Frank had suggested that they continued their trip by visiting the Parc des Buttes Chaumont, which she accepted willingly.
The journey had taken a good hour. Frank had underestimated how long it took to walk to there from the basilica. On the way, they continued sharing snippets of their respective lives. Frank had told her about his photography work. Svetlana found this very interesting. For her, photography was a wonderful form of artistic expression. She had pointed out that he had not brought a camera to immortalize their outing. She was teasing him
But I do not have any of my own I rent it when I need it for a report or a photo shoot, he explained.
She was surprised. She had not realised that professional equipment was so expensive, especially optics. Frank did not need it for more than two days at a time, so renting was the best choice. It was a choice that allowed him to avoid having to endure a consumer credit that he would have struggled to pay back, pushing his already unstable situation to a worse place. In that moment, Frank considered himself as just another other tourist using his phone to take pictures. Svetlana was a very bad photographer. She preferred to look at the photos. On the other hand, her parents wanted her to bring back some pictures. They had never had the opportunity to travel across Europe.
Conversation between them flowed effortlessly. Frank was genuinely beginning to fall for her. From time to time, he corrected some mistakes with her French. She was happy he did that. Yet she would have hoped more from a Frenchman who mastered the language. Svetlana wished that Frank had interrupted her every single time she made a mistake and that he corrected the construction of her sentences too.
Staying in France caused a great cultural shock for Svetlana. Life and people here seemed different from back home. She did not feel comfortable hearing conversations in French all around her. She felt like her French language skills werent that great. Her colleagues tried to reassure her: they themselves thought they did not have enough knowledge to speak properly in French. However, unlike Svetlana, they were happy just being understood by the French.
Frank thought it was normal for Svetlana to face difficulties, since she was in France for the very first time. She was not familiar with the sound of the language. Svetlana was surprised that Frank understood everything correctly when she spoke. She was also surprised to understand every last word he said. At the store, dialect problems arose when she had to decode the gibberish of some customers who were nevertheless native French people. So, their clear exchange delighted her. The communication was so smooth it allowed them to focus on getting to know each other.
When Frank did not correct Svetlana, it was because the fault seemed minimal to him. Above all, he was accustomed to spending time with foreign women and decrypting their strange sentence constructions, in some cases. As Frank did not pay attention to all the mistakes, he was a little taken aback whenever Svetlana she realised that she had just made an error. Frank tried to reassure her: it was only minor faults in the conjugation or placement of words. Nothing serious, according to him. For her, making such mistakes seemed like the end of the world. She was ashamed of it and considered herself worthless in French. She wanted to master the language perfectly.
To get to the park, they had crossed a large part of the nineteenth arrondissement, some of the gloomiest corners of Paris among which it would be possible to award the gold medal of French rot. And this filth is a good business, the price per square meter is higher than in sunny southern areas. Svetlana felt like she was at home. It was the buildings, the shops, the particularly ugly and dirty aesthetics that reminded her of the city she came from. It was not at all like the touristy areas that visitors strolled through to admire. Here, they roamed an area at the antipode of Paris that sells through postcards. And yet, in these places the greatest human values are certainly hidden, far from this false and mannered bourgeoisie.
Once in the park, they had gone to Belvedere Island at the Temple de la Sibylle. That day, a zipline was suspended. It spanned the lake to reach the mainland thirty meters below. It was the works of an association that wanted to introduce teenagers to the thrills of treetop adventure courses. After the descent, they were invited to discover other activities in an adventure park in the Paris region. It was a kind of demonstration-sample marketing in partnership with Paris city hall. Frank and Svetlana watched several young people jump into nothingness. Although at first the device seemed impressive, the did not actually move very quickly. Arriving on the other side was smooth, someone being there to help them. They stopped to take some pictures. Frank shot Svetlana again from different angles.
While admiring the view, they were able to see just how far they had walked. The Basilica of the Sacred Heart seemed very far and small from there. Leaning on the railing, their bodies had begun to brush, voluntarily and timidly. Unable to do anything else on this cliff except watching young people attach themselves to a rope, they had headed for the suspended bridge. Here was still the association. This time it offered an introduction to rock climbing for children. Or rather a rappelling descent that brought them eight meters below. Still on the railing, they lingered there for a long time. Time flew by, as they revelled in each others company.
Svetlana had told him about her family. Her mother was from Ukraine and her father was a native Russian. She missed her sister a lot. They trusted with everything, like two very close friends. Svetlana lived two hundred kilometres from the family nucleus. She only visited them during the school holidays. The rest of the time, she lived in a student hostel in Irkutsk city centre, ten minutes from her school. One of her art teachers was a young Frenchman, barely thirty, whom she found attractive. She would not have been against something happening between them in a different context. Frank supposed she was telling him this information to indicate the direction to take. He had to show her the will of a man who wants a woman. In any case, they laughed. Their hands were getting closer and closer.
Frank had put his hand gently on Svetlana hand, that had been playing around beside his. She did not try to pull away, which confirmed Franks thought. From that point on, he was sure that their outing would evolve into so much more. This girl was as flustered as he was. Now, he had to get it together and muster up some courage to bring down the next set of barriers.
They had decided to continue their walk, after having lingered for quite some time in that place. Franks right index finger caught Svetlanas, who was beginning to retrace their steps. On the way, he got hold of her left index finger, like a hook. Their fingers could have easily become untied. The sensation of her touch was pleasant. They both knew that what they wanted was their hearts to get involved in the game ofintertwining. Their knuckles clutched, Frank had proposed crossing the bridge to go to the waterfall on the other side. As her only answer, Svetlana had widened her eyes. As they walked she strolled closer and closer to his body. She had told him verbally that she wanted to see this place. Franks left hand had captured Svetlanas left hand and offered it to his right hand. Ten fingers were hugging each other. Their mouths were walled in a silence that delighted them. A strong heat spread from this contact and brightened Frank. Feeling the softness of the hand of a highly desired woman becomes a pure moment of liberation. However, the gesture invites the man to continue the game of seduction even more. It is in that moment that you know something important has just happened and that something more serious is about to manifest itself. Its like sealing a pact or signing an act. Before this agreement, they were just two foreign shadows. Now, they embodied two souls united together through which the other carried the hope of a new love.