When the train left again, I kept watching out the window and saw what was left of the Mécano factory (the lettering of that name reminded me of the one for those old toys, Meccano); then came other companies that seemed more active, especially one involving industrial packaging, until the train stopped at the next station, Le Bourget, my destination. Getting up to get off, I encountered three young guys standing by the doors listening to rap on their cell phones. I glanced at them; they gave me a look with no love lost but that’s fine, that’s fine.
It was now raining at the station, a chilly little drizzle, rather hostile, and I went into the Hôtel de la Gare, which is also a bar and brasserie, just across the way, between the station pharmacy and a medical analysis laboratory. I found a table near the picture window and sat down; there weren’t too many of us there, either. Across from me, the train station at Le Bourget was architecturally reminiscent of an old inexpensive construction set (which reminded me again, by association, of the Meccano toys); three buses were parked in front of it. A big sign described the project currently underway to permit the RER B to link up with a future line called Tangentielle Nord. I waited for a bit.
A man finally showed up, from whom I ordered a ham-and-gruyère sandwich and a glass of Côtes du Rhône: my project was taking shape. Outside, people were going by with umbrellas, visored caps, hoods, shawls, knit caps — one with a pom-pom — but I had nothing like that. The sandwich arrived with its glass of red. I couldn’t really say if they were good, I rather think they weren’t particularly but that wasn’t the point.
In that establishment, as on the sidewalks outside, were plenty of West Indian, North African, and sub-Saharan men and women, as well as a few Asians but not so many as that, and not just them. I did intend to buy an umbrella but I wasn’t sure I’d find one in the neighborhood around the station — and umbrellas, in any case, I already had several at home, all in rather poor working order, which reminded me of the one hundred umbrellas found in Erik Satie’s2 house after his death, out in Arcueil where, incidentally, I could have gone directly afterward by taking the same RER B in the opposite direction but, later, later. Some other time, perhaps.
As often happens at a Hôtel de la Gare, a radio was endlessly playing golden oldies. I recognized without too much trouble Paul McCartney singing “Michelle” while a guy and two girls at a neighboring table animatedly discussed long-term contracts, vacations without pay, and the status of temps. The sun came back out for a moment: disappearance of umbrellas, rarefaction of headgear. On that note I finished my sandwich and drained my glass: mission accomplished.
Before leaving the Hôtel de la Gare, I had time to watch the conversion of a try after thirty minutes of play in a rugby match on the television wall-mounted not far from the bar (Ireland 20, Wales 0). Above this bar, as it happened, a rugby ball was on display along with four soccer balls outfitted, just for a laugh, with different caps (I recognized one from the French national railroad) and a dark blue beret of the Naval Fusiliers.
Afterward, I went for a walk in the town. I went along Avenue Francis-de-Pressensé,* lined with low pebble-dash buildings and classic detached houses of brick or buhrstone like the ones often found in suburbs and, even more often, in descriptions of those suburbs. I noticed one of the ubiquitous Bar de l’Europe cafés on the avenue, as well as two Stars: a Star of Istanbul (bar-restaurant-grill) and a Golden Star (butcher shop). I turned left onto Avenue Jean-Jaurès,* which featured the bar-brasserie-tobacconist L’Aviatic. Not far away, practically across the street, was a bookshop-newsstand-stationery store where the front window was entirely filled with all kinds of models and figurines including a gigantic representation of Nefertiti in the round. I wondered what she was doing there. Having subsequently learned that the lady running that establishment had been mugged several times by youths professing some sort of allegiance to Islam, I wondered if that recourse to Nefertiti might be a vaguely metonymic way of warding off those nuisances.
There were also quite a few fast-food establishments on the avenue (numerous places featuring Turkish, Pakistani, Indian, or Sri Lankan dishes), a few halal or not butcher shops, a few hairdressing and beauty salons including a black-and-white Cosmétique and a black Beauté, plus all sorts of the usual stores such as a jeans emporium, wellness and beauty center, florist, locksmith, Franprix, and Leader Price.
Then I dawdled awhile on Avenue de la Division-Leclerc,* site of the city hall (entirely of brick) and the building housing police headquarters. The latter must have once been the home of a leading citizen: vaguely châteauesque in inspiration, beige and salmon pink, with a pointy pinnacle turret and a roof protected by four lightning rods — which seemed a touch much, and I thought the police could have recycled them as antennas. A sort of yellowing palm was hanging on in front of the façade, from which drooped an astonishingly faded French flag. All shutters were closed save one, on the ground floor, open just a crack. This time I debated whether this institution might be viewed as sealed up tight like a citadel or simply closed for the weekend. Directly across the avenue, a young woman dashed out of a grocery store and into a double-parked car, calling out to me, Hey monsieur, I can buy you a drink if you want. I didn’t really know what that implied; I preferred not to be too sure of what her words meant, or even very sure in fact that she was addressing me (although I don’t see whom else she could have been addressing, I do believe there was no one else at that moment and on that rather empty bit of sidewalk whom she could have called monsieur), but in any case I opted for not answering.
True, I have to say that I was wearing a pair of dark glasses I’d pulled from my pocket when the sun had come out again. Now, perhaps it was incongruous to be wearing dark glasses in Le Bourget in early February, maybe that could seem like a kind of provocation, a vague social class marker as it appears to have been in 1960, in Créteil, if the Jean Ferrat song that sprang to my mind can be believed.3
The sky clouded over again, though, and thinking it might rain once more I repocketed my dark glasses while returning to the station (which by now seemed almost familiar) and, on platform 2B, I had not long to wait for my train home. This time the car was full and I traveled standing. The banal but always intriguing idea occurred to me that all these people had, every one of them, a good reason for traveling, and that mine had been merely that sandwich in Le Bourget.
Five days later, I decided to renew it, that reason, slightly improved. This time I would further refine two aspects of the plan: firstly, a specific destination in Le Bourget, and I rapidly selected the barbrasserie-tobacconist L’Aviatic, previously noticed and to whose face, if I may say so, I’d felt immediately drawn; secondly, the nature of the sandwich, and here I chose the salami sandwich. That’s a quite common kind of sandwich, such a classic in France that it’s familiarly known as a sec-beurre4 but which seems to me, over the past few years, to be appearing less often on menus, to be less desired by consumers, so that one might wonder about a possible tendency for the rate of sec-beurre popularity to decline.