VERONIQUE

It's been a while since I gave you guys a real post, and I can't go to sleep tonight so I guess it's time.

There is a very interesting woman I can tell you about, who I see on a very regular basis.

Veronique, the most bizarre person in my acquaintance, goes to class at Telegraphe. She speaks French quickly and is always speaking, but I guess she comes to practice her writing. Originally she is from some African country where her father is allegedly a high government official, possibly the prime minister, but I don't think it really matters. There are so many stories, you see, that it's hard to know which are true or which she only tells to some or which she herself even believes. During class when Marie is giving examples of the proper use of articles, Veronique will look across the table at me as if we have a great joke between us. Who knows, maybe we do. I smile back.

Last class she tromped in with a large bag of old photos and memorabilia which she was going to use to prove to the employment department that she, Veronique, is not just a nobody off the street. She deserves a governmental stipend, and here are the pictures to prove it-- we saw them ourselves. Her father had an important looking ribbon across his chest and she, in the 80's, looked very smart in a shoulder-padded blazer and sleek hair. Almost a different woman than the one I see twice a week. She still wears the dramatic make-up, but that's the only similarity.

She now has a mass of matted gray hair corn-rowed to her head that ends in colorful braids tied in a knot on top. One can hardly ever see the gray stuff, though, because it is swathed in cloth. Patterns, plain; colors, white; round and round and always crowned by the braids wobbling like a loose doorknob. I have a hard time placing Veronique's age. Her skin is smooth, her smile bright, her eyes quick behind their gold-rimmed glasses. She has the air of a child and the mirthful confidence of an old woman.

Veronique adds extras to all of her clothes. She wears a green sequin-and-feather pin on her jacket, sews shells onto her coat, tears sheets and uses them for shawls, and wears up to three different patterned scarves at once. She wears pants with skirts with boots, shorts with leggings with sandals, the same lacy undershirt all week; recently she stuck scissors through her hand and has now embellished the bandage with a cartoon character handkerchief. It's been there for two weeks now. She embroiders. Once she came in and spread out several patterns across the table, explaining to us that she was going to embroider a bra for a friend of hers. Did we like the roses or the birds best?

I didn't specify, since I kind-of hope she won't consider me deserving of such a gift.

She always leaves in a great hurry. But when Marie and Katie and I get to the metro station, there is Vero, sitting in a colorful pile of garments, overjoyed to see us and to make conversation. Last week she and Marie sat chatting across the isle from Katie and I, who were reading as usual. Suddenly I was interrupted from my Baroness Blixen calmly shooting lions in Kenya, by Veronique, whose own story had evolved to the point of yelling. She leaped out of her seat and started sliding down the pole by the door in a way that was not altogether prudent, and continued all the while talking to Marie in extremely loud, animated French-- much too fast for me to keep up with. Katie and I both put our books away to gape at the show. Marie was cherry red, and everyone else in the train was watching.

After we got off I asked the other two what the story had been. Apparently Veronique's niece once stole her credit card, and after a while Veronique had reported her, and then the family got angry at her instead of the niece, and how that became the production that it did is beyond me. Veronique is full of wonders.

She's an odd mix of Africa and everything else you can find in Paris. Her geometric patterns, her Parisian furs, her headdresses, her Hindu forehead dot, her compliments, her need for your laugh and your admiration. Does she keep track of what has happened and what has been said, what the past really is and what she believes it to be-- or is it all as jumbled as her incredible wardrobe?

Is anyone truly aware of what their life is?