This part of the story did not happen in a classroom. It happened on a Tuesday evening, in Mateo's apartment on the fourth floor of number twelve, rue des Cinq-Diamants, while he sat at the small kitchen table with his laptop and a glass of wine and tried to write the email he had promised.
The email was beautiful. It was, Mateo thought, perhaps the best email anyone had ever written. It contained: a precise schedule (for Yuki), a reference to the Mati Diop screening (for himself), a stop at the marché d'Aligre (for Amara), and a long afternoon walk along the canal Saint-Martin (for Wei). It included two emoji. It was four sentences long.
Mateo wrote the email. Mateo proofread the email. Mateo typed the email addresses into the To field — A for Amara, W for Wei, Y for Yuki — and then, without thinking, typed M for Mateo, because he wanted to copy himself, except his contact list helpfully suggested Mathieu Lamy, who is a man Mateo met once at a bar in February and whose phone number he should have deleted.
Mateo, distracted by his own email, accepted the suggestion.
Mateo sent the email.
At eleven thirty-seven that night, Mateo received a reply. He read it. He blinked. He read it again. The reply said:
Bonjour Mateo, je crois que vous vous êtes trompé de destinataire ? Je ne connais pas Amara, ni Wei, ni Yuki. Mais le programme du week-end a l'air très sympa. Bon courage, Mathieu Lamy.
Mateo put his head in his hands.
Then he opened the group WhatsApp — the one the four of them had created on Friday — and typed: J'ai un petit problème.
By Wednesday morning, the situation had been resolved with the following division of labour: Yuki would write the polite apology email to Mathieu Lamy, because Yuki's French was the most precise; Amara would simplify the weekend programme, because Amara was the only one with any sense; Wei would research a backup plan in case it rained, because Wei had been quietly worrying about this since Monday; and Mateo would not be allowed to send any more emails for the rest of the week.
Yuki's email to Mathieu Lamy was, in the end, fifty-eight words long. It said, in French that any of them would have been proud of: I am very sorry. My friend made a mistake. We are four students learning French in Paris. We do not know you. We hope you have a good weekend. Thank you for your kindness. Yuki.
Mathieu Lamy replied within the hour. He said her email was charming. He said she should not apologise. He said he wished them all bon week-end.
By Wednesday evening, the official programme had been agreed: marché d'Aligre at ten, lunch in the eleventh arrondissement, canal Saint-Martin in the afternoon, Mati Diop at seven. Yuki had made a precise schedule with bus times. Amara had written a shopping list for the market. Wei had checked the weather. (It would not rain.) Mateo had been instructed to wear comfortable shoes.
On Saturday, the plan worked. All of it. Even Yuki was satisfied.
Walking back along the rue des Cinq-Diamants at eleven that night, with the smell of Madame Benali's bakery already starting up for Sunday morning, Wei thought: I have spent a Saturday in Paris with three friends. The thought was so new and so strange that she said it out loud, in English, to nobody.
Mateo, who had heard her, said, in his own loud French:
— Wei a parlé ! Wei a fait un commentaire spontané !
— Mateo. Tais-toi.
— D'accord.