Saturday, May 12, 2012
Montparanasse to Hendaye to Irun

I do manage to rise at 4:30 a.m., shower, dress and leave the hotel with time to spare. The hotel made a reservation for a taxi for me using an automated system: I listened to the recording of the details of my reservation the day before, but was dubious I would see a taxi today. Notwithstanding, when I reached the lobby, there was the taxi. The taxi driver, a Malagache, as those from Madagascar are known, helped me pack my items in the trunk, and we were off for the Gare Montparnasse, on the other side of town.

Paris was quiet, but not empty. As the taxi swung to the Left Bank and beyond, we passed night time revelers --three girls, all dressed in black, arms linked, walking a bit unsteadily, a couple, ambling more steadily, a young man dressed preppily buying a bus ticket-- dotting the streets. A night-time bus passed us, largely filled with Africans --many work in restaurant services as cooks-- they run all night, although the Metro closes.

I arrived to an empty Gare Montparnasse. The concrete surrounding me --walls, columns, all massive-- had me thinking momentarily that I had walked into a room adjacent a parking area, but no, the sign above, listing all the upcoming trains included my connection to Hendaye at 6:20 a.m, no track listed. I spotted a photomachine with a stool, and parked myself there.

The photo machine, like the plaques emailles whose messages gave me such amusement, are another example of how the French do things. The photo machine charges five euros for two photos suitable for submission with an application for any number of French documents: a passport, a driver's license, an identity card --but the photo must be taken the right way. Next to the camera, were detailed instructions as to what was and what was not acceptable photo demeanor: first of all, the photo subject ought to verify that their head is aligned within the parameters of the oval stenciled onto the camera window. Six pairs of photos featuring a lovely young woman with light blond hair and an oval face offered non-verbal examples of "dos" and "don'ts": no hat, no hair falling over the face, no three-quarter view or grimace, just a direct glance, no glasses --and finally, --no smile.

While I am sitting on the photo machine's white stool, a family of three --a young man, his father and mother, all of Indian descent, all dressed smartly, approach the SNCF computer terminal opposite. They spend a minute or two trying to use the machine, and then the father, spying me, asks,

"Do you speak English?"

When I say "yes", a little look of relief passes across his face, and we are soon in conversation: it is their first trip to France, they are staying in Paris and they are going to Lourdes for the day. The concierge at their hotel has made a reservation on the train to Lourdes for them, guaranteed on their credit card. Dad is wondering whether they will be able to print out their tickets from the machine. I say, that they should be able to do so.

"But I'm worried about giving the machine my credit card--"

I say I know the feeling, but think he has nothing to worry about. Dad moves off to join his family at the machine. A few minutes later he is back.

"The hotel made my reservation on my American Express card, but the machine only takes VISA or Master Card."

This often happens in France. It is a bete noire of mine as well, I tell them, but suggest that they get on the train, as the conductor has a hand-held device which probably has their reservation. I am on the same train, and offer to translate if they need an intermediary, once I get to my assigned seat.

"Isn't there someone to help customers here? Do you know what time they get in?" He is a bit exasperated.

I can't say. I hasten to explain that in France time is taken, and there is a lack of urgency about many things, but their train, which is high-speed, will be wonderful, and "Yes" it will have a nice dining car.

"We are from the fastest town in the United States, Washington, D.C. So we are used to--"

" --I have you beat there", I interrupt "I am from New York City."

"Well, then you know--" What he expects, I think he means.

At that, the track is announced --Track 1-- and I move to the escalator with the family. However, when we reach the platform, Dad excuses himself, saying he is going ahead to see if he can find some train personnel to straighten out the reservation problem. The TGV has just gotten in, and passengers are leaving. I lose track of my charges and look for the first class car, which is marked as Voiture 3 on my ticket. I see a green-sided first class car and walk up to it: Voiture 13. There is one more first class car adjoining: Voiture 12. This makes little sense, but I see a cheminot in conversation with two more a few cars down, so I move in that direction.

When I reach the train worker, I mention that my ticket is for first class in the third car, but I can't find it.

"There's another train at the front of the track. That's the one that you want."

In France, one track might berth two trains, so even if you know the track number of a train, it is important to verify where on the track it is placed, to avoid getting on the wrong train. Whatever the train reservation indicates is correct the Voiture 3 printed on my ticket is not a misprint.

I make my way down the line and sure enough, there is another train awaiting passengers, with a third car and my seat inside. I place my baggage on the rack outside the car, put my jacket down on my seat, and go outside to look for my Indian family. There is no sign of them: I stand outside looking for them, until the announcement is made that the train doors will close and the train depart shortly. I wonder whether they made their train to Lourdes..

***

The train is on its way to Hendaye. We stop at Poitiers, Angouleme, and we will visit St. Jean-de-Luz (where Louis XIV married his Spanish bride), before reaching the terminus at Hendaye. My month in France is coming to end. Although I am reading French (a history of the trial of Marie-Antoinette), it will be Spanish I will hear soon, and not too much later, English with an Irish accent.


As I think about France and the French, I am again struck by the ease with which they settle themselves wherever is practical: cycling from Nice to Villefranche-sur=-Mer via the Col de Villefranche, I remember, as I passed Mont Boron (the highest point) seeing a small camper parked by the side of the road overlooking the coast. The camper's inhabitants had not parked at the lookout to take in the view, they were gathered around the little booth for four within the camper having lunch. It was not the only time I saw this.

Like the tillers of the soil their forefathers were, the French are peasants, tied to the land in this most arable of countries. The magazine Capital, a reliable monthly that focuses on economic issues, reports in this month's issue, whatever public information is available regarding the 450,000 households defined as "wealthy". a target of President-elect Hollande. Of the wealthy in France, 57.3% of that fortune came from an inheritance, in contrast with 27% in the United States. That is to say that most of France's most well-off enjoy their affluence thanks to money they did not earn, while in the United States that is the case for a little more than one our of every four of weathy Americans. Interestingly, the rate is highest among Germans, with 68%, and lowest in the United Kingdom, with 18.5%.

The disparity between the origins of those with the most economic power and those with the least, fuels the class conflicts in France. It also explains why the French are, at heart, more concerned with equality than freedom, whereas in the United States it is the opposite. The French accept having to carry an identity card on their person at all times, while in the United States a national identity card is viewed as a suspect proposition. No French child born in a hospital in France leavs without having its name and date of birth inscribed in the livre de famille, every French mother and father carries and must inscribe before an official should the family be dissolved by divorce or death. As a result, bigamy is much less likely in France, than in the United States, On the other hand, the government is more present in the lives of the French than it is in that of Americans. The French are used to it that way. When my French teacher in New York learned that there is no national identity card requirement, her reaction was immediate:

"If something happened to you, without a card, how could the authorities contact your family?"

Americans, on the other hand, are more concerned with liberty than equality. Americans are people whose forefathers left their homelands to exercise a liberty unavailable to them there. Also, having liberated Europe at the end of World War II and seen the horrors of the concentration camps and the plans for eugenic engineering, --not to mention the government's experiments on African-American men at (?), Americans are wary of government. This, too, is a major difference.

As I tried to explain to the Indian-Americans from Washington, D.C., the French enshrine the same values Americans do, but start from different premises about the world, emphasizing then, equality over freedom, fraternity over efficiency, the Cartesian over the empirical. America, founded by Puritans from England, works from the opposite set of weightings. Hence, the love-hate relationship.

***

The train stops at Bordeaux's St. Jean station. Some say it is the most English of French cities. That is a legacy of when Aquitaine was English territory during the reign of Henry II. We pull out and are quickly in wine country, with forests of pines and deciduous trees. The tree cover looks not much different from that of the Northeastern seaboard of the United States, which is not surprising, because we are near the Atlantic. I am getting closer to home.

***

We reach Hendaye at 1:55 p.m. There is no time to explore the town, which is where Hitler and Franco negotiated Spain's neutrality in World War II. After working out the details, Hitler is said to have commented that he 'would rather have every tooth in his head pulled than have to negotiate with Franco again".

I must catch the Eusko Train the local train from Hendaye to Irun, which leaves every half hour, and can be found to the right of the exit of the SNCF station. I walk over as fast as I can, carrying my knapsack, the caddy and a heavy bag. Surprise! Surprise! The Spanish clerk is quick and efficient, I have my ticket in moments, make it through the turnstile with everything in time to catch the 1:03. In two stops I am in Irun, and take a taxi to the hotel, the Undaribia Park, on the outskirts of Irun.

Irun and the outlying area are part of the Basque province of Guipuzcoa. Except for the lesser height of the distant hills, it might be Switzerland: the housing developments are not tall, are well-designed, immaculate, the balconies graced with flowers that do well in mountain air. The sidewalks and roads, the highways, are clean, recently laid,

I go to the hotel and check in proceeds briskly. Outside, I see new model cars parked outside in the hotel parking lot. The hotel itself has just completed a renovation, the lobby bright and airy, the walls all glass. I am given a room with a balcony on the second floor and ride up the elevator.


There is a sensor-activated light system in the hallway, but no minutrie. I open the door to my room and enter a high-ceilnged, neutrally painted large room with an elegant French balcony and tall French windows that looks out onto the cool green woods across the highway. The bathroom is a few times larger than any of those I have used over the last month, and I have been given a new toothbrush and paste, along with a razor and soap cream. It is nice to be in a better class of hotel after a month of near-flophouses.

I go into town, where a bicycle race to take place in the late afternoon is set up for. I try to find the office for pilgrims the receptionist at the hotels told me about, but no one knows a thing. I try, too, to buy postage stamps, but the post office closes at noon on Saturdays. I try to buy a SIM card, but all the stores are closed for the afternoon until at least four o'clock.

I have been told that many pilgrimages to Santiago start at Nuestra Senora de Juncal, a church at the far end of Irun, so I make my way there. As I am about to open the door to the church office, a lady in her seventies, dressed neatly, wearing stylish sunglasses stops and walking quickly, asks what I am looking for at the church. I explain that I was hoping that I could obtain a pilgrim's credencial for Santiago de Compostela, as well as attend Mass.

"The father wlll help you, I'm sure. Mass is at 7 p.m."

I ask about recharging a cellphone, which turns into a long conversation about which estanco (newstand) might be open and able to charge a cellphone. We walk over to an open newstand, but the woman there does not deal in phones. However, she gives me directions to a few newstands. As nothing is open and I have time to kill I accompany the lady --who is very spirited and articulate-- to the local train to San Sebastian. We chat about the food in Guipuzcoa, and she tells me that eating is not about stuffing oneself, but feeding the soul. She also tells me that the Mass at 7 p.m., being held on the sixth week of Pentecost, is a Mass for healing, at which an unction will be given.

The unction, which used to only be given to a Roman Catholic approaching death, is given this weekend for the purpose of healing, physicial or psychological. My new friend explains all this as we walk, saying that people who are ill are often sidelined not because of their illness so much, as by the reactions of others. The Mass is an effort to remind parishoners of the Christian obligation to support the sick, as much as it is an effort to bring God's grace to those asking for the oil. My friend and I reach the entrance to her train and she wishes me well, emphasizing that living a Christian life is worth it in the end.

It is now four p.m. and the tourist office is open, so I go there to see about where to get a SIM card and perhaps a pilgrim's passport. The tall, thin, darkhaired young man, bespectacled and wearing a red track suit is polite and helpful: he points out a mall across the plaza opposite where several mobile phone companies have shops. As for the passport, he knows of only two places to obtain it and both are closed for the day. As to obtaining one at Nuestra Senora del Juncal, he just doesn't know.

I go over to the shopping center and find a mobile phone store. It is manned by a young man with the last name of Peralta, and a very slender young woman with lots of make-up on and a slightly purple bruise, still visible despite the camouflage. I spent a half an hour with them discussing the different charges for text messages, European cellphone calls, international calls and calls from outside Europe to the SIM card number. Finally I am ready to buy a new SIM card for 20 Euros. I hand over the money and am asked for my passport.

I do not have it with me, it is in the hotel room. No passport, no SIM card, they tell me. What if I give them what I think is the number? No go, they have to make a photocopy of the passport before they can sell me a SIM card.

The reason for the rule is that after the bombing of several Spanish commuter trains in the Madrid area on March 11, 2004 --which was triggered with cellphones-- the law that keeps me from buying a SIM card was enacted. I apologize to the salespeople for taking up so much of their time for naught and leave the store.

The mall could be anywhere in the United States --the same shops, the same unhappy teenagers and parents. I leave as soon as I can, and head in the direction of the church, as it is now almost five p.m.

I enter the church and here a warm voice greet me. I answer and follow the voice: it is, I learn, Father Fernando, the Pastor. He greets me warmly, invites me to sit down and listens to my tale of a planned pilgrimage gone wrong. When I ask whether I might be able to get a credencial at the church, he says, "Nothing simpler," getting up and going over to a credenza, from which takes a folded sheet --the credencial. He stamps the passport with the rubber stamps of Nuestra Senora del Juncal, and I am officially a pilgrim. I say goodbye to Father Fernando and rather than leave immediately, turn around the corner to enter the church. And I am amazed at what I see.


I enter an august, vaulting church space in Gothic style, built with large slabs of oatmeal-colored stone. The Nuestra Senora del Juncal was actually built in the 1600s, a holdover of the Gothic style in the Renaissance. However, it is the altarpiece that stands out: it is both Classical and Baroque at once, filling the entire apse at the back of the church to a height of three stories. There is a frame of three sections: at the very top of the apse height a lunette from which the figure of God pierces the bounds of the linear frame and beneath which two floors of gilded carved wood columns set up niches into which three-dimensional, polychromed, elaborately gilded figures of angels, saints and church fathers as far as the eye can see: angels' wings penetrating the air, Saint James the Greater with his scallop shell,in three-quarter pose, Saint Peter with his keys next, Mary ascending into heaven with cherub heads at her feet. The architecture of the altarpiece was built by Barnabas Lamb, the sculptures carved by Juan Bazcardo in 1643. There are side pieces, too: La Virgen Dolorosa --suffering Mary, tears falling from her face, dressed in a black robe bearing stars; opposite, another carving of cherub heads filling a large circle cloud. The Vatican would be jealous, the carving is so good.

I have some time before Mass so I visit Aguirre, a pastry shop nearby. The foothills of the Pyrenees can be seen in the distance. Prosperously dressed women, many elderly, come in and sit for a coffee and a Basque pastry. Outside cars rush by. The foothills are wrapped in fog, but deeply verdant. It is cool outside, but the air is clear. People are assembled for the bicycle race, which is being projected on a television screen in the plaza across the street. The shops have opened for the after lunch session, which lasts from four or five p.m. until 9:30 p.m., after which everyone will have dinner. This is Spain.

I go to the Mass, which is standing room only, despite the size of the church. it is said in Basque, then in Spanish, by Father Fernando and an even older priest. The congregation responds in Basque and in Spanish. The healing oil is administered to those in the "Reserved" section, but the Mass moves along. Father Fernando, who is in his sixties, I guess, is an energetic servant of God, and sings well, acting as both cantor and priest. When I thank the other priest for the privilege of sharing Mass with the congregation he tells me "Feel as if you were in your own home."

On my way out of the church, an energetic blond woman in her sixties chats with me. The natives of Irun are chatty: before I entered Aguirre, a man wearing a Basque beret --a sort of black pancake-- stopped me and asked whether he could tell me a joke, then told me he was hoping to go to New York to find a girlfriend. The woman who talks with me on the way out of church is just as whimsical: widowed nine years ago, she tells me that she feels no need to run around with girlfriends, just enjoys her own company, and her children. Then she tells me her name is Merche -- a nickname for Mercedes-- and kisses me on both cheeks. She tries to get me to visit Hondarribia, the town on the ocean next to Irun, giving me directions and telling me even for fifteen minutes it is worth it, and that the altarpieces there are worth seeing. I have to get back to the hotel, though, and make my excuses. She kisses me on both cheeks again and tells me she looks forward to seeing me again.