We arrived back in the city an hour before J.'s French class tonight, ate a hasty dinner, bundled up, and walked the ten or so blocks to the school where his class meets. It's -12 C., cold enough that you feel your nose hairs thickening and then freezing. We were almost late, so we walked as fast as we could, J. striding slightly ahead of me - he has longer legs - and listening to me plead every block or two for him to go just a tiny bit slower. I left him near Eglise St. Jean-Baptiste and walked quickly up to Marie-Anne and down St. Denis, past the fancy shoe and clothing stores with their bright red SOLDE signs ("SALE"), the Maison de Torrefaction (coffee roasting), the jewelry shops, and sidewalk cafés where, the other night when I passed them, hardy patrons in parkas were sitting at outdoor tables drinking beer.
By then the fronts of my legs beneath my jeans were freezing, and I stopped in a Renald-Bray to browse for a minute and warm up. This one had little literature and lots of children's books, travel books, gardening, erotica - most marked "Prix Choc" - the bright colors and warm air a huge contrast to what was going on outside. I was the only shopper in the store, and didn't stay long, just enough to begin to feel my skin warming up, and neither of the sales clerks even looked up from the books they were reading at their desks. At the corner of rue Rachel I crossed the street and walked quickly back toward home.
It had been a clear day for driving, and Mt. Mansfield and Camel's Hump were snow-covered and beautiful. I drove as far as St. Albans, where we stopped for gas, and then J. took over; there were no cars at the border and the Canadian customs official waved us through after a perfunctory check of our cards and a jovial rendition of the usual questions: "Any tobacco, alcohol or firearms in the vehicle with you today?" As J. drove, I quizzed him on irregular French verbs and their past participles: suivre/suivi; boire/bu; vivre/veçu; I tried to remember the conjugations for the imparfait.
Mute and unaware they were French at all, the snowy cornfields rolled by, and along with them, behind the windrows of tall poplars, the stone farmhouses where farm families spoke easily together. It was 3:30 pm when the city appeared in the distance, the faint shape of St. Joseph's Oratory and the tallest downtown buildings forming a single silhouette with the mountain itself. "It feels like the days are getting a little bit longer,"J. said, thinking out loud.
"Yes," I said, closing the grammar book and looking ahead. "It really does."
"....Mute and unaware they were French at all, the snowy cornfields rolled by..." How wonderful, Beth. Only you would make that connection. I wonder if landscape does have a kind of ethnicity? Certainly when you travel by train or bus or car from the UK to France, for instance, as soon as you cross the border you know you're in a different country, and not just because of man-made signs. Or is it just my imagination that the land itself speaks another language?
Posted by: Natalie | January 31, 2007 at 02:49 PM
Oh, you see it immediately after crossing the border here, Natalie - but even though there is a geological and topographic difference in the land, it's not that that makes it "French" so much as what people have done to it: the lines of tall poplars; the French-style farmhouses of totally different architecture and materials from Vermont or New York; the way the houses are enclosed by tall clipepd hedges; the pollarded trees...that's something never seen in New England. The land is there like a blank canvas, and people give it an ethnicity, i suppose - but then that becomes part of a visual vocabulary that we associate with a particular country.
Posted by: beth | January 31, 2007 at 03:21 PM
I envy you the daily, constant language challenge. I would enjoy that. I find it shocking that you would leave the house without long underwear. I live in it from late November to early May, though not this year. Get thyself to the department store and get warm!
Posted by: the sylph | February 01, 2007 at 01:11 PM
I know! I've got two or three pairs and usually remember to put them on, but not that night. Yes, the language challenge is good. I find it forces you to constantly think in French or construct imaginary sentences in your head, before or after an encounter. J. is feeling good - he did his first complicated transaction all in French today. I know how he feels - each milestone like that is a triumph, not just of language learned but of fears overcome.
Posted by: beth | February 01, 2007 at 02:41 PM
Oh! The house of torrefaction — what a wonderful phrase!
Posted by: MB | February 01, 2007 at 03:09 PM