Ni l’un ni l’autre la langue d’amour
I had just spread my towel over the soft grass when I noticed her. She was on the other side of the terrace, maybe twenty metres away, by herself. Between us were a couple of bare, leaning trees and a short ridge in the grass. Her hair, as I saw it, was wispy and loosely tied back, but I could not discern its colour from this long distance. As luck, or her deliberate positioning, would have it, she seemed to lie at the base of a pillar of light visibly extending from the circle on the grass where she lay, up to the tops of the trees, over Mont-Royal and straight into the heart of the sun. Looking at her there on that grass, stretched out in order to do nothing, she seemed so wholly pleasant, almost angelic, that I didn’t want to disturb her in the least for fear of sending this perfect image of a beautiful woman under a column of sunlight into disarray. Her feet kicked up every so often, toes pointing at the sky. We made eye contact for a second, and I went about my own business.
She wore a very small bikini, which, in light of the attractive body it served to cover up, I could not help but notice.
Me, I like to look at a fine woman. A park on a hot day is one of the finest places for one to do this, and to boot, it’s a great place to catch up on reading or take an invigorating public nap. On cruel, air-conditioning-less days such as today, there is no choice in the matter anyway. So there I was this morning, atop the famous Montreal mountain, under a tree with book in hand, and my eyes wandered as they cannot help but do.
I kept to my book as much as possible. Every so often I lifted my head to peer over the ridge to check if she was still there. To say I did this merely to ogle might not be the whole story; there were masculine protective instincts, perhaps, or territorial fears over competition. My own plans were to read and enjoy the shade, not to fawn over women, but there she was, and there I was, unable to control myself. Who was I to put on airs of courtship? There was no shared bond between us, no basis for an advance. She was an attractive woman on a nearby beach towel: no more and no less. Still, some primordial urge compelled me to keep an eye on her, and this continued on for some time, until finally I decided that it was silly, rolled over onto my other side, and focused on reading.
A while later, I looked over to see if she was still there, for curiosity’s sake, and this time she caught my glance, but did not hold it. A few hard gusts of wind blew my pages around, and as I tried to flatten the book I reflexively poked my head up to take another look. This time, she was turning her book over and laying it face down, and standing up. I held a brief fantasy that she was going to walk over to me and crawl into my lap. Fantasies like this enter my mind both as my body’s natural tendency, on a hot Montreal morning, towards daydreaming, and also to prepare myself mentally for what could be. After all, luck is the crossroad where preparation and opportunity meet, as they say. She put on shorts and slid her feet into a pair of wooden-heeled sandals, delicately, and packed up her things.
In a few seconds my juvenile fantasies suddenly entered the realm of possibility. She began walking in my direction, but this was also the direction of the footpath, so I did not take seriously the idea that she could be walking over to introduce herself to me. I am not the kind of guy who draws women over with my gaze. Insomuch as there exists a kind of guy can ply his lothario trade in a city park and make women drop what they’re doing to come over and be woo’d, I am not him. That much I know. For starters, I am baffled when it comes to reading basic signals of flirtation, and even more baffled by the dark rituals and incantations required in turning chit-chat with strange women into sultry seduction. Whenever I see a friend march over to an arbitrary woman and start a conversation with her that lasts for hours, or lure her over to him with his finger or his stare, I wonder what secrets, what deeper truths about women he has gleaned, and how his gaze seems to find its way into her soul in a way I can’t decode, unlocking it like a key.
Besides, I am quite sure that I looked at her for a lot longer than she looked at me. Our eye contact was infinitesimal and not charged with any lingering sexuality. She kept walking, her trim hips swaying from side to side. As she got closer I began instinctively to smile, and I sat up a little, to adjust my body to a more inviting position on the towel. My smile was met with hers. There could be no question, now, that she was walking directly and intently towards my little encampment. I thought she would walk right through me, and in my mind I begged that she would. The trees gave a little rustle as if they were crowding around to watch the show.
Finally she stopped, both feet planted side by side, right in front of my nose. I looked up, and could now see that her hair was a gorgeous shade of light brown. The mental conception of her beauty I had formed from that great distance had turned out to be exactly accurate. What should I say? Do the great seducers of history start each of their conquests with a simple “Hello?” Well, I cannot imagine whispering a sweet nothing right off the bat, and canned compliments to random strangers reek of sales-force insincerity, so it’s going to have to be Hello. Hello, stranger.
It was then that we spoke, in unison.
“He…”
“Bonjour!”
“…llo!”
Well, shit. We looked confusedly at each other for a second while I cursed this wretched Anglophone pedigree. Her disposition changed. The language barrier has an infuriating tendency to toss an extinguishing bucket of sand on the flames of romance. I know of a few Montrealers who have no problem navigating the inevitable Anglo-backlash. However, their tactics are questionable at best. Saying you’re visiting from out of town, or saying you’re American (which supposedly is more reliable than saying you’re an English Canadian), is a piece of sophistry I’m unwilling to attempt; being incredibly good-looking, not an option here.
A conversation that begins this way, bilingually, must first wind its way through an established gauntlet of awkwardnesses. First, a common language must be decided upon. Since I’d rather not underscore my Englishness any more than is necessary, I opted for the broken French instead. Second, a familiarity with the chosen language much be demonstrated by both parties for the conversation to continue. My French, while not atrocious, is far from natural, and while I am good at impersonating a native speaker, this does not work well for conversations more complicated than basic directions. And me seducing a Québecois woman in Ontario-taught, Government of Canada-approved Français Internationale? Oh ho ho.
Anyway, after the conversational misstep, she asked me for directions back to downtown from here. I want to believe that she wanted more, and I might even be right. But there I was, telling her in Anglo-French that I wasn’t really sure what direction to go in, vraiement, because I’d spent a good hour wandering the park randomly, and hadn’t a clue where I was, and what did you think about that? I even tried to throw in a hint of Joual accent to make her forget that I’m from the tail end of Highway 20. She smiled, in the way that a social worker might smile to her class of special-needs children. Trying to keep the smalltalk ball in play, I asked her a little more about where she was going, and about this and that. The cracks in my French started to show, and I was met with progressively shorter replies. I was fucked. She flashed me a last friendly smile, and slinked away uncerimoniously, down the path I suggested she take to get to Centre-ville.
I hope the bitch got lost.
I don’t know when it happened (though I have a pretty good idea) that the resentment between young French and English Canadians became a one-way street. I would gladly give my heart to a French woman, as would anyone else with any good sense. Something has clearly gone wrong here. Politics has no place in affairs of the heart, and for that matter, neither does language, and I am forever envious of those who are able to bypass both and speak directly into body and soul.
And that is the reason I’m sitting here in my apartment listening to downloaded Rockapella covers, instead of passionately, adeptly, mellifluously, and gloriously waxing that ass.
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(6 comments)
Bwahahaha!! Ha. First off Ted, I should smack you. Next time a broad, French, Dutch, or Iraqi, comes up to you in a bikini – you smile, you nod, you keep the bloody eye contact, you make a crack about the weather, and how you are thankful that it is her and not a tree trunk blocking the horid UV rays from roasting you and your pale white, english-canadian skin. She may know “she better than you,” but just because a french canadian girl who was touched my her daddy and has had more sex with her high-school seperatist class than you can count, doesn’t mean that you should coyly help her out. When she asks for North, you point South-West-33-degrees and you tell her that she is looking for your balls and ask her if she would like to sun-tan next to you while you wax-on-wax-off to the thought of her polishing your knob.
Fackin’ Hell Ted. I thought we had you sorted better than this.
Cheers,
Ted
ha, funny, when I moved back to montreal (from a university stint in ontario) my french was poor. but I made a pact with myself, in any situation where french or english was an option I would speak french. work, social, whatever (an exception is the bank).
gradually it came to me. The amazing thing is that most francos are shocked at an anlgo who will continue speaking french in the face of a switch to english, and not give up. Amazing also that so few anglos will do this. Usually this goes a long way the briding the divide. So kudos to you for making the effort.
Still, I feel for you. Nothing worse than a promising glimpse of nirvana fading into the summer haze.
I agree with our friend, Ted, I thought we had you better sorted than this.
What wonderful stories you tell. … But if you ever contemplate going the concise story-telling route, your last blog could have been easily summarized with something to the effect of:
“Dear blog. I’m a chump” … :)
Oh, like any of you COMPUTER NERDS could do any better.
Hugh: I’m not quite there yet, conversationally, but I hope to make a pact like yours soon enough.
Incidentally, I find my French ability — both comprehension and speaking — improves with a bit of alcohol, which leads me to posit that most people’s foreign language skills are stunted by fear and anxiety. Of course, Joual doesn’t help.
I find everything improves with (a little) alcohol, because it removes your inhibitions. I can vouch for the French thing, as an example. One time I got drunk and all my years of French study came flooding back, hell you may have even been there. I know Kalin was, because we were talking it up en francais to no end.