The language I know best is French but my French is by no means the best. It is not the kind of French people learn nowadays at the Alliance Française. My French belongs to the old school. There, the language lessons would make you feel the weight of the armour, see the haunted castle, and hear the chilling laughter of the witch. This was long ago, a time when the word “mouse” meant some shy rodent and “chip” a flake.

From a country mouse, I became a city mouse, then moved abroad. The first thing I learned about life overseas is that it takes a simple airline ticket to transform a fairly educated person into a quasi-illiterate one. Do not fly in the opposite direction of your language skills unless you have to. Life is complicated enough as it is. I did not speak English at all. That was a big problem, of course, but not the only one. I was reluctant to learn it. This reluctance is the birth defect of French-speaking people of my generation and older. The French language is a pretty girl who turns into a bewitching mistress. You cannot slip away easily from her because you end up asking for more.

What convinced me to learn English more than anything else were the bones I saw on my plate after I had eaten fish at a roadside restaurant in Thailand. They were of a strange shape and the meat was of a slightly different consistency. The exotic fish I had just eaten was in fact a frog! If only it had been a sporty one with those cyclist legs, but no, I had eaten the couch potato, the computer geek of the Batrachian realm. I felt nauseous after this disturbing discovery but didn’t yell at the waiter. It wasn’t his fault. The word “frog” was clearly written on the menu but I had no idea what it meant. I had seen the picture of the dish on the menu, and it looked appetizing. The aroma of fried garlic and basil convinced me that it was the best meal around to have.

Ignorance was putting me in ludicrous situations every day and I had to put a stop to that. I bought a language book and tried to learn from the humble beginning. Milk is white. Water is liquid. You put the hat on top of your head.

How can you learn something when your brain is packed with skeletons of dead disciplines, pointless memories and a gang of devils dancing the Polka with pretty misperceptions? I was not able to recall my phone number but still remembered some utterly useless things dating back to my school years.

The expatriates I was hanging out with at that time communicated in English. Every night I was the first one to leave, feeling completely wiped out. While they were having fun chatting, I was under immense pressure, trying to grasp what they were saying and avoid looking stupid. The frustrating thing was that I understood more or less what they were saying, but lacked the right words to express myself. I would just smile and nod, feeling as empty as a shell. An inane person with a good command of English still came across better than me. In their presence my I.Q level often seemed close to room temperature. Those were nerve-racking moments. Suffering from a deflated self esteem, I used to indulge in long showers of nostalgic feelings in order to improve my distorted image.

With a handful of French, a spoon of intuition and a glass of convenient inebriation, I dared to say something now and then to spice up my presence. Trying to look intelligent when ignorance is still in charge can be quite tricky.

I remember one summer night at a dance club. The atmosphere was excellent and I was exchanging smiles with an executive called Matilda. She was drinking and chatting with her colleagues close to where I stood. At some point another woman told her that she was mean. Matilda turned towards me and asked if I found her mean. This was just a rhetorical question.

Now, the word “mean” sounds exactly like “mine” in French, as in gold mine. I hastily concluded that the word “mean” carried a connotation of depth and spiritual wealth. Cocksure, I replied, saying “Yes, you are a very mean girl”. People were speechless. I shall never forget that look on her face. I left the place with my ears hot with embarrassment. Being cocksure made me look cocky for sure, and cost me a mean feather with her. That night I could not fall asleep. Four words that sounded the same as “mean” kept dancing around my head to a fast Hungarian tune.

On one occasion, I left a small thank-you note to a helpful woman saying that she deserved “a big hog”. The spelling mistake might have provoked some laughter at her office. She made a laconic phone call from which I grasped only the words “Freud” and “slip”. I couldn’t see the unfathomable link between my note, Freud and underwear.

The woman saw in the misspelling either a boorish move on her or a Freudian Slip. I did not deny her allegation because it took me three years to understand what she had said on that day. I found out why she gave me the slip while reading a mental health magazine at a dentist’s office. Pain comes alone, real pain comes in pairs.

In those glorious days, I went to an Indian restaurant, all proud that I could venture out on my own in the English speaking jungle. The restaurant was packed with people from the Anglophone tribe. I ordered a Murgh Makhanwala, a dish that tastes much better than it sounds. At some point, I told the waitress, “More grave, please”. Apparently she understood what I said and went away to bring some. A minute later she came back with a chubby man. He lifted his eyebrow to a scary level and asked me, “Vatt seemz to be the problem sir?” What awful thing did she tell him so that he came asking what the problem was? I put my plate under the man’s nasal protuberance and said, “The chicane is very deli-shoes. More grave, please.” “Asha. Asha, (I see, I see)” he said, stroking his beard. He then added, loud enough for a bona fide public humiliation, “Vee call it Grray-Veee! Grray-Veee! Do you need anything else?” I said “No” and he left.

By this time I had lost my appetite and all I wanted was to sneak out. I put the money on the table and did not wait for the change. At the exit, another waitress said with a naughty smile, “Grray-Vee!” They all knew about it. I have not shown my face in that restaurant since the last century.