Day Forty-Six: Gonna Wash Those Bordelais Right Out of My Hair
Had a nonpareil petite dejeuner -- an ethereal croissant and a crispy half-baguette, Normandy butter and hot chocolate so scrumptious I actually had to lick the outside of the pitcher to catch the last drops of chocolately goodness. Served on a tray of spotless daintiness -- good plain heavy white porcelain on a bright flowery chintz assiette.
Thus fortified, I bravely sallied forth into the noxious byways of Bordeaux, ransomed the car from the underground lot, and successfully negotiated the labyrinth out to the road to Bergerac. A bright sunny day and no cares at all.
I arrived at St. Michel de Montaigne in good time, and found myself crunching down the by now familiar dirt road to the tower. (I didn't have to hop over a locked gate this time, so I felt pretty confident of reaching my prime directive.) Vines curling awake in the sun, the pleasant white house gaily garlanded with laundry, cypresses nodding and birds singing fit to break your heart -- is it true I leave France without suffering a single regret? No, it is not true.
The grill was open, but no one was in the billeterie, so I sat down on a green bench and opened my pocket Bible to Proverbs. I hadn't gotten anywhere to speak of before a couple arrived -- Monsieur of the graying, bearded Winnie the Pooh type, Madame lean and brown with a glittering blue eye and a friendly smile full of pointed teeth.
Monsieur went fuddling off to photograph the chateau from various angles (for those of you playing along at home, the chateau went up in flames at the end of the last century -- all except, most fortuitously the particular private tower where Michel roosted and wrote the Essays. The chateau's current owners are an unassuming family of grand bourgeois who open the tower for visits, but not their home). Madame and I passed a few words about the guide perhaps being alone today, and by degrees vacation travel, where I was from -- "Henri! Viens-y-ici! C'est une americainne!" Henri waved a friendly hand and continued his putter around the courtyard. What exactly brought me here? "HENRI! Viens-y-ici, elle est ECRIVAINE!" Henri, who has clearly been tempering the enthusiasms of his ladywife for a good thirty years, nodded and smiled.
I hope I shan't be accused of boasting when I remark that it is so much fun to provide, by one's presence, a Colorful Incident to someone else's trip. Madame could hardly keep from laying her vigorous brown mitts on me in her excitement at seeing Montaigne's tower in the company of a genuine literary personage -- my cries disclaiming anything but the most minor publication credits and wishing to be classed as a student of history rather than a historian being no more than the buzzing of gnats to Madame's happy enthusiasm. Before I could ask how they came to be here and what their position in life is, the guide came back and chivvied us into the tower with no nonsense.
The ground floor is a smidgen of a chapel -- an altar with frescoes of St. Michel and the dragon (Montaigne would light one candle for the saint, and one for the dragon.) You wind up a little staircase to the second floor, which was his bedroom when he didn't feel like sleeping in the big chateau with his big family. The floor is red and brown tiles, the walls simple whitewash, the windows clear diamond panes set in the simple dark timber that also provided the roof beams. Madame cocks her glittery blue eye at you from time to time, looking for signs of epiphany, so you try to look as if the yeast of inspiration were working within you, so as not to disappoint the good creature. Then you turn farther up the little staircase, the guide pointing to an alcove with Montaigne's potty, up to the top floor -- his library.
It's a dream come true. It's only exactly the best place in the world to write. The desk places one's back against the chimney rising from the bedroom for warmth, surveying one window full of a formal garden with low hedges and white roses, and one window of wild meadow and forest. Between were ranged over a thousand books. (Remember, in the 16th century, a large library was counted in dozens, not hundreds.) The books are gone now -- the walls are decorated with portraits, facsimiles of handwriting and early editions, and quotations about the tower and his process of writing from the Essays. The rafters still bear the Latin and Greek quotations he copied up there to inspire him -- and sometimes scratched out again when they ceased inspiring.
It was hard to leave. This was a man who got it so right.
Purchasing our votive postcards and wine -- I absolutely could not resist having a bottle of Chateau de Montaigne to open on some suitably literary occasion -- Monsieur and Madame turned out to be short of cash. Madame went down to their car to get some, which gave me a chance to make my purchases and slowly walk back. I met Madame in the drive. "Bonne courage!" were her parting words to me.
My heart is so full it's hard to speak of the things I felt and thought walking down that road. (Prick up your ears for the Message, campers!) I thought of the wine and when I should open it -- when the novel is written, or when it is published? Much more in keeping with the spirit of that good, good man to celebrate when the book is written -- plenty of other ways to celebrate publication. I realized that I'd been losing a lot of the pleasure and instruction of writing by being so forward-looking all the time, by not concentrating on and enjoying what I'm doing when I'm doing it. I said many times to people on the trip that it wasn't of primary importance if the book is ever published or not, because the process of creating it is so enjoyable. And I've discovered that this isn't whistling in the graveyard, I really believe this -- though publication is important to me, and I'm working for publication, it is secondary to what the process teaches and strengthens and beautifies in my character. The first person who should be improved by my writing is me.
I drove back to Bordeaux and found a self-service car wash on the outskirts of town wherein to shovel out the pain au chocolat debris and otherwise beautify the Kid before returning her tomorrow. Unlike the French laundromat, the French car wash is replete with charm, comfort and a host of efficient gadgets, and is extremely cheap. Ten francs worth of "aspiration," and you would never known anyone had eaten pain au choc in the interior. And if you are ever overwhelmed by the desire to play Ming the Merciless from Buck Rogers in the 21st Century, my advice is to wing your way over to France and play with the high-power jet-spray washer-gun a while. "I don't suppose you feel like laughing NOW, Captain Rogers!" Of course by the time we had proceeded to the "rinssage de lustrant," (shine juice) the theme had changed to "Yes, Cinders, you SHALL go to the ball!" The Kid sparkled with a positively unholy freshness.
Well, it was inevitable that the infernal powers that reign in Bordeaux were not going to let this pass unopposed. My goal was to get into the city and get the car safely garaged underground as quickly as possible, before roving bands of obnoxious Bordelais tracked us down and smeared black shoe polish or tar over her. For a change, I did NOT get lost -- oh no, it was only that all the streets I wanted were blocked -- socially responsible Bordelais frequently just get out of their cars on narrow one-lanes and wander off to do their business leaving the rest of us in a complete impasse. THERE WAS NO WAY OUT. Cars in front, cars behind, cars to the left, cars to the right, and all of them driven by residents of BORDEAUX, capital of Beelzebub's dominions... The plucky courage of the Jameses wormed its way to the surface as I bit down the scream of "I HAVE A NEWLY WASHED CAAAAAAR HERE!" and reversed bass-ackwards the wrong direction down a one-way lane (with the leering fenders of parked vehicles beckoning like evil long-fingered monkeys seeking to scratch my precious Kid in her shining innocence) into the sweet free air again. While I sat panting and regaining my strength, an old gentleman stopped and addressed a few grave words to me -- but whether they were words of congratulation or disapprobation, I'll never know.
By dint of going back to the pit with the cranes, down the big avenue to the Chaparral and left, I did actually get to the underground car park successfully and returned to the hotel for a quick lavage de moi-meme. Cool and calm again, I moseyed on out to the Musee d'Aquitaine, which is a museum infinitely too fine for a city like Bordeaux.
A superbly organized museum, presenting a variety of beautiful objects in a welcoming, edifying and satisfying fashion. The interior is nicely dark, with somber blue or green matte walls, a miracle of lighting without glare or murk. The galleries are liberally studded with comfy blue chairs arranged around scholarly coffeetable books chained to, well, coffeetables, so while resting you can peruse further into whatever period you are in... Several video presentations in several languages, a series of large polyurethane binder cards with appropriate general information -- Roman recipes, calendars for viniculture, chronology of the Hundred Years War. And most charmingly, behind the display cases, a variety of prints and engravings illustrating whatever is being displayed from other times -- like 18th century pictures of "caveman life" in the Neolithic rooms; like 1920's postcards of Pompeian frescoes in the Gallo-Roman rooms; like 19th century magazine engravings of the convent at St. Sauverin in the early Christian section. All arranged so that you easily loiter your way through human history -- Magdalenian, Neolithic, Bronze Age, Celtic, Gallo-Roman, et cetera, et cetera... I think what stands out most vividly for me is an exceedingly strange and droll stone monument that looks exactly like the funerary stele of Puss in Boots.
By the time I'd reached the end of the first floor (and the end of the 16th century), my eyes were crossing and my feet aching. Fortunately I was considerably less interested in the collection on the second floor, 17th century to present, with folklife. I feel like I've done my fair share of French folklife collections.
Oh yes, and did I mention that it was free admission?
Dragged my way happily back to the Vieux Bordeaux, stumbling extra-happily on a "Sac Story -- Touts Les Sacs, 100 Francs!" store with which to replace my carry-on, which will sadly return no more to its native land. And packed. And reveled in packing. And read. And slept.