The honeymoon phase was definitely over, and a distressing stage of culture shock set in.
6
I’M AN IMMIGRANT?
Loneliness wasn’t the only thing troubling me during those first few months in France. My U.S. driver’s license had reciprocity with the French government, which was a bonus. But if I couldn’t exchange my license before it expired in October, I’d be up a very expensive creek without a paddle—namely the dilemma that would be French driving school and taking a test I would most likely fail.
Jean-Luc and I dashed over to the préfecture with all the required documents: my long-stay visa; my passport, which had said visa in it; my license; a certified translation of my license; two mug shots because it was interdit (prohibited) to smile for identification photos; proof of my address; and an affidavit from Jean-Luc stating that I lived with him. Because, come on, where else would I be living?
We spoke to a somewhat pleasant woman behind a plexiglass window, who told us to take a seat in the salle d’attente (waiting room). A few moments later, another woman—apparently the one in charge—came out of the back room and sauntered over, asking for my carte de séjour (green card). With Jean-Luc’s help, I explained that the French consulate had told me my long-stay visa took the place of the carte de séjour for the first year.
The woman was quick to correct me. “Non, non, non,” she said, repeating the word three times, as the French often do for emphasis. “You must get your premier titre de séjour from L’Offi, the French immigration service. After you pass your tests, they put a special stamp in your passport. But, unfortunately, it may take up to three months to get your appointment there.”
I’d only been told to contact L’Offi within three months of my arrival; I wasn’t told I’d actually had to go there. Now, I had to deal with my driver’s license and immigration? At the same time? I was on the verge of tears.
The woman nodded with understanding. “This is not uncommon,” she said. “I see that your license expires in one month. If you can get a statement from L’Offi that your appointment has been made”—the French are big on affidavits—“we can start the paperwork and I’ll hold your license for you, rendering it when you have your premier titre de séjour.”
Somebody in the French government was being nice, helpful, and understanding? After the woman at our local mairie had given us such a hard time, running us ragged on a never-ending paper trail for our marriage documents for our civil ceremony in France, this was most welcome news. I was tempted to hug the woman. Instead, Jean-Luc and I thanked her profusely.
The moment we got home, Jean-Luc called L’Offi on my behalf. He was able to get a man by the name of Didier on the phone, and he explained my situation. Although the first available appointment wasn’t until November, after my license would expire, Didier agreed to send an affidavit to us via email. It arrived in Jean-Luc’s inbox within ten minutes.
About two hours later, Didier emailed Jean-Luc again, alerting him that a rendezvous had opened up in early October. Would I like it? Jean-Luc set the appointment, which was followed by another email. Apparently, I had to fork out a three-hundred-euro tax that day, payable only with special stamps called les timbres fiscaux purchased at the local treasury, pass a medical exam (which was given at their offices), speak with an official so they could assess my French and employment skills, and sit through an hour-long cultural lecture on France. Once all these steps were completed, I would receive my premier titre de séjour.
My upper lip curled. “What kind of a medical exam is it? Why do I need X-rays?”
“They want to be sure you don’t have tuberculosis,” said Jean-Luc.
“Tuberculosis?”
“It’s a problem from immigrants coming from northern Africa.”
“But I’m from—”
“They won’t change the rules for you. You’re still an immigrant.”
I’d been a “sandwich artist” in college and a telemarketer. I’d been a waitress, a salesgirl, a babysitter, an art director, and a handbag designer, not to mention a dog walker. I’d been married, and I’d been divorced, and I’d remarried. But I’d never been an immigrant. And I’d never been a parent. The words “instant immigrant stepmom” played on my lips, this new reality boggling my mind.
That night, I decided to introduce my French family to a new dish: tuna noodle casserole, accompanied by a salad. I was in the mood for a taste of “home”—one I hadn’t had since I was a child. The kids set the table and we sat down to dinner. Jean-Luc poured some wine into my glass. It was only a centimeter deep, as usual, which really got under my craw. Whoever came up with the rumor that the French drank wine like there was no tomorrow, including the kids, well, they were dead wrong. I picked up the bottle of Gaillac and poured. “Tonight, I’m having an American-sized glass.”
“You’re only supposed to taste the wine,” said Jean-Luc.
I took a sip and shot him a coy smile. “I am tasting it.”
Elvire’s upper lip curled. She pointed at our steaming meal. “C’est quoi, ça? C’est dégueulasse.”
“C’est une casserole au thon,” I said, serving her a heaping spoonful. “And it’s not disgusting.”
She grimaced and pushed her plate away. “Non.”
I shot Jean-Luc a look, my bottom lip quivering. It didn’t matter that this meal came with a French twist, since I couldn’t find cream of mushroom soup at the grocery store and had replaced it with a velouté forestièr (a mix of forest mushrooms) and a healthy dosing of crème fraîche.
“She hasn’t even tried one bite. And all I’m doing is trying.”
“Mange-le,” said Jean-Luc. Eat.
Elvire slammed her fork down and crossed her arms with defiance. Why was she being so insolent all of a sudden?
Isabelle, Jean-Luc’s sister, had told me that Natasha, Jean-Luc’s ex-wife, would glare at the kids and pout when they hugged their dad because she was competing with Max and Elvire for his attention. And the one time Natasha prepared a Russian meal for the kids, the kids refused to eat it. Natasha bolted upstairs to the bedroom, slammed the door, and cried, refusing to come out of the room for hours. She never tried her hand at cooking anything ever again, not one French meal, nothing.
Perhaps, I thought, Elvire was trying to keep me at arm’s length, not wanting to get close. What if she thought I was going to leave too? Or had the novelty of having me as a stepmom simply worn off?
“Elvire, mange ton repas,” repeated Jean-Luc. Eat your dinner.
“Non,” said Elvire. “C’est dégueulasse! ”
The French flew fast off Jean-Luc’s lips, his voice deep. Max, of course, laughed. I put my head in my hands. I’d cooked over one hundred meals for the kids, and now this one casserole, which, admittedly, was not the prettiest of dishes, had caused a full-on war between father and daughter. Jean-Luc wasn’t stupid. He knew Elvire was pushing her limits, testing me, testing him. Still, I knew I needed to defuse this bomb before it exploded, leaving smears of tuna noodle casserole on everybody’s faces. It was important for Elvire to know that I wasn’t a threat.
“Jean-Luc, I think I need to deal with this,” I said, and he stopped his tirade about the starving children in Africa and how this wasn’t a restaurant where she could order anything she wanted. In the best French I could muster up, I said, “Elvire, if there are some recipes of your grandmother’s you’d like for me to cook, please ask her for them. It’s hard planning meals all the time, especially since you and Max don’t like the same things.”
Although the kids’ taste buds were accustomed to strange things like escargot, duck, and foie gras, in my experience French kids did not eat everything. One evening we had the haricots fiasco, in which Max refused to eat fresh steamed green beans and, thanks to Jean-Luc’s prodding, ended up in tears. Since then, I’d made fresh green beans for Elvire, Jean-Luc, and me; canned for Max. Elvire didn’t like the paella from the market; Max did. Max didn’t like salads; Elvire did. When on
e kid liked mushrooms or spinach, the other didn’t. The list went on and on. Both of the kids had one thing in common, though: they were hesitant to try anything new to them and stuck to meals they were accustomed to. But I was not a short-order cook. This madness had to stop.
I sighed. “So, you’ll get me some recipes?”
She shook her head and said that they didn’t exist on paper, that her grandmother had everything memorized. I told her to look up her favorites on Google when she had a chance, and then I sent her into the kitchen to make a sandwich. We both had tears in our eyes.
Max took another bite of the casserole. “C’est pas mal. C’est mangeable.”
Although eatable wasn’t quite a compliment, I’d take it over dégueulasse.
“So should I make it again?” I asked. “Or should I stick with moules frites?”
“Ou McDo,” said Max, nodding with a wide smile.
I groaned. To think, the kids thought McDonald’s was the best restaurant in the whole entire world, worthy of a Michelin two-star rating. I poured myself a second glass of wine and said, “Tomorrow night, I’m making a quiche Lorraine.”
I may have perfected the ideal quiche, and the many ways to make les tartes salées (savory tarts), which got the stamp of approval from the kids, but a few weeks later, I upset Max to the point of tears, accusing of him of lying when he said he set the table. He had, but I’d been so scatterbrained with stress that I’d forgotten. Thanks to the language barrier, it took a half hour of apologizing to set things right.
For a little family bonding time, we took the kids bowling. Elvire’s thin arms looked like they were going break off as she whipped the ball down the alley. We had something in common that day—we were both terrible bowlers. The problem was Jean-Luc; he was good. And Max was competitive. Jean-Luc’s score was reaching one-twenty. Max sat on the bench, pouting and stomping his feet. When it was his turn, he deliberately threw gutter balls. Elvire laughed at her brother. “It’s only a game,” she said.
“Shut up,” Max said. And then he punched her in the arm.
He was a very sore loser. Jean-Luc took him to the side. I didn’t know what to say, except that I really hated Max’s reaction. “Pourquoi est-ce que tu agis comme ça? ” I asked. Why are you acting like this?
Elvire repeated me, making fun of my pronunciation and bad grammar with an annoying, nasal-sounding French accent.
Wasn’t this outing supposed to be fun?
Considering I came from a blended family, I’d thought I was prepared for instant motherhood. But I’d thought wrong. I was trying to put my best foot forward, but kept tripping. One issue and frustration at a time, the pressure kept building, so much in fact that I wondered if it was possible for people to spontaneously combust—surely probable when one locked up all of their feelings inside and threw the key over their shoulder.
My confidence was disappearing and I started to resent France, blaming the country for making me feel that whatever I did was wrong.
When I stopped by the local boulangerie simply to ask for a baguette, my words barely formed. I called this my “mouse voice” phase. It was kind of hard to communicate when people couldn’t actually hear you. When the phone rang, I shuddered, eyeing it, but never answering unless caller ID displayed Jean-Luc’s or my mother’s numbers. When the doorbell rang, I hid upstairs and peeked through the curtains, trying to avoid les Témoins de Jéhovah (Jehovah’s Witnesses), who apparently decided that I needed saving—even though they couldn’t understand “mouse.” The day the kind-hearted zealots caught me off guard, they shoved a brochure written in English in my hand and stood on my doorstep smiling. I let out an eep and a barely audible merci, right before I slammed the front door in their faces.
At night, sometimes I’d hole up in the master bedroom with my computer, checking out blogs, Facebook, or anything in English, just to avoid watching French television programs with my family—especially Les Guignols, a satirical show using puppets created to look like French political figures like Nicolas Sarkozy and Carla Bruni or François Hollande. Not only did I not understand the humor of the show, puppets scared the crap out of me.
Even simple tasks like going to the grocery store brought on severe frustrations. The grocer had a “world” section filled with Japanese products, but they didn’t carry panko? How was I supposed to make my famed chicken Milanese with regular breadcrumbs? The yogurt aisle was overwhelming—there were too many choices. Why, oh why were milk, eggs, and cream not in the refrigerated section? And where, oh where was my beloved cottage cheese? I missed strange things I didn’t even like or use. Yellow mustard. Peanut butter. Our pots and pans were warped on the bottom, and I wanted to purchase new ones, but, starting at thirty euro a pop, the prices for the quality were too high, and the pots weren’t sold with lids. As I searched for one ounce of familiarity, always coming up empty-handed, homesickness set in. Plus, with an Indian summer upon us, it was ninety degrees outside, and the French version of air conditioning was to close the volets. I was sweating bullets.
I was close to tears when I talked to my mother on my forty-first birthday.
“Happy birthday to you,” my mom howled off-key. “Did you get my ecard?”
“Yep, I did. Thanks.”
“How’s Jean-Luc?”
“Wonderful—as usual.”
“And how are the kids?”
“They’re great. They made me homemade cards.” I paused. “Honestly, the kids are kind of driving me nuts. I had to break up a fight this morning. Elvire was teasing Max, so Max punched her on the arm, and then she went ballistic. I actually had to step in between them, separate them, and send them to their rooms.”
“Good God, what did Jean-Luc do?”
“He wasn’t here. He was at work.” I bit down on my bottom lip—about to serve an American-sized glass of whine with my French cheese. I told my mom about my struggles, my feelings, ending my sorry monologue with: “Sometimes all this change is overwhelming—”
“New country? New man? The kids? I can imagine.” She paused. “Sam, you’ve got to take some time and breathe.”
“Uh-huh,” I said, holding my breath. “But right now I have to get to French immigration.”
When I came home from my second session—la formation civique—at L’Offi, Jean-Luc finally noticed the panicked look on my face. I couldn’t hide it. The woman in charge of the session clearly hated her job. And immigrants. When an African man asked to use the facilities, she’d refused and then continued her lecture on how it was against the law to beat your wife when you live in France. Well, this life in France was beating me down one swift punch at a time.
“Are you not happy?” Jean-Luc asked, concerned.
“I’m happy with us,” I said, “But—”
“But what?” he asked.
“I thought I could handle everything, all the change and adjustments, but everything kind of came at me at once,” I said.
“’Oney, you have to talk to me. We promised to keep no secrets from one another. You can’t just ignore problems, hoping they’ll go away. And you have to try harder to integrate.”
“I know,” I said. “But before I integrate, I really need to get my confidence back. Right now, it’s shot.”
“I understand,” said Jean-Luc. “And I know you can do it. That’s why I fell in love with you.”
The question of the day was how could I do it? How could I rediscover the confident woman with whom Jean-Luc had fallen in love—the woman who took a risk and dared to follow her heart, the woman who changed everything in her world for him? Somewhere on this journey, I’d lost her.
Recipes for Communication
PAULETTE’S TOMATES FARCIES
Prep time: 15 minutes
Cook time: 45 minutes
Serves: 4
Great for: a simple family meal
Wine suggestion: Bandol Rosé
•Extra virgin olive oil
•8 large tomatoes*
•¼
cup dry white wine
•1¼ pounds ground meat, either hamburger or pork, or a mix of both
•3 cloves garlic, peeled, de-germed, and finely minced
•2 shallots, finely minced
•½ cup flat parsley, finely minced, plus extra for garnish
•3 healthy pinches herbes de Provence
•1½ slices white bread, crusts cut off, torn into pieces
•1 egg
•1 handful breadcrumbs or panko (optional)
•1 healthy pinch fleur de sel (or other coarse salt)
•Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Preheat the oven to 400ºF. Lightly cover the bottom of a 9 x 12 baking dish with olive oil. Slice the caps off the tomatoes, and place them to the side. Hollow out the tomatoes with a knife and a spoon, without cutting through the bottom, so they resemble small bowls. Set the tomato pulp aside. Lightly salt the interior of each tomato, setting them upside down on a plate to drain. Coarsely chop the tomato pulp, place it in the baking dish, and pour the wine into the mixture.
For the farcie (stuffing), mix the ground meat in a large mixing bowl with the garlic, shallots, parsley, and herbes de Provence. Season with salt and pepper. Place the bread onto the mixture. Add the egg to the mixture, and mix all of the ingredients with your hands. Once the meat is well-combined with the herbs, use a spoon to fill the tomatoes to the top. Place the tomatoes in the baking dish, meat side up.** Drizzle with olive oil, and place a cap on each tomato. Sprinkle the entire dish with a bit of fleur de sel. Bake for 45 minutes. Serve with rice, spooning the sauce from the bottom of the baking dish on top. Garnish with chopped parsley.
*You can also stuff small squashes or zucchini, and mixing up your vegetables makes for a colorful, happy dish!
**If you’d like to sprinkle some breadcrumbs or panko on the farcie (stuffing), now’s the time to do it.
How to Make a French Family Page 6