Susi Fox
The first summer I fell in love, it was actually winter. I was a 17-year-old exchange student in Grenoble, France, a somewhat whimsical girl, prone to flights of fancy, with a vigorous imagination, a romantic bent and bucketloads of optimism. A romance during my eight-week stay in France was clearly fated.
The family with whom I was living in a decadent apartment in the centre of town, were liberal, pouring me hefty glasses of Bordeaux, cooking delicacies such as frogs’ legs and snails for my benefit, and encouraging me to practise my French at every opportunity.
It was Anne, their studious, kind-hearted daughter, who introduced me to Mathis, a shortish, brown-haired 17-year-old. He was a good friend of Anne’s, and he was interested in me, she said.
With a group of Anne’s friends, we wandered through the dark, freezing Grenoble streets to see Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas. With my scant French, I could barely follow the storyline, but I could read the electricity between Mathis’s skin and mine as our elbows nestled together on the cinema armrest.
On our first date, we lingered in the top floor of a cafe long after our hot chocolates had been consumed, gently caressing the contours of each other’s hands. It quickly became apparent that we shared a language that didn’t require words.
We kissed in the school quadrangle. Walked through the silent city, holding hands. Hiked to the top of the hill overlooking Grenoble. I imagined my future with him in the city below.
SUSI FOX
Evening meet-ups were in a local park, where we indulged in pleasurable play either on the icy park bench or lying together on his coat on the frozen ground. Mist hung in the air, but somehow I never seemed to notice the chill penetrating my skin.
We kissed in the school quadrangle. Walked through the silent city, holding hands. Hiked to the top of the hill overlooking Grenoble. I imagined my future with him in the city below – marriage, children – and swooned.
Despite my stilted French, we discussed what life might hold for the two of us as a couple. I tried to conceptualise how it could work; I still had year 12 to complete once I returned home, and was hoping to study medicine. Perhaps I would be able to earn enough money through a part-time job alongside my full-time studies to return for a visit in a few years. Mathis could even come out to Australia. My mind swam with the possibilities. Soon after, I began to dream in French.
Yet all too soon, the end of my exchange was approaching. His friends thoughtfully orchestrated a way we could spend an overnight together in one of their houses. In a cruel twist of fate – or possibly after our plans had been leaked to my host parents – the opportunity to consummate our love affair was thwarted when my host family took Anne and me away skiing for the weekend. My heart ached as I fumbled my way down the powdery slopes.
On my final night in Grenoble, I snuck down the marble staircase winding through the centre of my host family’s apartment building and unlocked the heavy wooden front door to let Mathis in. We embraced in the white-tiled foyer beside the antique lift, kissed for what seemed like hours. I believed, then, that we would see each other again. That we would be together forever. That love like this was fated to endure for life.
Je t’ai aimé, Mathis. I did love him, with the intensity, passion and steadfast hope only 17-year-olds are capable of.
Mathis and I faithfully exchanged long letters over the course of my final year of school. There was the occasional phone call, but with my French once again clumsy, I was hesitant to face off with his stern mother who often answered their home phone and who, Mathis had informed me, would never approve of her son dating an Australian. On the rare occasions Mathis and I did manage to connect by phone, our conversations were brief, stilted. Even so, I could hear the warmth in his voice and despite all the hurdles, I never doubted the truth and strength of our love.
And yet, as the first year of university beckoned, an older guy from the nursing home I was working in asked me out on a date. I’m still not sure what it was that made me even consider saying yes. Looking back, I presume it was the loneliness of my long-distance love affair, and of my waning hope of Mathis and I being together.
It was my mum who encouraged me to end things with Mathis. “You’ll never be able to build a life with him,” she said. I knew she was right, even as it almost broke me.
Mum helped me compose the brief and brutal letter I sent across the Atlantic in which I asked Mathis not to contact me again. He never did. But even now, 30 years later and having recently written a novel depicting the exact opposite of our youthful, cherished connection, I still hold fast to my belief in the possibilities of connected, caring, hopeful love.
The Other Child (Penguin Random House) by Susi Fox is out now.
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