A group of Valenciennes-based
teaching assistants had organized a group excursion to IKEA on Saturday
afternoon. They ranged in age from twenty to thirty-three (me) and were
predominantly from Europe—UK, Ireland, Germany, Spain, Austria, Italy—but there
were a few Americans, Canadians and an Aussie. I had met most of them already at
our training sessions in Lille, but not the sexy, young, obviously gay Ryan
Gosling lookalike in a green hoodie sitting across from me on the train to IKEA.
We hit it off, and within five minutes of being in the store, we were sharing a
cart and planning his exodus from the house of the evil prof he was staying
with. Clearly, he would stay at my place and sleep on my couch until he found a
place. Luckily, he was a little guy, so he’d easily fit in my tiny apartment
and could sleep comfortably on my mini sofa.
There was no standard protocol for
how each school handled their teaching assistant’s lodging situation. Some
stayed with students or the heads of the Anglais departments at their assigned
school until they found a place, some were left completely to fend for
themselves, others were given free housing on school grounds or in a nearby
building. (Yes, rent-free! We all pretty much hated those assistants.)
Jeff told me horror stories about
staying with Sophie, the head of the English department at his school which was
located about a half hour train ride from Valenciennes in the more industrial
town of Maubeuge. Instead of taking the 23-year-old under her wing, she
basically expected him to sort out his shit and get out of her house as soon as
possible. She was a less-than-gracious host—making gourmet meals for herself
and her husband while serving Jeff leftovers at the same table, complaining
about him on the phone within earshot by saying that she didn’t know she’d be
stuck with some ungrateful American as part of her responsibilities as head of
the English department. I wondered why she even let Jeff stay with her in the
first place when she could’ve easily had him stay with the family of one of her
students, but maybe the thought of having to do that much extra work had been overwhelming
at the time, so she thought it would be easier for him to stay with her than
having to organize a place for him. Or maybe, in fairness, she just got fed up with him surfing her internet to find other gay men in the region.
The evening after our IKEA
afternoon, Sophie dropped off Jeff at my house and literally threw his last
suitcase into the street, slammed shut the trunk and sped away. We laughed and lugged
his suitcases up the narrow stairs to my place. And so began our companionship.
Jeff’s French was superior to mine, but he wasn’t as brave as I was, so we
complemented each other—I would talk to strangers in jumbled French; they would
get confused; Jeff would swoop in to clear up the miscommunication. And then
we’d try to figure out if the guy was gay or straight. Usually gay because we
were usually at Paradis de la Bieres--the gay-friendly beer paradise (!!) near the train station.
A few days after he left his prof’s
house, Jeff found a flat overlooking the train station and Paradis, so I had my apartment
to myself. This was the first time I had ever lived alone. Without family.
Without roommates. Without a husband. Without a boyfriend. My place.
I hung the aubergine light-blocking
curtains I had purchased at IKEA. I decorated the strange
gauze-over-chicken-wire walls with maps of the city, the region, the country,
the continent—all the places I could reach by train. I found a wonky red ladder-back
chair and a small side table outside a nearby apartment building on bulk trash
day and added them to my décor. Postcards and photos from family and friends
made a worthy collage above my marble fireplace mantel. I tore paper strips of
red, yellow, orange, and blue from advertising flyers and brochures to make faux
paper flames to go in my faux fireplace. I grocery shopped, on foot, for me
only and made food that I wanted to eat, mostly salads consisting of mâche (lamb’s lettuce), beets, almonds, raisins
or prunes, goat cheese on toast points, tomatoes, black pepper. I watched
French TV like it was homework but took breaks to watch the occasional episode
of Ally McBeal (from a DVD that came in a four-pack of toilet paper I had bought
at the supermarché). I smoked
cigarettes out my window and drank wine from teacups or Coca Light from
spaghetti sauce jars. I listened to The Killers, Patty Griffin, Wilco, Andrew
Bird, Fiona Apple, and Gillian Welch. I took baths every evening. At night, I
turned up the heat as high as I wanted. I slept with my books and my computer
in bed with me, so I could go to bed reading and wake up writing. I was in love
with France.
