June 22 // shame and choucroute
There’s a music festival in Chalons today. All over France, in fact, and Françoise et Pierre are hitting the road for the day to make use, presumably, of all those hiking shoes.
For a few days, now, I’ve been trying to convince Mark to take a day off. Where were we off to in such a hurry, after all? Can’t we just take a day to enjoy our destination, to get to know its people? And what better day to do so than on the Fête de la Musique, particularly with all the buzz downtown.
Pierre and Françoise think it’s a terrific idea, that we should definitely feel welcome to stay another evening, and practically offers us the second night’s stay for free.
So it’s settled.
Except. I seem to be finding the allure of the unknown gnawing at me. We could stay in this town, which is so full of esprit jouvence and vin joyeaux and joli cul…or, we could try Door #2.
Yeah, we’ll try Door #2.
I’m in a pretty good mood on this ride, I must admit. It’s another sunny day, but the ride along the Moivre River is flat and well-shaded, full of wet leaves and good asphalt to where I can ride much of it hands-free, stretching my aching back while blasting Forever Pavot and Pépite on my phone for my own little Fête de la Musique Psychédélique. This might be a bit inconsiderate of my riding partner’s headspace, but you know what? Maybe I don’t need to worry about that all of the time. Maybe I am learning to assert my own free will. Maybe.
By noon, our stomachs are starting to angle for attention, and we point ourselves toward a vast shopping center in the village of Vitry-le-François.
There’s something vaguely familiar about this place, with a retro-styled McDonald’s, a drive-thru car wash, and an Intermarché; it’s at the latter supermarket where Mark entrusts me to pick the day’s lunch. Because I am learning to assert my own free will.
My selection is almost cartoonishly French, at least in my own mind, including a fatty, foamy wedge of truffled foie gras, a log of goat cheese, an apple, and a fresh baguette, nevermind the bottle of Coca-Cola requested for my friend outside.
Upon presenting my menu, I find that my friend outside has made a friend of his own, namely a greased-up teenager who sits alongside a trash can, curled up in a ball and moaning at the midday moon. Thankfully, he doesn’t seem to notice me or my truffles, lest I might have to actually act upon the so-called class solidarity I’m so often ranting over.
A few bites in, we’re intercepted by an Official French Grand–mère who has just wrapped up her own grocery shopping and is positively chuffed to see us in our Spandex. Chuffed to hear where we came from, and chuffed to hear my *fabulous* French!
Now this is what I’m talking about, I think to myself, having forgotten about our howling friend. Glory to be us. We are amazing! I am amazing. She loves me! She loves my French. I’m doing great. You know what? Fuck it, I’ve had enough foie. I’m going to just throw that shit away, and look at that: no guilt!
Except now she’s shouting. Why is she shouting? Why is she pointing to my cell phone? I start filming just in case she tries to stab us, which would be great for my algorithim.
“Madame, désolé, mais ne parlons pas français.” I should’ve been saying this all along. Why is she touching my arm? “Ma’am! No French! Pas français!” But she’s still going, to the extent that our friend by the trashcan has now excused himself to the opposing corner of the parking lot. “Merci madame, merci. Nous devons partir. Merci. Merci!”
Does she like us? Does she hate us? Is this a 5G thing? Immigration? We start biking away literally mid-breath, and yet her shouting doesn’t stop.
Vitry-le-François is more like home than I could’ve realized.
It’s another two hours to our destination and I don’t know if it’s the 10,000 calories I just ate or something else, but I’m feeling a touch less spry than I was this morning. Before long, Mark has left me eating his dust for the last leg of my first 50 mile day as we cross from Marne into the region of Aube, whether another monastery awaits. Or so we think.
Curiously, converse to the medieval hilltowns we’ve encountered thus far, the center of Brienne-le-Château sitting at the pit of a valley, or so it seems. Its namesake Château hovers above the heatwaves like some kind of not-so-distant mirage on the set of an old francophone western.
Best known as the home of the military academy at which Napoleon Bonaparte trained as a teenager (and later, in 1805, where he spent a night en route to Milan where he was to be crowned King of Italy on the very same trail as we’re on right now).
On the string of buildings which line either side of the street, the old white stucco seems to covered in a thin, universal layer of dust.
There there’s nary a soul to be seen here but for Mark, who leans against the monastery door with his typical vague indifference which he flaunts like an elderly house cat.
Next door, there’s a shuttered secondhand store, a flyer in its window promoting a concert long since past; across the street, a pharmacy — also closed — sells nothing but rolls of faded old 35mm film in its window. It was, to say the least, a sad, pathetic little town.
Even our monastery — which, upon closer inspection, isn’t a monastery at all, but an apartment called the Maison Fraternelle du Pèlerin — seems closed, at least after a few attempts at ringing the doorbell and calling the phone number hand-written on the door.
In time, our host, a tiny, bespectacled man of indeterminate age, manifests — not sure from where — to usher us indoors with some haste, gesturing for our bikes to be left in the entryway, a prospect at which neither of us is thrilled.
After settling up our two nights’ rent in the kitchen, a mint-and-white linoleum portal to the postwar period, the man leaves us to it.
“It,” in this case, is an attempt to nap in one of their spongey, squeaky mattresses which, like the town itself, dips in the middle and hasn’t been worthwhile in seemingly a century. Nevermind the nap: I’ll take a shower.
Oh. There’s a man in the hallway.
He’s tall. He’s lanky. He’s dusty. Looking a bit like a vagrant Stephen Merchant, smiling like a bit of a sweaty boob, his vibe is capped not so much with a hat but a miniature awning in khaki, which he keeps perched upon his shoulders, offering shade wherever he goes. I immediately play the game of wondering where he’s from. Deutsch? Français? Italiano…?
“I speak English, no worries,” he says with a chuckle.
Having come from the Camino de Santiago — an extended section of which apparently intersects with the Francigena in this godforsaken town — this dutchman named Daniel has been on foot for a full three months, having gone the better part of the last week without speaking to another soul.
There’s something about this man, something in the way he locks eyes, in the timing of his laugh, always too early or too late, that doesn’t seem quite right. As a Certified California Opportunist, though, I make sure to offer him just enough conversation to stay on his good side and, hopefully, to learn how many kittens he’s killed.
The kitchen is quiet. I have run out of questions to ask.
“Mark, should we, um, go figure out some dinner?”
“Yes, Eric, that sounds like a good idea,” Mark says.
Double-checking that our bikes are locked, and grabbing my pocket knife from my bar bag just in case, we spill out into the radiating heat. “What the fuck is with that guy,” Mark says.
“Oh I don’t know, he seems nice,” I say.
“Don’t lie.”
“Seriously,” I lie.
“Whatever.”
It’s a good ten minutes’ walk to the supermarket, and as seemingly the lone pedestrians in the village, we have to dodge some traffic to get there, doing so with only twenty minutes before they close for the evening.
“Pierre said they’re known for its sauerkraut,” I tell Mark, grabbing a bag of choucroute, as it’s known, which has been flavored with bits of ham.
“You think they have chia seeds here?” Mark needs to eat chia seeds every morning. On account of his valve.
“I’m going to go look for some stinky cheese,” I add helpfully. Turning the corner, I find our new flatmate standing in the frozen section, hovering a good three feet higher than the grey old ladies amongst us.
“Hello,” he says with wide eyes and a goofy laugh.
“Oh, hi Daniel.”
“Shopping for dinner?”
“Yes,” I say. “Well, see you later.”
“Haha! Yes,” he responds.
I find Mark in the wine section. “That guy—”
“Dude. I know.”
“Let’s go.”
The day is nearly done by the time we make it back. Amongst the buzzing flies of the kitchen, we start boiling some potatoes, slicing up some terrine, and pouring out a half-chilled bottle of shitty wine before our new friend is back from his shopping.
“White wine,” he proclaims, chuckling as if he had made some kind of joke.
“Yes,” I say, judging him as he unpacks his groceries: an apple, some yogurt, and some macaroni salad marked 50% off. “Would you like some?” I offer, hoping he’ll murder Mark instead of me.
“Oh, thank you, but I don’t drink.” Mark and I share a look—it’s worse than we thought.
“So Daniel…” I have a bite of vignotte, which isn’t stinky at all. “What’s the plan for your walk? Where you headed?”
Daniel sighs hard, staring into his macaroni, then dresses himself with a smile. “I rented a home about a week away from here,” he says between bites. “Thank God, all three of my children managed to take some time off of work to meet me there.”
His three children? Work? The guy looked younger than us. “That’s really nice. They want to celebrate their father, huh? Three months on the road,” I add, “is such a great accomplishment.”
“Well, it’s the anniversary of their mother’s death.”
“Oh,” I belch, forcing down some wine. “Well, that doesn’t mean you can’t be proud—”
“I used to be a youth counselor at my church. We were both very involved with our community. We gave so much to that church. But when she got sick — when she died — it was very hard. I…missed her. I didn’t know how to raise the children alone. And after all of this, my pastor decided he had to let me go. After fifteen years. It was more than my job. It was my faith. I was angry, I was hurt, I was scared.”
I look to Mark for help, but he only stares into his wine. “I’m…I’m so sorry.”
“But they were right. I just couldn’t do it anymore. So eventually I decided to go on this walk. To speak to God, you know, to understand how I was going to go on living the rest of my life. And to remember her. So I don’t know.” Daniel offered another smile. “I’m sorry. What about you, how is your pilgrimage going?”
Shit. What the hell am I supposed to say? It’s hot? The food has been disappointing?
I wish I had the words to fix it, to match him in his wisdom, in his bravery, but how? “It’s been pretty good, I guess, right Mark?”
“Sure.”
It was such a strange feeling, some combination of shame for having judged, of compassion for what he’s suffered through, of honor having been entrusted with his story, of pride for having shared, if only in the smallest and most literal way, a path with a man on such a biblical, life-rending journey? “Daniel,” I asked, “would you like to try some of this sauerkraut? It’s local.”
I couldn’t possibly recall everything we discussed that evening, or guess how long we spoke. I don’t really remember where exactly he had come from, what his voice sounded like, or what kind of glasses he was wearing. I do remember how he made me feel.
As someone who never quite understood organized religion — not even my own, not during my Bar Mitzvah, not in the many times I’ve laid awake in bed, trying to commune in some way with a higher power I wasn’t entirely sure I believed in — what seemed to matter so much in this moment, thanks to the Via Francigena, was this sense of connection. Of belonging to something so much bigger than me, not in its miles, in its millennia, but in its purpose.
I may not have experienced the level of grief Daniel had been through, and hopefully I never will, but in the mere act of seeking without fully understanding why, in exposing myself to others doing the same, perhaps I was tapping into something that just wasn’t available on my daily commute to work, no matter how challenging, in the movies I watched, no matter how meaningful, or in my friendships, no matter how profound.
Or perhaps, more importantly, I was failing to appreciate just how fortunate I was to exist in this world at all? That there was potential to find meaning lurking in every corner, no matter how mundane, how banal, how hideous? Perhaps the quality of the joke wasn’t as important as that of the laughter?
“I think you guys should go to that concert before it gets too late,” Daniel says, washing his fork.
“Well,” I offer, struggling to catch my breath after such a soul-skinning conversation, “would you like to come with us, maybe?”
“Oh thank you, but it’s too late for me. I have a long way to go tomorrow.”
//
There’s literally new light outside, as the dusk has cast Brienne in an otherworldly pink. For once, I put my phone away, allowing the breadcrumbs of music to show me the way as I, as if in a trance, put one foot in front of the other.
On our right, we spy a trio of little heads poking out over a hedgerow fence. “Bonne soirée,” I say with a wave and a smile, sending the girls giggling back to their yard party.
God, this world is beautiful.
It’s hardly a five minutes’ walk to the source of the music, and we’re suddenly on a main road we’d failed to notice on our first two passes through the village.
On our right, the 19th century mairie, where an adolescent Napoleon in bronze looks over the town in perpetuity. Up ahead, an empty stage sits in the center of the road, flanked by a small roundabout filled with flowers.
On either side of the stage, a classic, largely identical bar-tabac—one green-yellow, the other orange-blue, both ripped straight from the 1970s—both full of old men smoking under the candy-colored awnings.
Between the bars, there’s a grassy neutral ground lined by young oaks, where a few tables are set up around a statue of Sylvain Charles Valée1.
Here, rosy-cheeked, toe-headed children dark after one another, narrowly missing the barrel-chested garçons who, like grizzled magicians, dole out liter-upon-liter of wine from tiny silver trays while chatting and laughing and taking orders in succession before retreating to one of the two cafes.
Mark and I find ourselves some real estate amongst the many communal tables in the area, and for a moment it feels like we’ve walked into a panel from an old Tintin en France comic. As we look to catch the eye of the ping-ponging waiter, the music cools over the public address and a band takes the stage to great applause, led by a bearded man in sunglasses who sits center-stage behind a KORG keyboard.
A hush falls on the crowd, and my eyes land on a small white moth fluttering up above the crowd. At the next table over, an old lady squeezes the wrinkled hand of her loved one. A little boy has ketchup on his nose.
We are so fortunate to be alive.
The keyboardist kicks things off with a driving, energized staccato. The woman to his left, middle-aged, bottle-blonde, and sequined, grabs the mic from her stool.
I used to rule the world
Seas would rise when I gave the word
Now in the mornin’, I sleep alone
Sweep the streets I used to own
I used to roll the dice
Feel the fear in my enemy’s eyes
Listened as the crowd would sing
“Now the old king is dead, long live the king.
I turn to Mark. “What is this, Coldplay?”
“Yep.”
Kill me.
I’ve lost sight of the moth; it seems as if a cloud of mosquitoes has descended upon our table; our server is busy talking to some fat asshole. Hello, some wine?!
The band dives into another banger:
But there’s a side to you
That I never knew, never knew
All the things you’d say
They were never true, never true
And the games you’d play
You would always win, always win
But I set fire to the rain
Watched it pour as I touched your face
Well, it burned while I cried
‘Cause I heard it screamin’ out your name
Your name
The singer is really going for it now, reaching back for that extra bit of soul. Her voice is guttural. Her pitch is off. Her English is stupid.
Everything is wrong.
“Mark, I need to leave this place,” I droll, asserting my free will.
“Yeah, fuck this shit.”
We stand and slink back up the Rue de l’École Militaire, not that anyone notices. “We should’ve stayed in Chalons,” I tell Mark. He shrugs.
- Born in Brienne in 1773, Valée was an officer under Napoleon who helped sack Algeria, and was declared a Maréchal de France for his efforts. ↩︎