May 29, 2003 Nantes
Watching a magical old movie set in the
1890s. Gervaise, after a novel of Zola's. Wonderful table scenes,
the characters beholden of the tragic and flirtatious humor that I love
so well. Common people well into their thirties on a normal street, I
think in the North. Funny fast dances and iron beds. No Anglo-Saxon high
dudgeon. No comedies of manner or pratfalls. And an excellent if painful-looking
spanking.
In the family A.'s garden for sardines. The girls kept to their books and we watched the sun go down. A large owl flew across the sky into our garden. Siam tried to steal sardines and Filou succeeded. Talked about the ongoing strike, the summer, and the future of the Left. How Siam hissed at me when I carried him home.
The neighborhood crazies and their various afflicted pets: the man who carries a dog who coughs reminds everyone of a character out of a Tati movie. The round woman, slightly mongoloid features, who drags a small boy everywhere by the hand. Often seen in Le Broceliande. Talked about the future of mass transit to be discussed in conferences in Palm Springs, Vilnius, Dallas. The management of cable cars in San Francisco and Lisbon. One day they will take the girls from Massachusetts to California. I suggest the northern route through Wyoming. P. smoking with his feet in the chair. C.assures us that Madame O.'s mother is alive--she's had news from F.. The earthquakes did not trouble her region. I had thought she lived in Algeirs.
Everyone says "Good-bye--and if I don't see you, good-bye."
Met young F. at Le Commerce. He will re-take his senior year. Had a little difficulty, seemingly, with his English but warmed up quickly. Talked of aircraft of various nations, difficulty of becoming a pilot. F. tells me young B. says "hi" and so does Mme. G. Last week she broke down and held class out on the lawn. Showed me a précis she had given the class about a group called "The New Age Travellers" in Britain. A list in the sidebar: those without fixed addresses believe in solidarity over independence, happiness over possessions.
C. had laid boxes out everywhere in the bedroom. I awoke amid boxes of sweaters, scarves, and coats half opened to the warm season. Stumbled myself awake all over the house. Reheated the coffee and drank from her bowl. Every kind of lie and murder in the headlines. Wrote a long message to a Texas libertarian with whom I share a mutual friend.
Beautiful dream of driving through an
impossibly narrow town in Mississippi. Stopped at a gas station in my
wide truck and they told me where I could find the famous old house. And
there it was at the end of a narrow, high bedded road that ended in a
basketball court. The old man's house was the one down the street and
someone had left all the shutters open.
May 30, 2003 Nantes
We're to have R. and P. over for supper
tonight. Out we went to Talensac for boudin, poitrine, merguez, grapefruit,
and leeks and I carried the two baskets back while C. carried a boxed
sorbet tart. I assembled the tables in the garden and set out glasses
and soon our guests started to arrive. They are always, here, more numerous
than one imagines. They always include the neighbors. Somehow there is
always enough food, wine, everything to go around.
Long, long speeches about the strike, public civility, and the national education system were made. M. showed up unexpectedly and seemed happy we insisted she stay and eat. C. proposed dramatic solutions to conflicts within the lycée. I threw cherry pits at the cat to keep him confused and away from the boudin. Everyone threw cherry pits and stems with a windmill toss either into the alley or into the neighbor's garden. Sometimes we pinged them off the grill. R. and P. brought a large box of early cherries and set them down on the lawn in the middle of us. Yellow going into red and not as sweet, of course, as late cherries. But it would have been a shame to let them go to the birds if only for their color.
