Photo Day- Mixed Emotions
Trip Start
Jun 01, 2006
1
43
63
Trip End
Ongoing
Aix-en-Provence, France
Friday, September 29, 2006
Today is 'do nothing' day- writing, walking. After breakfast, down to here with camera and computer. I took some pics (today is expressed in pics more than words) and now am sitting at my café with café and croissant watching the market. For some reason I am fascinated by this place. Today, being Friday, there are more vendors, and more shoppers. Also, on Cours de Mirabeau there were many buses disgorging hundreds of tourists into the town, swelling the crowds. I got the mushroom man to pose for me, and a vegetable lady- who wanted her picture taken without her glasses, but I insisted on her 'au nauturelle' and she laughingly complied (see pictures attached). I have found that for some reason today I am smiling. I realized that if I am going to take pictures of people and places, I should be, well, not my usual frowning self. It has turned out that when I smile, people smile back. The waiters are nicer, the vegetable lady stops work for me. Like a mirror, the world reflects back what we put out- I think some of my encounters are my own fault and today has been completely different.
I passed my first fat local woman- she was the mail lady delivering on the street where my hotel is. Jolly, in her twenties, I wondered how a woman who walks all day could be heavy- hmmm, Post Lady, fat, perhaps some things cross international boundaries?
Anyway. About Le Petit Maison de Carla. The hotel is run by Maria. She is somewhere in her forties, dark haired (always in a pony tail) and dark complexioned, very quick in her movements. She speaks very little English, but after four (!) days of interaction we have gotten some communication going. At first, I was peeved with the hotel and room. Tiny room, and after my first day, the room was not cleaned, the TV didn't work, the bathtub was dirty (long black hair floating on my chest? I don't have long black hair!). For what I am paying, even though the room is small, I expected it to be at least clean. I looked for her the second day, but like ghost, she appears and disappears too fast, showing up around a turning, always in a rush to be off in answer of a summons only she hears, I couldn't pin her down.
As I was walking down the street of the hotel on the second day, a woman approached and smiled shyly at me. I know no one in Aix and wondered; as she got closer, it was Maria (I guessed) and we stopped to chat. Using my rudimentary French I asked her how she was (ca va?). She replied "Ah, un docteur". Oh, malaise? "Oui" and moved her hand about her side and back. I said something in English to the effect I hoped she was better, mentioned my tv and off she scurried. Later that day I came back and two young girls (11, 12?) were on a landing of the hotel talking to her. Let me explain the hotel. Small and narrow, you enter through a dark door to a hallway with no doors or windows. I find myself always scrabbling for the light switch, which I swear Maria moves just to confuse me. To the left, a door opens into the Petit De Jenier (sp) or breakfast room- the door is only opened in the morning. Directly ahead, circular stairs climb the height of the building. On each landing is a small room with a love seat or two chairs and chest. Two guest rooms open to the right and the stair climbs up. Somewhere Maria has rooms for herself.
Anyway, that day, on the second landing she was in conversation with the girls. I could not pass and from the tone, it was quite obvious the girls wanted to go somewhere and I could almost understand "Who will be there?" "How long will you stay?" "What are you going to do?" The girls pled their case but in the end the answer was "No". The girls trudged up the stairs and I said something to the effect of "In any language, I can hear a mother and her daughters". "No. Not my. I watch them late day for other." So I replied that I could tell they wanted to do something and she had said 'no' just like a mother. "My daughter was made to disappear at 14 years. I careful." And off she ran. This was said with no inflection.
The next day in Petit Dejeune I saw a whole shelf with pictures of a young girl (12, or 13?) set up much like a shrine. I think I understood.
Through the days, as we interacted, and I overheard, I began to feel even more sorry for Maria. One day, while eating breakfast, she was in the next room on the phone and simply kept saying in a pleading voice "No Anton. No Anton" this went on for ten minutes. Now breakfast is bread, as I have mentioned. It goes out at eight. Each table has a plate of bread and there it sits; if you get there late, it has sat for some hours. Since I have no phone, there is no front desk, and Maria is a wraith, I have no way of asking to be awoken- I did catch her once and somehow got the message across and the next morning there was a knock on my door- so I had fresh bread. Otherwise, the bread sits until I arrive. I then get a cup of coffee from Maria- served in a cup the size of a soup bowl. Her coffee is horrifically bad- bitter.
Each day, if and when I see her, I ask about her malaise. Today, at breakfast we were alone and she said "Le docteur, he make icongraph" and gestured to her sides and back "Icicles. Icicles here" and pointed to her right side- then a couple came in and she was bright and chipper in French and no more was said.
Yesterday a vcr was put under my tv. Somehow, she knew I had come in at one point and bustled into the room and tried to show me how to make it work. I couldn't understand a thing and never got the damn thing to work. But in the lesson, I did learn that my door needs to be locked from within. Used to hotel rooms that automatically lock, it appears that whenever I am in the room, my door has been unlocked, and on this occasion (since the bathroom door hides the outer door) the door was wide open- as I was changing clothes. This also explains how her kitten keeps getting into my room (and now I lock my door when I am in). A small black and white, with white creating a large grin on its face, it has a little bell around its neck and can be heard bounding up and down the stairs. I keep finding it outside on the street and herding it back inside where it follows me. I think I have taught it to count- I walk and count up five steps- stop and pet it. I then move to go further and now it goes exactly five steps (as I count the numbers out loud) and sits and waits for another petting.
I thought it was ghostlike, like Maria, in its ability to not only get in and out of the hotel, but in and out of my room as well. She says it is allowed on the street if it wants, but I worry. The story of her daughter haunts me so I guard the kitten as best I can.
There is also a heavyset older man who has appeared twice in the breakfast room now. He watches Maria at her work, smokes a cigar and says nothing, scowling the entire time. He sits beneath the shrine to the lost girl and scowls. Is he Anton? The owner? It's a mystery. Petit Maison de Carla is a mystery. He responds with a nod to everyone who comes in the dark breakfast room and says 'good morning'; he never replies. His cigar smoke wafts up the circular staircase and smells to me of evil (melodramatic? Perhaps). He is sinister and sits for hours, smoking, not speaking.
The hotel is not full, and in fact at the internet café there is an advertisement for rooms to let at the Maison. It is dim always and last night there was great commotion (at what time, I do not know- no clock in the room and I still have not got a watch) but it woke me from a sound sleep.
++++
Tourist are now flocking around the Market, clogging the little paths between vendors, but buying a little of this, a little of that- oohing over the displays. The fish man yesterday had put a small swordfish out- cut in half- the tail end set firmly down and with the forked tail in the air, the head balanced through the tail and the mouth and sword facing out. Today it is large mouthed fish, lying with mouths agape.
Dogs on leashes keep fighting with each other as they pass in the aisles- a little Chihuahua and miniature greyhound bark at each other while their owners tug and pull. Large mastiffs and poodles grandly walk by the bustle beneath their feet- oblivious as good French dogs should be.
About half the French men and boys wear scarves around their necks, regardless of the rest of their clothes. In a 't' shirt, still with a scarf. In a suit, still with a scarf. I can hear maman saying to her young boy "You wear this, I don't want you catching a cold!" "But maman, no one else is wearing a scarf" "I don't care, if the other boys jumped off the Tour d'Eiffel, would you? Now put this on" and she nearly garrotte's him in tying on the scarf. And the scarf stays put. And time passes, and sixty year old men wear their scarf and young boys follow suit: scarves are worn. A beret here and there (the weather is cool today, mid sixties) and many of the men wear heavy fur lined coats, others, obviously tourists, remain in jeans and t's. All the local men have a coat of some sort on or a sweater tied about their necks.
+++
Devoted the day to walking and taking pictures. In some ways senses are expanding a little: my palate is waking up, in some ways my ears are waking up, so I thought it time to open my eyes a bit a look about me in a different way. I took many pictures (see attached- not all uploaded!) and walked for hours. Because I have a digital I had to come back to the hotel and download the morning pics and go back out.
During the walk I ran into a homeless man and his two dogs (see pics) we chatted- each in our own language as I petted the dogs and then gave him some money. I went to St. Jean de Malta church and was lucky enough to be alone while an organ practice took place. A spooky place, falling into ruins, roped off due to falling plaster, I enjoyed the eerie stillness- the Knights of Malta are long gone but the church still has the Maltese Cross everywhere- very 'Da Vinci' code like.
In my wanders, I finally found the lady with the great tuna sandwich! I told her I loved the last one, got another and she hoped it was 'the same'. It wasn't. Completely different, but marvelous as a wholly new experience. I munched and walked. I couldn't finish the sandwich and the homeless man with the two dogs haunted me; and sap that I am, I turned walked all the way across town with half a sandwich to give to him- ostensibly for the dogs- but I was sure he would share. It took some time to cross town, carrying the damn sandwich and I kept chastising myself for being so foolish- I had given him money- he didn't need my sandwich- but I couldn't bear the thought of wasting food, and that thought grew on me as I walked. Too much waste in the world. Surrounded by so much bounty as we are, and such bounty here, why? I thought about all the reasons 'why' as I walked. Intellect didn't help as emotions seemed to rule.
So I finally got back to where he had been before, and of course, as I expected, he was gone. Walking back in town I saw a homeless man squatting in a doorway, far more wretched than the one I had searched for. I gave him my sandwich and in seconds he was eagerly eating the other half of the best tuna sandwich in town. A simple 'merci' from him: so much like our word 'mercy'. Two different words; two different languages; two different worlds.
It was saddening for me and within one minute more I passed another homeless man with a sick dog. I gave him some money as well. I didn't take any more pictures; the mood was gone.
Comments
open air markets
Fruits & veggies look so delicious when displayed in sunlight. My mouth was watering when I saw the purple plums in an earlier pic. And those huge, white leeks... Gorgeous! Loved the pic of the columns around the courtyard in the cloisters, too. You have a great eye. So glad the pics are bereft of 'the must see tourist sites'. Have fun!