A cappella

Chapter 13: Nature and Culture

"I'm glad your working at a university! In the heart of the republic!...yes, school really is where you take the pulse of a country. Every time I met a Frenchman abroad, I felt very close to him, and when I dug a little bit to know what brought us so close, I found it to be the fact that we both went to public schools. We had learned to read in the same books, and played the same games in the playgrounds, wherever, whatever the school, you would always find a chestnut-tree from which the kids picked up chestnuts in autumn and a plane tree to engrave their initials on the bark."

"So you felt close to the French people you met abroad? Closer than your neighbours or your dad's friends?"

"Often, yes...yes, it's while traveling that I began to understand what it to be French...I also saw that culture has a lot of impact on a person. We believe that we have such or such taste, such personality, and such preference. In reality, we are the fruit of a culture, which transmits us it's characteristics. To be French, that means, in no particular order, that we love nature, and we understand it, we observe birds and plants, we try to sort our waste, we put our kids to bed early, we prevent them from watching too much TV, we explain to them what life is about, the why and the how, by stooping to be at their level, we dress rather simple, but still pretty, we want to walk, move, understand, read in the public transport, we try to keep a balanced diet, we respect the laws, but we are also the first to groan in a queue, we curse a lot, we get angry quickly...all that...each of us believes its our own personalities, our nature, but in fact its our culture..."

"There is no nature involved, then?"

"Yes, yes of course...we are rather slow, or rather nervous, cheerful or serious...yes there is a nature, but I believe that culture is much stronger, and that's why school is so important. It forms us."

"I rather feel that culture wants to crush us... it crushes the differences, like a bulldozer!

"Oh Max! Give yourself a little time before you judge! You only spent a day there!"

"I never felt as strange as when I entered the office of this head teacher! And besides, I made a couple of mistakes in French while speaking, I was ridiculous. Then she proceeded by laughing when I explained that I had never been a teacher, she said, "do not worry, your presence will already teach them something!" What do you think she meant by that?"

She smiled without answering. 

Max's presence, yes, was something in itself. His youth, the brilliance of his smile, the shadow of his gaze and his natural way of speaking English, which would upset all pre-established dialogues in textbooks.

"Don't worry," she said, as she parked in front of the small airport of Biarritz. "I'm sure you'll make an amazing teacher..."

She was going home to Vienna again, another trip, another plane, but it was their life for so long that she now loved airports, their artificial atmosphere where the smell of coffee and chicken-salad sandwich floated.

For her, it was above all else, a place intensely conducive to reflection. The fact that she was leaving, while flying in addition, was always an opportunity to take measure of things, to see things from distance.

"Max, I hope i'll see you soon, you'll miss me, wont you?...here, as promised, my next article, mixed marriage number 2...

He laughed, kissed his mother and went back to the car. Before even turning on the engine, he began reading:

Mixed Marriage: The Meeting

Paris, the inner courtyard of the Sorbonne, in front of the statue of Victor Hugo. I had just arrived in Paris from the south of France, to register for a Master's degree. The envy of a new life, and what better than the Latin quarter for a student of letters. Yet, as soon as I arrived at the foot of the statue of Victor Hugo, I took out a novel from my traveling bag.

I started reading, forgetting where I am, and why I was there. The book was " A Passage to India" by Forester: a young English woman of good society who is staying in India, a British colony at the time, and who is charmed by the exotic charm and spiritual strength of a young Indian Muslim, Aziz. A magical book... 

"Because India is part of the earth, and God has put us on the earth in order to be pleasant to each other..."

When he entered the courtyard, he, a young Syrian student who had come to study his language in Paris, ignorant of the procedures, had only the statue in front of him and I to answer to his questions. 

So I looked up from the book, with a head full of of strange words from Aziz, I saw him with his black hair and frank smile.

He was looking for the registration desk and I suddenly remembered that I came to register as well. He was standing before me, perfectly honest and natural, as I am then myself, a thousand miles away from any ideas of seduction.

"Syrian? That's interesting..."

I said it because I thought so, and yet, from that moment, we were already looking beyond our cultural differences. No matter where we came from, what mattered is that we both went together through a glass door that is the Sorbonne, him carrying my bag in addition to his, my book too. 

Together, we passed by the amphitheater Descartes all in woodwork, together we went along corridors adorned with immense murals, together we took the white marble staircase...and it is at this moment, impressed by his politeness, and by the exoticism of the novel I was reading, that I felt that I had met... a prince!

.....

Thoughts guys? :)

Please dont forget to vote and comment ❤