I'll Never Be French (no matter what I do) Read online

  I walk to the fountain in the center. It looks as if it’s been a long time without water, which is odd, since this is Brittany, and it’s supposed to rain all the time. The front of the mairie—city hall—is pockmarked and peeling. Chimneys are in need of repair—some are broken, others have become planters with grass and weeds growing out of them. Three of the buildings look completely unoccupied, and the church, the largest and probably oldest building, is black from base to bell tower, covered with soot or dirt or exhaust.

  The church door swings open and two women come out, and just like the baguette lady, neither of them looks at me. I’m invisible, which, given how I look, is a miracle. If I saw me, I would stare.

  “Bonjour,” I say as I walk up the steps.

  “Bonjour, monsieur,” they respond in harmony.

  I walk in expecting medieval doom and gloom, and am surprised by the airiness and light. The ceiling is the blue of the bluest summer sky I can imagine, the walls white like clouds. I walk down the aisle between newly caned, squat-legged, straight-backed, neatly arranged rows of painfully uncomfortable-looking chairs. No sissy cushions, benches, or kneelers for these people. Also, no Jesus or cross on the altar. It’s not until I reach the front railing that I see Him hanging there, a little ten-inch guy made of bronze. I’ve had enough Irish and Italian girlfriends to know it isn’t like this in Catholic churches in America. In the U.S., there’s always a Jesus on the altar. A big, dominating, conquering, possessing Jesus. This guy looks like a shrimp. I don’t get it. I turn around to leave and see Him—the Big One—hanging on the inside of one of the stone arches as if He’s embarrassed by all the fuss and trying to be inconspicuous. What isn’t inconspicuous are the lavishly embroidered gold-silver-ruby-emerald-sapphire-colored banners for Saint Anne, Saint Thérèse, Mary, and Joan of Arc that line the walls. No wonder the U.S. and France so often disagree. The U.S. celebrates Peter, Paul, Patrick, and John, the manly saints, and France is a girlie state. As I’m leaving, I spot a tiny altar off to my left with more lit candles on it than the altar in front.

  It’s a statue of a woman—of course!—a cameo standing in an oval niche. The niche is painted a brighter version of the bluest summer sky and matches the color of her eyes. It reminds me of those dioramas in the natural history museum in New York, only what’s made three-dimensional here isn’t the physical but the ethereal—fine, powdery, heavenly clouds emanating from behind her, levitating in the blue sky. She’s wearing a black robe and holding a crucifix, looking into the sky, not blissfully, but humanly, waiting for and wanting something she knows she’s not going to get. It’s six o’clock in the morning, and she’s surrounded by lit candles, fresh flowers, and marble plaques that say Merci. There’s something terrible and comforting about her. Next to her, I see, is her card. I don’t have a card, but here even the dead saints do. I take one. It says Sainte Rita Avocate des Causes Désespérées and beneath it, Sainte Rita Priez pour nous. I hope so. I surely do, because I’m going to need all the help I can get. I say good-bye to Saint Rita and wish her a happy day, though given what she’s the saint of, it probably isn’t going to happen too soon.

  The bells chime once as I leave the church. There’s nothing to do except join the old guys in the bar-tabac or buy my daily bread. I cross the street and push the boulangerie door. It doesn’t budge. I push again, harder. It still doesn’t budge. I look inside. There are people there, and the lady on the street had her baguette. It has to be open. I push again. Merde. Another French door that doesn’t work. What is it with this country? An old lady in a blinding floral dress and a handbag the size of a suitcase points at something written above the handle. Tirez. I push. She pulls. That’s it—I’m a pusher, and France is a nation of pullers. It’s a lesson I’ll have to learn.

  “Merci,” I say, as I step into the store. Seven people are waiting ahead of me, in a wedge. In the U.S. it would look like a stakeout or some kind of takeover. In Brittany, it’s French people waiting for bread. Even more amazing is how they’re dressed: the women in skirts and pumps with sweaters and scarves; the men in slacks, shirts with collars, and shiny shoes. No pajamas, bathrobes, hair curlers, jogging outfits, or sweatpants on anyone. In my torn pants and yesterday’s T-shirt, with uncombed hair, unshaven, and unwashed, no one in the shop looks like me. No one looks at me either. In the U.S., if someone like me came into a small shop everyone would stare, fuss, become very quiet or very loud, and pretend I didn’t exist. Here, I really don’t.

  The baker, a young man in his late twenties or early thirties wearing a spotless white apron, his black hair and mustache covered with flour—no hair nets here!—greets each person as he or she steps forward from his or her place in the wedge. “Bonjour. Ça va?” Hello, how’s it going? It’s enough to get the conversation started. I’ve seen it before. There could be a hundred people in that wedge, and each person will get the time to say whatever it is he or she needs to say. In New York, at six in the morning, with half a dozen tired, hungry people in line behind you, you and the baker would be dead for taking so much as a millisecond longer than the actual exchange required. If you waited in line and didn’t know what you wanted when your turn came or didn’t have your money ready to pay on the spot, God help you. None of which seems to matter here.

  People who have been buying bread in this shop for years, who have the same selection to choose from every day, take minutes to decide what they want. People who know the price of every item down to the centime act as if it’s the first time they’ve heard the price and spend minutes counting out their change. No one fidgets. No one gets angry. Everyone is talking to someone: the first person in line to the baker, and everyone else to each another. Except to me.

  Thankfully, they leave me alone. I look around, trying to find what I want. I see croissants in a case behind the counter. Milk is in the refrig—in bottles. I take one. There’s no way to know if it’s low-fat, skim, or whole, and for me no way to ask. I just hope I don’t have buttermilk. Jam, confiture, is on a shelf. I take one jar of apricot and one of strawberry. I also take a package of coffee, café. The only thing I don’t see is sugar—and I don’t know how to ask for it. I’m looking for it when I suddenly realize nobody else is holding any merchandise in their hands, and that maybe this isn’t self-serve. I watch, but I can’t tell. Everyone else just gets bread, which is stacked behind the baker against the wall. I’m not sure what to do—hold what I have or put it back?

  I watch as an old lady with spindly legs, a great big chignon, and a husky, vibrant laugh buys three large loaves of something and proceeds to count out a zillion tiny coins. When she’s finished she asks for something else and the baker walks around the counter to get it for her. While she’s paying for that with another zillion coins, I put the milk, jam, and coffee back where I found them and wait my turn to ask. I know fromage, café, confiture, baguette, and croissant. I don’t know the word for milk, but I know cow from Happy Cow cheese, La Vache Qui Rit, and I knew juice, jus.

  The good news is the wedge moves slowly, so I have plenty of time to practice. The bad news is a century would have been too short. My thinking goes like this. I’ll say “Bonjour, monsieur.” Then he’ll say something, I’ll nod and smile and shrug and say “Oui. Une baguette, deux croissants, fromage, confiture, café, et jus du vache, s’il vous plaît.” Amazingly, it actually goes that way. He scoops everything up and says something I know is a number and haven’t a clue. I make a writing motion with my hand, as in Write it for me, s’il vous plaît? He writes 60,35: 60 francs and 35 centimes, a little over ten dollars, a fair price if I had money, which I don’t. I didn’t expect to go shopping at five-thirty in the morning when I jumped out the window.

  Now I get to do my version of Marcel Marceau. I turn my palms up and shrug. I put my hands in my pockets and shrug. I turn my pockets inside out and shrug. I point out the window to where I think the house is and say “Mon ami,” then put my hands together, hold them to my cheek, and tilt my head sideways to indi
cate I have a friend somewhere out there who is sleeping or dead.

  Finally someone in the wedge behind me gets tired of the show and says something. The only word I understand is “Anglais,” English. That seems to be enough of an explanation for everyone, and they all say “Ah oui, ah oui” repeatedly.

  The baker bags everything for me and sends me on my way with a “Bonne journée.” I almost say the same to him, but it’s 6:00 a.m. and he’s been up for hours baking bread, and he’ll be working for hours more, and he probably isn’t going anywhere, so wishing him a good trip, a good journey, would be rude and inconsiderate. So I wave and say “Oui” and leave. How am I supposed to know bonne journée means “have a good day”?

  Outside, I’m relieved and amazed. How do these people stay in business? For a people who gave us the words bourgeois and entrepreneur, it’s strange behavior.

  I wait for a truck filled with little piggies who definitely are going to market to pass before I cross the street. The sun is up, and the river is sparkling. A family of ducks float by. A man in a sailboat calls, “Bonjour.” I wave and that’s when I see him, the World War I infantryman standing under a tree next to the public showers and bath looking heavenward, forlorn and lost. I don’t have to read the inscription beneath him to know what it says: À ses enfants morts pour la France.

  I stop and count the names. Fifty-two, three of them from one family, the Pennecs. Ten percent of the village—twenty percent of the men—killed. Add the maimed and the broken and the ruined, and you reach the standard figure of one-third: thirty-three percent of all of the men in France killed or maimed in the First World War. Behind the statue, on the back, facing the river, are twenty names from World War II, including three more Pennecs. I know the English still disparage the French for surrendering in 1940, but it was Neville Chamberlain who cut the deal that set the fate. The war might very well have been England’s finest hour, the prewar definitely was not. Meanwhile, the French and English continue their thousand-year mutual unadmiration society. In England, a prophylactic is called a French letter. In France, it’s an English cap.

  I walk back to the house, climb through the open window, and find Kathryn sitting in the living room, crying.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” she says.

  I love hearing those words, even if I don’t know what they’re for. Eventually, I ask.

  “This place. This house. Everything.”

  “It’s fine. I like it here.”

  “Look,” she says, pulling me into the kitchen.

  Dirty dishes fill the sink.

  “So we’ll wash them. Big deal.”

  She opens the oven. It has dark, black, crispy tumorlike things growing from all six sides. I blanch. “Okay, so we won’t bake.”

  She opens the fridge. I slam it shut. One whiff is enough to kill, one nanosecond enough to ruin the air. Inside, something is dead. Bird carcass, fish, rabbit, something foul, not to mention a horrible green. She walks me through. Dirty sheets, towels, and women’s clothes fill the clothes hamper. The dryer, which may or may not work, has damp, moldy clothes in it. The washing machine is full. There are open boxes of food in the cupboards. The one closet is stale and scummy. I turn on the light to see more and watch the bulb flicker, twitch, then pop.

  “What’s that?” I ask, pointing to a gadget over the sink about the size of a cereal box—the regular size, not the giant.

  “The water heater.”

  “You’re kidding.” I turn it on and it makes an impressive noise, a noise that means business, like a jet breaking the sound barrier. It takes two minutes to heat up. The hot water lasts about forty-five seconds before it runs out.

  Kathryn yanks open the cabinet doors. I slide my thumb over a plate and leave a skid mark an inch wide. The cups are chipped and caked, the glassware opaque. I open the silverware drawer and see encrusted food on the serving spoons and something brown on a fork.

  I find another lightbulb—a 40-watter—and twist it in. I see food splotches in a paisley pattern on the floor and walls and spiderwebs in every corner, nook, and cranny, including the ceiling, before the bulb pops.

  That’s the kitchen. Every room is its own disaster, each with its own surprise. I had no idea there were so many different shades of green and brown. The rugs have grit in them, the walls mold. Bugs are everywhere—an entomologist’s delight: ants, bees, wasps, flies, mosquitoes, crawly things. The floors are alive, and it isn’t with the sound of music, or at least not the kind of music I want to hear.

  The toilet is filthy, the shower greasy. There’s hair on the walls, the floor, the drain, the soap. Above the showerhead is another of those cereal-size boxes. I know what that means: forty-five-second showers.

  Kathryn starts to cry again. I take her hand, lead her down the stairs, and sit her in front of the open window. “Look at the river and the boats and the sky.”

  I peel the tablecloth from the table, leaving a swatch of fibers behind. I open four New Yorkers: one for Kathryn, one for me, and two for the food. I place the cheese, jam, milk, and croissants on the two New Yorkers, being careful to balance the baguette on top of the jam and the milk so it doesn’t touch the table. I find a saucepan that isn’t as greasy or moldy or encrusted as the others, and doesn’t have aluminum peeling from its bottom, wash it, and fill it with water, which I intend to boil for a long time. I turn the knob and the pilot catches, sputters, and burns a bright orange flame. I find two cups that look salvageable and turn on the water, wait two minutes for it to heat, and then use my forty-five seconds to scald my hands and wash the cups with a bar of bath soap. I rinse them with the jolt of cold water that follows. I’m definitely not looking forward to bathing.

  While waiting for the water to boil, I remember something a tour guide said when I visited Chenonceau. She said the French decided having running water in a house was unhygienic. A thousand years earlier the Romans knew about fresh water and aqueducts and how to bring water into the home, but the French thought dirty water, filthy water, sewer water with human waste, offal, and worse flowing through the house, sitting in the house, was wrong. They opted for no running water or indoor plumbing when they built their châteaux, homes, and apartments, choosing hand-filled baths and chamber pots instead, and this is the result: conveniences that are add-ons, coming years after the houses were built, often not until the 1950s. Hence, heating that only heats if you sit directly in front of the heater and only heats the side that’s facing it, water heaters the size of cereal boxes, showers that trickle, hole-in-the-floor toilets, and electricity that flickers and pops. No wonder they invented perfume and eau de toilette.

  “Okay,” I say, “Let’s eat.” We sit in shimmering light, facing the open window, looking at the river, wheat-covered hills, and marshmallow sky. A man walks past without looking in, the most amazing thing I’ve seen so far. I can’t pass an open anything without peeking. It illustrates a restraint and respect for privacy that’s beyond me.

  The church bells chime seven times. We eat slowly, knowing what’s next. When we finish, we search the house for cleaning supplies. There’s a broken broom, a vacuum cleaner without bags, no soap besides bar soap, no detergent, no mop, and no gloves—and neither one of us is going to touch anything without gloves—no sponges, no paper towels, and no rags, unless you count what’s in the dryer and washer. Kathryn calls Sally to complain. She apologizes, says she left in a hurry, and will refund a week’s rent. After that, there’s only one thing to do—go to Madame P, the keeper of the keys.

  Kathryn knocks on the door. Madame answers. Monsieur stands behind her, looking around her. A dog stands behind him, barking. The dog looks like something from Sesame Street, with hair completely covering his eyes. Madame says “Oui,” and stands there, a fortress, waiting. She’s completely dressed, as is Monsieur, and both look like they’re expecting us for dinner. She’s wearing a bright-patterned dress, a complementary scarf, and low heels. She’s perf
ectly coiffed and her skin is like peaches and cream. Monsieur is as tan as if he lived in Tahiti. He’s wearing dark pressed slacks, a green Lacoste shirt, and he’s smoking. I’m wearing what I wore yesterday, and Madame is not impressed. Our only hope is Kathryn.

  In great, great detail Kathryn describes the house, the filth, le désastre. In English, when she speaks in superlatives it drives me nuts. In French, superlatives are the way to go. The more Kathryn says, the more Madame listens. Occasionally she makes that sucking sound that sounds like incoming. Monsieur steps forward and does it once, too. The dog stops barking and listens. Kathryn walks them room by room through les dommages—the damage, the pity, the shame.

  The more Kathryn tells her, the happier Madame gets. “Oui, oui.” She smiles like a madwoman. From out of our depths and despair she becomes one of the happiest people alive. Monsieur, too. With the dog, it’s hard to tell.

  Finally, when Kathryn’s done, Madame says something, finishes with “À bientôt,” and waves us away.

  As far as I can tell, “À bientôt” is our only hope. “Now what?”

  “We wait.”

  “For what?”

  “Madame.”

  “For what?”

  “I think she’s going to help.”

  “Help” is only a euphemism for what Madame and Monsieur provide. In less than twenty minutes, they’re knocking on the door. I open it, and Madame looks at me, disappointed. I look at her, dumbfounded. She and Monsieur, between them, have enough cleaning supplies to clean the Love Canal. I call Kathryn and Madame smiles. Clearly, Kathryn has won her over. I, however, am another story. Madame and Monsieur dump all of their stuff in the hallway and then go home for more. It’s amazing. How one family could even have so many cleaning supplies is beyond me. And why?