He actually looks scared. “Nettoyez,” he shouts. “Nettoyez, nettoyez—poubelle,” two words I happen to know. He’s pulled me over because my car is dirty. I don’t know if this is police harassment or a French aesthetic critique—and which is worse. I do, however, form a hypothesis: French police get scared when they lose their authority and are out of control, and they’ll do everything they can to avoid it. Shortly thereafter, I get to test it.
LeRoy, Rebecca, Donna, and I are heading south to the Dordogne. I’m driving. We’re packed into a tiny Peugeot 106 we leased at the airport. I’m speeding along, feeling invincible. The car has red license plates identifying us as tourists, outsiders, foreigners—strangers. In Florida, this is a signal to kill. In France, it means leave them alone.
It’s five o’clock. We’ve been driving all day. All we want to do is get to our hotel and rest. As we approach the village of Saint-Céré, I see several national police and gendarmes standing on the side of the roundabout, pointing at cars and pulling them over. In the U.S., when I see this I turn the other way. In France, with my red plates, I enter the roundabout with impunity.
A guy in tight pants and shiny leather boots, who would have been a hit in Nazi Germany or the Bois de Boulogne or the Castro, points his finger at me, then to the side of the road. As I get out of the car I say, “Watch this. This guy’s going to be one sorry dude.” I’m about to test my theory.
I close the car door and walk directly toward him, asking him questions in a French he’s never heard and never could have imagined, even in his most Le Penian nightmares. The closer I get, the louder I get. I point to myself, the car, the road, the sky, shouting, “Qu’est-ce que c’est?…C’est joli…. Où est Sancerre?” The cop starts backing up. I keep advancing. He waves me away—points to my car, indicating it’s a mistake. He’s so anxious to get away, he leaps into the road and stops the traffic in all six lanes of the roundabout, creating a space for me to enter the road and leave. It’s another of those cultural differences I savor. If I do this to a cop in the U.S., I disappear. If I do it in France, they do.
I now know the worst thing you can do to a French person is mock him. (Think of the movie Ridicule.) Public failure and humiliation are horrible things. Knowing this, I never ask people I know anything I think they won’t know, because if they don’t know, they will silently pretend they do and feel guilty—or worse, spend hours trying to find out, and I’ll feel guilty, and I already feel guilty enough: for my French, etiquette, dress, dependence, the time they spend taking care of me instead of themselves, my perpetual need.
Bon Anniversaire to Me
I decide the summer I turn forty-nine that for my fiftieth birthday, in July, I’ll give myself a party. It seems like a good idea at the time.
There’s a restaurant north of my house, on the other side of Pierre’s, with a bar and a banquet room for special events. I’ve never been inside, but I know the banquet room exists because on Saturday nights there are weddings and parties, and dozens of cars park in front of my house, and bad rock-’n’-roll and worse French rap blares until 3:00 a.m., when the celebrants leave happy, content, and drunk. And Tuesdays through Saturdays, scores of workers appear at noon for the forty-five-franc (nine-dollar), midi special, which lasts until 2:00 p.m., when the lunchers leave happy, content, and drunk. So I know the restaurant has the banquet room. What I don’t know is how much it costs to rent and to feed my friends.
I put off asking because asking means going into the bar, which is the entrance to the restaurant, and having to speak. In the U.S., going to bars depresses me. In my younger days, I went to meet women, but I never did because I was too afraid to talk to them—and that was in English. These days, I meet rabid, politically correct and incorrect drunks looking for someone to pummel with their stupid beliefs, and the someone is usually me. I wind up listening to their drivel for hours, and on a really bad night, hear myself join in. It’s sad and pitiful—and I long to do it in France, even though the drivel is French and I can’t understand it. People expect you to talk in a bar, even if it’s drivel, especially if it’s drivel. The person next to you or the bartender expects conversation and I don’t want to be speechless or drivel-less with my neighbors and have them feel more responsible for my life than they already do. So whenever I see Stéphanie and Georges on the street or the quay or in the village, I sing, “Bon-jour,” and keep moving, which is what I do the afternoon I return from a walk along the river and see Stéphanie pruning the roses, geraniums, begonias, and fuchsias that seem to grow from the restaurant’s walls like Chia plants.
“Bon-jour, Stéphanie,” I sing, and wave.
“Bonjour, Marc,” she says, and then—who knows why? I look lost or thirsty or lonely?—she adds, “Voudriez-vous une boisson?” and points to the bar.
To say no would be rude. To say yes, I can’t even imagine. “Oui,” I hear myself say. “Merci,” and start racking my brain for something to say to her.
I sit down, and she asks me what I’d like to drink. I know this is what she said because when I don’t answer she pours me a big glass of red. I yearn to make small talk—drivel would be a godsend!—but after asking about her health, “Ça va?” her morality, “Vous êtes bien?” and the weather, “Beaucoup soleil, pas de plui,” I’m done. So I ask about my party.
“L’année prochaine j’ai cinquante ans.” I hold up two hands—five fingers on one hand, making a zero with the forefinger and thumb of the other. I do this because weeks before I asked for “cinq tranches jambon supérieur,” and the woman began cutting cent slices. I stopped her at fifteen, and ever since I hold up my fingers like a four-year-old to indicate numbers.
“Ouiiiiiii,” Stéphanie says, not sure if this is a joke, and if it’s on her or me.
“J’ai voudrai un fête ici, dans le restaurant.”
“Ouiiiiii.”
“Combien le prix par person?”
“Ça dépend.”
Here we go, from nice next-door lady offering a drink to a neighbor to bourgeois capitalist. “Pourquoi?”
She ignores me and asks, “Combien de personnes?”
I’ve counted twenty to twenty-five Bretons, but I have no idea how many Americans. “Quatre—zéro,” I say, holding up four fingers with my left hand and making a zero with my right. Then I wobble my right hand, as in comme ci, comme ça, and say, “Cinq—zéro,” raising five fingers and making a zero: forty to fifty people. That anyone does business with me is a miracle.
“Qu’est-ce que vous mangez?”
“Ça dépend.”
She hands me several menus to look at. I see tête de veau (calf’s head), andouillette (tripe), ris de veau (sweetbreads), boudin noir (blood pudding), andouille (pig intestine sausage), gésier (gizzard), and rognons (kidneys). I settle on a traditional four-course meal: fruits de mer, lamb or salmon with veggies and frites, green salad, and cheese selected by Stéphanie. “Pour le dessert, je va à la pâtisserie. Je achète le gâteau,” I tell her.
She shrugs. The less she has to do with me the easier.
“Combien par person?”
“Cent francs.”
“Et le prix pour le chambre?” I point to the banquet room.
“Cent francs par personne.”
The total cost is less than twenty dollars a person—with the room. I’m thrilled, and I did it without being a total idiot, at least as far as I know.
“Qu’est-ce que vous voudriez comme boisson?”
Merde. I forgot the booze. Here’s where she makes the killing. I point to the red I’ve been drinking, which is very good, and ask, “Combien pour ce la?” I don’t even know if ce la are words.
“Quinze francs,” she says, holding up one finger and five.
Holy shit, I’ll go broke. “Par verre?”
“Par bouteille.”
“Bon,” I say, relieved. “C’est le même prix pour le blanc?”
“Non.”
I knew it.
“C’est moins cher.
”
“Less?” I point down.
“Oui.”
“Et du pain et le carafe d’eau, cent francs par personne?”
“Bien sûr,” she says, trying not to sound doubtful and failing.
I give her the date and ask how much she wants in advance. “Combien avant, maintenant?”
Stéphanie looks at me like I’m testing her or teasing her, or I’m from Pluto, or the dumbest person on earth, and she’s trying to decide which one as she slowly explains there is no down payment, letting me know by the way she says it that only an idiot would pay for something he hasn’t received, and I can hear in her voice that’s she’s begging, pleading with me to prove I’m not.
“Bon,” I say, shake her hand and leave. The oil guy and floor guy didn’t want any money in advance either. The bank guy was willing to give me a loan. At the gas pumps, I pump, then pay. Everything is based on trust. It makes no sense to me. For the rest of the summer, every time I see Stéphanie I ask if she wants any money. Each time, she brushes me away like a gnat.
At Christmas, I send invites to my friends in the U.S. I promise them a meal and a party and to put some of them up at the house, but the rest of the cost is theirs. Twenty-five say yes. I put eleven in the house, including Donna and me. LeRoy and Joanna are in the pre-Martinized, unfinished, nail-infested attic; Peggy and Larry are in the second-floor study, across the hall from Donna and me; Bruce and Bonnie are in the library–sitting room; and Gay and Stephen and their two teenage kids, Morgan and Nathaniel, are in the medieval garden-party room. Only the kitchen and bathroom—one bathroom!—have nobody sleeping in them. Mom and her friend Carol, whom I’ve known all my life, stay with Monsieur and Madame P so they can sleep and use the toilet and shower at will. Twenty-five Bretons also agree to attend, though when they find out I’m going to be fifty, no one really believes it. In Brittany, only widowers and crazy people live alone at fifty, and everyone knows I’m not a widower. I write to Stéphanie and tell her there will be fifty people for my fiftieth birthday and ask her if she wants a deposit. She doesn’t respond.
By May, I begin to panic. Most of the French guests don’t speak English, and most of the Americans don’t speak French. One group or the other will feel slighted, and both of them will blame me. I’m going to create an international disaster and lose friends from two continents. I decide to bring everyone together by placing the tables in a U with Monsieur and Madame P, Donna, my mom, Carol, and me at the head. At the sides I’ll strategically place the bilinguals—Jean, Sharon, Peggy, Joanna, Madame’s son Henri—so everyone is within shouting distance of someone to yell at.
I arrive in June and confirm with Stéphanie that the party’s on. “C’est bien?” I say. “Bien sûr,” she says, like why wouldn’t it be? I ask her if she wants money. She looks at me like she wants to say something, but doesn’t.
“Bon,” I say, “Merci. Je va à la pâtisserie…. À bientôt.” I can’t tell if she’s happy about the last part or not. I just thank God these people like Jerry Lewis and the Three Stooges. Anywhere else, it’d be a tragedy.
“Bon-jour,” I sing as I enter the pâtisserie. I’ve never been in the shop before, but I’ve been told it’s the best in town.
“Bonjour,” the woman says, looking at me so suspiciously I wonder what I’m doing there.
“Bonjour,” I say again, and head straight to the giant glass-door refrigerator to look at the shelves of gorgeous desserts: feuilletés, gâteaux, tartes of all types—cherry, strawberry, apple, lemon, almond, pineapple, peach, pear—made with meringue, chocolate, Chantilly, crème anglaise, crème fraîche, fromage blanc, custard, mousse, and ice cream. They’re elegant, understated, playful, celebratory, over the top; round, square, rectangle; single, double, triple, septuple-layered. I’m staring at them like a five-year-old.
“Monsieur,” the lady calls, wanting to get me away from the refrigerator, probably afraid I’ll drool on the door.
“Oui,” I say, and walk to the counter. “Je voudrai un gâteau.”
“Ouiiii.”
No matter how many times I hear it, and I hear it a lot, it astonishes me how much disbelief the French can convey in one little affirmative “oui.” “Pour un fête,” I tell her. “Mon anniversaire.”
“Ouiii.”
“Cinq”—I hold up five fingers—“zéro”—I make a zero, “persons.” To be triple sure I write it on a piece of paper: 50 persons.
“Oui.” She then proceeds to show me several photo albums, like the floor guy and everyone else who’s worked on the house, showing me example after example of her work, getting happier and friendlier with each page she turns. I decide on a lemon-blond two-layered cake with a raspberry center and chocolate icing. And for the decoration, she asks, almost smiling, flipping pages and pointing to cakes with happy couples, rockets, soccer teams, cowboys, boats, fish, cows, castles, indicating I can have anything I want, any kind of paraphernalia, edible or not.
“Non,” I say, and the suspicious look returns. I hand her a piece of paper with the names of the fifty people who are attending. I printed the names so they can be easily read. “Tout,” I say. “S’il vous plaît.”
“Chaque nom?”
“Oui.”
She looks at me, trying to decide if she should say what she’s thinking: This is nuts. You’re nuts. Do you know what you’re doing? I’ve never seen this before. It’s not the way we do things here. Then she shrugs. I’m a foreigner, probably a Brit, and says, “Bon.”
I say, “Bon,” and take out my checkbook and see I’ve done it again, breached all propriety, raised serious doubts about my competence to act, maybe even my species. I’m so embarrassed I’m afraid to ask her the price, but I’m thinking $150, maybe $200. I give her the date. She writes it down and tells me to pick up the cake next week, the day of the fête, at “Dixneuf heures,” and holds up nineteen fingers.
Every day that week I visit Stéphanie and Georges to make sure they have the right date, the right time, the correct number of people, the menu, the wine, the water, the tables, haven’t double-booked. And because I’m a neighbor and not a widower, they answer my questions each time. I’d like to do the same with the cake lady, but she scares the hell out of me so I wait until the day of the fête, expecting the worst.
At seven o’clock, I go for the cake, foreseeing disaster: it won’t be ready; it will look silly; the shop will be closed; the oven broke; the baker quit. I should have checked in during the week. I open the door and step in.
Sitting alone in the huge refrigerator, looking scrumptious and regal, is my almost black, dark-dark-chocolate-iced, wrinkled to look like drapery, lemon cake with fifty names in lavender, florid Louis XIV French script. Madame enters the shop, sees me, and calls her husband, the baker, and their son, the future baker. They stand there looking at the cake and smiling and talking—most of which I can’t understand, though it’s clear they’re admiring their work. I am too. “C’est joli, beau, belle, bon,” I say, hoping one of them is correct.
Madame ends it with a “bon.”
“Oui. Bonne. Combien?”
She hands me the bill: three hundred francs, $50.
I pay her and leave, carefully carrying the cake to the car. “Bon anniversaire,” she calls. “Bonne fête.” She stands in the doorway, happier than I’ve ever seen her, waving and smiling as I drive away.
I bring the cake to the restaurant and give it to Stéphanie. She looks at the names, at me, and decides to say nothing. Why bother? What does it matter? She’s not responsible. “Bon,” she says.
“Oui. Bon. C’est joli, n’est-ce pas?”
“Oui,” she says, doing a pretty good imitation of sounding sincere.
She takes the cake into the kitchen. I peek into the banquet room. The tables, chairs, and name tags are in place. I see Georges and ask him for the one hundred tenth time if there’s a microphone and tape deck. For the hundred tenth time, he says, “Oui.” That none of these people has decked me is
a testament to their patience, civility, neighborliness, and pity.
I go to the bar and wait to greet people as they arrive so no one feels any more lost than I do. Stéphanie sees me, pours me a glass of whiskey, and returns to the kitchen. I sit at the bar sipping, wondering for the gazillionth time, what the hell am I doing, and how can this possibly work?
The Americans arrive first, entering the bar like Normandy, and I see that it won’t. They remove glasses from the tables, help themselves to the uncorked bottles of wine, and begin to roam the banquet room, the restaurant, the terrace, cross the street to the quay, the river, the park, and the lock, drinking, laughing, chatting, and returning for refills.
When the French arrive and see the Americans already there and comfortable, they become visibly dismayed, like they’ve committed some secret American etiquette gaffe, and they look at me as if I should have told them. They become even more dismayed when they see the Americans have begun drinking. This is not the beginning I’d hoped for.
The Americans roam aimlessly, obliviously happy—happy to be in France, in Brittany, drinking, taking space, chatting it up—like it’s some kind of perpetual, endless happy hour where the drinks are good, plentiful, and free. The French are lost, confused, unsure of themselves, and self-conscious. They will not drink without food, and walking around with a glass of wine and not knowing where to go, what to do, or what’s expected, makes them very uneasy. I watch as, family by family, they take matters into their own hands. They sit at the table, on the side of the U with their backs to the window, following their own cultural feng shui and ignoring the name tags. The Americans, upon seeing the French seated, scurry to sit down, worried they’ve committed some secret French savoir-faire etiquette gaffe. I rush to the head of the table and symbolically sit between Madame P and my mom. The French are on my left, the Americans on my right. It looks like the O.K. Corral. Then I notice Jean, my most anti-authoritarian soixante-huitard friend, sitting next to my next-door neighbor, Pierre, the ex-cop, and shudder.
I'll Never Be French (no matter what I do) Page 20
