The Writer

I’d been writing for a few years by then. That was one of the reasons that I wanted to go to France, to see with my own eyes the hallowed hills of Vimy Ridge, where my great-grandfather had very likely fought during the Great War.

How did all this begin? With a picture. Two pictures, actually; one of striking miners carrying banners down what would become 3^rd Ave in the early days of Timmins’ mining history, the other of a lady prospector with a pistol on her belt in the years before the Great Fire of 1911.

I began earlier than that. I’d begun as a teen, to no avail. I was fascinated with the process of imagination. I’d break out my parents’ Underwood, lugging the hefty typewriter to the dining room table, and hammer out a page of two of the most atrocious drivel akin to ‘50s red menace horror films, melodramatic tales of monstrous insects mutated by near-miss nuclear tests. They were as camp and kitschy as you’d expect, not good, simple, devoid of plot, just the hint of a story, without developed characters, without any idea how a story should unfold, let alone end. They certainly didn’t begin, either. Prior to that, there were hints of my interest. My mother preserved bits of poetry I’d produced. I pursued nothing. I was discouraged by my lack of understanding of story.

I required experience. I required reading. Years of reading. I required untold pages of story and text before I was prepared to take a stab at writing.

Then I saw those pictures. They sparked something within me. I bought a notebook. I jotted a few lines. I went to the museum and inquired as to what they had on the subjects, asking the curator as much, but beginning with the awkward statement, “I know this sounds stupid, but I have an idea for a novel and I’d like to find out more about what lay behind those pictures. Do you know what pictures I’m talking about?”

She did. She was even enthusiastic about the prospect of someone interested in the city’s past and that person’s desire to write about a chapter of its history. I wonder how many others asked her such a question? A few, I suppose. We’ve some local historians who’ve self-published their books. Not many novels, though, if any.

She invited me to visit as often as I liked, awarding me access to what materials the museum had. I began to pore over details of the Great Fire of 1911 and the Great Strike of 1912, deciding that the two might make good a beginning and end to the story I had in mind.

I wrote throughout my research, small passages of text, some advancing my plot, others filling in gaps I’d left behind. It was a rather haphazard approach. I had a beginning. I had an end. I had no idea what happened between the two. That resolved slowly.

I began to think about character. Where did my characters come from, what brought them to a mining camp at the dawn of the century? What motivated them? That led to more research. What sort of immigrants came to Timmins then? What did they do when they got here? Where did they stay? What pasts had they? I decided that my protagonist was a veteran of the Boer War, suffering from his experiences there, yearning for better, to be free of his torment, and needing money to chase his dreams.
I knew I didn’t really have a clue what I was doing. Not true. I’d read a lot over the years and had an instinct about whether what I was doing was any good. But I needed better skill. I knew that, so I began to read books about story structure, writing technique, elements of style, and grammar. I read histories, too. I read books of collected letters from that age. I read anything and everything I could get my hands on. I did not read fiction for a time.

Then I stalled. I wouldn’t call it writer’s block. I was just struggling with how to connect the dots.
Then I read about short story competitions. So, one evening I wrote the lion’s share of a fictionalized account of one of my travel experiences, the one where I found myself upon a glassy Sulu Sea with the Milky Way above me and a sea of effervescent plankton below me. What do they say? Write what you know? I can say that I knew a little about me, so that’s what I wrote about. I polished it for a month while reading short stories in Literary mags, and rereading “Elements of Style” while I was at that.

Then I began to send “She, the Sea, the Stars” to magazines, getting a ton of form letters back in return. I did get a few encouraging letters, those few who applauded passages and said I had a talent for writing, newfound skill, but “thank you for your interest, but we will have to pass at this time.”
I was still stalled on my first novel, so I began to write whatever came to mind. A story of a soldier of the Great War resolved from them. Once again, I had a beginning and an end, but not a middle. More research, this time histories and novels of the time. I decided that the main character was my great-grandfather. To be clear, I have no idea what happened to him during the war, but I had stories about what did up to when he left and what happened after he came back. He never once mentioned what happened to him while there. Not many veterans of the Great War did, but enough of them published memoires, enough to begin developing a narrative. I recalled my first novel and how my characters yearned to escape to Paris and decided that they too would be part of the story. Then that too stalled. What was it about? I asked myself. Without a theme, without an understanding of the human narrative, the story, it was just a collection of anecdotes. And I had no clue what that theme was. Not yet, anyways.

I returned to the first novel. I reread what I had. I rewrote whole passages. And in time, those passages were linked. I had a story of a Boer War veteran (Michael) who travelled to a mining camp to make money so that he could go to Paris to write, and a woman (Kimberley) who came North to find herself. He was adrift. So was she. He was just running away. So was she. They met, he fell in love with her, and she with him. But another man (Gunter) already loved her, and he flew into a rage at the loss of his unrequited love. Then the strike happened. Michael recalled a similar strike he’d been embroiled in years past and tried desperately to avoid this one. He failed and was caught up in it. Kimberley killed Gunter when he tried forcibly to take her. Michael disposed of the body and they ran away to Toronto, and ultimately to Paris and the Great War.

I finished the first novel and called it “A Three Penny Opera,” and began to send out writing samples to publishers. Those met the same response as “She, the Sea, the Stars.” No thanks. You have talent, but no thanks.

When I discovered the theme of the second novel, "Sticks and Stones," the love and camaraderie of men in times of war, and it all but wrote itself. I completed it in three months. I began to send that one away too. And it met a similar fate. Thank you for your interest. One publisher said, “We’d love to publish this, but we are already publishing a war novel this year.”

Paul Quarrington

Why wasn’t I published? I don’t know. I had friends and family and co-workers read all three and they said they liked them, but maybe they weren’t critical enough. Maybe the novels just weren’t good enough. Maybe it was because I had no patron. I once saw an interview with a Canadian writer, Paul Quarrington, who’d taught at many writer’s workshops. He hummed and hawed, thinking, avoiding eye contact when asked, “how can new authors get published?” He never actually answered the question posed to him.

What he did say was, “I’m trying not to say, ‘Get you famous writer friend to submit your manuscript to his publisher.’”

But he did say that, didn’t he?

Paris, Part 4

My prediction of a swelled, woolly head came true. I inhaled water, juice and coffee with breakfast. Bev remained in bed. She didn’t sleep well the night before, her “cold” fully manifested. I suspect that the champagne and the late hour didn’t help. I asked her if she wanted me to stay with her to nurse her, but she told me to try to make a day of it; that there was “no point both of us being stuck in the room,” and “you’d only watch me sleep, anyways.”

I agreed, suggested that we meet at Shakespeare and Company for a late lunch if she could make it. It was close, just blocks away, not too difficult to get to, even in her state. I told her that I’d go to the Louvre, since it had been closed the day before. It too was close, also within walking distance, easy to get back to the hotel from. We decided on 2:30 pm. I promised to be back then to check on her if she didn’t make it at the appointed hour, wondering if I should contact a doctor if she worsened.

I left, crossed at the Isle de la City into the 1e arrondissement, then on to the Louvre. It’s immense, too much to take in with only three hours left to me. I didn’t even make it to the second floor (actually the third, as they referred to the ground floor and the “0” and not the first.

It’s a magnificent collection, but so large I had a tendency to not see what I was before my eyes after a time. I made a list of the things I wanted to see: Mona Lisa, The Consecration of the Emperor, The Rape of the Sabine Woman, Une Odalisque, The Astronomer, The Raft of the Medusa. I also wanted to see the Egyptian, the Sumerian, the Greco statuary, Aphrodite (the Venus de Milo) foremost among them.
Some of the paintings were bigger than my house. I had to stand way back to capture them all, and when I was that far back, the lights glossed the canvas out.

The Mona Lisa was a disappointment. Not the artwork, the display. It was smaller than expected, behind glass, surrounded by multitudes of students so thick that it took me fifteen minutes to get close enough to discover that I had a far better view of the painting in my guidebook.

I looked at my watch. Times up! I crossed at the Pont du Artiste. It turned out that it was a much shorter route.

Bev had a bit of an adventure of her own. She met a Parisian man with bad teeth at Notre Dame, a chef, who asked her for the time in French, and stayed to chat her up, and flirt. She says no, that he was only being nice, but he told her that she had a pretty face and hinted that all husbands (hinting me) have a tendency to stray whenever out from under the watchful eye of their wives. He stuck around after that, piling on the compliments. This would lead me to believe that he was telling Bev that my presumed straying gave her, as one of those neglected women, left to her own devices, the right to stray as well. Or am I being cynical? Bev said, yes. I thought, no.

We lunched at a café adjacent to Shakespeare and Company, taking a river cruise afterwards. We’d been discussing it for some days already, and owing to Bev’s illness, we thought that taking one wouldn’t be too taxing. We certainly couldn’t do much more than that. Bev got winded quickly while we walked down to the Seine. She was soon exhausted. We climbed down to the park at the tip of the Isle de la Cite, at Pont Neuf, and approached the moored boats.

We bought tickets on a covered boat. It looked like rain and I didn’t want to risk having to hide below the observation deck. The covered boat I had in mind was not the closest, necessitating the need to walk by a few “perfectly good boats,” in Bev’s opinion. Once we gained our seats, Bev cooled down and enjoyed the ride. It was a pleasant enough cruise. The expected rain did not fall, the sun came out to say hello once or twice, illuminating the bridges we pass under. The Eiffel Tower approached and then fell back behind us as we looped back the way we came.

After the cruise we were mooned by a white kid surrounded by blacks. We watched as the kid and his friends were chased and apprehended by first three and then eight cops. More tourists gathered about us to watch the excitement.

I kept finding myself returning again and again to Shakespeare and Company. It appealed to me, its halls lined with shelves that stretched from floor to ceiling, the shelves stuffed and jammed with books new and old. It smells like books. Obviously. But not like a bookstore that sells new books; it smelled like libraries and used book stores, the sound close and muffled. Magical, sacred to a book lover. An English girl manned the till. She’d begun to remember me after a time, noting which books I’d leafed through, time and again, and took the time to chat with me. Blonde, tattooed, Doc Martens. She’d done her fair share of travelling too, it turned out (go figure, what with her finding herself working at an English language book store in the heart of Paris), so we talked about places we’d been and people we’d met and where we each hoped to go. We talked about home and how we were always itching to leave but homesick when away.

I enjoyed talking to her but I didn’t want to spend all of my waning hours in a bookstore, so I decided on some Josephine Baker posters that kept catching my eye and thanked her for the chat.

Bev and I took one last leisurely stroll before returning to the hotel to set our luggage in order. We had an early start the next day.

It was quiet when we woke. It always was at 6 am. But the city would wake with first light, and soon the cacophony would build. First one car would pass, then a flurry of others. Horns would bleat and blare. Brakes would squeal. City sounds. City sights. We’d seen a fair number of homeless in the nooks and crannies throughout, the most surprising place being under the suspension bridges, with next to no footpath underneath. They lived in tents and under suspended blankets, their clothing drying on a rope, their possessions in boxes and in heaps. Some heaps were the inhabitants themselves.

We left our final five Metro tokens as gift for our chambermaid. We didn’t need them anymore. We might as well give them to someone who could put them to use. A bottle of wine too, for good measure.
It was time to go home.

Bev needed to convalesce.

 

Paris, Part 3

Up at 7 am after eight hours of blissful sleep. I wonder if the two Belgian blondes I had the night before had anything to do with that. Those are beers, by the way, in case you’re wondering.

We took the C-line to the Eiffel Tower after breakfast and reserving a table at the Moulin Rouge for 8 pm, hoping to beat the crowds to one of the world’s premier, must-see, attractions. We did. Somewhat. There was already a queue when we arrived, one we thought long at the time, but nothing like the one that had grown by the time we’d reached the viewing gallery. By then the line was easily five times as long and growing by the minute. We thanked our lucky stars and good grace of forethought.

It’s a beautiful sight to behold, its wrought iron curled into loops, its entirety painted ecru, its height set with lights. It’s solid, it’s firm, it’s a gossamer web of riveted steel that sweeps up into the sky. Our first good view of it was from its base, our heads thrown back, its height seemingly curving back over us.
Armed guards surrounded the base, their automatic weapons at the ready, their eyes ever alert and suspicious. They looked lethal. They looked intent. I was saddened by their very presence. Why would anyone wish to destroy such beauty? Why would anyone want to target those who’d come to gaze upon it?

We joined the line and were immediately set upon by an Arabic woman who showed us a sign but did not speak. Bev read it and passed it on to me. It was a sad story, one written in English and replete with tales of her being stranded and homeless and not being able to speak either English or French and asking us for whatever little amount we might spare to help her get back home to her homeland and family. I took one look at her and saw a scam. She was too flush, too well dressed, her costume jewelry too clean, too there. I passed it back to her and shook my head. She, in turn, offered her sign up to the man behind us, and then those behind him. Most waved her off without ever reading the sign. And before long she was gone, we thought to find more receptive people, but we discovered later, upon leaving, that she’d gone on break. We passed her having lunch, smoking, talking English with those other homeless and destitute souls, who likely suffered the same plight as she did. They probably made a comfortable living on the kindness of strangers. By strangers, I mean tourists. Professional beggars never plead money from locals, I was to discover.

Bev got ogled and pinched repeatedly by an altogether ugly guy in an olive drab military tunic while we shuffled up the queue. I turned to face him, expecting that my scrutiny might dissuade him of further groping; it must have, because not only did he refrain from any further groping, his gaze floated everywhere but into mine. It struck me that he was the spitting image of Nick Tortelli from Cheers. Bev thought so too.

Between her and him there was an altogether oblivious well-dressed man who apparently didn’t believe in bathing. Probably for health reasons; you know, soap is toxic to the skin, a veritable carcinogen. His aura was far more intense than that of someone who skipped a shower now and again. He actually reeked. A thick, oily bubble hovered about him. He reminded me of Pigpen. Bev couldn’t smell him; there are hidden perks to having the flu; that might have been one of them, especially so considering that he crowded into the lift with us. Judging by the reaction of those who also shared that small space with us, I doubt that they appreciated his eschewing soap for health reasons, either.

Bev’s failing health dictated that this would not be a taxing day, so we took the lift up to the third floor of the tower. That doesn’t sound too high, but, in fact, it is. The first floor is 57 m above the ground, the second 115 m, the third (the viewing gallery) 274 m. The tip of the tower rises to 320 m, but to get up there you’d have to be an employee or a climber.

We took the stairs down, turning around for pictures, pretending to be one of those athletic few who walk, and sometime run, to the viewing gallery.

The rest of the afternoon was spent strolling and browsing and laying about. We spent more time in Shakespeare and Company. It was close to the hotel, close to cafes and restaurants. I almost bought more books, but found the strength to resist the temptation, thinking about how much my bags would weigh on the return trip. Rest, supper, relax, wait. Then the time for our evening excursion was at hand.
The minibus picked us up promptly at 8 pm, then others around town, first two young women from a hotel a block away (one of them, Heather, the woman I was chatting up the night before), an Australian couple, and lastly, a retired couple from an upscale hotel on the right bank.

We got to know each other a bit on the way there, launching into and stalling with traffic, lurching and racing forward again, rounding traffic circles, darting in and out of traffic. Heather and friend were a little late, having just arrived back from a Seine river cruise. They’d been racing all over town, trying to take it all in, with not enough time to do it. They were there for a dental convention even though they weren’t dentists. Their boss was, and he signed them in to all the talks they were to attend, and they promptly attended none of them. The Aussies were from Brisbane, and had heard of all the spots I could remember, Charter’s Towers included. The retirees were from Washington State as well, only a short hop from where the girls hailed from.

We tumbled out at the Moulin Rouge, basked in the glow of the reflected floodlights that bathed the red windmill, received our vouchers and cleared security. No cameras, security said, relieving the two girls of theirs. They did get them back when we left.

The show was total camp, but fun, made more fun by the sheer volume of champagne placed on our furthest corner table. The women invariably sprouted tall fanned fathers and posed and danced with breasts bared, the men rarely so. Never, actually. Maybe Vegas shows are the same; cruise ships are similar, if somewhat fully clothed. I understood none of it beyond, “Danse, danse, danse et danse,” couldn’t even glean what the show was about, if it even was about anything at all except “Danse, danse, danse et danse.” It began as some sort of Aladdin love story, then became something of a clown and circus affair. There was a history of the Moulin Rouge, from the Can-can to the 40s (post Nazi), to Elvis, to disco, to today.

Our table saw the bottom of three of the four bottles of champagne given us and we christened the fourth before the curtain dropped and we were whisked back out onto the street and into the awaiting shuttle that took us each in turn back to our hotels. We stayed up, sharing a drink with our new best friends, Heather and friend, before retiring to bed.

The champagne had made my head light. Three glasses of the stuff and a pinot noir with supper and a blonde (beer, remember?) afterward was swimming in my skull by the time I got to bed. I suspected that I’d have a woolly head the next day.

I was not disappointed.

Paris, Part 2

We slept until 9:30 am after returning from Amiens. Breakfast was taken at a leisurely pace, in stark contrast to the steady stream of haste we weathered the day before.

The morning was warm, the day and the city already in motion, the prior dawn was cool, dim and devoid of activity except for the city sweeping up what leaves and dirt had settled since the last time they’d tackled the task. Rivulets flowed down the curbs to gutters and drains at that early hour, pressure washers sweeping left and right behind it, their hoses snaking back to the water trucks that followed them in their turn. The public toilets on the streets were being scrubbed out. Long handled brooms brushed up the bits, their green bristles reminding me of curling. But that late in the morning, those industrious masses were only a memory, the gutters once again filling with butts.

What followed was a day reminiscent of the Linklater film “Before Sunset,” similar if not an authentic recreation a year after the film was released.

Our feux film began in Shakespeare and Co., the English language bookstore that Sylvia Beech began, distinguished by its having been the first to publish Joyce’s “Ulysses,” and encouraging and the publication and being the first to sell Hemingway’s first book of short stories, “Three Stories and Ten Poems.” But where Jesse was on the last leg of a book tour, I was just browsing the chaotic jumble of stacked shelves and piled books. It was musty. It smelled of old books. There were beds tucked in among the shelves and stacks, testament to its reputation as a flop house for writers in Paris. A painted passage graced the wall above the lintel of an interior door on the second floor, declaring: Be not inhospitable to strangers, lest they be angels in disguise.

We had lunch on the terrace of La Petite Grill. It was not Le Pure Café. But it might as well have been. Corner lot, red wainscoted exterior, wooden bistro sets spilling out onto the sidewalk and hugging its flanks, storied limestone above. I liked to think we were in the café of question while we ate there, even though we weren’t.

An America family paused outside by the chalkboard sign by the entrance as I contemplated the plate of frogs’ legs I’d ordered and had yet to try. I’d asked the waiter a series of foolish questions when ordering. “Are they good? What do they taste like?”

He said, “They are frogs’ legs,” tossing his arm and shrugging, probably thinking, “Stupid tourist, why are you asking me such stupid questions.”

The Americans were even more the tourist than I. Knee length shorts, knee-high socks, Hawaiian shirts, matching Tilly hats. Yes, they had cameras around their necks. I was the definition of cool compared to them.

“Look, Dad,” the mother said, “they’ve got cheeseburgers.”

“Really?” he said.

“I don’t think you’ll like them, though,” she continued.

“Oh?” he said.

“Remember? They’re not like the cheeseburgers at home. They put them on toast and any serve them with mayonnaise and catsup.”

“Oh, yeah,” he said, crestfallen at the prospect of not getting America while not in America.
Once they’d passed by, the only entertainment to be had was our watching people park. How they managed to fit into such tight spaces was a wonder. At least until we watched them. A driver would sneak into or leave a spot no longer than his car, inching forward and back until pressing up against and pushing the cars fore and aft until they were snuggly in or free of the space. All cars in Paris had scratches and dents, regardless how expensive. Most cars weren’t, though. They were small, economical, light, no more than 1.3 litres, usually diesel things, not the cherished phallic symbols they are in North America.

We walked along the Seine, inching past the little green mews that perch open along the walls, the bouquinistes, not buying anything except a few vintage erotic postcards since all the books we saw were French. I don’t read French. Why did I buy vintage erotic postcards? Research. I was writing a novel set in the Great War and I’d read more than once that the soldiers would buy them, something to linger over while stagnating in the trenches, so I had to have a few to describe in my own book. If not books and postcards, the vendors sold prints and tacky tourist stuff, the same postcards you could get everywhere as well as the hundred-year-old pornography—Kiki and Josephine Baker, too, if you were a mind to—old movie posters, tattered comic books and magazines. I saw one peddling original artwork. This wildly eclectic mix didn’t seem at all out of place.

We took a moment to take in the fountain at the corner of St. Michel station, one we walked past a few times without giving it a second glance until then. It was beautiful, the angel, his wings spread and aloft, his sword held high, vanquishing a devil, the water flowing out from beneath them, cascading over rocks and dais, the base green with algae.

We walked to the Louvre, but it was closed, so we rode the Metro to the Champs-Elysées and the Arc d’ Triomphe. We climb its claustrophobically tight spiral stair to the top to take in the city from its height, then had supper out on the street, watching the world go by, the people, the bustle and haste.
We did not haste. Bev was slowing down, telling me that her cold had grown worse, that she was tired and growing feverish.

We returned to the Latin Quarter. Bev went back to the room to rest. I went to La Petite du Periguirdine, the little restaurant pub down the street where I met a woman from Washington State who was in the city for a convention. We chatted for a while until her friends arrived and dragged her across the street for a late-night pizza.

I ordered a second beer and read for a while, glancing up on occasion as the people strolled by, taking note how Parisians and tourist dressed, the differences in their posture and poise, and how easy it was to tell one from the other.

Arras and Amiens

Even with the wake-up call we barely made our train to Arras. We did have four minutes to spare. We thought we had lots of time as we hit the street at 7:30 am and the train left at 8:22 am, but we got lost in the Metro, wasted two billets when we had to exit the underground and start again. We had to stop to get directions. Unfortunately, we asked someone who didn’t speak English.

“Arras?” I asked.

He answered with a long drawn out, melodious syllable, pointing. Once his finger pointed the way, we were off like a shot, finally finding our way, running to the RER B-Line platform, three floors down. We made out first train, like I said, with only four minutes to spare and even though it only stopped once before our destination, I checked my watch about every ten seconds or so, my heart squeezing tighter with each glance. We were going to be late, I thought. We weren’t going to make our train to Arras.

The B-line brought us to our station, where there were what looked to be a million people on the move, students capering about, businessmen bustling about industriously or tapping furiously on laptops. Backpackers sprawled across seats, sleeping, oblivious to our or anyone else’s haste.

We ran down the length of the train when we reached our platform, prompted to further haste by the conductor, leaping up the steps to our car once we spotted it, collapsing into our seats, lathered in sweat. Within moments, the train eased out of the station.

There was no need to fret. Simon was not there to greet us when we disembarked in Arras under a sheet of rain. He pulled up forty minutes later, giving me ample time to inspect the cenotaph in the square outside the station while Bev tried to keep warm in the station house. It was a little cool, I thought, blaming the rain and the fog that would rise up with it, and the damp and the breeze that followed, but it wasn’t so cold as to warrant her pulling her windbreaker close and hugging herself, I believed. In fact, it grew muggy and warm as the clouds broke and the sun burst through, and still she wore her windbreaker long after I had discarded mine. I should have realized she was sick, but she didn’t either, not then, anyways.

We departed immediately, seemingly in haste. We had a lot to see, after all: first, a spot where the Nazis shot members of the French Resistance; and then, from then on, maybe too many historical sites of the Great War, battlefields and cemeteries galore, some places that I’d told Simon I was keen to see, others he thought indispensable. Thankfully, the rain stopped before we reached Vimy Ridge.

Another David joined us at Vimy, Canadian, nineteen, enthusiastic about Vimy and its legacy, less enthusiastic about his prospects for the future. He expected to perform high paying labour jobs in exotic places in the winter so he could backpack Europe in the summers. I wished him luck. I was also a little jealous. I dreamed of that sort of thing when I was younger, but I’d done what was expected of me and got a full-time job instead, venturing out only as time and money allowed. It was never enough.

Our guide at Vimy was a Newfoundlander, a self-professed geo-nerd, one living in Sudbury, attending Laurentian, working at Science North, but taking the summer to work abroad for Parks Canada. Small world.

Small talk aside, we toured the trenches, descended into the depths of the tunnels, and marvelled at how far and how close the trenches actually were, two-thousand meters apart to the south, yet only twenty or fifty meters at times to the north.

Beaumont Hamel was sadder to behold, by far. Whereas we Canadians had only taken 9,000 casualties all told at Vimy, the weight of the first 50,000 casualties taken on the first day of the Somme by the British and Newfoundlanders pressed down on me, the magnitude of the loss horrifying and humbling.

The cemeteries were overwhelming. There were so many of them, and so many headstones and crosses, each nation setting them so differently. The British preferred to bury their dead at the sight of battle that felled them. Some sites, like the Somme, were huge, the headstones too numerous to count; others were small and intimate; almost all were drenched in sunlight, some few shaded by majestic elms. The French brought their fallen to huge sunlit cemeteries, with two soldiers buried to a cross. The Germans preferred quiet, somber, shaded sites, the crosses black, the soldiers arrayed four to a cross, an enormous cross at the center, the only spot not shaded under a lattice of overhead boughs that left the burial site in a blanket of sorrow. No matter the method, the numbers were mind-boggling, the sheer immensity of them overwhelming. They brought tears to my eyes. So many men, young and not so young, laid to waste for no gain, for no reason, except maybe to prop up a dying age.

We had supper in Amiens, in the court before the Hotel d’ Cite, lingering over our meals, enjoying a glass of wine and coffee and dessert, sure that we had time to spare before we had to make our train back to Paris. We spoke about the Great War and my great-grandfather; we spoke about Simon’s recent holiday to Poland and Auschwitz.

Bad news. We were stupid. We did not read our return tickets well. Even Simon had misread it. We had 9:20 pm on the brain when, in fact, the train left at 9:12 pm. We raced to meet it, only to hear it pull away as we made for the platform. We checked when the next train was: 5: 20 am.

Simon offered to drive us to the edge of the city, where the RER B-line began at Charles de Gaulle Airport. This was no small thing: it was a two-hour drive by the autoroute.

I felt guilty, but I grasped at the lifeline offered, just the same. A godsend, that Simon Godly.

I craved a beer as the RER deposited us back at St. Michel, but all the cafes and bars were closing shop for the day as we came upon them.

To bed then. Tomorrow was another day.

Bev woke with a cold.

Were it only a cold.

It was the flu.

And it would only get worse.

 

Paris

We arrived in Paris late and bought two one-week Metro Passes before finding our way to and booking into Hotel Moderne St. Germaine shortly after midnight. We were going to be there for the better part of a week and decided that the week pass was cheaper than having to buy tokens again; and besides, they were good for the Bus and RER as well, so long as we used them in the city limits.

We showered to wash the travel off us and watched a little TV to wind down. MTV. We only had six channels and all of them were French, so there wasn’t much choice to be had.

I showered again when I woke. I always shower when I wake.

Ste. Germaine

I received a call that morning from a guide we’d hired, Simon Godly, a retired Belfast cop who settled in France to pursue his two passions, Belgian beer and the Great War. We’d hired Simon to give us a tour of Vimy Ridge, something that ought to be a rite of passage for all Canadians, something that was especially important to me as my great-grandfather fought there on that fateful day in April during the Battle of Arras. We were to tour the Somme too, and that was a lot to see in one day, so we were going to have to get an early start. He told me what train I needed to take and when to take it and where he’d meet us when we got there.

I had no intention of missing the train the next day so decided to get my tickets early. It took longer than I expected, so it was a good thing I went when I did. I made my way to the Gare de Austerlitz to buy tickets. I practiced my feeble French while I waited, keeping watch on the cashiers to see how they reacted to purchasers. I’d heard that tourists were not treated kindly by the French, less so by Parisians. I decided that this one was nice, but not that one; this one was bored, that one numb. There was one of the five that I didn’t want to get. Go figure, she was the young and pretty one. She snapped at the couple already before her, she almost yelled. She was certainly not patient. But as the line crept forward, I could see that my fate was sealed. I prayed that one of the other cashiers would hurry up and be done first, but such was not the case.

Gare de Austerlitz

I was getting the bitch. There was no getting around it. I girded myself for impatience and discomfort. I was not disappointed: I found myself face to face with her unsmiling face.

“Excusez-moi,” I said, nervously. “Je parle un petite peu français…” I gestured so with my fingers, pressing my thumb and index finger together to show how little French I actually did speak.

She broke into a smile, washing away what impatience and anger she’d previously burned with, reached across to me from under the glass and took my hand and patted it. “That’s okay, dear,” she said in a husky, thick, but clear accent, “I speak English.”

“Oh, good,” I said, visibly relieved. “I was hoping to buy tickets to Arras for tomorrow, returning from Amiens that evening.” She was an angel, a paragon of patience and good grace.

I was reminded of Stephano in Venice and the way he treated Bev like a princess and me like I was something he’d scraped off his boot. I’d heard that Latin men treat all other men like they are a barrier to their access to women, whether those women are married to said man or not; I wondered if Latin women were of a similar bent. That French girl had certainly smiled at me and patted my hand and set me at ease, where she had growled and finger-pointed at the couple before me. Or was it just the woman? Was she flirting with me? Did she always treat men in a positive manner but not women? I don’t know. I was just thankful that she treated me so well.

Bev relaxed in our room. She was still tired from the late night, and still tired in the early afternoon, so she napped after we lunched.

Once she woke, we began discovering the 5e Arrondissement. Small steps, just the area around St. Germaine and the hotel and points close by. We began with a sort walk close to our hotel, one noted in detail in Lonely Planet guide I’d brought with me, Hemingway’s walk from his residence to his other apartment, his place of work, the route he set down in great detail in his book, “A Movable Feast.” Along the route were the Pantheon, St. Etienne du Mont Church, with its crypt of Ste. Genevieve and the picture of Jean-Paul II praying before her sarcophagus, and the best hot chocolate I’d ever had at the Brassarie Balzar.

The Pantheon was magnificent, a testament to Louis XV’s desire to celebrate his recovery from gout—I guess some good can come from self-absorption. Its crypts were a wonder of names: Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas, the heroes of the city throughout the ages.

Afterwards, we looked for a good place to eat. We were in the Latin Quarter, a notable tourist area, so we expected everything to be open, and some things were, but not everything. We walked down to the Rue Mouffetard, a narrow street of stalls and markets and cafes and bars, its crossroads much the same. There were younger tourists about there and the shops reflected that, with younger, hipper fashions and accessories displayed that held little interest to Bev and me.

We finally settled o the La Petite Hotellerie, a little restaurant not too far from our hotel. Bev had beef and I had the duck, in case you’re wondering. The place had ambiance, one wall dominated by a full wall mural and another enormous painting in the back. Both depicted a dusky Paris in the late 1800s, all top hats and horses. The other side was a wall of bottles, fitting as the bar bisected the sides. One table in three smoked incessantly, in pairs and singles, sometimes in threes. They even smoked while they ate.

To bed afterwards. We had an early wake-up call. We had to get up at 6 am to make our train for the North and the trenches of Vimy Ridge.

Bev was more exhausted than ever.

We still had no idea she was coming down with the flu, though.

Venice to Paris

The cruise ships must have come back our last night in Venice. The streets were thick with tourists again. They were always relatively full; it was rare that we’d ever find ourselves alone in those narrow passages; but the streets were truly dense with people again, the Rialto Bridge and San Marco Piazza especially so.

We stocked up on bottled water and made an early night of it to repack our suitcases for the trip to Paris. Bev was noticeably tired, sick with the onrush of flu, even if she didn’t know it yet.
After breaking our fast with croissants and surprisingly never bitter coffee, we checked out, wrestled our bags up and down the stairs and over bridges until we reached the canal and boarded the water bus to the rail station. After a short wait and some pizza and pop that didn’t quite meet the standard we’d grown accustomed to, we boarded the local train to Milano.

Cars existed again, the first we’d seen since arriving in Venice. I can’t say that I missed them. The only exhaust I’d smelled over the last few days was the occasional motorboat puttering along the canals, or moored up against the often deserted “ground” floor on buildings, no longer in use due to decades of tidal flooding. Those motorboats were the closest we’d seen to delivery trucks.

Milano Centrale Stazione

The sky seemed huge after so many days of narrow paths and passages. Flat farmland drifted past our window in the space between town after town after town of brightly coloured buildings. They are painted yellow and blue and red and salmon. Terracotta clay tiles continue to roof them. I don’t believe that I’ve seen black asphalt shingles since arriving in Europe.

We had little time in Milan. We barely made our train to Paris, stuck following behind a slow-walking elderly woman who smoked like a Russian, dense clouds drifting behind her, then having to endure a cursory glance at our passports before being waved along and urged to hurry.

It was an older train than the one to Milan, the seating exactly like those on a plane with the same attention to space and legroom as you’d expect, with the same sort of laminated safety card, the same sort of laminated menu. The meal was as we’d come to expect while in Venice: first course (choice of three), second course (choice of three), but with crackers in lieu of bread. Bev ordered the lasagna and a plate of cold cuts that she didn’t much care for (her taste buds were going on her) while I had the lasagne and chicken with a mushroom sauce. We opted for water. We both had coffee that was as strong and thick as can be and as bitter and acrid as battery acid. No, I’ve never drank battery acid; work with me.

I thought it would be neat to see the countryside as we made our way across Europe which is why we booked the train and not a flight; what I didn’t expect was that our route would be marked by passage through intermittent tunnels that plunged us into blackness. We were passing through the Alps, after all. I should have thought of that, but I didn’t. There was almost nothing to look at, just the streaks of tunnel lights as they flew past our view, so Bev grilled me on my French to pass the time. I can’t say I passed. I expected to muddle through while in Paris, relying on the good grace and benevolence of others who appreciated that I actually made an attempt at conversing their language while in country.

When we burst out of the tunnels we took in what landscapes we could. The slopes became increasingly rocky and steep. Peaks became shrouded in mist. There were buildings amid the clouds. There was even a trailer park, which surprised me. Vineyards disappeared behind us in the gathering gloom. The light faded, first by increments, then by degrees, becoming a damp and misty twilight and then night when we finally exited the Alps.

The final three hours into Paris were in the dark, without any stars or the moon visible, just the lights of what towns passed by, far to the left and right of us. We pulled into Paris after 11 pm, having to buy Metro tickets from a machine while young toughs lingered nearby, waiting for midnight when they vaulted over the turnstiles with what I assumed was the assurance that riding the rails was free. It was still warm when we arrived, still humid from a day of downpours, perfect for activating the smell of urine in the tunnels.

We found our way to the Metro, wrestling our bags down the stairs, only to find ourselves face to face with a map of the entirety of Paris. We scrutinized the map bolted to the wall, making sure that the train we were told to take by the Gare du Lyon security was truly the one we were about to risk taking. It didn’t take long. A middle-aged woman helped us with the overly detailed rail map. It was an actual map, not the stylized view I’ve grown accustomed to.

It was 12:20 when we finally stumbled into our hotel, our luggage seemingly tons heavier than when we left Venice.

 

Venice, Part 2

We checked into Hotel Canaletto, pleased by its dusky mustard exterior and the bistro restaurant alongside it, even more pleased with the interior and its marble tile and renaissance trappings. Pink velvet wallpaper glowed as it caught the light thrown from the wall sconces and chandeliers.

It took us a while to find it. We had to ask for directions. We had to keep an eye on street names and address numbers. Navigating Venice can be a nightmare. Most streets are claustrophobically narrow, some only the width of a single person. They end abruptly, they sidestep and become yet another street altogether. Luckily, the street names are painted upon buildings or embossed in tile in the ground.

We found it best to stick to the tourist routes, though. There was little of interest to us away from them. And it was far too easy to lose our way. The locals cease speaking English within a block of those well-trod routes and there were far fewer cafes and restaurants and shops. Of course, the prices were far cheaper a few streets over, but unless you speak fluent Italian, you’ll probably walk away with nothing in hand. We did not speak Italian, fluent or otherwise.

Most tourists stuck to the tourist routes, and likely have for ages. The flagstones were worn by millions of passings, the stones slick with wear in places. Sights and sounds abound there. There are goods and souvenirs aplenty, as full and varied and lavish and cheap as those of the Khan el-Kalili, and as exotic to the North American eye. The buildings are beautiful to behold, despite their age. Many of them could use a fresh coat of paint, a fresh surface of cement or plaster, but the shops were always decked out, if not the floors above them. Richly stained woods framed glass displays of books or leather or Murano glass. Linen, jewelry, paper machete carnival masks. Trattorias and tabaccherias and farmacias. Versace. Gucci. Snack bars and gelato. And like the Khan el-Khalili, people smoked everywhere. But nobody smelled of tobacco. They smelled of perfume and cologne. And they looked like athletes and models, very few sported a few extra pounds. Anyone who did was likely a tourist. The locals sported brightly coloured designer clothes and designer sunglasses and perfectly bronzed skin. Whites, yellows, oranges, expensive leather shoes. Men embraced other men. They kissed each other. The women were displayed rather nicely in low-cut, tight-fitting tees. They too openly displayed affection in public as North American women wouldn’t.

We took our time, growing accustomed to the city in our own time. We became accustomed to our route of recognized bridges and canals, of restaurants and pubs, of shops and street signs, focusing on the San Marco Piazza and the Rialto at first, before venturing out further and closing the gap between.

We had our first dinner at the base of the Rialto Bridge. We scanned the menu, and found it divided into categories: Antipasto, Primo/Primi, Secondo/Secondi, Contorno/Contorni, and Dolce. Respectively, these are: Appetizers/Snacks, First Course, Second Course, Vegetables/Sides, and Dessert. All were terribly expensive. We asked our waiter about portion sizes. His response left us as baffled as before. Bev ordered a plate of meats, surprised that it was a thin assortment of cold cuts. I ordered ravioli, expecting a Dante Club portion, which is to say ample; what I received were five pasta pies no larger than silver dollars. I was still famished, so I ordered soup afterwards.

Our wonderful yet unsatisfying meal complete, we returned to the hotel and lay in bed, waiting for the Valpolicella to wear off. We listened to the church bells toll midnight, wondering if and deciding that they did indeed chime off the hours. And we listened to the English couple next to us argue. He fumed. He yelled a lot. She did not. We waited for the row to subside; and when it didn’t, I rapped on the wall, startling them, quieting them. Harsh whispers replaced raised voices. This kept on until they left and were replaced by a younger Italian couple who made as much noise, as intense if less harsh. There was giggling. There was laughing. There was headboard.

We didn’t take tours. We should have, but we didn’t. We bought too much stuff early on and blew our budget, still a tight thing after buying and furnishing the house. Bev bought the acid etchings from the artist we first came across. She bought table linens. She bought shoes. I bought a Carnival mask, Papier-Mache and silk, and had it shipped home. We did climb the San Marco clock tower, waiting far too long under a baking sun, watching as the piazza flood and the duckboards were laid out by those who’d obviously done such time and again as the tides rose higher and higher and the city sunk lower and lower. Floors undulated, even those of the Basilica, whose vast domes of gold leaf and tiled frescos seemed unaffected by their foundation’s flaws.

But for the most part, we browsed. We lined up of free tours, and lines for fee tours were always long. But we had time, so we waited, and my back paid the price. So, between free tours, we sat in cafés, savouring espresso and gelato and jotting in journals, collecting thoughts, writing down sights and sounds and tastes and experiences.

We did hire a gondola. It seemed the thing to do while in Venice. All was as one expected: the gondola was black; the gondolier was named Stephano. He flirted with Bev and took offence at everything I said, even when I complemented him on his poling ability (no double-entendre, intended), saying that I’d have probably sheered the bow ornament off when we passed under a low bridge. He snapped at me, offended that I should question his skill after his having steered a gondola since he was twelve. “Really,” I said, “I was complementing you.” He would have none of that, remaining terse with me, lavishing compliments on Bev. I couldn’t see through to tipping him.

Then it rained. How much did it rain? I don’t know. It appeared to be of biblical proportions. Lightning flashed and thunder pressed down, long and hard, into the narrow confines. Umbrellas crowded the streets, a colourful dance of bobbing and weaving, but there was no escaping the sheets of water spilling into the streets, despite our rain gear and umbrellas. The roofs peaked under terracotta clay tiles, directing the flow into the center. The waterspouts sprayed a full flow out into and over the width of the passages.

At first, the shops squeegeed the water from their marble floors, and then they gave up altogether after a few hours, closing their doors and dropping their gates, deciding that since no one was buying anything and only hiding out from the rain, that the day was a wash.

We found refuge in the post office with quite a few others. We bought post cards and stamps while they milled about, shuffling aimlessly about, sitting on and leaning against the cistern at its building’s center. When we thought there was a break in the storm, we all spilled back out into the street, only to be caught again. We ducked into a restaurant we’d ate at before. The portly waiter displayed his displeasure when we only ordered coffee to ward off the chill that descended with the onset of the rain.
We ate at the hotel. Bev stayed in as I ventured out again after the storm had passed, but everything was still closed.

It was cool.

It was fresh.

I found a bar, a beer, a coffee (not the brightest thing to have in the evening if you want to get any sleep), and then I returned to find Bev swaddled in bed, trying to regain some of her heat after having had it stripped from her by the deluge.

She said she was cold. But she was hot.

She didn’t know at the time, but she was coming down with the flu.