French Toast (20 page)

Freedom from worry about medical bills is another major reason I appreciate living in France. Another plus is that doctors still pay house calls. Never once did I have to pry a feverish child from his sickbed to “go see the doctor.” The doctor came to us! For me, this is the mark of an eminently civilized country.

French vacations are pretty civilized as well. I love, and am slowly getting used to, planning for a minimum of five weeks vacation a year and sometimes as many as eight. I am still not French, though, in the sense that I haven't quite got it down to barely finishing one vacation and then immediately planning the next. But I am rapidly getting there. For example, in June I start panicking about what my sons will be doing for their Christmas vacation.

I like the fact that the word
no
does not mean what it does in Anglo-Saxon or Germanic countries.
No
invariably means that the person in question does not want to bother. However, if you stand there long enough and wait him or her out, you generally get what you want.

This freedom to do what you want, more or less, has its good and bad sides. Like most foreigners, I take the good for myself and look at the bad as a necessary evil I have to live with. Smoking, for example. The good side is that the French government has decided to do something about smoke in public places, and the bad side is that many a smoker is choosing to ignore the
NO SMOKING
signs and sanctions. In spite of the new no-smoking rules, it will be a long time, if ever, before you can be sure of going into a restaurant and not having some dude breathe smoke into your lungs as you try to enjoy your
boeuf bourguignon
.

Don't bring up the sensitive subject of smoking unless you are prepared to argue about it at length. This happened to a friend of mine who had finally gone out for an evening alone with her husband. At the restaurant they were sitting in, she remarked to the man next to her that she would appreciate it if he wouldn't smoke his cigar in her face. That touched off a debate with the offender—on Americans, puritanism, smoking in general, politeness—that lasted right through the meal, while he continued to smoke and my friend seethed.

“But,” says another American who has also been here twenty years, “at least they aren't puritanical about
it. In the United States, they treat you like a leper.” This confirms a particularly attractive Latin characteristic of the French, little or no moralizing. In this vein, most French people think Jim and Tammy Bakker and their public confessions of sin on TV are just plain grotesque and that Richard Nixon's downfall was a downright shame. After all, it's a well-known fact that all politicians lie, isn't it? And as far as fads are concerned, whether it is the no-smoking fad, jogging, or being politically correct, the French just won't go for it. They're too busy fighting among themselves to agree on anything.

As for fighting, I am far too Anglo-Saxon to actually enjoy a dispute, and I could certainly go without a fight a day to keep me in shape. On the other hand, I have grown to appreciate the fact that you can have it out with people without resorting to violence. As my French husband pointed out, verbal fighting is merely jousting, not to be taken too seriously. “It's no fun to pick fights with Americans,” he says, and adds, with his characteristic Gallic sense of hyperbole, “There's no intermediate level of aggression. It's either a big smile and be nice or pick up a gun.”

Indeed, it does seem like everyone is always fighting over something (the language lends itself to this). My American family has been convinced that everything was going up in smoke, when in fact all my husband and I were discussing was what wine to have with dinner.
When in France, you have to know how to express your emotions. In other words, you have to know how to spend time dealing with others on a confrontational basis. This can be over simple things such as getting cheated on change or having it out with a taxi driver who is free but who is just not in the mood to take you to where you want to go.

If you are a self-respecting Frenchman, you get mad. As a phlegmatic Anglo-Saxon, even after twenty years here, I fume inwardly but just can't manage to externalize it the way the French do so admirably.
“Tête de veau,”
my husband yells at another driver as we slalom through a traffic jam. Cowering in the seat beside him, I'm sure I have just seen my final moments.
Mais non
. The other driver shouts something even worse.

One typical day, I was driving down a one-way street and what did I see in front of me but a small white Peugeot whose driver had left the car, with lights flashing, in the middle of the street. When the owner of the Peugeot finally showed up ten minutes later, instead of apologizing for the inconvenience, he deigned to look me in the eye and say, “What's the matter? Are you in a hurry?” I'll
never
get used to this cavalier way of treating other human beings, no matter how long I live in this country.

The most extraordinary discovery I made, after twenty years of living here, is that being nice is not high on the list of values. On the contrary, if you are constantly nice,
you are seen as one big
poire
(sucker). Hence, since being nice is not something people set out to do, getting treated nicely is a totally unpredictable occurrence. As one observer noted, “Americans are nice to people they don't know yet; the French are nice to the people they know.” That explains why you often see dogs in butcher shops (underneath the sign that says
NO DOGS ALLOWED
) and in restaurants, and smokers all over the place, because no one feels any deep obligation not to bother people one does not know. Who cares?

“The Frenchman,” wrote Henry Miller, “protects the vessel which contains the spirit.” Perhaps only the French could have invented the expression for the way they deal with life:
ils se défendent
. They defend themselves against the unknown, against others. If you get a crowd of French people who don't know one another, the results can range from excruciating to hilarious. An American friend of mine, who didn't know any better, threw a big party, composed entirely of French neighbors who didn't know one another. By the end of the evening, no one had said a word. This basic suspicion of others, which governs social life, is very French, and so, if you live here long enough, you soon learn to be on your guard and defend yourself. Where else but in France could you hear someone remark sarcastically to a new acquaintance who is getting too familiar, “
On n'a pas gardé les cochons ensemble
.” (“We didn't keep the pigs together.”) Or
“Est-ce-que je vous demande si votre
grand-mère fait du vélo?”
(“Did I ask you if your grandmother rides a bike?”) Private life is really private life.

The French love to challenge authority. If it is there, it is to be contested. I used to be shocked that the only sign of national unity I could see in the French was their solidarity against authority. The general rule of thumb seems to be solidarity against the state—and, very frankly, when you see the way many French cops act (snotty, as if they'd love to throw you in jail if they could only think up a way), you've got to hand it to the French for warning one another against them. One day I was in the car with a French friend who had run a red light she hadn't seen. When the policeman drew up alongside the car, instead of getting small and humble, she started bawling him out. Having gotten out of the situation without a ticket, she turned to me and laughed: “You've always got to be on the offensive; otherwise, you're a goner,” she said.

French cops can be lenient, depending on their mood and your powers of persuasion. It's up to you to try to get out of what you've gotten into, and from then on, it's a question of karma. One day in a fit of impatience, I peeled out of a traffic jam and crossed a white line, a very serious and costly traffic offense. My hope was that no one would see me, but as luck would have it, I drove right into a pack of police on hand for the express purpose of arresting idiots like me. I tried a new tactic (and, I am convinced that I succeeded also because I was well
dressed and feeling rather charming that particular day): I looked straight at the officer with total abandon and said, “There's nothing I can say, Officer. I am totally in the wrong. I admit it.” Then I hunkered down in what I considered an appropriately humble yet optimistic pose as he rounded my car (a technique the cops use to see what they can find, and they generally find something). He hadn't even gone halfway when he appeared at my window: “Go on,” he said, smiling, “and don't ever do it again.” I fairly sped away, hoping he wouldn't be contradicted by one of his fellow
flics
.

Although I said I would never be French, I applied for and was granted French nationality just a few months ago. Why? Because in the end, I'm here because I want to be. (Also, the U.S. government finally gave the green light allowing citizens to have double nationality, so you can believe I jumped on that one.) So, although I'll never BE French, I now am the proud possessor of a French passport and a French identity card. From now on, when I criticize or praise the French, one could say that I am criticizing or praising myself, as well.

In spite of all the things that I appreciate about the French and even the ways in which I myself feel almost French, there are still a number of things that daily prove to me that I will never, ever be French.

The French will never get me to abandon my perhaps naïve belief that the customer is always right. I'm always shocked when a haughty salesperson drives me out of a store. However, after twenty years of experience, I still don't know how to deal with this. My French friends do, though.

One day, one of them went to buy a pan for fish in a department store. After finally locating the department, he told the saleslady that he was interested in buying an aluminum fish cooker, not the stainless-steel kind she was showing him. “I don't talk to people who eat in aluminum,” she proclaimed, and started to walk away. My reaction would probably have been to slink away in disgrace, muttering to myself. My French friend drew himself up and glacially ordered her to get her boss. Moral of the story: Always go straight to the top.

As far as teacher-pupil relationships are concerned, I'll never get used to the negative attitudes French teachers have toward their students. Having grown up in a nation where the goal is to encourage even the worst of students, it is hard for me to see students I consider as not bad at all being treated as if they were
nul
(zero).

In any case, French attitudes toward children in general are very different from American attitudes. Americans explain what they are trying to get across. The French, at least in my husband's traditional French family—and in many others I know, as well—don't waste so much time being diplomatic. “You do this because
I said so” is not seen as a terrorist threat. The lines are clearly drawn, and it is unusual to see parents engaging in negotiations with their kids.

One example comes to mind: A young American couple entered a Chinese restaurant in the Latin Quarter with their son. A normal two-year-old, the toddler proceeded to fiddle with the chopsticks (and almost rammed one into his ear), upset the water glass, and run around the restaurant. The parents began by reasoning with him, explaining that he had to be good.

My French husband watched the scene in wonder. For him, it was obvious that you don't take a two-year-old to a restaurant; that if you do, he is expected to behave in a civilized fashion; and, most important, you don't negotiate with a two-year-old. I remember that one of the only times I ever got upset with my mother-in-law was when my son was that age and she was definitely not amused by one of his antics, one which I found cute.

It's not that my husband or in-laws or the French in general hate kids, although if you stick around Paris long enough, you may begin to wonder about that. It's just that children in France have traditionally been seen as little adults and therefore there is a low tolerance for too much childish behavior. Lawrence Wylie, the Harvard professor who wrote a book about the town of Roussillon, where he lived for a year with his family, observed that the French were astonished when he had
his kids stay home with a baby-sitter instead of taking them along for village get-togethers. In France, especially in small towns, children are included in family get-togethers once they know how to participate without monopolizing the conversation.

In fact, the concept of children as children and not as miniature adults is a relatively recent one in French history. That's why when a French kid comes up with a funny remark, no one makes too much of it. He's a kid all right, but on his way to becoming an adult. One fortunate result of this that I have often seen, in my own home and that of others, is that children brought up this way do not dominate conversations. In fact, on several occasions, non-French visitors have asked me if my kids are okay, because they didn't say much at the table. I assured them that they were indeed okay (I didn't add that they are really silly in private) but that their French father had trained them never to interrupt an adult conversation.