slammed against the side window did she release her grip on the piece of paper. He never knew that the words he had worked hours on perfecting became illegible as her blood trickled down and stained the once perfectly folded, white piece of paper. And he never knew that the other boy, who he longed so much to be, had to live with knowing everything.