At Home in France by Ann Barry

Author:Ann Barry [Barry, Ann]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-77565-8
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2010-12-15T05:00:00+00:00

10

FAMILY DINNER

For years, I sought a sense of belonging in this corner of France. A feeling of anonymity—a frustrating reminder of how our sense of self depends on others—sometimes nagged at me. When I would arrive at the Bézamats, Kati and Françoise would dart to the porch and then scurry inside. “C’est l’Américaine!” they would shout to Mama and Papa. Bobbie would race up the steps of the porch and stand at the door yapping, his tail quivering in the air like an exclamation point punctuating their shrilling. I would wince. I didn’t want to be the representative of a country. I wanted to feel individual, myself, in their eyes.

I considered that this estrangement had to do with the brevity of my visits, and that my neighbors—not only the Bézamats, but the Servais and the Salgues and the Hirondes, to an extent—subconsciously didn’t seek more than a casual relationship since I had not made a deeper, more continuous investment in their world. On the other hand, there seemed to be a difference between us: Americans, more open and personal; the French, more formal and restrained. I am always curious about their lives: their opinions, their relationships, their day-to-day habits. Yet they show little curiosity about mine. I am circumscribed by their world, the world we share.

I have a recurrent fantasy of inviting all the neighbors to dinner. (I’ve never figured out precisely how they relate to each other, although I suspect it’s not so different from the neighbors on my Brooklyn block.) In my imagining, they all gather on the patio—for an all-American barbecue. I have to explain to them what that means: hot dogs and hamburgers on toasted buns, with mustard or ketchup, or both; potato chips (no, not french fries); coleslaw with hot bacon dressing; corn on the cob—not the fodder for cattle that it’s taken for in France, but sweet and dripping with melted butter; apple pie—no, not tarte tatin, but a mile-high pie with cheddar-cheese crust. Beer. I envision a sort of down-home Babette’s Feast. I watch their faces. They are initially skeptical. They deign to take a bite. They stubbornly refuse comment. They eat some more. They ask for more beer. The gathering starts to feel more like a party. They ask for seconds. Score! Of course, the fantasy always comes to an abrupt halt. Where would I get the hot dogs? The corn?

So, when the Bézamats invited me to Sunday dinner—I’d known them then for seven years—I was ecstatic. My first invitation to dine en famille! While we’d always been on friendly and chatty terms, it had never involved socializing. At last the bridge was being crossed. We had never used each others’ names in our conversations. Somehow “Madame” and “Monsieur” seemed too formal. Yet using first names seemed too familiar—I wouldn’t have dared. So we skirted the issue entirely, leaving a sort of awkward hole in our conversations. It suggested to me that we hadn’t quite figured out where we stood with each

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