29

ZOE

Gilbert’s ‘destination restaurant’ was in the heart of the town, which our hotel was not. Again. Martin was defensive when I mentioned it as we walked a mile back the way we’d come.

‘They’re hardly going to make a point of telling you that a B&B is a kilometre or so out of town. Anyway, most tourists have a car.’

Gilbert conceded: ‘It is possible there was a problem of communication.’

‘You’re doing a better job than any of us could,’ I said. I was worried more for Camille than for me, and she seemed to be doing fine. She seemed calmer, more centred, since her confession to Grietje.

Now that we were out of the Alps, the nights were warmer, and we were seated outside, on tables set on a narrow cobblestone lane off the main street. The town that we weren’t staying in was pretty: churches, arcades of stores under stone archways, faded murals. Camille had gotten into a conversation with a Japanese couple at the next table. At college, she’d been a language major and before coming to the States she’d spent time in Tokyo, where her father had a diplomatic job.

My restaurant-Italian was not enough to decipher the menu. Signora explained, but in a mixture of French and Italian too rapid for me, and Martin didn’t seem to get it either. Hard to know if Gilbert had understood—but when the share platter arrived, it was all sausage. Raw sausage. Was it pork? Raw pork sausage?

‘We need to google this stuff before we order anything else,’ I said, and Bernhard got his phone out. Whoever had written the menu had used descriptions like wild boar on a bed of late-season red delicious rather than pork with apples. Poetic, but not so great when the two words you did know were missing.

We were maybe a quarter of a way through the first page when I noticed Camille working through the menu with the Japanese couple. Then a group of four behind them said something and she shifted her attention to them. Whatever language she was speaking, it wasn’t French or Japanese.

She turned back to us briefly to explain. ‘Polish. Their Italian is not so good either.’

I pointed out what everyone could now see.

‘Camille reads Italian?’ said Martin.

‘I guess.’ We’d been in Italy five days and hadn’t noticed—nor had she pointed it out.

‘And she speaks Japanese and Polish?’ said Bernhard.

‘You can see as well as I can. Or hear.’

I looked at Gilbert. Surely he knew. Sarah nodded as if she did.

Camille finished her interpreting and returned to the table.

Bernhard said something to her in rapid German, and she fired something right back. I didn’t understand anything, except that she’d passed the test.

Camille shrugged. ‘I studied English, Japanese and Spanish. Last night I was speaking with Grietje in Dutch. My Dutch is so-so but she was more comfortable talking about personal matters in her own language. I am working in a language school for many years, so I pick up others.’

One of the Polish couple leaned over to us and said, ‘Your friend’s accent is very good.’

‘Speaking a few words of other languages is nothing special,’ said Camille. ‘Every kid in the Fez medina who wants to be your guide can do that.’

‘The Fez medina?’ said Martin meaningfully, and Camille turned back to the Polish couple like he’d hit a nerve. Martin was trying not to laugh and Gilbert was giving him a strange look. I had no idea what it was about.

I was still thinking about Camille. After her abortion, she had dropped out. As I had, when I got pregnant and married Manny, my first husband and the father of my two girls. When she’d written me about her work, it had always sounded like administration.

Camille went through the menu for us, and I thought of how little I knew of her life. Of her. Mostly when I thought of her, I was thinking of the twenty-one-year-old: the little flirt with her over-the-top French accent and phrasing. I am working in a language school for many years, so I pick up others. Right.

‘Camille,’ I said, ‘if your Polish accent is so good and you didn’t even study that, how come when you speak English…’

Camille looked as though I’d insulted her. Again. Then she laughed. ‘You want me to talk like this: shoot the breeze, buddy; have a nice day? Be one with the universe?’

I stared at her. No French accent. No accent at all.

Sarah started laughing. ‘You sound just like Zoe.’

I guess she did. She’d never lived in California. What was the deal with the universe?

‘Because it is from Americans that I am learning thees Eenglish.’ Now the French accent was thicker than Pepé Le Pew’s. ‘And if you are ’aving ze choice between ze sexy French accent and sounding like an American, which will you choose?’