All To Play For

Chapter 1

1.It was just over four years now since I’d last set foot in France. I was coming back to Paris again to work, only this time to do a job I’d chosen whole-heartedly and not a summer job like last time. Now I was stepping off the plane to move on in life, to settle down and put down roots, once and for all.

For my first trip I’d come to sell handbags in the Galeries Lafayette department store for three months. I’d seen it primarily as a great opportunity to practise French and master the language. But something else had also happened that I couldn’t have foreseen: a date with love. Four years on, thoughts of the man I had known run through my head. We’d tried to keep in touch once I was back home in Russia. But several months on, not much hope remained of our seeing each other again. I’d suddenly fallen in love with another boy and, over time, the same thing happened to him.

He had no idea I was back in Paris or that I’d just clinched a job as a translator on a two-year contract. In a way, I was afraid of seeing him again. I didn’t dare contact him.

I knew we hadn’t had time to build the foundations of our relationship, really. A mere three months is far too short an amount of time to truly be in love, especially as we didn’t spend time together every day. He’d asked me twice to move in with him for the rest of my stay, so I could save money. As he hadn’t been single for long I’d dreaded being a rebound for his benefit — like a tissue to wipe away memories of his ex. I was also afraid of losing my freedom. What if he’d thrown me out on the street after an argument? Where would I have gone then, after giving up — for him — the young professionals’ accommodation I’d been staying in?

The twists and turns of fate are mysterious and sometimes incomprehensible: of all the available flats in Paris, I found myself back living at the same address in Montparnasse, in the same building. Only the room was different, and the floor. I’d gone from the fourth floor to the third. Was this a sign that our story was going to pick up more or less where it had ended?

I had fallen completely in love with Paris, like love at first sight that bowls you over in an instant. The spell I was under probably wasn’t only down to the charms of the capital. Perhaps, quite simply, I had succumbed to the delights and energy of France. As a teenager I’d dreamed of visiting this country. That dream had come true. Even though I’d only visited Paris, it had resonated with me, painting a picture that was so different to my hometown in Russia! I’d been overwhelmed by a strong sense of freedom, like a passing wave of madness, an intoxicating independence, a feeling I had never experienced before. It was both peculiar and pleasant. I’d felt so at home on French soil, freed from all constraint, as if I could spread my wings. And yet time had passed so fast… without my noticing how the days were trickling away much faster than I’d have liked. I’d undergone a change after my trip: I no longer felt like the same woman. Something new had taken root that would affect me for years to come. I’d gone back home with a heart full of so many different memories. In three months my life had been turned upside down, indelibly marked. I’d developed and matured a little more. However, I still had a long way to go and things to learn. Life, I was soon to find out, would quickly take care of that.

Now I was back in this country again, back in France, I wanted to make the most of it. I wanted to go and discover other towns, smell the lavender in Provence, admire the rock formations at Étretat, dip my toes in the Atlantic… In two years I absolutely had to find the time to visit these places, and more.

When you develop feelings for someone, it seems you don’t always realise it at first. You think you don’t have any feelings, even though they float on the surface, as if on standby close to your heart. If these feelings haven’t fully taken hold yet, it’s only to give you a better chance of either accepting or rejecting them. Loving isn’t easy. It’s a giving of the self, surrendering to another. It’s a life-changing condition, bringing together two wandering souls ignited by a spark, propelling them into a new, isolated space-time, inaccessible and incomprehensible to anyone else. It’s an entire universe that belongs only to those two beings who were attracted to each other. How can you not be knocked over by it? It’s a madness you seek out and you flee from, all at once.

When I met Frank, he was unemployed. Training to be a photographer, so far he hadn’t been able to get his work recognised or to exhibit his photos. Yet I remember that he had a good eye, quite a personal touch. Now he works in film and is earning much better. Sometimes you can’t stubbornly persist in heading in one direction if that road turns out to be completely blocked and closed off. By taking a different route, things can work out much better, bringing you unimagined joy. Such was my experience, more or less. In Russia, I’d wanted to work as an interpreter. However, it’s difficult to stand out if you’re not the best one, especially if you’ve not had a good education to make it easier to get into the profession. I liked all forms of art so I’d studied it for my own enjoyment. The only trouble is, what doors are opened by artistic training? I realised, a little late, that the doors all had to be broken down! But how can you tear them down when they’re heavily armoured? Without someone on the inside to let you prise one open, there’s no hope at all. I’d messed it all up. So what could I do next? A job merely to earn a living to survive the rest of my life? I couldn’t face that. I still had some ambition.

Looking back, I think that Frank and I met too soon. It happens so often in life: you meet someone suitable either too soon or too late. This offset in time ultimately means happiness slips through your hands. You question the future and are afraid of having to give everything up. Either way, only one option remains: to run away!

He wasn’t to blame for any of it. He had felt ready and wanted me to be with him. As for me, I was coming out of adolescence with a passionate desire to discover life and have fun. But there we go, in meeting Frank, love had sprung from nowhere. I was dazzled and blinded by it pretty quickly. It was so wonderful — except that it was too soon. I tried to suppress my feelings, for I knew that a happy ending wasn’t possible. Once the summer was over I had to go back home to finish my studies. It was just simpler to remain distant. Four years on, I don’t see my love life in the same way any more. When I look back, as if in a rear-view mirror, I see the role being played. Sometimes you may wonder if you missed something on the journey. When your hopes haven’t been fulfilled you’re left with regret, reminding you that a different path might have served you better.

Frank is almost ten years older than me. His age had never bothered me. On the contrary, I had liked him straight away. His physical appearance was nothing out of the ordinary: brown hair with a small goatee, slender. His simplicity, his kindness, his thoughtfulness and his even-tempered nature, which I craved to feel at peace, had got the better of me. I had let myself be seduced and carried along by this fairy tale. After a few weeks I still didn’t know what he wanted with me, if he wanted to commit seriously or not, which undoubtedly caused some of my own reticence. He seemed to be infatuated with his ex still. Their tale, though, proved to be nothing more than a brief affair compared to our budding relationship. Frank was a wreck after their fling. It was our meeting that had given him back his spark. He’d found me radiant, like a ray of sunlight come to brighten up the dullness of his life. I had loved these sweet nothings he whispered to me, even if fear had held me back for the same reason.

Within days of being back home in Russia, in Irkutsk, I was already missing him. Was it because I was living far from France? Or were the feelings I’d shunned now flooding back? I’d wanted to protect myself, to not suffer; we both knew very well that our story would come to an end, an unavoidable and impassable cut-off date. Our relationship could not continue in any way at all. We had played the love game, both knowing what the outcome would be. We each had to close the final curtain to set the stage for a new present, without each other’s presence. As Frank had made very clear to me, this was an improbable love we shared… And yet, he was the one who had wanted to believe in it the most. He hadn’t wanted to draw a line under our relationship. He hadn’t wanted to let our relationship founder into oblivion. He’d dreamed of living a life of love here and now, whereas the here and now had nothing to offer. We had kept in touch for several months so as not to break the bond we had. He used to call me regularly and would suggest courses of study that I could take in France. He’d have liked to see me start a master’s in French language or literature. Really, it didn’t matter what. He just wanted me to come back as soon as possible. I don’t know if he was influenced by sentimental loneliness or if he really missed me. But I was touched to feel so wanted by him.

Our correspondence lasted until I met a boy who lived in the town where I was. The here and now had got the better of my affection, which was no longer caught up in just the virtual world. It’s great to dream but life cannot be built on an uncertain future. I was so young, my body yearned to live. It’s unnatural to stay alone too long. Frank, ever analytical, asked me not to spend too much time with this person. So I told him that the distance between us had dampened my feelings somewhat; I didn’t really know what I wanted any more. For a little while, after I supplanted him completely, all I got from him was reproaches, until his pain was eased by a new flame. Except that the sadness you feel when a romance fails — because, let’s face it, such disappointment exists — doesn’t go away completely. Some time later, even in his calmer emails, there was always an underlying trace of rancour and disgust.

Our last conversation had been at the start of the year, when I’d called him for his birthday. I was going to be another year older myself in a few weeks’ time and Frank would be calling me to wish me a happy twenty-fifth birthday… For me, it was all supposed to start over now, and I’d already pictured myself sharing the day with him! But now I found myself in the same city as someone I cared for and yet I felt so detached, even further apart than when I’d lived seven thousand kilometres from Paris.

I think of my tale as a journey of discovery, made up of different experiences and numerous doubts. Here are my adventures.