Ellen Sussman - French Lessons

“You’re horrified?” Chantal asks Jeremy.

“He’s horrified. I warned him. But still-I wanted you to come. Wait. Let me dry my hair. Go on, Elizabeth. Would you get them hot tea? I can do the rest.”

Elizabeth emerges from behind the screen. She hurries to a makeshift kitchen: hot pot, small fridge, all set up for a few hours’ shoot on a bridge in the middle of the Seine. Jeremy is still amazed by what the film industry can pull off-not only on the screen, but for the working lives of its stars.

“Is it the nudity?” Chantal asks Jeremy quietly. Does she not want Dana to hear? No, she is encouraging me to speak, Jeremy thinks. She knows that in a moment Dana might answer for me.

And oddly, he wishes Dana would answer for him. He doesn’t quite know why he’s so upset. It’s not the nudity-it’s the absurdity of the scene. It’s something else: It’s Dana.

“You would not do that,” Jeremy says to Dana as she steps from behind the screen, wrapped in a plush robe, a towel turban around her wet hair.

“What would I not do?” Dana asks.

“You would not sit there and watch them.”

“You don’t know my character,” she says simply.

“No one would watch them.”

“It’s a fantasy.”

“But it’s a playing-out of someone’s inner desires. To watch her husband and his lover? That’s absurd.”

“What would I do?” Dana asks.

“I don’t know,” Jeremy says quickly. “I guess-you’re right-I don’t know your character in this film.”

“What is she like, the role you play?” Chantal asks. She leans forward, eagerly taking it all in. For a moment, Jeremy had forgotten about her. They have switched to English. Chantal speaks perfect English! She has an American accent! Again, everything shifts in the kaleidoscope that is this young woman. I know nothing about her, Jeremy realizes. And I thought I-he stops his own thought. What did he think? That he wanted to sleep with her? That he wanted to love her? It seems ridiculous to him now. He’s as foolish as the man swinging his dick on the set.

Dana takes a teacup from her assistant and sips at it. “I play a wealthy American woman who has come to Paris with her husband. She shops while the husband has his business meetings. But at some point during the day she finds him strolling through the park with a young girl-”

“Who wrote this film?” Jeremy asks, interrupting her. His heartbeat is fast, his palms are damp. It’s clammy in this tent and the rain beats heavily on the canvas, creating a kind of hum like a beehive nearby.

“Claude,” Dana says. “The young man you met at dinner.”

“He’s a kid,” Jeremy snorts.

“A very bright kid.”

“What does he know about love?”

“You’re so funny, darling,” Dana says.

Jeremy looks at her, surprised.

She is smiling at him, her wide, gracious smile. She reaches out and touches his arm. “Not everyone knows love like we do.”

Jeremy is lost. He can’t find any words-in any language. His mind churns and comes up with nothing.

And then the flap of the tent flies open and Lindy dashes in, laughing.

“Oh my God, that was wild! Wild! How did that happen? I mean, the storm in the middle of the scene! It was like you planned it that way.” She shakes her body like a wet dog and water flies everywhere. She is radiant-the shine of her scalp seems to light up her face.

“And that girl on the bed,” Jeremy says. “That was pornography.”

“You’re still here,” Lindy says, staring at Chantal.

“Lindy-” Jeremy says.

Chantal stands. “I must go.”

“No,” Dana says. “She’s being rude. You’re my guest now. Please stay.”

Chantal looks at Jeremy. He nods. “No reason to leave,” he says weakly.

Chantal looks at her watch. “The lesson is over anyway. And I will be meeting two other tutors.”

“How do you speak English so well?” Jeremy asks.

“It is a long story,” Chantal says.

“I bet she had an American boyfriend,” Lindy says. “That’s the way to learn a language. In bed.”

Chantal smiles and her face flushes.

“I will walk you out,” Jeremy says.

“No need-”

“Please,” he insists.

She nods. She turns back to Dana. “It was a pleasure to meet you,” she says in French. “Thank you for the opportunity to watch you work.”

Dana steps toward her. She kisses Chantal on both cheeks.

“You are a lovely girl,” she says. “I’m glad my husband had a chance to spend his week with you.”

Again, Chantal’s cheeks flush. She turns to Lindy. “Au revoir et bonne chance.”

“Why do I need luck?” Lindy asks.

Chantal just smiles.

She walks out of the tent and Jeremy follows.

The rain has stopped and the bridge is in the process of a remarkable transformation. A group of young men in black T-shirts that read Boss’s BOYS shovel sand on the wooden deck of the bridge. The bed is gone and someone has moved a palm tree into its place.

“Pascale has lost her mind,” Jeremy mutters.

Chantal laughs.

“This is like magic,” she says.

“I guess it is,” Jeremy says with a smile. “I’m a little too serious.”

“I like that,” Chantal says.

They are speaking French again-it is the language they have shared all week and Jeremy finds it hard to speak to her in English. He wishes she didn’t speak English at all; somehow that has changed things between them. If he gets stuck, he could have an out. But he didn’t know that all week. He just kept pushing on, into unfamiliar territory.

“You didn’t really need French lessons, you know,” Chantal says. “Your French is excellent.”

“But I needed you to guide me along the way,” Jeremy says as they walk away from the set and toward the Louvre on the Right Bank. “In French. And in Paris.”

“Sometimes I forgot that it was a language lesson,” Chantal says.

“Yes,” Jeremy tells her. “It felt more like-” He can’t think of a word, in either language.

Chantal glances at him, waiting.

“Thank you,” he says.

He has stopped at the end of the bridge. She will pass through the barricade and return to Paris; he will turn back and return to the wild world of his wife and his daughter and a bed on the bridge in the middle of the Seine.

He kisses Chantal on both cheeks. She presses her hand on his arm as he does so.

And then she turns and walks toward the crowd, who are waiting for the next scene.

He watches Chantal disappear into the throngs of people. Then he turns back. He thinks about later tonight, when he will be in bed with Dana-it doesn’t matter what bed in what country. He will wrap himself around his wife. He will be able to say what he wants to say to her, without words.

Chantal is the first to arrive at La Forêt, but she’s not surprised. She’s always on time, which means that she’s always waiting for everyone else to arrive. She’s glad to have a moment to herself, to drink a glass of wine, to watch the others as they enter.

The café is at the end of an alley in the Marais. In the summer the tables spill into the street. She got a table under the awning just in case the rain returns. She hears music, but can’t see the street musicians-they’re blocked by a group of tourists, who watch as their guide points out a small synagogue tucked between two old buildings on the side of the street. The guide’s loud voice-Italian-fights to be heard over the chanteuse. Chantal imagines that yet another African American jazz singer has come to Paris to find success. The voice is throaty and deep, and the sound is ragged yet haunting. The walking tour moves on, and now Chantal can see the musicians-a very young white girl sings, accompanied by her father on guitar. The girl must be eleven or twelve, skinny and knock-kneed, timid behind the mike. How can that little thing produce such a big, mournful sound? How does she know enough about life to give the words weight?