"I have ... how does one say ... little things. Living in my head."
I shift uncomfortably and wait for her reaction. Her eyes flick up to my ponytail. She shakes her head. "I don't understand. Repeat?"
My host father, sitting across the room, looks up from his cocktail and newspaper with interest. A small herd of French children - various nephews and nieces of my host family - rush past, chasing the family dog. Never, at any point, did the scenario I imagined in my head involve so many people overhearing my news. My host mother scheduled the annual family reunion for today. Of course.
A portly, well-meaning uncle named Jean-Pierre strolls over, swilling his wine glass. "You mean you have an idea in your head? You have thoughts?" he suggests brightly.
We were introduced mere seconds ago, and in another few seconds I am sure he will be standing on the other side of the room. I shake my head. I know damn well what I'm trying to say. And sadly for Jean-Pierre, the things in my head are in no way figurative. I turn again toward my host mother.
"Bugs, I say to you. There are creatures in my hairs."
There was no sugarcoating that one. A tense pause bubbles up between us; I watch my host mother's pupils slowly dilate with shock as a wave of comprehension washes over her face.
"Oh, my god. You have lice?" The force of her realization drives her back a few generously sized steps. Behind me, I can hear my host father setting down his paper in consternation.
As predicted, Jean-Pierre experiences an abrupt and enthusiastic urge to visit the snack table across the room. I watch him sidle away and take refuge by the cheese plate, where he raises an arm and begins to pat his thinning hair in vague and furtive distress. An aunt - who was, until now, hovering nearby - corrals her children into a different room.
Glancing sheepishly at the bowl of pretzels sitting to my right, I have a flash of insight: This is what lepers must feel like. I am a harbinger of disease that cannot form grammatically coherent sentences.
It's hard to say which part of the day has been hardest. Standing outside the pharmacy earlier today, willing myself to take the plunge and order extra-strength, child-safe pesticide spray and shampoo in a second language - here, I realized the full and undeniable beauty of McCosh - while taking myself through a series of encouragements to find my center:
I am a clean person. I am clean, and I have lice, and I am OK with that.
- Where the hell did I get lice from? Who invented lice? -
I accept my lice as a challenge.
- Since when do people randomly get lice for no reason? I should go inside ... the woman at the counter is staring at me -
This challenge has a solution. I will not panic. I am a mature, clean person.
- I bet it was that old man on the metro. He looked like a carrier. I hate him. I hate this day. -
Or buying lice shampoo in front of a long line of customers, the woman at the counter asking at the top of her voice if I wanted just the LICE shampoo, or the LICE shampoo and LICE conditioner or the super LICE pack with LICE comb included for better elimination of LICE.
Or this moment. My host family and their merry kin, all receiving my news with striking uniformity - the shock wave across the face, the eyes shooting up to the hair, the instinctive step backwards, and the unspoken but unmistakable thought forming behind their eyes: But she looks so ... nice and clean?
Watching this reaction repeat itself over and over again, systematically similar, I realize I've stumbled upon a universal language. Say the words "larval egg", "hatch" and "hair shaft" in quick succession, no matter the tongue, and hands will fly up to hairlines; people will find a socially transparent excuse to move across the room. Weaving between the snack tables toward the bathroom, fine-tooth comb in hand, I drive a wake of fleeing French children before me. Yet I feel strangely validated. Before today, I would never have believed myself capable of uttering those words in quick succession, especially when they referred to me, especially in a different language. I am a leper. But I am a leper with chutzpa.
Becca Foresman is a French and Italian major from San Diego, Calif. She is abroad in France this semester and can be reached at foresman@princeton.edu.
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