Ellen Sussman - French Lessons

They can see a mass of people ahead, spread across both sides of the river. On the Pont des Arts, an iron pedestrian bridge that crosses the Seine from the Institut Français on the Left Bank to the Louvre on the Right Bank, there are cameras and lights and a couple of tents set up at the far side.

“Let’s go watch,” Josie tells him, her voice excited.

“Why is everyone so starstruck?” Nico asks, holding back.

Josie takes his hand and pulls him forward. “Oh, come on. We need our movie stars. We need the big screen.”

“Why? Why is that any more important than this? Because it has bright lights and cameras?”

“Because it’s bigger than we are. We disappear. This day? Tomorrow it’s gone. But that-that might be a day on the Seine that happens over and over for a hundred years.”

After the funeral-with the two matching caskets-after Josie left the hundreds of students and parents and friends and relatives and drove herself home, she lowered the shades in her cottage and crawled into bed. She took a sleeping pill and sometime in the middle of a dreamless sleep, the phone rang.

Before she thought better, she reached over to her bedside table and answered it.

“You okay?” It was Whitney again. After months of silence, Whitney was back. The married boyfriend was gone.

“I can’t talk, Whitney. I’m sleeping.”

“Don’t talk. Listen.”

“I don’t want to listen.”

“This is for the better-”

“Fuck off, Whitney.”

“I don’t mean his death. That’s tragic. And his son. I can’t believe it.”

Josie hung up the phone. Her mouth was dry and there was no water left in the glass by her bed. She pushed herself up and out of bed. She was sweaty from sleeping under too many covers. She threw off her clothes and when she glanced in the mirror she saw her body, the body that Simon made love to over and over again. She turned away, found fresh pajamas, and covered herself in them.

She shuffled to the kitchen and poured a glass of water.

The window was filled with late-evening light and her father’s blue irises. She had forgotten to move them and lower the shade. She dropped into the seat and gazed at the flowers. Then behind them, through the window, she saw a deer. It looked at her and tilted its head to one side. Then it turned away, and in one graceful leap, it crossed the creek and disappeared into the woods.

I want to leave, Josie thought. I want to flee.

She walked to the phone and picked it up. She called her boss, the head of the school, at her home.

“Did you go to the funeral?” Stella asked. “There were so many people there. I didn’t see you.”

“I was there,” Josie said.

“That poor woman,” Stella muttered.

“Listen,” Josie said. “This might be bad timing. But I wanted to tell you that I won’t be back next year.”

“Let’s talk about this on Monday, Josie.”

“I have to do it now. I’ll finish up classes. But that’s it.”

“What are you planning to do?”

“I don’t know,” Josie said.

“You’ve been very distracted. Is something going on?”

Josie mumbled her goodbye and hung up.

She walked back into her bedroom. She was thankful for the darkness again. The room smelled rank. For a moment she remembered Simon’s smell and she felt an ache in her chest. She covered her face with her hand and breathed in her own sour smell instead.

She walked to her dresser and picked up an envelope. She saw the drawing of the Eiffel Tower. At the top of the tower she saw two tiny figures. One had long hair; the other was very tall, with two green dots for eyes. She touched his mouth with her finger.

She opened the envelope. In two and a half weeks she would go to Paris. She didn’t know what would happen after that. But for now, she had Paris to get her through her days.

Josie and Nico finally find a spot from which to watch the film shoot. Nico has led her to the top deck of a floating restaurant on the edge of the quai. It’s a long boat, with beautiful teak floors and deck chairs and white umbrellas. There’s a bar at the far end of the boat, crowded with people, all with drinks in hand. Josie and Nico squeeze past the crowd and lean against the railing with an unobstructed view of the bridge.

Next to them, a waiter has opened a bottle of champagne as if this were a premiere or a national event of great importance. He pours champagne, and the group-young office workers, perhaps, all escaping work to watch the filming-clink glasses.

“I’m not convinced that this is art that will last for a hundred years,” Nico says.

A bed sits in the middle of the Pont des Arts. It’s just a bed-a frame and mattress, thrown onto the wooden deck of the pedestrian bridge. A naked woman sprawls across the bed, on a rose-colored sheet. She’s young and beautiful, and the enormous crowd on both sides of the river seems caught in a kind of reverential silence.

“Stop being a grump,” Josie whispers. They are pressed together against the rail of the boat. “Isn’t that Pascale Duclaux?” She points to a woman with a wild mess of red hair, perched in a chair at the edge of the set. “She’s a very serious director. This may very well be great art.”

“A bed on a bridge? A naked nymph?”

“And a man,” Josie says. “Check out the old man.”

A gray-haired man, also naked, circles the bed, his eye on the lovely girl. Dana Hurley, the American actress, stands at the edge of the bridge, her back against the rail, watching them. Unlike the other two, she’s fully dressed. The man doesn’t seem to notice her.

Then the man stops for a moment, his penis wagging between his legs, and he looks up, as if searching for something. He seems to catch Josie’s eye and he holds it, a half smile on his face.

He’s no older than Simon, Josie thinks. So why does it bother me so much that he’s stalking this girl?

She looks away, breaking his stare. When she looks back, he resumes his awful walk, around the bed, as if roping the girl in.

The skies rumble and, in an instant, rain pours down. This part of the boat isn’t covered-everyone turns and pushes back, under the white umbrellas or down below, under the deck. Josie stands there, watching the bridge, the bed, the girl, the man.

“Come on,” Nico says. “This is crazy.”

“Go ahead,” she tells him. “I want to watch.”

“There’s nothing to watch. They’re going to wait for the rain to stop.”

But the director signals for the cameras to keep rolling.

Josie keeps her eye on Dana Hurley. Dana doesn’t run. She’s already soaked, her hair matted to her head. She walks toward the bed as if she doesn’t have a care in the world. She won’t lose her man to a young girl. She won’t lose anyone to cancer or plane crashes. If something terrible happens the director will call “Cut!” and Dana will saunter back to her tent, where a fawning assistant will bring her a towel and a glass of champagne.

Josie realizes that Nico is right: This is not great art-this has nothing in it that will last longer than a day. The only thing that lasts is love, even when it’s gone.

“Please,” Nico says. “Come inside.”

She turns to him. He is the nicest man she has ever met. For a moment she feels unburdened by grief. Even the sound of his voice offers something like hope. Yet she can’t go to Provence with him. They are writing an ending to their own movie, a fairy-tale ending, and she no longer believes in fairy tales.

“I need to go back to my hotel,” she tells him.

“Now?”

“I’ll pack my bags,” she lies. It is so much easier than saying goodbye. “I’ll meet you at the train station at six.”

His face lights up. Thunder crashes and, in an instant, lightning blasts through the gray skies and all of Paris shines in its glow.