“Why do you have to steal everything?” Jamal asked Sarah. He stopped walking and turned to face her.
They’d taken the last metro back from the Latin Quarter to the Cité Universitaire. The crowd leaving the metro walked around them, coats pulled tight against the wind. An older woman stared as she shuffled by with a cane, a string bag drooping from her hand.
“I don’t steal everything,” Sarah said.
“You steal books and food and flowers.” Jamal walked over to the wrought-iron gate at the edge of the park. His voice grew louder. “Pictures in their frames.” He began to pace, counting things off with his fingers. “Shoes, sweaters, pens. That Turkish rug. And tonight another magazine. It’s always something.”
“It’s what I do,” she said.
He stood in the shadows, shaking his head. “That’s not how it’s supposed to be.”
“Well, that’s how it is. That’s how I am.” She moved off toward the street, her boots echoing on the pavement.
“Wait,” he said. “Wait.”
She turned. The light from the streetlamp framed his silhouette against the wide night sky.
