Where are we? Rue Castagnary in Paris’s 15th arrondissement, by the train tracks of the Montparnasse Station that serves western France.

This lighthouse is nothing but an advertisement for a fish market. But I dream of going inside and opening a window so as to greet Bretons in their trains arriving in Paris.

A 6 heures du matin, il fait déjà grand jour en ce moment. Dans un ciel annonçant enfin une belle journée de juin, se dresse un phare. Mais les seuls bruits qu’on entend ici ne sont ni les cris des mouettes, ni le reflux des vagues… mais celui des voitures et des trains !

Où sommes-nous? Rue Castagnary dans le 15e arrondissement de Paris, le long des voies de la gare Montparnasse qui dessert l’Ouest de la France.

Ce phare n’est qu’une publicité pour une halle aux poissons. Mais je rêve d’y entrer, d’ouvrir une fenêtre pour saluer dans leur train les Bretons qui arrivent à Paris.

Photo and text © 2014, Va-nu-pieds.

More of Va-nu-pieds’ work can be seen here on France Revisited and here on the photographer’s own site.

The post Unlikely Paris: The Lighthouse by the Train Tracks appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

Once known in culinary circles for its chewy, wilted, nearly empty sandwiches, the French national railway company SNCF has reconsidered the food offerings on the nation’s high speed trains, the TGV, and given an upgrade to its snack bar menu and to the meal boxes available in the first class cars.

The snack bar menu has been revamped by adding some brands that are well-known in France, including the grocery store Monop’Daily for sandwiches and other prepared foods, the chain bakery PAUL for breakfast pastries and Illy for coffee. Travelers who didn’t get a chance to taste Angelina’s celebrated hot chocolate (now expanding its reach at corporate speed) while in Paris or who want to make their children happy with something other than soda and chips can now order a cup at the bar (4€90), poured from single-serving bottle, microwaved et viola! The TGV’s best-selling croque monsieur (800,000 sold last year) remains on the menu.

One shouldn’t necessarily abandon the idea of planning your train munchies in advance by creating your train picnic at a good bakery or traiteur before boarding the train or the idea of enjoying a sit-down meal before or after taking the high-speed to or from Paris, Avignon, Strasbourg, Bordeaux, etc. Still, it’s nice to know that there’s a good variety of selections available on board.

Boco, a mid-up-market fast-food business created by two brothers, Vincent and Simon Ferniot (see photo below), is the brand behind the development of the 3-course meal dishes served in the first-class cars, some of which are also available at the snack bar.

In pursuing Boco’s and the SNCF’s goal of providing high quality fast food, the Ferniots have enlisted a constellation of stellar restaurant chefs and top pastry chefs in developing the 100% organic refrigerated dishes and desserts, all served in glass jars (bocaux, pronounced boco, in French). In addition to lamb, chicken, salmon and beef dishes, there are vegetarian and gluten-free dishes. Hot drinks are available but no hot dishes.

Along with Vincent Ferniot, the chefs of the current constellation are Christophe Michalak, Anne-Sophie Pic, Jean-Michel Lorain, Emmanuel Renaut, Gilles Goujon, Philippe Conticini, Régis Marcon and Frédéric Bau.

All is relative in transit fare, of course. A tasting of fowl with zucchini with a minty yogurt sauce, signed Anne-Sophie Pic, and of rounds of raw and baked salmon with green lentils, signed Régis Marcon, found them to be nice enough for a quay-side picnic. The new TGV fare may have more in common with fine branding than with fine dining going, but at 21€ (about $28) per meal box (including water, other drinks extra) it ought to do the trick on a 2 or 3-hour ride through the beauty of the French countryside. And a sandwich and other snack-bar selections can keep the wolf from your door and the kids quiet.

Overseeing and executing all this, the SNCF has partnered with the international industrial caterer Newrest, via their Newrest Wagon-Lits division, and with Elior, which operates restaurants in schools, businesses and health institutions and retail in transit stations.

© 2013, Gary Lee Kraut

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I’ve set out from Paris on a 5-day trip to visit some of the region’s spa towns. It’s a 3½-hour ride by train to Clermont-Ferrand, the regional capital, with stops at the towns of Nevers, Moulins, Vichy and Riom/Chatel-Guyon. Of these towns only Vichy is likely to ring any bells outside of France, whether those bells call to mind water, beauty products, spas, war or some vague “I’ve heard of it.” My research into spa towns began several years ago in Vichy, resulting in the article and accompanying audio slideshow found here. That was followed up by a trip to Moulins and surroundings, during which I visited the old spa town of Bourbon-l’Archambault, mentioned in the context of a Tasted-Tested article found here.

Clermont-Ferrand isn’t a spa town itself but rather an industrial town strongly associated with the Michelin company, which is headquartered here. I’ll spend the night there then put up a rental car in the morning to visit some of the towns that are included on the Route of Spa Towns of the Massif Central, la Route des Villes d’Eaux du Massif Central, which covers 17 destinations. Villes d’eaux is literally translated as Water towns, a term that the speaks of the source rather than its use. Water resorts are another way to think of them.

From Clermont-Ferrand I’ll visit Royat, Châtel-Guyon, Mont Dore, Saint-Nectaire, Chaudes-Aigues, and points in between, before spending a final day on the Aubrac Plateau, at the southern tip of Auvergne.

The Train to Clermont-Ferrand

Unlike the high-speed trains heading to more familiar destinations and quickly showing their affinity to wide landscapes, the train into the middle of France, due south of Paris, sets off on an old chug-chug line (as opposed to a newer TGV lines). It soon reveals the architecture of middle-class southern exurbs of the Paris: the stone-and-brick pavilions of the 19th century, the tile-roofed pale-stucco cookie-cutter homes of the 20th century, the strip malls and the industrial parks. After 20 minutes the train hits an unsteady stride that switches back and forth between a trot and a gallop over the next three hours.

Whatever one’s direction on leaving the capital on an inter-regional or international train, a shift in speed and landscapes occurs after 18 to 22 minutes. After another 10 minutes your thoughts are drawn forward and you are no longer leaving Paris but headed someplace else.

While I’ve made a few forays into Auvergne over the years, it still feels like a new destination to me. Prior to several years ago, my contact with Auvergne in Paris and elsewhere over the years had primarily come in the form of:
– numerous old-time cafes and bistros created by Auvergnats who immigrated to the capital in the first half of the 20th century;
– some friends and acquaintances who left Auvergne long ago;
– accounts of people who one went hiking there,
– and the folksy Ambassade d’Auvergne, a two-floor regional restaurant in Paris (located between the Pompidou Center and Arts et Métiers), where staples include the tasty calorie-bomb aligot, made of mashed potatoes, cheese (fresh cantal), cream and garlic, all pulled from a copper pot and typically accompanied with sausage, and the delicious gut-busting truffade, made of thinly sliced potatoes sautéed in duck or goose fat, covered with the same cheese and served with pork cold cuts.

Two hours out from Paris and just past the town of Nevers, on the southwest edge of Burgundy, the train enters Auvergne without any noticeable change viewed from the track. Small towns and villages are still comprised largely of stucco houses (ivory, pink, mustard, brown) with tiles roofs (orange, red, brown), occasionally an older farmhouse, a manor or a castle. The tracks cross rivers and canals. Out the window passengers who aren’t sleeping can pass green pastures, white cattle, newly plowed fields and bare woods. It’s late March, early spring. The bushes and trees along the tracks are barely in bud so there landscape is never screened from view.

The landscape is mostly flat, with an occasional mound. Past Moulins (2.5 hours) then Vichy (3 hours) the mounds lead to hills, followed by an eruption of higher hills and ridges in the near distance and the mountains of the Massif Central further off. Then the urban sprawl of Clermont-Ferrand reaches out to greet the train.

An Evening in Clermont-Ferrand

No one to my knowledge has ever accused Clermont-Ferrand of being quaint or charming or even beautiful. Nevertheless, by the end of the evening, I think it’s a shame that I’ve had only a few hours—and Sunday hours at that—to explore the historical center.

Though it can hopefully be the starting point for wonderful travels and discovery it is not a luxury destination in itself. Michelin, the only component of France’s CAC 40 (the French equivalent of the Dow Jones Index) whose headquarters aren’t in the Paris region, leads the economy of this city of 140,000 and its suburban region of 300,000, followed by pharmaceuticals (Merck-MSD, Théa) and some metallurgy and IT companies.

Clermont-Ferrand has the bad rap of a city to which people are sent on business as punishment. But I quite liked the architectural mishmash encountered on the zigzagging walk from the train station, through the old town and out the other side to my hotel.

I saw a handsome WWI memorial.

I visited the early 12th-century Romanesque church Notre-Dame du Port just as vespers was getting underway and briefly joined the faithful and the faint ocher walls in inhaling the incense.

I entered the city’s black lava stone Gothic cathedral as the faithful were gathering there.

Beside the cathedral, the cafes and brasseries on Place des Victoires were doing unhurried Sunday evening beer-time business, while a statue of Pope Urban II continued to preach the first Crusade as he did at the Council of Clermont in 1095.

I crossed Avenue des Etats-Unis, named for the United States on July 4, 1918, in honor of the anniversary of the Delaration of Independence and the American participation in The War to End All Wars. (There are also avenues honoring Great Britain, Italy and the Soviet Union.)

I checked in at the VolcanHotel, a comfortable standardized 2-star Inter-Hotel. My room (204) looks out to a stucco wall, orange roof tiles and a church spire–who can ask for more on a short overnight? I like a good 2-star at the start of a trip to a non-luxury-minded town. Besides, lodging will only get better on this 4-night trip, you wait and see.

Then I went out again to visit the vast Place de Jaude with its theater/opera house under restoration and its fountain-bordered walkway. There’s a monument to here by Vercingetorix, the Celtic warrior who led the federated fight against the Roman conquest and won a battle again Caesar’s legions, presumably around here, before definitely losing at Alesia, in Burgundy (presumably). The statue was designed by Bartholdi, who created the Statue of Liberty.

I thought I might have dinner at one of the establishments on Place de Jaude but the square, undoubtedly bustling during the week, was looking rather desolate at twilight on this Sunday evening.

So I returned to Place des Victoires, by the cathedral, and eventually entered Oustagou. I hesitated because it seemed too much of an Auvergne cliché. But who can resist starting off with cliché, like all my visitors to Paris who crave a croissant or a crepe as soon as we set out for a walk. Anyway, the choices this evening weren’t legion, so I allowed myself to be ushered to a side table, where I enjoyed lentil soup, aligot with sausage, and a glass of light red Saint-Pourcain wine from further north in Auvergne.

The meal was fine—aligot is a hearty must-try dish—soon after I took a seat began what is probably the worst 20 minutes of musical selection that I’d ever heard in a restaurant. Allow me to list what I accompanied by regional dinner:
1. Without You (as in: I can’t live if living is…)
2. All By Myself (as in: When I was young I never needed anyone… Don’t want to be…)
3. Dust In the Wind (as in: All we are is…)
4. Feelings (as in: Feelings…)

And not soft background or funked-up versions of these but actual original screaming “I can’t live if living is without you.”

Under normal circumstances this would be enough to make you want to jump off the steeple of the adjacent cathedral, but no one else seemed to notice, except for one woman of about my age who wistfully said to her dinner companion, “Memories, memories.” (She said that in French, “souvenirs, souvenirs,” which itself a French song that one should never have to sit through in a restaurant.) But these were not normal circumstances: I had arrived in Auvergne to visit spa towns.

Leaving the restaurant I looked up to the open-snouted gargoyles on the cathedral for advice on what to do next.

They told me to go to bed.

(c) 2012, Gary Lee Kraut

Go to Part II, An Introduction to Spa Town and Hot Springs By Way of Royat
Part III: Chatel-Guyon
Part IV: Chateau La Caniere, a luxury hotel
Part V: Mont Dore, Saint Nectaire, Chaudes-Aigues and Yu.

.

The post 5 Days in Auvergne: Part I, from Paris to Clermont-Ferrand appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

Known as the TGV Rhine-Rhone because it navigates between the two rivers, the new tracks specifically connect Dijon (Burgundy) with Mulhouse (Alsace), further linking two other high-speed lines: Paris-Lyon and Lyon-Mediterranean.

In addition to quickening inter-regional and international train travel, the three different branches—eastern, western and southern—also form an attractive come-hither for travelers looking to expand their horizons in France. Trip-planners, whether DIY or professional, can now take advantage of the more direct way in which Alsace (and Germany beyond) is now linked to the Mediterranean. The eastern branch links Alsace and Dijon via Belfort-Montbéliard and Besancon (Franche-Comté), little-known regions worth exploring. For those living in the Paris regions, these regions are now more accessible for weekend getaways.

Trips are now shortened by 90 minutes between Mulhouse and Marseille, as well as between Dijon and Strasbourg. Dijon is now only an hour and 25 minutes from Basel, Switzerland, and Lyon is just under five hours from Frankfurt.

Domestic trains feature first- and second-class seating, an organic and fair-trade bar menu, and an on-board bike storage area. International routes will include new Euro Duplex trains.

All aboard!

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Since then Jordan has been playing this song along with other of his own works and covers in concerts in Jerusalem accompanied by talented guitarist and assistant arranger Yuri Stolov.

One of these days he or we will get around to making a real video for “On a Train,” but in the meantime you can watch and listen to a recent practice performance of the song at the Putin Bar in Jerusalem.

I’m actually not a big fan of this version since I find its ending is a bit of a downer (Jordan disagrees), Yuri’s fingering sometimes makes it sound as though the train is headed to Spain (Yuri disagrees), and the sound quality, though decent for a bar, isn’t great for the video, especially regarding my lyrics. Also, you can’t see Jordan’s face from behind his shadow-mask.

Nevertheless, I’m proud to introduce Jordan Zell and Yuri Stolov playing “On a Train from Paris to Rome,” a travel song by Jordan Zell (music) and yours truly (lyrics), take 1.

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Even when historians speak of Alsace-Lorraine they’re mainly speaking of the former, since all of Alsace was included in that once-disputed region but only a part of Lorraine.

Furthermore, there isn’t much of the way of distinctive Lorraine cuisine to promote outside of the region. Even in Paris, the only mention of Lorraine that you’ll ever find on a menu is quiche Lorraine.

Unlike L’Alsace, a winning, cliché-heavy restaurant on the Champs-Elysées that does an excellent job of promoting Alsatian cuisine, the brasserie La Lorraine, off the Champs on Place des Ternes, ignores its namesake in favor of brassy, upscale Parisian brasserie fare. And along the street in front of Paris’s Gare de l’Est, the East Station, from where trains to Alsace and Lorraine depart, the brasserie La Strasbourgeoise (named for the capital of Alsace) is another good choice for Alsatian fare while Le Bistro Lorrain is a…. pizzeria.

Truth be told, there isn’t much in the way of Lorraine cuisine even within the region, where the harsh soil has allowed for little culinary fantasy beyond pork dishes, including the pork-and-cabbage stew/potée Lorraine, and the famous, bacon-enhanced quiche Lorraine. There’s a good amount of perch and trout from the rivers but no special fish dish that has left a mark outside of the region. And with all due respect for its wine (vin gris de Toul and Moselle), its local beer-making traditions, and its spring water from Vittel, none of those drinks is cause alone to travel, as satisfying as they may be.

Lorraine as a name remains unevocative in part due to the historical incongruence of its cities: there’s photogenic Nancy, marked by Renaissance flourish, 18th-century refinement, and Art Nouveau curves; there’s Metz, which brings together French classicism and German monumentalism; there’s Verdun, which calls to mind the horror and sacrifice of the trenches of WWI. Each of those worthy destinations (to be explored in future articles in the Northeast France section this site) is easily accessible from Paris. Since 2007 high-speed trains from Paris can rush a traveler to Nancy or Metz in 1:30 or to Verdun in 1:40, but it’s unlikely that the traveler will think of himself as going to Lorraine but rather to Nancy or Metz or Verdun.

Nevertheless, inside Paris’s Gare de l’Est the boutique En passant par la Lorraine… attempts to evoke an unevocative region with what little there is to unify it: the mirabelle plum and a 16th century folk song.

En passant par la Lorraine is the name of that song. It’s a little ditty about a woman passing through Lorraine in her clogs and it has given the shop its name and its kitsch little clogs for sale. The mirabelle plum has given it most everything else.

If visiting France anytime mid-August through September, be sure to put on your list of food experiences a trip to any market to pick up some mirabelles, sweet yellow-golden plums that are likely to come from Lorraine, which assures about 80% of the world production. Also keep an eye out for mirabelle tarts in the bakeries.

Since En passant par la Lorraine… doesn’t sell fresh produce, you won’t find any fresh mirabelles here, or even a mirabelle tart, but you will find most anything else imaginable one can do with mirabelles. You’ll find them in jams, in preserved terrines, in canned stews, in mustard, in soap, in biscuits, in chocolate, in candy, in liqueur, in beer, and in brandy.

Two other traditional dry cakes from the region decorate the colorful shelves in this shop, Madeleines de Commercy and Marcarons des Soeurs, along with regional beer and brandy (eaux-de-vie), jams and preserves made from other regional fruits (particularly blueberries/myrtilles), and various fruit-flavored bon-bons (notably bergamots de Nancy), all with a regional bent.

For heated and/or refrigerated regional fare, you’ll have to go across the street from the train station and one region to the east to the deli-caterer Schmid, which considers itself “The ambassador of Alsatian gastronomy in Paris since 1904.” There you’ll find the staples of Alsatian culinary regional identity: choucroute (sauerkraut, served with potatoes and a choice of sausages, bacon, and/or pork), kuglehopf (a molded cake with raisins), Munster cheese, and strudel. Though 400,000 of Lorraine’s Mirabelle trees are “protected” by the appellation “Mirabelle de Lorraine,” plums don’t stop at the regional border, so Schmid offers the aforementioned mirabelle tarts. Canal Saint-Martin, a 10-minute walk from here, is the place of choice for a picnic in the area.

Both Lorraine and Alsace are known for their Christmas markets, which begin around December 6, the Feast of Saint Nicolas. An alleged relic of Saint Nicolas, his phalanx, was brought from Italy in the late 11th century to the Lorraine town that now goes by the name Saint Nicolas de Port. Eventually Nick was named patron saint of Lorraine. It’s nevertheless neighboring Alsace, evocative as it is, that most highly promotes its Christmas markets. In December stalls selling Alsatian food and products are set up in front of Gare de l’Est, led by sausages, Gewürztraminers, and Rieslings.

Lorraine is far more discreet. So the shop En passant par la Lorraine… is your best bet for information—and at least some bon-bons—if curious about the region or before taking the train east. Chances are 50-50 that you’ll come across manager Jean-Paul Lacroix, himself an excellent ambassador from the region. He can tell you (in English) the history of these various products, such as how candy made from bergamot oranges from Sicily came to be used in a specialty of Nancy. If asked politely, he might even sing a little song, as he did for me: En passant par la Lorraine/Avec mes sabots… oh oh oh, avec mes sabots.

© 2009, Gary Lee Kraut

Practical information

-Boutiques

En passant par la Lorraine… Gare de l’Est, 10th arr. Metro Gare de l’Est. Tel. 01 40 35 47 80. Open Mon.-Sat. 7am-8pm. En passant… has other shops, all in the Lorraine region.

Schmid 76 boulevard de Strasbourg, 10th arr. Metro Gare de l’Est. Tel. 01 46 07 89 74. Open Mon.-Fri. 9am-8pm, Sat. 8:30am-8pm.

-Restaurants

La Strasbourgeoise 5 rue du 8 mai 1945, 10th arr. Metro Gare de l’Est. Tel. 01 42 05 20 02. Open daily noon to midnight.

L’Alsace 39 avenue des Champs-Elysées, 8th arr. Metro Franklin D. Roosevelt. Tel 01 53 93 97 00.  Open 24/7.

La Lorraine 2 place des Ternes, 8th arr. Metro Ternes. Tel. 01 56 21 22 00. Open 7am-1am.

The post Looking for Lorraine in Paris and Finding Alsace along the Way appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

* * *

During my backpacking days in the early 80s, I developed a fondness for the bustle of European train stations, the excitement of currency change, the stock-broker-like fascination for the names up on the big board, the grandchild-like fascination with the old ladies in southern Europe who would watch your luggage for a small fee as you explored the city or went searching for a place to bed down, and the mild-to-pronounced seediness of the station neighborhood.

Each major station was different in that it represented that city or region or country yet clearly was connected with other places, people, and culture. Not only was the train station of Berlin or Paris or Belgrade or Rome specific in its own right, but the atmosphere of each lent itself to imagining stations, and all that went with them, elsewhere: Brussels, Amsterdam, Vienna, Rome, Prague, etc. Everywhere I went the grand station announced: You have arrived—and tomorrow you can be someplace totally different.

The early 80s was, in a sense, the tail end of post-war train travel, particularly in France with the arrival of the high-speed train or TGV that opened between Paris and Lyon in 1981. Extensions and new lines from Paris would follow: south to Nice, Montpellier, Bordeux; west to Brittany; north to Brussels and to London; east to Champagne, Lorraine and Alsace.

Paris is unique in Europe in that it sustains four train stations for long-distance regional and international traffic—Nord/North, Est/East, Lyon, and Montparnasse—and two for less distant regional traffic—St. Lazare and Austerlitz.

With each new tentacle of the TGV the corresponding train station in Paris has been renovated and modernized. The renovation of Gare de l’Est, the East Station, is the most recent of these.

Like other stations, Gare de l’Est and its surroundings have surrendered to progress the excitement, seediness, and currency exchange of French train stations as I remember them from the early 80s. What it has now is history, and a smooth ride to Lorraine and Alsace, and, for me, an easy walk home.

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I shared a 4-seat section with a laid-back couple and their joyful, fidgety 3-year-old daughter. I had a window seat, riding backwards. The family and I had exchanged greetings in Paris as they settled into a seating arrangement whereby the woman sat across from me, the man to my left, and the child diagonally, with the warning from her mother to ne pas donner des coups de pied au monsieur, that is, to not kick me.

It was one of those new TGV interiors with red and purple seating, carpeted floors, checkerboard tables for which you can get checker and chess pieces from the snacking car, tables lit by frosted light panels, and tiny reading lights between the seats that I hadn’t noticed until the 3-year-old started playing with the buttons: on, off… on, off… on, off.

Across the aisle sat an English family—a 45-50ish couple, their androgynous 8-year-old, and an older woman, whom I figured to be the woman’s mother because the two sat side-by-side and because she looked disapprovingly at the man. He had has arm around the child as they watched a Harry Potter film on their portable DVD player.

The androgynous child wore a loose-fitting beige tracksuit with a pink crown logo. After much consideration I figured the child to be a boy. When he fell asleep the man turned off the DVD and started chatting with his wife. Their accents hopped and dragged like a large bird too heavy to fly.

The French couple—about 33 years old—and their child were comfortable strangers to be sitting with. I worked, listen to the family’s interaction and enjoyed the view out the window all at the same time.

We rode past plains of winter fields, bare trees, village homes the color of wet cardboard with rust or orange roofs, and ponds that reflected the sky, some partially covered with a thin layer of ice. The clouds were low and ill-defined. Occasionally the sun broke through. In an hour it would be setting.

I was writing about La Rochelle, which may seem odd since I was going to rather than returning from La Rochelle, but I often write about a place before going there as a kind of warm-up, like an athlete before a game. Writing down memories of previous visits or reflecting on recent research or describing what I imagine the town to look like or simply noting things I expect to do or see there, I set down impressions (perhaps mistaken, clichéd or partial) before those impressions have been corrupted by details, knowledge, pleasures, frustrations, weather, hunger and encounters or lack thereof, i.e. by the realities of the trip.

Inevitably I get confused as to what I might actually find at my destination and, in this case, why I was going to La Rochelle at all rather than directly to my friends’ house, and with that it began to feel as though I’d actually left Paris simply to be riding this train. So I began describing the scene around me.

Just as writing down one’s dreams (something I don’t do) is said to make you aware of those dreams and set a framework for their context within one’s life, writing while in transit frames one’s movement across place and time. Writing in transit draws the mind away from thoughts of arrival and departure such as “I was at point A now going to point B,” “I wonder how B has changed since my last visit,” “I wish I had stayed at point A” “Point B is going to be magical/wonderful/frightening, etc.,” “I forgot to call X before leaving,” “I hope Y likes the present I’m bringing.” Drawn through description into the moments of transit or transitional moments, one realizes or determines, as in dream writing, that something significant has been taking place and/or might take place at any moment.

The couple on my side of the aisle took turns reading to their child or commenting on passing views out the window. All three of them wore jeans and thick plain woolen sweaters over long-sleeve t-shirts. The woman had a short, easy cut of black hair. The man had wiry black hair and a rough, country-hip beard. They all had well-worn, comfortable shoes, though the little girl eventually took hers off. The couple was relaxed and easy-going in their dealings with the fidgety child, and with me, for when my bag fell from the overhead rack and hit the man’s shoulder he assured me that he was alright, not to worry, it happens.

While one parent was occupying or occupied with the girl, the other read. Strangely, they read the same book, a single copy, always picking up where the other left off. The woman, say, would splay the book on the table, straighten up her fidgety daughter, and start playing “what’s out the window” or reading the child’s book: “one apple, two carrots, three pears.” And during that time the man would lean away from his daughter, take the book from the table, and begin reading on the very same page where the woman had left off. Ten minutes later he would place the book face down on the table and reach over to give the girl a piece of homey cake or read to the girl from her book: “four mushrooms, five strawberries, six cauliflowers.” And the woman would then pick up their common book exactly where the man had left off and start reading from there.

Their book was called Enquête sur les saviors indigènes (Inquiry into the knowledge of indigenous peoples) by Sylvie Crossman and Jean-Pierre Barou. The little girl’s book was about fruits and vegetables and numbers.

At one point her father, seeing that the androgynous English child was watching and listening to the reading of his daughter’s book, squatted down in the aisle between the two children and began reading to both of them, pointing out images on the page so that one and then the other could see: “seven leeks, eight pineapples, nine melons.”

“You’re learning French, dear,” said the English mother.

After the 3-year-old lost interest her father regained his seat and the families to either side of the aisle fell into a lull. The man beside me was now reading the joint book and the woman across from me was staring out the window as was their daughter, lying on her lap, watching the passing sky. Across the aisle the English couple made occasional comments as they, too, stared out the window, while the mother/mother-in-law sat stiffly and looked into her lap, and the androgynous child slept, his head leaning towards his father’s hefty shoulder.

Suddenly the androgynous child reached down between his legs and started shouting “Where’s the bone? Where’s the bone?”

We all looked at him as though in our own dreams, as though there was nothing we could do but watch.

“Where’s the bone? Where’s the bone?” he said as he felt around on the floor.

It hadn’t occurred to me that the child might be mentally handicapped, but this went on long enough that on my side of the aisle we all, I suspect, wondered if this might be the case, particularly since his parents simply watched, patiently, and even smiled over to our side of the aisle in some kind of reassurance that they were used to this and there was nothing to alarmed at.

The 3-year-old looked at her parents and even at me as though we might offer a clue as to what the older child was doing bent over with his hands frantically grabbing at the floor between his legs. The little girl sat up and watched the older child search for the bone. The androgynous child’s grandmother sat even stiffer than before in polite horror while the child searched for a bone by her very feet.

This went on for a long minute before the child’s mother finally said, “Wake up, dear, you’re dreaming.”

The father laughed. He finally touched the child’s shoulder.

The mother said, “Don’t worry, dear, go back to sleep, you’ll find it.”

After another 30 seconds—which is quite a long time to watch such a scene—the androgynous child sat back and opened his eyes. He looked around him with a flat, sleepy expression then said to his mother with surprisingly cheerful politeness, “Can I have some candy, Mum?”

“It’s in the bag overhead,” the woman answered.

Just then the announcement came that we were arriving at Poitiers, and the older woman stood up to retrieve her bag from the overhead bin. The child also stood up to reach for the bag with the candy. As he was reaching the bag his mother said, “That’s a girl, you’ve got it,” making it clear simultaneously that the androgynous child was actually a girl and that the departing older woman wasn’t her grandmother. The older woman left the wagon with a restrained Au revoir.

As the train left the station the English woman said to her daughter, “What were you looking for when you were sleeping, dear? You got up but you were sleeping, and you were down on the ground looking for something. Everyone was laughing. You said you were looking for the ball”—which surprised me since I’d thought she’d been saying “bone.”

The girl corrected us both. “The bomb,” she said nonchalantly as she chewed on a gummy bear. “I was looking for the bomb.”

The mother smiled to us across the aisle, as though to apologize for the word, and neither she nor her daughter pursued the question of the bomb.

Her daughter now said, “Can I offer a candy to the little girl?”

“Can she offer a bon-bon to your daughter?” the English woman said in French to the woman on my side of the aisle.

“Merci,” said the latter with a nod. “C’est très gentil.”

The androgynous girl held the candy bag open to the little girl whose mother encouraged her to reach in to take just one. Instead she retrieved a handful, but her mother promptly put most of them back. “Dis ‘Merci,’” the woman across from me said to her daughter. “Dis ‘Thank you.’”

The girl said nothing for a moment as she stared at the two gummy bears in her hand, then she said, “Pierrot.” She said it once, and then again, and then a few more times: “Pierrot, Pierrot, Pierrot.”

Her mother explained in French to the English family across the aisle that Pierrot was the girl’s little brother. She then said in English, “She is going to see him because we are going home.”

The English mother relayed this to her own daughter: “She’s saying the name of her little brother, Pierrot. You don’t have a brother, do you?” she said with a smile, as though teasing her own daughter about being an only child.

“No,” said the girl, resigned, her head down to her candy bag.

“No,” her father said cheerfully. “She’s the only one. We’re the family!”

He and his wife laughed.

“They’re going home,” he said to his daughter.

At that the girl brightened up.

She turned to our side of the aisle, smiled at the 3-year-old, and said, “Well we’re going on holiday!”

© 2008 by Gary Lee Kraut

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