Approaching Frank, Svetlana said that he had acted like a mean person by blocking all those people. In the future, she would have to be suspicious of him.
Frank had given her back her camera. He replied that she would keep a good memory of this place and that putting that device in his hands could become dangerous, especially when the model is so good at what she does. Frank had told her that she looked great on camera. While posing, she had fun in front of the camera. It might be interesting for her to appear in original outfits for fashion spreads, using a less mainstream camera that would offer pictures of a much higher quality.
Svetlana had never thought of it. She said she would think about it.
“In the meantime, I’ll put the camera in my bag,” she added.
After they had completed their tour, two tourists had accosted them in front of the building. In English, they asked how they could pay for the passes to explore the heights of the Sacred Heart. In cash or by card?
Frank had not understood their question. Like all good self-respecting French people, he knew only the official language of the country. While Svetlana was scrutinizing him with her big blue eyes and smiling tenderly, Frank had answered them, “Sorry, I do not speak English,” in English. He had begun moving away from them as quickly as they had been approached. Svetlana stayed put. She translated the question for Frank so that he could understand it. He turned around and was surprised to see that she was still standing near them. He came closer to mention what he had seen before: there was an automatic machine to pay by credit card and a counter with staff who took cash. Svetlana translated what he said immediately after, as Frank, who was captivated as he watched her, found that she mastered English even better than French. He was fascinated to discover that at only twenty years old this young woman spoke three languages. He told her that in her company it would be impossible to get lost abroad because she knew Russian, English and French. She jokingly replied that she knew she was the perfect woman. In this case, they should plan a trip together. Frank thought about it, surprised by this reaction. This suggestion could not have had an ounce of seriousness. As a result, there was no follow-up.
At that time, Frank did not know that Svetlana had already bought tickets to visit Belgium and the Netherlands in the coming days. They were short trips but still special for Svetlana who wanted to discover Europe. She didn’t think she would ever get another opportunity to do so. Somehow, she hoped that Frank would propose to join her, more for fear of a solo exploration than some ambiguous thought. Frank was not going to say anything like that when she told him about her plans. Deep down, he would have liked to accompany her, even the idea had crossed his mind. Except that, financially, he could not afford it too much. In addition, another constraint prevented him, professional this time. Their schedules were not compatible. It was useless for him to dwell on the thought.
Frank had suggested that they continued their trip by visiting the Parc des Buttes Chaumont, which she accepted willingly.
The journey had taken a good hour. Frank had underestimated how long it took to walk to there from the basilica. On the way, they continued sharing snippets of their respective lives. Frank had told her about his photography work. Svetlana found this very interesting. For her, photography was a wonderful form of artistic expression. She had pointed out that he had not brought a camera to immortalize their outing. She was teasing him…
“But I do not have any of my own… I rent it when I need it for a report or a photo shoot,” he explained.
She was surprised. She had not realised that professional equipment was so expensive, especially optics. Frank did not need it for more than two days at a time, so renting was the best choice. It was a choice that allowed him to avoid having to endure a consumer credit that he would have struggled to pay back, pushing his already unstable situation to a worse place. In that moment, Frank considered himself as just another other tourist using his phone to take pictures. Svetlana was a very bad photographer. She preferred to look at the photos. On the other hand, her parents wanted her to bring back some pictures. They had never had the opportunity to travel across Europe.
Conversation between them flowed effortlessly. Frank was genuinely beginning to fall for her. From time to time, he corrected some mistakes with her French. She was happy he did that. Yet she would have hoped more from a Frenchman who mastered the language. Svetlana wished that Frank had interrupted her every single time she made a mistake and that he corrected the construction of her sentences too.
Staying in France caused a great cultural shock for Svetlana. Life and people here seemed different from back home. She did not feel comfortable hearing conversations in French all around her. She felt like her French language skills weren’t that great. Her colleagues tried to reassure her: they themselves thought they did not have enough knowledge to speak properly in French. However, unlike Svetlana, they were happy just being understood by the French.
Frank thought it was normal for Svetlana to face difficulties, since she was in France for the very first time. She was not familiar with the sound of the language. Svetlana was surprised that Frank understood everything correctly when she spoke. She was also surprised to understand every last word he said. At the store, dialect problems arose when she had to decode the gibberish of some customers who were nevertheless native French people. So, their clear exchange delighted her. The communication was so smooth it allowed them to focus on getting to know each other.
When Frank did not correct Svetlana, it was because the fault seemed minimal to him. Above all, he was accustomed to spending time with foreign women and decrypting their strange sentence constructions, in some cases. As Frank did not pay attention to all the mistakes, he was a little taken aback whenever Svetlana she realised that she had just made an error. Frank tried to reassure her: it was only minor faults in the conjugation or placement of words. Nothing serious, according to him. For her, making such mistakes seemed like the end of the world. She was ashamed of it and considered herself worthless in French. She wanted to master the language perfectly.
To get to the park, they had crossed a large part of the nineteenth arrondissement, some of the gloomiest corners of Paris among which it would be possible to award the gold medal of French rot. And this filth is a good business, the price per square meter is higher than in sunny southern areas. Svetlana felt like she was at home. It was the buildings, the shops, the particularly ugly and dirty aesthetics that reminded her of the city she came from. It was not at all like the touristy areas that visitors strolled through to admire. Here, they roamed an area at the antipode of Paris that sells through postcards. And yet, in these places the greatest human values are certainly hidden, far from this false and mannered bourgeoisie.
Once in the park, they had gone to Belvedere Island at the Temple de la Sibylle. That day, a zipline was suspended. It spanned the lake to reach the mainland thirty meters below. It was the works of an association that wanted to introduce teenagers to the thrills of treetop adventure courses. After the descent, they were invited to discover other activities in an adventure park in the Paris region. It was a kind of demonstration-sample marketing in partnership with Paris city hall. Frank and Svetlana watched several young people jump into nothingness. Although at first the device seemed impressive, the did not actually move very quickly. Arriving on the other side was smooth, someone being there to help them. They stopped to take some pictures. Frank shot Svetlana again from different angles.
While admiring the view, they were able to see just how far they had walked. The Basilica of the Sacred Heart seemed very far and small from there. Leaning on the railing, their bodies had begun to brush, voluntarily and timidly. Unable to do anything else on this cliff except watching young people attach themselves to a rope, they had headed for the suspended bridge. Here was still the association. This time it offered an introduction to rock climbing for children. Or rather a rappelling descent that brought them eight meters below. Still on the railing, they lingered there for a long time. Time flew by, as they revelled in each other’s company.
Svetlana had told him about her family.