June 6, 2015
In Saul Bellow's coming-of-age novel, The Adventures of Augie March, there is cameo appearance by a Frenchman, proprietor of a beauty salon for dogs. Augie, who is a great observer of others, less so of himself, observes how odd Chicago and America must always seem to a Frenchman.
Being in France, I have something in reverse of the same feeling Bellow ascribes to the French dog groomer. Things happen here I could not imagine happening in New York. This morning was a choice example of this.
I had a busy day planned: early arising, walk and feed Beau, then to Laetitia Salomon, the general practitioner in the village. To be able to work out at the gym while I'm here I'll need to have a statement from her that my health would permit exercise without restrictions. Like last year (when I needed the certificate to cycle with the Club de Cyclisme de Caunes-Minervois), Dr. Salomon asked me the same questions: did I have headaches, did I have shortness of breath or palpitations. She asked me to take off my shirt and felt the tone of my muscles before putting her stethoscope to my chest. "Yes", I am in good health and could proceed to the gym.
After exercising Beau and bringing him back home, I got in the car and drove to Carcassonne for the first time this year. I stopped to buy bread at a boulangerie at the Pont Rouge shopping center on the way: I think their bread is better and the selection broader than the boulangerie in Caunes. Bread purchase done, I took an exit that took me to that end of Carcassonne nearest the airport, which led me to the big LeClerc shopping center, which has a bigger selection that the Carrefour chain by the Pont Rouge, although the latter is closer.
I parked my car in the last lane of the shopping center parking and went inside for twenty minutes to shop. When I returned, my car was gone. Disappeared, vanished.
I locked the car, so how it could have been stolen so quickly was astonishing. I started to walk towards the entrance to the stores to notify the police, when I saw my car stopped at an angle, one bumper "kissing" that of a small station wagon with commercial markings. Standing next to it were a young couple and an older man. I recognized my car by the red license plate which is common to all rental cars.
I called out to the three and they waved and filled me in: my car, which seems not to have had the emergency brake on, had rolled across the flat surface of the parking lot fifteen feet, crossing a driving lane and coming to rest when it met the bumper of the station wagon.
Fortunately, there was no damage to the other car, nor mine. I offered to give the people my phone number, but they told me it was unnecessary, just keep my hand brake on whenever I was not behind the wheel. I went about my business, which involved going to the central post office in Carcassonne and parking the car by the banks of the Canal du Midi. As I pulled the brake up as hard as I could, I reflected on what would have happened had the incident happened there: visions of my Citroen being dredged from the canal danced in my head, and not pleasantly.
My business at the post office accomplished (buying a phone card for my French mobile), I made my way to the Saturday market, nearing its end as the clock approached noon. Place Carnot, the major pedestrian square in Carcassonne, was jammed with fruit and vegetable and flower sellers, as well as fromagers and butchers specializing in charcuterie. I bought cheeses and charcuterie and apricots, which are particularly good here. And a Vietnamese salad: a Vietnamese mother and daughter sell pre-prepared dishes from their homeland, which produces what is considered by many to be one of the great cuisines of the world. I bought a salad, then went on to La Ferme, the most exquisite --and expensive-- gourmet store in Carcassonne.
What makes a gourmet store exquisite in Carcassonne? In the several vitrines of La Ferme are displayed handsome sets of knives for every possible use: cutting cheese, boning chicken, chopping beef, hunting. That, however, is not what makes La Ferme exquisite, because several other stores on Carcassonne's toniest street, rue Verdun, also sell fine knives of every description, La Ferme is exquisite because in France's poorest department, the store offers items Parisians know and love: Kusmi Tea, single-malt whiskeys, coffees from Hediard. The prices, too, are comparable to those in Paris.
I decide that I would like to enjoy a very good coffee at home, and so go upstairs to the second floor, where coffees and teas and the items to make and enjoy them are on offer. Everything is of the first water. However, I always find that when I mount the stairs I have the feeling that the personnel is afraid that I might be a thief: I'm never left alone to enjoy browsing, but am followed by someone wearing the company smock, who hovers. I've already made the decision that although I could buy cheaper --and perhaps comparable-- coffee elsewhere-- I'll opt for 300 grams of Hediard's Cote d'Azur blend of beans (about 10.5 ounces). It's an extravagance, but by contrast, the bottle of rose costs five dollars. So not everything at La Ferme is outrageously expensive, just almost everything.
Shopping for the next few days done, I want to get out of Carcassonne. Last year I wrote that the town reminds me of a woman who hasn't changed her make-up in thirty years. Casting an appraising eye over the place again, I'm reminded of New Orleans, the Big Easy. There's something unhurried and indifferent about Carcassonne, which has no pretensions of being "hip", or "chic" or anything other than a place where people go about their business, such as it is. There's a hammam, there is a conservatory of classical music, and an Ecole des Beaux Arts, as well as a good bookstore that keeps abreast of all the major authors; but none of them have the gloss of a place where those seeking "what's next" in culture or the arts would be inclined to go.
That means that the experience of Carcassonne is unique in the absence of anything that you could ever dine out on: everything is provincial, even its precious aspirations. Living there would be intolerable, but taken in small doses, it provides a contrast to the simplicity of life in the countryside.
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