French Lessons

long to find the right words. Eventually she jumps in and helps him out.

“Will you buy me a pastry, monsieur?” Chantal asks, and that’s the first stall they come to, a baker’s table, with pastries laid out in delectable rows-croissants, brioches, pains aux amandes, pains au chocolat, eclairs, palmiers.

“What would you like?” he asks, turning to Chantal. It feels surprisingly intimate, this simple act.

She looks for a moment and then points.

“Deux palmiers, s’il vous plait,” he says to the baker. There is no hesitation in his voice-he doesn’t sound like the tourist who’s unsure if he’s said it right. Usually when he speaks French, his voice is too soft and he is asked to repeat himself. Simple, he thinks. It’s just a question of confidence.

The baker is a man his own age, too slim to be very interested in his own creations. He eyes Chantal and then smiles at Jeremy. Jeremy needs no translation here.

He pays for the pastries and turns to Chantal.

She looks away. Did she see the other man’s appreciative glance? She is suddenly shy with Jeremy.

“Tell me about the food,” Jeremy says, pointing up the street at the stalls lining the narrow road. “We’ll talk about my stepdaughter later.”

He feels oddly unfaithful talking about Lindy. She belongs to his life with Dana. And she’s complicated. She dropped out of school, stopped talking to her mother, and pulled Jeremy into her secrets. The fact that she appeared some time in the middle of the night, unannounced, and newly bald, has him worried. He has no idea what to expect from her. Easier to talk about eggplants and olallieberries.

Jeremy hears music and looks past the baker’s table. How could he have missed the sounds of the accordions? Again he hears the shouts of vendors hawking their fruits and vegetables, and in the mix, the sweet voice of someone singing. There’s too much to hear, too much to see. He focuses his eyes on a small circle of people gathered in a tiny square at the foot of rue Mouffetard. Three men play accordions, a woman stands with a microphone and sings, and in the middle of the circle a couple dances.

“Let’s go watch,” Jeremy says, and he leads Chantal through the market crowd to the performers. He glances at Chantal while they wrangle for space at the edge of the circle; her eyes are wide, a smile spreads across her face. He feels as if he’s created this Edith Piaf world.

The dancing couple is elderly-early seventies, he’d guess. And yet they move nimbly, gracefully, keeping perfect time with the music. They’re both tall and slim and look as if they’ve spent a lifetime in each other’s arms, spinning, bending, pulling out and back again. The woman is dressed in a fifties-style dress, with a full skirt that billows while she twirls. She wears shoes with straps that lace around her ankles. The man wears all white-a white cap, white shirt, white slacks, white shoes. He’s dapper and delicate.

A woman walks the perimeter of the circle, handing out sheets of paper. Jeremy takes one: it’s a song sheet. Already, he hears voices joining in song.

“Do they do this every day?” he asks Chantal.

“I’ve never seen it,” she says. “It’s beautiful.”

Another couple steps out to dance. They’re younger, less talented, but thoroughly pleased with themselves. And a woman with an enormous floppy hat joins the circle to dance on her own, her arms gracefully floating in the air around her, perhaps circling an imaginary partner.

“Would you like to dance?” Jeremy asks Chantal.

“I’m a terrible dancer,” she says.

“That’s impossible.”

He takes her hand and steps into the circle. He places his hand on the narrow curve of her waist and feels her fingers lightly land on his shoulder. He lifts his other hand, and she curls her fingers around his. She looks up at him with a nervous smile.

He begins to move her around the small space, listening to the sound of the accordions, testing her response to his gentle pressure on her back. She looks worried, unsure, and glances down at her feet.

“Look at me,” he says. He knows how to dance-not skillfully, like the man in white. But he knows how to hear the music and move in its rhythm. This is what he does best: not talking, not storytelling or confessions or late-night arguments. He knows how bodies talk to each other.

He sees Chantal’s worried frown disappear-he lets her spin and sees a smile stretch across her face.

He imagines her in bed and pulls her closer. The music stops. She steps away.

“Merci,” she says, but she doesn’t look at him.

She steps off the makeshift dance floor and into the crowd of spectators.

He waits a moment before following her. It would be so easy, he thinks, to take her hand and pull her back. One more dance. Give yourself up to the music. Give yourself up to me.

But he thinks of Dana, of her body under his in bed, of the hunger in her eyes. He feels something stir inside him-desire, need, frustration-whatever it is, he’s in love with his wife. He’s just spending the day with a French tutor. Get back to the lesson, he tells himself.

He follows Chantal and they wind their way through the crowd. A new song has begun, something about le petit vin blanc. New dancers take the stage. But Chantal’s on the move and soon they’re back on rue Mouffetard, and the noise of the marketplace drowns out the accordions.

They walk along the row of stalls that line both sides of the narrow street, most covered with colorful awnings, the tables piled high with fresh vegetables, lush fruit, bowls of olives, a profusion of flowers. Chantal discusses the cuts of meat, the varieties of fish, the classifications of cheese. Jeremy asks good questions-he wants to understand why the quality of the cheese is so superior in France, why there are vegetables and fruits he has never seen before, and what does one do with ramp leaves?

Chantal unbuttons her cardigan sweater-the market is crowded and hot. People bump into them and push them against each other. She is wearing a pale pink blouse. Jeremy realizes that she has never worn any color before. All of her clothing seems to come in shades of gray and black.

She looks at him; his eyes are on her neck. He looks away quickly.

“Tell me about olive oil,” he says. In front of them are a dozen bottles of olive oil, and a beefy man urges them to taste one. Jeremy dips a wedge of bread into a small bowl of oil. When he tastes the oil on his tongue he realizes that it is the first thing he has eaten today and he is suddenly ravenous. He tastes all of the different selections of oil, dunking slices of baguette into each bowl, and Chantal laughs at his eager appetite. He then buys two bottles of the best oil, one for Chantal and one that he will take home with him. The taste will always remind him of this odd breakfast with Chantal.

By the time they leave the market, they are both carrying plastic bags on their arms, as if they had set out on a shopping spree rather than a French lesson. Chantal tucks a baguette into her tote bag. They have not spoken about lunch, but Jeremy imagines a pique-nique in one of the hidden parks they have passed on their many walks.

They turn down a side street-a kind of medieval pedestrian alley-and in an instant the noise of the market dissipates. They are quiet for a moment and then Chantal tells him that they will walk to the Jardin des Plantes, where there is a museum of natural history. She thinks he will find it interesting.

“Yes, I’m sure I will,” he says, pleased with the idea.

On their second day together they walked through a neighborhood filled with antiques stores so that Chantal could teach him the language of furniture and jewelry and art. When she saw that he paid close attention to the kinds of wood in the best of the period furniture, she arranged for the two of them to speak with a man who restores antiques. They stood in the charming clutter of the old man’s atelier, with the man’s low, steady voice in his ear and the odors of the wood and solvents and Chantal’s fragrant perfume in his nose. The late-afternoon light filtered through the small, high windows of the shop, and Jeremy thought: I’m happy here. This is where I belong.

What a strange thought for him to have. He has never wanted to live abroad.

He has lived in California all his life and only began to travel when he met Dana eleven years ago. He’s a homebody; he wants his dog and his house projects and his books and his chair by the fire. He and Dana live in Santa Monica Canyon, and he only joins her for Hollywood events when she insists, which luckily she rarely does. He owns a couple of suits but lives in his work clothes. When he spends days on a project out of the house-restoring something that can’t be transported to his shop-he feels unsettled, as if he has stepped out of his skin. He can’t wait to get home in the evenings. So why should he now feel like he belongs in a foreign city?