Night 18, Days 19, 20 & 21: The Cold Road to the Sun

What a rollercoaster ride the last three days have been. I’ve been in a constant love-hate tussle, loving something about France one minute then hating something about it the next.

PARIS, JE VOUS AIME

Sunday night fell in to the former category and was, I might stretch to say, one of the nights of my life, all the more rewarding because I did it all on my own. Some months ago, I purchased a ticket to a chamber music concert at the Palais Garnier, mainly so that I could have an excuse to see the famed theatre, but also because I like music. There was only one concert planned while I would be in Paris, called Salon Musical, which was to feature performers from the Orchestre de l’Opéra National de Paris playing chamber works by French composers Ernest Chausson and Louis Vierne. I admit that when I bought the tickets I had not even heard of either of these composers. So I found the pieces on iTunes and tried to familiarise myself with them, so I wouldn’t be hearing them cold at the concert.

I was fortunate to find that I really liked the pieces: Chausson’s String Quartet in C Minor, Op. 35, his Chanson Perpetuelle, Op. 37, and Vierne’s Piano Quintet in C Minor, Op. 42. The Chanson and the first movement of Vierne’s quintet were particularly appealing, perhaps because they had the dramatic, boldly expressive quality I so admire in good film music. I knew then that the concert was going to be something special.

I took the Metro to the Place de la Opéra and went to a Japanese restaurant, having tired a little of eating only French cuisine. After, when I saw the theatre lit up against the night sky, I gasped, struck by the majesty of the architecture and the decoration, especially the gilded angels blowing their horns from each top corner.

Accordingly, the lobby is magnificent. If you’ve seen Phantom of the Opera in any of its incarnations, you’ve seen the Palais Garnier: its expansive staircase in white marble, its ornate bronze sculptures of goddesses doubling as chandeliers, its imposing stone sculptures of great composers in repose: Handel, Lully and Mozart among them.

But nothing could prepare me for the interior of the theatre itself. I was guided to my seat in the middle of the row fourth back from the stage. (I guess that’s what happens when you book four months in advance.) Only then did the weight of my surroundings fully fall upon me: the lavish trompe l’oeil backdrop of a painted curtain and its many folds; the deep red velvet seats and their curves calling to mind a fleur-de-lis; the viewing boxes a gold-embossed version of Shakespeare’s Globe. Then I looked up. On the ceiling was a Chagall fresco so vibrant and at odds with the otherwise stiflingly elegant surrounds that it worked perfectly, its airy pastel blues, pinks and oranges somehow complementing the stark red and gold of the auditorium proper. By this stage I was, by necessity, taking deep breaths.

A nice lady gave an introduction to the pieces (which I would have liked to be able to understand) but seemed to be met with derision by the impatient audience. The players emerged to warm applause and began playing. Of course, to describe the experience of listening to their music would be like painting a smell (or dancing to architecture?) but something happened in my head as I watched and listened to the music unfold: an appreciation of the beauty of which human beings are capable. This music did exactly what good music should do: it connected the audience in a common experience, moving us synchroniously through moments of heartache, passion, peace and violence. At one point I found myself banging my head in time with the music. I don’t think I would be the first person to head-bang at a chamber music concert, but I was the only one I could see.

The soprano, Marie-Adeline Henry, who performed the Chanson, delivered a controlled, exquisite rendition. The players in the quartet never missed a beat, maintaining a perfect connection at all times, and the pianist – a tiny Lithuanian woman – procured a sound far greater than her small form would lead one to expect. Certainly, watching a performance like this is a different experience to merely listening. With the addition of the physical element, the movement of the melody from one instrument to the other becomes almost visible, the eye guided by the ear to where it should look.

At the end of the performance, a buzz filled the room. Everyone knew they had seen a terrific performance, and the lengthy encore was gratefully received by the sweaty, exhausted players. I headed home on a cloud which, unfortunately, crumbled a little when an accordion player stood directly in front of me on the train and began playing Padam Padam with a tinny karaoke accompaniment blaring from a trolley-mounted speaker. All perfection dies.  

PARIS, JE NE VOUS AIME PAS

Monday became one of the most stressful days I can remember: at least the most stressful day since I gave up full-time teaching six years ago. My schedule for the day was nicely planned out. I got up early to clean up the apartment ready for my departure, and was to pick up my car from the rental place at 10am, then return to the apartment to meet the landlady at 10:30. This was to be followed by lunch with a TravBuddy friend, Tom, in the Champs-Elysee at 1pm. (He had even offered to shout me, being 20 years my senior and, by the looks of things, fairly loaded.) Then I would drive out to Dijon. It was going to be a good day.

I managed to reach the car rental place only a few minutes late, after a half-hour walk but, when I got there, was told that I couldn’t rent a car without showing my passport, which, of course, I had neglected to bring. So far: all my fault. I apologised and arranged to return in about an hour but, by this time, I only had fifteen minutes to get back to my apartment to meet the landlady. (I had anticipated driving this leg.)

I went down to the nearest Metro station but the only ticket machine available was for recharging Navigo passes (which only locals possess). I resolved to try the next station but, on my way up the stairs, saw a woman struggling to get her baby’s pram down into the subway. I stopped to help her carry it down a couple of flights of stairs, knowing that if I didn’t I would somehow be punished by fate. It’s ridiculous how superstitious I get in times of crisis.

In my panic, I took the wrong street and couldn’t see a Metro station anywhere. Of course, I didn’t realize this until I was almost back at Place de la Republique near my apartment. I ended up being fifteen minutes late for the landlady (incidentally, the same amount of time I kept her waiting after getting lost on my first day in Paris). The good news was – and maybe this had something to do with the pram lady – she was also running fifteen minutes late and we arrived at my apartment within seconds of each other.

I hurriedly stuffed the last of my things into my suitcase and found myself on the footpath within five minutes. I took the Metro back to the car rental place and resumed the check-out process. The man serving me had obviously been put off by the fact that my car rental voucher was in English and that I had such little French. I sensed in his eyes not just impatience but something like disgust. It made me deeply uncomfortable.

It only got worse when he concluded the process and sent me on my way. The problem was: he had not yet given me back my driver’s licence. He insisted that he had given it back, but I didn’t have it anywhere on me and had handed it to him just minutes before. It started to get tense as we both stood there saying, ‘I haven’t got it, I haven’t got it’ (in our respective languages). To make matters worse, he was only making a very cursory effort to search for it on his side of the desk, meekly leafing through papers and glancing vaguely from side to side, then holding up his hands in surrender.

Finally, he spotted it on the floor on his side of the desk, picked it up and handed it to me as if I had planted it there as a way of humiliating him. He was actually angry at me because he had dropped my licence. I tried to get him to tell me where I should go to collect the car, but he just waved me outside, a paragon of dismissiveness. So I stood outside, thinking that someone would drive the car up from the garage, as I had seen happen twice while I was waiting. Five minutes later, though, he happened to pass and told me to go down into the garage where someone would show me where my car was. Okay. Whatever. I took a few moments to get used to the clutch and gearstick on my Citroen Picasso (?!) and got it out onto the street.

What followed were ninety minutes of white-knuckle, hyperventilation-inducing terror. Not yet used to the dimensions of the car (slightly wider than I’m used to), or the dimensions of road lanes in Paris (far more narrow than I’m used to), I was taking it pretty slowly. Unfortunately, Parisian drivers were in a hurry. Which I understand. People have things to do, places to be. Life doesn’t stop because some idiot Australian wants to roadtrip around the Côte d’Azur. I get that.

What I don’t get is:

• Why there are no line markings on roundabouts in Paris. Driving into Place de la Republique is like surrendering yourself to a whirlpool. The only rule is not to be where another car is at any given point in time.
• Why there are no signs, other than a faded arrow on the asphalt, to tell you when a street is one-way.
• Why many streets (not all, but many) have no lane markings.
• Why double parking in a single-lane road and putting your hazard lights on is considered not only acceptable but de rigeur. In France, hazard lights far outweigh indicators as the most important tool for drivers.

I happen to think a few road rules here and there are not a bad thing. But what they do in Paris – and this goes for more than just the road rules – is they assume you know stuff. They assume, for example, that you know to stay to the right unless overtaking (or faced with a double-parked vehicle). That’s why a nice gentleman got out of his car, knocked on my window and ranted at me something along the lines of ‘If you’re going to drive so slowly, at least let me pass on the left.’ He was under the impression I had deliberately tried to prevent him from overtaking me. The reason that had happened was because I assumed we were in a single-lane road, but I didn’t yet realise just how skinny is the Parisian conceptualisation of a road lane. Where I saw one, they saw two.

In Australia, I was always told to expect other drivers are going to do the wrong thing, that all other drivers are idiots and that it’s up to you to do the right thing. Paris is the antithesis of this. Every driver assumes that every other driver knows exactly what his or her next move will be, even (especially?) if they don’t use their indicators. This makes life hell for anyone who isn’t yet on the same psychic plane.

During my ninety-minute trip to the Champs-Elysees (which a Parisian would have done in, say, fifteen minutes), I nearly had a front-end collision, stopped a number of times on pedestrian crossings, stopped in the middle of intersections that I hadn’t realised were intersections before I got stuck in them, twice came close to knocking over a pedestrian, and stalled numerous times when I tried to take off in second or third gear, almost forgetting that I had to change gears, and struggling to do so while steering left-handed.

By the time I found the restaurant, it was 1:15. Chez Catherine was an upmarket, business-lunch kind of place, and I was the only one not wearing a suit. Tom, an American, was a regular visitor to Paris, coming from his home in London to woo clients and schmooze on a regular basis. But, despite our best intentions, the conversation never really took off. It didn’t help that he kept making little mistakes, like calling a tagine an ‘aubergine’, insisting that Tom Cruise was in Inglourious Basterds (or did I miss something?), and implying that the population of Australia was 60 million. The real problem was that I felt I couldn’t question him, that if I tried I would end up looking stupid, so I had to bite my tongue.

The food (and the wine, in particular – a Meursault) was very good, but no better than that at less expensive restaurants in Paris, and it marked the first time I’d eaten guinea-fowl. It was very generous of him to shout me, and I made sure to thank him profusely. There was talk of meeting up in London but I don’t think it’s going to happen. It was just a nice lunch between two complete strangers with very little in common. I’m grateful for that, though. It was good for both of us to see life from the other end of the telescope.*

FRANCE, JE VOUS AIME

The next few hours reminded me why I had come to France. I hit the roads again and eventually found my way to the A6 (or Autoroute du Soleil) which, for some reason, wasn’t too hard. (I think it says something that I was able to find my way around Paris once I’d had a couple of glasses of wine.) I listened to some great Georges Delerue while watching the sun set crisply over the fields and bare-stripped trees. It was a great moment.

I made it to Dijon by about 7pm and found a great restaurant and a cheap hotel with free internet. By this stage I was so cold (the temperature dipping below zero) and frazzled that I had no interest in doing anything other than sleeping. I passed out.

I woke up feeling positive about the day ahead. This would be my big day of driving around France. First, I booked a hotel online, as I did not want the hassle of hunting around in the cold once more looking for a cheap hotel. Avignon was my destination, not much more than 300 kilometres away.

I decided to stop in Lyon for lunch, one of the best decisions I ever made. Lyon struck me fairly immediately as one of the most beautiful cities I had seen. Clustered mainly around the banks of a wide stretch of the Rhône, Lyon combined the grandeur of Paris with the charm of provincial France. The main stretch of river is, like the Seine in Paris, laced by a number of bridges and lined with tall, extravagant hotels and office buildings. Some of its stores, in particular a shoe store whose name I can’t remember, were among the most beautiful I’d seen.

Overlooking everything is the magnificent Notre Dame de Fourviere, which serves (at least) as a very useful navigation tool for tourists. Lyon’s design is far simpler than Paris’s, relying more on grids, which actually makes it feel more welcoming. Lyon also seemed to remain comparatively untarnished by multi-nationals. If there is a Starbucks or McDonald’s in Lyon, I didn’t see it.

The rest of the drive was peaceful and satisfying. Avignon, my next stop, had been sprinkled with snow and, as a result, felt quite bleak when I arrived. I ventured out of my hotel room for dinner to a place across the road called Buffalo Grill, of which I had noticed many in Paris. I imagine they were established to cater to Americans tourists in France, but I did not hear a single American accent inside this restaurant. Of particular note was a burger they were offering which used hashbrowns instead of regular hamburger buns. I suppose, if I am to spend two weeks in the States, I will have to get used to that sort of thing.

I drove out early in the morning, hoping to pass through Arles on my way to Nice. I studied the maps online and wrote down detailed directions to ensure I would not get lost. I stopped at the Palais des Papes on my way out of Avignon, where the papal court had been established in 1309 by Pope Clement V. The Avignon popes, of which there were seven, sounded like a fun bunch, not known for their piousness or discipline. Clement V died eating powdered emeralds, prescribed as an indigestion cure. Clement VI thought the best way to honour God was through luxury. My kind of popes.

I made it to Arles without incident, but getting out of Arles proved a different matter, and I ended up making one wrong turn which took me out of Arles and all the way to Nîmes. So I didn’t get to see Arles properly. This was disappointing as there are some wonderful old sites there. It also meant I had to backtrack to Avignon. Three hours of driving took me back to where I started. But I was driving around southern France, so really: who cares if you get lost?

Of particular delight to me was driving through the Provençale landscape of Marcel Pagnol’s childhood, which I had seen depicted in the films La gloire de mon pére and Le chateau de ma mére. These strange white mountains exert a kind of spiritual pull that I find intoxicating and haunting.

FRANCE, JE NE VOUS AIME PAS

I still managed to reach Nice by about 3pm. But not before the notorious autoroute toll gates could suck some life out of me. Initially, I had been surprised by how easy to use these toll gates were, accommodating credit cards, cash and passes for the locals.  You pick up a ticket when you enter the autoroute and you pay when you leave the autoroute. Simple.

But I was not to know that at the last toll gate before Nice, my credit cards (neither Visa nor Mastercard) would not be accepted, as they had been at three previous toll gates: another example, perhaps, of the psychic connections required to navigate France’s roadways. My reaction to this situation was typical, if not commendable: I panicked. When the machine issued forth in a loud voice that my cards were not accepted, my immediate conclusion was that the world had ended, or was at least about to end, and I had to get out of there fast.

The driver behind me had reversed out of the way, so I seized the opportunity to get out of there and get over to (what I assumed would be) a toll booth where a human being was serving people. In the process, I forgot to retrieve my ticket – my key out of the labyrinth – from the machine. Naturally, I didn’t realise this until a minute or two later, by which time I had forgotten which toll gate I had entered in the first place and a stream of other vehicles had passed through anyway, meaning my ticket would be well and truly gone.

I then realized that the toll booths I had imagined, where human beings would be serving, didn’t actually exist. Everyone was feeding money to machines in one way or another. It was at this time – ticketless, helpless, and with a stream of cars and trucks constantly flying towards me and with nowhere to turn – that I truly began to panic. I found my way to a closed toll gate, parked and, despite the warning sounds all around telling me not to do so, got out to try and find a human being to help me.

A glimmer of a fluorescent safety vest some distance away was my only hope, but if this guy was employed to solve problems at this toll gate, he had no interest in mine. Despite the fact that I was clearly in breach of the safety rules, he continued to talk on his mobile phone and to do everything but look in my direction. In addition to this, I couldn’t actually walk anywhere other than into the path of incoming cars. Every safe spot was cordoned off with chains.

Finally, what appeared to be a man in an assistance vehicle (though I’m still not sure that it was) pulled up behind my car and I went to greet him. He seemed nonplussed and uninterested. I foolishly asked (in French) if he could speak English, to which he replied with a stone-faced, ‘No.’ I tried to give the simplest explanation I could – that my ticket was stuck in the machine – and he told me, calmly and in quite good English, to pull into one of the gates and press the button that says ‘press for assistance’. Genius.

I did so and, after a minute or two of frustrating the drivers behind me, was approached by a nice lady in a safety vest who offered, with a raise of the eyebrow, a ‘Oui, m’sieur?’ I explained the situation, not even bothering to ask about English, and she told me to try my cards again in the machine. She asked me my nationality and seemed shocked to think that anyone would expect an Australian credit card to work there. She ripped open the toll machine and asked me where I had come from, by which stage I had actually forgotten. I eventually remembered I had been in Avignon. She pressed a button, I gave her some cash, she gave me some change and the gate opened.

As I headed away from the gate, I let out some strange, guttural moans, which did actually help to relieve my tension.

FRANCE, JE VOUS AIME

Nice was lovely. Actually, lovely might be a bit of an overstatement. Nice was nice. Some lovely, often very colourful architecture and a sprawling overlook onto truly blue water (it ain’t the Côte d’Azur for nothing) provided a stark contrast to the inland areas I had seen. The proximity to Italy and Monaco couldn’t help but have an influence on the Niçoise ambience.

I took a long, cold walk along the Promenade des Anglais, during which I had a realisation. Seeing a young woman sitting solitary on the beach, staring out to the clouded horizon, it occurred to me that I had not yet seen a French person in a state of indulgent contemplation, the likes of which I am prone to. Were they always on the go, moving from one thing to the next? Or had I just not been lucky enough to spot them? Or were they truly invulnerable? Did they truly not require such ‘processing’ time? Did they know their own minds that well? These are all still unanswered questions for me.

I decided to go to a Chinese restaurant, as all the French or Italian restaurants I saw looked like expensive tourist traps. The waitress was one of the friendliest I had met in France (in fact, was she hitting on me?) and there was a pitbull wandering around. I made a friend by scratching the back of his neck. I have yet to find a dog for whom this doesn’t work. For dessert, I had my first dame blanche, two scoops of delicious caramel ice cream topped with a mound of whipped cream. After all, I’d just had a long walk.

Tomorrow I would fly out of France to London. I knew I would leave France with mixed feelings, with not quite the emotion or sentiment I had felt leaving Taipei, but knowing that it was a place where I had felt the rare and precious feeling of being truly alive. Before I left Australia, I felt like France was something of a spiritual home, a feeling built-up by watching too many French films and enjoying too much French food. But now that I’ve been, I’m not so sure. While there is much appeal in the French respect for history and culture, and in the vitality and passion of its people, it is matched by an unappealing coldness and intolerance of human frailty. I’m not sure, though, if any place has managed to strike a balance in that respect.

*Apologies to ‘Til Tuesday.