This Foreign Affair

by Harper Bliss

  “We’re good to go then. After the tango, there’s usually a salsa. Just trust me and follow my lead.”

  I burst out into a chuckle. “Do you really expect me to just get up and dance a salsa with you?”

  She nods. “That’s how you’ll learn. The music, the atmosphere… you won’t be able to stop once you begin. I’m willing to wager on that right here, right now.” She holds out her hand, palm up.

  “We’ll see.” I drink my wine, needing all the liquid courage I can get.

  “Just trust me, Zoya.” When she looks into my eyes like that, and says my name in such a sultry way, I have no choice but to trust her. I look at her, and at the writhing bodies behind her, and for a minute, believe I have landed in a different dimension.

  The music changes and Camille gets up, holds out her hand to me. “Are you ready to dance with me?” she asks.

  “Not really,” I say, but take her hand anyway.

  As we walk the few steps to the dance floor, the two men nod at her, as do most of the other people. No one speaks. This is serious business then.

  Camille pulls me close, our bellies touching. “Just follow my lead. Start with your right foot back. Listen to the music. No one’s judging you.”

  I try to remember what a salsa looks like again, but I don’t have to use my memory, all I have to do is glance around. Next to us, Pierre and Yves are going at it already, looking as if dancing salsa together is all they do in life.

  Camille’s hips start to move and just feeling her body against mine is enough to bring me into an altered state of being; unfortunately, it’s not a state in which I’ve magically become a master of salsa. I step on her toes and she steps on mine when my feet don’t move quickly enough, but while I grimace and burst out into giggles of embarrassment, Camille’s facial expression remains solemn and calm. She’s teaching me.

  It’s difficult to feel the actual thrill of dancing with her when I keep tripping over my feet. Even my sense of rhythm seems to have deserted me.

  Camille leans over and whispers in my ear. “Listen to the music, chérie. Just let go.”

  I’m compelled to look into her eyes, away from my stumbling feet, and I do what she tells me. I listen to the music. Another song I’ve never heard before, but it sounds as though it was composed for one purpose only: for Parisians to dance salsa to on a Sunday afternoon.

  I’m not a Parisian, but I’m here with one. The most beautiful woman in Paris, there’s no doubt in my mind. A woman who is trying to guide my feet in the desired direction by sheer willpower. It’s not exactly working just yet, but I am starting to get the hang of the pattern my feet are meant to make. Right back. Left front. A little hop in-between. I stop glancing around me at the advanced grinding everyone else is involved in. I listen to the music and focus on my steps while looking into Camille’s eyes. The subtle shift of her hips on every change of feet gets through to me better and I start following her lead. She presses her belly closer against mine, so the beat of the music moves through us simultaneously, and a smile appears on her face.

  When she smiles at me like that, as if I’m the only person in the room—in the world even—it’s not that difficult for me to let go and just let her hips and the music guide me. To switch off my analytical brain and let instinct take over. Because this is as close to a mating dance as humans can come. Once I truly get into the groove of the dance with her, it’s the hottest, most excruciating foreplay I’ve ever experienced.

  The other couples are twirling each other around, doing complicated things with their arms, but Camille and I just go back and forth, back and forth. The rhythm is hypnotic and soon it feels as though there is no one here but us. That’s probably why hardly anyone looked up when we arrived. They were too absorbed by dancing with each other—an all-consuming activity.

  The next song is also a salsa, for which I’m glad because the afternoon wine and my jet lag are starting to catch up with me and I’m not sure I can learn another step so quickly. Or maybe I’m just terribly out of shape and a few minutes of moving on the dance floor with Camille have left me winded.

  “You’re doing great,” she says, curling an arm tighter around me, pressing her breasts into mine. I feel her fingers on my neck in a tight grip, and I consider that I don’t mind being led by Camille like this at all. She’s showing me her city, her Paris, and the life she enjoys here, making me a part of it.

  I’ve only been here two days, and already I never want to leave again.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  On Tuesday, when Camille has to go to work, for which I had to wake her up with persistent kisses on her grumpily cramped-up cheeks, it’s just me and Iris in the house. It’s strange to be in Camille’s house on my own. It makes me feel out of sorts, like an intruder. Because I’ve only been here such a short amount of time, and these are my first hours without Camille since our reunion, I’m suddenly faced with all the time I will need to spend without her while I’m here.

  I remember last year’s hiatus from the show, when I was busy trying to salvage my relationship with Rebecca—to no avail. It’s different having time off in a house that’s not my own, where my routine is non-existent, and my life revolves around another person entirely.

  As I walk through the house, Iris doesn’t leave my side. Camille was right. She has already started associating me with the new person in her territory who will give her food whenever she meows insistently enough. Camille has given me strict instructions not to spoil the cat in her absence. “Besides,” she said, “you’re in Paris. You don’t want to spend all day in the house.”

  I don’t. Not only because the house feels too big and cold without Camille’s presence to fill it, but also because I want to see all of Paris that I can.

  Yet, there’s an unexpected sort of lethargy keeping me inside this morning. An inexplicable unease about what lies beyond the garden fence. When I look outside the window, I could be in an affluent suburb anywhere in the world. But I know that as soon as I close the door behind me, turn the corner of the street, cross the square, and head into the Métro, I will unmistakably be in Paris.

  When lunch time approaches and my stomach starts rumbling, I make my way outside, and it hits me that I’ve never walked the streets of Paris on my own. When I was here with Rebecca we went everywhere together. On all the trips we undertook, we set out on our discoveries arm in arm. But this is not just a trip, I remind myself. This is me visiting the woman I fell in love with. Everything about this is the opposite of a city trip with a partner you’ve been with forever.

  I head to the Métro and decide to go to the Hotel de Ville stop. Have a spot of lunch in Le Marais, where I have at least been before, then explore the Centre Pompidou, until Camille knocks off work. “Five on the dot, for you,” she assured me before she left this morning.

  It’s odd to rely on public transport to get around. In Sydney, I’m so used to taking my car—and sitting in traffic. The Paris Métro isn’t the cleanest and the cars are old and look a bit worn. Maybe I should have gone for an Uber after all. Or maybe I should rent a car, which Camille advised me against because the inner-city traffic is crazy pretty much every time of day. She told me I was very welcome to take her bicycle. Maybe tomorrow I will.

  On the Métro, the diversity of people is perplexing. Young, old. Tourists from every corner of the world. Announcements in Chinese and Japanese. I always believed Sydney was a very worldly city, but this is something else.

  Because the underground was so dark and dank, when I emerge from the stairs at Hotel de Ville, the day seems even brighter than before. I look around, at the Rue de Rivoli stretching out to my left and right, and consider that Paris even manages to make its shopping streets look attractive—not an easy feat. But I’m not interested in shopping. I want to find out what it feels like to wander through this city on my own, to gauge whether I could ever feel at home here.

  What started as a seed of a thought in the back of my brain, is beginning to m
ake its way forward. It’s not a well-formed thought just yet. Just a sense of something making its presence known in my mind, lurking at the edges of my consciousness.

  I walk and I take it all in eagerly. The way the French speak, with so much music in their tone of voice. The elegance of the waiter when I have lunch. How you never have to order anything from the counter here, but everything is brought to you. The way French women dress, which makes me think I should go shopping after all.

  I order my lunch in French, for the practice, but it comes out all botched, and I end up saying it in English anyway. God, this language. So distinguished, but so damn difficult. Last night, when Camille was searching for an English TV channel to watch the news on, I insisted we watch the news she always watches. I didn’t understand any of it, but from the footage shown, I got the context. Camille translated for me as best she could, and afterwards I reminded her of her promise to teach me French while I was here.

  “Everything in due time, chérie,” she said. “I’ve already taught you how to dance salsa.”

  Maybe I shouldn’t rely on Camille to teach me French, but take an intensive immersion course while I’m here instead. As lovely as all the French around me sounds, I’m not going to learn to speak it just by sitting here. Because learning French is not even a choice for me anymore. I know I want to. Camille speaks English. Why shouldn’t I speak French? Millions of people speak multiple languages. I barely understand my grandparents’ mother tongue. Because no matter where you go, English will always carry you through, even in Paris. However, it’s not the kind of visitor to this city I want to be, it’s not the kind of partner to Camille I want to be. But French lessons are for tomorrow. Today, I have more exploring to do.

  After lunch, I head to the Centre Pompidou and am immediately discouraged by the line in front of the entrance. Though a few clouds have come in, the weather is still bright and summery—not blistering like Sydney summers can be—and I decide to walk more. My hips are no longer stiff from Sunday’s impromptu dance session, and I can walk like a normal person again—something I wasn’t capable of yesterday and for which I was mercilessly mocked by Camille.

  I walk and walk, soaking in the splendor of this city, to which Sydney pales in comparison. There’s not the same sense of history in my adopted home city, of what happened centuries ago. Moreover, Camille doesn’t live in Sydney. And there’s the thought again, rushing to the forefront of my mind. It’s much more than an inkling now. It comes at me in the shape of a well-formed confrontational question: would I move here to be with her?

  If it weren’t for my job, I probably would. That’s as far as I can get in replying to my subconscious mind’s manifestation in my conscious brain. I don’t have the kind of job that’s easily transplantable to the other side of the world. I present a show that has my name in the title. My identity is so intertwined with what I do, with what I’ve done professionally for the past decade, I have no idea how I would even feel if that side of me were to fall away. What could I possibly do in France? I don’t even speak French. And I’m not the housewifely type who could keep Iris company all day long—besides, I’d spoil the animal so much it’d be the death of her.

  That’s how my mind is working as I walk along these streets where, if things were different, my future could lie.

  For some reason, my mind doesn’t allow me to make the same thinking exercise in reverse. Perhaps because it’s not up to me to think about Camille’s life in those terms. Maybe her son will indeed go exploring the world and he’ll end up in Australia—like many have done before him—and his mother will follow. But Ben has only just started university. And I haven’t even met him.

  It’s musings like these that give this trip a bittersweet undertone. Because, yes, having these six weeks with Camille is an amazing gift, courtesy of my un-transplantable job, and every second with her is pure bliss, but for most people who are in the process of falling in love, this is normal. To get to completely immerse yourself in the exuberance of young love without having to consider practicalities and distance and how on earth you’ll cope with the absence again and again.

  I’ve reached a row of government buildings and wonder what the president of the republic is doing today. It’s a silly thought. One I would never have about the Australian prime minister, whom I interviewed once, and who was perfectly groomed by his team to come off charming and even witty at times, but who still only struck me as the person I hadn’t voted for.

  I think about what Camille told me about Laroche’s partner Stéphanie Mathis, the much younger PR executive who helped mastermind her victory, and how Camille said being first lady when the president is a woman is a more than arduous task. What I wouldn’t give to interview her.

  Then my phone starts buzzing in my pocket. Camille’s picture appears on the screen.

  “Bonjour, chérie,” she says. “Qu’est-ce que tu fais?”

  “Bonjour,” I reply. It’s the only part of that sentence I understood.

  “I’m giving you your first French lesson tonight.”

  “I’m afraid the teacher might be too distracting.”

  “Don’t worry, the teacher knows how to use that to her advantage.”

  Hearing her say that makes me wish it was five o’clock already.

  “How would you feel about having the kids over for brunch on Saturday? This would mean that Ben stays over the weekend.”

  “Of course.” Instantly, nerves coil in the pit of my stomach.

  “Are you sure?” she asks, perhaps picking up on the nerves in my voice.

  “I can’t wait to meet your children, Camille.” I might be nervous, but I’m also very curious.

  “They can’t wait to meet you.” I still wonder how that conversation between Camille and her children went. When she came back from Sydney and told them about the woman she’d met on the last stop of her travels. Surely, they must have asked a million questions, even wondered about their mother’s sanity. I’m not entirely sure that Camille isn’t holding back a few details for my sake and for theirs—not wanting to alarm me and not wanting to paint her kids in a negative light. I guess I’ll soon find out.

  “It’s a date then.”

  “I might swing by Flo’s after work. I haven’t seen Emma all weekend. Would you like to come?”

  “Er, yes. Of course.” I can hardly say no. And maybe it’s a good idea to meet both kids separately. That would give them less chance to gang up on their mother’s unexpected lesbian lover.

  “If you could make your way to the Porte des Ternes around five thirty, I’ll pick you up there.”

  We chat some more, Camille telling me about how slow the hours are progressing at work today and me talking about my walk, then ring off.

  I look at my watch. I’ll be meeting her daughter in a few short hours. It used to be that meeting the parents was the biggest deal after encountering a new partner, but with Camille’s parents no longer alive, it’s her offspring. I start walking a little faster to burn off the nerves.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Flo is holding her month-old baby tightly clutched to her chest when she lets us into her apartment. Just before we rang the bell, Camille, looking a spot nervous herself, said she had a key but thought it better not to use it today.

  As soon as she sees Emma, all the tension seems to drain from Camille’s body and she gets that soft grand-parental expression on her face that’s all about the new baby in her life.

  “Viens ici mon petit boutchou.” She holds her hands out to the baby and Flo dutifully hands her over. Only then does Camille introduce us—as though it’s a mere afterthought that I’m here as well.

  “Pleasure to meet you,” I say, wishing I could do it in French. Before Camille picked me up I looked up the phrase in the French course I carry with me everywhere on my phone, and while it’s one of the first things to be taught, and I practiced the word enchantée countless times, I can’t bring myself to say it out loud in this situation. Becaus
e of lack of confidence and standing face-to-face with this dark-haired, younger version of Camille, and the reality check of her actually having a family. And the fact that Camille will never leave Paris if it means leaving behind that little girl she’s holding in her arms right now.

  “And you.” Flo says in accent-free English. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

  “And this is Emma.” Camille holds her up a tiny bit, but clearly has no intention of handing over the baby to anyone else anytime soon.

  “Bonjour, Emma.” I’ve said bonjour so many times since arriving here, it has already become part of my everyday vocabulary. I take the opportunity to stand a little closer to Camille and the little girl who is obviously the apple of her eye.

  “How was your day?” Flo asks politely.

  I tell her while I study her face for signs of rejection of me being here with her mother, in her home. I don’t immediately find any and can’t help but catalog that as suspicious. Not even with the best intentions in the world, and the best relationship with her mother, can she accept me so easily. What I do see on her face, however, is fatigue, and sheer relief that we’re here. I’m staring at a brand-new mother first, the daughter of a newly out-of-the-closet lesbian second.

  Camille and Flo converse in French for a few minutes and while I don’t understand the words, it’s no mystery they’re talking about the baby.

  “How about we take this precious little thing out for a few hours so Flo can have a rest and a peaceful dinner with Mathieu when he comes home from work?” Camille asks me.

  “Sure.”

  Now all I see on Flo’s face is extreme gratitude. If minding her child occasionally can win me a spot in Camille’s daughter’s heart, I’m all for it. Even though I don’t know the first thing about caring for infants. I’m certain the doting grandmother has got those aspects covered.