I fumble with my keys and teeter a bit as I try to focus on the lock of the door to my building. I should have known better than to let another American—a friend I’d met on an expat forum for France named Jess—talk me into spending the night drinking. But after being in Rouen for almost a week, surrounded constantly by the French language, I’d been hungry for the sound of English-speaking voices—outside of Netflix.
“Tu as besoin d’aide, ma petite?” I blinked a few times and looked around. Do you need help, little one? Behind me stood a guy who was maybe half a foot taller than me, who I’d never seen before.
“Je ne suis pas la tienne,” I mutter, hoping that I’m at least getting that right. “Et...je n’ai pas besoin d’aide.” It takes me a moment to work through that one, remembering the way that you’re supposed to put the negation around the verb. I don’t belong to you, and I don’t need help. Technically, the last part was kind of untrue; but I am pretty determined not to take help from a random stranger standing outside my apartment building at midnight. I might be drunk, but I’m not that drunk.
“T’es sûr?” I blink again and find the right key on my ring. Are you sure?
“Oui, je suis sûre,” I reply. I’m sure.
I manage to get the key into the lock and turn my back on the guy, hoping that if I just ignore him, he’ll move along. In the past few days I’ve been in Rouen, I’ve noticed that catcalling doesn’t seem to be as frequent as it was back home, but people coming up to talk to you—whether it’s to ask you to sign a petition, or for a few euros, or to proposition you for a date—is way more common. I’m not sure why, but it’s still a little off-putting.
Before I can get the key turned, though, I feel something on my back, and the guy I’d just turned away is pressed up against me, turning me around to face him.
He murmurs something that I think he intends to be hot and sexy, but the fact that I don’t know any of the words beyond the odd “tu,” “toi,” and “faire” just makes me afraid. I struggle against him, trying to get my wobbly-drunk legs to work, and he’s pressing up against me harder, still whispering in my ear.
“Eh! Tu fais quoi, alors?” I recognize the voice a little bit but I don’t know from where. Hey, what are you doing? It’s a moment of relief—someone might actually have seen this guy ambush me.
“Laisse-nous tranquils,” the man still pressing me against the door calls back over my shoulder. Leave us alone. He followed that with something else I don’t understand. No, that isn’t at all what I want, and I don’t even care what the guy said after; I know I don’t want that, either.
“Non! Non, s’il vous plait, aidez-moi!” No, no, please help me! It’s a little startling how easily I remember how to say that, but I’m glad for it. I have no idea how to tell whoever is coming to my aid what’s going on in French, so I go into English out of sheer hope that the man will understand something of what I’m saying. “He just came up behind me and grabbed me! I don’t know who he is!”
“Elle ne te veut pas!” the second man blurts out, and I kind of want to laugh because I’m still a little drunk, and the flat tone of his voice, telling the guy who’d grabbed me that I don’t want him, is—in a way—funny. “Laisse-la tranquille.” Leave her alone.
“T’as un problème? C’est pas tes affaires, mec.” You got a problem? This is none of your business, man.
I finally get some control of my own legs and bring my knee up hard against the man’s groin. He shrieks loudly and pulls back, and I look to see who it is that came to my rescue.
I hear them arguing, and the darkness of the street makes it hard to see who came across me and my attacker, but whoever he is, he’s big; broad across the shoulders and tall. Just the kind of guy you’d want rescuing you. I hear the noises of a scuffle, and see the guy who attacked me tumble onto the ground before shouting some cuss words I barely recognize, stumbling to his feet, and walking off.
“You are okay? ‘E did not ‘urt you?” I blink as the big man who came to my aid speaks to me, and I finally recognize him as he steps into the light.
It’s my neighbor from across the alley, Jacques.
“You speak English?” If I’d known that, I would have made more of an effort to talk to him before.
Jacques shakes his head, and raises a hand to tip it side to side. “Un petit peu, et pas trop bien,” he tells me. A little bit and not very well.
I nod my understanding.
“Je...je vais bien,” I say. “Il ne m’a pas blessée,” I add. I’m okay, he didn’t hurt me. I try to think a little harder. In some ways, it’s easier to dredge up the words I want, but in other ways, it’s more difficult. I can’t for the life of me remember all the grammar rules. “Il m’a fait peur.” He just scared me.
Jacques nods. “Tu veux que je t’aide?” I take a second to translate that, frowning, and he looks concerned. Do you want me to help you? “Tu veux que je t’aide à entrer dans ton appart sain et sauf?” I try not to frown as I work through the more complicated sentence. Do you want me to help you...get into your apartment...safe and sound? I think that’s what he asked, anyway. I look him up and down; he has, after all, just probably seriously hurt a guy who’d attacked me with intentions that I’m sure were pretty bad. Besides, I should be able to trust my next-door neighbor, at least a little, right?
“Oui, si tu veux,” I say. Yes, if you want to. Jacques takes the keys out of my hand and gets the door unlocked, stepping ahead of me to press the button to light up the hallway.
“Tu as passé une bonne nuit? Avant que tu l’as rencontré?” I take a few seconds to translate that: Did you have a good night? Before you met him?
“Oui,” I reply. “Et…” I press my lips together, trying to parse out how to say what I want to say. “Je ne l’ai pas rencontré, pas vraiment. Je ne sais pas son nom.” I didn’t meet him, not exactly. I don’t know his name.
“Ah,” Jacques says, nodding. We start up the stairs. The building doesn’t have an elevator, but fortunately, I’m only on the second floor; he looks back to make sure I’m following closely enough.
“Rouen c’est très sûr,” Jacques says. “Ne t’inquiète pas, d’accord?” I have to laugh at that once I figure out what he’s saying. Now that I’m not full of adrenaline, it’s a little easier. Rouen is very safe. Don’t you worry, okay?
“Non, je suis…” I don’t know how to say what I want to say. “Je n’ai pas de souci.” No, I’m not worried.
Jacques grins at me.
“C’est bon,” he says. That’s good. We reach my floor and he gestures to my apartment door with one eyebrow raised. I nod and he unlocks the two locks, opening my door before the light goes out in the hallway.
“Tu veux rentrer prendre une verre? Je veux te remercier,” I say, feeling a little shy. Do you want to come in for a drink? I want to thank you. One of the great things I’ve discovered about Rouen—about France, in general—is that there is an abundance of decent, cheap wine. My first trip to the grocery store, I overburdened myself with a good four bottles of wine that had cost me a little less than 12 euros. I feel a little weird offering the guy a glass of wine, but I have to express my gratitude somehow.
“Si ça ne te dérangeras pas,” he says with a shrug. If you don’t mind.
I step through the door and kick off my shoes, reaching for the light switch and gesture for him to follow me into the apartment.
“Pas de tout,” I say. Not at all. “Now where are my glasses?” I mutter, looking around the kitchen, trying to remember where I put everything away.
“Là?” Here? Jacques gestures to a glass-fronted cabinet on the other side of the kitchen, and I realize that he must have understood what I said. There they are, lined up neatly: white and red wine glasses, along with the juice glasses I’d bought, four of each.
“Ah, oui, merci,” I say, smiling at him. Yes, thank you.
Okay, so now, how do I ask him if he wants white, red, or rosé? My poor, already-drunk brain is having a hard time parsing through grammar, and in spite of the fact that I’m feeling more relaxed, now that I’m in my apartment and the guy who attacked me is safely away, I can feel a little flutter in my chest.
Up close, Jacques is even more attractive than he’d been when I’d seen him across the alley. He almost seems too big for my kitchen, and in the light, I can see that he has crystal-blue eyes. He’s so much taller and broader than me that I should feel intimidated, but instead, I have to admit, I’m a little turned on.
This is a guy who just came to my rescue, after all. And up close, I also find that he smells good: not the way that Ethan did, with a weird blend of some Axe-type body spray and deodorant, but like sandalwood and an old-fashioned sort of cologne I can’t identify. I’ve already learned that American-style deodorant isn’t really popular here, so underneath his scents, I catch just a trace of his natural body smell, but it’s not bad—not like the guys I’d accidentally ended up next to on the bus back from the bar with Jess, who absolutely reeked.
“Tu veux le rouge? Blanc? Rosé?” That’s the closest I can come to formulating how to ask the question, and thankfully it’s good enough.
“Comme tu veux,” Jacques says with a shrug. Whatever you want.
I have a bottle of red open, and I show it to him for his approval; he nods, and I take two glasses down. Even though I’ve had a bit too much to drink already, I decide to have a glass with him to be a good hostess.
I get the cork out of the bottle and fill the two glasses a little more than halfway, pushing one along the table towards Jacques. He picks it up and looks around my kitchen for a moment, and I’m at a loss for what to do while we drink our wine. If we were both equally fluent in the same language, we’d obviously talk to each other. But as I raise my glass and Jacques clinks his against mine, it occurs to me that I have no idea what to talk about, much less how to say anything worth talking about.
I take my first sip of wine and try to think of something, anything, that I can say to this guy who might have just saved my life.