Houseboat on the Seine

by William Wharton

  I know that when my friends see the cockeyed enormity of this whole thing, they’re shocked. I’m shocked myself. There, back in the boat cemetery, it almost made sense. Here, it’s a nightmare in black and white with no subtitles.

  Matt has just arrived on crutches and has stretched out on the bank, when I see a flat-topped boat floating downriver. On it stands the entire Teurnier mob, feet apart, hands on hips, except for the one at the wheel. Behind them, being towed, is my barge. I go down by the water’s edge to greet them. They have the air of grown men at a picnic. Teurnier shakes hands with me, and the others shake with me in turn. He’s started issuing commands left and right. Matt slides down the hill, even with his cast and crutches. He acts as translator.

  ‘See, Dad, first they’re going to anchor the barge crossways on the river, blocking traffic; they’ve gotten permission from le chef de navigation for this. Then, they’re going to pump river water through the holes on the deck into the metal barge until it sinks.’

  So, I’m to have another sunken boat, just what I need. Matt turns again and checks with M. Teurnier as if to verify this absurd action.

  ‘He says don’t worry, the crew cabin is watertight and won’t sink. So, one end of the boat, the front end, will still be sticking up. He wants you out there.’

  They’ve already, with great efficiency, positioned the metal barge cross river and started pumping water into it. They then manipulate my small, pitiful wooden boat up to it, using their boat as a tug, cross river, just upriver, from the metal barge. They’re also using the motor of their boat to keep the current from pulling the two boats downriver to Le Havre. The whole affair is something like a monstrous rodeo of barges. Matt’s shouting translations to me.

  ‘Then Dad, you see, they’re sinking the metal barge to the bottom. After that, they’ll pull our wooden boat up on top of the metal barge. Dad, are you sure you want to try this? It sounds so goofy and dangerous.’

  ‘I’m in for it, Matt, ludicrous as it might seem. There’s no backing out now.’

  I climb up onto the roof of my wooden boat and Teurnier throws me a rope that has been attached to a bollard on my now almost completely sunken metal barge. I can feel my heart sinking as it sinks to the bottom. They certainly go down faster than they come up. I feel as if I have a whale on the end of a light fishing line. M. Teurnier’s hollering to Matt. Matt turns to me.

  ‘The idea is they’re going to pull you in this boat over the metal barge, and you’ll be the one to sight along the two boats to see if they’re lined up properly. At least, I’m almost sure that’s what he’s saying. You be careful, Dad!’

  Matt turns out to be right. With much pushing and pulling, and short bursts of the motor on the boat they used for pulling and pushing the metal boat down here, we do line up our wooden boat on top of the barge, at least as far as I can see through the dimness of the filthy, black water. It’s a hot day for fall, and I’m wearing only shorts. I’m dripping sweat. I’m not actually doing anything, so it must be nervousness.

  Now I’m standing on the stern of the metal barge, up on the hatch over the crew cabin, peering down the length of our wooden boat, checking each side to see if it’s lined up on the sinking barge underneath.

  They work the wooden boat higher and higher up the ramp of the slanted, sunken deck of the barge until the bow end is within two meters of the opening to the crew cabin. Now I’m to give the signal when it looks to me as if we’re in line. I’m an artist, so I should be able to estimate if two objects are parallel and in line, but this is the ultimate test.

  Finally, in a desperation of indecision, I give the signal. The pumps start, pulling water out of the metal hull. Wooden covers have been tied over the openings where the oil pumps once were. These old oil pumps are probably already starting to fester with rust in that Pere Lachaise-like cemetery for boats at M. Teurnier’s.

  As the barge rises slowly, the upper boat settles onto the deck of the metal hull, and the wooden covers are removed one by one. The idea apparently is that the boat, our wooden boat, will now block water from seeping in while the pumps are pushing it out. It’s all so ingenious. I’m no use at all. I should be up on the bank with the audience, applauding or cheering, laughing or crying.

  I’ve been worried that we haven’t done anything actually to attach the wooden boat to the metal boat. I yell over at Matt to have him ask M. Teurnier about it. Teurnier starts explaining to me, then throws up his arms and turns to Matt. He rattles on for about five minutes, making arm motions and finger signals as if he’s a giant tomcat trying to catch a mouse hanging from a string over his head. When it ends, Matt begins.

  ‘This is wild, Dad. The idea is basically that the hatch covers were cut so they have sharp edges. When the wooden boat is finally lowered down onto them, these edges will cut into the oak bottom of the upper boat. He’s convinced this will hold the boat in place. He insists our wooden boat isn’t going anywhere.’

  Matt is making the same kind of clawlike upward motions with his hands Teurnier was making. It seems sort of precarious to me, but it’s too late now, and what else could we do anyway?

  I’m at the highest part of the whole convoluted, bizarre complex, up on the roof of the covered hatch to the crew cabin of the lower boat, holding on to the high edge of the wooden boat’s roof. I look along the entire length before me and the view is somehow sexy, a lovely white lady lover of a wooden boat, hovering over, then lowering herself gently onto this rising giant of a black bull barge in the swirling water. Powerful, forceful jets of water surge from her supine lover, spewing up and splashing down into the river.

  Just then, it starts to happen. I should have kept my dirty old man’s mind on the job, holding down that boat. I don’t, to this day, know what actually transpired. The hull is about halfway emptied, when suddenly there’s a sort of lurch, then slowly, both boats begin to tip toward the downriver side! My first thought is it’s from the pressure of river water against the hull. Or, maybe my normally optimistic Russian friend was right after all.

  The boats, relentlessly, persistently, continuously tip. I move slowly. I’m still, ridiculously, trying to hold my original wooden boat from sliding off into the water, which it seems to be doing, despite the supposed effect of those jagged gripping hatches.

  Everybody’s running around this way and that, cursing in Breton, French and general international obscenity. I don’t know what they’re doing, or why. M. Teurnier actually goes into the river with all his clothes on and is wrestling with something underwater. I hope he doesn’t lose his skin – I’m beginning to feel I’m losing my shirt.

  He comes bounding out and runs past me up the tipping metal hull on the upriver up-boat side. I’m still frantically holding on to the edge of the roof, stupidly trying to convince myself I can keep the boat from tipping off and into the water sideways. But even more, I’m holding on for dear life. As he goes by, M. Teurnier mumbles just two words, two words even I can understand, ‘C’est malheureux.’ In direct translation, ‘It’s unhappy.’ It seems a masterpiece of understatement.

  They’re still pumping water out of the lower barge like madmen. I’m convinced the answer is to pump water back into the barge and start over again, or just leave the entire mess down there. I’m spinning, considering opening a restaurant, an underwater Philadelphia-hoagie restaurant specializing in ‘submarine’ sandwiches à la Seine. What else?

  Gone with the Wind

  We eventually tip over to a thirty-six-degree angle from the level of the water on the high side. I measure it, later, from the watermark on the cut end of the boat.

  Realizing how foolish I must look trying to hold my big wooden boat in place at an angle, I let go an instant to search for the best place where I can jump when this leaning tower of a boat gives in to gravity. That upper boat actually starts to lift, to tip slowly, when I let go! I grab hold with both hands and press down desperately. The captain will go down with his ship, or is that ships.

&nbs
p; Then, for reasons I still don’t understand, the tipping slows, then stops. Gently the barge rights itself. In no time at all, it’s level. My leaking old wooden boat squats properly on top, more or less dry, properly placed and aligned.

  I drop to my haunches on the hatch cover because my knees are so weak I can’t stand. I hear the cheers of our gallery, but I’m crying and too completely pooped physically and mentally to take a bow. I’m in the stern. I’m invisible to them.

  M. Teurnier comes around with a big wrench knocking along the bottom of the upper boat for some reason, maybe it’s like kicking tires on an automobile. When he sees me, he breaks into a huge smile and reaches over; we shake hands. Then he winds it up with one of those masculine French hugs that can break ribs. He’s soaking wet, so now I am, too, combination of river and sweat. We’re both laughing.

  He passes me and continues around with his ‘tire thumping.’ I manage to stand alone on my wobbling legs and work my way to the other end, the shore end, of the boat. There’s an apron about two feet wide on each side of the upper boat where the metal barge is wider. It makes a passable yet treacherous walkway. I hold on to anything I can find to inch myself along.

  When I come to the bow of the boat, the end facing land, there’s another rousing cheer. I look up and wave a hand, feeling like Jacques Cousteau. Maybe the crowd thought I was actually holding the wooden boat in place up there with my bare hands. I’ll take any kudos I can get, deserved or not. Sternly, I decide not to bow in the bow. It wouldn’t be seemly.

  ♦

  Our next maneuver is to clear out a space for our new enlarged ‘bastard’ boat. Our old one, the wooden sinker, was only eighteen meters long. We now need to fit twenty-three meters of metal barge into the old space. There appears to be enough room between my barge and the neighboring houseboats, but that isn’t exactly the dilemma.

  The first difficulty is physical. It seems there’s a sandbar there, which will keep my barge, much deeper in the water now than before, from squeezing into the old place. This sandbar has built up over the years. When it was only my light wooden boat, this didn’t matter, but with my new, heavy, metal monster, five times as bulky, it’s a serious affair. When we try easing the barge into place, it just won’t fit.

  The second horn of the dilemma is political, psychological, psychic, etc., but we’ll come to that. I’m still shaky and covered with sweat, dirt and water. The pumps inside the metal hull are running hard, pulling out the last dregs. Two of M. Teurnier’s brothers are down there, more or less vacuuming up the last of the water.

  M. Teurnier explains the problem to Matt. A good part of our audience has disappeared. The show is over. That’s what they think; the best (worst) is yet to come. Matt translates, explains about the sandbar. M. Teurnier wants to pull our barge out to the center of the river and bring their boat into the space. Then they’ll turn on the motors full blast and blow out the sandbar. He’s convinced it will work. I’m not, but what do I know, this is all in the area of hands-on nautical engineering.

  So, that’s what we try to do. The barge is pulled out into the center of the river and anchored somehow. Where did they find the anchor? I don’t know. Then, they wedge their flat-topped boat into the space. This boat could serve as a landing field for small helicopters. They turn the double motors on full blast. Water, sand and sound fill the air.

  Now comes the political, psychological, psychical part. Madame Le Clerc, our downriver neighbor, is standing perilously at the stern of her boat, shouting. But no one can hear with all the racket. She’s shaking her finger at M. Teurnier and at me. I pretend not to see. What can I do? M. Teurnier bends backward at the waist with his hands on his hips and laughs at her. Oh, boy!

  Next, the owner of the boat on the other side, our upriver neighbor, with the lovely pirate boat, is out on her poop deck shouting even louder. If one didn’t see us between them, one would think they were having a terrible argument, shouting dementedly at each other. Too bad that isn’t the case. We are caught directly in the crossfire, and we are not innocent bystanders.

  There ensues about fifteen minutes of roaring motors, rushing water, flying sand, a wild churning up of the river. It’s making a colossal stink because the propellers of the boat are releasing years of buried methane gas. It smells ten times worse than the sewers in Paris. Finally, they turn the motors off. M. Teurnier has a gaffing hook and is testing for depth. Unfortunately, now we can hear the ladies shouting. I’m glad I can’t understand. I’m as deaf to what they’re saying as I was with the motors roaring. Matt shakes his head and doesn’t want to translate.

  ‘Honest, Dad. I can hardly understand what they’re saying and what I do understand, I don’t want to try translating. You don’t need to hear all this anyway. Just play dumb.’

  ‘Come on, Matt. I already am dumb, but I’ll need to deal with it sooner or later.’

  ‘OK, as far as I can tell, they’re both objecting to the fact that your new boat is going to take up more space than the old one. It seems the river law is that there’s supposed to be five meters between each boat. Teurnier insists that when your boat is in place, there will be at least five meters on each side. I think he’s right; they’re only being hysterical, fighting for and defending territory.’

  ‘So what else are they saying?’

  ‘Madame Le Clerc objects to having our old wreck of a boat beside her beautiful mansion of a boat. She’s going to call Le Navigation. She claims Monsieur LeCerb, the boss man there, is a friend of hers.’

  ‘That sounds bad. What do they want me to do, just sink my barge again?’

  ‘It all sounds bad, Dad. I can’t exactly translate what Luce, the other lady, the one on the pirate boat, is yelling because she keeps slipping into Breton. She’s the one who really seems to get M. Teurnier’s goat. She’s apparently bawling him out in full voice, exercising her waterfront knowledge and expertise in Breton obscenity. And all this hollering brings out the Breton in M. Teurnier. He yells back at her, sometimes in French, sometimes in Breton. The last thing he told her was if she didn’t shut up and go inside, he was going to come up on that boat and give her a spanking.’

  ‘This is better than a movie. Too bad we’re in it, even as extras. By the way, what happened to our audience?’

  While all this is happening, the other fibres Teurnier have been shoving our boat back into the space they’ve cut out. They concentrate and work, don’t say a thing. They’ve wedged our barge close to the bank, but it’s still too long and too deep in the water to fit properly. They use their boat as a tug to push it in sideways. They manage to work the front end, the downriver end, in, where the water’s deeper and there’s no sandbar, but the back sticks out about a meter and a half more than it should. Teurnier’s pulled out a tape measure and is measuring the distances between the boats. He shouts out the measurements to each woman; there is almost six meters on each side. They screech back at him now, words even I can tell would never be approved by l’Academie francaise.

  As it begins to grow dark, we decide to leave the boat as is, with its upriver end, the cut-off stern, sticking out. I ask Matt to translate for me. I’m desperate. They’re about to leave, and I need to move the back of the barge against the berge. Matt listens carefully, then turns to me as they’re making ready to pull out. The crew has piled a stack of equipment on the back deck of our barge. Matt looks at me through the gathering dusk.

  ‘He says there’s a dredger upriver who can come here and dredge out the rest of the sandbar. It’ll probably cost another four hundred francs or so. He’ll check for us.

  ‘Also, he’s left cutting tools and an arc-welding set here. Tomorrow, someone, probably one of his brothers, will come at eight in the morning to start cutting out the windows. You should be here to tell him where you want them and give him a hand. He says they shouldn’t be cut closer than forty centimeters from the water level and there should be a minimum of three structural struts left in place along the sides between each wi
ndow. At least that’s what I think he said.’

  M. Teurnier and the rest of his finger-brothers are on their barge and about ready to head home. M. Teurnier stands at the stern lighting his pipe. He smiles at us between puffs. He seems happy with what he’s done. My God!

  He yells one last time. Matt stands on his cast, pushing himself up with his crutches. He cups his hand to his ear, picking up what Teurnier’s saying over the noise of his boat’s motor. Matt turns to me as they disappear.

  ‘He says not to bother about what Mme. Le Clerc will say to the Navigation or M. LeCerb at the Ponts et Chaussees. Teurnier’s going to stop by and see him on the way through the lock. He’s convinced that will do it. You’re perfectly legal.’

  So, there I am, with two half-assed boats joined in a naval wedlock, sort of a shotgun wedding at that. The sun is just about gone. I wander through the upper boat. It’s encouraging to see it drying, but it’s filthy. I wonder how I’m ever going to work my way down into the lower boat. All the hatches where the pumps have been cut off are now covered by the bottom of my wooden boat, so it’s completely sealed. Also, how am I going to nudge this brute into place? I’m tired. I’ll worry about it tomorrow. I feel like a waterlogged French Scarlett O’Hara. I guess M. Teurnier is my Rhett Butler, and in his own way has just told me ‘I don’t give a damn.’

  ∨ Houseboat on the Seine ∧

  Three

  The Cutting Edge

  The next day I come with a shovel, a pickax and a large bucket; it’s one of the buckets we used to scrape all the ‘gook’ out of the lower boat. I’ve borrowed a pair of hip-high boots from my friend and painting buddy, Jo Lancaster. I also have a winch, what the French call a tire-fort, along with two significant lengths of chain that were part of the mooring system for the old wooden boat.

  I use the plank, M. Teurnier’s plank, to walk across to the boat. I walk along the narrow passage beside the upper boat to the bollard. I loop my short chain over it, then hook one end of my winch to both ends of rope. I throw the rest of the winch onto the bank. I know damned well everything I’m going to do would drive a real boatperson amok. This will be strictly a landlubber’s solution. But, after all, that’s what I am.