by: NB
Finally, after wanting to do this for many years, I have the opportunity to spend a couple of months in France. Aboard Air France flight 003 from Newark to Paris I am already quite distracted. Just the week before my departure, I had finally found an apartment in New York that I had decided to buy, and I was still pre-occupied with all the arrangements. But after takeoff, I start to transform myself mentally to the new reality, starting as always with resetting my watch to the time in my destination country. I am almost certain that it is this mental transformation that makes me not suffer from jet lags.
Food, wine, French movie...Six and a half hours later, we land in Aéroport Charles de Gaulle. A 50-minute flight to Lyon and a 90-minute bus ride to Grenoble, and I am in the apartment I rented for the two-month stay. I unpack and then start contemplating. The apartment is small but comfortable. It definitely needs cleaning, but that has to wait. I am dead tired, I take a shower and immediately fall asleep.
It?s morning. Coffee, shower, and I am ready to go. The reality finally sinks in: I am in France, and everybody around me speaks French. Shit! I am stuck now, I have to speak French and overcome my stupid fear of making mistakes. I am like that with everything, I hate to do things I am not very good at...it is really a limiting insecurity. I have my dictionary, but it looks really stupid to have to check every other word before speaking. One just has to speak, use one?s hands, make noises that resemble what one wants to describe, etc. The important thing is communication, not linguistic elegance. So I start communicating, but mostly communicated with.
I speak in my virgin French (years of study, but absolutely no practice; just like the Pope and sex). First stop: La Grande Poste, where I change some dollars and attempt to open a checking account; ça ne marche pas because I need a carte de séjour (a residence card), which I cannot get for such a short stay; oh well! Next stop: Ticket office, where I buy a monthly pass for the tramway for 175FF; ça marche bien.
In the tramway car, I seat myself next to the window and look out; the view is simply breath- taking. Grenoble is in a valley surrounded by three mountain ranges. The Belledonne, capped with white snow and skirted with forests of trees whose leaves have turned orange, red, yellow and olive green. It is so close, you feel you can touch it. At the other end of town is the Vercors mountain range, rough and edgy; then there is la Chartreuse, renowned for its monastery that produces the Chartreuse liqueur. The tramway's terminus is on the campus of the Université Joseph Fourier de Grenoble. I walk from the station to bâtiment 8, where my office for the next two months will be.
Une Baguette S'il Vous Plaît!
My first day at work is uneventful, a lot of talking (the French love to talk about everything, from the trivial to the philosophical, all with the same intensity and detail), and a nice two-hour lunch. The work day ends quite late at 19h00. I thought the French don?t work hard, but at least certain segments of the population do, quite hard actually! I walk to the tramway station and head back home, but first I pass by the local boulangerie and buy a baguette (it seems that there is a bakery on every corner in Grenoble, like in all french cities - the concept of old bread or tasteless white bread is just unknown here). I often wonder, why is it that in general it is so hard to find good bread in the U.S., I mean with all the technology and money there is, they can most certainly learn how to make good bread? Well, I will enjoy the breads of France (the selection actually is limited, unlike in Germany or Holland, but it is quite good).
Tu Cherches Quelque Chose?
I got familiar with things quite fast. It seems that certain things are universal; I immediately found a cruising area in the park next to my apartment. The scene is quite different from Central Park in New York; more direct, it seems, no playing games, just salut, qu'est-ce que tu cherches?? boom boom!. There, leaning against a tree, barely visible in the dark, I spot him. I walk over, as if I am strolling. As I get close, I can see his face, long, sharp features. I walk by him; we exchange a glance. I look back and find him looking at me. I turn around and meet Hervé.
I?ve always loved cruising in parks. The combination of being out in the open, hidden only by trees, bushes and the night, and the possibility of being detected is very arousing to me. Hervé and I chat for a bit and then start kissing. I start kissing his neck and caressing his body. Soon, we are entangled in very hot sex, completely oblivious to our surroundings. He unbuttons my shirt, licks my nipples and then goes down on his knees, right there under the huge tree, unbuttons my fly, and starts sucking me. I reciprocate, even though I don't normally like to give blow jobs. After satisfying our yearning for another man's body, Hervé walks me back to my apartment. I give him my phone number and we agree to call each other and to go out on le weekend.
VTT (Velot Tout Terain)
I cannot believe I am doing this, climbing a steep cliff with a mountain bike on my back. Hervé had picked me up earlier that morning for what I thought would be a nice bike ride (On fait du VTT aujourd'hui?, he said). I had no idea Hervé was crazy. While puffing and sweating on our way up, he kept saying "normalement, c'est plus facile" (I later found out that the word "normalement" in French has flexible semantics!). Well, it was anything but facile for the following 7 hours. I found out that mountain biking (a.k.a VTT en français) really has very little to do with biking; it is mostly carrying your bike and going down dirt paths and stones, nearly busting your balls (I could hardly feel my balls and my ass by the end of the day), climbing cliffs, going down dangerous plateaux. Oh well, the view was breathtaking at an altitude of 1700m, absolutely fantastic. I will kill Hervé; what the hell is he doing, dashing like crazy down these extremely dangerous paths that are 30 inches wide? All this with his dog, Galopin, running next to his bike. C'est fou!
After the VTT outing, we head back to Grenoble, have a hearty gratin dauphinois at Chez Margo, and then go to my apartment. We take a shower together and have sex in the bath tub, mostly oral. I really like his body, slender, lean and completely uncorrupted by working out at a gym. It is the kind of body I always wanted to have. I wonder if I get attracted to slender men because they represent my inner desire to be slender myself.
Hervé is quite gentle and gentil (trés sympa), but not really my type. The truth is I think of him only as being good enough for companionship during my short stay. At first, I felt very guilty about that -- how horrible of me to be using someone this way! But he seems to enjoy being with me and not to demand any further attachment, so my guilt was short lived. He is a local, from the Grenoble area; you can tell from his accent and his courteous behavior he shakes hands with everyone. I like his attitude! He has this precious innocence about him that one can rarely find in a city like New York.
I am starting to like Grenoble, and Hervé certainly makes my stay more pleasurable. Towards the end of the second week I start getting nervous in anticipation of the weekend. I am supposed to go with Hervé to explore a cave (I don't really understand what that means, but I have a feeling it is one of those crazy outdoor activities Hervé does and describes as "pas difficile, normalement!").
Saturday is relaxation day in anticipation of the cave exploration on Sunday. Hervé comes over and we head to town to look at the stores and have something to drink. He knows all the store owners; they patronize the discothèque in which he works. A lot of kisses and "salut"s. I buy a fashionable suit with a four-button jacket and narrow-legged slacks; I feel really cool trying it on. I have a sweater on and the store owner makes me take it off and try the jacket with my undershirt; he tells me that I have nice shoulders and chest (woof!; how can I not buy the suit after that?those French vendors really know how to sell you stuff). After satisfying my consumerism, we sit down at a bar called "Le Progrès", which will become a meeting place during my stay in Grenoble. After un café noisette (espresso with a touch of creme, which for some reason one can't get in Paris), we walk back to my apartment, have sex and then Hervé goes home. My discussions with Hervé tend to stay superficial because of my limited vocabulary (I get sick of saying "comment... je ne comprends pas"). Oh well, I can't worry about that now, I have to rest because tomorrow is a definitive day.
Spéléologie: My fears are immediately justified. Hervé's car stops at a parking lot about midway up a huge mountain, and he starts taking out shitloads of stuff from his trunk; what the fuck is all this stuff for!? Ropes, rubber body suits, many pulleys and attachments (I don't even now what the right term is), gloves, long boots, helmets, lamps, calcium rocks (to make light, I was told). We have to try all the equipment to make sure it is functioning properly. Hervé starts tying something around my upper thighs up to my waist; it must be tight he said. Well, it is tight all right, my balls are almost gone; he says that we have to test everything - shit! this is serious.
The French are very uninhibited about their bodies, so Hervé takes of his clothes (everything by his tiny underwear) in the middle of the parking lot and wears his spéléologie attire. I do the same, but not without embarrassment. It takes about an hour of climbing to get to the entrance of the cave. Not bad so far. Hervé then instructs me to wear a turtleneck, two T- shirts, two sweaters, jeans, skiing sweat pants on top of that and a waterproof jacket; ?c?est trés froid dedans?, he says, it is very cold inside. We wear our rubber suits on top of everything else and tie the rope attachments that we had tried in the parking lot. I put my helmet on and attach the head lamp. I feel like a miner in Siberia.
We enter the cave and not even a minute inside, it becomes completely black. Hervé fills his flask with calcium rocks and water, shakes it hard and voila!, his head lamp lights up in a flame. I turn on my battery-operated lamp, but il faut economiser because it only lasts 5 hours and the exploration will last about 7 hours.
The terrain is very rocky, muddy and slippery. After about half an hour we stop and Hervé starts taking out ropes from his back. I lean over to look and I couldn?t believe it; it is huge hole, about 70 feet deep. ?Qu?est-ce qu?on fait??, I ask. Fuck! we will go down the hole using ropes; that?s what the pulleys and attachments are for. Well, I hope these ropes are strong. Hervé teaches me how to fasten the rope around me and release it slowly while descending, all the time leaning backwards and using my feet to stay away from the very rocky wall.
I descend, almost trembling; I had never done anything like this in my entire life. I am basically a city boy, I drive, ride the subway and take taxis; I don't climb up or down using ropes. I succeed (I have a feeling that if I put my fear aside and find my inner strength, it won't be that bad). I very quietly wait for Hervé to come down. After a while, another hole and another and another. Then a very tiny hallway that we had to squeeze through for about 20 minutes on all fours then completely flat, then in very awkward positions. Mud, water, rocks, I feel I am in the middle of a movie about Vietnam. This needs stamina. I feel myself weakening from exasperation and fatigue; I have no idea how long it has been inside the cave. Just as I was about to collapse, we stop for food and water.
We take out the "food" from the sacs; it is all covered with the remains of a banana that has become a purée from all the banging. The bread is like a pudding; we are all covered with mud and not enough water to wash our hands. Who cares? we dig in but I soon find out that I have no desire for food. Hervé gets worried and tells me that I have to eat, because we still have 3 more hours to go! He hands me an Almond paste ("ça c'est très calorique", he says). I eat it and it tastes good. Usually food relieves my anxiety, but it didn't this time.
I feel trapped; there is no way out of here, one has just to find one's inner strength and stamina. What if we get lost? What if rocks start falling? What if one of us falls and dies or hurts himself? What if I fall down and break my ankle like my aunt did three months ago? How the hell are they going to get me out of here through those tiny passages and holes? The answer is this: I cannot make any mistakes; there is no room for error here.
We continue. The hardest part was a 20-minute slow climb with many tiny passages; I could feel a wound in my knee and another closer to my ankle. I am probably blue all over. Three small cuts on one hand and one on the other. I am freezing but I can feel the sweat all over my body. This is the toughest thing I have ever done in my life. One more dangerous passage where we had to use ropes to slide around a large rock. This has no end. I can very easily cry now, but it is unseemly. My lamp is dying (I failed to economize!) so I have to stay very close to Hervé. He notices my anxiety and helps me with jokes and words of encouragement.
Completely exhausted, we take a relatively long rest and Hervé announces that we are about 25 minutes away from the exit. He says that there was a race last year from this point to the exit, and the winner made it in 7 minutes. It is the longest 25 minutes of my life; probably, the most difficult part of the whole ordeal because one?s energy is completely depleted and one tends to start letting go towards the end. After a final climb through a very tight hole (I was afraid that the nice shoulders that the shop owner had complimented yesterday were not going to go through, but the human body has many ways of contorting itself to go through almost anything), I see something that looked like a square florescent light. It turns out to be the mouth of the cave, la sortie! Daylight! Air!?I have never been happier to see daylight in my life.
The minute we are out in the open, we start taking off the layers of muddy clothes because we both were dying to urinate (no pissing inside the cave because of all the stuff we had on). I could see the vapor coming out of the stream of warm urine hitting the cold air?what a relief! There is a saying in Arabic, "leaving a bathroom is worlds apart from entering it". You can say that about a cave! After a 20-minute rest, we start descending to the car. I couldn't believe that after all these holes in the cave we were still almost near the top of the mountain, under huge cliffs. Well, it turns out that the entrance and exit of the cave are actually almost at the same altitude (no wonder I was so tired inside; it was because of all the climbing after each hole).
We finally reach the parking lot at 17h00 (we started at 8h00). Off with the clothes right in the middle of the parking lot (and the amazing thing is that nobody looks), slip into clean clothes and off to a bar for a cold beer (feels wonderful!). The bar is located in the middle of grounds where next week the largest exhibition of free-form flight will take place (Vol Libre). Hervé will participate. The takeoff place overlooks Grenoble (quite a view); this is for the easy stuff just for the exhibition, Hervé says. He flies from the Cliff of St. Eynard (to which we had gone the week before) which is at an altitude of 1500m?Moi! non merci, I?ve had enough excitement for a decade. I don?t need to feel like an Eagle, high high like a bird in the sky! I am happy watching from the safety of a warm bar. I admit it, I am a whimp!
Back home, we soak ourselves in the bathtub for about an hour; I insepct my body. I have two wounds, one on my left knee and another on my right leg, right below the knee. I also have "bleus partout" (bruises, that is, all over) and several cuts on my hands. Nothing serious though. Hervé kisses my wounds after saying "le pauvre". It reminded me of my mother comforting me after a fall. I felt very special, very strong and brave, like I had fought a battle and came out victorious. Hervé tells me that I will never forget this experience. He is right. Hervé goes home and I sleep like a baby to prepare myself for another week of work.
Hervé, the perfect companion, makes me do things I have never done before, offers me great compliments, encouragement, backrubs and sex, always smiling and light-hearted. Always ready to please me. How come I am not in love with him? Is it true that I only fall in love with men who are so detached and unavailable? It is really a mystery to me how this love thing works. It is sad but true. It saddens me to think that I will only fall in love with those who do not deserve my love, but that's my destiny!
It is a perfect autumn morning in New York, crisp and cool. I am having coffee and listening to a weird mix of Ella Fitzgerald, Fairouz and Sting! Sting is singing ? I am so happy I can't stop crying. The song for some reason reminds me of Hervé. I remember the two magical months in Grenoble, his sweet smile, his smooth, slender body, his physicality, the moutain biking and the spéléologie. But, I don't yearn for him. He is a happy memory.
The perfect companion.