Houseboat on the Seine: A Memoir

by William Wharton

  Next, I go straighten out my winch, wrap the longer of its two chains around the largest tree on the bank, bring it down and attach both ends to the hook on the other end of the winch. I begin cranking to take up any slack. I’ll be trying the impossible, digging a channel through the sand barge with my shovel into which I can pull my canted boat against the shore. This is all according to my general life-theory that if you don’t know how things shouldht done, everything is possible.

  I wade into the water in Jo’s hip boots, carrying the shovel. I decide I probably won’t need the bucket. I’ll just throw the sand farther out into the river. I’m wishing I had Matt with me to crank the winch as I dig. I start digging. The boat looms above me. I dig under the rear end of the boat on the land side, where it’s grounded. Each time I think I’ve cleared it a smidgen, I give a few cranks on the winch. I can’t tell if it’s working or not. A few passersby are convinced I’ve completely lost my marbles. It goes slowly, but I can actually see the boat is inching its way closer to shore. I check to see if the cables I’ve strung holding the front of the barge are secure enough.

  They’re fine. I’m back in the water. I’m working out the hang of it. Thank God, that sandbar is sand, so most of what I scoop into my shovel, I can actually throw out of the way, deeper into the river. If it were mud, as most of the bottom here is, it’d be hopeless.

  Just then, the beat-up deux chevaux arrives. It’s one of lesfreres Teurnier, the one who dressed M. Jacques Teurnier in his diving suit. He stares at me a few minutes, trying to figure it out, then begins to laugh. It’s as if he’s crept up on someone building a pyramid with pebbles. I admit I’m beginning to have great sympathy for those Egyptian slaves working in the shadow of pyramids hanging over them, stacking gigantic blocks while they weren’t even sure if the whole uncanny-looking mess wasn’t going to topple over on them.

  When he’s finished laughing, he begins hauling out more equipment. I’m still puzzled about how he’s going to cut out the windows, we can’t even get into the bottom boat now. I have only a very small plastic dinghy without any oars from which he can work. It came with the wooden boat. He looks around, shrugs. I’m wishing I had Matt to translate. He makes movements as if he’s rowing a boat. / shrug. He holds up a finger and goes downriver along the chemin de halage past the Le Clerc boat. I go back to my digging in the river.

  The next thing I know, he’s rowing a huge metal rowboat laboriously upriver. He pulls it close to the barge, where it’s been cut off and where I’m still digging. I’ll never know how he conjured up this monstrosity of a rowboat, but it’s perfect for the job. He edges close to shore and indicates I’m to pass the equipment he’s unloaded onto the bank into the boat.

  This proves to be just barely within my capacity. These river men must be strong as gorillas. And I’m amazed at the number of tools, from gas tanks to red electrical boxes, that are needed.

  When I have all the equipment passed on and am ready to pass out myself, he muscles his way up onto the deck of the barge, then hands down the equipment that’s up there. He gives me a sign to wait, and walks along the plank onto the berge. He climbs up and pulls from his car coils of heavy electrical wire. I watch as he plugs this wire into the mains of the wooden boat, uncoils it toward us along the apron of the metal barge and leads it down to where I’ve been digging.

  After checking to see if the equipment is working, he motions me to join him in his rowboat. I can just struggle myself up the side and fall to the bottom. He hands me a piece of blue chalk and makes a motion with his arm for me to indicate where I want the back window cut. We’re cutting this window into the sliced-off end of the barge. I’ve no idea of what I want; I’m working blind. Practically at random, I mark out about where I’d like a big window cut from the bulkhead.

  ♦

  He hands me a helmet with thick glasses and indicates I should put it on my head. I do this. Now we’re astronauts about ready to take a space walk. He shows me how to keep the wires and tubes from tangling, at the same time holding the rowboat tight close to the barge. Practically without warning, he then starts to cut through the metal with a huge spinning disk. A shower of sparks fly like fireworks, bouncing against him, me and the boat, giant sparklers on the Fourth of July. He’s resolutely cutting through the metal, right along the blue chalk line I made so casually. I’m hoping the lines are square, but he seems to have a level and rule built into his mind. In half an hour, he has the entire rectangle cut out, except for a small corner on the river side. It’s about two meters wide and a meter high.

  He lifts his helmet and goggles, then hand-signals the question, smiling, shrugging. He wants to know where he should put the piece he’s about finished cutting. I shrug back, my French is improving. He points down into the river just below where he’s been cutting. I nod OK. What else?

  He leaves everything in the boat, including me, and runs up to his car. He scrambles back with what looks like a giant’s crowbar. With this, he angles the huge metal rectangle he’s made away from the back of the boat, prying it out. He motions for me to climb out of the boat. I do this with no misgivings. He then pushes the rowboat away from the barge a half meter and gives one more quick flashing cut with his revolving wheel. That immense plate of solid steel drops into the water like a knife. I watch as it settles to the bottom. He smiles, pushes his helmet and goggles back. I smile, I don’t know why. I wonder how this chunk of steel imbedded in the sandbar is going to affect my digging operation.

  Let There Be Light!

  Now, from the same power line, he rigs an electric light and passes it into the hull of the boat. He points at his feet, and I realize I should change from these high hip boots to my smaller boots in the upper boat. Using the same plank he did, I manage to muscle my way up there. God, it’s a mess. When I come back, he has all the cutting equipment inside the barge. He’s also digging on the bank with my shovel and filling the bucket with wet river sand. He walks the plank to the upper boat with bucket in hand, and motions me into the lower boat. I make my awkward scrabble into the rowboat. I’m losing all pride. He lowers the bucket of sand from the deck of the upper boat down to me. It must weigh much less up there than it does down where I am, because I almost drop the whole thing and have a hard time keeping my balance.

  I lean the bucket on the bottom ledge of the ragged, sharp-cut hole. He’s already lowering himself, like an acrobat, from the barge down to the rowboat, a rowboat I could probably never even row. He eases himself through the newly cut window, pointing out to me the sharpness of the edges, and that I’m to come in with him. Luckily, I’m wearing the gloves I wore while shoveling away my sandbar. In comparison, that little escapade begins to look like fun and games.

  Inside, he’s hung the light. He has a welding torch and the tanks set up on the floor. Together, we haul the acetylene and oxygen tanks down from his deux chevaux into the rowboat and then into the barge. I can feel my back wanting to slip right out of my body; I tighten my butt.

  When we’re all ready, he wants to know where I want the windows cut. I try to remember Teurnier’s instructions. I take the blue chalk, and, in the semidark, without being able to see where the water line really is on the outside, I start marking windows at least a meter apart, not more than a meter wide each, and, hopefully, at least a half meter above water level. I keep peeking out the back window to make an approximation and pray we don’t sink this boat.

  He points out how I’m to stay beside him while wearing my helmet and glasses. He pantomimes clearly that if a spark lights the oil around us, we could burn or explode, so I’m to throw sand on it immediately. I wonder if this is standard procedure or if he’s just some kind of sadist who enjoys watching the American turn white.

  It’s amazing how fast he cuts out the windows. I mark between times as he cuts away. I mark four windows on the land side. I’m hoping to have six on the river side, making eleven windows in all, counting the one in back. I have no idea how I’m going to use all this
space in the hull, but I know I want less visibility from the bank and more vistas looking over the river.

  By some magic, probably his experience, we come out with the bottoms of the windows about sixty centimeters above water level. It’s a strange feeling because, looking out, the water level is about knee-height inside. But there is some light now.

  A Taste of Real Work

  We work all day long. Luckily we’re cutting out the windows, because the smell of acetylene is almost unbearable. Three different times, small fires break out in the oil on the floor of the boat. Twice, I can stamp them out, but once it gets big enough so I need to throw some of the sand from my bucket over the spot.

  By asking Gaston, the brother Teurnier who’s doing the cutting, I find out how to do things. I keep thinking of just saying, ‘After you, Gaston,’ then climbing through one of the windows and walking away. I never realized how soft and unprepared for hard labor I am. So far, this boat has been teaching me some lessons concerning truly hard work and humility.

  For one thing, it’s dangerous, whether it’s bringing up a sunken boat, cleaning out the oil muck, floating a boat down the river, pumping madly while sliding one boat on top of another as it’s trying its best to tip, digging in the river with boots up to my armpits, or this, cutting out panels of metal with an acetylene torch.

  When I’d taken on the task of rebuilding the wooden boat before it sunk, I thought thatwas hard work. To these people it was mere child’s play, not to be compared with raz/work. So far, as well as knocking about five years off my life, if I get to live five more, this whole boat experience is worth it.

  First, Gaston hands out his gloves, goggles, mask and helmet. Then he muscles up one of the supposedly empty tanks, slides it over the edge of the window, and I lower it into the bottom of the rowboat. The boat tips and I just about fall out. It’s dark enough so that, with the tipping boat and my oily, slippery boots, I almost take a header into the river. Gaston laughs. It must look ridiculous to him watching a grown man staggering around in what for him is a steady rowboat.

  When we have everything out, he practically vaults through the window, lands like a big tomcat in the rowboat, picks up one oar and pushes us off from the big boat toward the shore. All the windows on the land side are cut out in this back section, and it begins to resemble, vaguely, some kind of boat for cruising in the Mediterranean – very vaguely, that is.

  We wrestle the tanks onto the shore. I push them toward him from the boat until he manages a good hold, then he drags them, slipping as he goes, in the dark, up to the battered Citroen. Last, I hand him his goggles, helmet, mask and gloves. He reaches out to give me a hand so I can make the jump from boat to shore. I’m feeling like a real lummox, clumsy and dumb.

  We beat our way through the nettles and muddy bank up to his car. I try to help him load the bottles into the car, probably more in the way than anything. He’s smiling. His entire face, except where his goggles and mask have protected him, is black.

  He gives me a pat on the shoulder, almost breaking my scapula, and holds up seven fingers, then points at the boat. He says, ‘Demain, a sept heuresVY nod. He climbs into his 2CV and starts backing up, at high speed, down the chemin de halage. I stand watching him, holding my hand out almost as if I’m giving a Hitler salute. My kids have already warned me against waving to an adult Frenchman – only children do that. They just hold out a hand. He’s looking over his shoulder to back out and doesn’t even see me.

  I look down at the boat with its four blank eyes and think of tomorrow. Is there any way I can just drop this whole thing? Nope, I’m in too deep. That isn’t an appropriate comment when you’re dealing with boats, at least the kind of boats I seem to have.

  A Temporary Retreat

  My car is up in the village on the street. I’m covered with oil, mud and sweat. I tuck clean clothes from the car under my arm and go to the local café, order a beer as my excuse, then go into the toilet, a squatter, undress and redress hurriedly. I turn the jeans inside out and roll the filthy boots inside the jeans along with the sweaty shirts. I pull on ordinary clothes.

  There’s a small sink with cold water, and I do the best I can with my face and hands. I’ll need white spirits to clean off this mess.

  When I come out, my beer is flat but I drink it. I’ve been thirsty all day and almost didn’t notice. I pay. Now it’s completely dark. I phone home to say I’ll be there in about an hour. The traffic should hold me up that long. I tell Rosemary to go ahead and eat with the kids, just save something for me. She’s very sympathetic, wants to know what’s happened. I say I’ll tell her later, but that I’m all right.

  ∨ Houseboat on the Seine ∧

  Four

  In the Hands of the Gods

  The next day, I’m out of the apartment by six and on the site before seven, but Gaston is already there and sliding the tanks down the bank. I give him a hand, and we work it through the window again and set up. I’m stiff from yesterday but find this easier than I thought it would be. Little do I know.

  Gaston indicates to me with wonderful pantomime (the skill must run in the family) that we’re going to cut the entire wall running along the length of the boat, leaving only the triangular supports that hold up the deck, and now, in addition, the weight of my wooden, original boat. To me it seems like an impossible task. For example, what are we going to do with the huge slab of solid steel he’s proposing to cut out? We can’t just slip it through a window; it’s too big. It’s all in the hands of the gods – and Gaston.

  The way he does it, and with incredible speed, is to cut out small panels, ceiling to floor, about three feet wide, panels we can push through the riverside window. He first cuts a doorway through and lets that panel, about three feet by six, drop onto the steel ribs supporting the hull of the boat. It makes a tremendous clang.

  Grunting, we then move this over to the dark side, the river side. Gaston insists we shove it right against the wall, but flat. He doesn’t seem to have any intention of pushing it out the window after all.

  Then, he moves the light into the next section. He now has a nonoiled platform, the first section he cut out, on which to stand and work. From it, he cuts out a window facing onto the river. We push it out as before and watch as it drops out of sight through the murky depths and into the mud at the bottom of the river.

  He goes along like this, cutting about three feet at a time from the center-wall divider, letting each heavy piece of metal drop to the floor so we can stick it to the outside edge of the boat and stand on it. Then he moves his equipment onto the new platform and cuts another window. I’m figuring and running along, chalking on this riverside wall where the windows should be. I’m also wondering how I’m going to close them in again. How does one attach glass to metal? Is there some special kind of magic metal glue?

  But it’s nice having air blow through. We go along the back half of the boat like that, cutting two more windows, each a meter wide and spaced a meter apart. Now we’re up to the bulkhead dividing the front part of the boat from the back. He indicates with his arms where he wants me to mark out the parts of the bulkhead to be cut out as doors. I decide I’ll have two double doors cut through, one on each side of the central divider, rather than try to cut out the entire bulkhead. I’m still concerned about the weight on the upper-boat deck, and here we are undercutting the whole structure.

  So I mark the spaces to be cut, each large enough for a double door. He looks, nods and begins burning away. Before lunch, those two holes are cut, and I see for the first time the enormity of the boat, its entire length. From inside, it looks even larger than it did from outside.

  I suggest we go to lunch. I’m a nervous wreck, anything to get out of this hell of a hull for a little while. He looks at me and down at himself. Naturally, I’ve put on my work clothes again, and he’s filthy as before. I explain it’s a routier place, and he smiles. We leave everything in place, except we haul up the two big bottles of gas. We’ve about used th
em up again. We slide them into the 2CV.

  Gaston and I, between the two of us, as well as putting down a full meal, routier-style, tuck in a liter of wine. I’m somewhat worried because, for every glass I drink, he drinks two. But then I shouldn’t have worried: Gaston is French-Breton, and three-quarters of a bottle of wine is just warming up.

  After lunch, we first go to a supply place that’s practically covered with weeds and rusty gas tanks. This is where we turn in the empty bottles and pick up two new filled ones. I’m helping carry these brutes to the car and trying to forget about my bad back. There’s no time for anything like a mere sore back.

  When we come back to the boat again, Gaston decides to start cutting out the center wall of the next two sections, that is, the front two. He indicates I’m to continue keeping an eye out for any fires, with the sand nearby. Also, I begin to mark the places where I want these windows. I measure more carefully and place two on the land side and three on the river side. As he cuts each section of the wall out, I lean down and give him a hand moving it over toward the windows, but this time on the land side of the boat.

  Again he uses these metal panels as standing platforms for cutting out windows. He’s working at a furious pace, cutting, burning, dropping the panels like cards in a deck.

  Now I begin to see the boat as a place I might develop. I keep stepping back at different angles to have some perspective. I feel my spirits coming up; just as each of those boats did, I feel myself coming to the surface.