Fluent in you

Monday morning arrived with a rare sort of optimism, waking me with the certainty that the day held something spectacular. I lingered over my post-breakfast coffee, savoring the quiet, before the clock caught my eye.

It was time to prepare for my first English tutoring session of the day. I put on some faint makeup, with a bit of mascara, to highlight my black eyes, and a brownish lipstick, which really highlighted my pouty lips. I tied my brown hair in a neat bun, as always, because it gives me a more professional look.

Then I sat back down in front of the computer and waited. The student was Michel. He was the only French student I had. He was 35, living in Marseille, working in investments and, most importantly, he was single!

We had a brief relationships discussion recently and he said that his last girlfriend and him were together for almost one year, but ended things as she was a smoker and he wasn’t into the smell at all. She wasn’t even interested in quitting smoking either, so it became the reason why he ended things with her.

Sadly, he was getting closer to the end of the English lessons he had purchased. I didn’t know if he would want to continue or not, since his English was okay and his main interest was just practicing the language, in order to master it a little bit more, and become fluent.

The class started and … there he was! The smiley brown haired guy I had been dying to see ever since our last class on Thursday. It’s crazy how much I enjoyed those classes and talking to him! Especially with that masculine jaw he had. And his beard! Oh I definitely had a thing for men’s beards!

“Hello, Amanda!”, he said. “It’s good to see you. I hope your weekend was good!”

“Good morning, Michel! Yes, it was, and I trust yours was too!”, I replied, smiling back.

“A bit sad, since we haven’t had any class since Thursday…”

Aha! So he was feeling the same way I was!

“Well, here we are now. Anything you want to say before we check the homework?”, I said.

“So many things… but I’m sure it’s not the good moment for it.”

I wondered for a couple of seconds if I should ask what he meant by that, or if I should insist on him speaking his mind. But then he started speaking again, so I lost my chance.

“So… the homework… I didn’t do it, because I had a lot of work. Sure you are not surprised, no?”

“Surely! Surely not surprised, indeed. This has happened many times before”, I laughed.

I don’t know why I bothered to give him any homework at all, because he almost never took care of it. That made me a bit angry. But I still liked him, because of his joy and charm. I wondered how it’s possible for someone to smile that much!

We carried on with the lesson, since his homework was a dead bust. We started talking about traveling, places we would like to see and the timeline for them. I confessed that I wanted to travel to Paris that year, although it was surely rather corny for him to hear someone say they wanted to visit the Eiffel Tower.

He also confessed that he was thinking about staying in the USA for a couple of months, as he wanted to ‘live the American dream’. This was the reason he wanted to become fluent in English. But he wasn’t decided on the city yet. Or so he said.

“Okay, Amanda. But I do want to ask about a word you used just now. Homesick. I understand the 'sick' part, but is it truly a sickness? Like a fever?"

“Not exactly. It’s more of a... heavy feeling in your chest. Like you’re in a beautiful place, but a piece of you is still back where you belong. You feel incomplete."

“Incomplete. Je vois. (I see) In French we would say le mal du pays. But it sounds too much like a stomach ache. Your 'homesick' sounds more... poetic”, Michel said, as he leaned closer to his camera.

“It can be. Have you ever felt it, Michel? You’ve lived in Marseille your whole life."

"I thought I knew what it meant. I thought it meant missing the smell of the boulangerie on my street or the sound of the Metro…”

He paused, looked at me through the screen and then continued:

“But lately, when we disconnect this call... when the screen goes black and I am sitting in my quiet bureau (office) alone... I feel a different kind of 'sick.' My home is here, but I feel as if the 'piece of me' you mentioned is actually thousands of miles away, sitting in a room in America."

"Michel..."

I tried to catch my breath…

"I am practicing my English, yes? So tell me if I am using the word correctly. If I am in my house, but I suffer because you are not in it with me... can I say that I am homesick for you?"