Almost French by Sarah Turnbull

Author:Sarah Turnbull [Turnbull, Sarah]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Me: ‘Three. Anyway, I’d just rather stay in Paris.’

Frédéric: ‘But weekends are for leaving Paris!’

Me (insistent): ‘What’s wrong with you going alone?’

Frédéric (tired voice): ‘You know how it is in France. Going back to family homes is something French couples do together.’

Me (exploding with impatience): ‘Yes, well, I’m not French!’

Frédéric (theatrical sigh): ‘When are you going to give up trying to start a revolution? Can’t you just accept some things the way they are?’

This is my cue to remind him of the litany of things I’ve already accepted in order to be with him. Changing the country where I live, my language, my job …

Invariably, the discussion ends in mutual pissed-off silence.

Something has to give and eventually it does.

I’m not sure exactly when compromise is reached. It is difficult to identify the beginning of gradual change, to isolate the reasons for it occurring. But sometime during my second year in France we both start to face facts. No matter how much I might dream of Avignon or Arles, the reality is I share my life with a man from northern France. Baincthun is part of the package. I may as well accept it. Frédéric grows more realistic too. He realises that I’m not going to go up there every month and stops applying pressure.

On a deeper level, I think compromise became possible because of an important realisation: each of us is doing their best. I say this with hindsight, because it’s only once it has ended that the conflict acquires clarity. Frédéric begins to understand that I am struggling on many fronts. With the French language and people and myriad cultural differences that ensure life is never boring but which occasionally leave me feeling defeated. In the struggle to find my place in France I’ve discovered a million details that matter to me—details which define me as non-French. Much as I’d initially wanted to fully integrate, I knew now I never would, not completely, I couldn’t, I didn’t want to. This wasn’t a choice, it simply wasn’t possible. I will never be French. Frédéric, I think, understood this now.

It dawned on me in time that Frédéric couldn’t dump his upbringing, his past, all those rich cultural references either. In a country which is suspicious of change, where traditions are clung to and life beats to a rhythm of unquestioned routines, something like spending a lot less time in his adored pays represents a private revolution. Perhaps the New World, with its roots in mobility, can never totally understand the Old in this way. In any event, what had appeared to me an insignificant concession was, in fact, something that cut to his core.

Once I begin to understand that, a gradual evolution takes place. First, I stop hating the region. Then, I actually discover things in its favour. Some beauty is bedazzling—its self-evidence steals your breath and practically knocks you off your feet. It is fact. Paris springs to mind. Prague. The natural wonder that is the south island of New Zealand.

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