Saturday, August 28, 2021

680828 -Les Evenements d'Août


The routine for Wednesday was much like any other weekday in the French countryside: le petite dejuner, of grilled bread, butter, jam and café au lait at the long table at eight; milling about with something vaguely in mind until nine thirty or ten when anyone who had nothing better to do could crowd into the car (if there was room) for the shopping trip to Lons-le-Saunier, the nearest provincial city; followed by le déjuner at 12:30 or one, again at the long table. With half the day more or less leading up to dinner, there was nothing left to do in the afternoon except repair to the garden for coffee and cakes. At this point, some family members might take off to do something, before assembling once again at the long table for supper, around eight thirty or nine. To be sure, there were days when something special -- a trip to the lake, a trip to a neighbouring village to sample cheese -- was planned. But for the most part, the whole point of the summer break was idleness.

Montain (L) - Lavigny (R)


But the French are never idle in the mind. At breakfast, lunch and dinner there was always plenty of chatter about Empire era clocks, the latest film or novel to take the country, the insufferability of the bureaucracy, the impossiblity of Céline, the absurdities of the latest scandal, the hopelessness of the English, what to do with Christian, something to do with Pascal or Montaigne, one's favourite sound-pun or calembour, and, of course, since this was 1968, les evenements de mai when the de Gaulle government was almost seemingly topled by rioting students.

I had little to contribute to any of this since I was totally ignorant of Empire era clocks and of most of the other topics of conversation and dispute. As for calembours, it had to be explained to me that si tu es gai, ri donc! (if you are happy, laugh then) was riotously clever because a géridonc was a style of 16th century table. The best I could manage was to indicate that I could see how someone might think that was funny, had he been sufficiently up to snuff in things French. And not just French. Around this time, for reasons which remain inscrutable to me, Jerry Lewis became the lastest craze in France. Praised as Le Roi du Crazy by the likes of Jean Luc Godard and Robert Beanyoun, Lewis became the darling, of the French intelligentsia and, to their lights, the most singular thing that America had contributed to the arts. My comment that I didn't think imbecility was very funny did not go over well. Well surely, I liked the Marx Brothers. No, I didn't care for them either. This was tantamount to scuttling Franco-American relations. Even worse was my opinion that a dispute over grades did not seem to me much reason to be tearing up the cobblestones of Paris. Evidement, I was the kill-joy of a good topic for endless argument. I learned to content myself with the humbler pleasure of being a spectator of how the French behave a table.



In the evening, conversation died down in time for the news. A small TV was set up in a sitting nook of the large salon, where those who wanted could watch. The O.R.T.F. was government run and the news this night, as most others, was the usual boring French stuff, except that in the middle of the humdrum, the screen flashed on to a grand émeute outside the Democratic Convention in Chicago. The screen showed the insipid, clown-like face of Hubert Humphrey (an unintended rival to Jerry Lewis) at a podium before switching to scenes of cops clubbing students in a fog teargas. I was stunned but what I recall most was the faces of my French family all of which turned from the TV to me. Across their lips came an ever so slight smile that said: you see, you are no different from us.

It was not malicious but it was more of a reproach against me than the country. Certainly the French were never duped by American Exceptionalism. But, in spite of everything, in spite of all the disgust and discouragement, I still felt that America had “a cleaner slate” somehow. No longer. Looking back now with the historical scale of things in mind, the riot outside the convention was the smallest of beer. It did not come close to the repression of the Bonus Marchers or of countless labor strikes, to say nothing of the Negroes and to say even less of the “pacification” of the Indians. But I was young and needed an ideal.

I got up and quietly extricated myself from the embarassing gaze of my relatives. As I walked out the back door into the garden, their chatter had already turned to something else.

Lavigny (pre yuppy)


It was dark and a light rain had begun to fall but I needed to walk out my thoughts. I headed out the front gate, passed the water fountain in the small village square and down the hill to the main road. There was nothing in Montain, except cows and a dairy; but across the valley on the hill over was Lavigny, a slightly bigger town that had something that passed for a bar. I crossed the main road and walked up to the town. In the narrow streets I found an open door to a dimly lit., dingy peasant bar. I sat down at a rough hewn wood table off to the side, and ordered a brandy, and then another and another until three or so in the morning. After I steeped myself in thought and alcohol, I got up and walked back in the rain to Montain, where I crawled into bed and fell asleep, absolved of any nagging need to register to vote.

Le petite dejeuner would begin another day.

No comments:

Post a Comment