North Star

Chapter 7: Marie-Adélaïde House

“Welcome to Marie-Adélaïde House,” a very rotund, short old woman with her grey hair tied back in a messy bun says warmly as she steps out into the entrance hall to greet me. Her accent is similar to Theresa’s - a mix of French and German and something indistinguishable. “I’m Katriane, the house mother here. You must be Meghana?”

“Meg is fine,” I say with a smile. I reach in to shake her hand, but she bypasses the formal gesture and embraces me instead, planting a small kiss on each of my cheeks. 

“We’ve put you in an upstairs room with another second year student,” she says. “Follow me.”

I pick up my luggage and follow her up the narrow, winding wooden stairs. Inside, Marie-Adélaïde House is cosy and colourful, with a fire roaring in the entrance hall fireplace and paintings hanging all over the walls. 

I pause for a moment to admire a particularly beautiful impressionist piece showing a light-haired young man around my own age, sitting on the edge of a pond filled with pale pink water lilies, the reddish-gold shapes of koi fish just visible beneath the surface. He’s looking thoughtfully at the water, his private thoughts a watery secret. 

The painting is signed in the bottom left corner with the initials NM, with a small date hastily written next to it - it looks like “2000”, but it’s not really clear enough to be sure.

“That’s one of my favourites,” Katriane says with a wistful, faraway smile. “We’ve had many art students stay here at Marie-Adélaïde House over the years, on account of the residence hall being so close to the Fine Art department. I always ask them to paint or draw me a little something as a parting gift. Something to remember each of them by.”

She gazes into the warm summer’s afternoon scene in the painting for a moment longer, before continuing her slow march up the stairs.

“How was your flight, Meg?” She asks as we reach the top of the stairs and make our way down a narrow corridor. “It’s a long one, isn’t it?”

“Almost seventeen hours,” I say. “I managed to sleep through most of it though, so it really wasn’t too bad.”

“Well, we have students here from all over the world,” Katriane says. “Mostly from other European countries bordering Luxembourg, but they come from further afield too. Right now in residence we have a girl from New Zealand, two Australians, an American, a Malaysian girl, even another South African, like yourself. You’ll probably meet her at the dining hall later. Her name’s Lerato. I don’t think she’s from Cape Town though. It was… ummm…. a city called… Dur.. no… Turban, maybe?”

“Probably Durban,” I say. “That’s where my dad was born.”

“Well, we have students here from all over the world,” Katriane says. “Mostly from other European countries bordering Luxembourg, but they come from further afield too. Right now in residence we have a girl from New Zealand, two Australians, an American, a Malaysian girl, even another South African, like yourself. You’ll probably meet her at the dining hall later. Her name’s Lerato. I don’t think she’s from Cape Town though. It was… ummm…. a city called… Durgan... no… Turban, maybe?”

“Probably Durban,” I say. “That’s where my dad was born.”

Katriane nods thoughtfully. 

“I always wanted to see Africa,” she says. “I suppose it’s still on my bucket list. Anyhow… this is your room.”

She stops in front of a slightly ajar door, and knocks.

“Come in!” A girl with a beautiful, thick French accent calls from within. 

“Heloise, this is Meg, your new roommate,” Katriana says as we step inside. “I’ll leave you two to get acquainted. Heloise, will you bring Meg down to the dining hall later? And show her the common room and the laundry and all the rest of it. I just realised I’m running late for dinner prep. Au revoir!”

I look into the room and I see something completely unexpected.

A girl around my own age is lying on a single bed on the left-hand side of the room, typing something on her phone . She must have gotten out of the shower just moments ago - the only thing she’s wearing is a fluffy white towel wrapped around herself, and her long wavy light brown hair looks damp, clinging to her skin in wet tendrils. She has a cute, pixie-ish face, with tanned skin, dark brown eyes and a light sprinkling of freckles across her cheeks and nose. 

“Hi,” she says, smiling warmly as she looks up from her phone. “Need any help with your stuff?”

I shake my head, smiling shyly as I carry my luggage over to the other side of the room, where a neatly-made up single bed is waiting for me. A large empty wardrobe next to the bed has both of its cupboard doors flung open, and there’s also a desk and a chair in front of a lovely bay window, exactly like the arrangement on Heloise’s side of the room. In fact, the two sides of the room are pretty much a mirror image of each other, almost identical apart from the half-naked girl lying in one of the beds.

Well this is going to be super awkward.

Great.

I avert my eyes as I unzip my bag and start to unpack, feeling awkward about the situation.

It’s a European thing, nudity isn’t a big deal for the French, so it shouldn’t be a big deal for me. Still, what if her towel slips or my eyes accidentally linger a moment too long and what if she thinks... what if she realises... that I’m... I’m…

I don’t really know how to finish the thought. It's like there's this idea, some deeply personal truth, hidden away right at the back of my mind, buried so deep that I can barely see it or touch it or know it. It's like I'm trying to protect myself from something... something I'm not ready yet to face. 

“So, Meg, what are you studying?” Heloise asks, breaking me out of my thoughts.

“I’m a philosophy major,” I reply, trying to keep my eyes fixed on the clothes I’m arranging on my bed. “How about you?”

“Drama,” Heloise says. “The drama department here is one of the best in the world, did you know that? My parents wanted me to study finance, but I always knew I’m going to be an actress. Just like Brigitte.”

“Brigette?” I ask, wondering if I’m meant to know who that is.

“On my wall, silly,” she says. “Brigitte Darrieux. You know, the famous stage and film star? From the sixties?”

I glance over my shoulder to where Heloise is pointing - above her bed, there hangs a large poster in an ornate gilded frame. The poster is black and white, a portrait of a glamorous young blonde woman with her hair in tousled pin-up waves, dressed in a vintage ball gown or something to that effect. I recognize her immediately - she’s one of those old-timey Hollywood Golden Age actresses like Marilyn Monroe or Sophia Loren.

“You know she studied drama here in Luxembourg, before her film career?” Heloise says, her voice breathless with excitement, and a hint of awe. “She actually grew up in France, like me, but moved here to study acting, and now they have a statue of her in front of the drama department, how cool is that?”

Heloise’s French accent is so thick, and she’s talking with such speed and enthusiasm, that I can barely keep up. At times it’s hard to make out exactly what she’s saying, but I get the gist of it.

“My dream is that someday they’ll have a statue of me next to Brigitte’s,” she says, with a giggle. “After I’ve slayed Hollywood, of course. What are your plans after Uni? What are you going to do with a philosophy degree?”

I wish I could tell her that I have big dreams of someday being a famous philosophy lecturer at an Ivy League university, or a bestselling author writing novels about the human condition or the ethics of artificial intelligence or something… but the truth is, I don’t really know what it is that I want to do eventually, or why I even chose to major in philosophy in the first place.

So I just shrug my shoulders and say jokingly, “maybe I’ll become a spiritual guru and start a cult in California or something.”

There’s a moment of awkward silence, before Heloise bursts out laughing. She laughs so hard that she literally rolls off the bed and her towel falls off, and I avert my eyes just in time.

“Well sign me up,” she says, between breathless giggles. “Sounds like a fun time. I presume there will be plenty of brainwashing and orgies in the moonlight?”

“Naturally,” I say, trying to keep a straight face. “That’s non-negotiable.”

Just at that moment, my stomach growls.

“Want to grab some lunch?” Heloise asks. “I was actually about to go down to the dining hall before you arrived.”

It feels like I only just ate breakfast, but it’s actually been a few hours since my last meal, and I can feel the angry little claws of hunger nipping at me. 

“Yeah, I’m starving actually,” I say. 

“Cool,” Heloise says. “Give me a few minutes to get dressed, then I’ll show you the dining hall, and you can meet the others.”

The others. More people to meet. Oh no.

I swallow down my own social anxiety, shoving down the shyness that now threatens to overwhelm me. 

This is what I came here for. To meet people, and to get out of my own shell. To find myself.

I can’t hide away from social situations forever.

It’s time to be brave, and to face the world.

Baby steps.