Ellen Sussman - French Lessons

“Twenty-eight,” Chantal says, unruffled. “And still searching for my own direction.”

“I always knew what I wanted,” Jeremy tells her. “I wanted to work with wood even as a child. I had a first job out of college with a contractor. But I didn’t want to build new things. I learned that very quickly. I’m drawn to old things, broken things. I take great pleasure in bringing them back to their original beauty.”

Chantal smiles at him. “I am not surprised,” she says.

“And you?” Jeremy asks. “What are you drawn to?”

Chantal doesn’t answer for a moment. Finally, she shrugs. “Language. Words. No, not teaching. Perhaps one day I’ll write something.”

“Poetry?”

She shakes her head. “I tell stories to my nephew when I visit him. About a dog who speaks many languages. It’s not very poetic. But it’s a good story.”

“Children’s books.”

Chantal shrugs. “I’m just dreaming.”

“You should. We all need to have our dreams.”

“For now, I pay the bills.”

Jeremy winces. He’s paying her bills. A rude reminder that this is not a date. Is he so out of practice that he can no longer tell when a woman might be interested in him? Before he met Dana he knew that he could win a woman if he wanted to-he simply paid attention. And he was good-looking. Now, ten years later, he assumes he is still good-looking, even if his hair is peppered with gray and his body is thicker. Women still glance in his direction, and sometimes try to charm him. He has never responded to any of those flirtations-he has fallen into a life he never expected, with a woman and child he loves.

Nothing has changed, he tells himself. It’s the week in Paris that has so disoriented him. It’s the fight with Dana last night-a rare fight-that has him on edge.

They had walked through Paris at two in the morning, passing up the offer of a ride from Pascale, the director. “We’ll walk,” Dana shouted to her crowd of admirers from across the street. “I want to be alone with my handsome man. Now all of you go away!”

After a block or two, she took Jeremy’s arm and leaned into him.

“This is what I want,” she said. “You.”

“Then why do you fill our lives with everyone else?” he asked.

“That’s work, my love. You know that.” Her voice was sleepy and drunk; she pressed herself against him.

“I shouldn’t come on these film shoots,” Jeremy said. “I feel like I lose you every time.”

“You’ve never said that before.”

“We want such different things.”

“No, we don’t. We both want this.”

She was right. He knew that whenever they were alone together, whenever their bodies found each other in bed, whenever they sat across from each other at the small table in their garden in the canyon and shared a bottle of wine. But at the restaurant earlier that evening, Jeremy had felt as if he’d married a movie star. He wanted Dana, not the star attraction.

“I have a blister on my heel,” Dana said, reaching down and rubbing her ankle. “I can’t walk in these damn things.”

“Let’s find a cab.”

“No, let’s walk. I drank too much. We can walk along the quai. Paris-Plage is set up for the summer. We’ll walk on the boardwalk. We’ll build a sand castle. We’ll pretend we’re at the beach.”

“It’s a long walk. You’ll kill your feet.”

“I don’t care. Tomorrow I’ll have a hangover and broken feet. Tonight I’ll have my head on your shoulder.”

Jeremy wrapped his arm around her.

“Don’t get tired of me,” she said quietly.

“I’m tired of the noise,” he said.

“What noise?” She stopped and pulled away from him. Her face hardened and she pulled off her shoe, hopped on one foot, bending the back of the shoe.

“You’ll ruin the shoe.”

“What noise? What are you talking about?”

“I need quiet. Your life is too noisy.”

She threw the shoe at him. He wanted to laugh-she looked small and furious-and he caught the shoe as if catching a grenade. He tossed it back at her.

“This happens a few times a year,” she said, her voice too loud in the dark street. A window slammed shut in the apartment beside them. “I shoot a film, get crazy busy, and then I come home and it’s all over and we have our life together. This isn’t my life. It’s my job. You’re my life, goddamn it! What are you talking about?”

He stared at her, amazed. He imagined her onscreen, those big emotions, those wild eyes, the husky voice. “You don’t have to scream,” he said softly.

“Yes, I do!” she shouted. She stuffed her foot back in the shoe and stormed off. He followed her.

Even off the screen, he was married to drama, he thought. He felt weary and angry with himself for starting something out of nothing. He imagined Chantal, somewhere in Paris, reading a book by the window, hearing the angry shouts of a married couple on the street below. She would quietly close the window.

“There it is,” Chantal says, pointing to the museum up ahead.

“Bon,” Jeremy says, and they cross the street to the Muséum national d’histoire Naturelle. It’s a renovated old building, partially covered with a bold blue banner announcing all the exhibition halls in the Jardin des Plantes. Apparently, they’re headed to the Grande Galerie de l’évolution. Beyond the museum Jeremy sees long stretches of green lawn and well-tended gardens.

Inside, a double line of schoolchildren wait to get in. The teachers stand at the ticket booth, arguing with the agent, while the children stand obediently, shuffling their feet, talking quietly to one another.

“American children would be running all over the place,” Jeremy says. “This is amazing. The teachers don’t even have to scold them.”

“Oh, we follow so many rules,” Chantal says, “until we have had our fill. By the time we reach twenty we rebel like wild horses on short leads.”

“And you? Did you rebel?”

“No,” Chantal says. “Not yet.”

They both smile, and when she turns around quickly the baguette in her bag smacks Jeremy on his head. The kids burst out laughing and Chantal looks back at Jeremy, her face a sudden pink.

“I’m so sorry.”

“I’ll survive,” Jeremy says. “If I have a black eye tomorrow I’ll have to invent a much better story.”

“Tell your wife I punched you,” Chantal says.

“Did I give you good reason?”

“Oh, yes,” she says.

And then she hurries off to buy tickets. The schoolchildren have filed into the museum ahead of them and she is next in line.

Jeremy glances at his watch. Ten forty-five. They will have only forty-five minutes before they meet Lindy at the café. He calls Lindy on his cell phone. She doesn’t answer, but he’s connected to her voice mail.

“Bonjour, chérie,” he says happily. She’ll be impressed. Like her mother, she speaks French with ease. Good private-school training, a summer program in Aix-en-Provence during high school. Jeremy continues with his message in French. “Meet us at the mosque. It’s across from the entrance to the Jardin des Plantes in the Fifth. You can’t miss it.” He had noticed it on his walk here with Chantal. “There’s a tearoom inside. I can’t wait to see you, sweetheart. I peeked in this morning while you were sleeping. I-” He can’t think of how to refer to the bald head. Her new haircut? Her latest rebellion? He coughs and then hangs up as if their connection was lost.

He didn’t mention the shaved scalp to Dana. She’ll be furious.

“On y va,” Chantal says. She takes his arm, something she has never done before, and leads him into the grand entrance of the museum.

The minute they step through the door, Jeremy takes a deep breath. It’s a spectacular space, vast and open, dark yet eerily beckoning. On the ground floor of the central exhibition space he sees the march of animals, life-size, regal and elegant-elephants, giraffes, zebras. He’s awed by their size, their numbers, their beauty. He and Chantal move forward and look up. The four-story space is open in the middle as if the animals need room to breathe.