The Gallic Connection
The Gallic Connection
by Ottilie Vigneras
“Un billet, s’il vous plaît, aller et retour à Viry-Chatillon,” the first of seven Montgomery College students pronounced carefully. They were in line at the ticket window of the railway station.
“Un billet, s’il vous plaît, aller et retour à Viry-Chatillon,” the second repeated. After each request, the clerk turned around to fetch the proper ticket, handed it over and received payment for the fare.
Before I had asked for my ticket, he was turning toward his bank of tickets. “Aller et retour à Viry-Chatillon,” he winced, not suspecting that these were American students on an adventuresome Christmas holiday in 1970–1971. At 10:00 p.m., or vingt-deux-heures, we boarded the train, seemingly with no conductor or trainman, consulted our watches, and mapped out our scrambled arrival in the dark at Viry-Chatillon.
Two French families, friends of mine who had planned the event thoughtfully, had invited les américains to a réveillon or New Year’s Eve celebration. The garlanded basement welcomed the students, the boys having brought champagne to complement the girls’ pastries. The two adjacent apartments on the top floor were open to please us all with games, dancing, singing, snacks and wine.
At midnight, the students, having descended to the basement for communication by sign language—like deaf-mutes—rushed up the four flights of stairs to kiss me a Bonne Année.
Now, valued former colleagues, imagine us seated at a long table where we enjoyed oysters, champagne, and a full course dinner.
At 6:00 a.m. on New Year’s Day, I retired while the jeunes strummed soft music in an adjoining small bedroom. Our hosts, having ignored sleep, had cleaned up everything to serve us breakfast by 1:00 p.m., just in time for us to jump on the train to Paris.
Many years later we salute one another in unexpected places. Rules of grammar and French written exams bother no more. But the international bridge of understanding forever conjures up happy memories.
However abruptly it may seem, kindly permit me a flash-back of six months in the spring of 1970. My educational philosophy is unchanged. The second half concerns a trip to Guadeloupe, French West Indies, during Easter vacation. Expenses were kept at a minimum, a total of three or four hundred dollars. Seven students of assorted ages and sexes signed up. From Puerto Rico, Air France flew us to Pointe-à-Pitre and set us down in a blaze of tropical glory at sunset. One section of a new modern school was left open for us. A caretaker and a chef served us supper in the cafeteria. The mosquitoes were there, too, but we shortly found mosquito netting and retired early in a rural setting, accompanied fortissimo by howling bands of stray dogs, crowing cocks, and clicking crickets.
To reach the center of town, five kilometers from the school, we hiked through cane fields and coconut groves. French customs in tropical Indian settings colored the meal hours, architecture, gardens, roads, and churches. The French art of cooking flavored the appetizing vegetables, fruits, and fish. Café au lait, breads and pastries, fries, and wines were ordered without the modifying adjective “French.”
Outside balconies of the Lycée joined the dormitories, making everyone congenial yet on the alert. Walking, swimming, and snorkeling enlivened the adventure. At night we went to movies or discothèques.
Taxis careened around the shore roads on special trips to the rain forests and a statue commemorating the discoverer of the island in 1498, “Cristophe Colomb.” The smoking, sulphur-smelling, dormant volcano La Soufrière challenged the sturdy ones to her rim.
The cohesiveness of the group made my experiment successful. But, again, the most important result of the vacation was the awareness of differences between peoples.
Rockville Campus: Department of Modern Languages, 1965–1977; Professor Emerita.