Chapter 6

Awkward Moments

Dôle, France

September 3

The kids had been lobbying to go there from the moment we arrived, but we didn’t make it to the Eiffel Tower until our third day in Paris. The tower was originally built as a temporary engineering display for the 1889 Universal Exposition, and not everyone liked it. In fact, no less a personage than Émile Zola called it “an insult to the city of Paris.” But Zola would have gotten quite an argument from Kara and Willie. They haven’t been so impressed by anything since we left Las Vegas. Willie, in particular, was anxious to hop aboard La Tour Eiffel’s glass elevator and zip all the way to the top.

There are actually three classes of elevator tickets available at the Eiffel Tower. You can go to the first level—about thirty stories up—for twenty francs. If you’re more adventurous, you can go to the middle level for thirty-eight francs or the crow’s nest near the top of the thousand-foot spire for fifty-five francs. We promptly split into three factions. Fearless Willie and the intrepid Betty got tickets for the top, Devi and Lucas took the middle ground, and Kara and I were the chickens.

Incidentally, if you don’t like heights—and I don’t—the glass elevator at the Eiffel Tower won’t inspire confidence. The elevator car itself seems fairly modern, but the mechanism at the base of the tower is exposed, and it all looks like original nineteenth-century equipment. As we stepped into the elevator, Kara started crying, and Lucas announced, “I’m scary, Mommy.” But then the doors closed, and the car whisked silently up through the latticework.

When the infernal contraption reached the first level, Kara and I yelled au revoir, and leapt out before it could take us any higher. Then we wrapped our arms around each other and tried to stay as far as possible from the edge. At first, Kara was pretty panicky, but then she found out there were souvenir stores up there, and the prospect of shopping for chatchkes instantly assuaged her fears.

We were all supposed to regroup on the first level at noon. Devi and Lucas showed up a little early. As Kara made some tough last-minute buying decisions, Lucas cuddled in Devi’s arms and gazed out over the red-tile rooftops of Paris.

“Where’s the White House?” asked Lucas, who evidently thought he was still in Washington. Devi gently explained that when you sit in an airplane for eight hours, you generally end up in a different country.

Another thirty minutes passed and Betty and Willie still didn’t show up, so we decided to wait for them on terra firma. We zipped back down the leg of the tower and sat near the exit where we could see everyone who came out. Every ten minutes or so, another group of happy tourists emerged from the elevation, but Betty and Willie were never among them. After an hour, Devi decided that she better go up and look for them while I waited by the exit with Kara and Lucas.

The moment Devi disappeared from view, Kara announced, “I’m hungry, Daddy.”

I looked at my watch. It was 1:30—well past her lunchtime.

“Look,” I said, “I understand you’re hungry, but we have to wait here until Mommy comes back with Betty and Willie. Then we can all go to a restaurant together.”

I knew this argument wouldn’t succeed, because when Kara gets hungry, she musters a passion not usually found outside the opera hall. “I’m really hungry, Daddy,” she moaned plaintively.

Then Lucas took up the cry. “I’m really hungry, too, Daddy.”

“I believe you—both of you,” I said. “But unless we wait here, we’re going to miss Mommy, Betty, and Willie when they get off the elevator.”

“I’m so hungry,” moaned Kara, “that I have a stomachache—a really bad one.”

As Kara well knew, I couldn’t stand this pitiful display for so long. “Okay,” I said. “What do you want to eat?”

Negotiations had now commenced, so Kara set forth her opening position.

“How ’bout an ice cream cone, Daddy?”

“No way. Not before lunch.”

“What about candy?”

“Come on, Kara!”

“Okay, then. How ’bout french fries.”

“Fine. You can have french fries,” I said. “You see that food truck over there? It sells french fries. Here’s twenty-five francs. Go straight to the truck. Ask for une grand portion de frites. That’s ‘oon gran portion de freet.’ Then come straight back here. And don’t wander off anywhere else. I mean it, Kara. I’m watching you.”

That was actually difficult to do, because I now had to alternate my glance between the elevator in front of me, eight-year-old Kara behind me, and two-year-old Lucas all over the place. I felt like a spectator at Wimbledon. Needless to say, I lost sight of Kara almost immediately, and she didn’t reappear for what seemed to be twenty minutes. During that time, I felt fairly irresponsible not knowing the exact whereabouts of two of my three young children in the middle of Paris. When Kara did finally show up, she was carrying a little cardboard tray of french fries slathered in approximately a liter of ketchup.

“I couldn’t work the ketchup thing right,” she said.

“I can see that,” I replied. “Did you get any napkins?”

“I don’t think they had any napkins. Do you want me to go back and look?”

“No, that’s okay. I don’t want to lose you again. But listen,” I said, “you both have to be very careful not to get ketchup all over your clothes. We’re going to a restaurant for lunch, and I don’t want you guys to look like slobs.”

“Okay, Daddy,” they both replied.

I actually thought that last admonition might be futile, but Lucas took it straight to heart. As soon as his hands were completely covered with ketchup, so much so that ketchup was actually dripping into the dirt beneath the Eiffel Tower, Lucas decided to clean himself up. I glanced up, and to my utter horror, I saw him wiping his red sticky hands on the beige linen trousers of a meticulous thirty-five-year-old Asian woman. Both legs.

“No, Lucas!” I cried. But it was too late. The prim lady stared at her trousers in disbelief. Then Lucas looked up and gave me a tentative smile.

I walked over, picked up Lucas, and said to the lady, “I’m sorry. I am really so sorry. Oh God, Lucas. That was very bad …” But it didn’t really matter what I said, because the besmirched lady didn’t speak any English. She just gave me a sad reproachful look and walked away.

About that time, Devi, Betty, and Willie finally emerged from the elevator. Betty and Willie had been delayed by the crowds on the upper level. Willie surveyed the scene and moaned, “Hhh, french fries. How come I didn’t get any?”

So there we were at the Eiffel Tower. Under my capable tutelage, one kid got lost, the other two were covered with crusty red ketchup, and one of them had a dirty diaper. It was now past two, and the kids hadn’t eaten lunch. Plus, Lucas had just ruined some nice Asian lady’s vacation. Being a parent keeps you humble. For days at a time you can fool yourself into thinking that you’ve got everything nicely under control. Then, without warning, it all veers off into sheer, raging chaos. I suppose the trick is to realize that these awkward moments are actually the good times.

We did many other things in Paris, though not nearly enough. We walked through the hushed medieval nave of Notre Dame and admired the cityscape from Sacre Coeur. We rode a painted carousel in the Jardins du Trocadéro and visited a crowded little square in Montmartre where Kara and Willie had their portraits sketched in chalk and charcoal.

Our only other mishap occurred when we tried to leave town. We took a cab to the Gare de Lyon where we were supposed to catch the 11:20 TGV¹⁰ to eastern Burgundy. When we arrived at the station, two good-natured porters examined our tickets and offered to take our luggage to the appropriate platform. With great effort, they hauled our mountain of green canvas bags through the length of the station and up a long flight of stairs to Track G.

Unfortunately, there was no train on Track G, which confused the porters to no end. After some rapid-fire conversation, the small, wiry porter ran downstairs to see what the problem was. He returned ten minutes later and told the tall, stocky porter that it wasn’t Track G we wanted; it was Track J. The big fellow slapped himself on the forehead and re-shouldered our bags.

We trudged back through the station up another long set of stairs to yet another platform, where we found not one, but two sleek TGVs. The porters looked confused again, but then an old bandy-legged stationmaster came over, mumbled something and pointed to the train on Track I. The porters loaded the bags onto the train, wiped their brows, and patiently waited for their tip.

But as I fumbled with the French currency, a young, dark-haired train conductor approached, and asked to see our tickets. He examined them gravely, shook his head and said (in French), “I’m terribly sorry, monsieur, but this isn’t the train to Dôle; it’s the express to Lausanne, Switzerland. The train to Dôle is across the platform on Track J.”

When the porters heard this bit of news, they broke into a loud chorus of “Non, non. C’est ne pas possible!” But the conductor assured them it was, so for the third time in twenty minutes, they gathered up our bags and schlepped them back across the platform.

The minute that was accomplished, the old stationmaster scurried back and yelled, “What are you doing?”

The young conductor replied matter-of-factly. “The Americans’ luggage was on the wrong train. The TGV that stops in Dôle is on Track J.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” said the stationmaster, pulling out a well-thumbed schedule. “The train to Dôle is on Track I.”

“Don’t you think I know where my own train is going?” asked the young conductor.

“You should,” sniffed the old guy. “But you don’t.”

“Are you saying I don’t know where my own train is going, you, you … imbécile?”

At that the old guy’s face went beet red. “Imbécile? Moi? Listen, you young fool. I’ve been working at this station for twenty years and you, mon amis, are the imbécile.”

At that point, all hell broke loose. Other porters leapt into the fray and everyone started yelling, gesticulating, and poking fingers into each other’s chests. Devi thought the old stationmaster might have a coronary, so she decided to intercede. But the moment she opened her mouth, the station master turned his fury on her and screamed in heavily accented English “You … shuddup! Just shuddup ah tell you!”

Naturally, I felt honor-bound to defend my spouse, so I put my hand on the stationmaster’s shoulder and cleverly replied, “Hey, you shut up, you jerk!” That wasn’t helpful either. The stationmaster used several French colloquialisms I’ve never heard before. (I believe one translated as “fly fucker.”) Then he stalked down the platform spitting invectives. Kara, Willie, and Lucas looked dumbstruck

In the end, we took the young conductor’s advice and boarded the bullet train on Track J. But, as the sleek TGV slipped silently from the station, we weren’t exactly sure whether we’d end up in Burgundy or Switzerland. We figured either one would probably be fine. After all, as John Steinbeck once wrote, “People don’t take trips. Trips take people.”

¹⁰ The TGV, or Train á Grande Vitesse, is a 160-mph bullet train.