In first class, we had the two top bunks in four bunk compartment. We got some sleep, but I was bothered by the presence of an older French man sleeping in the lower bunk. There was no problem other than our complete inability to communicate. He spoke a dialect of French almost completely incomprehensible to me ( I think I made out “Bon jour, madame” and “Dix” the word for 10). And he understood not one word of our English or my fractured French.
The truth is that I was extremely self-conscious and awkward. This does not bode well for staying in the dormitories of the Camino. I will have to find a strategy for undressing and for being comfortable in an environment of strangers. We will be finding out soon enough, I guess.
It is hard to believe we are this close to the trip now. I was excited last night as we waited in the run-down and sparse Paris’ Gare Austerlitz to see at least 4 other pilgrims waiting for the same train. One older woman with steel grey hair, sensible hair cut, and short sleeve plaid shirt wore a big brown back-pack adorned with the mussel shell of the Camino. I visit with a Brit from London, a short-haired slender man who told me he bought two train fares from London because he was worried a bout having enough time to transfer between stations (gares). “I was so anxious that I needed two hours between connections, I went ahead a bought another ticket after they wouldn’t change the first. As it turned out, it was a waste of 45 pounds, because I have plenty of time. I was just too worried.”We see him the next morning as we are leaving the train. He had spent a rough night with very little sleep in the 6 person compartment, where “you couldn’t move without touching another person.”
We were in need of a cup of coffee, so make our way to a lovely, low-end tabac not far from the station. At first, we sit outside next to a thin, drawn woman nursing a small cup of coffee while a tiny, cowed long hair Chihuahua stared at her nervously. However, she, and everyone else outside, is smoking, and the wind is blowing the fumes in our face, so we move inside.
The first man I see while ordering looks utterly stricken, looking up at me with red and rheumy eyes as he nurses his first shaky drink of the morning. He is 55, heavy in belly, cheeks, and jowls, and looks all the world like a grief stricken postal inspector.
Across the room, a jocular man with a long Gallic nose is trying to make the table laugh. The tiny woman to his left is having none of it, though the two man opposite them break out in occasional raucous laughter. She sits straight as a stick, arms crossed over her belly, her chopped hair, mismatched skirt and blouse ( flowers up top, plaid below) and tight lips conveying “I wish I was anywhere but here.”. Another lively conversation is occurring in the corner.
Wes likes the energy and is relieved to speak in something close to his normal volume, after all the whispers and murmurs expected and practiced on French transportation. We drink small, strong cups of coffee flavored with tiny sugar cubes, surprised at ourselves because we never add sugar to our coffee at home. But here, it somehow completes the taste. Wanting another cup, Wes goes to the counter to order another from Bernadetta, the thin, hard featured, black haired waitress wearing skin tight pants and grey suede demi boots with 3 inch heels. When she brings the coffee and Wes attempts a mispronounced “merci beaucoup,” which I correct, she pats him on the arm and says, “Parfait.” We are charmed.
About that time, the drawn smoker comes in to use the restroom, followed by the nervous Chihuahua. The mud grey pup stays right at her feet, tail between his legs, and goes both in and out of the bathroom with her.
As we leave the café, we spot the anxious Englishman pacing back and forth in front of the train station. He told me that there was a train to Saint Jean with no attempt at the French pronunciation at 2:55pm and was surprised to learn there was a bus as well. I try to capture his eye to what arrangements he had made, but his pre-occupation and determined walk render us invisible.
At the pension, we are first greeted by two small spaniels. The black lets us touch him while he circles us warily, but the white and ginger cowers in his usual spot. Soon the landlord, a remarkably handsome young man with bright hazel eyes and chiseled chin, arrives. Between his broken English and my lousy French, we determine to leave our bags until we can check in a 1pm. Foolishly, I ask the dogs’ name, but not his.
Out on the Rue Port Neuf, it is a sleepy Sunday morning. Nearly all the shops and cafes are closed. We find an open boulangerie with nice looking quiches and croissants, but cheap out and buy the croque-monsieur. They’re pretty awful. On hard, stale white bread with tasteless barely re-heated cheese and some sort of gloopy mayonnaise spread, Wes immediately chokes on his first bite. He hacks his way up the street, trying to clear the noxious piece stuck in his windpipe.
We come to the Cathedral just as mass is ending. As we circle around to the front entrance, two beggars confront us. One, a youngish man in a baseball cap, accompanied by two bulky, sprawling, well-fed mutts, thrusts a yellow plastic cup at us. Another, somewhat older with dark hair approaching a monk’s tonsure, holds out a metal cup and asks us in barely recognizable English, “Going to mass?”
We wander in the church and are struck by its air of solemn sanctity (so different from the tourist exploitation of Chartres) and it's “Accuiel de Pelegrinos,” (helpdesk for pilgrims). As we peer into a small, wood paneled chapel, an older woman with badly dyed blonde hair the texture of cotton candy begins shouting at a man in the chapel. He leaves the chapel, as do we. She then follows him out of the church, yelling in high pitched French I don’t understand. She continues shouting for some time at the entrance of the cathedral, her voice amplified to the neighborhood because of the typanic structure of the arches.
We want to go to the next mass at 11:30, so decide to wait in the adjacent leafy cloisters. While we amuse ourselves feeding bits of peanut butter to a small blackbird, the blonde woman continues to yell. At one point, she marches through the cloisters, still ranting at the top of her voice. We put our heads down and hope we don’t capture her attention. Eventually, she returns to the church entrance, and after some conversation with the two beggars, quiets down.
The wait in the cloisters grows too long, so we wander the battlements of the ancient town, looking down into the empty moat and another wall beyond. Wes wonders if these were another design by Vaubon, introduced to us by Klaus as the military architect who created the defensive bulwark at the top of Freiburg. A few minutes later, when we stop to read about an unusual stone tower abutting a rough stone wall, we discover that the tower had been built by Roman soldiers in the 1st century, and yes, indeed, the double wall battlements were created by the ubiquitous Monsieur Vaubon. This small city on the frontier with Spain has been at the center of innumerable disputes for millenia.
We return to the Cathedral, give some small change to the waiting beggars, and see that the blonde woman is now vigorously sweeping the entrance while maintaining a constant flow of verbiage. The mass itself in in French and Latin, conducted by a pudgy African priest who spoke slow, careful, strongly accented French. I could follow what he was saying, but could not comprehend a word from the mouth of his pale skinned and grey haired deacon. I found myself watching the acolytes. Two tall thin, dark skinned boys, whose thick curly hair was not picked, pressed, or shaped were accompanied by a young boy of about 11 who may have been at the altar for the first time, so often was he directed and corrected by the deacon. The teenagers, by contrast, were stately, elegant, and handsome, providing the candles, platin, wine and hosts at the very moment the priest needed them.
The music was a compelling mix of pop, Latin, and traditional church songs played on a 100 pipe organ and sung by a curly haired, long nosed, clear-voiced young soprano wearing a jaunty sailors’ stripe shirt, blue jeans, and sneakers. In the service and songs, the name of the messiah is rendered “SheZuh”.
After our surprisingly satisfying mass, we make our way around town, stopping for snacks and water, then eventually dinner and wine, managing to communicate in some atrocity of French, Spanish, and English. Wes reads the Camino de Santiago guidebook, and I am pleased I am able to successfully edit my manuscript on my phone and keyboard whiling away the hours at the Café du Theatre at water’s edge.
Back in our room, we sleep for few hours, then wake to watch the “exciting conclusion” of the Star Trek prequel—in English—savoring the encounter between Zachary Quinto and Leonard Nimoy, before laughing uproariously at the stupid English practical joke show, Just for Laughs.
It is quiet now. All sounds of our neighbors’ lives—their nose blowing and dish washing and raucous discussion of sports—filtering up through the courtyards abutting our hall and bathroom windows, have abated. Wes snores smoothly next to me. The small fan placed by door of our nearly breathless room putters on. I will turn off the lights in this orange striped room and try to make my way to sleep. Tomorrow, we go St. Jean Pied de Port, get out pilgrim credentials, and begin the next phase of this adventure.
No comments:
Post a Comment