Almost French (8 page)

We finish our teas. But no-one makes a move. For the next hour the guests stay talking. The scene is remarkable for the startling absence of alcohol: the wine dried up after dinner. I’m used to it flowing in reckless, bottomless quantities. It’s not a lack of generosity on the part of our hosts—the Burgundies served with dinner were very fine, expensive
crus
. Maybe this is something I’ll have to get used to in France: smaller, measured quantities of wine.

Finally, at almost half past one, someone makes a move to go. This seems to be the cue because then everyone stands up and the room fills with a buzz about leaving. Hugely relieved, I leap to my feet too. But the business of farewelling and thanking takes another fifteen minutes. I am astounded—a little impatient too. Why so much procrastinating? Why does everything seem to take ten times longer than it would in Australia?

A few days later, after telephoning to thank his friends for dinner, Frédéric tells me the impression I made.

‘They thought you were nice.’

I pull a face. So much for being fabulously interesting or entertaining. ‘Didn’t they say anything else?’

‘Um, no. Just that you seem the quiet type. Shy.’

‘SHY?’ I bellow in disbelief. ‘I’m not shy!’

‘But you
were
quiet. Anyway, don’t worry about it. It doesn’t matter what they think.’

But Frédéric hasn’t grasped the measure of my frustration.
Actually, it does matter to me that I’m now perceived as quiet, nice and
boring
(that’s not their word but, of course, that’s what they meant). And the reason it bothers me is because it’s true. Looking back, I’d said very little all night. When I did speak, it was to issue child-like statements or ask simple questions which made me cringe at my own dumbness. Most of the time, Frédéric was the only one actually listening to me—the others had already leaped two topics ahead. Eventually my nerve vaporised into the mushroom cloud of cigar smoke.

Things will be much easier when I can speak French properly, I tell myself. And this is true, of course. But instinctively I sense that language isn’t the only problem. Although everyone had been very pleasant, I’d felt totally out of place at the dinner. Fitting in and making friends might be harder than I expected. It seems my first dinner party is a portent.

The long days in the apartment begin to take their toll. After six weeks, my faxed story proposals have elicited either no response or negative ones. Being on my own for so many hours with nothing to do is proving more testing than I anticipated. Although I try to fill my head with upbeat thoughts, I feel lonely.

Realising I’m craving company, Frédéric calls regularly from work and often we arrange to meet near his office for lunch. One day at about one, he turns up unexpectedly at the apartment with some guys from work and a couple of takeaway pizzas topped with runny egg. On their way back to the office after seeing a client, they thought they’d stop and have lunch with me, he explains.

After we’ve finished eating, Frédéric pats his coat pocket, his eyes skimming the room, searching for something. This is a familiar routine. I now know that when Frédéric told me in Bucharest he was ‘maniac’ he meant he was obsessively tidy. Keeping everything in perfect order—shirts stacked in a colour-coded pile, the bed neatly made each morning—is his way of restraining his natural disorderliness. But it’s as though he’s still surprised by his tidy habits. Frédéric can never recall the thoughtful places where he puts things away.

I think I know what he’s looking for—one of his pipes. ‘
Tu veux une pipe?
’ I ask.

It takes less than a split second to realise that my question is not quite right. Not right at all, in fact, judging by the four male faces which freeze in surprise before cracking into hooting, helpless laughter. Without even meaning to, I have been fabulously funny. This is my first joke in French—the first time since my arrival that I’ve managed to make an entire table laugh—and it seems a bit unfair that I don’t get it.

‘Where can I find an Australian girlfriend?’ wheezes one guest, appreciatively.

The French language is full of double entendre. Although toilet humour is considered poor taste in France, sex-related witticisms are acceptable in virtually any social setting. Sustaining linguistic volleys of naughty innuendo is a national sport. Sometimes these word games are subtle and sophisticated. But often the banter is ribald and silly—a bit like Frédéric’s joke about peeing off the Pont des Arts. ‘
Pipe
’ is the sort of word which ping-pongs across dinner tables. Although it shares the innocent English meaning, in French it also has a more risqué definition. Had I said
ta
pipe—
your
pipe—it might not have been so funny. But as it is, I have just offered Frédéric a blow-job.

Linguistically, let’s face it, the relationship is challenged. Progress is measured in small but significant steps. With much practice, Frédéric learns to say SAR-ah, with the stress on the first syllable instead of pronouncing it the French way with even emphasis. But the two ‘r’s’ in his name are problematic. My throat can just about raise a respectable roll for the first but for some reason can’t manage it for the second ‘r’. ‘They’re too close together,’ I growl ungraciously, as if the consonants
have conspired to trip me up. Frédéric becomes Fréd.

Until now we’ve been speaking mostly English together because my French is limited to conversations I learnt by rote from school textbooks. Thus, I am brilliant at answering the telephone, as long as it is Philippe Ledoux calling to compliment my new red car. I’m also good at flattering someone in a skirt—
mais quelle jolie jupe!
Regrettably, opportunities to use these engaging lines are rare. When it comes to constructing my own sentences—stringing nouns, verbs and adjectives together in an intelligible order—I fall apart.

But my ‘pipe’ gaffe makes me more determined to improve. What’s more, mastering the language will surely help ease my loneliness. And so Frédéric and I vow to speak only French together, a decision which eliminates all possibility of semi-adult conversation. The language remains a mystery to me—a gorgeous, mellifluous gabble which I can listen to forever without identifying where one word ends and the next begins. Those sliding liaisons and smooth syllables, the to-die-for accent and controlled cadence; together they make an incomprehensible verbal stew.

To speed up my progress, I enrol in a month-long French course at Alliance Française whose headquarters lie on Boulevard Raspail in the 6th
arrondissement
. It takes about thirty-five minutes for me to get there by metro because the trip means changing lines at St-Lazare—a manoeuvre involving a mini marathon through pee-scented corridors. The underground labyrinth is filled with surging crowds rushing to work. I love feeling part of them.

The Alliance classes are hugely entertaining. Our
professeur
is a lively brunette with a provocative twinkle and plunging décolleté who clearly understands that we’ll proba
bly never differentiate masculine from feminine nouns, let alone grasp the subjunctive. She flirts outrageously with the only male student, an awkward Hugh Grant sort of character with an Oxbridge accent who squirms and blushes under her persistent attention. ‘
Défends ton bifteck!
’ she commands, urging us to argue our viewpoints in class debates. Argue? We can barely make ourselves understood in our awful, halting French.

Upon learning our discussion subject for day five, eleven backs suddenly straighten. This is far more fascinating than the imperfect or the imperative. As usual, the teacher starts the class by tossing us a topic. Today it’s ‘What Would You Do If You Walked in on Your Partner in Bed with a Lover?’ Made up of mostly English and Americans, the class erupts in a babble of unanimous indignation. Such betrayal would end the relationship. No question—the erring other half would be out on his or her arse. There’s a lot of girls’ talk about lopping off male body parts.

‘Ah, les Anglo-Saxons! Vous êtes tellement puritains!’
The
prof
is delighted by the quaint naiveté of our moral righteousness. The French don’t bother with such hypocrisy, she explains. They understand affairs put the frisson into marriage. In France, everyone seduces everyone—
la séduction
is the essential spice to life. Why do we think village shops shut tight for three hours at lunch? She winks wickedly at Hugh Grant. ‘So the butcher can sleep with the baker’s wife and the florist can seduce the
fromager
.’

Although my French improves only marginally, the course is a huge success. There are some fun students in the class and afterwards we sometimes go out for a coffee and a chat. Most of them are only in Paris temporarily, though, and one by one these new friends soon leave. But the greatest thing
about my French course is that for one whole month I have something to do.

‘
I thought you were living in Paris
.
Then I saw your postcode on the back of the envelope
…’

This innocent, underlined observation in a letter from a Sydney friend comes as a complete shock. Two months have passed since my arrival and all this time I too thought I lived in Paris. It had never occurred to me that Frédéric’s apartment lay beyond the
périphérique
ring road which neatly separates the city from the sprawling suburbs. The rapid fifteen-minute motorbike ride into town had made me assume we were part of the fabulous capital.

It might sound mad but this revelation makes me look at our neighbourhood differently. It provides a concrete explanation for niggling doubts I’d begun to have about Levallois—feelings which until now had been only abstract, nothing I could articulate. All this spare time on my hands doesn’t help matters, naturally. During long days alone, I dwell on my doubts and they flourish under my attention. They give me something to do; a focus. No wonder living here wasn’t turning out to be the Parisian dream life I’d envisaged—it’s not even Paris! My friend is right. When it comes to Paris there is no middle ground—you’re either in or you’re out. Slowly the truth sinks in: we are two metro stops too far.

It occurs to me my friend may be right about another thing. In Paris, postcodes matter. Whereas in Sydney they are purely functional, their purpose simply to ensure mail ends up in the right place, here they’re evocative and, yes, even romantic. Paris postcodes begin with 75 and end in one of the twenty
arrondissements
, or numbered districts which spiral out clockwise from the city centre. These last figures are numerical indicators loaded with information and significance. The final five in 75005 conjures up nostalgic images of smoky student cafés full of Audrey Hepburn look-a-likes and dark brooding boys. The 8th
arrondissement
signals pomp and palaces, smart business lunches and famous French fashion houses. Neighbouring 75016 is all about poodle parlours and stiff cocktail parties with caviar canapés. The four in 75004 transports you to the ancient village streets lined with gay bars and Jewish bakeries in the vibrant Marais quarter.

But 92300—our postcode—is a numerical no-man’s-land. Like the area it designates, it is devoid of magic and sex appeal, sandwiched between Paris and the luxurious mansions and modern apartments of nouveau-riche Neuilly-sur-Seine. Levallois is lovely and leafy. It is also dull. There are no lively cafés, no decent restaurants open at night. At first I’d thought the area was fabulously multicultural, a hotbed of mixed marriages. During the day the sidewalks are crowded with African and Asian mothers pushing prams. But then it clicked—these women are not related to their pale-faced charges. They are nannies, or
nounous
as the French call them. The real parents can be seen after school finishes on Saturday, loading children and dogs into cars, off to family homes in the Loire or Normandy.

Frankly, if I’d wanted trees and blond Labradors that badly, I would have headed home to Sydney’s North Shore. What I want is to live in one of those old white apartment buildings run by a grumbling concierge, round the corner from a crowded café where I could read the newspaper each morning while the barman banters with a regular line-up of red-wine raconteurs. Nearby, there’d be a couple of trusted
bistros serving melting
chèvre chaud
at lunch, heart-warming
cassoulet
for dinner. I want to step out my front door and be amid the buzz, the bohemian poets, the brasseries, the bums, the crooked boutiques, the achingly beautiful window displays, the chic
mesdames
with spaghetti legs and neurotic terriers. In short, I want to live in Paris.