Reunion

Chapter 1

Chapter 1Brian Caleb stared out the train window, at the French countryside sweeping past. He jumped when he heard the voice and felt the hand on his shoulder.

“Excuse me, but are you in my French grammar class?”

He had a cute face. A sexy accent. But Brian couldn’t place him. Grammar class consisted of sitting at individual booths, listening to tapes, staring at notes, so Brian wasn’t in the habit of paying much attention to the other students. “Sorry, I’m not sure.”

“Oh, well, maybe you’ve seen me with long hair and glasses. I had it cut yesterday, and am not wearing glasses, as you can see. So picture me in that manner.”

Whether his hair was short or long, and whether or not he sported glasses, Brian would have remembered seeing this face in class. “I’m still not sure.”

“Well, I noticed you,” he whispered. “I’m Ondřej.”

“Uh, hi. I’m Brian.” He paused. “I didn’t really catch how to pronounce—”

“Ondřej. You must make the R roll, at the same time with a sh sound, and it ends with a J, which in Czech is like a Y with a little…um, a little stick in your throat. I am not sure how to phrase it.”

“André,” Brian said.

“Yes, well, that is close enough. It has more charm, the way you say it.” He scanned the length of the train car, which was nearly empty except for a family seated at the end. “Now I know this place is reserved, but as long as no one is here now, I will sit here. If it is fine with you. With your permission.”

“Yeah,” Brian said. “That’s fine.”

Was this cute Czech classmate of his just testing the waters, or had he somehow picked up on the fact Brian was gay? Brian didn’t think himself obvious. But Ondřej was flirting—wasn’t he?—and held eye contact, and let his arm rest against Brian’s when he sat down.

He pictured the seating arrangement of the grammar class, still bothered he’d never noticed Ondřej. He then envisioned Mme. Biraud’s scowl and wagging finger whenever anyone spoke anything but French. She’d even warned the students about using other languages in place of French outside of class.

“I guess technically we should be speaking in French,” Brian said. “En français, monsieur, en français,” he continued, imitating Mme. Biraud’s unusually manly voice.

“No,” Ondřej said, raising his hand. “Stop. I am bored with français. It bores me.” He closed his eyes and sighed.

“Ennui,” Brian said, still imitating Mme. Biraud’s voice.

Ondřej turned and looked again to Brian. “I wonder if you are glad you have traveled all the way to France. To study.” He nudged Brian’s arm. “I mean words, as well as men in Paris bars.”

Brian’s chest tightened. He felt an odd mix of embarrassment and elation. Did this just confirm that Ondřej was, in fact, gay, too? Or was this too optimistic? Maybe Ondřej had merely been in the vicinity of one of the clubs, and spotted Brian entering or exiting. But before Brian could speak, Ondřej nudged his arm again.

“I saw you last night, at Mix,” Ondřej whispered. “I, too, get bored spending all my time in the sleepy town of Tours. Surely Tours bores you as well.”

Brian looked out the window a moment, to gather his thoughts, hoping he wouldn’t say something idiotic. He turned back to Ondřej. “My professor back home told me I had to study in Tours. She said that the Loire region speaks the purest French in the world.”

Ondřej shook his head. “They fooled you also.” He stared into Brian’s eyes. “The men aren’t quite so pure here either, but that is okay.” He patted Brian’s hand. “It makes the time here not so painful.”

Ondřej’s hand was warm compared to Brian’s, which was like ice.

“So when you asked if I was in your grammar class,” Brian said, “it was all pretense?”

Ondřej looked confused. “Pre…tense?”

“It means that you—well, that you already knew…ah, I’m not sure how to explain it. It doesn’t matter. It was a dumb question.”

“Well, you will explain it to me sometime. My English, it’s good, but still I’m learning. So if you can teach me more English, I will teach you some Czech. But let’s, for now, ignore the French.”

Brian was unsure just how seriously to take Ondřej’s attitude. “So…if you don’t like studying French, why are you in the program?”

He shrugged. “I liked the language when I was a younger boy, but it is all so…mont…monto…”

“Monotonous?”

“Exactly. But France was closer to home than Japan. I want to learn Japanese now, though.”

“That’s way different from a Romance language.”

“It is more artistic.”

The door at the far end of the car slid open, and a man started down the aisle. He paused next to Ondřej, checked his ticket, and walked on.

“If no one claims this seat, may I continue to sit here?”

“Sure,” Brian said, his hands shaking gently, his heart racing just a little. “Or I can move to the seat next to yours if that stays empty. As long as the ticket agent doesn’t yell at us.”

“To hell with him. I paid many Euros for this sophisticated train. I won’t be pushed around by him.” He took Brian’s hand. “I will just stay right here.”

Brian felt nervous, excited, flustered, aroused. He loved Ondřej’s forwardness. He held Ondřej’s hand tightly, though he was scared someone would see them. After a minute he slid his coat over just far enough to cover their hands. He didn’t look up to see Ondřej’s reaction. But Ondřej moved closer to him.

* * * *

“I know it’s corny, but we met on Valentine’s Day,” Brian said to his sister. He was at the beat-up old payphone at the edge of the Jardin des Prébendes in Tours. He felt stupid using such outdated technology, but Sheila had been nice enough to pay for collect calls in order to save Brian the expense of a cell phone with an overseas calling plan. Of course, Brian felt guilty that he was spending money with more frequency now that he’d been seduced by the wiles of Paris. “His name is Ondřej. And even though he thinks it’s cute when I pronounce it like ‘André’, you sort have to trill the ‘r’ with a ‘sh’ sound, and it ends with a ‘j’, which in Czech is like a ‘y’ with a little—”

“So what happened to devoting all your time to studying French?”

Brian didn’t answer. He knew what was probably going through Sheila’s mind—her little brother’s unreasonable insistence that he be allowed to go to France to study even though their father was undergoing chemo. Brian pressed his thumb against his palm in anticipation of whatever his sister might say next.

“Just remember you’re there to study French, not spend all your time—”

“But I think this time it’s—” Brian stopped. He wasn’t ready to admit to his sister how different things seemed with this classmate of his. Ondřej. He wasn’t about to utter the word “love” for fear he’d jinx something. Besides, it wasn’t really something he felt comfortable discussing with his older sister. After a month and two days of seeing each other, this relationship between him and Ondřej felt like…well, pure confusion.

“So how did you meet this…On…Ondřej? Is that right? What do you plan to do? Move over there for good? Are you giving up all your French now?”

To Brian, the best part of meeting Ondřej had been the romance of it all. It wasn’t the usual “we met at a club” or “we just really clicked in the chat room.” Instead, he could tell people, “We met on a train. On a train from Paris to Tours.” It sounded like something from a movie. And it wasn’t just any train. “We met on the TGV.”

“Well, I don’t know what that stands for,” Sheila would most likely respond, in her detached, matter-of-fact way.

Brian wasn’t about to tell his sister he’d been heading back from a weekend in Paris, a weekend away from his two roommates in their shared house on Rue James Cane. It seemed after months of studying at the Institut d’etudes francaises de Touraine, his weekend study sessions were being replaced by trips to Paris, with train tickets he was putting on his “emergency” credit card. But those clubs in Paris fascinated him—there were no gay clubs in Tours. And the walk along the Seine at three in the morning, when cruising is at its prime—it was fun just to have men come up and flirt.

Though these thoughts ran through his mind, he wouldn’t mention any of this to his sister. Instead, “So I was riding back from Paris, and this guy asks if I’m in his grammar class. Dark hair, brown eyes, adorable. He speaks to me in English, and I assume he could tell I was American or whatever. And it turns out he’s—”

“Brian, we can’t talk much longer,” his sister said. She reminded him this was an overseas call. Collect. There was a pause, and she added, “You haven’t asked about Dad, you know.”

His stomach sank. He pressed on his palm again. “I plan to call him in a few days, maybe. I don’t know.”

The sigh on the other end was louder than usual. “Jesus, Brian. Are you kidding me? Do you realize—”

“Sheila, just…just give it a f*****g rest.”

“No! I won’t…give it a rest!”

“Well what do you think I should do? Call up and say, ‘Hi Dad! It’s the son you disowned! How’s the ol’ cancer?’”

There was a click. Stateside.

Had his sister cared, Brian might have told her he was planning to move into Ondřej’s small apartment in Tours. Not really officially, yet, since he still received mail at his other place, and a lot of his stuff was still there, but he was spending practically all his time with Ondřej. He might also have told his sister about Ondřej’s smile, his laugh, his eating habits, his clothes, his love of movies—all things Brian thought about day in and day out. “I can’t concentrate on classes anymore,” he might have told her, though it wouldn’t have been the wisest thing to do.

But Sheila would just be silent while Brian talked about it. As for his father—well, yes, of course Brian hoped there would be progress with the cancer treatments. He knew that his father hadn’t had the easiest time raising two kids alone, and he knew it wasn’t easy on him to have Sheila fussing over him like he was an infant or something, but how do you tell this stuff to someone who orders you to get out of the house and not talk to him until you come to your senses and decide you’re going to be “goddamn normal”?

* * * *

“I think of this as our place,” Ondřej announced, pouring out the last drop of cocoa from a dented saucepan. “You must feel you are…um…not just a visitor. That this, too, is all yours, including this tragic cookery.” He smiled, turned off the gas, and handed Brian his mug of cocoa. “This cup is yours. I will have the one that’s chipped.”

It was at moments like this that Brian felt his deepest attraction toward Ondřej, his unusual blend of quirkiness and self-confidence, seriousness and silliness, all coming to the surface with his gestures and words. “You must feel,” Ondřej continued, his left hand outstretched, “that this is your home now.”

As was often the case, Brian didn’t know just how seriously to take him. And he was frequently reluctant to ask, to pursue any of Ondřej’s pronouncements, lest he be informed that some—if not all—of the romantic things he’d been told had simply been jokes. “Just kidding,” was one phrase in Czech-accented English he didn’t want to hear.

Yet Brian felt that they were really about to make this apartment a home. This little apartment in Tours, on Boulevard Marchant Duplessis. They shared a small table with two mismatched chairs, a CD player, assorted cookware and plates, and a futon. They shopped for food together, ate dinner out once a week, and took coffee once a day, after classes, which Brian still attended but Ondřej skipped with more frequency. Ondřej, of course, hadn’t let on to his family his waning interest, so they continued to send him money for living expenses. And Sheila also continued to send Brian a little money each month, though with the last payment she hinted that this allowance soon might come to an end. Brian suspected the reason had more to do with his reluctance to ask about their father than financial hardship on her part.

“And are you now exploring le subjonctif?” he asked Brian, with disdain in his voice. They sat at their usual coffee spot, the little café around the corner from the park. “Such a waste of time.”

“So…what are you going to do?” Brian asked. “Are you going to quit the program altogether? You haven’t been to a class in weeks.”

Ondřej stared up at the sky. “I don’t know my plan,” he said. “I don’t know how much longer I can last in this town.”

Brian felt like he’d been kicked in the gut. As if their little apartment now meant nothing. “You mean up and leave? Just like that? Without asking me?”

Ondřej stared at him. “I need your permission then?”

“No,” Brian said. “I didn’t mean it like that. I meant that…that it should be a discussion for both of us.”

Ondřej shrugged.

“So what does that mean?” Brian asked.

Ondřej drummed on the table. “I don’t know, Brian. I don’t know what anything means at the moment. I just don’t know.”

The waiter brought their espresso. A young, stunningly handsome waiter with curly dark hair. A waiter who paid no attention to Brian, but kept his eyes fixed upon Ondřej. Although Ondřej smiled back at him in a way that Brian thought was friendlier than it should have been, Brian’s anger was directed more at the waiter for not acknowledging them as a couple. It seemed as though somehow the waiter couldn’t believe Ondřej might be with someone like Brian. It was just that…well, it sounded foolish and paranoid, but then again, at that moment, it seemed a plausible scenario to Brian.

After the waiter walked away—all too slowly, Brian thought—Ondřej stared past Brian for a minute, running the tip of his finger around the rim of his espresso cup. Then he took Brian’s hands and squeezed them, running his thumbs back and forth along the contours of Brian’s palms. “Tell me, would you ever consider living in Tokyo for a year?”

Brian knew immediately he wasn’t joking, though it sounded odd, out of the blue, related to nothing they’d been talking about. “I don’t know. I mean, why? What are you thinking?”

Ondřej looked past him again. “Too many things, maybe. Too many stupid things.” His eyes glazed over. He chewed the inside of his lip. He was silent. Lost in thought. Then he locked eyes with Brian. “It is a beautiful city, I think, though some people say it’s ugly. I just have this…I am in love with the culture and language. It is so different from all this.”

Brian wasn’t sure how to respond. But he suddenly felt he hadn’t said what Ondřej wanted to hear, or that he hadn’t reacted in some specific way. He became more convinced of this as Ondřej’s hands slipped away and his beautiful, dark eyes drifted over to the waiter, who was standing against a doorway, staring back at Ondřej. Brian felt something had just shifted.

* * * *

Brian stood in a phone booth, just outside the main gate of the park. There had already been five rings on the other end, and he was about to hang up, but then he heard Sheila’s voice, weak, drained, with static on the line adding to the difficulty of hearing her.

“Hey, Sheila, it’s me.”

“Brian. Um…listen. Dad’s here. He came to stay a few days ago. I’m going to put him on the phone, okay?”

“Sheila, wait. I’ve—”

“No, Bri, listen. He’s not doing well. The chemo’s making him really sick. Can you just please talk to him for a minute?”

Brian sighed. “If he’ll talk to me.” He watched a group of young children chase a pigeon. “But hang on. I want to tell you that I’m thinking of living in Tokyo for a little while. If I get a work permit, or something like that, I can—” He heard talking in the background. It was Sheila’s voice. Then he heard his father’s voice, soft at first, then more heated, with Sheila’s voice rising to match it. He couldn’t make out much of it, but he did hear Sheila telling their father to calm down at one point. “Okay, Dad, just stop yelling! Just stop!” That’s when Brian hung up. He walked into the park and sat down on a bench. He stared at the pond in the distance, the swans gliding along the edge of the water. And one of the children who had been chasing the pigeon now stopped and stared at him. Brian didn’t think his emotional state had been so obvious.

He sat there for a few minutes, turning away from the child. It was only when he heard the bells from the church a few blocks away that he realized he was late for his daily coffee with Ondřej.

He wiped his eyes, stood up, and hurried out of the park.

In retrospect, he needn’t have hurried, for when he arrived at their café, he sat alone for two hours.

It seemed an eternity.