"A Man Among Men": Fatima
Though Fatima and Ricky are both of African descent (she is Cameroonian and Moroccan), there are religious differences. That Fatima is Muslim and Ricky is not is a challenge to the progress of their relationship. Ricky situates Fatima’s convictions about marrying within her religion as similar to people would only marry within their race. The narrator states: “Fatima Boukhari had sworn she would only, ever, marry a fellow Muslim. Fatima’s inflexibility on the issue surprised Ricky” (15). Fatima’s perspective is also reminiscent of an experience Lamar accounts in his memoir Bourgeois Blues in which he is in an interracial relationship and the woman he is dating mother tells her “Just don’t marry him” (--). In this way, Ricky’s religion—regardless of race—marks his exclusion. Whereas, Paris gives him access to the woman he desires, his interreligious relationship has some equivalence to the taboo of an interracial relationship. In Rendezvous Eighteenth, North Paris is a space where the interracial romance does not emphasize racial dynamics, but it still does not mean “inclusion.” It is also the space where being the same “race” may not be as important as being the same faith. These relationships broaden the portrayal of Paris from the mid-twentieth century two-sided Paris.