tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5730953260554656592024-03-14T01:48:15.069-07:00France 2016Karen Malleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09661655883037455167noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-573095326055465659.post-76736540973147498352016-09-05T10:21:00.002-07:002016-09-05T13:50:18.238-07:00Belmondo at the STARS HotelThe elevator doors opened on a dark hallway. I stood there uncertainly, listening and sniffing, like prey. The hallway smelled like insecticide. From the end of the hallway came a rhythmic buzzing sound, like the sound of a trapped fly. Music. Another hotel guest was in there, playing music. I identified the song as a ubiquitous pop song that had been following me, yes, like an insect, for weeks, months, the way pop songs do. I'd learned the chorus by heart without trying, without wanting to. It went, "Whoa-woo-whoa-woo-whoa-woo, whoa-woo-whoa-woo-whoa-woo, I'm fallin', and I'm takin' my time on the ri-yee-yi-yee-yide." I willed myself not to sing along.<br />
<br />
What if they opened their door, right then, in the dark, to find me standing here? There must be a light, I thought. Don't panic. Just look around. Hovering in the air in front of me was a tiny orange light. I reached for it, miscalculated the distance -- it was closer than I'd thought -- and poked it, hard. The hallway lit up, though still dimly, enough for me to see a long dark stain on the carpet. I said something aloud, I don't know what, and started down the hall, looking for my room number. <br />
<br />
The room smelled of insecticide and baby powder scented air freshener. It had badly peeling wallpaper, and two twin beds pushed together instead of a queen. I opened the curtains to see out the window, which overlooked a black roof and faced another building. A shirtless man appeared in the window directly across from mine. He raised his forearm and pressed it against the glass and leaned his forehead against it, looking down, lit a cigarette. <br />
<br />
"Who are you, Jean Paul Belmondo?" I said. He removed the cigarette from his mouth and rubbed his two fingers against his lips -- I swear he did -- like Belmondo did in "Breathless." I pulled the curtain shut. I said, "No," I said. "Nope. I will not be nice about this. I am not going to be nice about this."<br />
<br />
Downstairs, I told the desk clerk that my room was not acceptable to me. She was young and shy and at first answered me in halting English, then switched back when I continued in French. I did not tell her about the smell of insecticide or the unlit hallway or the stain on the carpet or Jean Belmondo in the window, all of which, in the aggregate, had been what had propelled me back down to the lobby. I told her about the twin beds. She lowered her eyes and countered, timidly, that I had reserved a room with two twin beds and that is why I had a room with two twin beds. As she said this she checked the computer as if she didn't believe herself. I said, "Why would I do that? It's just me. Why would I reserve two twin beds?" She showed me a piece of paper that documented her assertion. I repeated myself, speaking louder and faster. I recalled someone once saying something about "speaking from a place of fear," and I had laughed, despising, as I do, expressions like that. It was the kind of thing people said for effect, but at this moment it was what I felt I was doing: speaking from a place of fear. And what did I fear so intensely? Discomfort. A failure of complete strangers to recognize what I was entitled to. The outrage of twin beds. <br />
<br />
She fled, in any case. There was urgent whispering, alternating with a placating murmuring, in the tiny office off to the side. The girl returned. She handed me a key. As I took it, feeling sheepish, I heard the creak of a chair in the tiny office, where a woman with curly gray hair and tired, dark eyes with identical gray pouches hanging under them leaned back into the open doorway and smiled grimly at me.<br />
<br />
"Is okay?" she asked. "Yes? Is now good?" <br />
<br />
"Yeah, sure," I said in English, taken off guard. <br />
<br />
"Dickensian," I remarked as I rode the elevator up to the new corridor and the new room. I jabbed the orange light. The dark carpet was stained, but there was no sound from the other rooms, and no smell of insecticide. I found my room. It also smelled neutral. The wallpaper adhered to the walls. One double bed was bolted to the wall. I opened the curtain just as Belmondo closed his, hanging his head, defeated. <br />
<br />
In a corner opposite the bed a small black television seemed to be trying to find a hole to crawl into. <br />
<br />
"Don't worry," I told it. "I won't watch you, I promise." Karen Malleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09661655883037455167noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-573095326055465659.post-37222690953439066972016-08-18T06:53:00.001-07:002016-08-18T07:22:51.393-07:00Never again.<i>This post goes back in time to my departure flight from Boston to Istanbul on July 14.</i><br />
<br />
The passengers sharing my row are going to Lahore; I peeked at my neighbor's boarding pass as she tucked it into the pocket in the seat back. They talk loudly, greedily, in the American
style. The style of my people. Talking at the world, fending it off
and consuming it at the same time, they hold up their cell phones as if they
need them to supplement their own five senses. They examine the movie
screens in the seat backs. They master the mechanism of the tray
tables. The boy – who is, I notice, about twice the size of the girls –
pokes at the movie screen. This seems to be their first time on an airplane.
They explore it openly, colonizing, taking possession with an appalling air of
entitlement that is both aggressive and innocent. <o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
Turkish Airlines is based, of course, in Turkey. We all have a layover at
Ataturk Airport in Istanbul. Two weeks
ago at Ataturk, men wearing stylish black down jackets to conceal the
bombs wrapped around their torsos emerged from taxis, entered the airport, and murdered forty-four people. I dreamed last night that
I wandered by mistake into the area where they had put up a memorial for
the victims that I saw in the news. A grief-stricken dream-airport-employee told me I shouldn't be in
there, but wanted to show me the photos. Then he couldn’t find
them, and then I couldn’t find my way to my gate, and then there were other less friendly airport employees hovering around the edges of the vast empty room where I'd found myself. It was one of those dreams that you never find your way out of, so you take it with you.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
My row-mates have black hair, light brown skin. The girls' hair is long
and straight and shiny; it falls over their faces constantly as if to protect
them, and constantly they throw it deftly back over their shoulders, and almost instantly it slips back down, veiling their faces, reflecting the ceiling lights. I count them -- there are six young people, three of whom are in my row, traveling with a
woman wearing a head scarf who seems to be their mother. She
sits directly in front of me, and is silent and still. <o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
Do they know about the men emerging from taxis wearing winter jackets on a hot summer night, about the one who was shot and rolled about on the floor, struggling to detonate his bomb? I saw a surveillance video of this man struggling, suffering, we all saw it. Of course they know. We all know. But we
have these plane tickets, we have these plans. We want to fly away and
have experiences and fly back, like well-trained falcons. <o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
They nest. Two of them pluck the little plastic-wrapped headphones
from their seats, but the one next to me doesn’t notice hers. It’s on the
edge of the cushion and her knee brushes against it and it falls to the
floor. She folds herself up like a bird. She tucks her hair behind
her ear. She doesn't yet know she's lost something. It's rarely
recorded -- that moment when you have lost something, when something goes missing.<br />
<br />
I should tell
her.<br />
<br />
I settle back in my seat and take out my book and start to
read, and right then, all together, as if obeying a silent order, they spelunk
in their carry-ons and their hands emerge holding IPhones. They discover
the USB ports in the seat backs and plug them in almost simultaneously.
Everything they do is deft and urgent and authoritative, as though this entire
planeload of people depends on them. As
though we await their orders. And yet I am sure that if their mother were to stand up and walk back down
the aisle and disappear, they would be instantly at a loss.<br />
<br />
I reach down and secrete the dropped
headphones in the palm of my hand.<br />
<br /><o:p></o:p>
As always in families, there is one who is different – here it is this
boy. They’re all talking, but he can’t seem to stop, and he repeats
himself aggressively, aiming his questions at the girl to his left.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
<i>Will there be wifi? Will be there be wifi? Do you think there
will be wifi? Should I ask her if there will be wifi?</i> <o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
He asks this with the urgency of someone who has entered a dark space.
Will there be light? Will there be air? <o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
<i>Do you want me to ask her? I can ask her. Do you want me to?</i>
<i>Hey, should I ask her? <o:p></o:p></i><br />
<br />
The Turkish Airlines crew, I suspect, will not suffer fools. They smile severely at the passengers, aiming
their eyes at hairline level. There is only one male crew member, it
seems, and he does not look at anyone as he goes about the work of corralling
people into their seats. He places carry-on luggage into the overhead storage bins, shuts each one with a snap once it's full. He seems jaded and brooding. I wonder
where he was when he heard about the attack.
Likely in an airplane, 40,000 feet in the air, all of them, having to
react to the news without skipping a beat, while pouring coffee, offering this,
offering that to squirmy, petulant travelers.
The women are devastatingly beautiful.
They all have their hair pulled back and up into flawless buns, their
eyes made up with long dark lines that extend beyond the lids.<br />
<br />
I don’t
think that the noisy boy should call a crew member to ask if there will be
wifi, but want him to, just to see what follows.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
The sister beside him tells him no. She says it like this: “Nooo-<i>wuh</i>!" <br />
<br />
I see now. This has been a long trip for them already. He has
been talking since he opened his eyes this morning. She has placed herself on the front lines, absorbing his constant barrage of questions and demands, fending him off. She tells him to shut
up. She tells him to stop. She tells him she doesn’t know.
She tells him to shut up. She tells him to stop. Whenever she says
“Shut up” or “Stop,” she gives the final “p” its own syllable – an elongated
schwa. “Sto-<i>puh</i>,” she says. “Shutuhh-<i>puh</i>.” She
rides these expressions of annoyance like waves that keep picking her up and
moving her away from something she wants.<br />
<br />
<o:p></o:p>
The girl next to me is successfully ignoring her brother. She is
smaller, more self-contained, as though she knows that at any moment she could
take flight, alone, and transport herself to Pakistan. He asks her direct
questions that she lets fall; he seems accustomed to it and is unfazed. <br />
<br />
I turn back to my book, read for a few minutes, until the noisy boy raises his voice, this time at the smaller sister, the quiet one next to me whose headphones I have stolen. He and the other sister, I see, have opened their headphones and plugged them into the seat backs next to the video screens. His eyes widen when he sees that my neighbor has no headphones. <br />
<br />
<i>Where are your headphones? Don't you have any? I have
headphones. They were right on my seat. You idiot. They
were right on your seat. Look. Look on your seat. You're
probably sitting on them, idiot. </i><o:p></o:p><br />
<i><br /></i>
The quiet girl flutters, panics, turns in her seat, searches underneath her for the headphones. Three small worry lines appear in her forehead. I know nothing of this girl except this, and that it will always be true: when she loses something, three lines appear in her smooth forehead, and the people around her, like me, reflexively want to erase them.<br />
<br />
<i>You can ask for some headphones. I'm not gonna ask for you. You're the one who lost them, idiot. You're the one who lost them. Ask. Go ahead, ask. Maybe they'll give you more, even though you lost them like an idiot. </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
I unfasten my seatbelt, turn in my seat, bend over, pretending to search for the headphones on the floor. The girl watches me without looking at me. I open my palm, offer the headphones. It’s like feeding a bird. She flutters
and giggles lightly and takes the headphones and plugs them into the port under
the little movie screen. She caresses the screen of her phone as if to console it. She smiles as lists of
names and phone numbers track rapidly up and down, each one accompanied by a tiny face, taking stock of her life so far. <br />
<br />
Hours later, she is sleeping easily, folded up in her seat, when I also fall asleep, finally. I dream that I awaken to find the male flight attendant kneeling beside me in the aisle, picking something up off the floor. I try to see what it is, but he notices I'm awake and quickly fists his hand around it. Then he looks me in the eye and says this to me: <i>Never again. You will never come back here again.</i> <o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Karen Malleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09661655883037455167noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-573095326055465659.post-50387788326149386002016-08-06T04:09:00.001-07:002016-08-16T12:13:06.888-07:00The SNCF<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><i>Note: SNCF is the acronym for the French railway system.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I glance at the man across the aisle
from me. I am used to tourists with glowing skin, in flattering,
impeccable clothes, eating ice cream, just so. Walking aimlessly, gently
touching merchandise as if blessing it, turning over price tags, assessing
their surroundings with satisfaction and entitlement and certainly no sense of
urgency. This man seems agitated and sleep-deprived.</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; mso-spacerun: yes;"> Harassed, even.</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The SNCF, he says loudly into his
telephone, is a huge piece of shit.</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">He already got off the bus once when
I got on. I had to back up and get back down to let him by. He held
a hand-rolled cigarette between his index and middle fingers -- going out to
smoke, I assumed, but then he disappeared. I assumed he lived in Niort and was returning home. </span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Twenty feet away, in the grass, were
gathered several young men and their dogs. This is something new this
trip: angry, often drunken young men sitting on the ground, against
walls, accompanied by big contented looking dogs on leashes. I was at
first interested in them and in their dogs. On a regular basis, as if
staged, one of the dogs loses its temper and barks furiously at some
approaching person or dog that has somehow given offense. It has a
grudge.</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Always, the dog’s owner holds it
back, just barely.</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The young men seem
thin and hungry and weak. You can see their muscles moving under their grimy skin. Still, somehow they muster the strength to restrain
their dogs when necessary.</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">He returned, and then spent
what seemed like a long time standing outside the bus, talking to the driver,
his hand-rolled cigarette between his index and middle fingers. Their
conversation seemed to be what was keeping the driver from leaving, and I was
annoyed and confused. They seemed to be having a discussion about bus
routes, the driver to be attempting to put it all into a grand historical
context. But what do I know? I couldn't hear much of it. I
heard some introductory clauses, "At that time, you see," and
"Normally, what happens is that," and "In my
opinion..." The driver seemed to be trying to appease the man’s
frustration, to explain why the world is the way it is, to take him under his
wing. It wasn’t in his job description, but he did it anyway.</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">"But what is he doing?" hissed
a woman behind me, who had been complaining of being too cold, due to the air
conditioning. While the man across the aisle was gone, the driver also
tried to assuage her discomfort. She, too, was inconsolable.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Finally the conversation was snapped
in two and the man got on the bus. </span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The driver accompanied him, checking
the seats and floor for trash and counting the passengers. Most of the
seats were empty. The man stopped and glared at me and said something to
the driver about "Madame." I realized there were assigned seats
-- I'd forgotten -- and I'd taken the one he'd been in. What did it
matter? There were so many empty seats. It didn't matter to him or
to me or to the driver, who shrugged and smiled at me. I said, "I
can move if you want." He ignored me and sat on the opposite
side. </span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Now, listening to the man on the
phone, I learn what happened: he didn't reserve a place,
and the offices where he was supposed to be able to buy a ticket were all
closed. He'd left the bus to buy his ticket to Bordeaux, where
he had to change buses again. I don’t know where he finally bought it,
but having succeeded seemed to bring him no relief.</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The driver didn’t know anything, he
said. None of the drivers know anything. Nobody knows anything.
They're filthy beasts, they're a dirty species of whore, they're shitters who
make you shit. The driver told him that he drives the buses all over, one
day in Portugal, another day in Canada, he never knows where he’ll find himself
next. I wonder if I am misunderstanding his French, as this doesn't make
sense, that he’d drive a bus in Canada and then return to Europe to drive a bus
in Portugal, or to Portugal. It seems outlandish. Maybe the bus
driver was exaggerating for effect. Maybe he meant it was </span><i><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">as if </span></i><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">he
drove a bus in Canada one day and in Portugal another. </span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">I could write some stupid story
where he and an American tourist make friends on the bus. One of those
tempting and insipid unlikely-alliance stories that inevitably disappoint when
tension abates, when the mean one is won over and turns out after all to have a caring heart. </span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Outside, one of the dogs, a German Shepherd, suddenly throws himself into a fit of barking directed across the street. The owner hugs the dog, embraces it, and forces it to sit. Then he forces his own face against the top of the dog's head -- you might say he's kissing the dog on top of its head, but he doesn't move from that position, pushing down so hard that the dog lowers his own head and finally lies down on the ground. They are in that pose as the bus pulls away. </span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">As we approach a red light, the man across the aisle, defeated, tucks his knees up
against the seat in front of him, leans his head against the window, and closes his eyes. I'm relieved. I don't like him
awake. He still has that bent hand-rolled cigarette between his
fingers. He didn’t smoke it.</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">His comfort object.</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Will it fall from his fingers when he is
really asleep?</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Or will there remain that
small, reflexive tension in the tiny muscles of his hands, reliving the wrongs
of the SNCF, that gigantic piece of shit?</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">I close my eyes, too, and hope we don't
have intersecting dreams. </span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">When you travel, almost everyone you see is
someone you will never see again. </span></div>
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Karen Malleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09661655883037455167noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-573095326055465659.post-87138382715937911732016-08-02T00:39:00.002-07:002016-08-16T12:12:46.502-07:00La Couarde<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I pedal blithely into the village and stop next to a church, lock my
bike and wander inside. I examine the leaflets on the table, vow to
remember the title of one, to make my friends laugh later: </span><i><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">La
Fidelite: Mission Impossible?</span></i><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"> I step quietly down the
middle aisle, follow a side aisle back, look at a model of the church,
read some comments in the little book left there for that purpose. I find
one that's memorable: "Returned and retrieved lost helmet."
I wonder if the priest of this church read that message, imagine him passing
the helmet and worrying about the well-being of the person who left it, hoping
they would return to retrieve it. But you don't always know where you've
lost things -- that's why they're lost. I hate losing things, hate being
lost. I'm on a small island, so if I know what side the ocean should be
on I'm not lost, not really. These villages, though. Several times
I've gone to visit a village and gotten completely lost trying to get
out. I dart around, trying different ways out, like a sparrow in a train
station.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">A man enters with two young boys and they dip their hands in the holy
water. The boys look anxiously at their grandfather as they first watch
him and then do it themselves. He seems to be showing them how for the
first time. His eyes are averted, his expression resolute, ready for them
to fail. I feel the need both to leave them alone and to escape. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The church releases me -- it could take me or leave me -- and I wander in
the growing crowd, past artisan and clothing and toy and shoe
stores. I pick up a newspaper and have a coffee at a café. A
child at the table next to mine launches into a temper tantrum. He
doesn't want to wear his hat. He uses the only means of persuasion at his
disposal: repetition. "I don't WANT to put on a hat. I
don't WANT to put on a hat. I don't WANT to put on a hat."
Repeating it, and repeatedly being ignored, inspires him in the direction of primal
rage. I understand him.</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">More than
anything else, I find, being ignored when you speak does inspire rage.</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">"You can cry," says his mother. "That will change nothing."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">As he screams, I read about terror and heightened security and Arabs being
spit on while out taking a walk on the Promenade des Anglais in their
hometown. I read about the things people are saying about the attacks in
Nice, Munich, Rouen. After something terrible happens there is panic,
confusion, incoherence, and then silence as people gather their thoughts.
They decide what to say, and then start saying it. People are saying
things and other people are recording the things they say and disseminating
them indiscriminately, democratically, and the people who read and listen to
them then think of their own things to say. I fear they resonate in the
wrong ears. I know that a good deal of it does.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Marine LePen says, (triumphantly, I think), "They are killing our youth,
assassinating our police, and cutting the throats of our priests. Wake
up!" Donald Trump says France wouldn't have this problem with
terrorism if people were allowed to carry guns. The Turkish press says
that Obama was behind the failed military coup. The boy at the table next
to me says he doesn't want to wear his hat. We should be listening to that
boy, I think. Choose your battles, I want to tell his
mother. I’m with the little boy.</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Some
people just don't like wearing hats.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">On my way out I realize I've left my glasses somewhere and retrace my
steps. I get irritable when I lose things, and have to take a deep breath
and rehearse my question in French before asking, ever so calmly,
"Did you find a pair of glasses?" I ask at the bakery, at the
little souvenir store where I bought my friend a ceramic spoon rest for her
kitchen, go back into the church, where the grandfather and the two boys are
standing in a chapel gazing at the candles in their little red pots. Is
someone sick, I wonder? Dead? Or are they simply attracted to the
flames?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">This time, it turns out the people at La Maison de la Presse, where I bought
the paper, folded my glasses up and placed them on top of the register when I
floated out, stricken by the dire headlines. They all seem immensely relieved
when I enter and ask after them. I'm touched. Such a simple
thing: to fold up a pair of misplaced glasses and place them, hopefully,
on top of a cash register. They hoped I would return for them, and now I
have. We rejoice together. "Now you can see!" they
exclaim. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I say goodbye, exit the store thinking:</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">things like this should matter more. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">When it comes time to leave the village it seems to have swallowed me.
I can't get out. I ask a woman selling striped sailor shirts. She
points and says uncertainly that she thinks it is that way, but "the bike
path, I don't know. I come by car." </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I ask a woman in the street who looks local. I can spot the local
people by the way they seem to hold their heads at a different angle, taking it
all for granted. They chat with the painters and masons and carpenters
who work inobtrusively inside open doorways. They indulge those of us who
have flown in from other places to roost in the sun, to ride bicycles in
trembling lines, calling to each other, sprinting into the ocean and being
thrown out again by its waves.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">She points and says, "You go straight, straight, straight.</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Then there will be signs.” </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I go straight, straight, straight and come to a T. There is a sign
with a double arrow on it, pointing both left and right, and above it a sign
with an image of a bicycle. She said there would be signs – not that the
signs would be helpful.</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I push on, delving into street after street.</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">And then, in a breath, there. I'm out. I see a sign for
Saint Martin.</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I know where that is.</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">As I pedal, I come up behind a woman riding side-by-side with a small boy
wearing a striped sailor shirt. I ride behind them for a moment, too shy
to ring my bell, listening to their conversation. They're hurrying to meet Papa, who is waiting for them at the windmill. Then they're to go eat, all of them together. The woman turns her head and notices me. She
reaches down, places her hand flat on the boy's back, and gives him a little
push. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">"Move over," she tells him. "Let the lady pass."</span><br />
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Karen Malleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09661655883037455167noreply@blogger.com2