So we sent our kids to the bilingual school. It was Mrs. Eagle’s idea. She’d found it on her morning walk. Turned down Milwood Avenue instead of cutting across Crescent Court, looked up from her steaming cup of Starbucks, and there it was, a school inside a tall blue fence.
On the fence were bright paintings of charming and childish things: airplanes, flowers, tigers.
The sign above the doorway read: L’ÉCOLE BILINGUE, ENGLISH AND FRENCH.
All of this was written in a fancy white script.
Inside the fence she heard the happy sounds of children. She pressed her face to a knothole and saw children playing hopscotch. Children swinging the tetherball. Children clutching leather-strapped books and nodding smartly to each other. All of them in perfect black berets.
Across the street was the public school, the middle school where we would have to send our children when they got to be that age. Outside, there were children lazing on the steps. Children smoking cigarettes. Children practically fornicating with other children. At home Mrs. Eagle called the rest of us. A meeting for concerned parents, she said. Mothers who are concerned about the education of their children.
We ate madeleine cookies at the meeting. Dipped them in tea and talked about how exciting it would be for our children to learn French.
French is the language of love, said Mrs. Davis.
But not amorous love, I hope, said Mrs. Cavendish, who happened to be our host. She moved around the living room, pouring more tea.
No, said Mrs. Eagle. Italian is the language of amorous love. Spanish is the language of forbidden love. German is the language of modern love. English is the language of self love. French, she said, is the language of brotherly love.
We all agreed that brotherly love was the best.
Then Mrs. Spatz took out a picture book and we looked at pictures of French couples carrying umbrellas. French couples eating croissants. French couples riding tandem bicycles along the green banks of the Seine. Mrs. Spatz began humming “Aux Champs Elysées.”
At first our kids didn’t want to go to the bilingual school. They wanted to know what was wrong with their current school. What was wrong with primary language–only education?
We explained that their current school was failing them. Primary language–only education was making them vulgar and limited in expression.
Mrs. Cavendish had shown us a drawing her daughter had made in art class. It looked like an ill-formed dog hopping over a fence.
A nice dog, said Mrs. Eagle.
It’s supposed to be a horse, said Mrs. Cavendish.
We told our children that at the bilingual school they would learn to draw horses that looked like horses.
But they complained about the dress code. We don’t like berets, they said. They’re too hot in the summer, they said, and don’t cover your ears in the winter.
We told them they should consider themselves lucky to wear berets.
We showed them pictures of famous beret wearers: artists, intellectuals, and Che Guevara.
Che Guevara is un-American, they said.
French is un-American, they said.
We admit they almost had us there for a moment. How had that picture of Che Guevara gotten in there?
We asked Mrs. Spatz, who was in charge of assembling the pictures. I think he’s cute, she said.
We agreed that Che Guevara was cute. We liked his eyes and his cheekbones. The rakish way he pursed his lips.
Che Guevara is cute, we told our children.
Berets are cute, we said.
French is cute.
There’s nothing more American than being cute.
The children weren’t the only ones to object to the bilingual school. Our husbands complained as well. They didn’t understand why we should send our children to a special school. Didn’t regular schools still teach French? We explained that bilingual schools didn’t just teach the language. They taught culture, music, food, art.
Public schools can’t teach you to listen to Debussy, we said.
Public schools can’t teach you to appreciate soft cheese.
Over breakfast our husbands grumbled and looked at the brochures. There were turtle-necked children smiling happily on the covers. The Eiffel Tower towering in the background.
The costs, our husbands said.
The social stigma, they said.
They pointed out that the bilingual school didn’t even have an American-style football team. Without American football how would our children learn to interact with their peers?
We cleared their breakfast plates and rinsed them in our sinks. We watched oily swells of bacon fat pool and cloud in the dishwater like our dreams.
What to do? we asked ourselves.
We gazed at pictures of Che Guevara. Asked ourselves: What would Che Guevara do?
Withhold sex, said Mrs. Eagle.
We were sipping Frappuccinos. We sat beneath an umbrella and shielded our eyes from the sun.
Mrs. Eagle explained that we would withhold sex until our husbands came to see our point of view. Mrs. Davis fanned herself with a napkin.
How long? she asked.
Until our request can no longer be denied, said Mrs. Eagle.
How long will that be? asked Mrs. Davis.
About a week, said Mrs. Eagle.
Mrs. Cavendish plunged her green straw into a plastic cup. What if we’re already withholding sex? she said.
Mrs. Spatz removed her sunglasses. You have to have sex, she said, in order to withhold sex.
About a week later we sent our children to the bilingual school.
We walked them to the blue fence and said goodbye underneath a picture of a smiling tiger.
Goodbye, said our children.
And they were quickly assimilated into the playground by their peers, their black berets indistinguishable from all the others.
At the end of the day we met our children outside the blue fence.
Hello, we said.
Bonjour, they said.
Mrs. Eagle squealed with delight.
It went on this way for several weeks. We said goodbye outside the fence and they said au revoir. We said hello and they said bonjour.
They added other expressions to their vocabulary, such as s’il vous plaît, excusez-moi, and merci beaucoup. When we went to In-N-Out they ordered their cheeseburgers with pommes frites.
Even our husbands seemed impressed. How do you say American football? they asked.
Football, said our children.
How do you say soccer? said our husbands.
Football, said our children.
Our husbands smiled and shook their heads. They marveled at the ambiguity.
How do you say cows? said our husbands.
We were picnicking in the mountains. Picnic baskets on picnic blankets on the ground. Around us, cows were chewing grass.
Les vaches, said our children.
Our husbands continued asking.
How do you say chewing? How do you say grass?
While they asked, we women ate sandwiches. We removed them from our picnic baskets, unwrapped them, spread them with cheese. Mrs. Spatz said that cheese is a product of aging. Controlled spoilage, she said. Her twins taught her that. At the bilingual school they learned that cheese is created by souring milk, letting bacteria colonies settle and grow.
The smell of cheese is the smell of decay, she said.
We sniffed our sandwiches. They seemed to smell fine.
Mrs. Davis told us that her cheese smelled like soil.
Mrs. Eagle said that her cheese smelled like shoes. But good shoes, she said. Expensive. She took a bite.
Mrs. Cavendish said that the ability to ignore signs of death is a mark of civilization. By learning about cheese, she said, our children are learning to be civilized.
Cowbells clanked around us.
Our husbands and children, playing soccer, cheered.
Mrs. Davis was the first to notice that something was wrong. After school, her children continued speaking French. They’d sit at the dinner table and talk to each other in sentences that chimed like bells.
When she told them to brush their teeth they’d look at her, say something tinkling, and laugh.
When she asked them to take out the garbage they’d stare at her blankly, at the two Hefty bags in her hands.
Je ne sais pas, said the boy.
His sister: Je ne comprends pas.
And my husband is worthless, said Mrs. Davis. He just laughs. He thinks it’s funny that they talk to us that way.
We were at Mrs. Cavendish’s. Pictures of horses that looked like horses hung on her fridge.
What are they saying? asked Mrs. Spatz. She blew on her tea.
Exactly, said Mrs. Davis. It’s impossible to know.
Mrs. Eagle said that it was very difficult to learn a foreign language without immersing yourself in it. They’re immersing, she said.
But at home, Mrs. Eagle found her son sunning himself by the pool. His black beret seemed blacker. The felted wool soaking up all the light.
Bonjour, he said. His words chimed across the water.
Comment allez-vous?
Later that week we sat by the same pool. Suntan lotion wafted in the air. How old is he? asked Mrs. Davis.
Mrs. Eagle rolled onto her stomach. Ten, she said.
For tanning, said Mrs. Davis, ten seems kind of young.
Mrs. Spatz told us that her twins had suddenly become interested in mime. They actually do a great routine, she said. One blows up a balloon and hands it to the other. The other floats away. But they get paint everywhere, she said. Not to mention bedtime, she said. Whenever it’s bedtime they become trapped in some kind of box.
We asked Mrs. Cavendish about her daughter.
Mrs. Cavendish leaned forward in her chaise. She’s been teaching my husband, said Mrs. Cavendish.
Teaching him what? we said.
She’s teaching him French.
For example, when they drove to Whole Foods. Mrs. Cavendish’s husband would roll down the windows. Quel temps fait-il? he’d say.
Her daughter would stick her hand outside. Il fait bon.
Or at the movies: Qu’est-ce que j’ai raté? her husband would say.
Un tremblement de terre.
What’d you say? said Mrs. Cavendish. The audience hissed, someone kicked her seat.
Language is a fortress, she told us by the pool.
We knew exactly what she meant. Language is a fortress on St. Helena, we said.
Because when we said goodbye outside the bilingual school, we noticed that the children’s au revoirs sounded less like goodbyes dressed up in a different language and more like actual goodbyes.
When we picked them up after school, we noticed how they lingered on the playground with their classmates, talking.
What were they saying to each other?
Each consonant, each nasally vowel, was building a wall between us. Brick by brique par brique.
We asked our husbands if they noticed anything going on. But they were husbands. They gazed into their smart phones, playing Threes! and Angry Birds, said no.
Then there was the strike, and the strike was impossible to ignore.
We don’t know why it started exactly. Mrs. Davis told us her children weren’t doing their homework.
Homework? we said.
We hadn’t seen our children doing homework either.
We asked them about it.
They flipped TV channels: top models, top chefs, got talent.
How do you say? they said. En grève, they said.
We knew what en grève meant. We’re not the types of mothers who don’t watch the evening news. We’d seen the marches in Lyon and Paris. The marchers with en grève banners. Hand-painted. Red paint.
And what are you striking about? we asked. But the children wouldn’t say anything more about it.
En grève, they said. They continued flipping channels, berets perched defiantly on top of their heads.
We met with the headmaster. We waited outside his office and pulled our skirts closer to our ankles. We crossed our legs and then crossed them again. We coughed.
The inside of the bilingual school was just like the outside. Bright-colored walls with bright pictures of cheerful things.
Mrs. Spatz sat underneath a scooter.
Mrs. Cavendish sat underneath an apple.
Mrs. Davis sat underneath an ostrich.
Mrs. Eagle sat underneath an Arc de Triomphe.
The headmaster served us macaroons. He took off his beret and scratched his mustache. Told us he understood our concerns.
Mademoiselles, he said, everything is okay. How do you say? he said. Vos enfants grandissent. Your children are just growing up.
And maybe he was right. When we were children hadn’t we done the same sort of things? Not strikes, exactly, but other things. Revolutions. Black nail polish. Che Guevara T-shirts. Punk.
I don’t like it, said Mrs. Cavendish.
We agreed. We did not like it.
The headmaster shrugged: What’s for you to like or not to like? Your children are condemned to be free.
That night, the bilingual school held an open house. The students presented on the difference between French and American education. The Davis siblings made existentialist dioramas. There was a baking contest and Mrs. Cavendish’s daughter won for her éclairs. The open house ended with a mime skit led by the Spatz twins. At the end of their routine, they called all of the children on stage and blew up balloons for them. They all floated away.
In the summer we sent the children to France as part of a foreign exchange. They mailed us postcards of ducks on the Seine, shoppers on the Champs Elysées. Having a great time, they wrote. And scrawled as an afterthought: Wish you were here.
And a year after that they graduated from the bilingual school. There was a bilingual middle school, but we sent them to the public school. By then they didn’t care about French or bilingual education. They cared about lazing around and smoking cigarettes and fornication. They didn’t care about us.
It was hard at first, but eventually we were okay with that. It’s not like we didn’t care about them, but maybe we didn’t, at least a little bit. We didn’t care in the same ways we used to. After all, they didn’t want us to walk them to school. They didn’t want us to hold their hands. They didn’t say anything when we wished them goodbye.
Sometimes when we saw them walking toward us, out of the middle school or into our houses, with their skinny jeans, with their longboards, their acne, greasy hair, they didn’t even look like our children anymore. They seemed more like bad translations of our children.
Familiar but foreign concepts.
Half-unknowable.
Our children partially dubbed.