Forgotten words

 

Geraldine's story

Forgotten words

 

-Well, can you just remind me where this place « Puttelanges aux Lacs » is situated.  In Lorraine I think !

- Yes, It’s not far from Metz and on the way  from Nancy, we could pay a visit in the afternoon and see if we could come accross these Ancestors Francesca told me about and find a few tombs there !

- Yes, we are looking for people who lived more than 2 centuries ago, so I must say I am not very optomistic.

- Oh ! you never are, but it’s worth trying though !

 

So, off we started from Nancy, through the hilly roads of the region, which happened to look much nicer than I had thought : countryland with smooth hills, forests, cows grazing in the meadows and quite a few windmills around for sustainable energy.  Francesca and John, in there very sporty Morgan and Michel and I in a normal everyday car.

 

We arrived first and stopped in front of the cemetery settled behind a little Chapel.  One of these untidy places, where some graves were to be replaced with a little notice on them : « this tomb has to be removed, please call the « Mairie ».  They were shaby and weedy and old.  Most of the dates were in the 1800’s .  So, I decided to call the Mairie and the Secrétaire de Mairie was very helpfull although she didn’t have much time to dedicate as she was going to fetch her child from school.  But, she did take the necessary time to look up the list of names on her excel spreadsheet and confirm they had nobody with the name of « Hirsch ».

By this time Francesca and John had joined us and we still spent a little time going from one grave to the other searching for the Great Grandfather’s name. 

We felt quite sad : John had done all this genealogy research finding the names of 5 generations before my grandfather Alphonse, right up to Nathan, all born in Lorraine.  Were we just going to give up ?

So - thank you technology - we started looking at what this small town Puttelange was like in those years and we found a very interesting article explaining that as from the middle on the eighteenth century, 2 or 3 Jewish families started living there and apparently, within years, the Community grew very large.  We came accross a photo of the Synagogue that had been one of the biggest in the East of France and discovered that it had been destroyed at the end of the first World War, when Lorraine was attached to Germany….

- Look, said Francesca.  There was a Jewish cemetery in the town !  And there were these photos of this cemetery with standing stones in a very disorganized way in a green meadow.  Then, reading the article on the I phone, she discovered an address : 6, rue Mozart.

- Do you think this street still exists ?  Do you think there could be another cemetery in such a small town ?  After all, Puttelanges aux Lacs is smaller than Semur-en-Auxois….

- I don’t know, but rue Mozart is only about a 5 minutes walk from here, So lets get going !

And so off we started with the help of all these new technology devices, following the GPS’s indications, and all of a sudden, behind a wooden fence were these big grey stones standing in the green grass.  John hasted  the pace and shouted : it’s open !  By this time, we were all really excited, with mixed feelings as to what we would find.

We walked in and started looking at the tombs and the writings to find out about dates and names and …oh…. Forgotten Words…. All the writing was in Hebrew.  What a deception !  We wouldn’t be able to know and find out about our Ancestors.

The meadow was quite large, and there were quite a lot of these Stones, sometimes well apart.  So, each one of us sarted at a point and all of a sudden I heard my sister Francesca saying : « here’s one, here’s one ! ».  She was kneeling down trying to decipher the inscription.

We all dashed to see it and the name upon it was written in French « Nathan Cahen Hirsch »  - born in Puttelanges in 1800 – dead in Puttelange in 1894 .  We checked with the genealogy sheet  that John had written down and there we were, in front of the grave of our Great Great Grandfather !

Waouh ! How wise and advised we had been not to give up in the main cemetery where we wouldn’t have found anyone !

-Let’s see if there are more.  As I was walking on the uneven ground I found another one which wasn’t so difficult to read : « Henri Hirsch » born in Puttelange in 1828 – dead in Puttelange 1901 . My Grandfather ‘s Uncle, according to John’s family  tree.

I had never been that interested in family resarch, but all of a sudden I realized what it means to have roots !

We had heard that we were of jewish origin, but without religion, as it is usually the mother who passes on the religious practice.  We were all baptized as Catholilcs and my father and Uncle had changed their name and ours in 1949, after having experienced hard times before and during the war.

Then, as we were to leave the small town to go to Metz , we stopped for a drink in the little local « café ».  There were quite a lot of retired men drinking their beer together and we got talking to the man nearest to us.  And that’s how we learnt that Puttelanges aux Lacs had been a major mining town as from  begining 1900 , and before, they excelled in making hats out of hemp and a lot of commercial exchanges.  That’s probably the period when my family settled there…

 

It’s the end of a research, and perhaps John will be incline to look up for the activities they developped in this  area of France called Lorraine, which will be the begining of another story…

 ________________________________________________

 

 from Jackie:   

           Forgotten words   

They were there –  just on the surface – I could almost touch them, I could almost spit them out – …I could feel their presence floating, hovering, hanging in the air suspended and waiting to be thrown into a conversation,  an explanation or even a chat or gossip.  

Words.

Instead they remained hidden, blocked, sliding into a no mans land of sound escaping into the atmosphere  – or, perhaps they were hiding behind an ear, up a nose or diving deep into lungs in the opposite direction of the vocal cords  – far away from what they were meant to do ….that is …speak

Words  - there they were on the very tip of an icebergs brain, melting, flowing into nothing disappearing when they should be out speaking, conversing and dialoguing – instead,  the grey matter was smoldering, fuming with searching, delving, trying in vain to unblock the brainpower – as words failed.

 

The brain motor revs then stalls wracked up like an old motor car of days gone by - on a block of useless cells – unable to remember – the simple word-     that word that I know  …..  Of course, I know – it’s there - I shall spit it out – and then, there it shall leap – into the air jumping over that forgotten fence -  happy and laughing with the knowledge that it has come out at last – showing off as to have proved wrong –

Shall I tell you how not to forget words  … just give me a a few minutes, or even a day or two perhaps a month or a year and I’ll probably remember eventually

 

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Annemarie's story

Forgotten Words

Deirdre and Connor Kelly  were about to celebrate his seventieth birthday which, they decided, would take place at home, overlooking  Dublin Bay. They set off early to shop for ingredients as Deirdre planned to make all the food herself with the help of her sister. Looking at her list, she said,

 “For starters I think we'll get the beechwood smoked salmon from Connemara; then I'll make a traditional Irish stew - huge pot of it and everyone can dig in.”

“And what'll ye do for pudding?” chipped in Connor.

“Well, of course your favourite… erm…what's it called?…ye  know, the white one..”

“Oh, you mean zabaglione!”

“Of course not,” snapped Deirdre, “ye know that's not your favourite; the white wobbly thing - how can you forget what's  your favourite?”she muttered frustratedly. “ Oh never mind, keep driving - it’ll come to me,”.

They drove on in silence while Deirdre envisioned the 'white, wobbly pudding’ -  two words and she felt they were hovering somewhere up there in her brain; if she could only grab a letter or two. She shut her eyes, concentrated but nothing; it was like stretching for a delicious sun-baked peach tantalising her from a just out-of-reach branch and then a mist coming down. And why on earth did Connor always forget the words she couldn't remember? Why? Change the subject, think about something else and then the name would come back to her.

“Connor, did ye remember to make an appointment with Dr.Patrick?”

“And why would I need to do that, Deirdre?”

“And weren't ye  saying the other day ye had little red, itchy bumps on your tentacles..?”

“Tentacles, woman? What do you mean tentacles?” and he started to laugh. “Oh! Ye mean testicles, dear…ha!ha!ha!” He slapped the steering wheel, chortling to himself. “What I  could do if I had tentacles; it'd save me a lot of bending. And the bumps on the other things have nearly disappeared, so no, I've not made an appointment.”

They were both silent for a while until Deirdre had a sudden idea.

“Do ye know, I think I’ll get some erotic fruit to go with the white wobbly thing… the oh what is it called?”

“So…” chuckled her husband, “ye're planning some sort of an orgy for my seventieth, are ye?”

“No, ye eejit - I meant exotic fruit. I'm so frustrated because I can’t remember the name for the flipping pudding. It's buzzing around in my head - I know but just can’t get it from my brain to my mouth.”

As they turned into the carpark Deirdre caught sight of an old friend scurrying through the drizzly rain, clutching her raincoat hood over her head.

“Look! there's Clodagh Doyle. Do you know, I haven’t seen her for years and now twice in one week. I had coffee with her in that new place in the high street - they make really good chocolate mac..mac ... macaroni.. no, no.. macaroo…yes macaroons. We could order some for your birthday, Now let's get this shopping done,”

They walked down the aisles popping carrots, meat, milk in the trolley but all the time  Deirdre couldn’t help trying not to think of the elusive name for the pudding. 'Close your eyes and think of something else' she told herself. 'When you get home you can always google wobbly white pudding - if I remember what I want to google by the time I get home!'

“Connor, I think with all the people we’re inviting it's going to need quite a lot of orgasm…orgasimisation…I mean organism.. no… organisation.  One more thing - I need to go to the garden centre; get some summer bedding plants ”said Deirdre as she ticked off the items on her list. “Some gerbils - gerbils? I don't mean gerbils…ger-..gerberas! and some cannas…ohh! Panna cotta! Your favourite pudding ! How on earth could you forget that, Connor!”

 

 

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The lavender bag

 Annemarie's story

The Lavender Bag

 Since she was 10 years old Sidonie and Gravender had carried out their early summer ritual. (Mrs Greeves did not like her childish name, ‘granny lavender’ so Sidonie had abridged it to the more dignified name ‘Gravender’). All those years ago she had come to the village with her parents and had been drawn to the old lady’s garden by the insistent sound of bees buzzing in lavender bushes which paraded their scent and colour near  the road. Fascinated she had stopped to watch as big black bees with deep blue iridescent wings flitted from flower to flower and smaller, more numerous golden and black bees darted to and fro , saffron globs of pollen weighing down their spindly legs.

Sidonie became a regular visitor over the years but she particularly enjoyed ‘learning lavender’ as she described it to her mother. Sometimes Mrs Greeves’ two granddaughters, Bella and Maria, would be there and the three children made lavender biscuits, greedily devouring them afterwards.     

  As the children grew older Bella and Maria were less interested in visiting their grandmother and would rather play on their mobile phones, muttering to each other how boring it was to have to come. Sidonie on the other hand, loved visiting  Gravender, who taught her to weave the lavender stems within  silk ribbon encasing the flower heads, forming fragrant  lavender wands to tuck among the pillowcases and sheets. They made scratchy, invigorating body scrubs and relaxing eye pillows in pretty fabrics. The lavender bags, made from antique lace, were tied with fine silk ribbon, always in tones only of purple, lilac and lavender.

  Each year at the village fête  Gravender and Sidonie sat side by side behind their stall, one - young, slender, lanky limbed and serious looking with dark almond eyes, the other - short, with a slightly wrinkled face and pewter grey hair. Large glass bowls were filled with pearly white, mauve , purple and lavender fizz bombs; soaps were tied with twists of lavender and silk thread; baskets lavender of eye pillows; a collection of bric-à-brac plates towered with lavender biscuits and along the top of the stall, prettier and more perfumed than bunting were the antique lace lavender bags, jostling each other like dancers in a crowded ballroom and the fragrant scent permeating the air.

Sidonie explained that all the profits went to a charity for children with brittle bones, while Mrs Greeves extolled the virtues of lavender.

« I don’t know why they don’t keep the money themselves, » Bella murmured to her sister as they passed by their grandmother’s stall.« After all, they do all the work. What a waste of time! »

They sauntered past the stalls hoping to catch the eyes of any local talent. Over the years their grandmother was disappointed, well very sad to be honest, that she rarely saw them or her son and his wife, despite living in the neighbouring village. At least Sidonie often popped in for a  chat and she always helped with the lavender.

As usual Sidonie had arrived early. Warm, dry and the sky an azure blue, they sat on the oak bench waiting for the dew, which  sparkled like diamonds on the spiderwebs, to evaporate but not so long that the sun drew out the perfume from the flowers. 

  Gravender, now dependent on her cane hobbled along carrying the basket while Sidonie bent over the bushes carefully cutting the lavender stems.

This was probably the last time they would harvest their lavender as her son and daughter-in-law were ‘advising’ her to sell her home and move to a retirement apartment - one they had found some many miles away. Little did they know she only had a few months to live and those she intended to spend in her own cosy home and garden.

After a desultory lunch under the chestnut tree Sidonie left and Graverton set to work to make the most beautiful lavender bags she had ever made. She cut out shell and rose shapes from the lace, backed them with muslin and having sewn the somewhat larger than usual bags together filled them, this time more firmly than usual. She crocheted little decorations to dangle off the sides and finished them with fine, thin spaghettis of silken ribbon.

Three months later.  Out of the blue Bella called Sidonie to say that her grandmother had left her a small box of ‘ things’. No, she didn’t know what it was and frankly the family didn’t understand why.

Now Sidonie sat in her own garden, the wooden box enveloped in purple ribbon and dried lavender,  ready on the table to reveal its contents. Still grieving for the old woman but remembering their many convivial times together she untied the ribbons and lifted the lid. Nestling like swaddled babies in a bed were t’en exquisite antique lace  lavender bags in a tangle of silken ribbons. But what surprised her was that the ribbons were in shades of green- they had never used any other colours than the lavender, purple range.. She picked it up the flattest one and felt a crackling.. She carefully pulled the end of the emerald ribbon and inside the bag hidden in the lavender was a piece of stiff paper.

« For the girl who was like a granddaughter to me » written in Gravender’s sloping penmanship. She picked up the next green ribboned bag, stuffed very full,  and again she opened it and tipped the contents onto the table. A diamond ring, an emerald ring and pearl earrings fell out. Each green encircled  bag was emptied and the table became  covered  with Mrs Greeves’  treasured jewellery glittering  and gleaming in the cushions of dried lavender.

  Bella and Maria searched every inch of their grandmother’s home before it was sold but they never did discover what she had done with her jewellery. ‘Probably sold it and gave the money to the brittle bone thing,’ sulked  Bellla.

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Geraldine's story 

A BAG OF LAVENDER

 

It had been weeks since Charlie and Margareth hadn’t stopped anywhere with their sailing boat.

They had left from the Isle of Wight after having supplied with food, drink and fuel.  Their decision had been to sail as much as possible under mainsail, gennaker, and in very strong winds under the heavy weather sails such as the storm sail.

Where were they going to ?  They hadn’t really decided !  Actually, they had layed out a big bet with their friends that they  would try to sail as long as possible without stepping on land.  But their intention wasn’t sailing accross oceans.  They would stop in sheltered anchorages all along the Northern and Southern coasts and see how long they could  suffer a lot of trials and tribulations before berthing.

So, beginning of April, just a few days after spring equinox, they hoisted the mainsail and headed towards the West, along the Southern Coast. It was still quite chilly in the mornings and evenings, but in the middle of the day, they were lucky with great sunny spells.  Charlie had heated water for the morning coffee and prepared two slices of brown bread each, with jam and honey.  They needed  these energetic foods to get going.  Of course, they never moored for lunch as their aim was to get as far as possible.  So Margareth would let Charlie manoeuvre “The Blue Eye” and get the fishing rods and lines out.  When the speed wasn’t too high, she would easily catch 5 or 6 mackrells or herrings for lunch or dinner.

Their first anchorage was nearby Torquay and they enjoyed Margareth’s “home made” mackrell rillettes with potatoes and fresh tomatoe salad. What bliss!  They would remember this meal as time went by and food became scarcer and  uninteresting…

Three days later, they sheltered in Penzance, overnight and decided to sail through the Irish Sea up to the Isle of Man rather than sailing up the Western Coast of Ireland, which would certainly be rougher.

And so, they began a routine : every morning up early, the best possible breakfast in order to avoid sea sickness by rough seas, as much fishing as possible, but they weren’t always lucky.  They would take turns at the helm and above all, they would keep an eye on the food supplies making sure they were using them as sparingly as possible.

Around an hour before dark, they would read their sea charts to try and spot the best place for their  overnight anchorage : the main criteria would be safety, of course, which meant making sure they would get protection from the main winds.  Then, approaching the place, they would look at the most beautiful scenery worth seeing and wait for the sunset while relaxing their aching bodies.  Sometimes, just rain or clouds….

The cruise went on softly up the Scottish Coast, the days were longer and so was the sailing.  Then, they reached the Shetland Islands : by this time, the nights became very short and the climate got much warmer.  They had been through some very windy days with rough seas, high waves, and found a little Bay where they stopped for 2 days before crossing over to the Norwegian Coast on the other side.  The food reserves were lowering and not very  interesting : a lot of canned stuff, rice, home-made bread (they still had flour), dessicated veggies and dried fruit.  But their spirits were still high. They started sailing downwards and following the Danish, German, Dutch, Belgian and finally French coasts.

One day, when they were off the British coast between France and England, Charlie asked Margareth

“What about going home now?  Where do our stocks stand?  “

“Well, said Margareth, we did make a bet and we still have some food on board!”  Are you tired of the experience?

“Of course not, I was just wondering….  Let’s continue then.

Summer was there, the routine was beginning to exert an influence on the two sailors.  Without wanting to give up, they both were dying for a nice copious meal and they started dreaming of huge steaks with spuds and greenbeans and banana-splits topped with chocolate and fresh cream for deserts.

In the middle of the “Golfe de Gascogne”, they hit a tremendous storm!  It was so strong they both had to manoeuvre the boat, under the storm jib, facing the waves in order not to be ejected from the boat and sinking…  They fought for 2 whole days and nights and when the wind finally dropped and the waves calmed down, they were just wrecked and incapable of moving for a few hours.

Then, cautiously, they started looking inside the boat to see if any damage had been made. Everything was soaking in seawater, the jars and bags with the sugar and flour had opened and spelt all over.  They had put the rice in a fabric cloth to gain space and it had burst and there was rice in every corner of the “Blue Eye”.  A disaster.

They started pumping the water from the bilge and found a small leak in the bow section.  That meant they would have to stop for repairs on the hull, which also meant they had reached the farthest place without berthing. A quick look at the charts indicated that the nearest place for these indispensable repairs was La Corugna in Spain, on the lowest part of the Golfe de Gascogne.  It meant, probably another 8 hours of navigation.  Charlie and Margareth took turns for the final approach to an inland shelter and when La Corugna Port was within sight they started laughing, and laughing, and laughing at the idea they were going to step out of “Blue Eye”, try and find their balance after those 3 months at sea and, at last, find a restaurant where they would be able to order the most memorable meal ever.

As they finished docking on the pontoon, they decided to start with a shower in the harbour facilities and staggered along the lane as if completely drunk - which they were not, of course- and everything swaying around them.  They immediately spotted a shop and bought a couple of bermudas and T-shirts in order to dress in something dry.  On the way out of the shop, they saw a little “bag of lavender” with a fragrant smell.  They immediately turned back to the shop and bought it.  This would most certainly help getting rid of the nasty odors that they would have to face during the cleansing, the repairs and the trip back home which they would undertake as soon as “Blue Eye” would be ready to sail again!

 

Sarah's story

 

A bag of lavender 4:  (Mick)

(15.07.2021, rev 03.09.2021)

NB: be sure to read Mick’s dialogues with an Australian accent!

 

Mick was despondent.  Four days since he’d arrived from Down Under and he hadn’t had a bit of fun.  The friends he had expected to meet weren’t there, where the hell were they?  And he hadn’t met another soul.  Not anyone worth meeting, that is.  He moped along the street, loath to go back to his hotel once again.  The pubs in this town were a disaster, nothing but up-tight bank clerks in this godforsaken place.

A couple of women passed him, going in the opposite direction, and the wind brought back a snatch of conversation.  He pricked up his ears.  Hadn’t he heard “the end of a party”?  A something or other party.  It had sounded like a “hope party” but that was impossible, right?  He must have heard wrong: a coke party, of course!  Cocaine—if he needed something right now, that was it.  He turned to look after them.  No spring chickens, all right, but not too bad.  He set off after them. 

It took some going, because they were walking rather quickly.  Of course.  Didn’t want to miss the end of the party.  Nor did he!  He hastened his step, in fact he scampered after them.  When he had got more or less up to their level he coughed.

“Hi, girls!  Going to a party?”

When they turned round, his blood congealed somewhat.  From behind they hadn’t looked too bad, but up front their faces showed them to be sixty at least.  None of his friends were over 40.

“Going to see Pattie?” said the taller woman, with a slightly disapproving look.  These young people, she was thinking, with their passion for nicknames, very cheeky of them.  “Yes, we are going to see Patricia.  You are, er … a nephew?”

“A friend.”  He flashed a broad smile.  Surely the others would be younger and sexier.

“There’s gonna be a lot of coke?” he asked hopefully.  He caught a wiff of something that reminded him, not unpleasantly, of his grandmother.

“’No coke,” said the shorter one primly.  “We’re going to take tea”

“Ha ha!”  Must be an in-joke, he thought.  These old birds were really hip.*  By then they had reached a house and rung the bell.

When the door opened, the shock was almost too much for him.  If these chicks were 60, their friend must be eighty at least.

“Happy birthday!” they cried.

“Thank you and welcome!  You’ve brought a bag of lavender, I hope, Hattie?”

“That’s just what I asked her,” said the short woman.  “And she has!”

“But who was your friend?” the old lady asked, looking over their heads.  They turned to see Mick slinking down the path to the road.

“No idea,” they said.

But Mick didn’t hear them.  He had plummeted to the depths of despair.  Must’ve misunderstood something, he thought, as he headed back to another dull night in his room.

 

*In Australian hip slang, “coke” is cocaine and “tea” is marijuana.

NB: the joke depends on pronouncing “party” “pa-a-ty”, in the Australian way.

+ 485 wds

            

Using the following words to write a story : BLACK -SERENDIPITY -SAPLING -TOOTHACHE- MORON

Geraldine story:

A bit challenging to try and get all these words together in a narrative that should make sense, but I’ll try, by relating the visit I made last week to Pinault’s Collection in the « Bourse de Commerce » in Paris.

With my Afro-American friend, Kathleen, who had a pass which helped us avoiding quite a long queue, we decided to just get a first random glance,  as we had been told that there is a lot to be seen.

As you enter this round building that was, at a time,  a granary  -La Halle aux grains- your eyes are immediately cought by the height and the light of the glass and iron dome and then, as they look down, they encounter a whole statuary, with this huge replica of « L’enlèvement des Sabines »  by Giambologna sculpted in the 1580’s. Around this central piece,  delimitated by a concrete wall, a number of items are displayed, such as a couple of African chairs, a plastic chair etc. When you are wandering around these objects, some of them ,have very small flames to them and then, you understand that the sculptures are in wax and then you find out that they are made to last the duration of the exhibition ! It took Kathleen and I a while to discover this, morons we were !

On the outside of the concrete cylinder stands a circular corridor with 24 showcases that had been erected in the Bourse de Commerce since 1889.  Various objects are displayed in each one, which are a pure « sign » with a symbolic value : there’s a suspended damaged moped or a Walt Disney Production sign, or a Picasso blue period sculpture, etc…

And from there, you step into different galeries with various artists.  We immediately stepped into  Gallery nr.2,  dedicated to David Hammons, an Afro-American artist,  reporting his  Black ethnic origin.  The artist gathers all types of rough materials in the street and by their assemblage, makes these final objects : for example, there is a baskett-ball hoop made of cristal, lamps, metal hardware, sandpaper etc …  When you discover that the artist was born and brought up in Harlem, this « fantastic »  and very  kitsch object   becomes fully  significant.  Another very relevant piece of his art is this 2 headed african statue, made of pieces of wood, nails, cardboard, a small mirror in the stomach, painted in orange, symbol of incarceration in the US : we were told that this is the colour of the women’s uniforms when in jail.

Another interesting piece of art is made of very thin branches, probably from some kind of sapling that are assembled to make 5 musical lines on which little chips of broken discs are attached, representing the notes  and make a musical line probably dedicated to jazz, here again one of the artists favourite subjects.

 

We then went down to level -2 to the Auditorium where we were introduced to Tarek Atoui’s electroacoustic composition « The Ground » : if you sit in the Auditorium you hear modern electronic effects from sounds of mineral or vegetal objects very poetically intertwined.  After just sitting there in the darkened auditorium for a while, you can see in the next room the objects that make the music and the way they are assembled.  Amazing !  It certainly looked like one of those serendipity effects in  sound research.

 

Then, we wondered around the top lanes of the rotonde looking at the ceiling painted with ports from different parts of the world from which, apparently, the grain or goods were shipped in the  eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.  Some you could recognize : Canada, Russia, France, Caraïbs… others you could more or less imagine where they were from.  The glass dome provided the light, and you could see the candles burning in the top of the « Enlèvement des Sabines », which you couldn’t guess from the ground level.  I stood for quite a while at different spots looking up and down, dreaming, going back to the old times, being pulled into modernity at the same time and that feeling was just  tremendously fullfilling.

Then Kathleen, who is a very pragmatic person, living in Paris and always looking for new places to invite her friends, took us up to the top floor to discover the restaurant – tea-room and find out about menus and prices.  She likes sweet taste, like most vegetarians and all these cakes and deserts made me think I would probably catch a toothache if I absorbed too many.  Nevertheless, because of Covid, in order to keep distances, you had to reserve your table !  End of story !

And I must admit I wasn’t that interested, but the view over Paris is just wonderful, with St Eustache church right near, Beaubourg in the distance and between these two edifices, the Tour St Jacques, the Hôtel de Ville, the just recently reopened « Samaritaine » and in the far, the Eiffel Tower.

All I know, is that I shall certainly go back to this place where there is so much to discover and, at the same time, so many different concepts organized in the one same place.

 

 

Story contribution by Annemarie

serendipity, moron, toothache, black, sapling

It was over 30°c when they arrived at the tiny house and it was indeed a tiny house hidden down a path of mature silver birches reaching far up Into the skies, the wind soughing through the leaves. Pushing aside elderflower blossom and spotted laurel a black door appeared, nestled in the greenery. Inside there were two tiny bunk beds, a small table and chairs and a fridge with 2 bottles of wine and 8 tins of beer and two small appetising cakes. The only  way they could sleep in those beds was to bend their bodies in half!

“We'll work something out,” said the man. '”After all it's probably too hot to sleep in tiny beds in a tiny  cabin with tiny windows. We could always sleep under the stars. But first of all I’ll need some painkillers; my tooth has been agony all the way from France. I think I'll wash them down with a beer. You want some wine? Red or white? Very generous with the drinks, aren't they?” he said to his wife.

They sat down on two deckchairs beside a small  patch of rhubarb,  and drank in the warm sun and the now warm beer and wine; then they ate the cakes.

“I can’t  quite decide the flavour of these cakes. In fact I haven't tasted anything quite like it before,” munched the wife.

Tired after the 8 hour journey eyelids began to flutter, two heads slumped sideways and very soon the couple were fast asleep, one of them gently snoring. After a while the woman suddenly awoke with a start,  feeling great blobs of rain bombarding her. She shook her husband awake.

“Quickly, wake up it's raining; we need to shelter.”

They struggled from the deckchairs,  ran and stood under some enormous leaves, the raining pattering and splattering above . When they looked up the sun was still shining and the leaves were a luminous lime green roof hovering over them and beyond they glimpsed a brightly coloured rainbow.

“That must be some kind of Alice in Wonderland drink we've had . We've completely shrunk; these spiky stems  reach way above our heads and the leaves must be at least a metre across,” said the man. “Look there's the owner of the place and he's coming this way.”

Henk, the Dutch owner, hastened along the path, his feet slapping and splashing in the puddles and he joined the couple under the enormous leaves.

 “Gosh, he's shrunk as well!” whispered the wife to her husband.

“How are you doing? I saw you hiding from the rain, do you need any help” he asked in perfect but charmingly accented English. He turned to the husband under the giant parasol  of leaves where now only odd drops of rain plopped onto them and they could see the shadow of the splashes through the almost transparent emerald leaves. “You look very uncomfortable - is something wrong?”

“Well, now you ask, I would like to find a dentist; I have the most terrible toothache.”

‘Serendipity!” exclaimed Henk “ that's my profession! Yes I’m a dentist “ ( His English really was excellent!)

“ Let's see what I can do”. And hurried back to his house and returned with a piece of strong, thin cord. He tied one end around the man's tooth and then he bent a small sapling before tying the other end to the little tree. “1,2,3..” and without warning he let go of the sapling, which sprang back whisking the man's tooth on the end of the cord, drops of blood spitting against the verdant leaves.

“Now go inside my house and rinse your mouth and I will pack it out with something.”

“Can I just ask you one thing - why are we so small suddenly,“ the husband burbled through his bleeding mouth.

 “We must be morons! “ laughed the wife,  “We are in Holland.  It was the cakes; they were cannabis cakes; we've been hallucinating!”

The trio stepped out from beneath the rhubarb patch but on looking back it was no hallucination. They really were giant rhubarb leaves.

“No, no” said Henk “those are my gunnera plants and if you had gone a little further in you would have stepped into a shallow pond. Thirty two years I have been growing the plants, now as high and wide as a room!”

“And the cakes?” asked the wife .

 “Yes, they are cannabis cakes. This is Holland and I have many guests who return for the cakes and I thought your name was familiar when you booked so I prepared some for you,” replied Henk.”I did not know that Williams was such a common name and that this was your first visit here.”

 

 

Sarah's story

Colour

 

Dippy was very absorbed, colouring with painstaking effort the pictures in her book.  She chose with care from the 24 colours in the pack of markers her mama had just bought her.  Her friend Cilia, who was a year older and already in school, had told her that school was mostly about colouring.  She would like that.  Only Cilia had said they didn’t have markers, only crayons.  Dippy didn’t know about crayons because her mama had always bought her markers.  So she asked what they were, and why.  Cilia had stolen one from school, it was red, and she started to draw on Dippy’s shorts, which were yellow. 

“Stop that!” she said.  Her mama was very definite about not getting marks on her clothes.  But Cilia only laughed and said it didn’t show, see? and that that was why they used them at school.  Then she had tried the crayon on one of the flowers in the book, and it came out not bright at all.  That had rather dampened Dippy’s enthusiasm about school.

She heard the grownups talking about colour.  There were some men there she didn’t know, and they seemed very upset about something.  One of the women was very excited too.  She had a voice that screeched like a toothache.  But oh, yes, Dippy knew about colour.  She knew that colour was important!   Birds of green and yellow and blue.  Flowers of red and pink and orange.

With only half of her mind listening to the grown-ups, she heard one of them say something about “black men” and white men”.  Did such things exist?  She thought about what white men could look like and remembered a book she had about a snowman.  They must be like that.  Fat, very fat, with black eyes and orange noses and colourless skin.  They wouldn’t be much fun to colour, almost nothing to do.  That’s why there was no white marker.  Then she wondered about black men and decided to draw one.  She had only birds and flowers in her colouring book, because that was what she liked best.  But there was a blank page at the end of the book, so she chose the black marker and began.

She drew the man: head, torso, arms, legs, and coloured them all in.  But when she wanted to draw in the features, she couldn’t.  Nothing showed on the black.  She was aghast.  Black people must have no eyes.  Or noses or mouths.  They must be very strange indeed.  Poor black people!

But she was tired of colouring now and wanted to go outside, to skip and run.  She skipped and ran all the way down the road, to a little sapling grove she knew, where it was green and cool inside.  Her special place, far enough from the last houses so she could think it was her own world.

In the grove there were flowers, wild flowers in between the trees.  Every month there were different ones.  It must be God put them there for her.  This time they were blue.  Then she heard a man’s voice behind her.  She turned and he was coming towards her.  He had a strange, different look, and did not look friendly either.  She gathered up her flowers and prepared to run.

“Hey you.  Don’t run away from me.  I just wanna know something.”

So she stopped. “What you wanta know?” she asked.

“You just tell me where the black community live.”

“Black community?”

“Yeah.  Where the black people live.”

“I don’ know!”  She was amazed.  So there were black people around here?  She would ask her mama, and turned as if to go.

But the man lunged towards her, and that gave her wings.  She ran, out onto the road as if the devil were after her.  A car screeched to a halt and she heard an angry shout.  Ah!  It was Bubba, her big brother and he was yelling at her.

“What you doin’ out here on the road?  You spose to be home for lunch.  And prackly gettin’ yo’self killed!”  But he opened the door for her and she climbed in.  She shot a look backward and saw the man retreating back into the woods.

“Hey, Bubba,” she said, “ where de black community live?”

“Where de what?”

“De black people.”

He threw back his head and laughed fit to kill.

“You’s a moron!” he spluttered.  “Dat’s a good one!”  And he went on laughing.  But then he sobered and said, “What wuz you runnin’ from?”

She told him a man was trying to catch her.

“Was he a white man?” he asked.

“Oh, no!” The image of the snow man flashed before her mind’s eye.  “Sorta pinkish.  But his neck was red.”  Her brother looked very put out.

 

At home her mama didn’t scold her for being late.  That was a good thing.  So she thought it was a good time to ask her question.

“Mama, where de black people live?”

Her mama turned and stared, a little laugh at the corners of her mouth.  “’Why dat’s us, din’t you know?”

“Us?  But we not black people, we’s just folks!”

“We’s black folks.”

“No,” she insisted.  That was all wrong.  She looked at her arms.  “I not black.  I’s yellow.  And Bubba, he … coffee-colored.”  She pictured her dad.  “Papa he sorta chocolate-coloured.”

“And me?”

“You, Mama?  You’s a cream colour.  You’s de prettiest mama I know.  And Papa,” she added, to make no favourites, “he de handsomest daddy dey is.”

“Ah, Serendipity,” sighed her mother.  “you got a lot to learn.  If only people could think like you.  But dat ain’t de way de world is made.”

 

 Paula's story

Laura stood on the sidewalk in her bright pink work apron, staring up at the name of her restaurant — HER restaurant — painted in a beautiful script above the doors of the building. She had ordered black paint, but the artisan whom she hired for the job had arrived with navy. And although at the time, she had thought, what a moron, he persuaded her to let him work, and if she didn’t approve of the finished product, he would redo it. She had realized almost immediately that he was right: the blue letters stood out beautifully against the warm, bright gold of the painted brick façade. Quite French Provincial, she thought now. Perfect.

 

After years of trudging from restaurant kitchen to restaurant kitchen across Manhattan, her knives neatly tied up in their cloth sleeves, tucked under her arm, she had finally been able to make her dream come true. Her own restaurant. What amazing luck to find this small building, just a few streets from her apartment, shortly after the death of her beloved uncle left her with an inheritance large enough for a down payment. There was even enough money to furnish the place, in a minimalist fashion, and only 12 tables, but it was a start. Today was the big day: she would open her doors, offering a modest lunch menu. It was October in New York, and the day had dawned perfectly, with an azure sky and temperatures that barely whispered of the winter to come.

 

Meanwhile, a few blocks away, 28-year-old Eliza was ensconced in the reclining chair of her dentist’s office. Seven months after the car accident that shattered her jaw and broke almost all of her teeth, she was being fitted with the dentures that would surely rule her life for the rest of her days. Her dentist was, even now, as he worked, cautioning her that she must eat only soft foods for the next several weeks until her mouth and jaw adjusted to the foreign objects. Her mother had thoughtfully bought her a very expensive blender, which was sitting on the kitchen counter of her apartment, waiting to be put to use. Puréed foods and milkshakes, Eliza thought. That’s my life for a while. “Look on the bright side,” her dentist said. “Never again will you have a toothache!” Great, Eliza thought. Who really wants their dentist to crack jokes at a time like this?

 

When she finally was released, her jaw aching and her back stiff, she realized she was hungry. Hungry for what, exactly, she wondered wryly. It’s not like I have many choices. As she hurried down the sidewalk, she stopped suddenly in front of the former Vietnamese place where she had ordered  so many takeout dinners over the years. It had been transformed, into a sunny yellow building with sparkling new floor-to-ceiling windows, and a row of tiny café tables in front. Small maple saplings

sprouted from dark green wooden planters between the tables. 

 

A woman in a bright pink apron stood in the doorway with a welcoming smile and a stick of chalk in her hand. Then Eliza spied the chalkboard propped against the door advertising today’s lunch special: a trio of soups. What luck, she thought gratefully. She looked up to see the name of the restaurant, painted in a beautiful navy script against a gold background, and she smiled: Serendipity.

 

 

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 Jackie contribution

A serendipitous moment

I was dubious about him from the start.    Leaning into the door like a young SAPLING  sprouting out with spots and boils on his forehead.     I have a terrible TOOTHACHE  he said stumbling into the shop – showing me his BLACK  gums while licking an ice cream and dripping vanilla all over my clean floor I painstakingly wash and disinfect every morning.   I reminded him that the dentist was a few doors down the street.

 He fingered the clothes on the racks and undid the scarves trying them on this way and that – put them round his scrawny neck and screwed them up into a ball.     Flinging them back on the table like a MORON with no manners.    He reeked of cheap perfume that followed behind him like a sick dog with tail between his legs.   His raincoat looked like it had been dragged through a ditch and the shoes if you can call them that – had clearly seen better days.

How much is this? How much is that? Questioning the quality and whereabouts of fabrication.

I reminded him to wear a mask not just over his mouth but cover his nose as well ,  spray his hands with the disinfectant gel … sounding like a mother scolding her three year old.    He didn’t pay attention just continued round the shop and I concluded that he had to be got rid of quickly.  I opened the door stood by it and said clearly that he should have a nice day – trying to usher him out – I’d like to try this he said holding up a man’s shirt – oh dear I dreaded the state of my changing room after he’d been in it.    Now I need something for my girlfriend,  picking up several dresses – blue, green and red,

I began to panic thinking he was going to walk out of the shop with all my stock without paying.    

Well I’ll take all this, he said piling loads of shirts, scarves and dresses onto the counter and  pulling out a Gold Platinum credit card.    The transaction went through  - a truly SERENDIPITIOUS moment – it made my day and even my week !  and taught me a lesson.    Never judge a person on appearances alone.