We would be gone for four days. We were going to stay
in Gentilly, in the suburbs; we were not sure which side but in the suburbs
anyway, with some sort of friends of our parents’. It was the beginning of
March, a time when the light eats away at the two ends of the day; you can see
it and smell it, but it is a time when you cannot rely completely on the
weather; you cannot be sure there will not be a huge snowfall, sudden and
uncompromising, which ends up blockading you in , with your tickets and your
stuff and the bags you packed with military precision the previous night,
perfectly aligned in the corridor. You can end up blocked just on the day you were
supposed to get out and escape that end of the world we call the farm. It is
not a place you pass by or pass through, it is a place you go to, climbing up a
steep winding path which is armoured with ice between November and February,
that is, when it is not carpeted with sticky snow or decorated with shaky
snowdrifts. You push yourself down there: the path is like an intestine, as you
move between the round hazelnut trees , the ash trees and other trees that
noone ever names, because there is little
time for naming things and why would one? Who for? Who would want to know?
We were going to take the train at Neussarges, a
straight through train, no changes till we get to Paris. Changing trains would
have been difficult, excessive, or it might have been dangerous; the three of
us would not have known where we should go in Clermont Ferrand station, which
we were not familiar with; and we would have had to go through a subway, and up
and down stairs to find the right platform, while dragging our suitcases and
being careful not to lose anything. In particular there was Father’s big blue
bag with the presents for our friends, with two kinds of cheese (Cantal and
Saint Nectaire) and home-made terrine de porc, black pudding, roast pork, and
sausages -enough to feed five people for at least four days. Father would
rather have driven , because he knows it’s easy as far as Clermont, he has
already done it. Then you just set off, following the signposts, Paris is
always on the signposts.
No comments:
Post a Comment