Feat of Heroism (4/7)

Jean-Jacques got back Tuesday afternoon, and on Wednesday we planned to go to the Musée Nationale de la Renaissance, I’ve forgotten the town. But that morning Jean-Jacques was working on something and called me into the garage to help him with a drain that funnels the waste water from the house showers to the town sewer. The drain was blocked somehow, probably by leaves. I reached my hand into a foot of murky brown water to see if I could locate the blockage by touch, but it was too deep. Now watch me get some horrible skin disease on my arm. Ugh, then there’s that whole business of going to Japan to find the Great Forest Spirit to ask him to heal me...

Anyway, we used a coat hanger to feel deeper, and eventually I located the blockage, and after a while of prodding the obstruction it came loose. Turns out the leaves had decomposed to form a thick mud and that’s what had been clogging the pipe. Jean-Jacques and I cleaned the rest of the mud out with the garden hose. I was really happy to have helped my hosts with the task; really, what are American lads good for but helping the French with things they cannot handle themselves?

After lunch Jean-Jacques drove to the museum, another of François I’s chateaux. I say “another” because during the program Dr. Costello seemed to have a particular affinity for stuff belonging to François I, or maybe it was because that guy simply had so much stuff that it’s impossible to walk around the Île-de-France without running into it. How many chateaux can one king have?! Millions, apparently. The museum was silent and unguided; the exhibits were interesting enough, although of course my favorite was the weapons room.

That night Marlène served a dish which she would only tell me what it was after I had finished, and all through dinner she gleefully anticipated what I would say afterwards; turned out it was beef kidneys with mushrooms in cream sauce. Maybe I should have affected a more shocked reaction, but come on, kidneys? I come from the country that invented “prairie oysters,” try some of those and we’ll see who reacts with shock.

After dinner Jean-Jacques and I watched a documentary on France 3 on French collaborators during the German occupation. Really amazing to see how some of the last troops defending Hitler’s bunker in Berlin were French soldiers of the Charlemagne Division.