Foreign Tongue

by Vanina Marsot

  The cork wasn’t budging. A wiry man with spiky brown hair and Elvis Costello glasses marched in. “Non, non, non! Donne-moi la bouteille,” he demanded, holding out his hand.

  “Oh, là, on t’a sonné, toi?” I answered, just as rudely, and turned away so he couldn’t grab the bottle. The cork eased up with a sigh, and I removed the dishcloth with a flourish.

  “Pas mal,” he conceded. “Thea, you got any aspirin?” he asked.

  “Yeah, hold on. This is Derek,” she said. “He’s harmless.”

  “Oi!” he shouted. “What she means to say is I’m an incredibly clever, dashing bloke the ladies can’t get enough of,” he said. “Ta,” he added, taking two pills from Althea and downing them with a swig of champagne.

  I poured myself a glass and walked into the living room, edging the mosh pit in the middle of the floor. At a table loaded with snacks and bottles of booze, I ran into Lucy, Althea’s sister, carrying a stack of plates.

  “Althea didn’t tell me you were coming!” I exclaimed. She put the plates down and gave me a hug. She was a taller, more conservative version of Althea, with more freckles.

  “Surprise visit for her birthday. Going back to London tomorrow,” she explained. Lucy and I were old friends—I knew Althea through her—and though I didn’t get to see her often, we kept in touch through e-mail and occasional phone calls. I fetched her a glass of champagne, and we caught up in a corner.

  Someone cut the music and turned off the lights. As half the guests sang “Happy Birthday,” the other half “Joyeux Anniversaire,” Ivan walked into the living room with a cake studded with candles. Althea stood on tiptoe to kiss him, then blew out the candles to the sounds of cheers and popping champagne corks. I ducked as one bozo tried to saber open a champagne bottle with a chef’s knife, and helped Lucy serve cake.

  “When are you coming to visit?” she asked. “Really, the Eurostar’s not terribly expensive if you book ahead,” she said. Her accent was becoming more English since her move to London last year. I heard it in the “really” and “terribly.”

  “Lu, Mum’s on the phone!” Althea yelled. Lucy joined her on the call. In the dim light, I couldn’t make out anyone else I knew. I walked into the garden.

  There was a flashing message icon on my phone. It was Olivier, saying he was on his way. I sat down on a slightly damp wicker sofa and looked up at the sky.

  “I can’t find my wife anywhere,” Derek said, sitting down next to me.

  “Where was she last seen?” I asked.

  “Reliving her college days playing DJ. God, I love that woman!” he yelled, causing a trio of smokers to turn and stare. Derek glared back.

  “The French,” he muttered, curling his lip. Seeing my surprised look, he added, “Keep your knickers on, I’m half frog. How long does aspirin take to kick in?”

  “At least half an hour, maybe more. Maybe you should lie down?”

  “I can’t. There’s someone shagging in Althea’s bedroom.”

  “Althea won’t like that,” I remarked.

  “Depends,” he said.

  “On?”

  “Who’s in there with her,” he said. “Mad Hatter’s tea party. I dub thee dormouse,” he said and put his head in my lap.

  18

  He directed her attention to another question: “When I speak to you in your language, what happens to mine? Does my language continue to speak, but in silence?”

  —ABDELKEBIR KHATIBI, Love in Two Languages

  My phone rang, blaring with tinny majesty. I pushed Derek’s head aside to answer it. It was Olivier.

  “I’m looking for a parking spot right now,” he said.

  “When you get here, I’m in the garden,” I said.

  “A plus, ma chérie,” he said. I liked being called “ma chérie.” Much better than “my dear,” which Timothy always pronounced ironically, as if it had quotation marks around it. Yes, I liked it beaucoup.

  Derek caught the moon-doggie expression on my face and laughed. “You’ve got it bad, don’t you?” Before I could answer, he waved to a wiry, pale-faced woman with a Louise Brooks haircut. “There’s my wife! Eleni!” he called out. Derek introduced us as she made herself comfortable on his lap.

  “Has he been boring you?” she asked.

  “Just sleeping on my lap,” I said.

  “The housebreaking is taking a while,” she said, pinching his cheek. “What do you do in Paris?” she asked.

  “I’m doing some translation,” I said. “A novel.”

  “Translation is total bullshit!” she announced. “I can say that, I’m a translator. Turkish, French, and English. Mostly legal documents now. I gave up on literature,” she said. “Mostly because it never works.”

  “Come on,” I said.

  “No, I’m serious. All the really important stuff isn’t translatable—the cultural framework, subtext, all the things that are unspoken but implied, even the poetry of language. I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m really down on it right now.”

  “Tell her about the poetry,” Derek said.

  “No, it’s too depressing,” she said, but he nudged her. “Okay. I was translating this Turkish guy’s poems,” she began, rolling her eyes. “Terrible poems, utter crap; how he’d gotten them published, I don’t know, but he wanted them translated into English. I spent weeks working on them, laboring over meter and rhyme. His American wife reads them and says, ‘I always knew Omar was a genius, but I never knew just how good he was until I read him in English.’”

  I laughed.

  “See?” she said. “They were bad. Abysmal.”

  “But you made Mrs. Omar’s day,” Derek said.

  They went inside to dance. Underneath a multicolored garland of outdoor lights shaped like Día de los Muertos skulls, Olivier stepped through the doorway into the garden. I sat still. I wanted to watch him find me.

  There is a specific enjoyment in watching the face of someone you know in a crowd. It’s not something you get to do often. You can gaze at the object of your affections when he’s asleep, but that’s different. This was like watching the relationship begin in a gesture: anticipating the moment when his face would change. He beamed when he saw me, and it was like opening a particularly good present all over again.

  “Hello,” he said, kissing me. “Where is the birthday girl?”

  “Let’s go find her.” I led him into the house. Fewer people were danc ing, most of the guests having retreated to the chairs and sofas to talk. The fog of cigarette smoke was as thick as the cartoon steam that leads the fox to Grandma’s peach pie. I led him through the house, into the kitchen, and down the small hallway to the bedroom. I hesitated at the closed door, doing an about-face as I remembered Derek’s comment. “I don’t think we should bother them if they’re in there.”

  “Ah, d’accord,” he said, looking amused.

  “It’s not me, for god’s sake!” Althea said, barreling down the hallway, clutching a bottle of champagne. She looked at us indignantly. “Come on! Ivan practically lives here! I don’t need to screw him during my own birthday party!” She took a swig from the bottle and banged on the bedroom door with her fist.

  “Well, then who’s in there?” I asked.

  “Patrick’s Yugoslavian au pair. His kids went to a slumber party and she was moping around the house ’cause she didn’t have anywhere to go, so he brought her, and now she’s in there with one of the rugby boys. I can’t get them out, Ivan keeps saying we’ll sleep at his place, and Patrick thinks it’s too funny to do anything about it.” She gave an exasperated glare.

  “It is pretty funny,” I said, trying to smother my laughter. Althea wrinkled her nose, then grinned. “Doesn’t it make you feel old, knowing someone’s au pair is getting laid in your bed?” she asked. “Jesus God!” She swayed and fixed her eyes on Olivier. “So, you’re the dish. Fais attention! She’s had her heart broken enough.”

  “Althea!” I exclaimed.

  “Fuck, darling, you know it’s the t
ruth, and besides, it’s my birthday and I’ll say what I want to! Allons, allons, vous-sortez déjà? Putain, j’en ai marre!” she yelled, pounding the door again. Olivier and I retreated to the kitchen.

  “Do you want anything to drink?” I asked, staring into the refrigerator.

  “No.”

  “Have you eaten?”

  “Yes.” He leaned back against the stove. I closed the refrigerator.

  “Do you want to stay?”

  “No. A moi,” he said and tugged me toward him. “Do you want to stay?”

  “No.” I ran a finger over the small scar on his cheek.

  “Do you want to leave right now?”

  “Right this very minute.”

  I got peckish at three in the morning and went to rifle through the pantry. Olivier followed me into the kitchen wearing an old silk dressing gown I’d stolen from my father when I was a teenager. It made him look like a refugee from a Rat Pack movie, Dean Martin’s wicked French cousin. Especially when he poured himself a snifter of cognac.

  “Do you know any Sinatra?” I asked, opening the fridge.

  “No, I can’t sing,” he said and yawned. I hummed a few bars of “Fly Me to the Moon” and opened the freezer.

  “Pay dirt!” I squealed, pulling out a box of Cornettos, movie-theater-style ice-cream drumsticks. Against his protests that eating in bed was a sloppy, uncivilized American habit, I took the ice-cream cone back to bed.

  “Shall we go to a film tomorrow?” he asked. I peeled off the thin, foil wrapper.

  “An old one,” I said. “I love old movies.” He cast me a sideways look.

  “Hitchcock?” he asked. I nodded. “Wilder?” I nodded again, crunching nuts.

  “Welles,” I said. “And Sturges.” I nibbled the chocolate coating off my cone.

  “What about Steve McQueen?”

  I gave him a funny look. “He never directed anything,” I said. “But sure. Bullitt. The Thomas Crown Affair.” He pulled my cone toward him and took a lick.

  “Guet-apens, La Grande évasion,” he said. “My father loved le cinéma, especially anything with Steve McQueen,” he said. “On Saturdays, we went to the movies, and he bought us ice creams like this. So, now, Gisèle, Sandrine, and I love McQueen. And ice cream.” He gave me a lopsided smile.

  I bit into the cone. “My father took me out for ice cream once.”

  “Only once?”

  “It was after school, and these older boys were calling me ‘stinky French girl,’ and asking if I ate frogs’ legs and snails, and if my house smelled like cheese. By the time my dad came to pick me up, I’d curled up in a little ball on the bench, clutching my schoolbag to my chest. He asked me what was wrong, and when I wouldn’t tell him, he told me to stop crying and took me to Baskin-Robbins.”

  “How old were you?”

  “I don’t know. Nine or ten.” I balled up the wrapper and tossed it into the waste-paper basket. I remembered that day. I was wearing a plaid skirt and Mary Janes, and I’d wished more than anything for jeans and sneakers so I could look like the other kids.

  “Why didn’t you tell him?”

  “He wasn’t that kind of father,” I said. “He didn’t know what to do with kids.”

  “Pauvre petite chérie,” Olivier said, stroking my face. I felt my eyes well up.

  “Oh, ça va,” I said, pulling away to turn out the light. “It was a long time ago.”

  When I woke up, I stretched and rolled over, hugging the pillow. It smelled of Olivier. Lifting my head, I detected a whiff of freshly brewed coffee and the faint sound of France Inter on the radio. He padded into the bedroom with a large bol.

  “Good morning, sleepyhead.”

  “Good morning,” I said, amused.

  “Isn’t that what you say?”

  “Just sounds funny, coming from you.” I took the bol.

  “No milk, just sugar,” he said, looking pleased with himself.

  “Very observant.” I smiled.

  “And you don’t talk to me until you’ve finished drinking it, I know.” He wagged a finger at me and disappeared down the hallway.

  In the afternoon, we went to see La dame du lac, part of the Film Noir festival at the Action Christine. A woman came up the aisle with a flashlight, selling ice cream and candy bars from a wicker basket, like a cigarette girl from another era.

  The movie was filmed as if Robert Montgomery, playing Philip Marlowe, was the eye of the camera, a first-person film narrator. The other actors talked directly into the lens when they addressed him, and Montgomery was visible only in rooms with mirrors. The effect was spooky and jarring, like you were either in the movie or usurping the place of someone who was.

  Afterward, we walked along the small streets of the Fifth behind the Panthéon to the place de la Contrescarpe. I pointed out the third-floor apartment on the rue Tournefort where I’d lived as a student. We wound down to the Jardin du Luxembourg, where it was the end of a long and arduous play day for little Parisians and their parents. We sat at a café facing the park, Le Rostand, watching children hang off adult hands, swaying with punch-drunk kiddie fatigue.

  I felt a little drunk with happiness myself. It was easy to be with Olivier, easy and fun. I couldn’t have imagined him before I met him, and yet here he was. I drank my express. Like the kids, I was exhausted, but content. As if I’d made use of myself, instead of always holding something in reserve. Just as I was thinking these languid, pleasant thoughts, Olivier put his cup down.

  “That story you told me,” he said. “You were embarrassed. Or angry. Why?”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” I said, frowning at him, even though I did.

  “About your father, the ice cream. Allez, dis-moi.” His eyes held mine, and even as I looked back at him, I could feel a part of myself trying to slip away, a thief tiptoeing out the back door.

  “I think—” I stopped before I spoke the glib disclaimer on the tip of my tongue. Instead, I searched for an honest answer. “You’re right, I was embarrassed. Because it started out light, an anecdote I was telling you, and halfway through, I realized it’s a sad story—I mean, it makes me sad.” I felt an old tension creep up my arms, bracing myself. “That my father and I couldn’t connect, that I felt alone. I felt silly, telling you.”

  He gave me a lopsided smile and cupped my cheek and kissed me. “Ah, bon. I thought I’d offended you.” I shook my head. He kissed me again. “I should go. I have to do some work.”

  “I should, too,” I said, reluctantly.

  After he drove me home, I sat on the sofa in the semidark, not wanting to turn on the lights. The streetlamp cast filigreed shadows on the floor through the lace curtains. The stillness felt dark and lush. I wrapped myself up in it, hugging my knees to my chest.

  When it got so dark that I felt silly, I turned on the lights and booted up the computer.

  “I lost my virginity at a masquerade ball,” Eve told me when we returned to the hotel. “I was seventeen, dressed as Madame de Pompadour, and I didn’t take off my mask.” She sat on a tufted velvet stool at the dressing table and removed her earrings in front of an enormous gilt mirror.

  “That’s an idea,” I said. “I can imagine you with a domino.”

  She looked amused. We stared at each other in the mirror, and I pulled up a chair behind her. I kissed the nape of her neck. She tilted her head back.

  “In a way, you always wear a mask. I don’t know what goes on inside your head,” I said, speaking matter-of-factly into the soft skin below her ear. I undid the buttons of her blouse and pushed it off her shoulders. She watched me in the mirror, the blouse still fastened around her wrists. I unclasped her bra, exposing her breasts.

  She was bare for me, bare in the mirror, and still I had the sense that I knew nothing. “You see,” I said. “You’re still an enigma.”

  “If you knew everything, there would be no mystery,” she said, leaning her head back on my shoulder. I caressed her breasts, watching the nipples pucker
and harden. From beneath half-open eyes, she watched me touch her in the mirror…

  I could see the hotel room, picture the dressing table with the mirror, imagine the frescoes on the ceiling, the low light, the caresses…It felt different reading and translating the novel now that I actually had a…what? Lover? Boyfriend? Man I Was Seeing? Person I Could Imagine That Scene With? What was I going to call him?

  French didn’t offer any better alternatives. “Mon amour” used the “L” word I was shying away from, ditto for “mon amoureux.” “Mon co-pain” was too casual, and could mean friend as well as boyfriend, and the same went for “mon ami,” which could also sound too established. “Mon amant,” my lover, sounded way too eighteenth-century and knowing in both languages. “Mon fiancé” was what Clara called her boyfriend, even though he was married and lived in another country.

  He’d called me “ma chérie” on the phone. It was old-fashioned, warmer than “honey,” not as cute as “sweetie,” somewhere more in the neighborhood of “dear one.” But it didn’t give a name to what was happening, nor did I know what to call him.

  I inched the fabric of her skirt up and trailed my hand along her inner thighs. Her stockings made a slithering, rustling noise. She raised her arms and clasped them behind my head, her fingers playing with the nape of my neck. Her head was heavy on my shoulder as she watched me…

  I stopped. I suddenly felt like a voyeur. I sort of liked it.

  I ran my fingers over the silk of her panties, tracing the shape of her through the damp fabric. Her eyes were smoky and dark, and she made little cat sounds. She turned and kissed the side of my neck. This time, I watched, as she undid my shirt buttons. Her head trailed down my torso, and I watched her descent in front of me and in the reflection in the mirror. She unzipped my trousers and freed my cock…

  I cracked a window and went into the kitchen for some water. When I dunked ice cubes in my glass, they made a crackling sound. The French word was “grincement”: it meant creaking, grating, gnashing, and it sounded like it should exist in English: “grincing.” It would be a good word for the squeaking sound ice makes when you crush it between your back teeth, the way it becomes almost chewy before it melts or breaks.