Pardon My French

by Allen Johnson

  Juanito and I did indeed become friends. Over the years, we have traveled throughout the United States and Canada, from New York City to New Orleans, from the Glacier National Park to the Grand Canyon, from Seattle to Prince Albert Island. In France we traveled throughout le Midi. But our most memorable European excursions took us to his beloved homeland, Spain.

  Fluent in Spanish, Juanito was the perfect guide for me in Spain. He adopted my traveling style, which is characterized by frequent stops in hidden places to talk with the townspeople.

  Juanito often said that by traveling with me, he came to truly know the United States. “The French who have vacationed in the United States think they know the country,” he would say. “They don’t. I know the States, thanks to my American friend.”

  I echo Juanito’s gratitude. I came to know Spain through his eyes. In fact, the time we spent together wandering through Spain, engaging in conversation about his childhood and the Spanish Civil War, was the inspiration for my novel, The Awakening. The book is dedicated to my dear friend Juanito.

  One weekend Juanito took me to his summer home in the Cévennes, eighty-five miles north of Montpellier. Isolated and bucolic, it was a tiny village called La Moline. Juanito was reenergized with each visit. He especially loved restoring the village well and the domed wood-fired bread oven.

  I once asked him why he took so much pleasure in restoration.

  “It is our history,” he said. “This is the France that should never be forgotten. The highways will come. The malls will be built. But this is la France profonde, and it must always be embraced as sacred.”

  Our first evening there Juanito prepared paella, a wonderful Spanish casserole mixture of Valencian rice, green vegetables, beans, and in this case, rabbit. (Other variations substitute chicken, duck, sausage, snails, or seafood.) I could see that Juanito took pride in his cuisine and rightly so. It was exquisite, and I ate enough for at least two.

  At the end of the meal, Juanito asked if I would like a little more wine.

  “Yes, I think I would. It’s quite good.”

  “That’s all you have to say about my wine? It’s quite good?”

  I looked askance at Juanito. I thought I detected a hint of playfulness in his eyes, so I went along for the ride. “I know that you think that wine is a food group, but I’m not ready to join that club. Besides, what would you like me to say? That your wine is the quintessence of virtue, as seductive as a beautiful woman, as sumptuous as a warm summer night on the French Rivera? Come on, it’s a glass of wine. I don’t want to make love to it; I just want to slug it down.”

  Juanito was absolutely silent for five long beats, his eyes burning into mine. Then, perfectly expressionless, he said, “I forgive you.”

  It made me laugh out loud, but Juanito was not laughing.

  My God, had I really offended him? “You’re not laughing,” I said.

  “You noticed that,” he said, as chilling as a northeasterly mistral wind.

  “Juanito, I’m … I’m so sorry.”

  Only then did Juanito allow a slow smile to brighten his face.

  “You dirty dog,” I said in English. “You had me worried, you know.”

  “Well, you were talking about French wine. There are some things you just don’t trivialize.”

  “D’accord. I will try to be more reverent in the future.”

  “See that you are.”

  To help digest our meal (not to mention settle my stomach after that lowdown trick), Juanito suggested a game of pétanque, which I had never played. He led me to a flat piece of terrain near his home, picked up a stick, and drew an eighteen-inch-diameter circle in the dirt.

  “Stand inside the circle,” he said, “and keep both feet on the ground at all times.”

  “Okay, I can do that.”

  Then he threw a small bright-green ball about twenty feet from where we were standing.

  “That’s your target,” Juanito said. “That green ball is called le cochonnet.”

  “Ah, the piglet,” I translated.

  “Yes, the piglet. That’s your target. Try to get as close as you can to le cochonnet.”

  “Sounds easy enough,” I said with American swagger, to which Juanito gave me a wily smile. I did not like that smile. He handed me a hollow metal ball (une boule) that was a shade smaller than an American softball. It weighed about a pound and a half.

  I felt the heft of the boule in my hand, sighted the cochonnet, bent my knees, and launched the metal sphere into the air. The ball rolled to about two feet of the cochonnet.

  “Hmm, I think I like this game,” I said puffing up my chest. I didn’t step out of the circle; I hopped out, landed on one foot, and froze like a sprinter crossing the finish line. “Beat that monsieur, if you think you are man enough.”

  “Well, I’ll give it a try,” Juanito said softly.

  He took his position and squinted his eyes at the target. “Well played Allen. But I’m not ready to give up quite yet.”

  “Don’t stiffen up,” I mocked. “You’re not as young as you used to be,” which was silly because although Juanito was a dozen years my senior, he was as agile as a teenager.

  “Oh, I think I’ll manage all right,” he said in that truly annoying deferential tone of his when he knows that he has everything perfectly under control.

  He slowly crouched and with his hand placed on top of the ball, flipped the orb with a perfect reverse spin. His boule cracked into mine, which sent it flying, while his ball rolled serenely to within two or three inches from the cochonnet.

  Now, I should tell you that I keep my competitive impulse on a short leash on most occasions. I am calm, dignified, and sportingly magnanimous. This was not one of those times. “So it’s going to be that way, is it?” I snarled. “Well, let’s just see about that.”

  I stepped into the circle and, imitating Juanito’s stylish reverse spin, lofted the ball into the air. My boule landed with a thud some four or five feet off the mark. “The sun was in my eyes,” I whimpered, which was ridiculous because the sun had already slipped behind the mountain crest.

  “Yeah, that sun can be merciless this time of day,” Juanito said with a wink.

  The match continued like that—me unloading disparaging wisecracks as my balls landed in the brush, and Juanito coolly planting his steel balls with pinpoint precision. Boy, he was irritating.

  After a while, Juanito stopped keeping score, either out of boredom or compassion.

  As we walked back to the house, I put my arm around Juanito and said, “If I have to lose so horribly, I’m glad it was to someone with your character. You almost make losing a pleasure. Almost.”

  When I put my arm around Juanito, he put his arm around me. Over time, I discovered it was something he would invariably do. Some men, maybe most, have difficulty expressing affection, especially a physical gesture of affection. Outside of the obligatory greeting kisses, the French are even more reserved than Americans. Juanito was not like that. Although he was Hemingway-esque in his manliness, he was never shy about being tender. (Just in case you were wondering, no, we were not lovers. We are both too much in love with women in general and with our wives in particular. It is just that Juanito is one of those rare men who feels completely at peace in his own skin—a quality that I find irresistible.)

  La Moline is three-thousand feet above sea level, so it can get cool when the sun calls it a day. Juanito stoked up a fire in the little house, and in a few minutes we were seated comfortably in front of the fire, our feet propped up on the hearth, a glass of wine in hand.

  We started talking. We covered a wide range of topics: family, work, politics, women, even death and dying. That was one thing about the two of us. We could talk freely about anything.

  When we got to the topic of religion, I recounted a favorite joke of mine.

  One day in the Garden of Eden, Adam told God that he was feeling lonely.

  God pondered for a moment and said, “Hmm, I’ll make you a
woman.”

  “That sounds like a good idea,” Adam said. “What will she do?”

  “She will take care of all of your needs,” God said. “She will wash your clothes (when you have clothes that is), cook your meals, support your decisions, and satisfy all your sexual desires.”

  “Wow! What will that cost?” Adam asked.

  “Well,” God said, not one for pulling punches, “it won’t be cheap. Frankly, it will cost you an arm and a leg.”

  Adam grimaced. “Yikes, what can I get for a rib?”

  After telling the story, Juanito stared back at me with a flummoxed expression—a look that said, “Et alors—so what happened then?”

  Granted, the joke probably didn’t warrant a horselaugh, and, yes, some might be offended by its sexist overtones, but I was still surprised by the deadpan reaction. The joke always seemed to work in the States.

  Suddenly, I had a hunch that Juanito didn’t get the joke because he didn’t know his Bible.

  “Are you religious?” I asked.

  “I’m Catholic,” he said.

  “Then you believe that God sent his only begotten son to die on the cross for your salvation?”

  Juanito shook his head. “No.”

  “Then you are not a Catholic.”

  “Yes I am.”

  “No you’re not.”

  That went on for a few rounds until Juanito explained that being Catholic in France was not necessarily about being croyant, a believer. It was about being a part of a long tradition. I could not convince Juanito that he was not Catholic because he was Catholic in a much broader sense than sheer doctrine. He was Catholic by two-thousand years of history: the grand cathedrals, the religious holidays, the Christian pilgrimages, like the long trek to Santiago de Compostela in northwest Spain, which Juanito had hiked more than once.

  (By the way, over the next few weeks I conducted a short experiment. I told the Adam-and-God joke to a dozen French friends. None of them got it because none of them knew the Bible story. Of the twelve interviewees, only one described herself as a “true believer.” So I tested her knowledge of the Bible by asking her to name the four gospels of the New Testament. She didn’t have a clue.

  My intent is not to ridicule the French but merely describe what I discovered. The French are overwhelmingly Catholic by tradition, but they are not religious. Only a small percentage—less than ten percent—attend weekly mass.)

  After discussing religion, our conversation turned to politics and, after another glass of wine, to sex. Juanito had a joke of his own, which he told with an English accent. You haven’t heard anything if you have not heard Juanito tell a joke in French with an imperious English dialect.

  A duke and his duchess are reposing in the library. The duke is smoking his favorite pipe and reading The London Times. At a side table is a glass of port, which he sips from time to time. After a moment, the duchess says, “Oh, dearie, I am afraid that you must speak to our son, Randolph.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes, I think it is time that you spoke to him about the birds and the bees.”

  “Really? The birds and the bees you say.”

  “Oh yes, indeed.”

  “Then I will do just that,” the duke says, not looking up from his paper.

  The next evening, the duke and Randolph have a private conversation in the library.

  “Oh Randolph old chum, I wonder if we might have a little chat.”

  “Why, of course, Papa.”

  “Jolly good. Randolph, do you remember when you and I visited London last spring?”

  “Oh yes, Papa.”

  “And do you remember the beautiful ladies we met when we were there?”

  “Oh yes, Papa.”

  “And do you remember what we did with those beautiful ladies?”

  “Oh yes, Papa.”

  “Well, your mother would like you to know that the birds and the bees do the exact same thing.”

  Juanito had me doubled over with laughter. Yes, the joke was funny, but the telling of the story was priceless.

  When I had finally collected myself, I revisited a conversation that Juanito and I had with his friend, Dario, on the coast of Spain.

  “It is important to have a mistress,” Dario had said, without the slightest qualm. “In fact, it is thanks to my mistress that I can have a deeper, more loving relationship with my wife.”

  At the time I asked Dario if he was serious, and he assured me that indeed he was.

  Dario’s reasoning was absolutely convoluted to me. “I could never do that,” I confessed to Juanito. “I just cannot be that duplicitous. I mean, how can you expect to have an intimate relationship with your wife while living a secret life with another woman? Sure, I’ve been tempted. Who hasn’t? But in the end, it would be a despicable act of betrayal. I could never do that to Nita.”

  It was then that I told Juanito about Caroline and the acting camp: the seduction, the temptation, the drive home in the early morning hours, the suspicion, and, ultimately, the warm and tender embrace of two devoted lovers.

  Juanito listened carefully to my story, laughed at the characterization of my clumsy modesty, and finally grew solemn when the story came to a close. He nodded his head, smiled, and said, “You’re a good man, Allen.” His eyes were shining.

  We continued talking freely, contemplating the meaning of sex, romance, and love until the fire burned itself out, and we finally called it a night.

  As I drifted off to sleep, I thought about Juanito’s character. There was an openness about him that could only come from supreme self-confidence. It was not an arrogant self-confidence, but a simple, unruffled sense of peace.

  I wanted more of that internal serenity for myself. Oh, most of the time I can rest easy, but when I’m tired, I can quickly become irritable.

  Here’s an example. Juanito and I were on one of our trips to Spain. It was the end of the day, and I was exhausted after a long drive. We pitched our tent and sat down at a picnic table for a makeshift dinner. I hunched over my bowl of soup like a prisoner of war guarding his meager rations.

  Sensing my fatigue, Juanito asked me how I was doing.

  That innocuous question was all it took. I snapped. “I’m doing fine. Just leave me alone for a few minutes. Is that too much to ask?”

  Juanito did not say another word. He took a short walk, and when he returned, we hit the sack in silence.

  The next morning, I apologized to Juanito.

  “It’s all right,” he said. Then after a moment he asked, “Do you know where that comes from?”

  I was still embarrassed by my own actions, so it was not a question I particularly wanted to entertain. Still, I knew that Juanito merited a thoughtful and genuine response. Plus, maybe talking about it would help me get to a better place.

  I thought for a moment. “Well, it would be easy to blame it all on my father. He was always quick to anger. I basically stayed clear of him my entire life.”

  “I see.”

  “But that’s unfair. I need to take charge of my own actions. Now that I think about it, I think it may have something to do with my quest for perfection.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, to pick on my dad again, I always thought that I had a shot at earning his love by being perfect. And when I was not perfect, like last night, I hated myself for it.”

  Juanito let that register for a moment. “You know, Allen, we all have our demons to fight. The trick is not to be beaten down. I like your facility for self-examination because that is what makes us all better men.”

  Juanito’s choice of words did not elude me. When he said, “that is what makes us all better men,” he was including himself in the injunction. Although he could have easily and rightly excluded himself, I did appreciate the generous inference.

  Juanito and I became very close. We had a number of common interests: travel, hiking, tennis, music, conversation. Another shared passion was bicycling. On one of our biking day-trip
s, we rode along the canal from Pérols to Aigues-Mortes, a thirty-mile roundtrip excursion. Aigues-Mortes was always a favorite destination of mine. The walled medieval village was the starting point of the seventh and eighth crusades, led by Louis IX in the thirteenth-century. Whenever I’m there, I feel like I should be entering, not on a bicycle, but on a faithful, fully armored steed.

  We rode through the gate and into the heart of the medieval city, the Saint-Louis Square, with its magnificent nineteenth-century sculpture of Louis IX at its center. We leaned our bikes against the wall of a café and sat down for coffee and a pastry. After a long ride, it was a luxury to sit back, extend our legs, and watch the tourists and townspeople stroll by.

  “I have something on my mind,” I said to Juanito.

  “Oui.”

  As I leaned across the small table, my voice became softer and more deliberate. “Juanito,” I said, “I think of you as mon âme sœur,” which literally means “my soul sister” but is translated into English as “my kindred spirit.” Yes, using the word “sister” has always seemed a little strange to me, but that’s the expression.

  Juanito smiled. “Me too.”

  “In fact, I have come to think of you as my brother. Would you be willing to be my brother—if not in blood, in spirit?”

  Juanito’s smile grew even wider. “Of course I would. That would be a great honor.”

  And so he and I became brothers at that moment in the Saint-Louis Square of Aigues-Mortes. Then we talked about what it meant to be a brother—mostly how important it was to be there when the other was in need. We both agreed on that creed, a creed that Juanito upheld two weeks later.

  It was another sunny morning in Pérols. I was late for a doubles tennis match that paired two friends against Juanito and me. I strapped on my tennis racket, straddled my bicycle, and started pedaling furiously. By the time I had gotten to the town center, I knew I was making good time, but there was still another half mile to the courts. I stood up on my bike to kick it up a notch.

  When I’m bicycling, I never feel completely safe sharing the road with French drivers. So when I spotted a driveway cut into the sidewalk, I leaned into the ramp. I was almost parallel to the curb when my tire caught the lip of concrete, went into a slide, and smacked me to the cement faster than I could say, “Aïe aïe aïe!”