Aimeric & Chantilly

It wasn’t until the next evening that I spoke to Aimeric.

For the life of me, I could not figure out how to use the shower (yes, foreign gadgets befuddle me). So I approached Aimeric. The door to his room was open, the light was oddly dim, and the television was loud and blaring. Posters of race cars ornamented his walls. It seemed the room of quintessential teenager, universally familiar and disordered. As he sauntered back from the bathroom and a particularly uninspiring demo, I was about to pass him off as an overgrown freeloader, lazy and leeching off his mother.

Except that he hobbled.

This tall, handsome young man walked with a slight limp. Even though it was barely noticeable, it changed my entire perception of him. Somehow, he seemed marred physically, like a blatant splash of ink upon an otherwise flawless painting.

My eyes surveyed his bedroom for a crutch, cast, or a sign of recent injury. Instead, I saw the discarded covers for Lidoderm patches. My fingers gripped the doorknob in remembrance of pain, the devastating post-operative pain that required me to use those patches. My heart went out to him.

I asked rather indelicately, but Aimeric was frank and unabashed. Apparently, he had hemophilia, the disease of bleeding without clotting, which caused lumps in his knees and arms due to unequal pressure or concentration of blood. There were times when the pain was excruciating, particularly when he moved. Oxycodone or Percocet, gabapentin, hospital-administered morphine, he had tried it all.

He said he couldn’t work until the university releases his diploma, but they were on strike at the moment. There was nothing he could do. As he folded his hands in his lap, the melancholy that permeated his being was so potent I felt it keenly.

The next morning, I was scheduled to see the Chateau at Chantilly, literally five minutes from Joce’s house. To my surprise, Aimeric volunteered to take me around the exquisite Baroque castle. The chateau faced a lake, offering its own resplendent reflection on a clear day. I truly loved it. To me, this was the most beautiful and well-balanced chateau in all of France.

Aimeric narrated the history of this landmark, destroyed during the French Revolution, and rebuilt in the late 1800s. The art collection, Musee de Conde, was particularly prestigious and extensive. The gardens were elegant, the original inspiration of Marie Antoinette’s Petit Trianon. Of particular note were the Great Stables, which looked like towering majesties in their own right. He told me festivals took place over the stable grounds and fireworks were displayed on national holidays.

Aimeric seemed to come to life over the course of the day. No longer was he the reticent personality of the day before. As I listened to him, I realized how isolated he was.

He reminded me of myself during my teenage years, after my parents got divorced. I had felt there was an invisible barrier between myself and any possibility of happiness. A glass wall existed between me and my contemporaries; they could laugh without inhibitions and it was hard for me to find anything that was worth laughing about.

It wasn’t until I met Suneeta did I learn what it meant to be loved for your soul, your thoughts, and your most intrinsic self. The basic human need is that of being understood. After that moment and that wonderful girl who became my best friend, I never felt alone.

I suddenly felt close to this bright-eyed, twenty-two year old French boy, suffering from an ailment that will never cease.

Aimeric. Aimer. The French verb “to love.” Perhaps it is no coincidence.

Perhaps we all need to learn how to love.