He says it again.
I repeat it again. “Como?”
A look of fear streaks across his face. It’s a look I’ve seen before—that look of sheer helplessness, a feeling I know French people abhor. Number Four looks at Numbers One, Two, and Three in envy. All is normal, natural, as to be expected. They are doing what should be done. Number Four also knows what should be done—knows his job is to take care of me—but he can’t do it, because unlike Numbers One, Two, and Three, Number Four has to deal with a moron, an idiot, an ET, someone clearly not from around these parts. He begins to panic because he doesn’t know what to do.
It’s now my job to put him at ease. “C’est bien,” I say. “C’est bon. Ça va?” He looks around—traffic is backed up, two cars are smashed, one lady is crying, one guy is lying on the grass holding his heart, and I’m repeating, “It’s good. It’s good. How you doing?”
Number Four begins to walk away from me. He walks over to Number Three, says something, and all of them—Numbers One, Two, Three, Four, and the victim, who, as in a miracle, manages to raise his head from the ground like the Ascension and stare, which in France is a very odd and disparaging thing to do. I understand and don’t hold it against them. Like that, a tableau vivant, we wait.
The police arrive, sirens blaring—right out of the Diary of Anne Frank movie. It scares the bejesus out of me, and I know I’m going to one of those secret, deep-underground, Jean Genet prisons, rotten with mold, rats, cold, and spiders. Two cars stop. Five gendarmes get out. They park in the rond-point, causing even more of a traffic jam, and still no one in the surrounding cars objects or hits his horn, yells, grabs a gun, a knife, or a dog.
Immediately, the police fan out. Two go into the street, to the scene of the accident, and begin measuring who knows what. There are no brake marks, but one guy holds the tape measure and begins walking back and forth, left to right, right to left, in circles, around my car, the other car, measuring everything and writing it all down in a little black book, looking more and more certain with every notation he makes. The whole time he’s doing this, the other guy watches.
Gendarme Number Three goes to the victim, bends over to look at his face, and says something to the four young men, who say something back to him, and now, all five are staring at me.
Gendarme Number Four is talking to Peggy, who suddenly comes alive, remembers her French, and begins to laugh. In five minutes, they’ve exchanged addresses and phone numbers and are on their way to becoming buddies for life.
Number Five is the captain, and he, unfortunately, gets me. He speaks as much English as I do French. He’s asking me questions about what happened. I know he’s asking me questions, because after he says something he stops, looks at me, and waits. The only word I understand is “passeport,” which I don’t have with me, so I hand him my California driver’s license with a picture of me that’s ten years old. After two or three additional attempts, the captain gives up and fills out the police report himself. He walks all around, looking about, jotting things down, talking to the guys who did the measurements, then heads over to the victim to get his story. I figure I’m going to jail for life—at the very least I’ll be sued and lose my house and everything in it. I pull Peggy away from her new best buddy so she can explain I wasn’t speeding, I had stopped—cédez le passage—and monsieur cut across three lanes of traffic, from inside to out, and that’s why I hit him.
None of it makes a difference: I should have stopped. Monsieur has the right of way. What does make a difference, I later discover, is the accident happened at a rond-point, where most French accidents happen—and French drivers are as terrified of ronds-points as I am. Any accident at a rond-point is viewed with great understanding and commiseration, because all French drivers know someday it will happen to them. But I didn’t know any of that then. I saw myself as the ugly American—more so than usual given my attire—about to become a hostage for U.S. foreign policy: They saw their opportunity and they took it . . .
That’s when the ambulance arrives. The victim is still lying on his back, holding his chest, his face the color of ash, with five people hovering over him like a deathwatch. The ambulance, with the same Anne Frank siren, stops, blocks even more traffic, and three guys leap out as if on springs—like Jacques in a box—and race over to everyone, the four young men, the five gendarmes, Peggy and me and shake our hands, shouting, “Bonjour,” “ça va,” “salut,” before they go to the victim. Hellos and ça vas in order, they go to the victim, take one look, put him on a stretcher and leave, siren blaring, waving and calling, “Bonne journée.” They’re there and gone in less than five minutes.
It’s 9:20. Peggy’s flight leaves in forty-five minutes, and she’s supposed to be at the airport now. I’m thinking about this and how Larry is going to hate me when gendarme Number Four, Peggy’s buddy-for-life, says something to the captain. The captain walks over and says something to me.
“Como.”
He looks at me, wishing I was dead.
Number Four walks over and says something that sounds like, “allée.”
I figure he’s telling me to get off the road, stop blocking traffic, pull over to an alley, where they’re going to grill and barbecue me. I’m about to protest when Peggy grabs my arm and says, “Let’s go.”
“Go where? To jail?”
“The airport.”
“Oui,” says the captain, “aéroport,” waving us away like flies.
Peggy, it seems, explained to Number Four that we were on the way to the airport so she could take the flight to Paris to meet her husband and save her marriage. Number Four told the captain, and the captain, either in the spirit of marital fidelity, romance, or frustration, tells us to leave, go, “Allez.” He’ll finish writing the report. He hands me a phone number and tells Peggy to tell me to take her to the airport, then go to the hospital to meet the victim and fill out the required accident report for the insurance.
I’m flabbergasted. Here I am, a foreigner—a U.S. citizen—with no passport and a ten-year-old photo on my driver’s license, looking like a Betty Ford dropout or a Jerry Lewis grad, not speaking French, having just hit a French citizen, sending him to the hospital, and the police are telling me to leave the scene, drive off, and call them when I get back. I’m supposed to find the guy I just hit to fill out the papers that prove I was wrong. If this was California, I’d be in jail. But this isn’t California, it’s France, and after gendarme Number Four bends the fender away from the tire, I say, “Bonne journée,” and drive, very, very carefully, to the airport.
I follow the signs with the picture of the little plane, and we arrive just in time for Peggy’s flight. We say our goodbyes, au revoirs, and à bientôts, and she kisses me French style, three times on my cheeks, telling me not to worry. “This is France,” she says, “everything goes wrong and turns out right.”
I hope that’s true, because five minutes out of the airport, I’m lost.
There are many, many signs leading to the airport, all with a picture of a little plane on them. There are just as many signs leading away, but I have no idea which ones will take me to the hospital. Local road signs in France are good at telling you what’s there, where you are, what road you are on, the name of the house across the street, the farm down the road, how to find the supermarché, industrial zone, or garbage dump. They’re also very good at telling you how to get to Paris or one of the other ten major cities, like you’re in St. Louis and the sign tells you how to get to New York. What they don’t tell you is how to get from where you are to where you want to be if it’s not the farm down the road or Paris. And since the signs do not direct you to other road numbers—as in, “this is the way to highway D-785”—and the same city avenue often changes its name ten times in ten blocks, it’s impossible to figure out how to get where you want to go from where you are. Even a GPS wouldn’t help: I don’t know the address where I’m going or the name of the hospital, and even if I did, I couldn’t spell it or
pronounce it. No wonder the French invented existentialism; Sartre probably came up with it while driving on the Périphérique.
I’m in the suburbs of Quimper, searching for two signs, Centre Ville and Toutes Directions. Toutes Directions always takes you to a rond-point with a spur coming off it that will take you where you want to go (if you know), back to where you started, or to Centre Ville. Centre Ville is the most congested, difficult, time-consuming route into and out of a city. Vieille Ville, old city, is the only sign that’s worse. Better to leave your car on the sidewalk and walk.
I’m driving around, looking for Toutes Directions or Centre Ville, hoping to avoid Vieille Ville, circling and recircling ronds-points, reading signs with Breton names, looking for the hospital or signs with tiny red crosses. I say the hospital, but Quimper actually has four. I know this because I follow the Red Cross signs to three other hospitals before I find Laënnec. Not that I care.
The truth is I’m not too keen on getting there. For all I know, the victim died of shock, a heart attack, or virulent anti-Americanism, and the police are waiting to take me off to jail. I don’t even know if I’m entitled to make a phone call. And who would I call? Madame P? Jean? Sharon? Bruno? Gilles? And tell them what? I hit a French man, help me.
I drive around the parking lot looking for a place to park. Nothing is clearly marked, so I brave a place right in front of the hospital, hoping the red plates on my car signifying I’m a foreigner will scare the sane and reasonable away, and I won’t get ticketed or towed.
I leave the car, half-expecting to never see it again, fully expecting to find the police or a corpse or a very incapacitated person in a full-body brace, suffering from backache, whiplash, nerve damage, impotency, necrophilia, Tourette’s, Alzheimer’s, something terribly, horribly, permanently triggered by the accident and me.
I walk around looking for Admitting and see a sign that says Admission—and hope it isn’t referring to guilt—and there, in the lobby, sitting up and reading a magazine, is the victim. I recognize him by his green and yellow plaid pants and blue and green striped shirt, which as bad as it sounds, looks okay. He’s calm, has color in his face, and is alive. He’s not on a gurney, wearing a neck brace, or in a plastic bag. There’s no walker in front of him, no cane, no IV, or priest in sight. It’s a miracle, better than the Second Coming. This guy, on the verge of death from panic, is fine, reading a food magazine, eating a chocolate bar, and waiting for me. And that’s the most amazing thing. He’s absolutely sure I will be there. Why? Because the police captain said so, and because this is France. C’est normal. And here I am. I’m more surprised than he is.
“Bonjour,” I say, and offer my hand.
He hesitates, but is French, so he takes it. “Bonjour.”
“Ça va?”
“Oui, oui, bien.”
I’m delighted and start to tell him how sorry I am—“Je suis désolé”—and how it was all my fault, and as I’m saying this I can’t believe it. I just broke Dad’s legal rule Number Two: Never admit to anything. I’ve already broken #1: Don’t sign anything. In the U.S,. I’d be saying, “Why didn’t you signal? Why didn’t you swerve? Why did you cut across three lanes of traffic to exit?” I’d be looking for complicatory fault or negligence. But here, in France, I’m repeating, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” because I am, and because it’s all I know how to say.
The fellow looks at me blankly, then speaks for five straight minutes, none of which I understand.
I look at him blankly. “Parlez-vous anglais?”
“Non. Parlez-vous français?”
“No.”
Like magic, a young man, who looks to be about twenty years old and is a surgeon, offers his assistance. His English is better than my French, but not much. Still, it’s all we have, and Jacques—the victim—and I stick to him like cheese to a croque monsieur.
What we—Jacques and I—are supposed to do is complete the insurance form and mail it in. That’s why we’re meeting, only neither of us has the form, speaks the other’s language, or knows what to do. Then I remember the phone number the police captain gave me. I give it to Jacques and the twenty-year-old surgeon, and they go off together to call. Again, I think, am I nuts? These two guys are going to go off, work it all out, get their story straight, and screw me, the getting-uglier-by-the-second American. I’m just about ready to bolt when they return holding two pieces of paper with our names—mine and Jacques’s—license plate and driver’s license numbers, arrows, circles, and all kinds of information written in French. I know I’m going to be deported.
The surgeon explains the two pieces of paper contain information from the police report and that Jacques and I are to fill out the insurance claim and file it. He also explains that Jacques’ car has been towed away, and he has no way to get home.
I figure the least I can do is drive him. Maybe I’ll even win him over and we’ll both accept blame and the report won’t be so harsh. “I’ll take him,” I say to the surgeon.
He tells Jacques, who immediately turns white again, as if he’s in shock. There’s no way he’s getting into a car with me. The surgeon says something innocuous and kind, trying not to hurt my feelings, while Jacques walks away and uses his cell phone to call a taxi.
I think he’s being extravagant. He lives in a village forty-five minutes from the hospital, which means the taxi will cost between seventy-five and a hundred dollars, and I’m probably going to have to pay! I didn’t know then that everything—the ambulance, his treatment and care, and the taxi—is all reimbursed by national health. When I find out, I want it, too.
I follow Jacques out of the hospital and stand next to him waiting for the taxi. “C’est joli.” It’s pretty. I point to the hospital. “C’est bon . . . Beau?” I nod to the sky. “C’est chaud, it’s hot, je suis désolé.” Jacques looks at me as if I’m nuts. Then he removes his cell phone from his purse and calls his wife, telling her about the accident, the car wreck, that everything is okay, he’s okay, “d’accord, d’accord, d’accord, bien,” and he’ll be home soon with “l’américain.”
The taxi arrives—quicker than any taxi I’ve ever called in the U.S. The driver leaps out of the car and the two of them, Jacques and the driver, who may or may not be buddies—who can tell when everyone shakes hands and kisses like they’re family—shake hands and get into the taxi, Jacques in the front seat, talking nonstop. Simultaneously, they turn to look at me. Through a series of hand motions, lots of pointing, yelling, and arm waving, I understand I’m supposed to follow them. I get into my car, and they take off: down narrow streets, congested avenues, through alleys, over speed bumps, and around ronds-points. I stay close enough to not lose them, and far enough away so I don’t rear-end them when they jump the curb, pull onto the grass, and stop. I’m concentrating so much on not losing or hitting them I don’t see we’re back at the scene of the accident.
Jacques and the driver leap out of the taxi. I get out of my car. The two of them walk around, looking up, down, pointing, waving the papers with all those numbers, circles, and arrows, Jacques muttering, “Merde, merde, merde.” He shows me. Everything in the police report is wrong: the name and location of the rond-point; the road I was on; the road he was exiting to. “Merde!” He’s waving the papers, getting more and more excited. I take two steps backward to get out of his way. He takes three steps forward. He’s in my face, and I think he’s going to flip, but he only wants to show me again, make sure I understand, that the gendarmes, like police everywhere in the world, screwed up.
Cursing together—in French, Breton, and more English than I thought they knew—Jacques and the taxi driver get back in the taxi, and with hand, arm, and finger motions I’m becoming familiar with, tell me to follow.
Forty minutes later the taxi stops in front of a sad-looking apartment building. Jacques gets out of the car, walks around it, and shakes the driver’s hand as if he’s known him all his life. The driver pulls away, leaving Jacques and me alone
on a dark deserted street, facing an apartment building that looks like public housing in Chicago, circa 1960 . . . Our Lady of Cabrini Village. My first thought is to gun the motor and run. My next thought is Jacques is smaller than I am, I can take him if I have to—assuming he doesn’t have a black belt in karate or a knife: proof once again, if needed, you can take the boy out of New York, but not New York out of the man.
He points to a place across the street, telling me where to park. I pull in and take the Renault booklet with me—the one the lady at the airport gave me when I rented the car, telling me to use it “if you need service or have an accident.” I’m hoping it’ll work for both.
I follow Jacques through cracked glass doors into a barren foyer, up narrow, more barren stairs that get darker and more claustrophobic with every step. In the U.S., I would never follow a man I didn’t know (whose car I just wrecked) up dark stairs in a dingy building in a neighborhood I’ve never been with no one knowing where I am or whom I’m with, but this is France, and I do what’s expected. I follow the rules even if I don’t understand them, especially if I don’t understand them.
Jacques unlocks the door, opens it wide, and lets me in. His wife is standing in the hallway, waiting, expectant, terrified. She’s three times the volume of Jacques, about five-foot-five square, and she’s palpably shaking. I don’t know if it’s because of the accident and she’s worried about Jacques and the car, or she’s scared I’ll butcher her and her husband on the spot. We stand there staring at each other: she trembling like late Parkinson’s, me squirming because I left the house at 8:15, and it’s almost noon, and I have to pee. I blurt, “Madame toilette,” which is like calling her “Mrs. Bathroom.”
She points to a door, and I go in and pee like a horse.
When I exit, I see she’s stopped shaking and has relaxed. Somehow, I’ve put her at ease by letting her know I’m more frightened and confused than she. I stand there, smiling like a jerk, then point to my Renault booklet and make a writing motion with my hand.
(Not Quite) Mastering the Art of French Living Page 3