Almost French (2 page)

This is mad.

The doubts had started festering after a series of bad phone calls, gnawing at my excitement until I’d almost forgotten
what had attracted me in the first place: the impression that he was different, unlike any man I’d ever met. The worst was one week ago when he’d called to confirm my arrival time. It had been another awkward telephone conversation punctuated by long pauses and misunderstandings which made me wonder if the problem was deeper than just language. Of course, it doesn’t help that his English is pretty basic and my French is awful. We can’t even communicate, for god’s sake, I’d thought. What are we going to talk about for a whole week? At the end of ten excruciating minutes I’d said goodbye and he’d said, ‘I kiss you,’ which made me cringe. What a sleaze! Had I paid more attention during French classes at school I might have remembered that in France this is the sort of farewell you could say to your sister or grandmother but all I can think now is how weird it sounded.

The air inside Charles de Gaulle airport is stale and smoky. It’s like being in a giant school toilet block after a student smoking session—the chipped white floor tiles are covered in butts. Tired passengers dribble through the sliding doors. I try not to scan the crowd too often. The minutes limp by, my mind relentlessly replaying our two encounters, assessing them from every angle.

He’d been sent to Bucharest for a few days in his job as a lawyer. I was doing some freelance television stories there and had met up with an old friend, Simon, from university who’d moved to Romania for work. On my third day, Simon announced that a couple of French guys from his firm’s Paris office were in town, advising on some privatisation project. Would I like to join them for dinner?

Ten of us had crowded around the table outside the Lebanese restaurant, a favourite haunt of expats in Bucharest. As it turned out, I was next to one of the French guests.

‘I’m Frédéric, from France,’ he’d said politely by way of introduction, and I had to stop myself from saying ‘no kidding’, because there was no mistaking this man’s nationality. Trim sideburns slid down his cheeks. His jumper was slung nonchalantly around his shoulders and he had that perennially tanned look of many Europeans. A faded silk scarf, knotted at the neck, made him look like some nineteenth-century French painter. Over dinner, I noticed the unusual yellowy-brown colour of his eyes; the smooth, manicured hands which made my wrinkled, nail-bitten paws look like something out of science fiction. After we’d finished eating, he lit a pipe, which struck me as hilarious. ‘I didn’t know anyone under a hundred smoked pipes,’ I teased and his face had fallen.

The following night was the Frenchmen’s last evening in Bucharest before returning to Paris. Again we all went out for dinner, this time to an Italian restaurant. They were the last to arrive and they wore their lateness stylishly, circling the long table like suave diplomats, shaking hands with each bloke, kissing the girls on both cheeks. Frédéric seemed to give me a meaningful look or did I just imagine he did? We talked some more. A few personal details emerged, hanging in the air like question marks. Thirty-six and newly single, I learned. I didn’t ask more, didn’t want to appear nosy:
interested.

By the time we all ended up at an Irish bar, it was clear the groomed, continental exterior concealed a rather eccentric character—a lawyer who preferred painting even though he’s seriously colour-blind. A slightly absurd sense of humour flashed through his well-brought-up politeness. He told me he loves practical jokes, adores fancy dress parties and making elaborate costumes.

‘Like what?’ I’d asked.

‘Well, one year, we made a New Year’s Eve party, the theme was
esprits de la forêt,
forest spirits, yes. I wanted to do something that looked real but also extraordinary.’ Frédéric told me how he went searching in the woods, where he found a giant, dead tree trunk. It was winter, nature was sodden and the trunk weighed ‘at least one hundred kilos’. When Frédéric and a friend finally got it home in a borrowed truck, he spent four days hollowing it out and trying in vain to dry the inside with a hair dryer. But it remained far too bulky and heavy to shuffle around in it in the way he’d envisaged so he picked up an old wheelchair from an antique shop. On the night of the party, Frédéric sat on the chair, wrapped in the wet blackness of the hollowed trunk which was still crawling with bugs and spiders.

I laughed, although this didn’t sound like my idea of a great party. ‘Did you enjoy yourself?’

‘Oh yes, it was
terrible
! Everyone thought I was part of the décor, nobody talked to me!’ Frédéric chuckled at the memory and I recall that in French ‘terrible’ means great. ‘It was so
terrible
,’ he repeated, stumbling slightly over the word in his effort to pronounce it in the English way, with a short ‘i’ sound instead of ‘terr
ee
ble’.

Chatting, we discovered we share a love of travelling as well as an absentminded habit of turning up to airports minus the required paperwork (tickets, passports, money). But I don’t go anywhere without a guide book, whereas Frédéric’s adventures are amplified by a pathological dislike of planning and preparation. This plays havoc with his life, he’d told me, causing him to run out of petrol on autoroutes, leave his credit cards in automatic teller machines and embark on mountain treks in Kashmir wearing filthy socks on his head and hands in the absence of beanie and gloves.

As we were about to say goodbye Frédéric turned to me, his expression disarmingly earnest all of a sudden. It was then he’d popped the question. Would I like to come to Paris?

Now France wasn’t on my itinerary. The idea of this twelve-month trip was to discover new places, and I’d been to Paris before. After Romania, I was planning to fly to London to try to get some casual work through some television contacts people had given me in Australia. I would stay with my old friend Sue, who’d moved there a year ago. But faced with Frédéric’s invitation, I quickly changed my plans. The truth was I wanted to see him again. We’d both felt the spark, it was obvious. London and work could wait.

‘Well yeah, I’d really like that. I mean, that sounds great.’

As the weeks rolled on in Romania, Paris began to look attractive for reasons other than Frédéric. It’s not that I didn’t enjoy being in Bucharest—in fact I loved it. The city is an absorbing kaleidoscope of sashaying gypsy skirts and stray dogs, proudly cultured people, raffish artists and unreliable lifts. I spent days exploring the cobbled passages of the old Jewish quarter, poking around state-owned art galleries knee-deep in dusty oil paintings. Through Simon I met a great crowd of people. We went out every night, revelling in Romanian red and the freedom which comes from finding new friends far from home, in an out-of-the-way place.

But in Romania, even the simplest of tasks involves hurdling a long line-up of bureaucratic brick walls. My twenty-minute television story on the fight for the restitution of homes and land seized under the communists took almost three months to research and film. And towards the end of the project, the post-communism melancholy of the people started to wear me down. Just around the corner from Simon’s apartment loomed Ceausescu’s monstrous palace—the
biggest building in the world after the Pentagon, apparently. It looked like a Stalinist wedding cake, fitted inside with kilometres of Italian marble and cascading crystal chandeliers. It started to grate, the disparity between this in-your-face waste and the street kids with pleading eyes and skinny, twisted limbs. Many of the Romanians I interviewed seemed resigned, crushed. By the time my television project was wrapped up, I felt ready for a holiday. The Paris invitation winked like a diamond in sunlight, dazzling and indulgent. Yes, London and work could definitely wait.

Thirty minutes. I’ve been waiting thirty minutes!

Still there’s no familiar face among the crowd. I open my Lonely Planet guide to Mediterranean Europe and start reading the history of France summary, feigning nonchalance. In reality, my seize-every-opportunity backpacker’s bravado has all but evaporated. Thoughts swirl around my mind like snowflakes in a blizzard, jumbling irrationality and reason. Ever since the I-kiss-you phone call, I’ve been seriously wondering about the wisdom of coming to Paris. It has started to seem totally imprudent, given how little I know this guy. What if his suave appearance is a front? He could be a psychopath, a serial rapist, how would I know? He’d even admitted he had a problem. There we were on the second evening in Bucharest, casually chatting about the trials of being innately messy, rather forgetful people when Frédéric’s tone had suddenly turned solemn.

‘No, I was awful, really insupportable,’ he’d said. And then his face had brightened—weirdly brightened, I realise in retrospect.

‘I am maniac now,’ he’d told me. They were his exact
words. At the time I’d dismissed it as a language thing. Unsure how to respond, I’d just said, ‘Sounds pretty complicated’, and he’d beamed, as though this was a compliment.

At least Sue will be in Paris in a few days’ time, I comfort myself. She will save me, or, if necessary, report my disappearance (that is, if he ever turns up). One week before my departure, I’d called her in London. At the mature age of twenty-seven, I needed a chaperone. Meet me in Paris next weekend, I’d begged, calculating that’ll only leave me five days alone with the French freak. She’d sounded surprised—the last time we’d spoken I’d been excited. She was having trouble keeping track of my flip-flopping sentiments.

Cries of joy from the arrival gate suddenly startle my train of thought. A family is swarming around a girl—about my age—smothering her with kisses. She’s obviously been backpacking for a while, you can tell by her unkempt appearance. Which reminds me—I’m not exactly looking like model material either. The day before I left Bucharest the city’s water supply had been cut. Apparently the authorities had forewarned the public but, of course, I wouldn’t have understood the announcements even if I had heard them. I haven’t had a shower for forty-eight hours and my hair—which I’d held off washing until the day of my departure—is pulled in a limp ponytail. So much for making a stylish entrance into the world’s glamour capital. But I’d done my best with limited means, putting on a bit of makeup and even ironing my denim shirt. And at least my shorts are clean. I’m also wearing my favourite sandals—flat brown things that reveal my weakness for comfortable, orthopaedic-type shoes. Right now they’re not looking too good, though: my feet and shoes are covered in dust and grime from Bucharest’s streets. It occurs to me my legs could do with a waxing.

In the Lonely Planet guide the history of France is condensed into four and a half action-packed pages. Practically each line announces a world war or a revolution or some tremendous tragedy. I get to ‘De Gaulle’, struggling to concentrate. My eyes flicker involuntarily to my watch.

FORTY-FIVE MINUTES!

The anger that had been mounting in me over his tardiness abruptly dissolves. Reality hits me: it’s time to face facts. Frédéric’s obviously had a change of heart. I’ve been stood up. A rush of disappointment engulfs me. Despite my fears about barely knowing him, despite the bad telephone conversations, I realise now how much I’d wanted to see him again. Instead, my romantic Paris rendezvous is over before it’s even begun. Faced with my changed circumstances, I’m thrown off balance, uncertain what to do next, and feeling so pathetic irritates me. The month before arriving in Bucharest I’d travelled through Eastern Europe, learning a new level of self-reliance as I’d grown comfortable with little things like eating out on my own. Breaking through the pain barrier had felt like an accomplishment. And now look at me! Coming undone because of a no-show at the airport.

The reunited family leaves the airport through the glass exit, chatting and laughing, the girl cocooned by parents and siblings. Including my stopovers in Kuala Lumpur and London, it’s been four months since I left Australia. And suddenly I feel lonely—even more lonely than humiliated. I’d like to be with
my
family. Should have gone straight to see Sue in London instead of changing my plans for a dodgy stranger. Still waiting on a cheque for my Romania story, at this stage I can’t afford to go blowing my savings on expensive
Paris hotels. Clutching the guide book opened at ‘Places to Stay’, I start fumbling pointlessly with a public telephone that demands a plastic card I don’t have.

‘Er, ’allo.’ The voice behind me is flustered, apologetic. Breathless. Before I’ve even had time to turn around, Frédéric is spewing excuses. His trip to the airport has been besieged by obstacles ranging from traffic jams to a metro strike and being told the wrong arrival terminal by airport information. His face is furrowed with worry. I try to look casual not cross, which doesn’t actually require a lot of effort. He looks just how I remembered him, maybe better. His continental tan has deepened several notches, if that’s possible, enhanced by his smart summer suit which is some colour between grey and light brown.

We head to the lift which goes to the underground carpark, Fréderic dripping style with every step. Suddenly I’m excruciatingly aware of my dishevelled appearance. My stained shirt front where fruit salad juice spilled during the flight. My feet, my clothes, my spiky legs. He looks like he’s just stepped off the set of a French film. And me, how do I look to him, I wonder?

Like an Aussie backpacker in need of a bath, probably.