Paris
Abe went to Eastern Europe and stopped in Paris on his way back to San Diego. We were at the zoo, watching the monkeys, when he told me about a recent E. coli outbreak in Romania. A couple hundred people got sick and the government sent an agent to investigate. The source was eventually traced to a baker who’d been tainting his breads and pastries with the human feces they found stored in a plastic bucket hidden in his walk-in cooler.
“My only question,” Abe said, “is why did he keep the bucket of shit in the refrigerator? I mean, what, did he worry it would go bad?”
June 22, 1999
Paris
My friend Barb claims that when asked to justify his behavior, Ted Bundy responded, “Well, there are so many people.”
July 7, 1999
La Bagotière
Genevieve is taking care of her granddaughter, Edwidge, for the week. The girl is two years old and has a new doll, a Barbie clone who talks when tapped on the stomach. The tape track is short, so she speaks very quickly. “Hello, my name is Linette. Do you like my dress? I love to play with you!”
A year ago I wouldn’t have been able to catch any of it, but now Linette and I understand each other just fine. As a rule I speak a lot more French in Normandy than I do in Paris. Small talk’s more important in the country, so I have to be ready to engage at any moment. Today the butcher and I discussed the possibility of him buying a new car. Later I talked batteries with Annie at the market. As for the baker, she’s formally off my list. I liked the old one, the woman with the walleye, but her replacement is too impatient. I was looking at ice cream bars this afternoon when she came from the counter and said firmly, “Hey, I’m the one who takes care of that.”
I apologized and she pointed to a sign taped above the coffinlike freezer. “People get their own and they leave the door open. Then the ice cream is ruined and I have to throw it all away.”
As far as tongue-lashings go, I’ve had plenty worse. She’s just never been terribly pleasant.
July 17, 1999
La Bagotière
Someone called to tell me that John Kennedy’s plane has gone down off the coast near Martha’s Vineyard. We talked for a few minutes and all the while I wanted to ask, “Who is this?” She was French, but I couldn’t begin to identify her voice. At first I thought she said Ted Kennedy’s plane. Then I realized she’d said John, and I had to sit down. He always seemed like such a decent guy, a genuinely good person with excellent manners. I saw him a few times in New York, once on a bike and then again at a restaurant in SoHo, seated at one of the outdoor tables. A car with New Jersey plates pulled over and the woman driving sent her daughter out to get an autograph. “Tell him he’s good-looking,” the mother said.
The train from Paris was packed. A young man across the aisle from us slept, taking up both seats, and when a fellow in his sixties scolded him, the kid said, “Why don’t you just shut up.”
July 25, 1999
La Bagotière
A sample dialogue from my Teach Yourself Slovene book:
Gospod Skak: Kako gre?
Sara: Dobro, hvala.
Natakar: Oprosti, je to tvoja denarnica?
Sara: Prosim?
Ironically, the shortest chapter in the book is titled “Why Learn Slovene?”
July 30, 1999
Ljubljana, Slovenia
Hugh and I spent yesterday afternoon in central Ljubljana, and after three and a half hours I was so desperate to spend money I considered taking out insurance. If forced to buy a gift for someone, it would be a toss-up between an American-made notebook with a pony on the cover and a pair of those flesh-colored pads you use to protect your nose from the bridge of your glasses.
By the end of the afternoon all I’d bought were two plums and a pizza that came topped with canned peas, corn, and diced potatoes. These were referred to on the English-language menu they gave us as vagatbles. What they meant, I think, was Macedonian vagatbles.
July 31, 1999
Ljubljana
Last night at dinner Nancy mentioned a diplomat named Outerbridge Horsey VI. Afterward I complimented Yassa, the housekeeper, on her English. She is perhaps in her late forties, and blushed, saying, “No, I think I am speaking like a Negro.”
August 4, 1999
Paris
In Venice I got a haircut at a little place not far from the hotel. The barber spoke no English, and because I’d left my phrase book back in the room, we just nodded to each other, me indicating, I’m guessing, that he should just go wild. The result is a hard, mousy-brown dome that sits on my head like a helmet someone tossed from a few feet away. After leaving, I tried to soften it, but nothing worked, so I had to walk around like that until after dinner. We ate at an outdoor restaurant someone had recommended. Beside us sat a family of Germans—a man, his wife, and their daughter, who looked to be around thirty. They were just finishing their meal and had ordered another round of drinks as we arrived. The man lit a cigarette, then, with no apparent shame or self-consciousness, he farted. Ten minutes later he did it again. The table to our other side started laughing and looking our way, thinking that Hugh or I had done it. They were American and while it would have been easy enough to set them straight, it always looks like you’re lying when you try to deny it was you who farted.
August 8, 1999
La Bagotière
I got a letter from my father and realized it’s only the second one he’s ever sent. Regarding my break with French school, he writes, “I do believe that you need to continue your study on a formal, regimented basis. GET WITH IT!!! Having a good command of any language reflects class. Anything else is not cute, it’s pathetic.” He then suggests that for my next reading in Germany, I switch from my book to the Bible, “vis-à-vis Noah and the ark, and observe the response you get from the audience—ha!” In the next paragraph he tells me that I should read in Athens. “In the old outdoor theater just below the Acropolis, the Herod Atticus Theater built in the second century A.D.!!!”
Because he so rarely writes, I’d never known he was the type to use exclamation marks.
September 21, 1999
Paris
To celebrate my six months without a drink, we went with Ronnie to Le Parc aux Cerfs. A Scottish woman sat at the next table and in time joined our conversation. She was, we learned, a psychologist, in town for some sort of training session. I wouldn’t describe her as drunk, but she seemed at least tipsy and said a lot of strange things. She asked Hugh, for instance, if I was wonderful to love, which isn’t a question you’d expect from a stranger, or from anyone, really.
September 24, 1999