Travel with a striped T-Shirt

I could feel how excited he was from the dark corner of the wardrobe, and I was too. I was always happy when he was, because I knew I would meet new people, hear different voices and get a fresh breath of air. 

It was a lot of early morning stepping around the house, looking for one socks, or, maybe, for pants?! I could smell the first coffee and the first cigarette, followed by the flushing of water. Everything was going according to the usual routine, until the doorbell rang. It was very early for anyone to ring the bell, even for the woman who usually brought bills, I therefore guessed it must have been her. She looked very happy, despite the early waking up and uncomfortable travel. While talking vividly and energetically, they discussed the flight, the things that had happened in the months they had not seen each other, and made up a plan of the day. It was then that I heard the word octopus, and I somewhat was filled by the hope that I too would be part of the plan. 

As I had predicted, he shortly after picked me from the wardrobe and put me on. He told her that I was the one any time he had to go to the market. It felt great to hear it and while I was getting used to the light of the room being absorbed differently through the stripes of my cotton membrane, I felt like I was reborn. Outside it was cold, cloudy and rainy, just how I remembered Paris, from the last escapade. 

They walked for a while in the mild rain, too excited for the market and for seeing each other again, to be bothered by the terrible weather. I think this is one special characteristic of Paris - it hypnothizes your senses with its charming soul, that it is hard to see the true harshness it hides within. Once we reached to the market, I too, could forget about being wet and be cuddled by the coolness all around me, as he pulled me out with pride while choosing the freshest octopus of the stall. He chose alright. We had shared the same experience and learning curve when it came to choosing octopus, because any time he had had to buy one, I was there. 

I remembered the first time he took me to the market in his mother’s town. It was hot like hell. He was sweating a lot, which made me know a wetness that was different to rain, but rather smelly, salty and definitely more humane. He was trying to remember all the suggestions his mother had given us: never choose a pink octopus, as the color is a sign the creature was frozen. Thinking so hard was making him sweat even more. It was a very loud shuk, if I compare it to the one I was in then, in Port D'Orleans; men screaming to sell the best dates, olives and figs. Funnily enough, in Paris, they also thought they had the best dates, olives and figs. Habibi, but how can there be the best of dates, olives and figs in two so different places at the same time? 

I could see from my side that she was excited and I wanted to tell her that the best had yet to come, that I had seen this ritual all multiple times and that it never actually stop being exciting, from buying the ingredients, to cooking them, and finally, to eating them in circle. As we got home, friends started to reach, all happy to join the ceremony of the octopus couscous. I always thought it was a bit gruesome how they beat the octopus with a wooden stick. In those moments I wished I had hands to cover my eyes, so I tried to focus on my sense of smell. The air was getting filled with strong flavour of harissa sauce and fish. It was as if the small apartment in Bracion had suddenly left Paris and found it self in a white and blue building of Tunis. There it was, so out of context and, yet, nobody would have recognized a parisian flat in a tunisian building, when looking from the outside into the windows. The secret travel would be kept safe, until someone inside the room would have broken the spell. But who would, anyways? While I was lost in these thoughts, I could feel the stains accumulating on me, the red sauce, the Tunisian olive oil, and some couscous grains! It might sounds disgusting, but that was my only and own way of trying the delicious food I could otherwise only smell and see from relatively far. 

After hours of boiling, steaming and stirring, the result was both delicious and beautiful and the atmosphere was that of a family, reunited for a celebration. There was the sharing, the smoking of the pipe, the thick milky drink and even the music. As he took up the Oud to accompany the songs playing on youtube, I realized that Oud was not the same that it had been in Tokyo, but I was! I remembered them in a shisha bar in the neighbourhood of shimokitazawa, playing the exotic cool expats and trying to not let the Jenga tower smash to the floor. The bar tedeners were taking pictures, excited by the wave of culture that the two had brought in the room with them. Maybe that smoky room underground was not really in Japan, but rather it had flew away from a capital in the Middle East or Europe and landed for a short period of time on the other side of the world, until someone would have noticed and broke the spell. But who would, anyways? 

I might had as well been high at the point, but it felt good to be a blue and white striped T-shirt. I had realised something important that I was sure they also knew quite well. We don’t really ever travel from one place to another, we rather travel through a series of rooms, which placed out of their contexts, are the results of all the trips we carry within. When he put me in the basket with all the other dirty clothes, I felt very much like I had lived a fullfilling day and they must have had too. Looking back at it now, I think she liked Paris a lot, and he liked to show it to her. But what they liked most, I suppose, was that while she travelled to Paris away from Ispra, she also visited Tunis, they had met again in Tokyo in a smoky room, and he had travelled to tropical Costa Rica. All those places, just by sharing a couple of days in a 30mq room in the 15th arrondissement.