"I need a vaccine in the region I am on" Lord Spoonner
The feeling of duty accomplished, on the evening of this Tuesday, March 10, comes to me a great desire for fresh air, a bit like a final deep breath before a very long apnea. The cerebral lobe that manages inside me the call of the great outdoors is coasting. My primary desire always turns first to the Ocean, but the weather is looking gloomy next weekend in Saint-Malo. Then comes to me a desire for Rhine. I look at the forecast weather for Strasbourg. The statistics are good. “Prima!” (“Awesome!” in German) I release inside me along with a burst of endorphins, that pleasure hormone that then floods my brain.
I check two or three things on the Net then I get up and go see my Lover. Quizzical eyebrows, she questions my kid's smile that just swallow a whole bar of chocolate.
“My Love, before the lockdown that is coming, what do you say, next weekend, about a little whim, just You and I.” With these words, I have all her attention.
"Yes, how would you like a flammenkuche in Strasbourg before going to buy cigarettes in Germany?"
“In Strasbourg, in the heart of the Grand-Est region epidemical cluster?” She asks me, laughing.
"Yes!” I tell her. “If we haven't caught the Covid19 in the cattle wagons of line 13 or 2 of the Parisian metro, or in the tapas bars of Madrid, there is little chance of catching it on the banks of the Rhine”.
"Come to think about it, normally we have to vote this Sunday", she continues. "Exactly, I don't want to", I said with a wry smile.
“All right, go to Strasbourg” she concludes with a laugh, then in the process, I take us a hotel room via the Booking site platform as well as TGV train tickets. The journey time will be extended due to damage on the conventional track following the fall of an embankment last week. One hour more for each trip passing through Metz city. It does not matter. I do not know the banks of the Moselle River, nor the Metz countryside that I will discover from the windows of the train. We will leave early Saturday morning and return late Sunday evening, thus escaping the transhumance of the electoral herd, and making the most of our romantic getaway.
This Saturday March 14, 2020, in the morning, in this half-empty train, I grumble on the fact that our government really takes the population for a herd of lemmings on morphine. Thursday night's presidential address, with contradictory instructions, leaves me with half-hearted impression. "You will vote on Sunday and then we will close the schools the next day". This form of political flippancy, urging us to vote when the health climate grows heavier day after day, leads to a frivolity that is far more blameworthy than laudable. Moreover, the controversy is swelling in the country following the maintenance of municipal elections. "This is sure to leave traces" I say to myself as our train runs along the Moselle River and as I stroke the neck of my sleeping sweetie in my arms.
"They may well give the impression of controlling the situation, everyone feels that it slips through their fingers", I said to myself while our train is stationary on the tracks "due to reorganization of the traffic railroad following the TGV accident” last week. We leave.
Metz station is imposing. The city looks cute. I would have to explore it one day. It will be an opportunity to visit my Uncle GéPi. Then we pop up into Alsace by the forest balloons of the Vosges. I love this region. I love its natives. My father also has fond memories of it.
When he emigrated to France, it was to work in the Schneider family quarry in Bust town. The first words he learned in France were in the Alsatian dialect so that he could order beers at the local tavern. My father will always keep in mind, both the kindness of the Schneider girls who brought him fruit baskets on Sundays, and the Alemannic hard-working rigor of old Schneider who reminded him of his own father's Galician rigor (Galicians : Celtic people of the North of Portugal and Spain).
The recounting of his Alsatian memories was always an opportunity for my father to tell us how he had come to France thanks to an employment contract with the Schneiders, and not clandestinely like my mother; how he was mocked by the Italian workers "who took us for rednecks without know-how"; how he had won the respect of Italians and French by the quality of his work. My mother usually follow up on her journey through the Portuguese and Spanish mountains before arriving in her "beloved France", the one where working meant "to eat one's fill and above all make projects"; how she was kidnapped for several weeks by one of her first employers, before being released by police from the station where she was later employed as a cleaning lady. "Without owing me anything, France gave me all the opportunities that I was able to seize," she said. For his part, constantly concerned with the "saudade" of his country, while cherishing this France where he chose to found his home, my father demanded, at the same time, that we speak Portuguese under his roof in order to cultivate our Portuguese roots, and that we are "perfect French, once the door is through". "I will control that by the quality of your companions as well as by the value of your school work" he hammered.
"It would be nice if I visit Bust too," I thought to myself, thinking about it all. In the meantime, having passed Haguenau city, our train is quietly approaching Strasbourg along the rivers and canals of the Bas-Rhin. I can't wait to get there and to show my Sweetheart the secrets of this Magnificent Venice of the North.
My love for Strasbourg is perfectly summed up in this excerpt from a letter from Edgar Quinet to his mother:
“This city of Strasbourg pleases me more than I can say. I love this Alsatian temper, something hospitable and free; I love this cathedral so close to me, I especially love the vicinity of the Rhine. He reminds me all the unlimited things in history."
Here we are. The weather is nice. We quickly pass the station area, which is as disgusting as it is decidedly so little Alsatian. In front of the swinish condition of the sidewalks, I wonder why some people express so much their "halal" refusal to eat pork meat, when they perfectly illustrate this French expression "happy as a pig in its bauge". Perhaps a taboo? The fear of sinking into a type of cannibalism.
Leaving this question behind us, we cross the Kuss bridge, walk along the Quai Turckheim towards the picturesque district of “Petite France”.
Each time I come, I fell down in a swoon in front of these houses on the banks of the arms of the Ill River, with a half-timbered architecture made of entwined beams like oak or fir pretzels, supporting pretty roofs covered with these typical tiles in beaver tail, and highlighted by facades with colored plasterwork.
Despite the sun, it is not the atmosphere of great days, that of Christmas or Easter, or even that of sunny days. Of course, children are having fun in the playground on Île du Square de Moulins, and a few bunches of teenagers are laughing while drinking beers on the island opposite, in the shade of the trees of Square Louise-Weiss, but nothing comparable with the usual atmosphere, teeming with orderly Alsatian life, embellished with a significant tourist trepidation.
This feeling is shared by the waiter at the pretty tavern on the Place du Marché-aux-Cochons-de-Lait, who serves us our delicious “tarts flambées” cooked over a wood fire. Accompanied by a small salad and a good beer, what a delight!
After paying our respects to the majestic cathedral of pink sandstone, we eat there for noon. There are lots of people inside this rustic tavern, adorned with colorful stained glass windows that give it a medieval warmth atmosphere. But the terraces outside are deserted. The waiter at the Pfifferbriader tavern, a man with a humor as easy as communicative, accompanies our observations with some concern for the business continuity. The establishment manager paces in the direction of the restaurant entrance, having difficulty in hiding his dismay as his gaze sweeps the desperately empty streets.
After that, we reach our hotel along the "Quai des Bâteliers" flooded with light instead of walkers. A few rare Strasbourg residents enjoy the mild sun, on the quayside pontoons, as a couple or with friends, but keeping their distance. “Social distancing measures” are now giving the tuning.
At the hotel, which I had chosen on its name, as a tribute to the Rhine roses that I love so much, we are greeted by the manager with genuinely delicate manners peculiar to the civility of Egyptian Arabs. Considering his manners and the sweet sounds of the dialectal Arabic he spoke with his daughter at the reception, it seems to me to be the case. There don't seem to be many people in the establishment. This probably explains why the manager gave us the magnificent room decorated with a pretty representation of Venus by Botticelli, and with a balcony offering a pleasant view of the canal.
The setting is magnificent. It puts us in a sentimental mood, to put it that way.
After having fete this idyllic setting by crumpling the bed, it's time to head to Germany. To take a French live to Germany. I like to steal away like this, especially on election weekends. I did so during the first round of the 2017 presidential elections, by going to vote in a den of libertarian artists in the industrial port of the Rhine. Going to Germany is my way of voting with my feet, by paying homage to mature democracies, the German republic being a model for me.
We jump on the tramway which passes not far from the hotel, and get off a few minutes later at the terminus on the German side, near Kehl station. We are not the only ones. The full steetcar is pouring out residents of the Strasbourg metropolis who have come to stock up on cigarettes 40% cheaper than in France, as well as cheaper food on the Teutonic side. Germany, the country where life is taxed less. They leave Kehl as soon as they are done their shopping.
This is not our case. After having stocked up on cigarettes for my graceful evanescent, in the shops located around the station, I show her Kehl's other charms: the rose garden, the residential area with opulent houses lined up along a pond which closes its southern loop at the foot of the Kehl panoramic tower.
“Weißtannenturm”, "the White Fir Tower", a wooden tower 44 meters high which offers a magnificent view of the whole region. The tower moves with each of our steps, which increases the vertigo of my stability lover. Vertigo that she fights to please me. But as I tell her with each of our explorations, everything that is really beautiful is earned, she climbs keeping away from the edge. Up there, indeed, the view worth the detour and the giddiness. She grips my arms to admire the view.
On the German side, towards the south-east, we admire the mountains of the Black Forest where the white wood of the tower comes from.
On the French side, we contemplate Strasbourg, from which emerges the spire of its imperial pink sandstone cathedral, then in the distance, drawing curves above the horizon, the blue crests of the Vosges Mountains.
Descended from the tower, in the direction of the banks of the Rhine, I show her the water play park at Wasserspielplatz-am-Rhein, where my children had fun two summers before, then we stroll along the German banks of "Parc des Deux Rives", the Garden of the two shores, before it comes time to take the imposing pedestrian bridge that links France and Germany.
A series of kisses take place in the middle of the "Mimram Footbridge", gazing into the mighty waters of Western Europe's longest river.
There, I think of these words of Victor Hugo "There is all the history of Europe in this river of warriors and thinkers, in this superb wave which makes France leap, in this deep murmur which makes dream the Germany; The Rhine brings it all together ”. That is true! The Rhine brings it all together.
Everytime I am here, I hope that I could glimpse the gold of the Rhine sparkling at the bottom of the waves, the gold of my Suevi ancestors migrating fifteen centuries ago towards the Atlantic shores of Galicia. Smiling, I say to myself each time "Das ist so romantich". This time I say it while holding my treasure wife in my arms.
Back at the hotel, we crumple again the sheets of our loving alcove, while we wait for the time to look for a house in which to dine.
My wife has no equal when it comes to finding a perfect culinary lair for us. She hits the nail on the head every time. Probably a sophisticated mutation of the hunting instinct.
After strolling through the streets of the Place Saint-Etienne district, and passing restaurants with exotic names, her gaze lingers on the front of an Alsatian brasserie. “After all we came here to eat local,” she says. As I opened the door to the Winstub "Meiselocker", and let her in first, all accompanied by a broad smile, I tell her "no worries, I'm following you".
While installing us, the owner seems to continue a discussion with the customers already seated, that our entry had interrupted. We are very quickly be on the ball. The very last step of the government waltz has just decided the closure of all bars and restaurants this Saturday at midnight o'clock.
We look at each other taken aback and decide to savor with special application an Alsatian roast beef and a ham braised in beer. Succulents! Between two bites, half amused, half upset, we wonder what we will eat tomorrow in a Strasbourg with suddenly closed tables. With the dessert, we are worried about all these restorers which have had to refuel and which will have to throw away all the merchandise. Finally, as we leave the restaurant, we wonder about these brutal and untimely government decisions.
"Oh that, they have a sense of the absurd" said my darling, "they are closing the restaurants tonight, while opening the polling stations tomorrow! This will encourage voters, not to doubt it! "
“I promised you adventure my dear; tomorrow we will have to survive the food blackout”, I answer her, laughing.
She adds in an amused tone, “It's okay sweetheart, all we need is love and pretzels.”
That’s nearly what the manager of our hotel will tell us the next day at breakfast. We only are two couples in the breakfast lounge, but the service is no less regal. The choice is more than complete. While savoring it, we share with the manager our feelings of the day before. He tells us in a phlegmatic tone, the unreal atmosphere that reigns, the sluggish activity, the tense shopping he did yesterday afternoon during which "wicked ladies were fighting over boxes of flageolet beans." For the day, he reassures us with a smile. “You will find many pretzels in the bakeries that will remain open; with love and fresh water, that should be enough.”
We did find pretzels in Dreher bakeries, at Place Gutenberg and Place du Corbeau. However, we encountered another difficulty on the way.
Leaving the hotel around 11 am, we head towards the European quarter, along the banks of the Ill. The streets are empty. The docks are ours.
Besides the European Parliament and the imposing Council of Europe building that looks like a gohaould spaceship (#Stargate) at rest, I want to show the "Parc de l'Orangerie" to my bird of paradise. Not far from the city center, this green lung offers several attractions in addition to a most pleasant resting place around the tree-lined lawns and its pond. The main one is a zoo open to the public. But my favorite attraction are the storks that nest in the park.
This Sunday, March 15, the storks are there, especially on the main building of the park serving this day as a polling station. We stay awhile watching this deliverer of babies with a long beak. This old myth will make us forever see this master of the skies with long migrations as a just special birdy. However, the zoo is closed. What a pity. I wanted to see and admire the flamingos that live there.
"You wouldn't know if there is a toilet in the area," she asks me. If my wife follows me on my travels, there is one factor that I have learned to deal with. His very regular bathroom breaks. So I calculate the routes accordingly. As I knew there were some in the park, I quietly welcomed his question. But like I said above, this is where things get tricky. The two public toilets at the “Parc de l'Orangerie” are closed.
"They don't have all the same closed all the public toilets in the city to force the loiterers to go home," I ask aloud, a little disappointed. My loiterer looks at me worriedly. Closed public toilets, coffee shops as well. The afternoon promises to be as pressing as the urge arises. Leaving the park, I even have the movie title of the day "Impossible Micturation".
As I say that, an idea seizes me. “But come to think of it, we're in the embassy district. Chances are he's over there, and I'm sure that the fact that we stop by to visit him, even briefly, for a simple technical break, makes him laugh". My wife doesn't understand. Laughing, I respond to his questioning gaze by releasing a "How would you like to pee in the classiest toilets in the world?" Then I make a phone call.
For sure, the sanitary facilities of this embassy are: Carrara marble with an alpine whiteness underlined by golden taps with clean lines, all embellished with Dior soap leaving a very pleasant background scent. And as expected, my impromptu visit as well as the reason for it make laugh this old friend. He welcomes the presentations with my sweetheart for his charming hospitality.
“Jolly good! By the time we review your request for sanitary asylum at my embassy, we will be able to open the bottle of Slyrs that I have set aside for one of your visits; it seems that the Bavarians know how to make whiskey; we will verify it ”.
It is part of our little rituals. Each of our reunions is always an opportunity to explore the planet Malt a little further. And it is clear that the Bavarians know how to make Whiskey. With its vanilla scent with woody touches and citrus notes, this glass of Slyrs is as pleasing to the nostrils as it is to the taste buds. My dear and tender, for her part, opts for a white Port from one of Dalva's best years.
After the usual courtesies and while my sweetheart visits the toilets, this old comrade expresses to me his concern about world affairs which now seem to be going at breakneck speed. Then he takes us back to the border of his territorial enclave. He salutes us with a big smile. "I hope that your next visit to Strasbourg will give us more time to talk," he concluded.
Back in the city center and after seeing that everything is indeed well closed, offering the very commercial Place Kléber to the few vagabonds who squat it and furnish it with their drunken quarrels, we manage to buy gingerbread in the Woerlé bakery, at the corner of “Division Leclerc” street and “rue des Serrurier”s. This purchase was one of the must-haves. “Mission Accomplished!"
Now we can go and sit down on the "Quai des Bâteliers". Access to the pontoon, on the Place du Corbeau side, is closed, but the Strasbourg couples skip it to enjoy this last weekend by the water.
“In Strasbourg, do it like the people of Strasbourg”. We do the same. Passing over the closed barrier, we descend and settle on the pontoon while maintaining the safety distances that everyone seems to have integrated. There, while tasting our pretzels and our gingerbread, we enjoy the sunshine while admiring the silver lighting effects on the ripples of the Ill river, produced by the maneuvers of the resplendent white swans, sailing in formation, and which seem to reign there in masters. It is true that the promenade shuttles remain at the quayside.
The sweetness of this moment flows quietly at our feet. We savor every minute of it, enjoying the calm, the softness and the light, pressed together. Happiness is that. Happiness is simple. It sits there with the woman I love so much.
“A woman to endure the disgust of misfortune; a few others to learn how to escape it for good; and then finally the one, the only one with whom you discover the sweet warmth of happiness” I said to myself, in a thought contracting time, while hugging my happiness in my arms.
These moments will rock us on our return TGV. But before letting us rock, I must get rid of the millstone that is polluting the start of the travel.
After a pass by the hotel to pick up our belongings and take the opportunity to "you know what", we board the return train. We are almost alone in the upper room of the wagon. This is the first time that I have bought a ticket on a TGV Ouigo ( a low price TGV). I discovered when I took the seats that there were three categories of tickets: basic; seat with electrical outlet; quiet place. I took seats with an electrical outlet. In the age of energy-hungry batteries, this can come in handy.
As the train is about to leave, a lady sits behind us, and while plugging in her cell phone, asks us if we can watch it, while she tells her husband, who remains in the downstairs room, that she found a free place with an electrical outlet at the top.
Recognizing the bourgeois-Sephardic-to-stiff-
We begin to doze off, rocked by the light rolling of the train, our memories and the calm of the wagon, when Lady Shoshanna comes back up. I give her back her cell phone. As soon as she takes it back, she picks it up and calls her son, speaking loudly and nervously. I tell myself that if she doesn't make her call from the platform, it will be brief. Well no. Her son is in the grocery store and his mother gives him the shopping list for containment and the approaching Passover, while controlling each point in Kashrut. Now I tell myself that it will be very long and that it will annoy me.
“Jonathan! Ask your sister to take five boxes of Uncle Ben's rice, the natural flavorless (...)
Jonathan! Take the dried apricots from Turkey; Jonathan! You take whole dried apricots, not the soft ones; Jonathan! You make sure there is no glucose syrup on it; Jonathan! You take three boxes of it; you're already loaded, okay, that's okay my son, so just take two boxes (...)
Jonathan! Don't forget the olive oil; it's extremely important; you take a good look at whether there is the label, yes the starK-P label; Jonathan! You know what, take the Terra Delysa brand, it is anyway kosher Lepessah, yes the one in a 3 liter metal container; Jonathan! Take 6 cans, it keeps well; you’re already arms full! It's okay my son, so take only five jerrycans of it (...)
Jonathan, my son! Get me your sister…”
“My God, what a nightmare! ". This has been going on for twenty minutes and my ears are bleeding. While thinking of this poor Jonathan, and finally of the happiness of not having had an Orthodox Jewish mother, a bigote-Catholic mother already being enough, I meditate on the absurdities of our species. Do not see anything pretentious about it. This is just a purgative exercise in order to not blow a fuse.
So this lady, who with her husband has taken a seat downstairs without an electrical outlet, all that to scrape out five miserable euros, comes to charge her cell phone in our compartment. It's ridiculous but why not. With the compartment almost empty, she could go plug in her phone at the other end and make a phone call, being kind enough to avoid break the balls of an uncircumcised dick. But no ! It’s so much better to stick with people and sprinkle them with our behavioral outbursts. No doubt a need to be reassured by the presence of others. A need for a blankie in stressful situations. And it is true that I have a good head of teddy.
In any event, in this matter, there are two types of people on this Earth.
Those properly circumscribed, who consider that their freedom ends where that of the other begins; who know that everyone has concerns to manage, thoughts to develop, or needs for calm to taste; that just because someone isn't talking doesn't mean they're not busy; and who consequently avoid spraying those around them with their cerebral regurgitations, poured out as they come; who make sure that the other is available, that he is not resting, thinking or just digesting his own cerebral regurgitations.
And then there are people as egocentric as this lady. People who don't like being alone to the point of constantly parasitize others with their outbursts. Probably a sealing problem. People for whom the other has no existence of their own. The other only beeing intended to serve as a receptacle for their effusions or a bag of needs.
In general, signify to this kind of person that you too have an existence of your own, with your own needs, including that of calm, moreover at a time or a place where social standards admits it as being taken for granted ( a train compartment for example), generates two types of reactions. Anger, this kind of individual does not admit that you can signify your existence to her, or a grandiloquent leniency, this kind of person accepting in her majesty to accede to your plea, which inevitably has something humiliating for the one who wants what goes without saying between properly educated people.
Since there is no way I will receive hysteria throws or a dismissive "so be it", I decide to do the most logical thing to do. Since we don't exist, let's pretend this lady doesn't exist.
Turning to my Beloved, whose gentleness as agnostic as Gallic makes this kind of behavior quite extraterrestrial, but frankly stunned by this endless litany of groceries, I tell her what is happening. I explain to her, or rather I comment on the scene, aloud, and in a strongly mocking tone.
The bewigged soon realizes that my baritone voice sends back a mocking echo of her conversation. In retaliation, she decides to plug in the loudspeaker of her cell phone. Never mind, I also mimic the answers of her poor son Jonathan, while explaining to my Darling the meaning of the particular kashrut on the feast of Passover.
At that moment, my wife to hide her embarrassment, asks me how I know this. I answer her, giving her a knowing wink, while taking a guttural voice and imitating the finger of God that "this is my Moses side." Blasphemy is too much. The ill-behaved orthodox, without saying a word, gets up and leaves the compartment.
With a laugh, I release a "Mission accomplished!" Here we are Liberated! All in less than five minutes! Honest to God! If the Mossad saw this, he would be impressed! Make a religious Jewish mother surrender her position, all in less than five minutes, it's psychological warfare genius. I should teach my methods at the Institute #LOL".
Calm returned, we finally let ourselves be rocked up to Paris...
