racing down the street. The car smashed into the taxi
door, crumpling it. It was a fancy taxi, a top-of-the-line Renault, and the driver was screaming at me about his insurance and how much my foreigner stupidity was going to
cost him. He was so disgusted he wouldn't let me pay the
fare. I skulked into the station, my head hung low: this was
my great adventure.
In the seventeen years since I met Andre, my ear has
swelled up on me from time to time, although never as dramatically as that September in Pau. When I was writing this
book, it happened again. The swelling came on so quickly
that I went right to the doctor, who took one look at me and
said, "You have herpes simplex on your ear." He'd only seen
one case of herpes on the ear in all his years of medical practice: a man who had the cold sore on his mouth kissed his
wife on the ear, and she got the virus.
As I searched back in my mind, I could see the tiny little
blister on Andre's upper lip, a neat imperfection I was determined to ignore but that turned into his legacy. My precious
ear, my radar, my antenna: the locus of my whole attraction
to French, and Andre went right for it! Maybe he bit me
there, maybe he kissed me, or maybe he just whispered
some of his words with his lip up against my earlobe, and
the virus took.
At the time, when I thought about him and Maite, I
thought, "It's because my French isn't good enough" and
"It's because she's French." When he told me I couldn't understand his language, Andre had picked the accusation I was most vulnerable to. Afterwards I thought, "I'll show
him. I'll know all there is to know about his language. I'll
know his language better than he does, someday."
After I had become a French professor, I wrote Andre,
and he wrote back. The nonconformist was still living at the
same address, and I had moved ten times. I felt glad about
that. There were a few spelling mistakes in his letter to me,
the kind I'm hired to correct. But I didn't feel gleeful about
his spelling, because it hadn't been spelling that I wanted
from him. I wanted to breathe in French with Andre, I
wanted to sweat French sweat. It was the rhythm and pulse
of his French I wanted, the body of it, and he refused me, he
told me I could never get that. I had to get it another way.
Micheline
I went into the pharmacy near my apartment to ask for
medicine for mosquito bites in my best French: "quelque
chose contre les piques de moustiques" (something against
...). But since "pique" means "spade," not "bite" ("bite" is
"piqure"), the pharmacist and I were off and running, his hilarity, my blushes, his old man Legion of Honor gallantry,
and all the rest. "Please call me Papillon," he said, and he invited me to his family lunch that Saturday. I like to tell the
story to students because it is about a French mistake leading to something good.
It was one of those endless meals you read about in language classes-a first course of foie gras and a second
course of rabbit and french fries and a salad and a cheese
course and a fancy store-bought dessert. Bottles of wine
with dust still on them from the cave tucked under the pharmacy, the kind with sediment in the bottom and a tenlayered taste you can study. I was seated up at the head of the
table, in close range of Papillon who teased me and told stories about his adventures in Chicago, in the twenties. "I am
Veaux-veal-you understand?" he kept saying in a
Maurice-Chevalier-only-more-so fractured English. He told me what it was like to sit on a park bench in Chicago and
watch the girls; he raved about the American girls and how
tough they were, like soldiers, with legs like bayonets. His
daughter Micheline was there, across the table from me, a
cautious smile set on her face. She interrupted Papillon's
flights of fancy to question me in a calm pedagogical voice,
every word with its beat. Her children were at the table too:
Florence was deeply shy; Sylvie and Francois were
door, crumpling it. It was a fancy taxi, a top-of-the-line Renault, and the driver was screaming at me about his insurance and how much my foreigner stupidity was going to
cost him. He was so disgusted he wouldn't let me pay the
fare. I skulked into the station, my head hung low: this was
my great adventure.
In the seventeen years since I met Andre, my ear has
swelled up on me from time to time, although never as dramatically as that September in Pau. When I was writing this
book, it happened again. The swelling came on so quickly
that I went right to the doctor, who took one look at me and
said, "You have herpes simplex on your ear." He'd only seen
one case of herpes on the ear in all his years of medical practice: a man who had the cold sore on his mouth kissed his
wife on the ear, and she got the virus.
As I searched back in my mind, I could see the tiny little
blister on Andre's upper lip, a neat imperfection I was determined to ignore but that turned into his legacy. My precious
ear, my radar, my antenna: the locus of my whole attraction
to French, and Andre went right for it! Maybe he bit me
there, maybe he kissed me, or maybe he just whispered
some of his words with his lip up against my earlobe, and
the virus took.
At the time, when I thought about him and Maite, I
thought, "It's because my French isn't good enough" and
"It's because she's French." When he told me I couldn't understand his language, Andre had picked the accusation I was most vulnerable to. Afterwards I thought, "I'll show
him. I'll know all there is to know about his language. I'll
know his language better than he does, someday."
After I had become a French professor, I wrote Andre,
and he wrote back. The nonconformist was still living at the
same address, and I had moved ten times. I felt glad about
that. There were a few spelling mistakes in his letter to me,
the kind I'm hired to correct. But I didn't feel gleeful about
his spelling, because it hadn't been spelling that I wanted
from him. I wanted to breathe in French with Andre, I
wanted to sweat French sweat. It was the rhythm and pulse
of his French I wanted, the body of it, and he refused me, he
told me I could never get that. I had to get it another way.
Micheline
I went into the pharmacy near my apartment to ask for
medicine for mosquito bites in my best French: "quelque
chose contre les piques de moustiques" (something against
...). But since "pique" means "spade," not "bite" ("bite" is
"piqure"), the pharmacist and I were off and running, his hilarity, my blushes, his old man Legion of Honor gallantry,
and all the rest. "Please call me Papillon," he said, and he invited me to his family lunch that Saturday. I like to tell the
story to students because it is about a French mistake leading to something good.
It was one of those endless meals you read about in language classes-a first course of foie gras and a second
course of rabbit and french fries and a salad and a cheese
course and a fancy store-bought dessert. Bottles of wine
with dust still on them from the cave tucked under the pharmacy, the kind with sediment in the bottom and a tenlayered taste you can study. I was seated up at the head of the
table, in close range of Papillon who teased me and told stories about his adventures in Chicago, in the twenties. "I am
Veaux-veal-you understand?" he kept saying in a
Maurice-Chevalier-only-more-so fractured English. He told me what it was like to sit on a park bench in Chicago and
watch the girls; he raved about the American girls and how
tough they were, like soldiers, with legs like bayonets. His
daughter Micheline was there, across the table from me, a
cautious smile set on her face. She interrupted Papillon's
flights of fancy to question me in a calm pedagogical voice,
every word with its beat. Her children were at the table too:
Florence was deeply shy; Sylvie and Francois were
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