Patou et Boeuf - Duck and Beef

When we landed in Luxembourg this morning, it was all I could do to find my suitcase in the mess of luggage that came pouring down onto the baggage carousel, hunt crazily through the terminal for the taxi stand, arrive at the train station, pay the taxi driver way too much money, buy my train ticket to Paris and another one to Avignon, and get on the train. I slept all the way to Paris, only waking up to show the border crossing guy my passport. When the train arrived in Paris, the only reason I woke up was because the guy next to me was getting off there also, and stepped on my foot really hard as he climbed over me in the tiny train compartment. I probably would have eventually noticed that the train had stopped in the station and had gone silent, but I didn’t want to miss the train to Lyon, so I am kind of glad that guy woke me up. I almost never ride trains at home, and I was looking forward to hours of watching the French countryside and cities pass by through the huge windows, but I missed it all. It did feel good to sleep, though it wasn’t nearly enough.

I got lost in the Gare du Nord in Paris, where I had about an hour to wait before the train to Lyon left, which would then continue to Avignon. But I wanted to make sure I located the right train track before exploring options for some food. I kept asking people how to get to the track for the train to Lyon, a major stop on the way to Avignon, but they kept screaming incomprehensible French at me. Arrrggghhh! I think I now officially hate French people, or at least Parisians. I also officially hate French train stations. What is wrong with putting signs for track numbers where people can actually see them?

I finally found the right track, so I then located a money exchange counter and exchanged all the rest of my dollars for French Francs. It was a good thing Mom made me change some of my money at O’Hare Airport before I left, but between throwing some Francs at the taxi driver and paying for my train tickets, I only had a few Francs left. I stuffed my wallet in my pocket – Mom warned me about thieves grabbing purse straps right off your arms, so my purse was almost empty. Even though I was really hungry, I needed to first find a restroom. After asking several train station market vendors where “la toilette” could be found, and getting many sneers, several incomprehensible scolding sessions, and a few instances of no response at all, one stringy-haired vegetable-stand lady screamed at me, “Là, tu idiote! Américains! Pah!”

She jerked her hand to the right, where I saw a tiny sign pointing to a restroom with showers. I only knew there were showers because the little cartoon of a stick woman scrubbing her armpits under raindrops dripping from a faucet above her head made me start giggling. Especially because she still had her stick lady triangle skirt on. My giggle fit got worse when I read “Douches” under the cartoon. I know “douches” means “showers” in French, but it’s also what I and my friends back home call jerky guys. I had to sit down on my suitcase to giggle for a while. When I finally got myself under control, I decided to go over to the mean vegetable lady’s stand to give her a bit of trouble before using the restroom. As I sauntered by, I made sure she was looking the other way, then knocked a couple of her squishy tomatoes off the stand and stomped on them.

Although the giggle fit and tomato stomping put me in a better mood, it was soon dashed when I realized that it would cost ten of my very precious Francs to use one of the smelly, slimy, dark cubicles in the shower part of the restroom, and no soap or towels were to be found anyway. So I resigned myself to the fact that I would just have to wait seven more hours to take a shower, though I did at least wash my face. A long shower when I finally get to my French family’s house is going to be at the top of my list of things to do. After meeting the family, of course.

* * *

It’s now two hours into the train ride south from Paris and we just left Lyon. I was ready to abandon my stupid gigantic Samsonite suitcase, which weighs two tons and that Mom insisted I bring on this trip, next to the train when I couldn’t get it up the narrow metal train steps at the track in Paris. But then a tall, skinny African guy named Marcel, who was dressed in a very dark black suit and a very white shirt, and who speaks French and English, helped me lift it onto the train and store it in the little luggage compartment at the end of the car. I was very grateful, but not so much when he decided to sit right next to me. I was really looking forward to sleeping some more.

But he has been yammering on and on about his country in Africa this entire time. He keeps repeating the name of it, but I can’t understand his version of French very well. He’s also telling me about why he’s in France – business trip – and about his vacation house in Marseilles – on the beach. He also periodically warns me not to fall asleep because someone will steal my suitcase. But it’s so huge and heavy that I really wish someone would take it. Every time I nod off to sleep, he nudges me and continues his monologue about himself and his house in Marseilles and his ships and his company and himself, and on and on. When he asks me for my address in Avignon, I write down the address of the school on the back of one of his business cards, hoping he will finally shut up and just let me sleep. But he makes sure I tuck one of his business cards into my purse and tells me I must call him next week. Why? I wonder. Then he goes on to tell me that I must visit him at his home in Marseilles. Uh-huh, yeah, right. I will make sure to do that. When pigs fly. He’s a nice man, but I don’t think I could stand his non-stop talking.

After another half hour or so, he finally seems to run out of things to tell me about himself and asks, “Why is a young, beautiful American girl traveling in France alone, and where is your mother?” I smile, but don’t reply. He must take that to mean that I want to know even more about him, so he starts up again. He’s going all the way down to Marseilles, at the southern tip of France, to spend some time working in his company’s branch office there. He keeps repeating that I’m going to visit him and stay in his house on the beach, but I keep not answering and falling asleep. Every time I nod off, he taps me on the shoulder and tells me more about his house and himself. I’m trying to ignore him now by writing in my journal. I hope he doesn’t read English very well because I can feel him looking over my shoulder as I write.

Another hour or so of trying to ignore Marcel and his nonstop monologue. Oh, how I wish he would just shut up. I think I’ll tell him now, “Marcel, just shut up!” But I don’t. Instead, I wonder how you say “shut up” in French.

* * *

It’s now ten o’clock at night, and the train stops in Avignon at the dark and completely deserted train station. Only a couple of streetlights shine near the station building. Just before we reached the station Marcel woke me up – he had either finally stopped talking and let me sleep, or he had continued talking and I slept deeply anyway. He tapped me on the shoulder, saying, “Miss, you will miss your stop.” He helped me get my Samsonite of stone off the train. I am the only person who disembarked here in Avignon, and I am now utterly alone.

After Marcel got back on the train, he sat in his seat by the window, waving and smiling that white, bright smile in that black, black face, as the train rolled away from the station, until all I could see was his shining teeth in the moonlight. An African Cheshire cat grinning in a train window in the dark night of France. Somehow that thought and image seem artistic to me, but I will have to think more about why later. No matter what, I am not going to visit him.

I pull my suitcase over to the Avignon train station’s lone pay phone, put in some coins, and dial the phone number listed on my NIU Summer French Program confirmation letter. It says it’s the home number of La Madame Directrice of the school.

“Oui, allô?” I can tell I woke Madame Directrice up, but no way am I going to sleep in the train station. Or on the platform, actually, because the station’s doors are locked. I discovered this when I went to look for a restroom. Madame Directrice needs to help me get to my French family’s house. Too bad the confirmation letter doesn’t list their address, or I would just hail a taxi…well, no, I wouldn’t. A deserted, dark train station means no taxis. So Madame Directrice needs to tell me what to do.

“Um, allô, je suis Patricia, la femme…” I stop because I am not sure if I should continue my long story about “the woman from the University of Illinois, who is attending the Avignon summer program through Northern Illinois University, and I know the program started two days ago, but the charter flight I booked only flies to Europe from Chicago two days a week – so I couldn’t leave until yesterday – and once I landed in Luxembourg, I had to take the train to Paris, and then another train to Avignon…” No, there is no way I can say all that in French, so I simply stop speaking.

She replies in heavily accented English, “Oh yes, you are the woman who we thought was not coming. Your French family and I have been very worried about you.” She continues scolding me. “Were you not aware of the starting date of the summer session? Did you not receive your confirmation papers with all the information on the program?” She asks a few more questions, and I wait for her to stop so I can reply to some of them, but she just keeps talking.

I finally decide to interrupt her diatribe to explain the rest of the situation, but in English. In the middle of telling my long story, she in turn interrupts me by saying, “Well, you’re here now, Patricia. Go tell the nearest taxi driver to take you to your host family’s address. They live in Le Pontet, a suburb of Avignon, Rue St.-Honoré, number five. They don’t have a phone, but I will call their neighbor to let them know you are coming.” After I make her repeat the address so I can write it down on a scrap of paper, she hangs up the phone without even saying goodbye.

God must be looking out for me because as soon as I hang up the phone, a taxi miraculously appears on the road. I run over there, waving and yelling, “Taxi! Taxi!” The driver stops, but I find it impossible to explain in French that we have to go back to the train station to get that huge, hulking Samsonite of stone, so I just wave towards it and beckon him to follow me. Have I ever felt more ridiculous in my life as this taxi slowly inches its way next to me the few yards to the platform where my Samsonite waits patiently? No, but who cares?

* * *

It’s now forty-five minutes later and I know the taxi driver has driven around the block at least four times before stopping at the corner of the street where my host family lives, but once again, my six years of French studies fail me, and I can’t come up with the French words to point this out to him. So I just pay his outrageous fare. Then I drag the Samsonite half a block to the address I’d scribbled down.

It's a cute house, and a sliver of moonlight highlights a front yard decorated with white rocks and dog poop. There are absolutely no lights on anywhere. Did Madame Directrice call the neighbor to let my French family know I was coming? It sure doesn’t look like it. I push on the front gate and it opens, so I walk up the path to the door, avoiding piles of dog poop here and there. When I push the button next to the door, a huge, reverberating buzz shatters the silence of the tiny street. The noise from the buzzer is immediately followed by the monstrously loud barking of a gigantic St. Bernard, who comes bounding up to the door, jumping up and threatening to shatter its glass panes with his paws. Will he eat me as soon as the door opens? A tiny, blonde, curly-headed, smiling woman comes to the door, opens it and attempts to hold the dog back by his collar. He might eat me after all.

“Bon soir, est-ce que je peux vous aider—? Oh, mon Dieux!” The tiny woman switches to English. “You must be the petite américaine we are expecting for the summer. But you are late!” Apparently, Madame Directrice didn’t call the neighbor to let this family know I was coming, or the neighbor didn’t wake up and answer the phone. The tiny woman manages to get the dog to finally stop barking, although he is still lunging. A short, dark-skinned man with curly black hair appears behind the woman, smiling and tying a bathrobe around his waist.

“Who is this?” he asks in French.

“It’s our petite américaine,” the woman replies to him in French and pushes the giant St. Bernard into the room on the left, shutting that door. She then pulls me into the entryway, throws her arms around me, kisses each of my cheeks, and shouts, still in French, “Welcome, welcome, petite américaine! I have forgotten what your name is from the papers we received, but welcome! Dominique! Please get her suitcase from the sidewalk.”

She continues, “Oh, by the way, my name is Aline, this is my husband, Dominique. And the big dog is Boeuf.”

Dominique tries to pick up the Samsonite with one hand but gives up when it lands on his big toe. He grimaces. “Mon dieux! Did you bring all of America with you in this suitcase?” But his smile quickly finds its way back to his face as he half drags the suitcase with two hands from the yard into the house. He starts whistling as he stores it in the room to the right off the main hallway. Boeuf has managed to escape from the room on the left and jumps across the hall into what I assume is my room. He immediately starts barking and drooling all over my suitcase.

But then Dominique hauls Boeuf to another room at the back of the first floor of the house, shuts that door tight, and we go into the living/dining room, across from my room. By then, a tiny cherubic toddler, with her mother’s blue eyes and her father’s black curls, has joined us after sitting and butt-bumping her way down the stairs. Aline sets a tray with baguettes and butter, milk, tea, red wine, and cubes of cheese on the table. Then she hugs and kisses the little girl and introduces her – Mariline. Aline sits Mariline in a high chair and we all sit at the table. I am not hungry after eating a huge ham and cheese baguette sandwich at the Gare du Nord in Paris, so the last thing I want to do is eat or drink anything now. But I don’t want to be rude, so I eat a few bites of cheese and bread, and swallow a couple of gulps of wine, between explanations in my halting French about where I have been for the past two days, and the story of my long flight and much longer train rides.

Aline then tells me about their family. She is Dutch. Dominique is Spanish but born and raised in France, so he doesn’t understand me when I say, “Hola, como estás?” Mariline is their two-year-old daughter. They speak Provençal French, which means that they kind of sing-song everything and pronounce the “e’s” at the ends of feminine gender words, like Provence, instead of leaving them silent. We sit talking in the living/dining room until around one o’clock in the morning, when I begin to nod off, with my head drifting dangerously close to the runny Camembert on the plate in front of me. Aline finally picks Mariline up and says, “Dominique! We must stop talking so much to our new petite américaine. She needs to sleep, especially because her bus to Avignon leaves so early tomorrow morning. Come, petite américaine, let me show you around your room. By the way, what is your name? I have no idea where I put your school registration papers.”

“Patricia,” I reply, as I stand up to follow her.

“Oh, yes, that’s right. Patricia.” She grabs my hand and takes me across the hall to the huge, airy room where my suitcase is sitting there like a short awkward refrigerator. I stand by the door, and she gestures as she shows me the twin bed, the ancient dresser, the closet, the shoe rack, the French doors leading directly out to the front yard – “Your very own entryway, ma petite!” – the lamp… When my head starts to drop to my chest as I unsuccessfully try to stay awake – now I know it's possible to fall asleep standing up – she scolds herself.

“Oh, look at me, chattering away again, and you so tired, you poor petite américaine…eh, sorry, Patricia. Let me get you the big alarm clock to wake you up. You must be at the bus stop by six o’clock tomorrow morning or you will miss the only early bus into town. You see, we don’t live in Avignon, we are on the outskirts here in Le Pontet. And the bus to downtown Avignon only comes by two times a day, once at six-ten in the morning and once at two-thirty in the afternoon. Of course, Dominique could drive you to the school, but since he has to be at work by five-thirty a.m., it would mean either you would have to sit with the bums and pigeons in the park until your school opens, or Dominique would have to get excused from work, come all the way back here to pick you up – he works about forty-five kilometers from here at the huge mechanical processing plant, you may have seen it when the train passed by? Oh, mon Dieux! But there I go again, talking your ear off!” She hurries upstairs and comes back down immediately with a giant alarm clock.

“Anyway, ma petite Patricia, here is the alarm clock. It will ring very, very loudly, so do not fear that you won’t wake up. Here, I will set it for you. Now, to get to the bus stop, you just walk down the block to the corner, turn right and go to the next corner, cross the street, cut diagonally right across the huge plaza you will find there, and at the next corner you will see the bus stop. You can’t miss it. There is a blue sign that says ‘Avignon Ville.’ And you will recognize the bus – it’s a new, red bus with tinted windows and nice seats. It costs two francs. And now, off to bed with you before you collapse. Good night, sleep well. I will leave your breakfast out in the kitchen, the little room at the back of the dining area. And we will see you tomorrow evening.” She almost gets the door to my room shut, but then she pushes it open again and continues talking.

“Oh, I almost forgot, the late afternoon bus to return here leaves from the main bus stop in Avignon at the train station outside the city walls, the same stop where you will get off the bus tomorrow morning. It leaves from there at five o’clock in the afternoon on the dot, and if you miss it, there is no other bus. And a taxi would be horrendously expensive, so don’t miss the bus!

“Oh, yes! How do you get from the bus stop to the school?! Well, Avignon is very simply laid out. Just go through the city walls across the street from the bus stop, straight up the main avenue. You will pass two side streets, then turn right at the third street, Rue Montecristo. Go to the middle of the block and there on your left is the old convent. You see, they converted an old convent into a school for foreign students, it’s really quite beautiful inside, they left all the old rooms intact, including the main chapel – they use it for the weekly film afternoons for the students… But, mon Dieux! You must think I never shut up, but I really must let you sleep. Good night! If you need anything in the morning…”

* * *

I missed the rest of what Aline said to me last night – wait, no, earlier this morning. I fell asleep on top of the bedcovers, not even changing into my pajamas. Now I wake up to a roar of ringing from across the room. It takes me at least two minutes of stumbling around in the dark before I figure it all out. I’m in France. I’m at my host family’s house. That’s the alarm clock. I need to turn it off. How do I turn it off? Oh, there’s a button on the back. Blessed silence. Back to sleep.

But WAIT! I must catch the bus! What time is it??! Five-forty-five!! The bus comes in twenty-five minutes! I need a shower! No time! Crap! And now what’s this? Boeuf is pushing open my bedroom door, racing over to lick and drool all over my face. He is so huge that he doesn’t even need to put his front paws on my shoulders to lick my face. He then stands there, grinning and threatening to knock everything in the room over with that giant wagging tail. Aline comes running downstairs as soon as she hears his loud woofing. She explains that my room was Boeuf’s playroom until yesterday, so he probably isn’t going to understand it if I ever try to shut him out. Great. A huge, hilarious but copiously drooling roommate. Aline drags Boeuf by the collar and opens the bedroom door to take him away. “Well, you must get ready…” she says.

“Il faut que je me…” I start to reply, but French words fail me in my attempt to explain that I need to take a quick shower, so I shut up and just grab some clothes and the towel on the dresser. As Aline leads Boeuf upstairs, I hurry to the bathroom at the end of the hall. The huge tub looks extremely inviting to my stinky body and still sleeping head. But I have zero time to take a bath or shower. I have to settle for a very quick washcloth bath, without soap – I can’t find a sliver of it anywhere. At least I can brush my teeth since I remembered to bring my Crest and toothbrush.

I return to my room and put on some clean clothes. Finally, I feel as though I smell somewhat normal, but I really must take a shower tonight. All is silent throughout the house – I guess Aline went back to sleep and Dominique must have left for work a bit before the alarm went off – so I grab my backpack, put my purse, a notebook and pen inside it, run to the kitchen, grab the tiny, dried up piece of baguette with curdled butter sitting on the counter, and look at the glass of whitish-grayish liquid. I try very hard to swallow at least some of this so-called milk, but I remember that Aline explained last night that it’s mostly water and full of preservatives, so they just keep it in the cupboard instead of the refrigerator, and it never gets sour or stale…or cold. I just can’t get any more of it down. I hate milk anyway, even when it comes from cows, isn’t full of preservatives and is ice cold. She said she would put out my daily breakfast of bread and butter and a glass of milk every night so she wouldn’t have to get up with me every morning for breakfast. Hurray, I think, this lovely breakfast will be all mine every morning. “Merci,” I whisper to the quiet house as I shut the front door.

After Aline’s very detailed explanation last night of how to get to the bus stop and what the bus would look like, I find my way there with no problem, even though I was mostly asleep when she was explaining it all. However, I am kind of surprised when an old blue bus, belching black smoke from its exhaust, pulls up a couple of minutes after six o’clock. Why is the bus arriving so early and what if I had not raced over here, worrying that I would miss it? And why is the bus blue and not red, and old, not new? Oh well. I wave wildly because it almost seems as if the bus won’t stop. But it does, several yards beyond the stop.

The grinning, toothless bus driver opens the door and asks, “Faw, faw, faw?”

I smile weakly, assuming he is asking me where I am going, and say in my best school French, “To the ville, please.”

“Faw, faw?” says he, with a sort of questioning look in his eyes.

I decide to trust my gut instincts. “Oui,” I say, not sure what I am confirming. Surely this is the right bus – it stopped at the right bus stop at the right time, though actually about six minutes early. Since I don’t understand what the bus driver is saying, I assume it has something to do with the new red bus breaking down or whatever, so I climb the rickety stairs into this bus. I go to drop my two Franc coins into the fare box, but there is none. So I hand the coins to the driver, who laughs and puts them in his pocket, and I sit down. The only other passengers are a bunch of children, all with messy hair and wearing wrinkled school uniforms. What had been pure silence during the incomprehensible exchange between me and the bus driver erupts into whispers and giggles. All the children are staring at me. Why are there only schoolchildren on this bus? Oh well. Maybe no other types of passengers besides students need to go to downtown Avignon in the morning. Not my concern.

After about forty minutes, we approach what seems to be the main part of Avignon with the train station on the left and the entryway through the city walls on the right, but the bus shows no signs of slowing down. I look for a chain to pull to signal that I want to get off at the next stop. No chain or button or anything. I stand up quickly, swaying my way up the aisle to the bus driver and he turns to grin at me, as he comes to a somewhat screeching and sudden stop, about a block beyond the train station bus stop.

“Faw, faw, faw?” he asks.

“I need to get off here,” I think I say in French, but who knows what I’m really saying?

He clearly doesn’t know what I’m saying, so I gesture to the door and wave, indicating that I want him to open it, and he does. He grins again and I step down the narrow, dirty metal steps.

I walk back a block back to the bus stop sign. Across the street is the entryway in the ancient stone wall that surrounds the city. I cross the street, enter through the opening in the wall, and walk up the main avenue to the side street on the right that Aline told me to look for. I turn right and, sure enough, halfway down the block, I find the convent-school on the left. I tug on the locked front door, and then realize that no one is going to be around for about another hour. It’s only a few minutes after seven o’clock and my registration information said that classes would start at eight every morning.