Hungry Woman in Paris

by Josefina López

  “Merci,” I said, looking him up and down. He nodded with a smile and walked ahead to catch up with Véronique and continued asking questions for the benefit of his wine class.

  At lunchtime we tested each of their six wines. I’d had a croissant and tea for breakfast, but by then my stomach felt pretty empty. I drank the wine and kept looking around for the meal that had been promised. I’m not good on an almost-empty stomach. I’m worse when I have wine or cheesecake on an empty stomach.

  “Are you warm now?” Yves turned to me. He surprised me by speaking a heavily accented English.

  “Yes. Thank you so much.” I took off his scarf and offered it back to him.

  “No, no. Keep it as long as you need it. Have it if you like,” he said with a flirtatious smile.

  “The wine has made me warm now,” I replied, returning a coquettish smile.

  “Do you like the wine?” Yves asked me.

  “I actually love it.” I smiled and batted my eyelashes.

  Yves got close to my ear and whispered so Véronique would not hear: “I don’t like sweet wines too much, but it’s not bad.” He tickled my ear in the process. He looked around to make sure no one noticed him whispering. We both swallowed together and stared at each other. We were silent for a few seconds and although we said nothing, I knew he didn’t want to leave my side.

  “What is the best wine you have ever had?” I asked, attempting to continue our conversation.

  “There is no such thing as the best wine, because it may go well with one dish, but not another. It may go well in summer and not in winter. It’s all relative.”

  I rephrased my question: “In your opinion, what is the best wine you have experienced?”

  “Well, it wasn’t so much the wine, but the food and the woman I had it with,” he confided. I smiled and continued with my journalistic probing.

  “What wine, which meal, and what woman?”

  Yves took a second to reflect, looking at me as if wondering why this was so important for me to know. “The wine was a red 1987 Châteauneuf-du-Pape with beef bourguignon in winter, and the woman was the woman who became my wife and now is my ex-wife,” he declared. I looked at his hand; there was no wedding ring or a suntan line revealing there had been one not long ago.

  We smiled at each other as we drank. I’m pretty sure I was no longer sober, because he looked like the most handsome man in the world and, without hesitation, I whispered the line to top all lines—the one handed down to me by a saucy Latina friend who swore it would work on any straight man with a pulse. “I wonder what you look like when you come,” I whispered into his ear and walked away without a care in the world. I loved how it felt to come on to a man instead of waiting for him to hit on me. Besides, he probably didn’t understand my English anyway.

  After our liquid lunch we boarded a bus back to the school. When we arrived all the students walked out, and I made my way down the aisle. I was giving the scarf back to Yves when he pulled it to him. I didn’t let go of the scarf, so I almost fell on top of him. He caught me.

  “Where do you live?” he asked. “Why don’t you stay on the bus and the bus driver will take you and me home.”

  Yves and I hid out in the bus and the driver dropped both of us off at his place. He offered to personally drive me home after making up a story about getting his car keys from his apartment. I followed him like a bad girl, knowing what was to come … or who was to come. Yves escorted me into his voluminous white apartment with a view of the Eiffel Tower—the kind of place that made it clear he didn’t need to teach.

  “Why do you teach?” I asked, assessing his wealth like an Ugly American.

  “So I can meet interesting people like you.” Yves grinned.

  “But you don’t know anything about me. How do you know I’m interesting?” I wanted to tease him, first with words, and later …

  “Oh, I know you are,” he assured me. “Would you like me to make you dinner?”

  I suppose getting to the sex without dinner would be crude, but food wasn’t what I was hungry for. Still, I played along. “Yes, that would be nice.” A man was going to cook for me; it made me feel special.

  I walked around, studying his library and his art collection, until Yves asked if I wanted to see his wine cellar. I knew he was proud of it, so I obliged.

  In the wine cellar he gave me a tour of his collection. He kept his whites and reds separate; I’m sure he never made the mistake of mixing his white laundry with his colors, either. Though if he did, he was the kind of man who would look good in pink. Very manly.

  “This is my most prized wine,” he said pointing to a bottle. I got close to see the wine label and he grabbed me from behind by putting his arms around my waist. He nibbled on my ear and whispered something dirty in French. I couldn’t understand him, but some things don’t need translation. We returned upstairs to his apartment and our eyes were glued to each other’s. Yves got close to me and held my hands.

  “Lick me,” I whispered in his ear. We kissed again furiously and tumbled to his plush carpet. The curtains were wide open and the Eiffel Tower from upside down looked like I was looking up a woman’s skirt. He practically tore off my dress and fondled my breasts.

  “What wine would go well with my chatte?” I asked him. He licked my vaginal lips and thought about it for a few seconds, as if analyzing a fine wine, trying to make out all the different flavors. “Let me do it again so I can get a good taste.” He smelled them and then licked them again.

  “Hmmm, I have the perfect wine for you.” He put on his jacket and left me naked on the floor. I waited a few minutes, totally confused, until he returned with a dusty bottle of wine from his cellar.

  “Lie down,” he ordered me. He poured the wine on my vaginal lips and drank it off me. Seconds later I ejaculated and he drank me, too.

  “Hmmm, you are one of the few women I’ve ever been with who actually ejaculates… like a little fountain… Do all American women go like that?” he inquired. I looked at him and laughed, “No, only the very special ones who don’t ever fake orgasms.”

  “You are dangerous.”

  “Mais porquoi?” I asked.

  “You don’t lie. That’s a horrible thing for a woman not to do. You must lie to us; that is your duty as a woman.” He continued pouring the wine on my naked body and he cupped my breasts and drank from them.

  “I want to be a human food platter and have many men eat food off of me,” I confessed to Yves.

  “C’est facile. Let me make dinner and I’ll eat it off of you, chérie.”

  During wine class I sat in front of Yves and teased him with my eyes. Even though my mind was always distracted with sexual thoughts about him, I managed to learn a thing or two. I always thought the reason why restaurant sommeliers poured a little bit of wine in the diner’s glass was so that the person could sample the wine to see if they liked the taste. However, they actually do that so you can make sure the wine cork did not ruin the wine. If the taste of the wine was marred by a bad cork, that was the time to turn it away; otherwise, if you complained after a glass or two, the sommelier would probably take back the wine and just recork it—as Yves admitted to doing on occasion—and return it back to you as a new bottle. The other valuable thing I learned is that in Paris, at most nice restaurants, if you don’t finish your wine you can request to have it corked and take it home.

  “No one is supposed to give you dirty looks if you do that,” Yves said, empowering his novice wine students. Throughout the class Yves and I would pretend nothing was happening between us, but when I walked by the metro he would pick me up in his black Jaguar and we would go back to his apartment. Things were fun, but I knew it wouldn’t last. Once you open good wine it has to end or go bad.

  On the last day of our wine class we had a test. We had to answer questions like Where do the Beaujolais wines come from? and When are you supposed to drink them? There were also tricky true-or-false questions. When we were done with the w
ritten test Yves poured each of us a glass of red wine. We had to taste it and describe it using as many details as possible. The color, the smell, every possible nuance that would give us clues as to where it came from. I looked at the glass of wine and held it up to the light and studied the rich burgundy color. I tilted the glass to see how slowly the wine dripped down the sides of the glass. I stuck my nose in the glass and took in the aroma with my eyes closed. I could smell the earth. I could smell the sky. I could smell my past. The fragrance of the wine took me back to being eight. Everywhere around me were grapevines. On the vine were the most beautiful grapes in California and maybe on earth. My mother picked grapes in front of me and my father picked grapes behind me, with my siblings scattered around me. I imagined that the kind of grapes that made this wine were the kind of grapes that I touched and soiled with my blood once. Being undocumented, my family was used to hiding from the Migra, the INS, Immigration and Naturalization Service, or Homeland Security, or whatever you want to call it now. That one particular day I stopped to admire a bunch of grapes that were hanging so beautifully, as though God had hung them there for me to pick. Maybe it was the way the rays of sunlight hit them during that magic hour that made them so unique to look at amid the many other bunches of grapes. They looked so purple, so plump and soft and just perfect. When I held the bunch in my two hands I felt as though I was carrying a newborn baby or a warm heart. My father came by and tapped me on the head and ordered me to get back to cutting.

  “¡Rapido! ¡Apurate! ¡No mas corta, corta!” Fast, just cut, cut, he barked. I quickly grabbed my small knife and was about to cut the stem of the beautiful bunch of grapes when a distant desperate voice yelled, “¡La Migra!” I was startled and accidentally buried the knife in my hand. Blood dripped down my hand and onto the grapes. My blood was deep red; it looked like wine dripping out of me. I yelled and my father put his hand over my mouth to shut me up. I wanted him to hold me and comfort me, but instead he scolded me, “¡Callate!” Seconds later he whispered loudly, “¡Vámonos!” When he took his hand off my mouth I licked my hand to stop the blood. Then we heard everyone running among the grapevines.

  “¡Corranle!” my father yelled, ordering his tribe to run away. I yanked the bunch of grapes and took off running with my family. My hand kept bleeding and my blood dripped on the dirt, leaving a trail. I put the bunch of grapes in my bleeding hand to keep the blood from falling out of me. My hand throbbed and the cut felt like it was getting bigger as we ran from the Border Patrol officers in the distance yelling, “INS!” My mother found a run-down shack covered with vines and bushes blending into a hill, camouflaged by the greenery. We all ran toward it and hid inside. We lay low on the dirt. My blood kept dripping on the dirt. No one noticed that I was bleeding and hurting because they were holding their breath, trying not to make a sound, trying to be invisible. We all looked at one another in silent prayer that we didn’t get caught or separated. I rubbed my hand against the earth to clog up my cut with dirt. It stung at first, but I finally made it stop.

  After an hour of waiting in silence I got hungry and took my bunch of grapes, soiled by my blood, and ate one grape. I didn’t care that it had my blood on it; I licked it clean. It could have been that I was just so hungry, but eating that beautiful purple grape comforted me. Since there was no one there to hold me, the grapes comforted me. They numbed the pain of being cut and then ignored. I continued to eat the grapes and each grape I ate was a prayer to God. The largest grape was for my mother and then for my father. I prayed for each one of my siblings so that we would pick enough fruit and vegetables so that we could leave this type of work and get an apartment in the city and never go hungry again…

  I opened my eyes and saw the wine glass in front of me. I chuckled, because after that memory I did not know what to write down. So I simply wrote on my test: I smell the earth. I didn’t care about my score on the test since I had already scored with Yves. He had ultimately taught me not to analyze wine but to enjoy it.

  A week after the wine class finished Yves and I had agreed to meet for lunch at Ladurée, on the Champs-Élysées. I entered Ladurée and walked up to the hostess. I asked her if she spoke English and, after she nodded that she did, I explained that I was waiting for a friend. She immediately cut me off and moved on to the next person. I clenched my jaw and stifled the urge to yell. Sometimes you didn’t know if the French were just plain rude or if their English wasn’t good enough to lubricate the social transitions necessary to be respectful… which is probably exactly what they say about Americans.

  I decided to walk into the restaurant and search for Yves. He might have gotten there early and was already seated at a table. I headed upstairs and found him right away, holding the knee of a beautiful Frenchwoman under the table. I quickly turned away and continued looking at them through a mirror on the wall. My blood rushed to my heart and it beat faster.

  Seconds later I felt so cold. I knew he didn’t love me, but I didn’t have to find out like this! I continued looking at the mirror and observed that he was as charming as ever, fulfilling my stereotype of a Frenchman. The longer I stared, the more I realized I wasn’t heartbroken; I was merely disappointed that he didn’t laugh as much with me as he was with her. And here I’d thought I was funny. I went downstairs and waited for Yves to meet me as planned. I decided to get in line for the patisserie boutique just to kill time. I was about to order four macarons when I turned around and saw Yves kissing his mystery date on the mouth. What a cocky bastard. He knew I would be arriving in five minutes and he was so blatant. So I ordered a dozen macarons instead and made him wait for me. I wanted to leave the restaurant and make him wait around all night, but in reality I knew he wouldn’t wait more than fifteen minutes. I was his exotic Mexican dish, but not his main meal. I took my beautiful box of macarons and stuffed it into my raggedy purse. I knew my purse looked like I had stolen it from a homeless woman, but it was like my loyal friend who had been with me through all the tough times.

  “Chéri!” I yelled to catch his attention. He turned in my direction and I surprised him by giving him the sloppiest French kiss. The hostess looked at him with disdain and asked him in French if we were ready for our table. Throughout lunch I pretended to be so in love with him. “Kill them with kindness,” a priest-turned-politician once told me when I was doing a story on him. “You must lie to us,” I recall Yves telling me on our first night together. So I pretended that my life revolved around him and his wine class.

  “Yves, you are so funny and amazing… I think I’m falling in love with you,” I lied, then looked away as though I meant it and felt vulnerable having said it.

  He was so flattered by all my attention, but then he started fidgeting with his tie.

  “Canela, maybe we should leave,” he whispered. He looked around to see what the people at the neighboring tables were looking at since, just minutes ago, he’d been talking and flirting with a blonde. I purposely imitated the other woman. I was cruelly mocking him, but this was the way I spared myself the feelings of being so disappointed by him. I’d known it was going to end; I just hadn’t thought it would be that soon.

  We strolled up the Champs-Élysées, holding hands. I stopped pretending I was in love with him, and just tried to keep a happy exterior to avoid showing my disappointment. We walked past all the overpriced American franchises, up to the Louis Vuitton megastore. Surprisingly, there was no line that day.

  “Let’s go in here,” Yves said.

  “Sure,” I said, excited about finally seeing what the big deal was about. I straightened myself up a bit before walking in, as though I were entering the Vatican or the Smithsonian. The designer suit–clad doorman looking like a CIA agent opened the doors to a marble palace. The store resembled a museum; the purses looked like priceless artifacts. There were tourists in shorts standing alongside women in designer outfits. A trio of Muslim women in silk veils, looking as made-up and modern as their veils permitted, walked around escorted by thei
r bodyguard. They looked irked by the fact that it was so crowded. I had to force myself not to stare at them or judge them. They had jewels and luxuries from head to toe, but they didn’t have freedom. Sure, they could buy whatever they desired, but they couldn’t move free of their bodyguard’s watchful eye. They carried large purses and occasionally would remove their Gucci sunglasses to inspect the bags and LV leather bracelets. If I were them I would exchange all my jewels and luxuries for freedom, I thought. I shook my head. None of my business, I reminded myself, and turned my attention to a pack of wild Chinese tourists, scurrying around buying up merchandise as fast as their tour bus would allow.

  “No, you cannot purchase two of the same items,” the LV saleswoman informed a woman in French-accented English while studying the woman’s Chinese passport. The translator for the Chinese tourist explained, and the woman wanting to buy her two identical LV signature bags pointed at a different bag. In the background I saw a Japanese girl named Miyuki from cooking school purchasing several items. I thought about saying hi, but I was afraid to have her see me with Yves, so I turned away before our eyes could meet.

  Yves went to the men’s section, and then we made our way to the second floor, where it wasn’t so crowded. I spied a burgundy crocodile bag, all by itself, radiating. The bag had caught my attention from a distance and I walked toward it until I saw the price and my hand froze. Who the hell needs a sixteen- thousand-euro bag? Obviously need is not the appropriate word here. Who the hell wants a sixteen-thousand-euro bag? Ah, but these were not just bags; they were status symbols, archetypal symbols. When the LV saleswoman would open the bags for the customers to see the insides, the shoppers would inspect them, sticking their fingers inside to feel, probing them carefully the way a gynecologist would examine a vagina. As I passed the countless counters I chuckled quietly, imagining hearing: “Yes, this vagina is very sturdy. It never loosens. No matter what you stick in there, the elasticity and firmness will remain intact.” The female customer would look at the price and think what a bargain it was. How else could you explain paying five hundred to two thousand to sixteen thousand euros for a mere handbag?