Me Talk Pretty One Day (18 page)

We’d finished discussing Bastille Day, and the teacher had moved on to Easter, which was represented in our textbooks by a
black-and-white photograph of a chocolate bell lying upon a bed of palm fronds.

“And what does one do on Easter? Would anyone like to tell us?”

It was, for me, another of those holidays I’d just as soon avoid. As a rule, my family had always ignored the Easter celebrated
by our non-Orthodox friends and neighbors. While the others feasted on their chocolate figurines, my brother, sisters, and
I had endured epic fasts, folding our bony fingers in prayer and begging for an end to the monotony that was the Holy Trinity
Church. As Greeks, we had our own Easter, which was usually observed anywhere from two to four weeks after what was known
in our circle as “the American version.” The reason has to do with the moon or the Orthodox calendar — something mysterious
like that — though our mother always suspected it was scheduled at a later date so that the Greeks could buy their marshmallow
chicks and plastic grass at drastically reduced sale prices. “The cheap sons of bitches,” she’d say. “If they had their way,
we’d be celebrating Christmas in the middle of goddamn February.”

Because our mother was raised a Protestant, our Easters were a hybrid of the Greek and the American traditions. We received
baskets of candy until we grew older and the Easter Bunny branched out. Those who smoked would awaken to find a carton of
cigarettes and an assortment of disposable lighters, while the others would receive an equivalent, each according to his or
her vice. In the evening we had the traditional Greek meal followed by a game in which we would toast one another with blood-colored
eggs. The symbolism escapes me, but the holder of the table’s one uncracked egg was supposedly rewarded with a year of good
luck. I won only once. It was the year my mother died, my apartment got broken into, and I was taken to the emergency room
suffering from what the attending physician diagnosed as “housewife’s knee.”

The Italian nanny was attempting to answer the teacher’s latest question when the Moroccan student interrupted, shouting,
“Excuse me, but what’s an Easter?”

It would seem that despite having grown up in a Muslim country, she would have heard it mentioned once or twice, but no. “I
mean it,” she said. “I have no idea what you people are talking about.”

The teacher called upon the rest of us to explain.

The Poles led the charge to the best of their ability. “It is,” said one, “a party for the little boy of God who call his
self Jesus and… oh, shit.” She faltered and her fellow countryman came to her aid.

“He call his self Jesus and then he die one day on two… morsels of… lumber.”

The rest of the class jumped in, offering bits of information that would have given the pope an aneurysm.

“He die one day and then he go above of my head to live with your father.”

“He weared of himself the long hair and after he die, the first day he come back here for to say hello to the peoples.”

“He nice, the Jesus.”

“He make the good things, and on the Easter we be sad because somebody makes him dead today.”

Part of the problem had to do with vocabulary. Simple nouns such as cross and resurrection were beyond our grasp, let alone
such complicated reflexive phrases as “to give of yourself your only begotten son.” Faced with the challenge of explaining
the cornerstone of Christianity, we did what any self-respecting group of people might do. We talked about food instead.

“Easter is a party for to eat of the lamb,” the Italian nanny explained. “One too may eat of the chocolate.”

“And who brings the chocolate?” the teacher asked.

I knew the word, so I raised my hand, saying, “The rabbit of Easter. He bring of the chocolate.”

“A rabbit?” The teacher, assuming I’d used the wrong word, positioned her index fingers on top of her head, wriggling them
as though they were ears. “You mean one of these? A rabbit rabbit?”

“Well, sure,” I said. “He come in the night when one sleep on a bed. With a hand he have a basket and foods.”

The teacher sighed and shook her head. As far as she was concerned, I had just explained everything that was wrong with my
country. “No, no,” she said. “Here in France the chocolate is brought by a big bell that flies in from Rome.”

I called for a time-out. “But how do the bell know where you live?”

“Well,” she said, “how does a rabbit?”

It was a decent point, but at least a rabbit has eyes. That’s a start. Rabbits move from place to place, while most bells
can only go back and forth — and they can’t even do that on their own power. On top of that, the Easter Bunny has character.
He’s someone you’d like to meet and shake hands with. A bell has all the personality of a cast-iron skillet. It’s like saying
that come Christmas, a magic dustpan flies in from the North Pole, led by eight flying cinder blocks. Who wants to stay up
all night so they can see a bell? And why fly one in from Rome when they’ve got more bells than they know what to do with
right here in Paris? That’s the most implausible aspect of the whole story, as there’s no way the bells of France would allow
a foreign worker to fly in and take their jobs. That Roman bell would be lucky to get work cleaning up after a French bell’s
dog — and even then he’d need papers. It just didn’t add up.

Nothing we said was of any help to the Moroccan student. A dead man with long hair supposedly living with her father, a leg
of lamb served with palm fronds and chocolate; equally confused and disgusted, she shrugged her massive shoulders and turned
her attention back to the comic book she kept hidden beneath her binder.

I wondered then if, without the language barrier, my classmates and I could have done a better job making sense of Christianity,
an idea that sounds pretty far-fetched to begin with.

In communicating any religious belief, the operative word is faith, a concept illustrated by our very presence in that classroom.
Why bother struggling with the grammar lessons of a six-year-old if each of us didn’t believe that, against all reason, we
might eventually improve? If I could hope to one day carry on a fluent conversation, it was a relatively short leap to believing
that a rabbit might visit my home in the middle of the night, leaving behind a handful of chocolate kisses and a carton of
menthol cigarettes. So why stop there? If I could believe in myself, why not give other improbabilities the benefit of the
doubt? I told myself that despite her past behavior, my teacher was a kind and loving person who had only my best interests
at heart. I accepted the idea that an omniscient God had cast me in his own image and that he watched over me and guided me
from one place to the next. The Virgin Birth, the Resurrection, and the countless miracles — my heart expanded to encompass
all the wonders and possibilities of the universe.

A bell, though — that’s fucked up.

“W
HAT DO YOU WANT
to do, my friends? Go out?”

“Go out where? Go out to the discotheque?”

“No, go out to a restaurant, to the House of Butterfly.”

“The House of Butterfly! Is that a pleasant restaurant?”

“It is not expensive, if that is what you mean.”

“Oh, good. The matter is settled. Let us all proceed to the House of Butterfly!”

Before leaving New York, I enrolled in a monthlong French class taught by a beautiful young Parisian woman who had us memorize
a series of dialogues from an audiocassette that accompanied our textbook. Because it was a beginning course, the characters
on our tape generally steered clear of slang and controversy. Avoiding both the past and the future, they embraced the moment
with a stoicism common to Buddhists and recently recovered alcoholics. Fabienne, Carmen, and Eric spent a great deal of time
in outdoor restaurants, discussing their love of life and enjoying colas served without ice. Passing acquaintances were introduced
at regular intervals, and it was often noted that the sky was blue.

Taken one by one, the assorted nouns and verbs were within my grasp, but due to drug use and a close working relationship
with chemical solvents, it’s all I can do to recite my zip code, let alone an entire conversation devoted to the pleasures
of direct sunlight. Hoping it might help with my memorization assignments, I broke down and bought a Walkman — which surprised
me. I’d always ranked them between boa constrictors and Planet Hollywood T-shirts in terms of vulgar accessories, but once
I stuck the headphones in my ears, I found I kind of liked it. The good news is that, as with a boa constrictor or a Planet
Hollywood T-shirt, normal people tend to keep their distance when you’re wearing a Walkman. The outside world suddenly becomes
as private as you want it to be. It’s like being deaf but with none of the disadvantages.

Left alone and forced to guess what everyone was screaming about, I found that walking through New York became a real pleasure.
Crossing Fourteenth Street, an unmedicated psychotic would brandish a toilet brush, his mouth moving wordlessly as, in my
head, the young people of France requested a table with a view of the fountain. The tape made me eager for our move to Paris,
where, if nothing else, I’d be able to rattle from memory such phrases as “Let me give you my telephone number” and “I too
love the sandwich.”

As it turns out, I have not had occasion to use either of these sentences. Though I could invite someone to call me, the only
phone number I know by heart is Eric’s, the young man on my French tape. My brain is big enough to hold only one ten-digit
number, and since his was there first, I have no idea how anyone might go about phoning me. I guess I could stick with the
line about the sandwich, but it hardly qualifies as newsworthy. Part of the problem is that I have no one to talk to except
for the members of my current French class, who mean well but exhaust me with their enthusiasm. As young and optimistic as
the characters on my cassette tape, they’ll occasionally invite me to join them for an after-school get-together at a nearby
café. I tried it a few times but, surrounded by their fresh and smiling faces, I couldn’t help but feel I’d been wrongly cast
in an international Pepsi commercial. I’m just too old and worn-out to share their excitement over such innocent pleasures
as a boat ride down the Seine or a potluck picnic at the base of the Eiffel Tower. It would have been good for me to get out,
but when the time came, I just couldn’t bring myself to attend. Neither can I manage to talk with the many strangers who automatically
seek me out whenever they need a cigarette or directions to the nearest Métro station. My present French class involves no
dialogue memorization, but still I find myself wearing the Walkman, mainly as a form of protection.

No great collector of music, I started off my life in Paris by listening to American books on tape. I’d never been a big fan
of the medium but welcomed them as an opportunity to bone up on my English. Often these were books I would never have sat
down and read. Still, though, even when they were dull I enjoyed the disconcerting combination of French life and English
narration. Here was Paris, wrongly dubbed for my listening pleasure. The grand department store felt significantly less intimidating
when listening to Dolly: My Life and Other Unfinished Business, a memoir in which the busty author describes a childhood spent
picking ticks out of her grandmother’s scalp. Sitting by the playground in the Luxembourg Gardens, I listened to Lolita, abridged
with James Mason and unabridged with Jeremy Irons. There were, I noticed, half a dozen other pasty, middle-aged men who liked
to gather around the monkey bars, and together we formed a small but decidedly creepy community.

Merle Haggard’s My House of Memories, the diaries of Alan Bennett, Treasure Island: If a person who constantly reads is labeled
a bookworm, then I was quickly becoming what might be called a tapeworm. The trouble was that I’d moved to Paris completely
unprepared for my new pastime. The few tapes I owned had all been given to me at one point or another and thrown into my suitcase
at the last minute. There are only so many times a grown man can listen to The Wind in the Willows, so I was eventually forced
to consider the many French tapes given as subtle hints by our neighbors back in Normandy.

I tried listening to The Misanthrope and Fontaine’s Fables, but they were just too dense for me. I’m much too lazy to make
that sort of effort. Besides, if I wanted to hear people speaking wall-to-wall French, all I had to do was remove my headphones
and participate in what is known as “real life,” a concept as uninviting as a shampoo cocktail.

Desperate for material, I was on the verge of buying a series of Learn to Speak English tapes when my sister Amy sent a package
containing several cans of clams, a sack of grits, an audio walking tour of Paris, and my very own copy of Pocket Medical
French, a palm-size phrase book and corresponding cassette designed for doctors and nurses unfamiliar with the language. The
walking tour guides one through the city’s various landmarks, reciting bits of information the listener might find enlightening.
I learned, for example, that in the late 1500s my little neighborhood square was a popular spot for burning people alive.
Now lined with a row of small shops, the tradition continues, though in a figurative rather than literal sense.

I followed my walking tour to Notre Dame, where, bored with a lecture on the history of the flying buttress, I switched tapes
and came to see Paris through the jaundiced eyes of the pocket medical guide. Spoken in English and then repeated, slowly
and without emotion, in French, the phrases are short enough that I was quickly able to learn such sparkling conversational
icebreakers as “Remove your dentures and all of your jewelry” and “You now need to deliver the afterbirth.” Though I have
yet to use any of my new commands and questions, I find that, in learning them, I am finally able to imagine myself Walkman-free
and plunging headfirst into an active and rewarding social life. That’s me at the glittering party, refilling my champagne
glass and turning to ask my host if he’s noticed any unusual discharge. “We need to start an IV,” I’ll say to the countess
while boarding her yacht. “But first could I trouble you for a stool sample?”