Going from Dublin to Paris is almost as big a jolt as going from the Worlds to the Earth. Not even considering the language difference. Ireland is much like New New, as John had said, in its pace of life, the automatically expected friendliness and sharing. France, or at least Paris, seems even more tense and fast-moving than New York City. (I understand this quality is a modern one, of which old folks disapprove.)
One thing was like Dublin, though. Violet has a hypertrophied sense of the macabre: just as she had to drag us to St. Michan’s there, here we had to go to the Catacombs. It was good theatre; there’s no lighting in the underground tombs, and they give you a candle with your ticket. The bones of six million people, ugh. Death is such an insult…
French cooking is delicious but the restaurants are so expensive. As advised, well be snacking on bread, cheese, and wine in our rooms in the morning and evening, with just one meal out (if it were warmer we could take our bread, etc., out to one of the parks, which would be a homey touch-the parks are beautiful anyhow, in the snow).
The wine here isn’t as good as American, not at the prices we can afford, but the bread and cheese are mavelous. I guess a girl who grew up on good goat cheese couldn’t be expected to like the bland rubbery insult that passes for cheese in America. Here even the cow cheeses are good, and there are hundreds of different kinds. …
Jeff is totally romanced by the city, and I have to admit I wouldn’t mind staying longer myself. A month or two would be nice.
(I wish he wouldn’t let the romance go directly to his groin. He dragged me away from a perfectly good conversation tonight. Well, I could have said no. I like the attention. I like not having to be a therapist. It makes me feel like a girl again, with Charlie, all free and atavistic.
Is he still making up for lost time, I wonder? I swear he was born with an extra bone in his body, retractable.)
Picked up mail at AmEx. Several letters from John and Daniel and an incomprehensible poem from Benny. Not particularly good. No letter with it.
(3-4 January: Paris, Lyon, Nice)
5 January…. I can’t stop staring at the mountains. They loom on all sides, bigger than Paphos. Paphos would get lost in the snowdrifts between them.
The city itself is fascinating, though. The original Grenoble was completely destroyed in a “meltdown,” back in the fission days. They didn’t start rebuilding until twelve years ago, so the city is thoroughly modern, and preplanned down to the last centimeter. John would love it, all foam-steel and composites, graceful the way most Worlds architecture is. I think it’s the first time since we came to Europe that I’ve been out of sight of some big grey cathedral.
Sad monument to the east, though. A perfectly round lake of black glass, still slightly radioactive. Over a hundred thousand dead.
Jeff took Violet skiing this afternoon. I might have gone along to give it a try, but they said there was no real provision for beginners here, and I don’t want to finish seeing the world bound up in a body cast. The Klonexine wouldn’t make it any safer, either.
So I wandered around town until the cold got to me, then set up camp in this coffeehouse to write letters. Daniel, John, Benny, and even a note to Mother.
I didn’t mention Jeff to either John or Daniel. It was easy to talk to Daniel about Benny, since I knew he wouldn’t feel threatened. Jeff might arouse some primal groundhog instinct in him. As if I could fall in love with a mudball cop.
6 January. Last day in France, good to be back in Paris. It was a slightly cold day but no wind and lots of sun; too nice to stay indoors. Violet and Manny spent all day in the Louvre, but Jeff and I walked until dark, from Montmartre to the heliport and back down the Seine to the pension. Then rubbed each other’s feet for a while. His are big and ugly and mine are getting there.
(Seriously, all of this walking is changing my shape. My slacks are getting looser around the middle and tighter around the thighs. Will have to take care that it doesn’t turn to fat when I get back to 0.8 gee. Maybe give up handball for track.) (Back to 50 kg. tonight)
Jeff and I split the cost of a European-language translator. It’s a four-language box that has a large vocabulary but no grammar other than the sequence of words spoken, which can lead to accidental humor on both sides. But they’re in common enough use that nobody has trouble understanding them. We got it for less than half price, from an English tourist at the heliport; presumably, we’ll pass it on when we leave Europe.
We saw so much today. Better go find the map before I try to write it all down. …
33. Coda (code)
Once On It
At rest from thinking every day of you(The rearmost poet of this weary age),Regretting words I never can undo:Aye! Never can undo this only page.
I don’t miss you more than I’d miss breath(Since breath’s a ware that doesn’t keep so well),I’d rather conjure love to you than death:Skin, though live, is covered with dead cells.
Since skin keeps coming back to stalk my mind(I’ll think of other organs by and by),Please forgive the way this poem’s designed:The poet’s got a skinny word supply.
Keep this letter as you travel on(Crafting second letter after dawn),—Benny
34. Try Calling on the World for Peace of Mind
Nothing in Madrid prepared us for Nerja. Madrid was cold and just had normal city bustle; not many tourists this time of year. Nerja was sunwarmed and paved with tourists. (And the tour took us here because it was far less crowded than Málaga or Torremolinos.)
Not too many Spaniards, it seemed. Most of the chatter sounded Scandinavian when it wasn’t English. Our language machine made interesting noises when we tried to eavesdrop.
I was impatient to get into the ocean, since it had been too cold for swimming at Nice. But first I had to rent a “bathing suit,” contradiction in terms. A couple of bright scraps of cloth that barely hide nipples and genitals. I never felt so naked bathing at home. But it is erotic, in an adolescent, peekaboo way.
The water was rather cold but it was all right once you got numb. Jeff gamely stayed out with me for a few minutes, but when his teeth started audibly clattering I sent him back to the beach.
Salt water tastes interesting and its density makes you feel buoyant. But it’s hard to swim well when you’re trussed up like something out of a Devonite fantasy. I tired pretty rapidly and joined Jeff on the beach. He toweled me dry and we lay down on the sand, wedged between two parties of Germans. You could have walked from one horizon to the other without stepping off human flesh.
“You look good in that,” he said. “Especially wet.”
I’d noticed the difference. “Feel like an ad for a Broadway parlor. I’ll be scraping off eyetracks all night.”
“Wish I could help.” The hostel we were staying at was divided into male and female dormitories.
The wind shifted and we got a whiff of the Mediterranean, beyond the pollution boundary. That was some electromagnetic barrier a kilometer or so out. Our translator renders the Spanish term as “wall of shit,” which is sort of an awesome image. I buried my nose in the towel.
We fell asleep and got toasted pretty well. Jeff woke me and we took a quick splash. The damned bathing suit had sand in it; there was no way I could get it all out without taking it off, which I was tempted to do in spite of all the signs saying you would be arrested.
It was a longish walk back to where we’d rented the suits. By the time we got there, between the sun, salt, and sand, I was burned everywhere my skin had been exposed and rubbed raw everywhere else. People pay good money for this.