Bruce's Menno Simon Kielke Kranberry Klassic: In a blender dump one cup of fresh kielke, 1/2 cup of pure lard, two cups of buttermilk, then add three ounces of communion wine (actually Welch's grape juice), throw in a couple of ice cubes and blend on high 'til it's nice and frothy... pour it into one large milkshake glass, get two drinking straws, and share with your significant other whilst praying for the missionaries in the foreign fields. You might want to use a Gideon Bible as a coaster.
I bathe and head out shopping. I am a very good shopper; it’s what I do, to my financial detriment. I find all sorts of perfect furnishings for my new house but of course can’t buy anything big, practically speaking; but then I find clothes, new clothes, vintage clothes, and books, and figs and chocolates and this and that. John Kennett has asked me to buy him a bottle of absinthe and I need one for my project as well - and it is relatively easy; there are liquor stores and wine caves everywhere. I find it at the second place I try, and I buy two bottles, 38 Euros apiece, and ask the shop owner about Mirabelle plum puree. “Oh, it’s impossible,” he exclaims, “no, not impossible, but very difficult, nobody makes it; only in Alsace, peut etre.”
At a grocery store that stinks of old cheese there is crème de mure, and at a Jewish deli I find pepper vodka and Kriek, the Belgian cherry beer that looks like blood, that Wim recommended. Then at a kitchen shop in the preserves section there is something called Mirabelle plum comfiture (blah blah blah) miel, so probably jam with a bit of honey - but those rare plums! - so I buy it and think, I will plop a bit into my drink and call it done.
I buy miniature Eiffel towers for Caleb and Chancellor as promised, and a book of pastry recipes, in French, which Caleb has requested; we will, I hope, eventually translate and try every one of the sauces and cakes and things together. By now my bags are full and I am hungry; I return to my hotel where I eat the leftover baguette and cheese with butter and apricots - yum - and drink Orangina. Then it rains, and I fall asleep for three hours.
And again into the city, close blocks of apartments, churches, stone and iron walls, everyone speaking French, everyone frolicking, how delightful. I shop a little more then eat tomato and mozzarella salad at the same internet café, where they speak no English at all, all the tight round tables, cigarettes for sale including Lucky Strike - did everyone but me know that those actually existed? - an extensive wine list and a view of the street. Sea salt and freshly ground pepper and crusty bread and a better red wine than yesterday. Then I find a toy store where I must buy a spaceship for Jule; there is only a vintage UFO thing that I don’t think is what he’s after; and the man who speaks little English struggles along with me in French in a friendly way, showing me all the toys, a Magic Coloring Book, various tops, the wind-up robots.
It is getting dark.
I pass Hotel de Ville and cross the bridge to Ile-de-la-Cite, and arrive at Notre Dame just before the lights come on, greenish then yellow then just glowing, and I sketch it, and smoke a cigarette. Here there are tourists. I was here once before, with Patrick. Eleven years ago, during the month between medical school and residency, a year before Caleb was born.
At a souvenir shop a man asks me in French if I know when Notre Dame Cathedral was built - but why would I?
And I walk the perimeter of the church, past the flying buttresses and gargoyles, and it is all very three dimensional and ghostly.
I find a quiet street along the Seine, with stone steps down to the water, and I walk down and touch my hand to it, brown and rushing. It is a magical moment. Then I stand on the bridge while a boat passes underneath, lit up, and the tourists with their cameras wave as they motor along. Couples kiss and snuggle. Girls with boots and scarves and hair in loosely knotted buns, boys all thin and navy blue.
I am only a little bit lonely.
I dream about making love to ghosts, an orgy in a haunted house.
September 25th: I have to check out and return to Brussels. Café-au-lait and chocolate cookies. I pack carefully, but my bags are now very heavy, crammed with books and liquor. I try to walk to the metro but it is impossible, especially given the busted wheel on my suitcase, so I take a cab to Gare du Nord and am glad; it is only six Euros and the driver plays Parisian music and I see more of the city. It feels like the opening of “Linear” - “Unknown Caller”. Driving away from Paris.
Failed internet again at Gare du Nord, so I write instead. I find my train but it is full and I’m in the wrong seat and get kicked out but eventually it's all sorted and turns out relaxing and this time I stay awake and watch the towns and fields pass by. I thought last time and think again that France looks a lot like Manitoba, only with bigger trees and darker, fatter forests.
From Gare Midi I manage to get straight to Brussels Airport, with the exception of one malfunctioning train and a track change. It is 7 p.m., and I am so tired. I wait for the hotel shuttle on a wet bench, shivering. The Pullman Brussels Airport Hotel makes me feel like a character in “Up in the Air” - but I do not meet George Clooney. A group of conference speakers schmooze in the bar, where I order a scotch and Asian crispies, not much selection, and they are obviously warmed up from frozen but who cares, I am starving and eat every one. Then internet in the room! - and a decaf coffee that is foamy and sweet - how do they do that here, manage to make every coffee perfectly delicious, even in airport hotels? - and again, a tiny biscuit.
They respect food in Europe; it’s what I like best about it, probably.
September 26th: I’m on the plane flying from Dusseldorf to Toronto. I woke up at one and again at four, was violently awake, so got up and began the day. First plane at 7:30. At 7:00 I finally make it to the front of the security line and send my suitcase through and they stop it and open and search it and I see them on the scanner, my bottles, but even then don’t think of it and say casually, “Oh, it’s only my drinks, all my drinks.” - “Your drinks?” - “Oh my God… I can’t take them, can I? Oh my God, I forgot,” even though I packed my small toiletries so diligently in a clear plastic bag - and the officer pulls out the two bottles of absinthe, the pepper vodka, the crème de mure, and the Kriek, carefully cushioned in bubble wrap and plastic.
“That’s, like 100 Euros worth of liquor right there,” I say. “I’m sorry, ma’am. There is nothing I can do.” - “One hundred Euros! And I knew it - I just didn’t think - I didn’t want them to get broken in the luggage,” remembering one trip home from Mexico when a bottle of creamy pink stuff busted and soaked all our clothes, and we decided that from then on we would carry bottles on to keep them safe, but of course that was before the liquid bomb and the new regulations.
“Can I drink some now? Will you have some? Could I put some into a little bottle - but I don’t have a little bottle.” - “What we do, ma’am, is we sell what is left here and give the money to welfare.” - “To welfare? Really? Not to airport security, for a party?” - “No.” - “Oh my God.”
He puts the bottles into a plastic box along with half-consumed containers of water and Coke, and I go off.
After fuming a little I decide that this may be a sign, that it may be time to quit. I imagined, with my finds, that I would be entering a new era of genius cocktail-making; instead I am entering an era of distraction, stupidity; or possibly, hopefully, of frugality and moderation. My new baby doll dress, though, is so comfortable, and those jeans… And half of that absinthe was for John Kennett who would surely have paid me for it, and who gave me good scotch this summer. Damn.
“Be careful, sweetie,” a girl says into her cell phone. “I will call you when I get to Israel. I will stalk you in the evening.”
At Frankfurt I have time, and search the duty free store, but of course there is nothing interesting there, except free samples of scotch, and I try two, with the attendant’s assistance. Then a delicious lentil soup and gummy bears and the last chocolate croissant of the trip. Why are not all Europeans grossly obese? I have never eaten so much bread.
At Dusseldorf I am paged for being late, but really I am just relaxing, just taking my time in the bathroom.
Now I am listening to U2 on my noise-canceling headphones, from the beginning, Boy to No Line on the Horizon.
They were so good when they were young - but also now that they’re old - their new songs, "Mercy" and "North Star" and "Every Breaking Wave"… "Mercy" has been in my head all day. “Because, because, because, we can, we must!” Damn, they must release it!
I decide that I will enter a new era of frugality. Really I must. I almost bought 15-year-old McCalland scotch for 75 Euros to make up for my loss but then felt a little bit sick, oh the excess. I have a lifetime supply of alcohol in my cupboard already. Why can I not just use up what I have and be satisfied? Drink gin and tonic, Holy Water, my favorite cocktail, and Chi Chi’s; what is my problem, why always this need for something new? I shouldn’t even buy wine until all my other alcohol is gone, except for special occasions.
Also, what was the point of this project and is there any need to persist, really? I will not succeed in making every cocktail in that lame book; they do not make Mirabelle plum puree except in Alsace, and even then… I guess I started it primarily because I wanted something to do, something to fill up my evenings while the boys watched stupid action movies or wrestled in the basement. And yes, I wanted to be a more sophisticated drinker, like I would like to be a more sophisticated eater and decorator and dresser and traveler, would like to grow up and be part of the world, an independent adult. But primarily it was to force myself to write, and about something, to have a project. And now I have left my husband, and actually that was perhaps the real project, only I didn’t know it until suddenly it was done.
Lunch is coming, bratwurst or chicken. It smells good. For some reason iTunes has skipped from “I Will Follow” to “Get on Your Boots” and Bono is singing, “You don’t know, you don’t get it, do you, you don’t know how beautiful you are,” which four nights ago he sang to me, pointing at me, and I believed him, because he is Bono and he is wise, a prophet, my spirit-guide, and I hope that he will be happy in the end whatever it is that he is going through and I hope that I will be happy in the end given what I am going through.
“Happiness is for those who don’t really need it,” he sings, in "Mercy".
Do any of us need it, really? Truly NEED it? We need sustenance, shelter (though not even that, always), some degree of social interaction, maybe, but happiness? I have had contentment, I have been secure in my career and relationships, I have been in charge - but I have been empty. Until happiness came along I didn’t even know that it hadn’t always been there. Now that I’ve recognized it, though, I don’t want to let it go.
Wish me luck.
And best of luck to you (especially to John - sorry about the absinthe).
Cheers.
Peace.
P.S. At customs in Toronto the drug puppy sniffs out my bag and I’m sent to have it searched; I have a pear that I forgot to declare and enter into a long discussion about it with the young customs officer, who threatens to charge me four hundred dollars. I end up eating the pear right there while talking to him, and it’s a very juicy pear; “Yes,” he says, “for it’s organic. They do not mass produce their fruit in Europe like we do here.” I mention about the absinthe, and he says, “Oh, but it’s made with wormwood in France, it’s a hallucinogen, unlike the synthetic stuff that you can buy here at the liquor board.” - “I know,” I say; “that’s why I want it, because it’s the real thing.” - “But you are not allowed to bring it into Canada,” he says. “It’s illegal. We would have taken it from you.” - “Oh. Well. I’m glad you told me that, or I might have gone back and tried again, wasted another 75 Euros.”
So that being said, John owes me another glass or two of good scotch.
And I wish I’d just consumed that absinthe in my room alone in Paris. The ghost orgy might then have been even more interesting. Maybe someday I'll go back, and do just that.
No comments:
Post a Comment