Ellen Sussman - French Lessons

“Quiet. Scared. We sat in front of the doc’s desk in his fancy office and listened to him talk about surgery and chemo and new kinds of treatment. But right then I knew: I had lost her. I lost my world. I lost my life.”

There were tears running down his face. Josie swiped at her own face with the back of her hand.

“I’m sorry I was so far away,” she said.

“Oh, you did what you needed to do. What all kids do. We never blamed you for that.”

“Come have dinner with me, Dad.”

“Eight years go by. And there’s still all these feelings I have. Like I can’t gather them up and put them away in a box.”

Josie walked over to her father. He turned toward her and let her hold him.

After a moment he stepped away. “No married men,” he said.

“Who said anything about a married man?” she told him.

Nico and Josie take the elevator down from the top of the Eiffel Tower.

“Let’s walk along the Seine,” Nico says.

“This is the first day I have spent back in the world,” Josie tells him as they head toward the river. First they walk along the wide boulevard at the side of the road; below them, to their left, is the Seine and across it, the Grand Palais. Farther up is the Louvre. Then a stairwell takes them to a lower path, one that brushes the river and protects them from the street traffic and the mad crush of pedestrians.

“You have been hiding?”

“Hiding?” Josie says, considering the word. “No, there’s no place to hide. I try the bed, with the covers pulled high, but even then, it finds me and knocks me out.”

“Sadness?”

“I wish it were sadness. That seems kinder than what I feel now. It’s a gut punch now. It’s a wallop of grief.”

“When your mother died…?” Nico lets the question trail off. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m asking too many questions.”

“You are,” Josie says. But she slides her hand around his arm and walks at his side with their arms linked together.

They’re quiet for a while. The clouds have darkened the sky and they hear thunder far off in the distance.

“When my mother died,” Josie says, “I remember thinking I was no longer a child. It all ended at once. I had just graduated from college, I was thousands of miles from home, and then she was gone. I floated for a while-it’s so different. This grief has me crawling on the earth; that time I was cut loose and I couldn’t ground myself. I had a lot of sex. Isn’t that odd? I slept with every boy I knew-old friends, new friends, passing acquaintances. I guess I was trying to feel something. Now I feel too much.”

“What happened?”

Josie looks at him, puzzled. “Oh, not much. I spent a year or two like that. And then I missed my father. All at once. I applied for every teaching job within a hundred miles of home. And I ended up in Marin. I never told him I came home to be with him.”

“Why not?”

“Because once I got there, I rarely saw him.”

Josie thought of her dad’s last visit. They never talked about Simon again. They ate pasta and salad, they drank their wine in silence. After a while, he told a long story about two boys who tried to rob the grocery store but they got in a fight in the middle of the robbery. One boy punched the other, and they chased each other out of the store. Josie told her dad to sell the place; maybe Palm Springs was a good idea. It was so simple, sitting and sharing dinner with her father. When he got up to leave she said, “I’ll come down next weekend.” His face lit up.

And then Simon died. She called her father and told him she was sick in bed and couldn’t travel.

“I’m tired of talking,” Josie says to Nico, but she keeps her arm tucked around his. “Tell me about the woman you love. The other tutor.”

“Did I mention her?”

“You did. You sleep with her but not with her boyfriend.”

“Hmm. I must have had too much to drink at lunch.”

“What is her name?”

“Chantal.”

“A pretty name.”

“A pretty woman. I only slept with her once. Though she’s in my mind many nights when I go to bed.”

“We imagine love so easily.”

“Yes. That is the simple part.”

“Does she love you?”

“She has a boyfriend, remember.”

“Does she love her boyfriend?”

“I can’t imagine. But then I don’t understand women very well. He has a reputation of sorts. He’s been known to sleep with his students.”

“Not you,” Josie says, smiling. “You wouldn’t do a thing like that.”

“I would not get so lucky,” Nico says.

“But you were lucky enough to sleep with his girlfriend.”

“Yes. Last week we all went out for a few drinks after work.”

“You’ll do that tonight?”

“Tonight I’m taking a train to Provence.”

“Of course.”

A bateau-mouche glides by on the river and they hear the loudspeaker barking out indecipherable words. They both turn to look. The tourists all seem to be looking at them: a couple strolling along the Seine. It should have been Simon, she thinks. She takes her hand away from Nico’s elbow and tucks her hands in her pockets.

“That night…” she says, prompting him. The boat passes by and they continue walking.

“That night Philippe was flirting with a girl at the café. She was sitting at a table nearby, with her dog at her feet, and he kept walking over and petting the dog. Finally he invited the girl to join us. For me, he said. So I wouldn’t be so lonely. The girl and her dog moved to our table. I knew that Chantal was unhappy with Philippe; she is often unhappy with him. But she usually goes home with him at the end of each evening. I don’t understand her.”

“But you love her.”

“Oh, I don’t know if I love her. She’s beautiful in a very serious way. Not like you.”

“I’m beautiful in a silly way.”

“Not at all. Even now, you have something so alive in you.”

“Even now.”

“You will come through this.”

“You’re very kind. And you’re off the subject. Chantal.”

“Yes,” Nico says. “Chantal was angry. She doesn’t show her emotions very easily. But I watch her face and I see how it changes.”

“I like you, Nico.”

He stops walking and looks at Josie.

“No kissing,” she says. “Keep walking and keep talking.”

“Chantal doesn’t like dogs. The girl’s little dog climbed up on Philippe’s lap and sat there looking very smug.”

“And the girl?”

“She was loud. She told a bawdy story about getting a lap dance from a stripper in a club the night before. Philippe asked her if she likes girls, and she said she likes girls and boys and foreigners. She especially likes foreigners.”

“Charming.”

“Chantal asked me to walk her home. Philippe was supposed to say no, that he would take her. Philippe was too busy having his fingers licked by the awful dog.”

“You walked her home.”

“I walked her right into bed. It was revenge sex. But when we were done Chantal asked me not to tell Philippe.”

“So why did she sleep with you?”

“To prove that she didn’t care about the girl and her dog.”

“Does she know that you love her?”

“No-yes. I don’t know what I feel. How could she know what I feel?”

“Sometimes women are better at this than men.”

“True,” Nico says. “If I meet her for a drink tonight she’ll tell me if I love her. But if I go with you to Provence, I’ll never know.”

“You deserve love,” Josie tells him.

Nico looks at her and she sees that his face is open with hope.

“Look,” Josie says, pointing ahead. “The film shoot that the hairstylist told us about.”