Old Friends, Same Worries (Amir)

[MYLÈNE LACOQUINE]

Mylène surely didn’t mind getting out of the café during her occasional daytime shift, she wasn’t really used anymore to spend the daylight hours cooped up inside, and it reminded her too much of her childhood years in the leather manufactory, where they had never seen the sunlight once, unless through the dusty windows. After that, her first few weeks in the sewers of Paris, starting the life of a child thief had seemed like the perfect freedom: no one telling you where to be at what point in time, and you basically could spend all day outside, until it got to cold or patrols forced you underground. After a while, the glory of that had worn off of course, but she still viewed being outside as a privilege she wouldn’t want to miss. So when the landlady of the ABC café had asked her to get some eggs from the nearby market, since she had dropped a few earlierm stumbling over the grumpy café cat, Mylène had agreed all too readily, even more as the Madame had told her with a little wink that she needn’t hurry. These days, the lady seemed to be in an exceptionally good mood, and slowly Mylène started to think she might be suspect something about her life that wasn’t quite true… maybe she was thinking Mylène was seeing some young lad, and did want to encourage her… That made her grin. Oh, as if!

But if that ended her up with more freetime on hand, she’d surely not complain. Therefore, Mylène didn’t leave the Latin Quarter right away to get to the market that was selling groceries, but sauntered over the lively market place of this quarter, where all kinds of students mingled at this time of day, probably killing time between a few of their classes or basically skipping them. Artists of all kind were always here, and as Mylène was a known face here by now, she often stopped to talk a few sentences with certain people, to crack jokes or even exchange some possibly valuable gossip. Underneath the carefree and lively air of this square, there were already dangerous thoughts and a lot of knowledge brewing, and she made sure to memorize the things she heard, just in case the boys might need it for their strives. Then however, just as she was listening to a young woman who would draw portraits of passing people with a piece of charcoal, she saw two all too familiar figures standing together in what seemed to be a short, but serious conversation. One of them was Amir, a boy Mylène had known for years from times she had been still living with Les Corbeaux… the other was none other than Escroc-Monsieur Louis Thénardier.

Even from afar, Amir looked quite desperate and down-trodden, and since Mylène knew how intimidating and brutal Louis could be, she started to worry. What might poor Amir have to do with this wretched soul of a crook? Did Louis have anything on him? The curiosity wouldn’t leave her alone, and so she excused herself from Desirée and crept closer, waiting behind another artist’s booth until Louis turned and went away, an expression of smugness on his con face. Then she counted to three inwardly, and approached Amir, raising a hand in greeting. “Dear me, are you joining forces with the Patron-Minette now?” she asked, half jokingly, though there was a tint of worry in her eyes. Amir didn’t look happy… not happy at all.

[amir]

Amir looked up at her pushing his hair out of his face once more pulling an all too well prepared smile to his face. “Non, just business, I don’t chose who I get to serve,” he stated as he pulled the tatty bit of fabric he used as a rug to sit on out from a pocket starting to set up his stand. “I’m good, honest, bit coin short but nothing a good days selling wouldn’t fix,” he added on. He was more than prepared to pull a face of absolute bleak confusion if she kept on asking. Louis had him more scared than he was willing to show, and he had no desire to cross the person who was potentially keeping his gang off his back.

Aye life was hard but still. “May I interest you in some hand carved roses? Or maybe a new box to fit anything in,” he added on already pulling out his short knife and some wood and starting to work on the carving. “Or Carnations if you don’t be fancying roses, I can make all sorts of flowers,” he added on. Anything to keep conversation off of his deal with Monsieur T. Oh aye life was hard but at least he lived still right? He’d seen a few times what happened to those who talked and it was rarely nice.

“Or maybe you need a few pegs? I ain’t got the wood on me to carve them right now but if you pay in advance I can make you an order up over night,” he added on setting one carved rose down and working on the next, building it all from one piece of wood. Once he had a group of roses finished and laid out he started on the carnations, at one point his knife slipping, slicing into the pad or his thumb, but although he winced he daren’t stop.

He needed stock to sell, good stock. He needed to make the money to cover all the bills he had to pay or else he knew he’d cop it. That weren’t good. That weren’t good at all and he shivered at the thought of what might happen. “Or is there anything else I can help you with?” he looked up again forcing the smile through, the white streak of hair standing out against the black surroundings as he tilted his head a bit to one side then the other adjusting his position and back to carving again quickly.

“I’d offer to dye the flowers but I haven’t got what I need to do that, looking to get that done though so that I can get a bit more coming in, you know how it is, bills to pay,” he added on keeping his forced happy smile there, even if it didn’t show in his eyes that were worried even as he focused on his wood work. “Pretty sure you’d love a pretty blue carnation,” he added on “or a yellow ‘un or a white ‘un,”

[MYLÈNE LACOQUINE]

It didn’t happen often, and Mylène had to think hard to even recall the last time it had happened to her that SHE was the one not getting a word in edgewise when someone was talking. Usually, it was more than just the other way around, she was feared for her sharp tongue and her quick wit after all, but what she had caused with that simple, half-mocking and half-concerned question was certainly astonishing. Amir started to talk rapidly, nineteen to a dozen even, running off at the mouth or, like Estelle had often called Mylène to be “un molin à paroles”, a mill at work while talking. Every time she prepared herself to answer something and opened her mouth, Amir started again, leaving her to tap her feet and drum her fingers on her thig mockingly.

There was definitely something wrong with him, and he apparently didn’t realize that he made it worse, not better, by trying so desperately to distract her from what she had asked. She hadn’t believed him at the first time when he said Thénardier had been there for business – if anything it was Louis conducting HIS business and not the other way around – and she believed him even less with every hasty word that left his mouth. So he was a bit short of coins? Well probably even more so now, since Mylène had lived around the Patron-Minette for too long, not to know what they did. That Louis had been there alone, without his gang, meant he didn’t really expect Amir to not cooperate, he must have been very sure of that… so it had not been the first time. Mylène could feel a pang of anger inside her, rising and rising as she thought about the large net of protection money they had cast over the city. Boys like Amir, they hardly went by as it was, and there came HIM, taking even more from them! Someone oughta make him stop one day!

But for now, she first needed to get her point across to Amir. That she had not come to buy one of his precious carvings – though, come to think of it, even though she was not exactly bathing in money either, she might just take one, to give him a few needed sous – but that she wanted to know what exactly had come to pass between him and the Escroc-Monsieur. She didn’t like him squeezing money out of anyone, but even less out of her friends! Amir and her had spent enough time together to call him such, and since he was from a different country, and basically a heathen, he didn’t have an easy time here to begin with.
At last it seemed like he was out of things to say, and so she gave an exaggerated sigh and crouched next to him. “You’re finished yet? Good. ‘Ve got a saying for ye, Amir. ‘Lad doth protest too much’. Ye know wha’ I mean? Ye’ve been trying all too hard te make me think everything’s a’right, so much that I nuu believe ye even less.”

Taking one of his half-finished carvings and moving it between her fingers, she tried to lock his gaze. “I know wha’ he’s like, Amir, ‘ve been livin’ around him for years. ‘Ow much does he take? No need to lie.”