2007.03.06  Banlieues Blues*
We've already been in Paris for over a month!  Almost one-quarter of our stay is finished.  I have to say (and
I definitely know that Rod would agree) that sometimes we wish we could stay here forever and wonder how
we will ever go back to North America where we won't be able to gaze upon the stunning vistas of this truly
incomparable city.  But then there are moments big and small when we feel totally frustrated with grand old
Paris.  Admittedly, Rod has these moments more often than I do, as I have more of a kinship with this place
(as well as a contemporary interest in being here).  Nonetheless, we have both had those "Oh my God,
did that just happen?" moments...

Take today for example: Rod had an assignment with his Wall Street Institute job that was in a banlieue,
basically the burbs of Paris.  Knowing that he had to take three different kinds of trains and a bus to get where
he was going, I decided it would be best if I accompanied him to help with the language barrier.  The idea being
that I would bring along my writing and work from a café, because of course, every little corner of France must
have a café hiding somewhere.  So we go along, make the first two train transfers pretty smoothly, but then we
get to the banlieue train platform and are greeted by the sight of closing doors and a young woman jumping and
screaming, "Putain!!!"  A very colourful French word, which we translated as "OK, the next train isn't coming for
another week." 

When we saw the next train pull up in five minutes, we lightened up.  We still had thirty minutes to make it to
Rod's assignment.   We sat back to enjoy the view: cherry blossoms and dense suburban housing that
looked remarkably like a Japanese landscape.  Given the months we spent totally lost when we first arrived in
Saitama, we should have known that there was trouble brewing despite the benign pink blossoms and the
friendly lady smiling at us from across the aisle. 

When we reached St. Cloud, our final stop, we saw no indication of a bus-loading zone.  While Rod hit the
street to look for the stop, I got in line behind several people buying tickets.  Our time was down to twenty
minutes and we knew we had a ten-minute bus ride ahead, and Rod kept interjecting that he still needed
to make photocopies for the four consecutive workshops he was about to teach.  The blood pressure
(despite daily red-wine treatment) was beginning to rise.  The ticket seller had to call on his colleague, flip
through a route binder to finally tell me that he wasn't exactly sure where to go for the bus, but gave me two
possible options that were relatively close to each other.  Up the stairs we flew and out into quiet residential
streets.  My dreams of a café were very quickly dissolving.  But that was secondary: we first had to get Rod
to his destination! 

Luckily we found the bus stop quite quickly and there were even a few people standing around.  However,
when we checked the schedule for our bus, we realized that it wasn't coming for another fifteen minutes.  I
also made the dismayed observation (sometimes it's actually better to not understand French) that written
beneath the schedule for our particular bus was something like: these times and schedules are not at all
guaranteed and can change without notice.  None of the other bus routes said anything of the sort.  It was
official. Rod would be late for work, there was no café in sight and it was cold, cloudy and about to start
raining.  We rushed up to the main street on my brainwave to hail a taxi.  Although there were no "cabs"
cruising up the street, we did spot a Taxi Parisien, a new Mercedes Benz, parked up the road.  My
brain went cha-ching as I imagined Rod's earnings for the day dwindling away on a stressed-out ride in
a Mercedes taxi Parisien.  No need to worry, though, the car was empty.  Maybe the driver found the
one banlieue café and was having a feast on some other poor sod's money who got stuck taking a taxi. 

Rod had been panicking for seven or eight minutes already and with the taxi option gone, I realized that I
was fresh out of solutions.  Even if we wanted to walk in the rain to the workplace, we didn't have a map
and had no idea where we were standing, except that it was a ten-minute bus ride away from where we
needed to be. And that the bus might not even be running at all.  Rod took over from this point and
said that he had a few numbers he could call.  He made his phonecalls in what we have come to
understand as desperation-makes-a-great-language-learner-of-French, or shall I transcribe some of the
actual offerings: Bonjour (boss' name), c'est le nouveau (hire) qui (hasn't proven himself yet) et qui
réalise (that two such phone calls in one week) peut paraitre comme un je-ne-(give-a-shit) attitude, mais
(please let me explain).  Je suis ici avec ma femme et on a (missed the bus) et (maybe we won't make
t at all) mais je veux vraiment faire une bonne impression.  Merci et aurevoir. 

So, once that charming piece of communication was delivered (we think, because to leave a message
you had to press a button on the payphone, and of course, pay some money from the phone card
to do so), we trudged back to the bus stop to await our fate.  Luckily the bus did come on time despite
the weird little warning on the schedule and we again (sort of) sat back and relaxed. When we got to the
stop, it was easy to spot the building, and we were officially landed but twenty minutes late, and definitely
no café around, with the rain coming down harder.
     "Do you think I can just sit at the back of your class or something, I mean I can join in if the atmosphere
allows it after a while." I suggest to Rod as he prepares to make his "Désolé I'm late" charge for the
door, my own desperation getting the better of me by this point. 
    "Yeah, it'll have to be."  We are a united front against whatever corporate force stands behind the
doors of what looks like a factory or a warehouse in the middle of a quiet residential street. 

Well, as it turns out, there were definitely more than a few suits awaiting my bedraggled hubby and
his little escort.  They were mostly friendly, though, except for some young dude in a pinstriped who
was shooting off into a cellphone about some other latecomer (Rod thought the cursing was meant for
him when we first heard the tirade).  In true charming style (minus his photocopies), Rod won over
the students and ended the day gracefully.  I, on the other hand, sat outside in the central coffee/
croissant area for all the conference rooms and read my Roddy Doyle about the toiling Irish
revolutionaries, as British businessmen paced all around me.  Very weird.  I sort of had my café,
better in some ways, because the coffee and croissant were free and I got to see Rod every hour
as he popped out of class, but also a little uncomfortable to be sitting for four hours as my hubby
goes about his word day.  Well, some days are just totally bizarre for no particular reason.

So, let me end this little tale of our day with a quote that may or may not be relevant:

"Never ask questions.  If you just watch and listen, you'll get better answers."
    --Roddy Doyle, A Star Called Henry

Oh, and one more random thing: I left the corporate "café" to take a little walk and came back with this
photo that I thought would entertain fans of A Year in the Merde.

 
 
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