Everyone Wants to Be Ambassador to France

by Bryan Hurt

  They weren’t special, not special nor better than anyone else, really. Laurent had been on a honeymoon, too, you know—Los Angeles. He’d photographed the stars of Hollywood Boulevard, went to Disneyland, saw the tar pits, the saber-toothed tigers and woolly mammoths. But not all of life is a honeymoon. Even then he knew that. While on his honeymoon he knew that life wasn’t a honeymoon. He wouldn’t even have said that his honeymoon had been a honeymoon. It was fun, a nice vacation, but it wasn’t perfect. He and his wife weren’t perfect.

  It was late when he got home, after midnight. He’d stopped at a beach, put his feet in the water, smoked cigarettes. His wife was sleeping, but when he came into bed he woke her. “You smell like cigarettes,” she said. “I was smoking,” he said. “At least take a shower,” she said. “I put on clean sheets this morning.” He ejected himself from the bed, stripped out of his undershirt, boxers, stood under the water. When did it come to be like this? This. He was sure that they used to like each other, but now it seemed that at best they tolerated each other. More likely it was a mutual and low-grade resentment. Tonight it was his cigarettes. Tomorrow it would be something else that annoyed her, and also his cigarettes. He’d always been a smoker. This wasn’t a surprise that he’d dropped on her suddenly, like SURPRISE. They used to smoke together. When they were younger, they’d go to house parties at beach houses, get a little drunk, and stand outside on the patio sharing a cigarette, house music thumping inside the house. Now she acted as if she were above it and blamed him because he was not. It wasn’t his fault that he was still the same person she’d married. He was still himself. She was the one who was different.

  He would have told her this, too, if he’d had the chance. But she’d fallen back asleep by the time he’d finished his shower, and he wasn’t yet the kind of person to wake another person up just to make a point. He would have also liked to have told her about the honeymooners, the man with the clam allergy. She’d have liked that anecdote, found it funny, because she was in the clam business. Bought them from farmers and sold them to restaurants. “A classic middleman,” she’d said all those years ago when they met at the house party, shared a cigarette, and explained their jobs to each other. His favorite kind of small talk because his job was easy, not abstract. A nurse never had to explain to anyone what a nurse was. “Not a middleman,” he’d said, feeling drunk and overfunny. “A middleclam.”

  Maybe it was better that she was asleep and he couldn’t tell her about the honeymooners. The thought of them holding hands still made his heart beat angrily, and inevitably the conversation would have turned around and back toward their own lives. There was the question he needed to ask her. The question. A question about who she’d eaten lunch with the other day when he’d ridden into town on an ambulance, an emergency call that wasn’t really an emergency, a German tourist with sunstroke. If that was an emergency then it was a common emergency, one that happened a dozen times a day. Still he was happy to get out of the hospital, liked the EMTs because they told dirty jokes, liked the tourist part of town because of the old buildings, a nice change of pace. While the EMTs worked on the German, he stepped away from the ambulance to smoke a cigarette. That’s when he saw her sitting at a table with an umbrella outside the clam café across from the hotel that had been the shipbuilder’s house. Not unusual because she often met there with clam buyers. But unusual because the man she was meeting with was not a clam buyer. A concierge by the looks of it, gold epaulets, red jacket. Obviously not a clam buyer because of the way she was leaning across the table, holding hands, and under the table, the way she was rubbing her foot up and down his leg.

  Perhaps he was mistaken. Perhaps it wasn’t his wife he had seen that day but someone who looked extremely like her. It was possible. Anything was possible, even on a small island, an island as small as this one. In the morning he could ask her about it. He could ask her if he really wanted to ask. The only thing that was impossible was un-asking. Once he asked he could not take it back. And let’s say he was mistaken. In marriage, accusing your spouse of cheating on you is one thing you can’t be mistaken about.

  Laurent closed his eyes and tried to summon sleep. He was not happy but he was not unhappy. What do you call that medium place between one thing and another thing? It wasn’t nothing. He was pretty sure that what he felt was not a lack of affect. He felt something. He thought about the honeymooners again. Maybe he was stuck on them because what he felt was an uncomfortable kinship. They were also in a transitional state, suspended between one thing and another thing. Nothing had changed but everything was changing.

  5

  The first Laurent, the Laurent back in Paris, remembered the honeymooners, too, but more fondly. Sure they did not tip, but he could not help it, he liked them anyway. Ice for your rash? A bucket for your vomit? An umbrella because it’s raining? It wasn’t often that he felt so needed.

  He felt melancholy when they left for the island, but it was a good island, and he knew they would be happy. “Goodbye,” he said, “Au revoir,” and loaded their bags into the trunk of the taxi, waving. Then he went back to work. He had a few more hours in his shift. He loaded more bags into taxis, helped a couple who had lost their passports. He didn’t mind. He liked working.

  After his shift he changed out of his hotel uniform, into civilian clothes. He walked along the banks of the river and admired the old bridges that crossed over it. The stonework, the rumble of the cars and footsteps above him. The river was turning pink and orange, the sun was setting. He loved his city. He loved his city because everyone loved it. He’d never lived anywhere else, could not imagine it.

  After Pont Neuf, he turned away from the river. Stopped at a bar for a glass of white wine, listened to the chatter of the other bar patrons, and underneath that, strains of Mozart. He looked at his watch. By now the honeymooners’ train would be arriving at the island. He hoped they liked it. He hadn’t been there in many years but he remembered it as a quiet place, old and charming. He remembered bike rides, beachgrass, ice cream cones at sunset. How lucky, he thought. He’d been very lucky.

  He finished his wine and walked through the narrow side streets, his head pleasantly buzzing. Yellow lights glowed on in the apartments above him. From the open windows, domestic sounds. TVs, pans clattering. He had never been married. He’d had lovers, sure, men mostly, but women too. He’d always believed in Eros, love as pure expression, not in the strictures of bodies, but he’d never found love that lasted. Inevitably love grew cold, he and his lover became distant, would end amicably.

  He did not regret this except for sometimes when he came home from work, poured himself some of the morning’s cold coffee, turned on the TV, and shared his day with no one. Had it been only a month since he and his last lover had drifted? There was still evidence in the apartment that not so long ago his life had been very different. A comb, a toothbrush, a paperback that he himself would never have been caught dead reading. It was lonely. He could not deny that it was lonely. But even then it was not such a bad life. He watched the news people on the TV recount the day’s tragedies: someone died, someone died, somewhere faraway many people were dying. He had his health, at least. He had friends, he had a job he found fulfilling. He thought about the honeymooners, their flu, their rash. They were lucky, they were young and had really never suffered. There was so much real suffering in front of them, so much sadness. You didn’t have to watch it on TV, you only had to live life a little to know that it was full of unexpected sadness. This honeymoon of theirs, this time together, it was a gift, no matter how impermanent.

  He cooked an omelette, had another glass of wine, watched the news become a soap opera. His phone rang and he let it ring a few times before answering. It was the hotel, the desk clerk, his nighttime counterpart. There was an emergency, the clerk said, an emergency. Something about a young couple and stolen passports. He said that Laurent was needed. Needed. What a rush. He would be there, Laurent said. He was lacing his shoes. He was on his
way already.

  THE BILINGUAL SCHOOL

  So we sent our kids to the bilingual school. It was Mrs. Eagle’s idea. She’d found it on her morning walk. Turned down Milwood Avenue instead of cutting across Crescent Court, looked up from her steaming cup of Starbucks, and there it was, a school inside a tall blue fence.

  On the fence were bright paintings of charming and childish things: airplanes, flowers, tigers.

  The sign above the doorway read: L’ÉCOLE BILINGUE, ENGLISH AND FRENCH.

  All of this was written in a fancy white script.

  Inside the fence she heard the happy sounds of children. She pressed her face to a knothole and saw children playing hopscotch. Children swinging the tetherball. Children clutching leather-strapped books and nodding smartly to each other. All of them in perfect black berets.

  Across the street was the public school, the middle school where we would have to send our children when they got to be that age. Outside, there were children lazing on the steps. Children smoking cigarettes. Children practically fornicating with other children. At home Mrs. Eagle called the rest of us. A meeting for concerned parents, she said. Mothers who are concerned about the education of their children.

  We ate madeleine cookies at the meeting. Dipped them in tea and talked about how exciting it would be for our children to learn French.

  French is the language of love, said Mrs. Davis.

  But not amorous love, I hope, said Mrs. Cavendish, who happened to be our host. She moved around the living room, pouring more tea.

  No, said Mrs. Eagle. Italian is the language of amorous love. Spanish is the language of forbidden love. German is the language of modern love. English is the language of self love. French, she said, is the language of brotherly love.

  We all agreed that brotherly love was the best.

  Then Mrs. Spatz took out a picture book and we looked at pictures of French couples carrying umbrellas. French couples eating croissants. French couples riding tandem bicycles along the green banks of the Seine. Mrs. Spatz began humming “Aux Champs Elysées.”

  At first our kids didn’t want to go to the bilingual school. They wanted to know what was wrong with their current school. What was wrong with primary language–only education?

  We explained that their current school was failing them. Primary language–only education was making them vulgar and limited in expression.

  Mrs. Cavendish had shown us a drawing her daughter had made in art class. It looked like an ill-formed dog hopping over a fence.

  A nice dog, said Mrs. Eagle.

  It’s supposed to be a horse, said Mrs. Cavendish.

  We told our children that at the bilingual school they would learn to draw horses that looked like horses.

  But they complained about the dress code. We don’t like berets, they said. They’re too hot in the summer, they said, and don’t cover your ears in the winter.

  We told them they should consider themselves lucky to wear berets.

  We showed them pictures of famous beret wearers: artists, intellectuals, and Che Guevara.

  Che Guevara is un-American, they said.

  French is un-American, they said.

  We admit they almost had us there for a moment. How had that picture of Che Guevara gotten in there?

  We asked Mrs. Spatz, who was in charge of assembling the pictures. I think he’s cute, she said.

  We agreed that Che Guevara was cute. We liked his eyes and his cheekbones. The rakish way he pursed his lips.

  Che Guevara is cute, we told our children.

  Berets are cute, we said.

  French is cute.

  There’s nothing more American than being cute.

  The children weren’t the only ones to object to the bilingual school. Our husbands complained as well. They didn’t understand why we should send our children to a special school. Didn’t regular schools still teach French? We explained that bilingual schools didn’t just teach the language. They taught culture, music, food, art.

  Public schools can’t teach you to listen to Debussy, we said.

  Public schools can’t teach you to appreciate soft cheese.

  Over breakfast our husbands grumbled and looked at the brochures. There were turtle-necked children smiling happily on the covers. The Eiffel Tower towering in the background.

  The costs, our husbands said.

  The social stigma, they said.

  They pointed out that the bilingual school didn’t even have an American-style football team. Without American football how would our children learn to interact with their peers?

  We cleared their breakfast plates and rinsed them in our sinks. We watched oily swells of bacon fat pool and cloud in the dishwater like our dreams.

  What to do? we asked ourselves.

  We gazed at pictures of Che Guevara. Asked ourselves: What would Che Guevara do?

  Withhold sex, said Mrs. Eagle.

  We were sipping Frappuccinos. We sat beneath an umbrella and shielded our eyes from the sun.

  Mrs. Eagle explained that we would withhold sex until our husbands came to see our point of view. Mrs. Davis fanned herself with a napkin.

  How long? she asked.

  Until our request can no longer be denied, said Mrs. Eagle.

  How long will that be? asked Mrs. Davis.

  About a week, said Mrs. Eagle.

  Mrs. Cavendish plunged her green straw into a plastic cup. What if we’re already withholding sex? she said.

  Mrs. Spatz removed her sunglasses. You have to have sex, she said, in order to withhold sex.

  About a week later we sent our children to the bilingual school.

  We walked them to the blue fence and said goodbye underneath a picture of a smiling tiger.

  Goodbye, said our children.

  And they were quickly assimilated into the playground by their peers, their black berets indistinguishable from all the others.

  At the end of the day we met our children outside the blue fence.

  Hello, we said.

  Bonjour, they said.

  Mrs. Eagle squealed with delight.

  It went on this way for several weeks. We said goodbye outside the fence and they said au revoir. We said hello and they said bonjour.

  They added other expressions to their vocabulary, such as s’il vous plaît, excusez-moi, and merci beaucoup. When we went to In-N-Out they ordered their cheeseburgers with pommes frites.

  Even our husbands seemed impressed. How do you say American football? they asked.

  Football, said our children.

  How do you say soccer? said our husbands.

  Football, said our children.

  Our husbands smiled and shook their heads. They marveled at the ambiguity.

  How do you say cows? said our husbands.

  We were picnicking in the mountains. Picnic baskets on picnic blankets on the ground. Around us, cows were chewing grass.

  Les vaches, said our children.

  Our husbands continued asking.

  How do you say chewing? How do you say grass?

  While they asked, we women ate sandwiches. We removed them from our picnic baskets, unwrapped them, spread them with cheese. Mrs. Spatz said that cheese is a product of aging. Controlled spoilage, she said. Her twins taught her that. At the bilingual school they learned that cheese is created by souring milk, letting bacteria colonies settle and grow.

  The smell of cheese is the smell of decay, she said.

  We sniffed our sandwiches. They seemed to smell fine.

  Mrs. Davis told us that her cheese smelled like soil.

  Mrs. Eagle said that her cheese smelled like shoes. But good shoes, she said. Expensive. She took a bite.

  Mrs. Cavendish said that the ability to ignore signs of death is a mark of civilization. By learning about cheese, she said, our children are learning to be civilized.

  Cowbells clanked around us.

  Our husbands and children, playing soccer, cheered.

  Mrs. Davis wa
s the first to notice that something was wrong. After school, her children continued speaking French. They’d sit at the dinner table and talk to each other in sentences that chimed like bells.

  When she told them to brush their teeth they’d look at her, say something tinkling, and laugh.

  When she asked them to take out the garbage they’d stare at her blankly, at the two Hefty bags in her hands.

  Je ne sais pas, said the boy.

  His sister: Je ne comprends pas.

  And my husband is worthless, said Mrs. Davis. He just laughs. He thinks it’s funny that they talk to us that way.

  We were at Mrs. Cavendish’s. Pictures of horses that looked like horses hung on her fridge.

  What are they saying? asked Mrs. Spatz. She blew on her tea.

  Exactly, said Mrs. Davis. It’s impossible to know.

  Mrs. Eagle said that it was very difficult to learn a foreign language without immersing yourself in it. They’re immersing, she said.

  But at home, Mrs. Eagle found her son sunning himself by the pool. His black beret seemed blacker. The felted wool soaking up all the light.

  Bonjour, he said. His words chimed across the water.

  Comment allez-vous?

  Later that week we sat by the same pool. Suntan lotion wafted in the air. How old is he? asked Mrs. Davis.

  Mrs. Eagle rolled onto her stomach. Ten, she said.

  For tanning, said Mrs. Davis, ten seems kind of young.

  Mrs. Spatz told us that her twins had suddenly become interested in mime. They actually do a great routine, she said. One blows up a balloon and hands it to the other. The other floats away. But they get paint everywhere, she said. Not to mention bedtime, she said. Whenever it’s bedtime they become trapped in some kind of box.