The lights of homes across the valley are floating disembodied through the darkness. The Pyrenees: Patterns on a windshield. Areas of deeper black against the black of the night sky; the succession of peaks is a jagged line that floats upwards and stretches in a smooth fluid motion across my darkened windshield as we get closer to the mountains then pass them by.
I call Philipe. Hello, sorry. So the place is before, or after, the Carrefour Market? After. Turn around, look for a ski rental place. This place is not exactly hurting for ski rental places. There it is. The sign’s broken… well, why wouldn’t it be? You have a note of world-weariness in your voice that you never earned. Your entire generation has. And now you’re here. The key’s under the mat, and the heaters are already on.
The kitchen had two tiny burners and no oven; a serviceable, if not well-appointed, kitchen. Making bricks with little clay, Rebecca immediately set about preparing our dinner in that tiny kitchen. Turkey with a mustard sauce, bread, salad. Red wine. Petit Basque cheese. Perfect. I don’t remember dinners, but I’ll remember that one. There's a picture somewhere.
***
I sleep uneasily, and at a certain point I'm done. At six in the morning I'm awake, and I'm turning my head to the window to watch the sky grow light. Just like in the car the night before, mountains loom in the darkness as irresolute patches of a deeper black. In France, the light gathers at a much slower pace than I'm used to back in Florida. Florida is closer to the horizon, further from the center. Like on a bicycle wheel; Florida spins faster than France. The light grows, and I creep quietly around the apartment. We are situated in the middle of a large valley, surrounded by snow-frosted peaks.
Breakfast was muësli. Muësli, bananas, honey, milk, coffee. Two sugars in mine, half of one in Rebecca's. I feel gratitude. Powerful, overwhelming gratitude. Today, we will drive into town to explore. Haunt the doorway to the pizza place where the one girl holding down the fort will get more and more annoyed with our persistence, but what else are we going to do? Oh, right: Next door for a beer/coffee.
***
We drove around for an hour on Christmas Eve scouring the valley for a small church of gray ancient stone to hear Midnight Mass from an earnest country priest. Finding nothing like that, we ended up at a place we'd hoped to avoid: the Catholic church in St. Lary: an uninspiring, utilitarian structure in a land awash in churches that are monuments to architectural beauty. No organ, no choir: Only a man, his guitar, and his midi backing track. I had been looking forward to Catholic pageantry, but oh well. The priest was a friendly man who heckled us warmly during the ersatz rehearsal thirty minutes before the Mass. Come on, I can't hear you! You call that singing!? Before Mass a friendly heckler, in his robes he was a kind and sober shepherd. As Mass started, Rebecca whispered "happy birthday" to me. Quarter-century. Twenty-five on the twenty-fifth. Golden birthday. I was baptized as a Catholic, but never confirmed, so I slipped out during communion to bring the car around. Walking out into the freezing night, I encountered a man manning a giant vat of hot wine. Yes! I do get wine at church tonight!
On Christmas morning, we exchanged presents. That evening, we tried to skype our families, but with very little signal we had to settle for short calls on our French phones. Later that evening, we made our way to a nearby restaurant, "Le Pic'Assiette". Looking at the menu, I noted that they offered many specialties from the Charente-Maritime départment, where Rebecca and I both lived.
To the friendly proprietress:
- I was wondering... I saw that you offer many Charente specialties here.
- Oh you know the region? Because you don't have a Charente accent! she needled.
As it turns out, the owners come from Île de Ré, an island in the Atlantic connected by bridge to La Rochelle, where Rebecca lives. Small world. I made my father proud that evening by eating everything on my plate, then polishing the plate with the country bread set out for us. The waitress took note. When she returned, and offered my desert to Rebecca, Rebecca pointed to me, and the waitress said "Ah, pour Monsieur le gourmand (Ah, for Mr. Glutton!)!" It took me a moment to interpret, a moment in which I grinned stupidly up at the waitress. Once she left, charming, suave rejoinders occurred to me en masse, but it was too late. It was a great dinner.
***
The next day we took the narrow, winding road that threaded its way through the mountain pass to Loudenvielle, a small town in an adjacent valley. I had met the owner of our apartment through a coworker, and she had told me about a health spa in Loudenvielle called Balnéa. While Rebecca was inside, getting the last of her Christmas presents in the form of a massage, I took the car and found a way up to the small castle we had passed on our way in. This castle was perched next to an old church atop a large hill overlooking a large mountain lake and, at the other end, Loudenvielle. I wandered around for the better part of an hour, snapping photographs. Then, around the time when Rebecca was supposed to finish, I left, vowing to return in a few minutes with a human subject for my pictures. I mean, I left vowing to bring Rebecca back to show her the beautiful view. In the pouring rain.
A few minutes later, we were back in the car. I was happy with the picture I'd taken, and as we passed the large crucifix standing against a backdrop of incredible mountain scenery, I thought of my Aunt Jan, my mother, my Aunt Donna... all people of deep and profound religious faith. I can't honestly claim to share their faith anymore, but passing that crucifix, I thought back fondly on my churchgoing days, remembering the lessons, the stories, and about how faith - despite some of its crazed and evil spokespeople, despite some of its intolerance and excess - can be an exaltation of the the good in humanity. I drove away in a faint glow of something like faith. I murmured a soft prayer, telling God I didn't know if he existed, but thank you if this is all your doing. A few minutes later, I would expend all of this spiritual capital when a dog ran out to intercept my car.
"AAHH! GODDAMMIT!" I said, braking and fumbling for the horn.
- Stupid fucking dog, I said. I should've smacked him with my door.
- Yeah, he needs to know not to run out in front of you.
- Oh God... it's snowing.
We were climbing back up the narrow road that we had come in on. The snow was falling more thickly now, and I was white-knuckling the steering wheel. Our fuel was on empty, and I was burning more of it than usual to climb the steep sides of the mountain. As we climbed higher, snow covered the road completely. There was no guardrail, and only a narrow shoulder (we're talking inches) separated our wheels from a precipitous drop. Everything past a few feet was veiled in a thick curtain of snow. I was nervous, trying to make myself think that if I died right now it was okay. Heights are not something I'm used to.
- We have to get to the summit before we run out of gas. Once we get to the summit, we can just coast. Rebecca agreed. She did not seem as nervous as I felt.
We made one wrong turn on the way up. Backtracking, I was even more worried about running out of gas, and now slightly annoyed: This road is straight, with no forks whatsoever apart from the one where I'd gone the wrong way. Ended up at a damn ski lodge. No gasoline pumps. Finally, we reached the summit, and began a long, nerve-wracking decent. The LED screen warned of black ice, and I rode the brakes the whole way down. Finally, when we got to a point where the snow turned to rain, I breathed a sigh of relief. It was all downhill, so to speak, from there. I was determined to break into one of my Christmas/birthday presents when I got back to the apartment: Rebecca, very thoughtfully, had given me a small bottle of cognac.
***
The next morning, we were sorry to leave. We got up early, only to find that the car was covered in a thick coat of ice. The snow that had avoided our little apartment for the entire week arrived on our last morning, and the field next to us lay beneath a thin blanket of it. There was a lot to do before we left, and we had to get the car back on time, or pay for an extra day. So...turn the heat to the suitcase setting... out with the recycling, trash out, key under mat, lights off. I had to climb in through the back door of the car - the only door on which I could break the seal of ice.
As we left the Pyrenees, we had a chance to see what we missed when we came in a few days ago. On the radio, Joe Cocker wondered whether I was glad I had nothing to say and nowhere to pray, but then conceded that it was my business now. We joined the autoroute connecting Pau to Toulouse. On our right, the Pyrenees slowly receded as we traveled gradually Northward.
Please check out this site for more pictures from the trip.
Coming soon: Paris! Then I'm done with the Vacation! Thank you for your patience.
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