Ellen Sussman - French Lessons

But of course Chantal is not waving. How silly, he thinks. If you live here, you would never wave back.

I’m behaving like a thirteen-year-old boy, Jeremy thinks.

“You are swimming for dear life,” Chantal says.

End the story, Jeremy says to himself. Now.

“I would never have caught her. She was much too strong. So she must have slowed down for me, kind girl that she was. And when I caught her, somewhere out in the middle of the lake, I didn’t know what to do with her. I was so young. And she was beyond me in every way.”

“She showed you,” Chantal said.

“Yes,” Jeremy agreed. “She showed me what to do.”

They sip their wine. This time Jeremy prepares an apple slice and a piece of Roquefort for Chantal, who takes it gladly and eats it with pleasure. He refills their wine.

He feels an odd combination of relief-his story is over-and horror, as he is a man who invents himself to impress a young woman. At forty-five! Only a week ago, while lying in their bed in the Santa Monica Canyon, he had traced his fingers over Dana’s body and said, “I know every inch of you.”

“No surprises?” she had asked. “No chance to discover a scar on my leg, a tattoo on my hip?”

“I don’t want surprises,” he had said, pulling her closer. “I want just what we have. Nothing more.”

Dana hadn’t said anything. And for a quick, uncertain moment, Jeremy had thought, Maybe she wants more. She’s a woman of big emotions, a woman who lives life on a grand scale. And then she comes home to me. He felt an ache in his chest. Talk about it , he thought. But as so often happened, words didn’t come-they jammed up against one another somewhere inside him. He did what he knew how to do. He took Dana in his arms and made love to her, covering her small body with his own.

When they were done, he wrapped his arm around her familiar body and pressed himself against her back. Now he wonders: Was last night’s argument a way of twisting around his own fears? Is this part of his unease these last days in Paris? After ten years of loving Dana, has he lost his faith in their relationship?

“Tell me the story of your first love,” he says to Chantal, pushing his thoughts away.

She looks toward the river for a moment and seems almost shy again. Then she busies herself with the cheese and the pears.

“Or tell me the names of all the plants in your garden,” Jeremy says quickly.

“You’re kind,” she says. “An escape is offered.”

“If you’d like. I can’t even remember how we got to the dangerous topic of love.”

“My fault,” Chantal says, smiling. “The head of the language school would fire me.”

Jeremy smiles. “I won’t tell.” He wonders if lunch on her houseboat would also be interdit . Of course. The thought pleases him. She’s breaking the rules for him.

“I fell in love for the first time a year ago,” she says. She stops as if that is the end of her story.

“No stormy adolescent romances?” Jeremy asks.

“Plenty of storms. No calm after the storm.”

Jeremy nods. Yes. He knows what she means. He loved falling in love with Dana, but then, to his great surprise, he found that he enjoyed being in love with her even more. The calm.

And now? Is he creating a storm out of thin air?

“I met Philippe at the language school. Every spring there is a party to celebrate the director’s birthday. It’s a silly thing-the director is like a child in many ways. He would like all of us to teach our classes with games and prizes and songs. I’m not very good at that and so he uses me for the private lessons.”

Jeremy cannot imagine Chantal in front of a class of adults, singing a French ditty and tossing bonbons to the best student. And of course, he can’t imagine himself in such a class. How lucky, he thinks, that we found each other.

“Philippe was new to the school. He is very handsome-I am not usually drawn to men like him.”

Men like him . Jeremy has always been told that he is handsome. But because he is shy, or quiet, or less bold than most good-looking men, he has always felt that he has little in common with a ladies’ man, a Romeo.

“He spoke to me at the end of the party. I had been watching him, of course-every woman had her eyes on Philippe. And then his eyes were on me. He has that ability to make you feel that you’re the only one.”

She stops and her gaze drifts off-she follows the passing of a tugboat along the river. She looks sad, as if this isn’t a love story at all.

“I’m sorry,” she says, looking back at him. “Perhaps I shouldn’t have started this.”

“Go on,” Jeremy says.

“Enough new vocabulary,” she tells him. “It’s our last day together.”

She reaches for the wine and refills their glasses. Her story continues with a surer voice now.

“We left the party and went to a café, had another drink together. He’s a charming man, of course-he knows how to win a woman’s heart. And I suppose I was waiting to give mine away. Twenty-eight years old. I’m a little out of step with my generation.”

“Except for the hippie commune in the Indian Ocean,” Jeremy says.

“Oh, that. An aberration. A desperate attempt to be youthful and wild.”

“Look at you here,” Jeremy says. “This is wild.” He opens his arms to the jardin she has created on the Seine.

“This is just my refuge.”

“From what?”

“From the busyness of the world. I come here to hide.”

Jeremy thinks of himself in his workshop. He is happiest there, whether he is working on a project for a client or building a new armoire for their home. He likes the smell of sawdust, the sound of a plane trueing the edge of a plank, the steady focus of design. When Dana goes to work she is surrounded by people and words and passions so large that they move others to tears. So what happens at the end of the day? Does she really want what he offers? Why is he suddenly worried about this, after so many years of confident love?

“Philippe and I dated for a while and I enjoyed his attention. He’s a funny man-I think he truly believes he falls in love with every woman he dates. In fact, I think he’s merely in love with love. It fills him up for a while, makes him think life is grand. And it is grand. He’s very good at love.”

“But you-you said you fell in love.”

“One weekend we went to visit his parents in the Loire. They have a weekend home near a grand château, one of those the tourists like to visit. This one offers classical concerts in the summer. They’re lovely, really. Everyone sits on the great lawn under a canopy of stars and the air fills with the music of some wonderful symphony.

“Philippe took me to one of these concerts. We brought a picnic-not unlike the one we have here.”

Jeremy feels a pang of proprietary jealousy, as if this might be the only time Chantal had offered such a display of food. Idiot , he thinks.

“We ate and drank and listened to the music. At one point, in the middle of the concert, Philippe took my hand and gestured for me to follow him. We made our way through the crowds of people while the orchestra played. I started to ask him where we were going, but he put his finger to his lips. He looked positively delighted with himself, so I let him lead me away.

“We circled behind the château. The building was closed and only the dramatic outdoor lighting was in use-illuminating the turrets, the massive entrance, the balconies, the guard towers on each end. No one lives in the château anymore. It is used for tours and is rented out for weddings and business functions. Perhaps someone lives in the caretaker’s cottage at the entrance, but this evening there was no sign of anyone patrolling the place.