by Rozsa Gaston
If George was still around, he’d let me know what, if any, literary-set parties might be taking place over the next few weeks within the Anglo-American community. They were usually hosted by older, expatriate English, American or Australian men, who had lots of younger male friends with literary aspirations as well as ones to meet footloose and fancy-free females traveling abroad.
That would be me.
As early evening fell, I wandered into the bookstore. An overgrown boy at the cash register informed me George was on vacation in Italy.
“When will he be back?” I asked.
“Around the beginning of next week,” the boy replied, looking disdainful. The James Joyce style owl-shaped glasses he wore made him appear about twenty-two, trying to look forty.
‘Out of your league, baby boy,’ I telegraphed to him as I paid for a novella by Françoise Sagan I’d found in the cheap paperbacks box outside the front of the shop. I decided not to inquire about upcoming parties. No way was I going to any party the twit before me might recommend.
On the sidewalk again, my plans were vague. The night was warm and balmy. Students, intermingled with tourists, roamed the street paralleling the Seine. I decided to head down the maze of crooked streets behind Boulevard Saint Michel to see if my favorite poster store was still there. As I made my way, I assessed the smells coming from outdoor food vendors. The night whispered to me as I passed stalls of roasted lamb, crêpes, and Moroccan sweets made from pistachio, walnuts, and honey. The poster shop was still there, as was just about everything else I remembered in Paris. The city seemed impervious to change. Why tinker with perfection?
I went in and perused the walls. Old movie posters were mixed in with the usual Toulouse Lautrec Moulin Rouge reproductions. Sinister clowns on circus advertisements leered at me. The characters on the posters all seemed to be suggesting something hidden, provocative, louche. Instead of frightening me, I was attracted. I greeted them silently like old friends. They were there to offer a taste of Paris to the tourists patronizing the shop. What was Paris if not suggestive, provocative, self-assured, and just the slightest bit sleazy? If it wasn’t, why would so many of us be madly in love with it?
After having my fill of browsing, I strolled back toward the Place Saint Michel and decided to check out the Seine from the vantage point of the bridge before heading toward the brightly lit café next to it. About mid-way across the Pont Saint Michel, I leaned over its wide stone balustrade. Down below on either side of the dark, placid water, couples strolled or sat. Some, I imagined were leaning against the wall, engaging in activities that still occupied a hidden room in my mind.
“Woo-hoo. Regarde-moi, le guignol. Look at me, I’m a clown,” a voice sang out from the darkness. I peered toward the sound of the voice to make out two figures, one standing, one seated, on the stone staircase going down to the river walkway from the Île Saint-Louis. A tall man, with dark hair and white skin was pretending he was about to fall into the river. The other man held his ankle from his seated position behind, alternately yelling at him to stop, then to go ahead and jump if he felt like it.
I watched for a few minutes, amused.
“Should I jump?” the dark-haired one yelled up to me.
“Don’t do it,” I yelled back, in the off chance there was any seriousness to his question.
“Will you have a drink with us if I don’t?” he shouted back.
I shook my head, the darkness hiding my smile.
“I’m going to fall. It’s your fault, Américaine. Help…help!” He tried to twist away from his companion, who leapt up and restrained him by the shoulders.
“Don’t jump. Stay calm,” I called to him.
“I can’t help it. There’s no point in living if you don’t have a drink with us.”
Now that was a line that could only have been offered by a man with Gallic roots. Without thinking, I moved closer to get a better look at the jokers. The tall, dark one was good looking. But it was the other who caught my attention. Shorter and slimly well-built, he silently stood behind his theatrical friend, restraining his arms from behind him and peering up at me. His expression was relaxed, but inquisitive. I’d bet his friend pulled this stunt on a regular basis.
“I’m on my way to the café on the corner. If you want to come, then come on,” I said, surprising myself. What was I thinking?
The shorter man looked at me steadily. His friend continued to clown around on the staircase balustrade, his body like a circus performer, twisting and turning into positions of imminent danger, poised to fall into the water below.
To make my point, I turned and walked toward the café, not looking back to see if they followed. In a minute, a strong, fresh smell of young masculinity overtook me on my left. They’d caught up.
“Bon soir, I’m Gerard,” the clownish one said. He looked harmless – tall, handsome and goofy.
I shot him an acknowledging glance, then looked over at his friend.
“Bon soir. I’m Pascal.” The shorter one had curly, light brown hair, and a tight, muscular body. Nothing to write home about. But his gaze was direct and unwavering. He didn’t look caught up in his own cleverness, the way the taller one did.
“I’m Ava.”
To that, Gerard took my hand and leaned over, kissing it with a flourish. Over his head, my gaze connected with Pascal’s.
We made our way to the Café Saint Michel. Brilliantly lit and relatively crowded, it was a good choice should I need to make a fast getaway.
“Wine for all!” Gerard practically shouted to the waiter.
“No. I’ll have a coffee,” I corrected him. “Un café crème, grande tasse,” I told the waiter.
“Why not have some wine with us?” Gerard suggested, cajolingly. One thick, dark eyebrow rose higher than the other.
I sensed he was intelligent, as well as funny. But there was something in his demeanor that put me off.
“I don’t drink wine with strangers,” I told him.
“I’ll have a café crème too. A large cup,” Pascal spoke up.
I liked the way he matched me, overruling his showy friend.
“Okay, then. Coffee. Un espresso,” Gerard amended.
The waiter ambled off, bored with yet another American girl pickup scene.
Gerard took the spoon on the table and balanced it on his nose. Pascal and I watched. Then Gerard slipped the spoon above his earlobe. As we stared, it disappeared. We laughed. In a minute, it resurfaced in the inside pocket of his jacket.
“What do you do?” I asked Gerard, before it occurred to me how inanely American my question sounded.
He volunteered that he was a student of mime, had run away from the circus and made money from jumping in the Seine for the benefit of tourists during the summer season.
I looked at Pascal, who rolled his eyes. They were large, round, and hazel. I’d noticed the preponderance of hazel-colored eyes amongst the French. It was a mutable color, sometimes green, sometimes brown, sometimes gold, depending on the light. The changeable color seemed consistent with the French character, a people neither northern nor southern, but with Latin roots that gave them more of an affinity with their southern Mediterranean neighbors than with the Anglo-Saxons to the north or the Germanic folk to their east.
Pascal’s eyes were now gleaming gold.
I tried not to stare.
“And what do you do?”
“Je travaille à un hôpital, comme un aide-infirmier.”
I didn’t understand. “Do you mean you’re a nurse?” In Europe, male nurses were not uncommon.
“Pas exactement. Je suis un aide-infirmier.”
“Huh.” It sounded like he did something related to nursing. “What do you do at your job?” I followed up, realizing once again I’d stumbled into the American trap of grilling someone I’d just met about his career. Sooo gauche.
He shrugged. “J’aide les patients, je fait leurs lits; je lave les morts et d’autres choses.” His eyes continued to glo
w at me, carrying on a separate conversation.
Not really following his long response, I filed it away to figure out later.
Satisfied Pascal was gainfully employed in a respectable profession and not caring that Gerard was not, I studied the quieter man across from me while his sidekick mugged for us. Gerard was entertaining, gregarious, and very good at engaging his audience. Soon, not only were we laughing but students at neighboring tables were, too. Yet something about him didn’t attract me. I couldn’t put my finger on it. He had charisma in spades over Pascal. But there was something Pascal had that Gerard did not. It might have been an attention span.
Coffee together was pleasant for the same reason that it had been pleasant the first time I’d met Jean-Michel four and a half years earlier. I wasn’t required to talk, to spit out my life history or personal facts about myself that I didn’t care to divulge to strangers. Neither Gerard nor Pascal pressured me to tell them anything whatsoever about myself. I felt comfortable and light-hearted, reassured that there were two of them instead of one. They played off each other, or rather Gerard playacted, while Pascal hung back dreamily and looked at me.
We finished our coffee and left. I wasn’t in any rush to get back to my room, so I agreed when Gerard suggested we walk for a bit. We strolled along the quay of the Seine in the direction of the Eiffel Tower as well as the Griffith’s flat.
It was one of those warm summer nights when every adventure seemed safe. The idea that Pascal was some sort of nurse appealed to me. He was in the healing arts. How could he be dangerous? The more Gerard talked and jumped around, the more I was aware of Pascal’s quiet presence next to me. It was as if we were on a first date, our bodies holding their own entente cordiale as we watched a stage performance.
“Where do you live?” I asked him.
“North of the city. In Saint Denis, just outside the Pèriphèrique,” he said, referring to the circular ring road that defined Paris’s borders.
“How far is it from here?”
“By the RER, about thirty minutes.” The Réseau Express Régional was the rail line through Paris that served its suburbs.
Having no concept of any Parisian suburbs, other than Neuilly-sur-Seine, a wealthy enclave to the northwest of Paris which I’d visited one Sunday afternoon with Jean-Michel, I envisioned a well-ordered community of stately single family houses with filigreed balconies, majestic floor-to-ceiling French windows, and well-appointed gardens.
“Is it pretty?” I asked. I really just wanted to know whether Pascal thought I was pretty, which I already did.
“Bah – no, not really. It’s like all the other suburbs around Paris.” He retreated into silence, matching my pace and not feeling the need to clutter up the still, night air with conversation.
Gerard, meanwhile, was walking on top of the stone balustrade bordering the Seine, attracting attention. I watched as a muscular lone black male wearing a backpack stared at him. Gerard had a knack for getting noticed. It was fine by me as long as he didn’t fall, splashing into the river below, or worse, splattering his brains on the stone pathway below. Pascal apparently had seen this stunt many times before, as he paid him no mind.
“Gerard est un pédé,” he said out of nowhere, reading my thoughts.
What? I’d heard the term before and knew it meant something less shocking in French than it did in English, but still shocking. Perhaps I’d heard wrong.
“What did you say?”
“Il est un pédé. Un pédéraste, tu sais?” “ He’s a pederaste. A homosexual, understand?”
Wow. He’d hit the nail on the head with his answer to exactly what I’d been wondering. Then why was Pascal hanging around with him?
“And you?”
“No. Never. “ He shook his head violently. “I like women,” he explained, making sure I got the point.
I did. But I didn’t know too many straight guys back home who hung out with gay ones. Then again, I didn’t know too many gay guys, period.
“How long have you been friends?” I asked.
“All my life. We went to school together. From the École Maternelle,” he said, referring to the French state-run, free-to-all pre-school for children between three and six years old.
“That’s nice,” I replied, wondering if anything about Gerard’s disposition had rubbed off on Pascal. It wasn’t apparent, if it had.
“We’re completely different. That’s why we get along,” Pascal continued. “He’s funny, I’m not. He talks a lot, I don’t. He likes men, I like women. Comme ça.” He stopped, raising his hands in Gallic gesture, as if to say “there you have it.”
That was twice Pascal had told me he liked women. Message received.
I kept my thoughts to myself as we walked through the deepening night. One fact seemed indisputable. Pascal liked me, and I liked him. My rationalization skills took over. Wasn’t this sort of triangle even better than a one-to-one liaison with a man from another country, another culture? At least with Gerard as gag man, I could laugh, let down my guard without worry that two men were interested in me, and appeal to him should Pascal prove to be something other than what he appeared.
I looked over at the shorter man. He seemed soft, gentle, dreamy, and intuitive. He was a professional caregiver. I’d bet anything, he knew how to cook. What Frenchman didn’t?
“Are you in Paris for long?” he asked.
“Two weeks,” I replied, wondering why I didn’t feel the need to censor information with him, a complete stranger.
“Are you free tomorrow?” he asked.
I was. But wasn’t it gauche to admit I had no plans? Guys were supposed to give you lead time of at least three to four days when they asked you out, where I came from. On the other hand, I was no longer in the country I came from, less than two weeks remained until my family joined me, and I had no agenda whatsoever.
“Why do you ask?” I hedged.
“Do you want to go for dinner?”
“With you?” I meant with him alone, but it hadn’t come out right.
“If you prefer, I can bring Gerard.”
Pascal had understood perfectly. Maybe I did prefer Gerard to join us. Pascal was the one I was interested in, but I didn’t know him well enough to accept an immediate date. Yet there was no time for a slow and gradually unfolding getting-to-know-him period. Gerard could provide distraction as well as entertainment. Plus, he could be a foil, should Pascal not appeal to me twenty four hours hence, the way he was appealing to me at that moment.
I doubted that would happen.
“Yes. Bring Gerard.”
“As you wish.” He smiled.
A kinetic connection jumped between us. We both knew we didn’t ultimately want Gerard around. But for now, we needed him to play chaperone.
Pascal moved closer to Gerard, engaging him in brief conversation, too fast for me to follow. In a minute, he returned to my side.
“Do you want to meet tomorrow around six?”
“Where?”
“I want to take you to a restaurant behind Saint Michel. On Boulevard Raspail. Do you like crêpes?”
“Yes. Definitely.” My mouth watered.
“Shall we pick you up?”
I hesitated.
“If you wish, we can meet at the same café where we just had coffee.”
“That’s good.”
“Around six then.”
“Fine.”
We continued to walk, the night quiet. Soon, we would be in my neighborhood. As much as my companions seemed trustworthy, I didn’t want them to accompany me to my building.
“Listen, I should say goodnight here,” I told Pascal a block away from Rue de Belgrade.
“Are you sure?” he asked.
“Yes. See you tomorrow at six.”
“You promise, you’ll come?”
“Promise.”
“Could I have your phone number?”
“I don’t have one.”
Our eyes locked. Don’t worry, I�
�ll be there, mine said to his.
“Don’t you want us to walk you home?” Gerard asked.
“No,” I said simply, not taking my eyes off Pascal. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“But it’s no problem,” he pressed until Pascal cut him off, muttering something under his breath.
“As you like,” Pascal finished for him.
Something inside zinged every time he answered ‘as you like.’ I could think of other things I liked that he might be interested in exploring with me.
“Très bien. A demain soir, Ava. Until tomorrow evening,” Gerard concurred, changing course. He reached in to kiss me, once on each cheek. I accepted, a teensy bit put off by the wet, sucking feel of his full lips on my skin. Then, it was Pascal’s turn.
“A demain,” he said, stepping close to me. His mouth on my cheek was dry, firm, masculine. A faint hint of sandalwood hit my nose. Spicy, but subtle.
“A demain,” I replied, suppressing an urge to inhale deeply. Quickly, I walked away, turning the corner to recover my privacy. There was a lot to reflect on. But all I could think of was Pascal’s gleaming, gold eyes following me home; Gerard left behind, dancing on the banks of the Seine.
At ten past six the next day I sat down at one of the outdoor tables on the terrace of the Café Saint Michel. The weather was warm and clear, so I tilted my head back to take advantage of the long rays of the late afternoon sun.
I wondered where my two new friends were. It wouldn’t do to look for them. They could find me. Instead, I closed my eyes to feel the sun’s warm rays dance on my lids.
In a minute, large, clammy hands stole over them. Ugh.
“Bon soir,” Gerard sang out.
I squirmed to release my face from his unwanted touch. I couldn’t be too mad. It was just Gerard being Gerard. Like a puppy dog peeing on your shoe, he couldn’t help himself.
“Bon soir,” I greeted him, hoping I could escape the mandatory two kisses. I couldn’t.
As he bussed me on each cheek, I looked for Pascal. Sure enough, there he was, standing to one side, wearing a clean, navy and white striped shirt and looking as if he’d slicked down his curly hair. He’d made an effort.