Leontyne

by Richard Goodwin

  The ceremony of the flag-raising went off well. The Trompettes gave a short, off-key blast on their instrument, the mayor’s daughter turned on the gramophone, and we all stood to attention for the Marseillaise. The mayor made a speech with a lot of references to faith and hope, and then bestowed medals on the police and on the fire brigade (in France, the fire brigade seem to do everything that the police do not, including rushing people to hospital after emergencies of any kind). The star of the show was a pretty woman, a captain-doctor in the fire brigade, who seemed to be getting all the honours and a good deal of over-zealous, congratulatory kissing from the male brass. The gathering broke up and people drifted back to their homes for a good, solid meal before the afternoon’s events, which were to be held in Buffon’s park after everyone had digested their dinner, and included the Grand Concours de Pétanque and the Vin d’Honneur.

  Ray and I decided to enter for the pétanque competition. Ray was drawn with a pretty neat couple of players and went off to one end of the park, and I became the handicap of a practically professional pétanque player, a wiry Algerian called Zappy. He soon saw that my standard was less than amateur and tried to show me a few tricks of the trade in the last minutes before the game. We lasted one round, thanks to the brilliance of Zappy, but he very kindly said that had I had professional boules, which were heavier, rather than the supermarket variety I was using, I would have made a much better show. The truth is that pétanque is a vicious game, and I was way out of my depth, both in my throwing skill and in the devious tactical gambits required. Ray and I have since spent many hours practising with professional boules. Perhaps one day we shall be asked to play again and make a better showing of ourselves.

  The mayor and his daughter set up the tables and brought the bottles of Burgundy that had been promised, together with bottles of lemonade for the children, and once the last boule had been thrown the wine started to flow. The fire chief’s daughter had just been promoted, which was an occasion for further fervent kissing. There is no doubt that when you are promoted in the fire service in Montbard you get more kisses if you are the fire chief’s daughter and pretty as well; there is also no doubt that you get promoted. The crowds drank their glass of wine and wandered off down the hill into the town, and the crew of the Leo said farewell to their new-found friends and prepared for a morning departure. As we reached the barge our friend the charcutier appeared, bringing us a couple of bottles of wine for the journey and a special pâté. It looked delicious: our memories of the manufacture had dwindled.

  The last act of the day, and the last gathering, was for the feux d’artifice, the firework display, though this also suffered from the lack of funds resulting from the expense of Buffon’s anniversary. The whole affair excited the firecracker throwers to such a frenzy that matters became quite unpleasant. I must confess that I do not like firecrackers. I was in Penang – the ‘jewel of the Orient’ – during the Malayan Emergency. The town had a large Chinese population, and a firecracker going off could mean that a bullet was on its way. On Christmas Eve 1953, I remember, it once meant just that – the pineapple plant under which I had thrown myself, on hearing what I thought was probably an exploding firecracker, was leaking juice.

  Fireworks over, Montbard had had its holiday and the populace had had their dose of Revolution for another year. I very much hope this little town in Burgundy, bypassed by the motorways and the rest of France, goes on celebrating the fall of the Bastille for many centuries to come.

  The four of us, Ray, Jason, Kate and I, said our adieus to our friendly lock-lady and set off, passing the site of the fishing contest where I distinctly saw some quite big fish jumping into the air in a mocking display. The countryside became more and more remote as, mounting through at least twenty locks in quick succession, we reached the battlefields of Alesia where Julius Caesar conquered the Gauls in AD 52. It was interesting to see how the Romans, holding the high ground, must have swooped down on their enemies and routed them. No doubt it was soon after the battle that they established the vineyards at Pouilly. For us, Pouilly was the summit level – and that usually meant there was a tunnel; here it was over three kilometres long. The reason that tunnels are constructed at summits is that with rising series of locks it’s necessary to be able to build a reservoir above the canal level in order to replenish it with water when the locks are opened: near a summit, where there’s no more room for an above canal reservoir, a tunnel must be built. This tunnel was very deceptive: the entrance was larger than the middle, and we ended up having to take down all our awnings and aerials to pass through. In the old days, unladen barges would be put into a tank barge, which would then be sunk and the whole rig towed through by a winch at the end.

  It was very dark in the tunnel, and the noise from the engine was deafening. Our searchlight picked out many clusters of bats minding their own business on the brick-lined roof. What a work of construction the canal must have been! It was once the main route for the wine transporters from Beaune, and until the Canal de la Marne à la Saône and the Canal du Centre were built, the way through for Paris-bound barges from the South.

  Our leisurely descent through Burgundy was full of incident. I had been drying some clothes in the tumble-dryer and had forgotten to open the front hatch to let out the steam. I tried to push it from the inside, but when I had it half-open my hand slipped on the condensation, bringing the heavy steel frame crashing down on my finger. My nail was crushed. Later that day, Ray found the blowlamp and we heated up a needle and pierced the nail to allow the pressurized blood to ooze out and stop the throbbing.

  Jason and I decided that, to cheer me up, we should open the barrel of wine that we had loaded on in Paris. Because of the lack of space on the barge, I decided to put the wine into plastic containers, thinking that it would not be around for long. We lifted the barrel on to the deck and then made the mistake that everyone unfamiliar with barrels makes. We knocked out the plug and pushed the tap in, then laid the barrel down on its side. Nothing came out, of course, because there was an air lock inside the barrel. We heaved and laid it on its side again, and removed the main filling bung which is situated on the side of the barrel. This released the air lock but unfortunately we had put the tap in so that it was now facing upwards. The only thing to do was to put the main bung back in, pull out the tap, and start all over again. By the time we had finished the operation we all felt that, even if we did not deserve a drink, we needed one. I realized that it was not really on to be drinking Bordeaux in Burgundy, but felt our palates needed to be able to compare the bouquets.

  Ray and I would take turns to ride the bike along to the next lock and prepare for the Leo’s arrival, while Jason and Kate took over the catering and produced one gourmet meal after another – requiring the maximum amount of exercise to work off the extra calories. The raw materials in this region simply taste better than supermarket food, though the cooking by the London foodies on board enhanced its qualities. Lock-keepers offered us cassis, lettuces, chickens and every other home-grown, home-made delicacy available, but never mustard which, so close to Dijon, I had thought they would all make.

  What with the beautiful weather, the ripening corn fields, the backlit châteaux perched on the top of the hills, this was indeed ‘la vie en rose’. We soon got into the rhythm of a lunchtime picnic on the banks, and early bedtimes. One day we arrived at a lock just as a pleasure boat was leaving it, and as we entered an enormous carp leapt out of the water and landed on the quay. It must have weighed at least twenty pounds, but the lock-keeper insisted that, as we had picked it up, we should keep it. We gave him a bottle of Scotch and proceeded to cut up the fish. As we did so, we found that the pleasure boat’s propeller had damaged its tail fin. Apparently carp, when they know they have a wound from which they will not recover, prefer to commit suicide by leaping on to the bank with their last strength. Knowing this, none of us wanted to eat it, so we walked along to the hotel barge next door, which was run by an Englishman from
the North, and gave the great fish to him. He took one look at it and suggested that he could serve it up as turbot to the new intake of guests that had just arrived. I must say I felt a little sorry for the passengers, but they were clearly there to enjoy themselves and carp served up as turbot, in French, was not going to bother them one bit.

  The Leo seemed to have joined the mood of the party and was working perfectly, and we soon reached Dijon. To my surprise, everyone on board voiced their unspoken thoughts and begged me not to stop in the hot and noisy town, but to press on into the country. As it happened, I knew an ideal spot about a day’s journey from the town where I had been years before with my younger daughter, Sabine. The weather had become extremely warm, so it was very pleasant to stop for a few days in the cool, clear waters of the Saône, a little upstream of St-Jean-de-Losne. We unloaded the car for shopping and for visiting, and moored up in this delightful place.

  On one of the days of our stay, I took the car to visit the vineyards in Vosne Romanée. When I arrived in the village I parked the car, walked round, and discovered a sign made in the shape of a vineleaf with the name of the proprietor, Sylvian Cathiard, on it. M. Cathiard was washing bottles in his outhouse with a metal gadget which scrubbed the inside, leaving no trace of sediment. Mme Cathiard was stacking the clean bottles in crates and picking the paper off the ones that had to be washed. Their ten-year-old son ran about chasing imaginary robbers.

  The Cathiards described their establishment to me in stereo, because M. Cathiard had an extreme stutter and his wife kept stepping in to explain and amplify what he was saying. They were managing some vines that belonged to the woman’s family, and they had hopes of finally inheriting them. They also rented some vines which they worked, giving half the produce to the owners, a positively feudal system but one that suited them very well because they were not likely to be ruined by a disastrous harvest. They produced about ten thousand bottles a year for which they did all the work. They both had to work exceptionally hard, but as M. Cathiard stuttered, ‘We love our work and we work with passion.’ Their most expensive wine came from the in-laws’ vines and cost about one hundred francs a bottle, but it would not be considered drinkable for at least another ten years. If wine takes on the character of the vintner, the Cathiards’ produce must be a good buy. I very much hope that some greedy bank does not foreclose on them, for they are very proud of what they do, and, somehow, barring accidents, I believe they will succeed.

  It was hard to tear ourselves away from the idle way of life we had established under the spreading oak tree beside the river. There was a good deal of swimming and fishing, and the contents of the barrel of wine, now in its plastic containers, was all too soon disposed of. But the Sylphe – the barge we had passed in Paris – had caught us up, and I decided it was a good thing to follow reasonably close behind him, so that he would churn up the bottom of the canal and make it easier for us: it was the dry season and there was very little water in the canals.

  As we made our way up the Doubs valley the countryside began to change from the lushness of Burgundy to rather more rugged terrain. When we reached Dole we stopped to take on some water, and as we did a troop of boy scouts came and asked us whether we were going to Besançon. We said we were, but that it might take quite a while. They were concerned that their rivals in the initiative test, the Squirrel troop, might pip them to the post. I decided I would take them, and, if they worked hard at the locks, buy them tickets on the train from wherever we were to Besançon. The scouts were nice boys from Dunkerque and immediately fell in love with Kate, who fed them and stuffed provisions into their haversacks in a motherly way, which made me think of Wendy and the lost boys in Peter Pan. The boys told Jason that they had all won badges for making kir royale (champagne and cassis) and cooking coq au vin. What else does a young Frenchman need to know?

  They sat on the bows as we went through some of the most seductive country on the trip so far, with high white granite cliffs and wooded hills, and sang scout songs about the river of life, which seemed appropriate. Towards the evening we came to a small town where there appeared to be a railway station, and we put the boys ashore with enough cash for a ticket. I was impressed by the way they went about things and hoped they would get to Besançon before the Squirrel patrol.

  As we followed the Sylphe up the Doubs river, we found that a moment’s inattention would run the head of the barge on to a bank. When this happened, we had to spend time backing off, and in some cases had to detach the Leo altogether and take her into deeper water to drag the barge off the banks sideways. While we had charts, the river is not buoyed and the silting occurs very rapidly – something the charts are ready to admit. We had to proceed very slowly in any case, as the Sylphe was creeping along in front of us, and it is de rigueur to stay behind a working barge in these conditions. Pleasure boats are constantly trying to overtake these lumbering barges and fail to understand why the bateliers are so resentful. The fact is they plan their journeys down to the last minute of lock opening times, only to have their schedule disrupted by some selfish yachtsman who merely wants to get to the nearest marina for a bath.

  The citadel at Besançon towered above the river as we approached the old town. We moored in the centre of the city next to a very lively market that sold everything from carrots to antique lace. On the way into the town we had to follow a work boat through the shallow canal, and passed the cleverest piece of mooring that I have ever seen. The lower walls of the citadel rise sheer from the water’s edge at one point, and the only crevices in the face of the wall are archers’ slits. Through one of these some clever sailor had slipped a grappling hook on the end of a rope and secured his vessel.

  Near our mooring was a small square where two plaques commemorated the fact that this little corner of France was the birthplace of two of the giants of the nineteenth century. On the southern side the great novelist Victor Hugo, recently enjoying a burst of publicity because his saga Les Misérables seems to have become the world’s most successful musical, has the letters of his name picked out in gold. On the western side the brothers Lumière, fathers of modern cinema, have a dual plaque recalling their achievements. It is most extraordinary that these three men should have started their lives within a few years of each other, and within hailing distance, in this small town. I wondered who had the most influence on the inhabitants of Besançon today.

  We went on up the Doubs, fouling the propeller frequently, until we reached a plain near the summit from which we would be descending into the valley of the Rhine. As we went through one lock in the middle of nowhere, a party of really pretty children asked if they could have a lift to the next lock along. They jumped aboard and during the short trip they told me that their parents had just got married. When we arrived at the lock there was the woman, who must have weighed twenty stone if she weighed an ounce, and her husband who was exactly the opposite: a small scrawny man wearing a T-shirt proclaiming that he was in the ‘Big Rigs Club’ – something to do with heavy lorries, I believe. The wedding had been the day before but the dogs all had white bows around their necks, and everyone was still in an extremely festive mood.

  They decided that they should celebrate further by having a little adventure on board the Leo. I can remember the look of astonishment on Ray’s face when they all got on and presented us with a large bucket of cut flowers left over from the wedding. Chatting to them, I discovered that they had both been married before but had been left by their spouses with all the children. They had produced a little boy themselves and were now getting married to put their house in order. He worked in the local automobile plant and his fellow workers had given him a wedding present, some sort of gadget for his car, of which he was very proud. She was so very large and had such a sweet nature, her children were so attractive, and they all so clearly adored each other that we were sad to see them leave. The parting ended in hysterics as the quay of the lock was about six feet above the deck of the barge, which meant that the lar
ge lady had to be pushed up the ladder to fall forward and roll in a giggling heap on the top. We waved adieu to this jolly family and started our descent into Germany.

  In a sense the holidays were over. Jason and Kate departed, leaving the larder well stocked, and Ray and I set off in the morning mist, down a flight of thirteen locks, to the approaches of Mulhouse. On the way we passed a tribe of German yachtsmen bound for the Mediterranean. German yachtsmen tend to travel in packs when they venture outside Germany, with a group leader and rigid timetables, much to the consternation of French lock-keepers. The countryside had started to assume subtle signs of the Black Forest, which lay about fifty miles to the east, on the other side of the Rhine. The eaves of the houses were becoming more sloped and there were stacks of firewood outside nearly all the cottages. We were in Alsace-Lorraine and before long reached Mulhouse; we were about to face the first serious bureaucratic problem of our voyage. The captain of the Sylphe had told me how tough it was for him to go on the Rhine, but I was hoping that the jolly, innocent-British-yachtsman line would work. I had an unwelcome surprise in store.

  Chapter Nine

  Mulhouse to Mannheim

  Our first taste of Mulhouse was of that rare thing – an unpleasant lock-keeper. He refused to let us through his lock so we could spend the night in the town, even though we had arrived fifteen minutes before lock closing time. He clearly thought we needed a bit of discipline having only been in touch with country bumpkins on our way through from Paris, and gave us his version of the rules about mooring. He earned the honour of being the only lock-keeper of a manual lock in all France to whom I did not give the customary pourboire, or tip. I normally donated ten francs towards the family finances and sometimes more if the weather was particularly beastly. I do not think the government pay them very much and goodwill spreads like wildfire down the line if a reasonably pleasant rapport is established at the entry to a canal.