“Créatures du Monde”
Ellen Jacobus

Before I lost my journal, I had written a line in it: “and so this is as close as she gets to god – an accidental glimpse from atop the adjacent hill, from within le quartier de créatures.” I had left the quarter, and was walking the streets when I turned a corner and, as suddenly as the end of a cliff, I could see out over the city through a street-wide opening between two buildings. A hill rose out of the valley of roofs, an ornate cathedral perched on top, towering over the houses below. It made me laugh, for some reason.

Later, back at my hostel, I looked up “top sites to see,” and the cathedral was number one. It’s both odd and unsurprising – churches attract visitors. I admit, I visit them too. But a belief I never learned in god I discovered in poetry and people, in searching for humanity in small and sometimes silent places, and in seeing and creating the world through other people, even though they are a world unto themselves.

~

I slide through the hostel door, trying to shut it noiselessly behind me. It closes with the quiet thump of worn wood falling back into place, and I turn to face the street. I inhale deeply, tasting the city in the cold air. I carry my makeshift shoulder bag, just large enough to fit my water bottle and journal. The water bottle is neon orange, and covered in a collage of identifying stickers. The journal is heavier than it looks, a black cover also speckled with stickers – a yellow smiley face, an “I Rode on Day One!” from when the train station in my hometown opened – and filled with gridded paper, guiding lines I diligently ignore when I write. At home, I write every night. When I travel, I carry the journal everywhere with me, ready to record an event at any moment. As a child, I would refer to my journals as friends, because writing meant I had company.

Now, I am content to walk the city alone.

I wander the windswept streets, choosing my turns at random. Trash collects in the corners, and twice I accidently kick green glass beer bottles, sending them ricocheting across the otherwise empty streets. I don’t intend to have a destination, but I find myself climbing ever steeper roads, trying to reach the top of the hill. One road ends in a set of stairs split down the middle by a row of trees.

A few strenuous minutes later I reach the top – it’s a park. There are scattered silver café tables to my right, a small green field and trees in the background, and a clear-watered fountain in a small pool. It’s picturesque at first glance, the sort of French park I expect to see on a postcard. I start walking to the fountain, and watch abandoned napkins blow around the feet of the tables and chairs. When I reach the pool, I realize it’s not so pristine: a cesspool has collected in the corners, one of murk and garbage, and so many of the same green beer bottles. I keep walking.

I reach one entrance to the park, and a lamppost marks the top of a set of stairs. They’re enclosed between two buildings, an intricate iron archway stretching across the top. The post is covered in stickers, pressed on by passersby – one stuck crookedly a centimeter above the ground reads boldly, simply, “J’EXISTE.”

The stairs beyond are painted like a misordered rainbow, the walls of the buildings covered in artist’s tags layered one on top of the other and interspersed between spray-painted French poetry and meticulously painted scenes. I begin to descend, my mind unfolding, the buried imagination of childhood clawing its way to the surface, and I enter into an entire world contained between two otherwise unremarkable buildings. One step and I’m walking through a jungle of image and color. A second step, and I imagine the paintings peeling themselves off the walls, flooding the stairwell, pouring into the city. Another, and poetry comes to life, the words dancing in front of me and out into the street – cars slam on their breaks as the phrases run amok. Another, and the rainbow of the stairs wraps around my legs, then swirls in an expanding spiral, obscures my view in in vortex of color. Another, and the crunch of broken glass beneath my feet.

The world of color vanishes like steam, and I am at the bottom of the stairs, staring at a broken green bottle, and a world of beige and grey buildings, untouched by the street artists’ hand. I look back up at the stairwell, every painting, color, word, firmly attached to the concrete walls. Yet from the bottom of the stairs, I have gained enough distance to see that the metal intricacy of the arch actually forms letters. As soon as I read them, I know. I grin, I shift my bag on my shoulder, and feel a corner of my journal press into my back. In entwined capital letters, the arch reads le quartier de créatures. The quarter of creatures.

~

I am hunched over my computer, the darkness from the surrounding rooms making common space in the hostel hallway feel even more dimly lit. It’s approaching 1am, and my first train leaves at 5am. After that I have at least two train connections, but the one I’m worried about will leave me with only 12 minutes to make the next train. That isn’t enough time to go buy a ticket, and I can’t purchase one online – in short, I’m frantically googling, “will I be arrested for getting on a train without a ticket?” It hasn’t produced any reliable results, but I keep trying variations of the same question.

“Hey, you gonna be here for 15 minutes? D’you mind watching my bag for a sec?” A tall man with dreadlocks and accented English – English? Australian? – speaks over the continuous frantic tapping of my keyboard. I break my concentration with a half-hearted glance over my shoulder, and automatically respond, “sure, whatever,” as I turn back to my computer.

His footsteps fade away, and the electronic glow quickly sucks me in again. I know he asked me to watch his bag, but my eyes don’t leave the screen. Five or so fruitless searches later a voice echoes across the room, “Thanks mate, I’m back.”

“Oh yeah, sure.”

“Oh, and here–” I hear him stride across the room, and drop something next to my computer, “ –thanks again for watching my stuff.”

“Really, I’m gonna be here a while, it’s no problem.”

“Still, though.”

I look down and see two tiny oranges sitting next to my computer. Two tiny oranges, and suddenly I’m back to my year before college, remembering buying tiny oranges exactly like these with a friend in Thailand. A smile breaks across my face, and for the first time I really look up at the man whose stuff I was supposedly watching. I haven’t had a real conversation with anybody in a few weeks, beyond checking into a hostel, buying groceries, or figuring out train schedules. And here, a stranger, dropping me off a gift.

“Seriously, it was nothing.” I try to put a lot of unspoken gratitude into two short words, “Thanks, man.”

He waves it off, and goes back to his own work.

~

            I tear through my bag, yanking out my books and sweaters, swearing under my breath. I pull everything out at an impossible speed, as if by emptying my bag faster I can quell the panic welling up inside me. But I get through the entire bag and it’s not there. I put everything back, and go through the entire process again. And then one more time. And then another. I finish a final search, and sink numbly into my seat, telling myself to calm down. I try to accept that I left my journal on the last train. We’re barely 10 minutes out of the station, but I know there’s no going back for it. Even if I got back to the station, the train I had been on would’ve already left for its final destination.

I knew it was stupid, but I felt tears burning at the edges of my eyes. My entire life – recorded every night for the past eight months – was in that book. Whole relationships, my entire summer, all my study abroad to this point – the record of me – gone. I would never get it back. I put my head in my hands and tried to replay every important memory. I don’t want to forget what I’ve done. I don’t want to forget who I’ve been.

I stay lost in my reverie for an indeterminate amount of time – a voice announces several stops over the speaker in a language I don’t understand. Eventually I shake myself back into the moment, reminding myself I still need to figure out if I can get a train ticket for my next layover. This train resembles an airplane in seating arrangement and orderliness – perfectly illuminated walkways and exit signs, and I half expect to see flight attendants offering people drinks. Instead a rotund man walked through when we first boarded, welcoming everyone and checking our tickets.

Eventually, pulling myself out of my seat, I walk down the aisle. Several compartments down, I find an information desk. The same man who checked tickets sits behind it, taking up most of the counter space. He smiles graciously at me, and not just like it’s his job.

“English?” I ask timidly.

“Oh yes,” he replies, his smile never wavering.

I explain my predicament, how I won’t have enough time to get a ticket, and my fear that I’ll be fined or kicked off the train. He doesn’t have the answer, but he offers to call someone who might know. I thank him profusely, and return to my seat.

An hour or so later he finds me in my seat and tells me I can buy a ticket on the next train. I wish I had a tiny orange to give him. He walks away, and it isn’t until several stops later, right before my exit, that I am struck with an idea. I write “thank you” over and over on piece of paper, and fold it into a small crane. We pull into my station, and I drop it on my seat as I leave, hoping he’ll find it as he walks through to welcome more passengers on board.

~

I feel as though I am in black and white movie as I walk into the compartment. The light is so faint and indistinct that the benchlike seats facing each other and luggage racks are just grey and black shapes. I throw my bag on a rack, and sit near the window, pressing my cheek against the cold glass, the moonless night making the glass appear black. I suddenly realize how alone I am, and am struck by the sudden fear of what I should do if I were trapped in here with a strange man. The train starts to rumble, rattling into movement. I involuntarily sigh, relieved I’ll be left to my isolated ride.

Then, as if the universe could hear me, someone opens the compartment door. The corridor light illuminates him from behind – at least 6 feet tall, stringy, chest-length, grey hair – before the door slides shut, and he becomes an indistinct dark shape. I tense, drawing my knees closer to my body, imagining how I’ll fight back. He sits down at the other end of the bench, and I turn back to the window, pretending to be lost in the passing blackness. I crack my knuckles and tap my fingers against my leg, wishing I had something to do with my hands.

We sit in silence, the two of us, just the clanking and swaying of the train. A slight tension floats through the room, both of us breathing, and not speaking. With every exhale I expect him to interrupt the silence, and probably he expects the same of me. But when I search my brain for something to say, all the phrases run scuttling into hiding. I imagine myself checking behind doors, peering under beds, and pulling back curtains but the words are too well hidden. As such, I say nothing.

Eventually, we each take a bench and lie down opposite one another, attempting to fall asleep. I curl into a ball, and become another mound of shapeless darkness in the compartment. I stare into our small world, and listen as our breathing syncs, only to be drowned out by the rumble of the train. We never speak, we just exist.

~

I am not religious, in the sense that I have no formal practice. But when I found myself suddenly starting at the cathedral, it was exhilarating.

There it is: distinguished, unhidden, elegant, organized.

Here I am.  

Here we are.

How many people visit it? How many people find meaning there?

Would I? Would you? I keep walking.

A few blocks more, and I cross in front of a huge mural of a face with a French scrawl beneath it – créateurs du sud. I stare. Creators of the south. Of course. The two words, just one letter different. I experience the same exhilaration of discovery, as if I have found a break between two buildings again: créateurs – creators – créatures – creatures – creator, creature, creator, creature… Are we not both? And the world is full of us.  

I stop at a street stand selling meringues the size of my fist. The dark-haired, dark-eyed man with a crooked baker’s hat stands behind the counter. I communicate mainly by pointing and smiling: me too nervous to use my French, him kind enough to match my silence. I slide him two euros and he hands me a chocolate meringue, breaking our pantomime only to say goodbye.