Chapter 7

Speak French or Die

Saint-Jean-de-Losne, France

September 8

As it turned out, the young conductor at the Gare de Lyon was right, and we ended up in Burgundy—as we intended. Our specific destination was the ancient town of Dôle, situated in a fecund agricultural region called the Franche-Comté, or Free County of Burgundy. Since Dôle is a rather small place, the TGV stopped there for precisely two minutes. That was barely enough time to gather the children and literally throw the bags off the train. As the TGV whooshed eastward toward Besançon, the whole family was left standing breathlessly on a thin strip of tarmac by the side of the track with our luggage scattered all around us. When we looked up, we noticed that there were two full sets of rails between us and the station, and the crossing was thirty yards down the track.

We had two choices. Someone could run over to the station and try to find a porter, or we could just pull the suitcases behind us on their little two-inch plastic wheels. Since we couldn’t see any porters from where we stood, we decided to line up the suitcases and form a convoy. Kara, Willie, Devi, and I each pulled a large suitcase on wheels with a smaller bag piled on top, and Betty pushed Lucas in the stroller. We made it down the narrow strip of tarmac to the crossing with no trouble at all. Then we looked both ways, and began to cross the tracks.

Unfortunately, nobody really considered what might happen when the little plastic wheels on the suitcases hit the big steel rails sunk into nine-inch-wide furrows. Some made it further than others, but eventually all the big bags got stuck in the furrows, and they all tipped over. Then the little bags fell off the big bags, and the whole convoy broke down irretrievably, leaving green canvas luggage scattered all over the tracks.

Few things in life focus your mind so well as getting stuck on railroad tracks—particularly when the tracks in question are plied by 160-mile-per-hour bullet trains. When their suitcases got terminally bogged down, I yelled at the kids to get off the tracks and leave the luggage behind. They grasped the situation immediately and ran for the platform. Then Devi and I dashed back and forth like idiots plucking the bags off the rails one by one.

This was all good entertainment for the three local geezers hanging out by the train station. One laughed so hard, I thought he might expel a lung. But between this episode and the morning fracas at the Gare de Lyon, Devi and I were pretty frazzled. So we were relieved to find two taxi drivers outside the station who understood my fractured French and agreed to take us across town to the Doubs River boat docks.

We were going to the docks to pick up a houseboat we rented six months earlier. When we made that reservation, it seemed like a smashing idea to loll away seven bucolic days on the scenic waterways of Burgundy. I was still excited by the big picture, but now that the moment was at hand, I felt a bit nervous about the details—specifically, the fact that we had hired a drive-it-yourself houseboat. In theory that sounded like fun, but in truth neither Devi nor I had ever set foot on a houseboat, let alone driven one. We weren’t exactly sure what skills were required, but it did seem like you should have some sort of training before you navigated a floating house down a canal.

It wasn’t just a matter of crashing into another boat or running aground. Every few kilometers or so, the canals were interrupted by locks that raised or lowered the boat as needed. I’ve seen ships go through locks on television, and the narrator always says something like “the experienced captain deftly maneuvers the vessel into position.” I knew we weren’t piloting an oil tanker through the Panama Canal, but this still didn’t seem like a job for dilettantes.

When we arrived at the boatyard, we found a manicured green lawn, beautiful gardens, and a fleet of eighteen matched cabin cruisers. Apparently, these were the houseboats. We checked in at the little marina office where we found the manager, a bright-eyed, middle-aged fellow chatting away on the phone and chain-smoking pungent Gitanes. He acknowledged our presence with a nod, but it took him another fifteen minutes and two more cigarettes to wind up his call.

The marina manager realized my French was basic, so he spoke to me very slowly and deliberately, like I was mentally deficient. And if I didn’t understand a particular word or phrase—usually a boating term or something to do with the paperwork—he repeated it even more slowly and deliberately, like I could get it if I only tried harder. By the end of our parley, Devi and I apparently put down a hefty deposit on the boat, bought a book of canal charts, and made arrangements for a boat-driving lesson. After that, we inspected our new home on the water.

The houseboat Chalon, as she was called, was a well-designed ten-meter craft with a tiny sun deck in the back and a roomy main salon that included a grey L-shaped banquette, a large Formica table, a small refrigerator, a sink, and a tiny range for cooking. There were three “bedrooms”—a small trapezoidal master bedroom squeezed into the bow and two other sleeping spaces slightly larger than coffins. The Iron Maiden–sized bathrooms were equipped with pump-it-yourself maritime toilets and a hose-and-nozzle contraption you could pull out of the sink to give yourself a shower, although that looked like it might be difficult unless you happened to be double-jointed or a circus acrobat.

Once we toured the houseboat and brought our numerous bags aboard, a bearded young deckhand named Jean-Michel showed up to give us our boating lesson. Apparently, Jean-Michel couldn’t speak one word of English because he looked baffled when Willie said “Hello.” Don’t get me wrong. I don’t expect a neighborhood grocer in Paris to speak English any more than I would expect the checkout clerks at the Mill Valley Safeway to speak French. But you might think a guy who teaches a lot of Americans and Brits how to drive houseboats for a living might know a few key words like “bow” or “stern”—if only to protect the company assets.

I’ll tell you one thing. If I’d known twenty-five years ago that the lives of my wife and children would someday depend on my ability to understand French, I would have paid a lot more attention in high school. As it was, I must have slept through the class where they covered nautical terms and control panels, because to me the whole lesson sounded like this: “If you have a problem with your bluh-bluh-bluh, make absolutely sure that you never touch the bluh-bluh. That is extremely important. Also, if you find smoke coming from the bluh, it usually means that that bluh-bluh is bluh-bluh, and you should turn the bluh-bluh and disconnect the bluh. Is that clear?”

Sure. Why not?

By the time Jean-Michel finished the lesson, it was nearly 4:00 P.M., and we were thoroughly intimidated. The locks shut down at 6:30, so we decided to spend the our first night safely moored in the marina and leave the next morning. We were relieved when Jean-Michel said he’d come back at 8:00 A.M. to help us negotiate the first lock.

Since the pressure was off until morning, we walked into town to provision the boat. As we strolled the narrow cobblestone streets of Dôle, the birthplace of Louis Pasteur, we found it to be a remarkably charming place. There were lovely little shops and restaurants, meticulous autumn gardens, and handsome eighteenth-century stone houses with sprays of red geraniums in their window boxes.

Buying supplies for the boat was an exceedingly pleasant chore. We strolled from shop to shop, collecting crusty baguettes, ripe, pungent cheeses, spicy sausages, country pâtés, and a wide array of fresh garden produce. As you might imagine, there was a plentiful selection of inexpensive Burgundy wine. That evening, we prepared a simple dinner from superb ingredients.

When Betty and the children went to sleep, Devi and I went on deck and drank ruby red wine in the cold air under the stars.

When we woke up the next morning, we knew that we couldn’t put it off any longer. Like it or not, we had to muster our courage, untie the boat, and push away from the dock. I did a contortionist act washing up in the bathroom and had a quick breakfast of pain au chocolate and hot café au lait. At eight o’clock sharp, Jean-Michel rode up on his bicycle, his breath steaming in the cold morning air. He loaded the bike onto the small stern deck, then he cast off the lines and brought the rumbling engine to life.

As he maneuvered the cabin cruiser onto the glassy river, Jean-Michel reeled off a few more incomprehensible instructions. I just nodded, mumbled “oui” a lot, and hoped he wasn’t saying anything crucially important. A few minutes after we shoved off, we came to a fork in the waterway. Jean-Michel told us that an unnavigable section of the Doubs River continued off to the left, and the Canal du Rhône au Rhin was on the right. We wanted the canal, of course, but Devi and I noted with some trepidation that there weren’t very many road signs out here on the river.

It wasn’t long before we spotted our first lock off in the distance. We could see black iron gates, stone and concrete embankments, and the old lockkeeper’s house. Well in front of the gates and slightly off to the left, sticking out of the water, was a tall metal post. The post had a metal arm extending from the top, so it looked like a gallows. But instead of a noose, there was a long, red- and white-striped rod dangling from the arm. Apparently, this was the mechanism that activated the lock.

Jean-Michel deftly maneuvered the boat alongside the contraption. Then he nimbly scampered onto the deck and twisted the rod clockwise. (Or was it counterclockwise?) Further up the canal, a red light turned green, indicating that we could proceed. We cruised forward slowly, passed through the heavy gates, and came to a standstill between the old stone walls of the lock.

The lock wasn’t much wider than the boat itself and about twice as long. Jean-Michel put the engine in neutral and hopped ashore. Devi threw him the bowline. He wrapped it once around a heavy iron bollard, and handed it back to her. Then he took the stern line from Willie and swiftly lifted his bicycle off the boat. Oh no! He was going to abandon us!

At that point, the doors clanged shut, and the water began to fall rapidly. In less than two minutes, it dropped fifteen feet, exposing the mossy walls of the lock. Well above us now, Jean-Michel stubbed out his cigarette, hopped on his bicycle, and nonchalantly waved good-bye. Devi and Willie pulled in the lines, and the gates in front of us opened slowly. We were on our own.

Our first test came soon enough, because there was another lock only a few kilometers up the canal. As we approached the gates, everyone was in a state of high anxiety. Now that I was driving instead of Jean-Michel, the entrance to the lock looked incredibly narrow. A little too narrow, in fact, because when I tried to put the houseboat into the lock, I bounced the starboard bow solidly off the right-hand gate. Fortunately, there were big rubber fenders all around the hull, so I didn’t do any real damage, but this maneuver didn’t reassure the crew. In fact, it was at this point that Betty decided the whole operation was entirely too risky. She grabbed Lucas and ducked into her tiny bedroom.

This was a so-called manual lock, which meant a lockkeeper had to come out of her old stone house and work the gates by hand. It’s hard to believe, but every time some yahoo tourist comes floating down the stream, this poor woman had to drop whatever she’s doing, put on thick leather gloves, and crank the huge iron gates open and shut. It was sort of charming and old-fashioned, but even Kara mentioned that this setup couldn’t be cost-effective for the French government.

Oh, and guess what the locals do for entertainment in these parts. That’s right. Instead of demolition derbies, they come out and watch the tourists crash their way through their first few locks. It’s sort of like Burgundy’s Funniest Home Videos. I’ll tell you what, though, the fearless crew of the Chalon didn’t give the Bourguignoise that much to laugh about. I’m not saying we were perfect, but after that first little ricochet off the gate, things got progressively smoother. I managed to stop the boat in roughly the right place. Then Devi and Willie tied it up like professional deckhands (more or less). As the water dropped, they pulled the lines in smartly. Then we cruised proudly out of the lock, and a big cheer went up on the Chalon. Okay, it was more like a big sigh of relief. But the point is we made it.

After that, we mustered the crew every few kilometers or so, and ran the drill all over again. Once we got the hang of it, it was actually a lot of fun. The whole family worked together as a team, and the kids enjoyed the hustle and bustle. Willie was particularly proud of his part in the operation. He knew that everyone was genuinely nervous about getting the boat through the locks in one piece, and I think it meant a lot to him that we trusted him to handle the stern line and keep it taut as the water level dropped. He took his job seriously and executed it with a sweet earnestness. I’m no child psychologist, but this seems like the sort of thing that builds a child’s self-esteem. He knows we have confidence in him, and that helps him believe in himself.

After the terror of the first few locks subsided, we sat back and enjoyed the scenery. For the rest of the morning, we cruised past thick green forests and grassy fields dotted with white sheep and cream-colored Charolais cattle. Since autumn was upon us and we weren’t far from Dijon, there were fields of yellow mustard flowers everywhere. Every so often we passed a small hamlet—a few stone houses clustered around an old Romanesque church. But generally, the only people we saw were the lock keepers—friendly, weathered men and women engaged in an obsolete profession.

That isn’t to say that they weren’t entrepreneurs. Nearly every lock had a little stand offering local produce, wine, and honey, along with the usual array of soft drinks and ice cream. We bought a few items from a lock keeper who was particularly helpful, and I was pleased to note that a bottle of decent red wine cost less than a can of Coke.

As noon approached, we reached the end of the Canal du Rhône au Rhin and entered the broad Saône River. For no particular reason, we turned upstream instead of down, and as we pulled away from the last lock, a pair of swans flew in close beside our boat. They glided alongside for a while, then touched down softly on the water, escorting us onto the river.