Foreign Tongue

by Vanina Marsot

  “I’m not staring at her,” I said, turning to face Daphne.

  “You were,” she retorted.

  “You’re paranoid. I was staring at him,” I lied. “He turned me down for an interview two years ago. Around the time the oil refinery scandal broke.” Daphne looked uncertain. “You’re jealous?” I asked, bending under the hat to kiss her. I kissed her again until she kissed me back, hoping Eve could see. I gave Daphne a meaningful look. She darted a glance around, understanding. “Come on,” I murmured.

  We sped back to the loges, and I pulled Daphne inside a private bathroom and locked the door. She laughed, breathless and dizzy on her heels. She undid my fly as I hiked up her skirt and lifted her, placing her ass on the edge of the sink. She wore a lace-edged garter belt and stockings, and it was easy to rip off her panties. She wrapped her legs around my hips as I plunged into her. Daphne was wet and she was hot, but as I thrust into her, I thought of Eve, the fur draped over her shoulder, the sly smile on her face. She moaned and I slid my tongue into her mouth—it was Daphne’s mouth, I insisted to myself, it was Daphne I was fucking—but I could see only Eve’s face as I came…

  Asshole! Bastard! My fingernails clacked across the keyboard as I translated, despising the man who seemed to revel in his infidelity to the hapless Daphne even as he was fucking her. Granted, Daphne was about as perceptive as a veal, but this only made me dislike him more. I was, perhaps, just maybe, overidentifying with the veal, but that was beside the point. I called Bunny back.

  “It’s me. Why do men cheat?” I asked, terse.

  “Why are you asking me?”

  “’Cause you’re a man. Give me a reason.” There was a loud yawn, then silence on the other end. “Are you stalling?” I asked.

  “Jesus, you’re serious! Let me guess, you’ve been thinking about what’s-his-face again. Let it go.” His voice was scratchy.

  “No, I’m translating this stupid chapter, and he’s cheating on the veal with the femme fatale while still sleeping with the veal, and it’s got disaster written all over it, and I just want to know why!”

  “I’m not going to defend my whole gender—”

  “Did you? I mean, did you ever—”

  “I know what you mean, and that’s none of your business. You might consider whether life with the veal isn’t making him miserable and if the femme fatale isn’t adding some excitement to his stagnant existence. We can continue this conversation when you dismount the high horse,” he said.

  “Damn it, whose side are you on?” I yelled, but he hung up. I stared at the receiver, bleating in frustration. Sheep, not veal, but close enough.

  Of course, Bunny had a point. Bunny always had a point, but like a lot of points, sometimes it hurt when he used it. It would be easier to translate if I kept myself out of it, but it was hard to keep myself out of it since I was doing the translating. It seemed an unfair metaphysical joke that this story would be the one I got to translate.

  I put water on to boil and searched the kitchen cupboards for something sweet. I found an open package of petit-beurre biscuits and pressed a soft, stale cookie to the roof of my mouth. Maybe Bunny was right. Maybe the narrator’s relationship with Daphne was over. Maybe this was his way of getting out of it. Maybe there was always someone else. Maybe, as the cynical saying went, it took three to make a perfect relationship.

  Or maybe there wasn’t a reason. Maybe the world was random and mean and hurtful, and maybe sometimes people were, too. Maybe there wasn’t a reason Timothy had cheated on me. Maybe someone he couldn’t resist had come along. Someone like Eve.

  Maybe I could be more like Eve, I mused, peering out the window and trying to picture myself as the exotic, mysterious, sexy woman. I thought about Olivier, then shook my head. I’d probably never see him again. I poured myself a mug of tea and retreated under the duvet.

  I woke up later that night thinking about clothes: Eve’s fur, Daphne’s hat and lingerie, Madame Ronet’s tight-fitting navy suits. There was an awful lot of attention to detail. The kind of detail women tended to notice more than men.

  Could the author be a woman?

  11

  Irène: J’hésite entre une gauffre au sucre et une histoire d’amour..

  Une vieille dame: Ben, prenez une gauffre!.

  Irène: Ben, une gauffre au sucre..

  Le cuisinier: Beaucoup de sucre?.

  Irène (en soupirant): Ah, oui.*

  —GILLES PORTE AND YOLANDE MOREAU, Quand la mer monte

  I toyed with the idea over the next few days, but by Wednesday morning, as I reread the chapter, I decided it didn’t read as particularly female, though the descriptions of the clothes struck me as feminine. But maybe that was because I paid more attention to them. Besides, observing sartorial details was normal for a French man. A woman author was a nice theory, but I let it go. I’d heard a rumor once about Story of O: that Pauline Réage had written it to win back a lover who’d left her. Apparently, it had worked: he came back, and she never wrote another piece of fiction. Which was one definition of a happy ending.

  I fiddled around with the passage:

  There was a private bathroom by the loges. I pulled Daphne inside and fumbled with the lock as she laughed, the porcelain perfection of her face creased with mirth. She grabbed my belt and deftly undid the fly, her fingers reaching for me as she sucked my lips. I grabbed handfuls of her silk skirt and lifted her onto the edge of the sink. Daphne spent a fortune on expensive lingerie; today she was wearing a pale pink lace garter belt and sheer black stockings. I ran my fingers over the short expanse of exposed bare thigh and hooked a thumb under the thin waistband of the lace panties. She gasped when I ripped them off, and wrapped her legs around my hips. I plunged into her. Daphne was wet and she was hot, but as I thrust into her, I thought of Eve, the thick, lush fur draped over her shoulder, the sly smile on her face. I howled and slid my tongue into Daphne’s mouth—it was Daphne’s mouth, I insisted to myself, it was Daphne’s cunt—but it was Eve’s face I saw as I came…

  I went back and forth over “cunt,” leaving it out, putting it back in, considering “pussy,” trying out the more genteel “fucking,” dithering over degrees. The irony of considering “fucking” more genteel than “cunt” wasn’t lost on me. It was tricky territory, trying to figure out which words were more accurate. Err on the side of accuracy or mood? I couldn’t get both to work. Today, translating felt like endless compromise, each version tipping the scales in a different, wrong direction.

  Perhaps I was overthinking the nuances of profanity. I’d learned most of my French swearwords from my roommate, back when I’d lived in Paris after college. A lesbian with a Tintin haircut, she wore steel-toed boots, smoked three packs of Marlboro Reds a day, and had the foulest mouth I’d ever heard in French. She’d told me the hardness of words in French didn’t translate directly to a similar hardness in English. “Asshole” is a fairly strong insult; “trou du cul” is something one eight-year-old calls another for knocking over his sand castle.

  I left “cunt” in and printed the chapter out. On the radio, the news predicted clouds. I picked at the loose threads of my bathrobe and looked at my underwear drawer. It was a sea of sensible white cotton, most of it gone gray, plus some beige and black. Nothing that could be ripped off without causing severe friction burns; ergo, nothing conducive to quickies in bathrooms. I called Laveau and left a message that I’d bring the translation later that afternoon. Then I called Clara. After her summer vacation in Corsica, she’d gone on a quick buying trip to India to source precious stones for her jewelry collection. I invited myself over.

  I walked to her place in the Ninth, a high-ceilinged apartment with plump sofas and damask walls covered in artwork she’d collected from around the world. A gilt Buddha looked down on the living room from its elevated perch.

  “Ça tombe bien,” she said when I got there. “I need you to try on some rings so I can see how they look like on another pair of hands. Would you like some
mint tea?”

  “Yes, please,” I said. Her apartment smelled of beeswax and flowers. “Nice,” I said, stopping to sniff a bouquet of peach and pink roses.

  “Mmm,” she hummed in a happy voice. “He knows how to apologize.”

  I followed her down the hallway to her workroom and stopped in front of a drying rack laden with lingerie. “Don’t look!” she exclaimed. “It’s such a mess, but there’s nowhere else to put them!”

  “No, this is an excellent coincidence. I was going to ask you where to buy nice underwear. Do you mind?” I asked. She shook her head. I looked at a pale green silk chiffon balconnet bra overlaid with red and pink lace and a matching G-string; a boned blue satin and lace bra with cups shaped like shells and attached with thin ribbons; even her plainest beige bra was draped in eggshell soutache embroidery.

  “These are beautiful,” I said, impressed and seized with a sudden desire for my own collection of extravagant underthings.

  “It’s an addiction, lingerie,” Clara admitted. I fingered a pair of yellow silk panties with red tulips, then put them down.

  “Wait, you have to hand-wash all this, don’t you?” I asked.

  “Bien sûr! You can’t throw lace and silk into a washing machine,” she said, adamant. This was a big strike against a potential purchase. Hand-washing was way too labor-intensive.

  Another thought occurred to me. “Do you always match? I mean,” I said, looking at a white eyelet ensemble, “what do you do if you’re wearing a white top and black pants?” It was a serious question, but she thought I was poking fun.

  “Ah, the metaphysical problems of the world,” she mocked.

  “Clara, I’m serious.”

  “You’re impossible.” She repositioned a black and lilac bra on the rack.

  “No, really. All my underwear is white, beige, or black. None of it matches, except by accident. What do you do?”

  Clara cocked her head. “You can always wear beige, though sometimes, ce n’est pas evident,” she said. Even though I know the phrase means “it’s not easy,” I always hear “there is no obvious solution.”

  “How much does this stuff cost?” I knew it was a gauche question on two counts, direct and about money, but I needed to be fully informed before I decided to be a total cheapskate.

  “Ouf! Une fortune,” she exclaimed, puffing her cheeks and letting out an airy raspberry of exasperation. It made her look like a disgruntled chipmunk.

  “Humor me,” I cajoled.

  “About two hundred euros for a nice set,” she admitted. I did the math.

  “You have over three thousand dollars’ worth of lingerie drying on this rack!” I squealed.

  “Do I ask how you spend your money?” She raised an eyebrow.

  “No, but—”

  “It’s tough being a woman, no?”

  Clara opened intricately folded pieces of paper, showing me the spoils of her trip: pink citrines, yellow diamonds, magenta rubies, and multicolored tourmalines. I modeled rings for her, and she took pictures of my hands with her digital camera. When the sun came out, we went for a walk on the rue des Martyrs.

  “You surround yourself with beauty,” I remarked, thinking of her lingerie but also her jewelry, her furniture, the framed watercolors and engravings on the walls.

  “Don’t you?” she asked.

  “I used to acquire a lot of things, but I don’t actually live in them. I bring them out for special occasions,” I said, thinking of my closet in L.A., crammed with dressy clothes and expensive shoes I rarely wore, and the trunk with my grandmother’s monogrammed linen sheets and embroidered tablecloths, which I never used.

  “That’s stupid. Why do you buy things if you don’t enjoy them?”

  “You’re right, it’s stupid. But I keep thinking my life is on hold. One day, I’ll have a use for those things when I hit the Play button again,” I said, musing out loud.

  “But then you would have to put Timothy behind you, and you’re not done suffering over him,” she remarked.

  “Ouch,” I said, frowning at her.

  “I’m sorry. Ne m’en veux pas,” she apologized.

  “Do you really think that’s what I’m doing?” I asked, suspecting she was right and embarrassed that she knew.

  “I shouldn’t have said anything.” She looked pained. “But—it’s been a couple of months. How are you supposed to get on with your life un less you get on with it?” Clara said it kindly, but it stung. We walked in silence for a moment.

  “I’d forgotten how direct you can be,” I said lightly, tucking my arm in hers to let her know I wasn’t offended. If I was honest, I could admit it felt like I’d been carrying my grief for Timothy around like a weight on my shoulders.

  We walked into a park and sat on a bench. A group of chubby-cheeked children sat in a circle playing le facteur, the postman, the French version of duck, duck, goose, but instead of a head tap, it was played with a dropped handkerchief. One little boy started wailing, for no apparent reason, and his mother spoke to him sharply: “Cyril! Arrête ton cinéma!” Stop your cinema.

  I love that expression. The closest equivalent in English is “drama queen,” but it doesn’t quite convey the connection to both film and illusion. Or the futile grandstanding.

  “I’d been single for a long time before Timothy,” I said, thinking out loud. “And even though there were lots of things wrong with the relationship—”

  “There were?” Clara interrupted. “You never talk about that.”

  “Sure. I can see that now: I made a lot of assumptions because I was totally infatuated. I misread him, I never called him on anything because I was scared that if I did, it would end…” I trailed off. “But I can’t shake the feeling that that was it. Like now I should devote my life to saving the whales or ending child hunger.”

  “You’re being ridiculous,” she said with a disapproving look.

  “Maybe, but sometimes, that’s what it feels like. Other times, I think I just have to look harder.”

  “Look harder, but let him come to you this time. Don’t do all the work.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Cours après moi pour que je t’attrape,” Clara said, citing an old French proverb. Chase after me so I can catch you. “No, don’t ask me what it means.” She shook her head. “Just think about it. Come on.” We left the park and went down a narrow street.

  “This will take your mind off things,” she said, stopping in front of a lingerie boutique.

  “I’m not buying anything,” I said, gazing at an icy blue silk negligee.

  “It’s just what you need. Une intervention,” she said.

  “A what?”

  “That’s what they called it on Les Sopranos.”

  Clara pushed me inside and introduced me to Madame Laserre, the owner, a stick-thin woman in her fifties with a sharp nose and glossy black pageboy. Clara pointed out artful displays of bras, panties, teddies, and nightgowns, but I didn’t feel like spending money on something no one would see.

  “Why are you being so puritanical?” Clara asked.

  “I feel fat,” I said. Back home, this would make anyone back off.

  “Et alors? Don’t you think the fat would look better in this?” She waved an ecru silk camisole under my nose.

  “Fine. But I’m just trying it on,” I said and threw my bag into the small cabine. Madame Laserre took one look at my bra (shapeless, a little dingy, with wide, comfortably padded straps) and triumphantly informed me I was wearing the wrong cup size. She took my measurements and came back with a taupe and cream balconnet bra, and insisted I bend forward and wiggle to get the breasts to settle in the cups. Performing this action under the watchful gaze of this bird-like creature made me feel about as graceful as a beached aquatic mammalian, say a walrus or a manatee. I was relieved when she left to answer the phone.

  “Alors?” asked Clara from behind the curtain. “Puis-je voir?”

  “No, you can’t. Go away,” I said. I lo
oked in the mirror. It was the prettiest bra I’d ever worn—even the straps were gorgeous, taupe tulle shot through with satin ribbon. The balconnet pushed my breasts up into a round, full shape, like in eighteenth-century paintings.

  Clara poked her head in anyway. “It’s so pretty!” she exclaimed. “It’s just what you need.”

  “Yes, but lots of things are really pretty. It doesn’t mean I have to buy them.”

  “Et ça? T’as vu le slip?” She held up a matching panty and garter belt. “You can choose a bikini or thong or the little boy shorts, or, tiens, these boring ones, what are they called?” she asked, holding them up.

  “Briefs,” I said sourly. She rolled her eyes.

  “Fine. Go on, be sad, you can console yourself with all those nice things tucked away in Los Angeles. No, even better, you can donate them to the hungry children.”

  She let the curtain drop. I looked at myself in the mirror again and caved.

  I forked over my credit card for the bra, boy shorts, and, what the hell, garter belt, and tried not to wince at the amount. Outside, Clara pinched me.

  “Okay, I’m happy I bought it,” I grumbled.

  “Good,” she said.

  I looked at my watch. “I should run. I have to drop off the translation.”

  We kissed good-bye, and I walked toward the métro. “By the way, don’t expect him to notice. They never notice,” she called out over her shoulder.

  “Him? Him who?” I asked.

  “Him whoever. At least you’re prepared.”

  12

  Certaines femmes timides et tristes s’épanouissent à la chaleur de l’admiration, comme des fleurs au soleil.*

  —ANDRÉ MAUROIS

  At Odéon, the late-afternoon light burnished the limestone buildings a pinkish gold and cast spindly Giacometti shadows behind the pedestrians. I ran up the street to the bookstore, arriving just as Monsieur Laveau lowered the Venetian blinds. His face twitched in pain when he saw me. Maybe I was spoiled, maybe my friendship with Bunny made me arrogant, but I was used to winning over older men. It was a constant blow to my ego that he seemed to find no pleasure whatsoever in my company.