Boze Yo

Tags

bonjour, bonsoir, cafe-au-lait, plat du jour, rural France

I was sitting nursing a café-au-lait outside a sad little café-cum-restaurant in a village in the middle of nowhere. But this was French nowhere, so it was surrounded by beautiful, verdant countryside. On the blackboard on the wall facing me, that day’s menu, the plat du jour, was scrawled in barely legible letters which I was trying to decipher. Yigal had gone off to attend to some business, so for a few brief moments I was alone.

A man of middling height, middling age and middling appearance emerged from the café, stood in the entrance, and fixed his gaze on me. This being rural France, where it is only polite to acknowledge others, whether one has been formally introduced or not, I gave him a little nod and an even smaller smile and returned to my attempts to read the menu on the wall.

The usual expression used here for meeting and greeting is bonjour, or even bonsoir, if it happens to be night-time, but no such words were exchanged between myself and the man, who continued to stare at me in silence.

I should point out at this stage that although I may have been young and reasonably attractive once, those days are far behind me, and my face, not to mention my body, betrays my advanced age with lines and wrinkles in all the usual places.

After a few moments the man spoke. “Boze yo,” he said. My French is far from perfect, but I am familiar with the customary ways of opening a conversation, and this was not one of them.

“???????????” I said.

“Boze yo,” he repeated, then pointed to his eyes, adding the French equivalent of ‘you have nice eyes.’

It’s a good few years since men would try to strike up a conversation with me in public places, and I’m afraid I’m somewhat out of practice at the art of dealing with advances of that kind. But even in my unaccomplished old age I sensed that there was something seriously wrong here.

Yigal was nowhere in sight. In fact, no living creature could be seen anywhere around. The man emerged from the doorway and sat down at my table. Alarm bells started going off in my head.

It’s best to humour this kind of person, I decided, and pretended to be flattered by his compliment (well, I really was flattered, so I didn’t have to do much pretending), at the same time protesting politely, saying that I had reached an advanced age, and was even a grandmother.

“Oh, everyone’s a grandparent these days,” he replied. “I am, too.”

I nodded sympathetically, as one does in these situations, and we sat for a few moments in silence while I waited tensely for what was to come next.

At that moment Yigal reappeared, and so, after bidding my table companion a polite farewell, I was able to make my escape.

“Who were you talking to?” Yigal asked as we walked away.

“I suppose it must have been the village idiot,” I replied. “After all, who else is going to come right out and say what they think?”

But I thought to myself, even a compliment from the village idiot is something to treasure when you’re past seventy.

Musical Churches

Tags

Creuse, Guillaume de Machaut, Jean-Michel Hasler, la Souterraine, Symphony of Psalms

The churches which abound in rural France – every village has at least one – are empty and devoid of congregations. One priest serves a hundred churches or more, and that’s mainly to officiate at funerals and weddings. Needless to say, there are many more of the former than the latter in this part of the world.

But those denizens of the region who remain seem not to want to be entirely cut off from the world of live music, whether classical or other. Consequently, and presumably also in order to attract tourists, during the summer months the local and regional authorities invest considerable efforts and energy in organising performances of one kind or another. And these are held – where else? – in the otherwise-deserted churches, where the acoustics serve to enhance even the most modest concert.

And so, in the Creuse region, where many houses are closed up and shuttered for most if not all of the year, in the summer the churches house a series of musical events, which can be defined as eclectic in the extreme, ranging from baroque and mediaeval music, both vocal and instrumental, to ensembles from as far afield as Madagascar and Istanbul.

The concert that marked the onset of the concert season was a performance of music by Stravinsky and Guillaume de Machaut, combining the twentieth century with the fifteenth, and was given in one of the region’s largest and most beautiful Romanesque churches, in La Souterraine. Arriving in good time, we found that already twenty minutes before the concert was due to begin there was hardly a single vacant seat. The audience may have been composed solely of the proud parents and/or children of the members of the choir and orchestra, but everyone was waiting expectantly, eager to hear the music.

The first half of the evening’s performance went smoothly enough, although the pieces played were somewhat tuneless to the unaccustomed ear. After the interval, however, when Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms was performed, the atmosphere became electric.

The orchestra, comprising two pianos, timpani, wind and brass instruments, but no strings other than contrabasses and one cello, played the first, striking e-minor chord with a fortissimo that set the hairs at the back of my neck prickling, and did so with perfect timing – no easy feat. The three choirs that had been brought together for the occasion also produced the most glorious and disciplined sound, causing the fluted vault of the church to vibrate in sympathy. The entire production was a tribute to the conductor, Jean-Michel Hasler, and when the music ended the audience begged for more. The performers generously obliged, once again performing the dramatic opening section.

The next day, by coincidence, we heard a performance of the same work broadcast on the radio. But what a difference! It sounded so tame, so devoid of the splendor that had characterized the performance of the previous evening. It seems that no matter how good one’s equipment is, nothing can compare with hearing music live, and especially in a church.

Days of Fruits and Wine

Trust the French to come up with a drink that combines healthy living with the Good Life, i.e., alcohol.

Going round the French supermarket a few days ago I spied with my little eye an intriguing object entitled ‘Fruits and Wine’ (in English, quel horreur!). It came in two flavours, ‘Peaches and white wine’ and ‘Strawberries and rosé wine’ (in French this time), and I was tempted to try the latter. The 3-litre cardboard container was forbiddingly large, but I decided to take a chance, and bought it anyway.

Having lugged it back to the place where we are staying, I wrestled for quite some time to decipher the instructions for opening it, but eventually worked out that somewhere inside there was a plastic container with a tap. More wrestling, and eventually the recalcitrant tap emerged into the light of day.

The procedure was something akin to delivering a baby in the breach presentation, admittedly on a smaller scale. In addition, I personally suffered no pain, though perhaps the tap did. A twist, a turn, exertion of a little bit of pressure, and hey presto, out came a stream of pinkish-reddish liquid into the waiting glass (I had wisely decided to undertake the operation next to the kitchen sink, but not a drop got spilled, I’m happy to say).

The resulting liquid was utterly delicious to drink. It is fruit juice with a little kick in it, and is highly recommended both as a thirst quencher and for medicinal purposes (e.g., if you have a lot of pills to take it’s a lot more fun than drinking plain water).

It’s also very handy for social occasions. Your guests think they’re getting a soft drink, but then suddenly become very animated. Another side-effect may be that they’re reluctant to leave, but there’s nothing wrong with long visits when everyone’s on holiday and no one’s in any particular hurry to go anywhere or do anything.

The strawberries and wine container is almost finished, and on my next supermarket visit I think I’ll try the peaches and white wine. After all, I owe it to my never-ending quest for nectar and ambrosia.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

London and Jerusalem

Tags

AJR Journal, Assad, Brent Cross, Egypt, Iran, Jordan, Kindertransport, Lebanon, occupied territories, Oxford Street, Palestinians, Syria

One of the readers of the AJR Journal (Association of Jewish Refugees), published in London, to which I contribute a monthly column entitled ‘Letter from Israel,’ sent an irate letter to the editor complaining about what I write.  “Why doesn’t Mrs. Shefer-Vanson write about the real issues that beset Israel instead of her bland pieces describing life as if she were living in North West London,” they said, or words to that effect.

I don’t usually reply to the letters referring to my column that the editor of that august journal occasionally prints. Some of them are positive, some negative, but as long as my name is spelt correctly, that’s all I require. Besides, there seems little point getting into arguments with readers, as these could well drag on over several months and end in nothing of any great significance. There is the additional consideration that many of the readers are quite advanced in age (refugees from Europe who left in the 1930s and 1940s, or who came as children in the framework of the Kindertransports), and it might appear disrespectful on my part to enter into an argument with them.

I make a point of not (or hardly ever) bringing politics into my column, partly because I have to send my article to the editor about six weeks before it actually appears, and the situation in Israel and the Middle East in general often changes radically within that period of time, so that what may be correct and relevant when I write it is passé by the time it appears. Apart from that, if it’s up-to-date news that people want to read, there are many other places where that can be obtained, and I doubt whether the AJR Journal is where one should be looking for it.

But as for the jibe about me living the life of someone who lives in North West London, I’m tempted to reply that in some ways there are definite similarities, albeit with a far better climate. After all, like someone living in North West London, I’m surrounded by Jews, there are Arabs in the vicinity, my relatives are not far away and the cultural and musical life is not inferior to what is available in London (apart from the theatre, of course).

Granted, we don’t have Brent Cross, or even Oxford Street, but we have quite reasonable substitutes, shopping malls keep popping up all over the place and downtown Jerusalem has even become reasonably quiet and unpolluted since the light railway began operating.

But then the political situation raises its ugly head, and there is no getting away from the fact that while life inside Israel continues on its even tenor, events in the region are volatile in the extreme. On our northern border Syrians are killing one another with unprecedented ferocity (not unprecedented, actually, vide Assad père). To the south of us the Egyptian populace, with the aid of the army, has just succeeded in toppling its democratically elected president, and there’s no knowing what lies ahead for that benighted country.

Yes, there are Occupied Territories, with their Palestinian population. The situation does not bode well, but there is very little I can do to change the state of affairs. I don’t support the settlers, I vote for the parties of the Left, but at the moment there are not enough people who think as I do to change the political situation under Israel’s democratic process.

The peoples of the surrounding countries may well take the lesson of the events in Egypt to heart, and who’s to say that similar occurrences won’t follow in Jordan, Lebanon, and even Iran? Anything’s possible in this day and age of instant messaging, facebook, etc. The main reason preventing people from going out and demonstrating en masse in those countries till now has presumably been fear of even greater violence on the part of the ruling echelon, and of course, the army which it controls. But if the army decides to side with the demonstrators, anything can happen.

So it seems wiser to keep out of the political morass and stick to describing the very pleasant life I lead here in Israel, with endless sunshine, caring people, and a rich cultural life. If anything, North West London comes a very poor second to what I – and many others – enjoy here.