There’s a movie being advertised all over Paris right now (actually, the ads for it are mainly just on those tall round pillars that hold posters underneath the glass– very very 1940) called "L’Ami Alleman." "The German Friend." It’s an American movie, and I don’t know what the American title was, (they usually change them a little bit) but I know it has George Clooney and Cate Blanchett and Tobey Maguire in it, so I am sure it was a hit in the US. (When it was there three months ago.) But I am also fairly certain it is going to tank in France. Maybe not as badly in Paris as the rest of the country, but there is no way a movie about World War II told from the point of view that there are ANY good Germans is going to skyrocket to the top of the box office here. Maybe I am exaggerating. But I don’t think so. There is still so much prejudice against Germany here... not overt, not obvious, but it is just kind of assumed by people– even people my age– that the Germans would still be plotting against the rest of Europe if they could be, that the majority of people my age in Germany are probably still members of the Hitler Youth, etc. I have a German friend here, however, who doesn’t do much to convince me otherwise– she moved to France about a year ago because (she is 24) and she says that in the countryside where she lived, everyone expected her to be, these are her words, "a Nazi, you know, like everyone else." Because everyone’s grandparents remember what it was like to watch the Germans march through the Arc de Triomphe. Madame’s family heard that the Germans were coming to Paris (as did everyone else) after they had invaded France, (she was somewhere around 16 at the time) and she took off on what they call "the pilgrimage of the youth." Cars were still rare then (cars are still rare today in Paris) and even if they had one, there was no gas, and no one to drive it. Parents mostly stayed in the city, to go to work and front like everything was normal (talk about cinematic), and the kids just... left. Madame walked from Paris to Chartres. I talk about walking home from Chatelet like it is this big deal– Chatelet is still IN PARIS. Chartres is... well, suffice it to say, it is NO WHERE NEAR HERE. It’s days of walking from Paris. Which sounds so unsafe and so Woodstocky of them, but the truth is that walking through the countryside was the safer alternative to staying in Paris and waiting out the invasion of the Germans. And with most of the population of Paris under 25 on the road, what could possibly happen?
I never get tired of her stories. But it’s so hard to get them out of her, not because she doesn’t want to tell them, she just acts like she is this little old woman, and then every now and then she will say, "Oh, yes, this bottle of wine we are drinking? See the chateau on the label? That window right there, third from the left on the second floor, that is my room. It’s my husband’s parents’ chateau, you see."
Lately I’ve done a lot of stupid things, and I was kind of worried about it, thinking "What if I go down in history as the dumbest/worst/most useless/least fluent/rudest student Madame has ever had?" Because she has had two or three Americans a semester for over twenty years. Which should have been my first clue that I could never be the worst. Tonight she started telling us stories about them... anything that could have gone wrong here has.
She had one that didn’t show up for dinner one night, and when she called the University, they told her she was being overprotective and the girl was probably eating dinner at a friend’s. 24 hours later, the girl got brought home by the police– she had stolen an 3000Francs from Madame and the other student’s American Express card, gone to FNAC and spent so much money that the police got suspicious, and, despite the fact that she knew the AmEx had been reported stolen, tried to use it and was arrested. The police brought her home, she got sent back to the US, but her dad was a lawyer and got all the charges cancelled. The girl sent Madame a letter a month after she left that said she was sorry, she was sick, and she knew that if she tried to use the stolen credit card, she would be arrested and then she would have to stop stealing, but she didn’t know how else to stop.
She had one that threw herself out of a window the semester after she left Madame’s house in Paris and returned home. I think. Something got thrown out of a window, but I am not entirely sure if it was the girl herself or something else.
She had one that kept complaining about gaining weight in Paris because the food was so good, and then Madame realized that "she was only gaining weight in her belly." The girl was pregnant, and luckily the baby wasn’t due until just after she was going to return home.
She had one who won a scholarship to come here, and so she came to France, leaving her husband behind in the US to wait for her. They talked on the phone every night (this was way before email) and wrote letters everyday, and the girl would cry and cry for him, and the day she flew back to the US, he met her at the airport and told her it was over, he found another woman while she was in France.
She had one that hated living here– the girl wanted a family with young boys. Madame said that was fine, she understood if the girl wanted to try to find another family, but instead of leaving the girl was just mean and rude the whole semester.
She had one (when her youngest daughter was only 14 and still living in the house) who insisted on walking around the house naked all the time.
And then she had Alain, an exchange student from Utah who, at his going away party, met Corrine, Madame’s oldest daughter, for the first time, and was married to her a month later.
Kleptomania. Suicide. Pregnancy. Nudity. Divorce. Marriage. I mean, honestly. And she just kept on bringing them in, no big deal.
I told her I was impressed that she still liked Americans at all after all that, and even more impressed that she kept on letting them live with her. She said "Oh, but of course, ma cherie! You have to deal with a few bad ones, but for the most part, they have been lovely!"
The least screwed up one,
Blair
P.S. I got a Christmas card today from my ex-boss. I thought to myself, wow, that is really late, but they are busy people, so I understand. But then I looked at the postmark– December 7. The card was sent TWO AND A HALF MONTHS AGO AND I JUST GOT IT TODAY.