Mesdames Gengou: Reprise
A side note before the story begins: I’m writing from my room in the Fondation, next to a big window which is letting in the sunlight of this unusually warm and sunny day. My window and I are on the fourth floor of the Fondation, just underneath the fifth floor, where the lucky artists and musicians live. As I sit I’m listening to a pianist work on a beautiful concerto and when he or she decrescendos I can vaguely hear a flautist . . . ahh, the romance of Paris. Its romance until the saxophonists starts working on his scales, which is a struggle, for both him and me.
On to the story:
Thursday night the Fulbright Alumni Association in France hosted a wine and cheese to introduce itself to my class in a setting a little less formal than the ambassador’s reception. The event was held at the Franco-American Commission which occupies three floors of a modest 19th century building in the 16th arrondissement.
I was very much looking forward to the event because Madame Gengou and her daughter, the two eccentric French ladies I had met at the reception (see entry), had promised to be there and to speak with me about Mme Gengou’s uncle, a physicist. I arrived ten minutes late and was stopped at the entrance by a very loud, talkative Corsican alumnus who had cornered one of my friends. After five minutes of listening to the woman spout about her experiences in Nantucket, the younger Madame Gengou rushed up to me exclaiming that she and her mother were worried that I wasn’t going to come, that they had been here for ages, and that they were very excited to see me. She shepherded me back to the wine table, where her mother was waiting. Mesdames might have been wearing the same outfits that I had seen them in at the reception, the same jarring mix of colors and patterns and those fantastic cat-eyed glasses. After a rush of pleasantries they pulled out photographs of the elder Madame Gengou’s uncle and his laboratory to show me and anxiously awaited my approval. They pointed out details of the workshop and apparatus repeatedly asked me if I would like to visit. They also offered to show me the originals of his papers, which they had kept intact.
Apparently Madame Gengou was very close to this uncle who worked with the son of the Marie and Pierre Curie. She mentioned several times that that through his influence she had become interested in physics and science, even though she was a musicologist who specialized in late medieval music. She is well over 80 years old and I think she has some form of Parkinson’s. We talked for a delightful half an hour although I understood only half of what was said. I did understand that Madame Gengou loved to ride a bicycle when she was younger and when she found out that I was a cyclist she warned me over and over again about the cars. She also repeatedly made reference to old friends of hers, each time with the caveat, “but he died” or “she has passed”. At one point, after falling into a reflective pause, she said, “I do not have many friends left . . . but we will now be ‘tres bonnes amies’!”. After a while Mesdames became tired and decided to leave so we exchanged addresses and phone numbers and I promised to write them and see them again.
The rest of the evening was spent trying the tens of different cheeses they had and the various bottles of wine as well. At the end there were several bottles left so Amy, who is the head of the American fulbrights in France and plays the role of part mother, part advisor, part friend to us, send us home with plenty of bottles of wine. We had quite an amusing ride home on the metro.
On to the story:
Thursday night the Fulbright Alumni Association in France hosted a wine and cheese to introduce itself to my class in a setting a little less formal than the ambassador’s reception. The event was held at the Franco-American Commission which occupies three floors of a modest 19th century building in the 16th arrondissement.
I was very much looking forward to the event because Madame Gengou and her daughter, the two eccentric French ladies I had met at the reception (see entry), had promised to be there and to speak with me about Mme Gengou’s uncle, a physicist. I arrived ten minutes late and was stopped at the entrance by a very loud, talkative Corsican alumnus who had cornered one of my friends. After five minutes of listening to the woman spout about her experiences in Nantucket, the younger Madame Gengou rushed up to me exclaiming that she and her mother were worried that I wasn’t going to come, that they had been here for ages, and that they were very excited to see me. She shepherded me back to the wine table, where her mother was waiting. Mesdames might have been wearing the same outfits that I had seen them in at the reception, the same jarring mix of colors and patterns and those fantastic cat-eyed glasses. After a rush of pleasantries they pulled out photographs of the elder Madame Gengou’s uncle and his laboratory to show me and anxiously awaited my approval. They pointed out details of the workshop and apparatus repeatedly asked me if I would like to visit. They also offered to show me the originals of his papers, which they had kept intact.
Apparently Madame Gengou was very close to this uncle who worked with the son of the Marie and Pierre Curie. She mentioned several times that that through his influence she had become interested in physics and science, even though she was a musicologist who specialized in late medieval music. She is well over 80 years old and I think she has some form of Parkinson’s. We talked for a delightful half an hour although I understood only half of what was said. I did understand that Madame Gengou loved to ride a bicycle when she was younger and when she found out that I was a cyclist she warned me over and over again about the cars. She also repeatedly made reference to old friends of hers, each time with the caveat, “but he died” or “she has passed”. At one point, after falling into a reflective pause, she said, “I do not have many friends left . . . but we will now be ‘tres bonnes amies’!”. After a while Mesdames became tired and decided to leave so we exchanged addresses and phone numbers and I promised to write them and see them again.
The rest of the evening was spent trying the tens of different cheeses they had and the various bottles of wine as well. At the end there were several bottles left so Amy, who is the head of the American fulbrights in France and plays the role of part mother, part advisor, part friend to us, send us home with plenty of bottles of wine. We had quite an amusing ride home on the metro.
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