The Coin by Yasmin Zaher

Annotations from “The Coin” by Yasmin Zaher

Looking back now, that time in New York feels like a dream. When you’re inside a dream, everything makes sense. But when you wake up, the shapes lose their solidity and the logic is strange. So I have to tell you quickly, before I forget

I wore a very nice perfume then, Lys Méditeranée by Edouard Fléchier, very strong and sexual. I always imagined it smelled like an inseminated flower on a summer night in a coastal city. It smelled like the opposite of incest, like a just-conceived superspecies

Then I washed my face with an oil-based cleanser, followed by a water-based cleanser, followed by toner. All imported from Korea, the world capital of skin like porcelain, purity, and nothingness. Two thousand more years of snail cream and you will see a woman’s brain through her face.

more poor people in the neighborhood, there would be a grand opening of the locked park. Or perhaps they would build a high-rise there, something like the London Shard, but they would name it after some surgical tool in homage to having defeated the cancer.

sounds dramatic, but I became a clean freak. It’s a common condition, and one that isn’t socially frowned upon. On the contrary, it’s an indication of good character. When you walk into a woman’s house and it’s sparkling clean, you never think of all the madness entailed. You just praise her and maybe feel a hint of jealousy. You never think about all the years she spent on her knees, breaking nails and huffing Mr Muscle

and the women in my family placed a lot of importance on being clean, perhaps because there was little else they could control in their lives

New Yorkers could walk by a splatter of diarrhea on the subway tiles, bagel and coffee in hand, and not think twice. They would still live there tomorrow in the greatest city on earth. The city embraced the dirt like it was an aesthetic. Rust and bricks, black trash bags lining the trenches, millions of pieces of gum on the sidewalks like polka dots by Yayoi Kusama

The next morning, I woke up with a stiff neck. It felt as if I had slept on a coin, a small and dense one, like a thick shekel or an old British pound, and in my dreams, it left an imprint of the queen

You want to hear my secret to success, Jay? I have very few belongings, I’m focused on myself, I am my own greatest asset. And you, too, you are smart, kind, handsome. You are your own greatest asset, Jay. You don’t need anything or anyone

It was also the truth that I was lonely, miserable, and tired. But it was a truth that I had begun to rearrange as one rearranges a closet in the transitional seasons

Trenchcoat was my return to glamour. When I say return, I’m not talking about the past, I mean a feeling inside, a feeling that I was good enough, very good, better than others, the best. I don’t think it’s arrogant to think this, I think it’s natural, a way of being that can guarantee one’s survival in the era of wolves.

I liked her bedsheets, they were a chalky pink and ironed. She owned too many things though, small things that cost less than twenty dollars. Those Armenian ceramic mugs from the Old City, copies of The New Yorker, candles, lint rollers, bottles of lotion, and vitamins. She was from Texas after all. But it was like masturbation without the void that feels like waking up from a nap and seeing that it’s dark outside.

was with Trenchcoat, with a man, that is, I didn’t have to worry about things getting done. Tables would be set, taxis would be called. With the right kind of man, I could be relieved of some burdens. I sat down, I thought maybe he wanted to get us a room, because we had had a wonderful day, and maybe it was time for us to have sex

I watched the women in the store, and I had the impression that they were real customers, the French women were older and alone, the foreign women were accompanied by men. Judging by their complexion and style, they were foreigners from exotic countries, rich wives and daughters from failed states, banana republics, and friendly dictatorships. Their style was different, extroverted, heavy on the bling and makeup. It said we may be terrorists or crooks or gangsters, but at least we have pride, and we smell fantastic.

He admired my job, he said it was very important. In general, he liked music, art, children, anything with soul and meaning, since there was none of that in real estate