After everyone’s patience had already been tested, the calm response of the crowd to find the solution in the skip bins is touching. Street poetry. An unlikely addition to my enchantment files. And another ‘first of’ experience for me. My first time waiting on the streets of Marseille. My first time feeling like I was in a cattle race. My first time standing under the navy red and white Drapeau: the flag of my new home. My first ever time where, apart from Loup, I am the only white-skinned supplicant. My first time where the whistle of the guard will decide my immediate future, as he unlocks the barriers and the swarm is on. He is barking orders in French, but Loup just keeps pushing me forward, up those stained concrete stairs.
‘Aller aller aller, Go go go Frey! Stop giving way to people,’ Loup hisses.
Within what seems like only five minutes, it is all over. The burly man blows his whistle again, and drops the barricade. We are on the cusp. Lunging for the finish line, Loup shoves me up, through the door, politely but insistently urging the guard to let us through. I am mortified.
‘But Loup, that black couple in front of us, they didn’t get through! This is horrible, it is so wrong!’
‘Don’t worry, they’ll come back tomorrow…like everyone else. Besides, they probably live in Marseille, not an hour away like us’.
I felt lousy, my skin stained. Nevertheless grateful that we were in, and that I wouldn’t have to stand again in that goddamned gutter at 6.30 a.m. tomorrow.
The Prefect and the Count.
Six weeks later. Attending the shabby Préfecture is now a familiar ritual, but no less intimidating. The getting up early to catch the train, a humdrum commute with head-phoned-nodding-heads, reminiscent of the 7.03 express from Belgrave to Melbourne. After forty-five minutes, I descend down the steep white steps of Gare Saint Charles. Careful not to tread on sleeping bodies, or collide with the market vendors as they set up their stands in the Rue Longue des Capucins. Smells jostle: fish, cumin, Turkish coffee, incense. Careful to avoid stepping in dog shit; bypassing the spray of the street-cleaners as they disinfect and wash away the signs of a night in the city. By contrast, I pass mothers pushing prams, leading toddlers to kindergarten. See neighbours showing kindness to other neighbours, and shutters three storeys up flung open with the promise of a new day. I return the jovial ‘Bonjours’ as people take their dogs for a morning squat.
I have a small map folded in my hand. Rues and Chemins and corners have been memorised; I’m determined to not stop in the middle of the footpath like a tourist and look out of place. Making every trajectory an adventure, I cut across the city on a diagonal grid, avoiding the main roads, just as I do between North Fitzroy and South Melbourne. Preferring as always the narrow paths.
The journey from the train Gare to the Préfecture up on Rue Saint Sébastien takes me thirty-five minutes, and along the way I glimpse every kind of cultural nuance, from Arabian hookah stalls to Kenzo haute couture. In fact, my journey takes me past another Préfecture, an imposing building with grandiose doors and elaborate windows, which has nothing in common with the unkempt, low-cost concrete bunker for the Étrangers. For we are strange, us foreigners.
I tear off my paper number and wait; with the other strangers. High up on the discoloured walls fluorescent green numbers flash, accompanied by loud buzzing: M988, then on another screen, orange V354, followed by red B702. There seems to be no clear pattern. Names are called out via a loudspeaker: florid, multi-syllabled surnames. Veiled women in tight jeans and skinny men in Olympique de Marseille T-shirts, rush toward closed doors.
I bide my time, once again mesmerised by watching people with ebony eyes and exotic hair; by the curves of the black women; by the meagre frames of the old men, their white beards and turbans signalling something other. Could they quell the fear I silently share with the other mothers? That this room, with its weight of great expectations, could suddenly turn rampant? I hear a woman exclaiming with joy, and turn to see the only other blonde in the room brandishing a red, white, and blue document and gleaming ID card. Across the other side of thefloor, family groups sit tensely watching the screens, their whole future captive in those random numbers. I too am tense.
Because this time, my third visit, I am here alone. Loup could not take another morning off work, and besides the exercise is good for me. Good for practicing my French; for building confidence. But the longer I wait, the more the crowd go in and out those confounded doors, the more my confidence wanes. I have watched thirty or so couples called up before me. Leaning against the stair rail, I offer to help a pregnant mother in tribal colours, carrying her toddler in a pusher down the grubby stairs to the vending machine for water. I strain for the sound of my name. Nothing. Finally I see the number 511 flash up and panic. Why have they skipped my number, 508? There are now only three people left in the airless room.
Two of them jump from their fixed metal seats, banging on the closed-door shouting in a jumbled mix of French and something else, their great expectations shattering. A young man with a goatee and shoes to match his Gaelic nose thrusts them aside and tells them to go away,
‘The Préfecture is closed ... c'est fermée. Please leave now, as it is 12 midi. We are closed until next week.’
‘But wait, si’l vous plaît Monsieur. Monsieur?’
It’s hopeless; even as the young couple are begging to be heard, the pointy-nose man waves his soon-to-be-lit cigarette at them, threatening them with the security guard. I take the plunge, indignant at the injustice, emboldened by my number. I should have been called up a long time ago. Joining in the commotion, I rush to the opaque glass wall, calling through the small opening,
‘Je vous en prie Monsieur, I’ve been waiting over two hours, much longer than those who came later and yet were called before me! Ce n’est pas juste!’
A 30-something man, who in other circumstances might be considered attractive, bends and peers down his nose through the hole, stifling a sneer.
‘Madame, what is your name?’ He snatches my paper number.
‘Je suis Freya Gordon, wife of Monsieur Zorn.'
‘Alors,’ air descending noisily from equine nostrils, ‘your name was called an hour ago Madame. Madame Etd-err Jorr-don, n’est ce pas?’
I realize the fuck up.
‘Heather is my middle name, I am sorry; I did not hear or understand,’ realizing I may have been down the stairs carrying the pram and that I missed the obvious clue: the French don’t pronounce the ‘H’ as we do. And the ‘G’ is often soft like our ‘J’.
‘Please Monsieur, can we try and sort this out quickly?
Je vous en prie, my father is gravely ill, and I need urgently to go to Australia. Please... just for a short stay, s’il vous plaît.’
‘Ce n’est pas possible Madame, you must be present ici, to renew your carte de sejour in two weeks. You must not leave France’.
‘But my husband and I applied four months ago when we were told to, and I haven’t even received my first one!’
‘Madame, you know we have very long list, people must be patient. You must not leave France. Go now, it is ten past midday. Our building is closed for lunch.
‘Well, lucky for you, you work in the public service’, I snap, ‘vous avez le bon chance d’être fonctionaire!’
‘Partez NOW Madame!’
Incensed, I blindly run down the stairs; a security guard indicates with embarrassment that I must leave via the rear.
‘Allez par là, Madame, en bas’.
Down a darkened hallway, emerging through the door marked ‘SORTIE’ into the glare of the Marseille midday. Fuming, I find myself in the staff car park, and must negotiate the boom gates to exit. All along the footpath, people are leaning in the shadow of doorways, smoking. Instantly, I pass a café and recognise the young blonde man with the pointy nose and matching shoes. He is sitting outside drinking what looks like pastis, cigarette in hand, with his meal on the table.
I cannot resist.
‘Bon appetit Monsieur!�
�� I say, sidling past. My tone is neutral… could be sincere, could be facetious. Depends on the mood of the recipient. Without hesitation, the man is on his feet yelling after me, waving and pointing his prefect’s finger.
‘How dare you address me in the street Madame!! Vous n’avez pas le droit! You don’t have any right to speak to me at all!’
And on he goes, accosting me in French. People file out from all the shops. I cannot tell if they are for or against me. So I just keep walking, holding my head high despite quaking, racing to round the corner so I can let the tears come.
Corniche du Président-John-Fitzgerald-Kennedy
Wandering defeated, jostled between the lunchtime crowds, I cannot summon my usual enthusiasm for the shops along Rue Paradis. I resent the slender women in their transparent linen pants, and despise the men’s pink Lacoste polo shirts with their collars turned up. I just want to be at home where getting dressed is more about comfort than pretence. I want to see my Dad. And hug him in his old green New Zealand merino pullover.
Needing the toilet, I enter the shopping gallery Lafayette, knowing from past experience that secluded behind the men’s wear, there is a clean toilet presided over by a friendly woman from Madagascar. I go there to pee and to chat in simple French whenever I have to come to Marseille. But this time there is no welcoming black lady in a white uniform and netted hair propped on a stool, cleaning products in her bucket beside her. The toilet is closed. Compounding the foul taste of the day.
To rid this irritation, I seek out ‘Sephora’ and anticipate an olfactory orgasm, spraying first one wrist with Chance by Chanel, then the other with my new discovery, Jardin sur la Troit by Hermes. Lingering amongst the perfume, I appropriate a new edge: a complex, citrus acumen; a grown-up, otherworldly tang. I regain my verve, joining in the promenade down La Canabière to the old port, where I saunter with the throng along the dazzling quay. I gaze at the luxury yachts, feigning bored familiarity. Pretending to be local and entitled.
The “Bon Appetit” incident is rescued by walking the length of the iconic Corniche, which bears the name of President John F Kennedy. A legendary road, it’s beauty immortalized by guns fired through car windows, or at closer range, into motorbike helmets. By the mortality it has brought to those seeking heroism, or justice. Right and wrong. Today, la Corniche is all coquetry and innocence, apart from the usual theatrics. There are G-stringed volleyball players and muscled men fishing and even a trio of men trying to lower a grand piano down a steep rock wall and manoeuvre it into place on the sand far below. Their antics attract a crowd and stop the traffic, as the shining piano swerves precariously in the air, at once vulnerable and dangerous. Mopeds squeal, swerving and drivers honk and abuse. The men all drive their cars with one arm loitering outside, loping down to the door handle… anticipating a godfather-style getaway?
The women stuck in the traffic jam have cigarettes stuck between their lips. They are experts at drawing and exhaling, hands-free. Every driver ignores the rules on no-mobiles, having one hand and ear glued to their phones. In fact, ignoring rules is what they seem to do best in Marseille. It will take me three years to aspire to this law breaking, when I discover that coming from a nanny-state once settled by convicts, is a hindrance. Which can however be overcome with perseverance and practice.
Ten-past midday today had been my first practice, and I’m proud of my achievement. Ruffling the prefects. But now I must figure out how and when I can see my ailing father. I concentrate on how to pray. I pray that my Dad will pull through. Will wait. As I walk, I try to recall if my parents had ever visited Marseille. Bob would have been intrigued by the city’s robust history: its ancient Roman architecture. Its more recent underworld history might have seemed far-fetched; a challenge for his conservatism. But my father was not afraid of grit: always open to another enigma, another piece of knowledge.
I will walk a long way: past the elite Prado, past the Château Borély, past the naked David to the supermarket opposite the sea, where Loup will meet me after work. The late spring dusk is hot, pre-empting the scorching summer. The sea reflects the heat back up and the stonewall absorbs all that warmth. But the water does not tempt me, having heard Loup and others dismiss it as filthy. The bay’s enchantment is nevertheless indisputable. And the distant rocky island where the Count of Monte Christo was incarcerated in the Château d’If glimmers: the mercurial stuff of fantasy and legend. And much farther around the coast, past the craggy tip of la Madrague, commence the breath-taking Calanques.
When, one day, Loup and I explore the greater coastline, I am besotted. Falling in love with Le Mugel. And with the growing of that love, that adoration, I learn that the Mugel, along with the Corniche, possesses secrets of danger and corruption and murder. Later, on the other side of the world, Loup and I will recognise this mystery place as a backdrop for characters in movies re-telling such stories, revelling in our tenuous connection.
But for now, all is bathed in the gentle glow of a clichéd spring sunset. I regret that for my excursion to the Préfecture, I made an effort and wore heels. High heels and a dress, a dress which when the sea breeze blows, drifts apart too high above the knee, exposing more thigh than I’m used to. I overheard an American say on the train that to dress like the French women, one must always expose some part of the body. But I am shy, slow to adopt the style of one shoulder completely bare, a bold bra strap, a side-slit skirt, or glued on pants that reveal more than they hide. But today a man approaches and says,
‘Bonjour Mademoiselle, you must be from Corsica?’
‘Ah… non Monsieur, pourquoi?’
‘Alors, les femmes always dress like this. Très sexy.’
I cut him off half way through his invitation to ‘prends une verre ensemble’. Despite the satisfaction that I’ve been mistaken for a French woman, that sartorial coquetry earned me the offer of a drink, I still feel uncomfortable.
I wish I were in my more typical shorts and runners. People of all ages jog past, and again I observe that there is a French style of jogging. I first noticed it in the parks around Paris; a kind of restrained trot, so as not to induce sweat, or impinge on the enjoyment of others? Here at least, most runners freely sweat, exerting obvious effort. Everything here in the south seems to be more ebullient and demonstrative. Right now, the bare breasts parading below on the sand are a little too ebullient: their proximity to the main thoroughfare perplexing. I am ashamed of my own modest chest, so the idea of revealing my lack in public is appalling. A young woman preparing to sun-bake startles me: her breasts are abnormally large and perfect; surely fake, which is the confounding trend here. The girl lathers her alabaster skin with oil, hitching her bathers up her bum-cheeks until she appears naked. She parades on her long legs along the shoreline like a show pony. Seemingly unaware of the effect she is having. A man in skimpy speedos stands a little apart, fixated, and appears to have a hard-on. For an instant I am in the film ‘Swimming Pool’ standing above, watching from a hidden window with Charlotte Rampling. Freya the voyeur, Frey the tomboy, drowning in blurred eroticism, and all the while clinging to her damned prudishness for ballast.
‘Puis-je vous accompanier, Madame?’
Caught, I swing around, blushing that this well-dressed man tipping his cap might have read my thoughts. How long has he been behind me? Have we been walking and watching the same sights all this time? The same erotic tease?
‘Ah oui Monsieur. Bonjour…je vous en prie.’ I use my politest tone.
‘But I will be stopping soon…. my husband is coming to pick me up’, I add, the old Baptist in me straight to the fore. I tug my dress in between my thighs; the wind would have them revealed.
‘Oh, you are English, Madame?’
‘Non, je suis Australienne’ hoping my savagery will mire his interest. But on the contrary, this small fact incites further curiosity, even admiration. I am undecided as to whether I want him to disappear, or restore my morale. The Préfecture ban on returning home is depressing,
as is the loneliness I carry like an affliction. And the anxiety about having to strip down on a Mediterranean beach this summer doesn’t help. I decide there is no harm in letting this silver-haired stranger accompany me. No harm in learning some French.
Naked David
Jean-Pierre Christophe Laconte introduces himself with tongue-in-cheek aplomb, adding ‘Je suis le troisième’.
‘Umm,’ I hesitate, thinking… 3rd Arrondissement? That’s the only other context in which I’ve heard Troisième… then I get it,
‘Ca va dire vous êtes, how do you say, a Lord or a Count or something?’
‘Exactement, je suis Count Jean-Pierre Laconte the 3rd, I think you say in English.’
‘Wow, c’est formidable!’ not sure if J.P. Christophe is having me on, but eager to use the new French word I’ve acquired.
‘Ma famille sont habitait ici, à Marseillea very long time. In fact, I’ve lived always in la maison de mes grandparents. Just behind you, in the Vallon desAuffes. It is très jolie, how do you say in English… a place of beaucoup de charme and character, with a vue sur lamer. C’est impressionante!’
Ah yes, I know that word, impressive.
I want to go there, to gaze down on the scintillating sea from the shuttered windows of his grandmother’s kitchen. And soak up; wallow in, the generous servings of charm.
Looking to where J.P. waves his arm, I recall that this was in fact the first and only place Loup had brought me to dine as his date in Marseille. A typical quayside seafood restaurant; nothing pretentious, jammed in between rock retaining walls and boat ramps and mounds of colourful fishing nets and the hungry water lapping at the edge of the tables. Smelling of the depths of the ocean; of bouillabaise and moulles and frites and rosé.
Again, I want to exclaim 'formidable’, but find a different adjective to compliment my new friend, ‘C’est génial!’
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