I'll Never Be French (no matter what I do): Living in a Small Village in Brittany - Softcover

Greenside, Mark

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1416586954 ISBN 13: 9781416586951

Publisher: Atria Books, 2009

Synopsis

Tired of Provence in books, cuisine, and tablecloths? Exhausted from your armchair travels to Paris? Despairing of ever finding a place that speaks to you beyond reason? You are ripe for a journey to Brittany, where author Mark Greenside reluctantly travels, eats of the crêpes, and finds a second life.

When Mark Greenside -- a native New Yorker living in California, doubting (not-as-trusting-as Thomas, downwardly mobile, political lefty, writer, and lifelong skeptic -- is dragged by his girlfriend to a tiny Celtic village in Brittany at the westernmost edge of France, in Finistère, "the end of the world," his life begins to change.

In a playful, headlong style, and with enormous affection for the Bretons, Greenside tells how he makes a life for himself in a country where he doesn't speak the language or know how things are done. Against his personal inclinations and better judgments, he places his trust in the villagers he encounters -- neighbors, workers, acquaintances -- and is consistently won over and surprised as he manages and survives day-to-day trials: from opening a bank account and buying a house to removing a beehive from the chimney -- in other words, learning the cultural ropes, living with neighbors, and making new friends.

I'll Never Be French (no matter what I do) is a beginning and a homecoming for Greenside, as his father's family emigrated from France. It is a memoir about fitting in, not standing out; being part of something larger, not being separate from it; following, not leading. It explores the joys and adventures of living a double life.

About this title

About the Author

Mark Greenside holds B.S. and M.A. degrees from the University of Wisconsin. He has been a civil rights activist, Vietnam War protestor, anti-draft counselor, Vista Volunteer, union leader, and college professor. His stories have appeared in The Sun, The Literary Review, Cimarron Review, The Nebraska Review, Beloit Fiction Journal, The New Laurel Review, Crosscurrents, Five Fingers Review, and The Long Story, as well as other journals and magazines, and he is the author of the short story collection, I Saw a Man Hit His Wife.

He presently lives in Alameda, California, where he continues to teach and be politically active, and Brittany, France, where he still can’t do anything without asking for help.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Getting There

It begins with a girl. It always begins with a girl, and even though we don't make it through the summer -- through even half the summer -- she gets me there and changes my life. It doesn't matter what happened or why, it's one of the best gifts I've ever been given.

It happened like this.

It's 1991 and I'm in her apartment, living her third of our bicoastal relationship (one-third in New York, one-third in California, one-third apart), probably the only person in Manhattan looking forward to a summer in the city, when she says, "Honey, let's go to France."

I close my book and listen, petrified. I hate to fly and don't speak French. This isn't a good idea. I was in Paris in 1966, and they loathed me, and I don't think I've changed that much. "Let's go to Saskatchewan."

"It's not the same."

"I know. They speak English and we can drive."

"Don't worry. I'll take care of everything."

It's late May, a beautiful spring in New York, and this is her busiest time at work. As far as I can see, there's no need to start studying French.

That's my second mistake.

One week later, she announces she's found the perfect place. "It's special, magical, enchanted." She's a poet. Everything she says is exaggerated.

"Where?" I ask, thinking Paris, Nice, Cannes, Antibes.

"Brittany. It's as far west as you can go. Finistère."

"What does that mean?"

"The end of the world."

That's when I panic. I go to the bookstore and read in a guidebook that Bretons aren't French but Celtic -- linked by language and culture to the Irish, Scots, Cornish, and Welsh -- so maybe I do have a chance. On the other hand, they've been French since 1532, why chance it? I go to the Café des Artistes and write her a note. "Great work. Could you ask if the place is on-a-country-road quiet, sunny, and large? Does it have a good bed, hard mattress, running water, hot running water [remembering my stay in Paris], a TV, stereo, car, separate studies for writing, a coffeemaker, shower, bath, at least two floors, farm animals in the vicinity, a washing machine, dryer, and dishwasher, a bar in the village, a boulangerie, a market, a post office, bikes, and neighbors who want Americans living next door?" I leave it on her desk, thinking, Saskatchewan, here we come.

The next day she leaves me a message on her answering machine. "We have it -- a thousand a month, with a car."

I wait a minute, put on my happy voice, and call her at work. "Hi...got your message."

"Ouiiiiiii," she sings.

"Does it have all those things I asked about?

"Certainement. The last thing I need is to listen to you complaining every day."

"It really has all those things?"

"That's what the lady said. Her name's Sally. She's English and just returned from the house. She lives in Massachusetts, you can ask her yourself."

So I do. I call her, and she says yes to everything. There's no way out. I'm going to France.

We book our flight on Air France. All I can think of is a joke I recently heard. "In Heaven, the French are the cooks, Italians are the lovers, English are the police, Swiss are the managers, and Germans are the engineers. In Hell, the English are the cooks, Swiss are the lovers, Italians are the engineers, Germans are the police, and the French are the managers." I know I'm going to die -- but if I do, I'm going in comfort and style. The food on the flight is scrumptious, and we're flying economy. The meal begins with a printed menu and a choice ofboeuf Bourguignon or filet de sole bonne femme. The wine is French -- Côte du Rhône, Burgundy, Beaujolais -- and is good and free and limitless. The front of the menu has a lovely little poem by La Fontaine. Mine is "Lion." Hers is "Swan." I look around and see four other poems. Everything about this is class. Joie de vivre, savoir-faire, je ne sais quoi. The movies, the nibbles and snacks, the pampering. If this is France, this is going to be all right, I think -- until we get to the baggage claim, which brings me back to the joke.

The flight was wonderful, the landing superb. We took off and landed on time. The stewards and stewardesses were everything you'd want them to be in appearance, demeanor, humor, efficiency. I've slept. I'm full. I'm in Paris. I have everything I need -- except my luggage. The good news is, nobody else has theirs either. The worst news is, an hour and a half later, it's still the same. Six and a half hours of relaxing comfort and pleasure getting here, and an hour and a half of standing up, nowhere to go, sit, eat, rest, drink, or relax.

It's baffling. Everything about Charles de Gaulle Airport is space-age, high-tech modern: tubes, lights, tunnels; escalators running up, down, sideways. The French love gadgets and gadgetry (think guillotine), and everything that can be is automated, everything except labor.

Two and a half hours later -- 9:30 on the dot -- we're on the bus to Paris. We sit in the seat directly behind the driver. Kathryn takes the window and spends the next hour oohing and aaahing over the architecture and skyline. I spend it in awe of the driver, watching him alternately race to 130 kilometers per hour, then slow down to 30, only to race back to 130 and never once move more than eighteen inches away from the vehicle directly in front of us. He does this for fifty minutes, all the way from Charles de Gaulle Aéroport to downtown Paris, where he stops in front of a brasserie.

"Let's go," Kathryn says.

"Go where?"

"To the station."

For some reason -- and I'm sure there is one, because there always is one, a reason, or rule, or normalement -- the bus stop is across the street from the train station. Across two big busy streets in a city and a country not known for its kind, safe, considerate, California, pedestrian-has-the-right-of-way drivers. A phalanx of cars and trucks whizzes by and shakes the bus.

"Let's wait," I say.

"For what? This is the stop. Let's go." She pulls my hand.

I hesitate, then leap and run to the doorway of the brasserie to wait.

When everybody is off the bus and milling about, the driver pushes himself out of his seat, lumbers to the side of the bus, raises the panels, and lugubriously begins unloading the luggage. He does it with the seriousness and concentration of a brain surgeon. It's then that I notice his uniform bears no name. No "Hi, I'm Jacques, I'm your driver for the day." No "My name's Pierre. If I drive like a maniac or smash your bag, here's how you can report me." This bothers me, because in a second or two, whatever his name, he's going to hate us.

Everyone else's bags are relatively small and lightweight, but we're writers and staying for the summer. Between us we have nine heavy bags and two luggage carts. I have a computer. She has a typewriter. We each have a bag filled with books and another with files and notebooks and paper. She has lots and lots of shoes and clothes, something for any occasion. I have three bottles of twelve-year-old Macallan and a jacket and shoes for every kind of weather from blizzards and hurricanes to drought. The driver doesn't know any of this because someone else loaded the bags at the airport. Now, as he pulls them out, he begins to grumble. The fourth bag he yanks and drops on the sidewalk. The fifth he tosses at me. The sixth he throws. The seventh is Kathryn's typewriter. She taps him on the arm and tells him in flawless French that she's a poet and that's her typewriter and asks him to please be careful. He lifts it and puts it down gently, as gently as if it were a quail's egg, the last quail's egg in the world and he's the hungriest man alive. Then he starts talking to her about poetry, quoting Verlaine, Rimbaud, Baudelaire, and Poe, while I crawl into the luggage bin and tear my pants as I get my computer. When he finally finishes cooing and leaves, she's beaming. "La belle France, la belle France. That's why I love it here."

That's also when it starts to rain.

She unzips her backpack and removes an umbrella. I'm amazed and delighted by her forethought. My rain gear is all packed on the bottom of the one bag I have that isn't waterproof. I wait in grateful anticipation as she unsheathes her umbrella and opens it. It's Barbie's umbrella. Thumbelina's. The tiniest little umbrella in the universe. An umbrella for one. I wipe the water from my glasses and glare at her.

She shrugs.

I gather our bags as quickly as I can, balance and tie them to our luggage carts, and wait for a lull in the traffic. There is none. You'd think with the rain coming down harder and us standing there getting wet, someone might slow down. Not a chance. The morning Paris commute is a crazed Le Mans. I'm astonished. Can these be the same people who took two and a half hours to unload our bags?

Kathryn takes two steps into the street. I watch, as miraculously one car stops, then another, and another, and another. It's like royalty entering a room. The stillness is almost palpable. I follow in her wake through the traffic, across the streets, all the way into Gare Montparnasse, feeling unbeatable, like Napoleon must have felt just before Waterloo.

Gare Montparnasse is huge, gargantuan, signifying grandeur, power, control, direction, order, authority, a plan. The first floor, the one we're standing on, is a big wide-open space. In the middle of this space, slowly, inexorably, moving up and down, is a bank of escalators. On either side of the escalators are stairs.

I push my luggage cart around in ever-widening circles, looking for the elevator.

"What are you doing?"

"Looking for the elevator."

"I don't think there is one. I'll ask."

How can that be? This is a train station. A huge modern train station, the point of departure for all points west in France. How could old people, disabled people, people in wheelchairs, people carrying five heavy bags of luggage like me, get from this floor to the next without an elevator?

"Nope. No elevator. We have to take the escalator or the stairs."

"Ask someone else. A woman this time -- an old one."

She glares at me, but she does it. She finds t...

Edition details

• Publisher: Atria Books
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 1416586954
• ISBN 13: 9781416586951
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 256