Outside Helsinki, Finland. February 1971. 2 a.m. 4 degrees below zero C. The low sun, faint and yellow as a streetlamp, glimmers on the ice of a frozen lake and a slope crusted white with frost. A pump chugs at the foot of a jetty, keeping a few square meters free of ice and inviting the suicidal to plunge into the roiling black water. Instead, skin steaming and numbed by sauna heat, we roll naked in snow as soft and warm as wool.
A FEW YEARS PASSED BEFORE I GOT BACK TO FRENCH HISTORY. Understanding the 1789 revolution and oddities like the Republican calendar took a backseat to learning, in middle age, how to be a father.
Nothing widens one’s understanding of a society like having a child. Though I didn’t realize this till later, some of what parenthood taught me would leak back into my search for Fabre d’Églantine.
In fact, I date my first insight to the day we visited the clinic where our daughter would be delivered. Formerly a hunting lodge of Emperor Napoléon III, it stood in baroque splendor amid the remnants of a gracious garden in the upmarket suburb of Neuilly. Framed letters of recommendation decorated the walls of the waiting room. The first I read began, under a gilded letterhead incorporating a royal crest, “His Serene Highness wishes to thank the staff . . .” I didn’t look at the rest.
Leading us on a tour of inspection, a lady in an elegant black dress opened the door to what she called “the finest delivery suite in Paris.” She did not exaggerate. Three deep armchairs were ranged around the foot of a huge bed draped with a satin baldachin and clearly fit for a crowned head, or at least the child on whose head the crown would eventually rest.
Dazzled, we signed up, only to see Louise born in a perfectly adequate modern facility at the other end of the building. Apparently only the most serene of highnesses rated the five–star suite.
At the end of that first tour we were handed over to the anesthetist, who took down all our particulars, then asked when the baby was due. When we told him the estimated date of delivery, toward the end of September, he looked dubious.
“Not a good idea,” he said. “That weekend, all our doctors will be away.”
“Why?” Marie–Dominique asked. “Is there some kind of conference?”
“No, no conference,” he said. “It’s Yom Kippur. And also the first day of the skiing season.”
At first I thought he was joking, but his expression was serious.
“And . . . that matters?” I said.
He shrugged. “Certainly, if you don’t want your child delivered by the gardener.”
In a cab back into town, I said, “The skiing season? Can you believe that?”
“Yes, it seemed early to me too,” Marie–Dominique said. “When I used to ski, the lifts didn’t open much before November.” She looked at me sideways. “What, you think it’s unusual that all the doctors would take the weekend off?”
“Well . . . a little. I hope it doesn’t happen too often.”
“Depends on what you mean by ‘often.’” She ticked off dates on her fingers. “There’s Christmas and the Réveillon—New Year’s. After that, Good Friday in April isn’t an official holiday, but most people take it off. Easter Monday falls about the middle of April. Labor Day on May 1. Eighth of May—Victory in Europe. The Ascension in May. Pentecost in June, Bastille Day July 14, the Assumption on the fifteenth of August, Yom Kippur, of course, at the end of September, All Saints’ Day on November 1, and Armistice Day on November 11 . . .”
I opened my mouth to express astonishment, but she wasn’t finished.
“When any holiday falls on a Tuesday or Thursday, we usually faire le pont, ‘make a bridge,’ by taking off the day in between that and the weekend . . . and naturally nobody works between Christmas and the Réveillon. Plus, a lot of people are starting to observe Valentine’s Day in February. Then we all leave town in August for the vacances, so Paris more or less shuts down, particularly after the fifteenth . . .”
By now she’d run out of fingers but not holidays. “Then there’s school holidays, of course. They take up fourteen weeks of the year, so most parents try to get away for at least some of those.”
“Naturally.” (Did anyone work in this country?)
“As for the skiing season . . . well, it isn’t a holiday, of course, but you might think it is from the number of offices that close. The same with hunting. Once the season opens in the middle of September, anyone who owns some land is out with a gun.”
Remembering I was in show business gave her more ideas. “And don’t forget Cannes in May. It’s not official, but for those two weeks of the film festival you won’t find a journalist or actor or filmmaker in Paris. The same with the Avignon festival in July. Theater people never miss it. That’s where regional theaters choose their shows for the rest of the year . . . And don’t forget Fashion Week . . . and the Month of Photography . . . and the FIAC art fair . . .”
“Enough!” Just listening to this recital made me tired.
I’d already learned some other oddities of the French calendar from experience. Museums close on Tuesdays, and on Wednesdays schools hold classes only in the morning. Food and produce markets take Sundays and Mondays off, in return for opening on Saturdays. Even then, many close at 12:30 p.m. and don’t reopen until 4 p.m., but then remain open until 8 p.m. Also, for no particular reason that I could discover, our local baker closed on Wednesdays.
And somewhere behind all this, Foucault’s pendulum kept its steady tick tick tick, measuring out the hours to a timetable that only Parisians know.