by Nicky Gentil
‘You know, it’s a good question. I didn’t know. I had no way of knowing. But most of the time it feels as if jazz almost came looking for me… One day, I received a surprise present from my father-in-law. It was a book of piano blues, in other words traditional jazz. I learned to play all the pieces really quickly and would play them almost obsessively. It was like a drug. And I was definitely hooked. Then, completely by chance, I met a piano teacher who specialised in jazz improvisation so I started taking lessons with him. Initially, I did it just for fun. After all, there was no pressure. It wasn’t as if I had to produce a result. That said, before long, I realised that jazz was satisfying any frustration I may have had with music because I was, at last, discovering the freedom of expression that had eluded me for so very long. And, you know, the most amazing thing in all of this is that my progress was such that, after a mere few years of lessons, I actually began to play in public. Obviously, I would be quite incapable of performing solo on stage. I’ll never reach that level. However, today, I am able to play background music in bars even though I never, ever expected to do this. It most definitely wasn’t planned. Not for one single second did I think I would progress that far. But, then, life is full of surprises and music, it would seem, even more so.’
‘Hence the hire of a grand piano? Is that for one of your performances?’
‘Yes. It is.’
The cabdriver paused for an instant and then said:
‘You know, Madame, I genuinely love this story of your road to jazz.’
‘Is that so?’
‘Yes. I do. I think it’s wonderful that, when you were a little girl, life deprived you of piano lessons even though you had barely started them.’
‘Really? What on earth could make you think that?’
‘Clearly, this deprivation gave rise to a major feeling of frustration in you – musically speaking that is. Well, it’s my opinion that this feeling was in fact most necessary for you to progress. You see it’s precisely because of this that you continued to search − to dig deep − with a view to exploring other musical avenues. In other words, that which you perceived to be a source of frustration was in fact an indispensable guiding force, without which you may never have found your true musical calling. You know, it’s a funny thing; often life will make the right decisions for us, even though we don’t always realise it at the time. All we can do is work with what we’ve got. In your case, it really seems to have done the trick.’
While the cabdriver evidently did love the story of my long and winding road to jazz, for my part I genuinely loved his philosophical analysis of it.
Turned out I wasn’t the only one.
My daughter also appeared to be listening attentively now. At least that was the impression she gave because, adding the ultimate icing to the cake that was this most interesting of conversations, she had – miracle of miracles − finally ceased to roll her eyes to heaven!
Another Philosopher…
That year, France was hosting the European Football Championship. As a result, all Parisian cabdrivers became obsessed with one thing, and one thing alone: the fan zone… and, more importantly, how to avoid it.
Now it so happens that I am perfectly ignorant in all matters relating to football because – my sincere apologies in advance to anyone who loves this sport for what I am about to say – the bottom line is football could not interest me less!
Be that as it may, one day I decided to make an effort because, within seconds of my getting into a taxi, the recurring theme of the fan zone was − yet again − raised.
Unfortunately however, since my heart wasn’t really in it, it was somewhat absent-mindedly that I put the following question to the cabdriver:
‘So, who are you for?’
I feared he might collapse from shock − not exactly my preferred response given his place at the wheel! – because it took him some time to get his breath back before he could reply:
‘La France! Évidemment!’
In a bid to make up for my terrible faux pas, I endeavoured to pursue the subject by pretending that I knew something about it.
‘Yes, yes of course. Naturally, you’re for France. I’m sorry. I put the question badly. What I really meant was which French team do you usually support? Paris Saint-Germain?’
Even then, I only knew the name of this team because of my nephews! But, no matter, the cabdriver was now delighted not only to answer my question but also to justify his choice.
‘You know, Madame, it’s like this: I have lived in Paris for more than twenty-five years now but – I confess − I continue to support Marseilles. I know I shouldn’t. But what can you do? I want to support a team I love. And the Marseilles team… well, there’s nothing for it… I just love this team. With a passion…’
At this point, he paused for an instant as if – out of respect for the object of his ‘passionate’ love − he wished to observe a minute of silence.
Then he went on to say:
‘Mais oui! That’s love for you… Do we ever really have any choice? Do we actually choose the people we love? I don’t think so. Au contraire, we have absolutely no control whatsoever over such matters. Take my case, for instance… My wife and I have been together for some twenty years now. And it is my hope that we shall be together for the rest of our lives. However, if one day she were to fall in love with someone else, it would be because she just couldn’t help it. As for me, sadly there would be nothing I could do about it either, because that’s the way it is. There’s nothing you can do about it. All you can do is accept it. So, you see, I support the Marseilles team. And I accept it − even though I know I should support Paris Saint-Germain – because together, this team and I share a really beautiful, true love story.
This time I chose to say nothing − content merely to smile – for my cabdriver’s touching declaration had just reminded me of a particular aspect of life in my adoptive country that never ceases to amaze me: the astonishing ability of the entire French population to make an intellectual analysis of literally everything and anything. In other words, it is my humble opinion that only a Frenchman would be capable of taking a subject as down to earth as football (down to earth in every sense of the word, incidentally) and elevating it to the noble status of a philosophical reflection on the quite unpredictable nature of Cupid’s work.
And by virtue of this most poetic take on a subject that, in the normal course of things, could not interest me less, my cabdriver had just scored one unbelievably fabulous cultural goal for France!
Pok
Pok was a friend. And, being something of a wacko, a hugely entertaining one at that!
He acquired this nickname due to a simple error on my part: one day, I wrote him a text message while racing to get to an appointment and – as is always the way − only noticed my mistake after pressing ‘send’. Consequently, I ended up writing a second message to explain:
‘Obviously, at the end I meant to write “OK” and not “POK”.’
He found this absolutely hilarious, deeming my mistake ‘typical’, because it is indeed my wont to be a tad impatient, always rushing to get things done as quickly as possible. And what really made him laugh is that I’d yet again fallen into that classic, counterproductive trap of, in my haste, ultimately taking more − not less − time to do something.
Suffice to say, this newfound word appealed to him so much that he began to use it, systematically, in all his messages.
‘Would you be free for lunch tomorrow? If so, just reply “POK”.’
Or…
‘Can I call you? I’d like to talk to you about something but, if you’re not free, no worries. It’s totally cool. POK?’
Eventually, it got to the point where he was using the word so much that I actually ended up attributing it to him; from then on, he himself became Pok.
To my mind, this name suited him t
o a tee because it made me think of Puck, that mischievous, slightly rebellious, character in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Indeed, while I was firmly convinced that my friend was a highly intelligent, exceptionally gifted man, he too – in the manner of his Shakespearean counterpart – had managed to retain a mischievous quality about him that rendered him both touching and, at times, incredibly funny. Naturally, in keeping with these qualities, Pok loved to make jokes about his newly acquired nickname. He would often say, for example, that his dream was to meet his Princess Pokette so that together they could have a whole bunch of Poké-mômes!4
During the years I knew Pok, only once did I take a taxi with him. That said, I don’t think I’ll ever forget that particular cab ride, for it turned out to be – just like my wacky friend himself − something else!
*
That morning, Pok sent me a message asking on the off chance if I’d be free for lunch. When I replied with a – by now traditional − ‘POK’, he immediately wrote back:
‘Brilliant. I have some absolutely bloody fantastic news to share with you!’
Pok had just landed the job of his dreams.
I was utterly thrilled. For weeks, I – together with a large group of friends − had been supporting him, encouraging him to aim as high as possible for, as is so often the case with highly intelligent people, in spite of his happy-go-lucky exterior, Pok was a deeply tormented man, riddled with self-doubt. Consequently, he felt a permanent need to be reassured about all his life-choices, be they professional or personal. And now that he had at last hit the professional jackpot, so to speak, he wished to express his thanks by inviting each and every one of us, one by one, to have lunch with him.
*
When I arrived at the restaurant, Pok could barely contain his excitement. The bottle of champagne he’d ordered stood a-cooling in a bucket on our table so naturally we began by raising a toast to his professional future. Then he asked me to help him write his letter of resignation − a gesture that typified the touching side to his character − so keen was he to share with me this momentous turning point in his life.
Once the letter was written, Pok’s state of euphoria turned out – sadly – to be short-lived. Soon the profound anxiety, which characterised him and found its expression in a kind of pathological pessimism, began to take over.
‘Oh no. What if it’s the wrong decision?’
‘What if I discover this job isn’t so great after all?’
And so on and so forth…
In a bid to counterbalance his truly negative perception of that which in reality constituted the most superb professional achievement, I proceeded to go into raptures over the amazing future that lay before him.
Pok retaliated with:
‘That’s all very well but your comments actually say more about you than anything else. You know full well that you’re just a big kid at heart, always going into raptures about absolutely everything and anything!’
He then went on to tease me with a joke that he loved to make about my personality.
‘It would only take a fork for you to be ecstatic!’
With that, he grabbed one off the table and set about performing his usual hilarious imitation of me:
‘Why thank you! Thank you so much. What a beautiful present! This fork is absolutely amazing. I do so love the colour of stainless steel… And have you seen how it comes equipped with four prongs? Oh, truly, I can’t thank you enough…’
He would really make me laugh with his recurring joke. And while I’m not necessarily convinced that I am – as he would have it – the type of person who is capable of going into raptures about absolutely everything and anything (much as I would like to be), on the other hand I would regularly endeavour to explain to Pok that his life would be so much simpler if only he could avoid putting such a pessimistic spin on every single aspect of it.
I therefore undertook to defend myself regarding his performance with the fork:
‘Hilarious! I’ll grant you that. But, joking apart, while I agree that we live in a tough world, and at times a depressing one, I believe that you shouldn’t only see the bad because our universe is also incredibly beautiful, don’t you think? Let’s just take one simple example. Whenever it snows, it’s truly magical. And we all find it so utterly enchanting that we immediately turn into ecstatically happy little children. I bet even you do!’
‘It’s true. I love it when it snows.’
‘But, you see, here’s the thing… It’s actually a million times more magical than the landscape simply turning white before our eyes.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘Well, we should never forget – even though we do most of the time − that each snowflake is, in fact, a perfectly symmetrical six-point structure. Imagine, for one instant, the miracle of that: hundreds of thousands of perfectly symmetrical, tiny little works of art, each one different from the next, all falling from the sky at the same time. Now, don’t you just find that truly magical?’
Pok was now wearing a familiar look that seemed to say: ‘I rest my case; you’re one big kid.’
*
With the lunch over, since Pok had an appointment in my neighbourhood, I suggested we share a taxi. Miraculously, in perfect illustration of our conversation in the restaurant, just as we got in the car it began to snow! And, immediately, we did indeed metamorphose into gleeful, overexcited children. Especially me. With the result that, as the taxi turned into the Place de la Concorde, I could not help but exclaim:
‘Just look at that! Isn’t it absolutely fabulous!’
Teasing me once again, Pok pretended to revert to ‘pessimistic mode’.
‘I don’t know… I really hate the big wheel they put up here. I think it totally spoils the view’.
But there was nothing Pok could do to dampen my enthusiasm.
‘Well, let me tell you, for my part, it’s not just that I like the big wheel. I truly love it. I go on it at least once a year. And it’s genuinely worth it. You should do it one day. The view over the entire city is spectacular. On top of which, I don’t know how anyone can think the big wheel is ugly. To me it’s an incredible structure. It comes in the form of something akin to a rather large Meccano set. It’s delivered in several truckloads at the end of November so it can be put up in time for Christmas. And it’s amazing to watch as all those straight metal rods, together with several g-zillion nuts and bolts, somehow assemble into one beautiful, perfectly spherical structure. I just love it!’
Pok was now grinning at me with a look that seemed to say: ‘How do you do it? How do you always manage to set me up with an opportunity to make a really obvious joke?’ – before making the most pathetic joke of the entire day:
‘Ah, I get it. What you’re ultimately trying to tell me is that you just love a really good screw!’
Hmmm… And to think that, according to him, I was the big kid! It was a childish joke, of the type a hormonal teenager might be tempted to make to a girl he really fancies. Consequently, I started to roll my eyes to heaven, in the manner of a mother who is about to scold her child, before noticing that the cabdriver was also grinning from ear to ear and I too could not resist smiling.
My reaction incited Pok to tell a story that, this time, both the cabdriver and I found utterly hilarious.
Pok had recently organised a collection for a colleague who was about to retire. She was really looking forward to spending more time on her favourite hobby − doing DIY around the house – so Pok and his colleagues had clubbed together to buy the most enormous tool kit he had ever seen.
Upon opening her present, Pok’s colleague had apparently exclaimed:
‘That’s great. Thank you all so much. At least now I can retire in style, happy in the knowledge that I’m guaranteed to get a really good screw!’
Better still, in response to the team’s raucous l
aughter, she had insisted she was deadly serious adding:
‘You may well laugh, but I mean it. Let’s face it, it’s not as if I’m going to get that from my husband at his age, am I?’
*
Over time, with Pok’s new job taking him to pastures new, we lost touch. So, sadly, I will never know whether Pok eventually managed to meet his Princess Pokette. Nor, indeed, if he finally overcame his innate pessimism in order to start appreciating the simple pleasures of life.
Be that as it may, of one thing I am quite certain. Never, ever, will I forget that cab ride which, I grant you, could seem a tad surprising at this stage of my narrative because, let’s face it, our conversation in the car – however much it may have made us laugh – was anything but refined!
There remains, nonetheless, an important detail regarding this journey that I have yet to relate…
That day, I had the pleasure of witnessing the most unusual natural phenomenon. Generally, whenever it snows in Paris, the sky is white and the light a kind of austere grey. On this occasion, though, as the taxi turned into the Place de la Concorde, the sunlight was so utterly dazzling that the snowflakes, those hundreds of thousands of perfectly symmetrical tiny little works of art, each one different from the next, suddenly appeared to be adorned with mini rainbows, spontaneously transforming them into an exquisite shower of iridescent crystals. Never before – or since for that matter – had I seen anything quite like it; the sheer beauty of this spectacle, taking place before my very eyes, was almost unreal.
And it is precisely this magnificent, unusual, completely natural phenomenon that ended up turning my cab ride − which in the normal course of things would have been nothing out of the ordinary − into one superb, truly memorable, visual delight!
The Optimist
My journey, which should have taken around twenty minutes, was actually taking much longer. This was due to the massive traffic jams created by the large number of blue vans, out in full force across the entire city of Paris that night, ominously stamped with the words ‘MISSION VIGIPIRATE’5.
