Meeting My (Host) Mother

Le Chao Ba, where we killed some time before meeting our hôte-mère, is very close to our new apartment. We walk the short half-block and ring the buzzer for the tenant listing that reads "Berger." I'm very nervous about having to speak only French, but in a can't-contain-myself kind of way. She answers and after a brief exchange--in French!--she lets us into the building. She and her family live on la première étage which is the second floor of an American building. But really everything begins on the second floor... The door to the apartment swings open, and there before us is Ingrid Berger, Hôte-Mère du moment. She is a thin woman with a husky voice, dirty blonde, and very happy to see us. She speaks rapid-fire French that I am thankful to understand. Where I do not understand, I get the gist. Still, we were both exhausted, to the point where I would agree with anything said just to lie down for a minute. I remember thinking that she was probably relieved that I understood her well enough that she didn't have to switch to English for us--perish the thought!

She shows us to our room off the hallway entrance and to our right. It had belonged to the Japanese student that had been staying with them since May, Tetsuya. He had since been relocated to another room where Ingrid's live-in beau's two kids stayed when they came over. It was little more than a walk-in closet, filled with books, and whose bed actually disected the entrance at about the face. There was a tv for the kids to watch movies on. Tetsuya seemed to like it well enough. There were also two young Aussie lads staying in the same flat. And we thought we would have to entertain Madame and her monsieur all alone. Ingrid encourages us to take a nap. I opt for a shower first.

Our shower is actually a tub that takes some getting used to. For one, the tub is in one corner with a stacked washer/dryer unit in the other corner. Right between them, in the sixteen or so inches leftover, is a toilet. Using the toilet requires one to put a foot in the bathtub, or sit with legs smashed together. My modus operandi was usually the former. The tub isn't curtained off; all that separates it from the rest of the bathroom is a glass window/door that works as a shield between it and the sink, which is right next to the door. I still manage to get the floor soaking wet, however (as Jeff would expect of me:)): there is a hose/shower-head thing connected to the spigot. I took many tub baths after that day.

Then I join William for a nap in our bed, high off the ground (the ceiling is high for an apartment; there is actually another cot beneath it), hard as a rock, and yet a godsend for my aching, fatigued body. William wakes me hours later with kisses. We hear voices outside our room, mostly male. William asks me to help him with vocab. We descend from on high; William studies, I help. Then I skitter off to start this journal. At around 8-8:30 Paris time, a bell sounds from the kitchen and someone knocks on the door. It's time to meet the rest of the family.

They are: Ingrid Berger (whom we can call Ingrid, while still using 'vous' with her); her boyfriend, Jean Claude (whose second name escapes me twice before sticking for good; I still cannot remember his last name); Tetsuya, the Japanese exchange student from Osaka; and the two Australian boys, Jacob and Tom. Tetsuya is twenty-one; both Jacob and Tom are 16 (and so cute!). We are served some baguettes (fresh-frozen) and pâté de canard (duck pâté). I've never had pâté before, but I'm surprised how much duck liver tastes like the rest of the duck (meat, I mean). Dinner is spaghetti bolognese, followed by assorted sorbets for dessert. We talk about many things, and I practice my French (and some Japanese), reverting to English only when absolutely necessary. I didn't want to be lazy about it: I was there to learn French, so that's what I was doing.

It was when Jean Claude asked if I surfed (being from Hawai`i and all) and I said that I didn't have 'un bon sens d'équilibre' (sense of balance) for it that Jean Claude turned to Ingrid and commented on my French skills. They seemed genuinely impressed. In a way, it can be construed as insulting; what native speaker comments on how well another native speaker speaks? But I am not a native speaker, so I'm flattered every time a native speaker compliments me on my speech :P. Tetsuya also insists that my Japanese is good, although I can't understand hardly anything he says.

After dinner, Ingrid and Jean Claude suggest we take a walk up to Montmartre and Sacré Coeur, which we are right next to. They escort all of us up, explaining how the Aussie lads can only go out if adults accompany them. They're too young to be out and about unsupervised at such an hour (about 10 pm), though they don't seem to mind the chaperoning. We climb many steps up the steep hill, passing all kinds of shops that, Ingrid tells me, will give way to other tabacs à la mode (more fashionable shops). We window-shop; I like the French expression much better: 'lecher vitrine,' to lick the windows. People are everywhere, a large portion of them seriously underage by our American standards, and, unlike Jacob and Tom, they are unsupervised. I wonder where their parents are.

We pass through Place du Tertre on the way to Sacré Coeur. The plaza is alive with painters reconstructing masterpieces or simply painting their own wares to sell. There are (seriously expensive, I thought) restaurants (before I realized that they were not that expensive) lining the plaza. We look, then move on.

Sacré Coeur is a sight to see, day or night. Of course we forgot the camera. We go in to take in some of the perpetual prayer inside. You can buy un lumignon, a prayer candle, 2Euro for the small one, 10 for the big. A plaque insistes that the church is sustained by the kind donation of her visitors alone. I get annoyed when I see a machine for making souvenir coins right in the church, a sentiment echoed by Ingrid. I tell her that's what pissed Jesus off that one time. It's residual Christian upbringing for me, and probably institutionalized Catholicism on Ingrid's part. She gets a little loud and we get shushed by a young man I'd been checking out earlier.

Outside again, someone is singing Bob Marley's 'Redemption Song.' There are steps splayed out before Sacré Coeur, the better to view the city of Paris in all her nightly splendor. We take in the city skyline, which is impressive all lit up. La Tour Eiffel, like a beacon, bathes her environs in a beam of white light, a light that does not reach us here in the eighteenth arrondissement.

We make our way back home. Ingrid has given me a key, which William and I will share. After a quick stop 'home,' we head back to Le Chao Ba, where I finish this entry and William chats on AIM with Jim and Gray Hill Solutions, et al.

Vive la France!