The Fourth (1/2)

Yesterday was the closest thing to a real day off that we’ve had so far. We mounted a fourth tent in the morning and then took the bus to the Old City, where I checked my e-mails at a WiFi bar while the others explored the sites that Thérèse suggested. After finishing on the Web I met the others again briefly before diverging from them again to spend time in the municipal library’s English section finishing Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov. I had just gotten to where Humbert is speaking contemptuously of Godin when Sarah called me to say that we were leaving early to avoid the rain.

Now I see clearly why Thérèse chose Sarah to be her adjutant, or perhaps “lieutenant” would be more appropriate. Sarah’s one of those girls, like Marion and Sarah Campbell, who manages to be surpassingly beautiful, strong, and intelligent all at once effortlessly, with a level of competence that makes the rest of us look like, to borrow a phrase from Whedon, idiot children. (Marion and Sarah, I’m not even trying to flatter you, I really do regard you this highly.) And if I didn’t know that she has a devoted boyfriend, I’d almost be tempted to imagine she likes me, though it’s probably just that we’re the most similar in levels of emotional maturity. She’s a complete battleaxe when dealing with Elias, Igor, and Batiste’s puerile antics, what Thérèse must have been like many years ago.

When we got back two new kids had arrived, Mathieu and Theo. Theo’s nice, and only fourteen, but pretty smart, effectively making him the Chiyo-chan of the group. Theo-chan. Mathieu’s an arrogant wanker. ‘E’s seventeen and he has done CVM once before, and I think he showed up thinking that his prior experience would make him some kind of team leader by default. Shortly after Niels and I helped install them in our tent, Sarah and I left to buy stuff for the hamburgers. We got tomatoes, lettuce, onions, ketchup, a cheap mustard that was spicy enough to be reminiscent of wasabi, Cheddar cheese, and something called American Sauce that I suspected I had already tasted at Quick. We even bought hamburger buns and ice cream.

By the time we got back, it was sprinkling and the German girls had arrived. Enza and Vera are both fifteen but look like they’re eleven. They don’t speak French very well, so I’m gonna make it one of my goals in the time I have left here to help them as much as I can. All morning Igor and Elias had been making licentious comments about German girls, but once they actually saw them they switched their ribaldry to other unseen women. Stupid fifteen-year-olds.

I started out cooking the hamburgers myself, but then Thérèse asked me to go back to the store in the now pouring rain, knowing I’d be the only one stoic (“crazy”) enough to do it, to get more tent stakes and the Coke that we’d forgotten earlier. Sarah took over the hamburgers according to my explicit and absurdly simple instructions. On the way back, both bags I was carrying split, so I wound up stuffing 100 stakes in the pockets of my cargo shorts and hefting three bottles of Coke in my arms.

After this dinner, I will not hear about how American fast food is corrupting French culinary something-or-other. The French done corrupted American food themselves, so why are they surprised that we’re returning the favor? First there was the obstacle of convincing Thérèse and Theo that Americans put neither eggs nor onions in the beef, earlier in the day. When I walked in the house, Sarah had put six of the burgers in the oven to cook; I’d never even thought to tell her not to, and had to explain to her how Americans believe in a perfect yin and yang of hot meat and cool vegetables in a hamburger. So we had six toasted hamburgers and sixteen the way hamburgers oughta be, dammit. THEN I find that the French, and obviously the Germans as well, eat hamburgers with forks!! WHAT HERESY IS THIS?? This is taking European formality entirely too far! You might as well eat spaghetti with your hands! You might as well dunk your face in soup and drink it like a horse!

As we were going to sleep, we heard the whistle and bang of fireworks, but when we jumped out of the tents we couldn’t see them. Looks like I’m not the only American in this town.