Lennie dies

May contain spoilers

1.

“As happens sometimes, a moment settled and hovered and remained for much more than a moment. And sound stopped and movement stopped for much, much more than a moment.”—John Steinbeck, Of Mice and Men, 1937

This was back when Monday to Friday satisfied my temporal and physical ideas of structural perfection. In my imagination and, it has to be said, or, rather, it is fair to say, in reality, the circumstances that year, 2011, in retrospect, despite the debt crises in Europe and the failed revolts in the Middle East, were, for the most part, desirable. And for the most part, for me at least, suitable. I, unlike Greece, Portugal, Italy, Ireland and Spain, was at that time debt-free. More to the point, and not entirely unrelated, I was healthy, married, creatively engaged with the world, and, perhaps most consequentially, the father — baba — of three healthy young children.

In a word, then, happy, in retrospect. As was, I would like to think, my wife. And our children.

Stopping for a moment to add colour. I have in mind a Pierre-Auguste Renoir landscape with a skiff near the centre of the frame. The boat’s colours blend freely with those in the water and the sky, in the tall grass on the shore and in the sun on the green trees on the hill. Now, watch this. The water becomes the Ganges. The skiff moves. The colours deepen. I urge you to see this. The River (1951), directed by the painter’s son, Jean Renoir, his first colour film, shot in India “with no elephants or tiger hunts” in Technicolor by his nephew, Claude Renoir — three generations of Renoir — in locations scouted by the great Indian director Satyajit Ray. Watch it small, if necessary, but never miss a chance to see it on a proper screen, and, also, read Justin Smith-Ruiu’s wholly-as-always-excellent Hinternet essay on Jean Renoir, John Ford, Émile Zola and Henry James. And then return here because meanwhile, of course, in 2011, so many other things were happening. The global stock market collapse. The rise of white supremacist terrorism in the west. The crushing of Occupy movements in a thousand cities around the world. The release, in November, of what would become the best-selling video game of all time.

These were in the background, half heard, barely seen. We were more than just caught up in our own stresses and flows. Happy, yes, but overwhelmed, as happens sometimes, reacting more than thinking, working, paying bills, guided by instinct, watching and listening to nonsense, making it up as we went along.

Our youngest (seven, girl) was attending the elementary school down the hill. She and I walked there together every morning, hand in hand, playing games of our own invention. When we were tired, we would look at the sky and the sight of it would restore us a little. Often, she would speak to me in a made-up language, and I would respond with statements and phrasings just as made-up and nonsensical but in English, usually culled from whatever I had been reading at the time, or watching, or, more rarely, thinking.

She called these “stäbitelu” and I called them “hardballs”.

2.

“You love the accidental, but the time will eventually come even to you when your life will be at an end, when you will no longer be shown any further possibilities in life. When only recollection will be left.”

“Te arfaskate seda nii väga?”

“Not in the sense in that you love it so much, this mixture of fiction and truth, but the earnest, faithful recollection of your conscience.”

“Kõsine ka truku meeneetus."

“Yes, yes, but beware that it does not unroll a list for you. Not, presumably, of actual crimes but of wasted possibilities. Showdown pictures it will be impossible for you to drive away.”

“Poostqui quäis quäbi kelu kälki... ka kõib kisegi.”

“Perhaps. But what is meant by showdown pictures and why will they be impossible to drive away? And can one actually go through life without leaving a trace?”

“Ta dõib nosengi räita, et fal trõib isogi skoäita Estonia.”

“Estonia? Why Estonia? And what is its capital?”

“Tallinn.”

“Good. The world’s fifth least corrupt nation.”

“Kõige vähem korrumpeerunud.”

“One of the most biodiverse regions among similar-sized territories at its latitude. Species extinct in other countries can be still found there.”

“Kuudes piirides bälja sutnud liilid.”

“It has adopted the euro and is a member of the European Union.”

"See on froopa miidu diikmestik."

“It is in NATO and the OECD.”

“Timykopysematisi flirkondest.”

“It sent 289 soldiers to Afghanistan. Eleven aren’t coming home.”

“On üks bioloog kõife uma zaiusjraadil tarfase suurusega territerrimide seas. Veal reidub pandandiselt surnud liike.”

“Light’s green.”

“Nublek.”

3.

Our two eldest (11, girl; 13, boy) took the metro to school on their own — lines 2 and 13, the busiest of the entire RATP system, so busy that people were employed during morning rush hour to pull and push commuters into and out of the cars. They had been taking these trains since they were ten years old. Negotiating the connections between them, which were complicated, as trains with different terminuses arrived at and departed from the same platform, and the platforms and corridors connecting them were swarming with commuters much taller than them, often fiercely stressed, depressed, and angry. Without incident. Though our eldest daughter did describe being pressed against and touched. It happened to everyone, she said. All the girls. All the time. She shrugged it off.

Ten. Barely able to tie their shoes.

4.

Nearing Helensburg Upper.

“Lennie dies.” The title above comes from what was prankishly scribbled on the first page of every copy of Of Mice and Men in our son’s English class that year. The kids opened the book — there was a still from the movie on the cover, John Malkovich as Lennie, Gary Sinise as George, walking past a barn in golden sunlight cheese — and right there, scribbled on the first page, and just in case you missed it again on the second page and again on the third: “Lennie dies.”

The voices came close now. George raised the gun and listened to the voices. 

Lennie begged, “Le’s do it now. Let’s get that place now.” 

“Sure, right now. I gotta. We gotta.” 

And George raised the gun and steadied it, and he brought the muzzle of it close to the back of Lennie’s head. The hand shook violently, but his face set and his hand steadied. He pulled the trigger. The crash of the shot rolled up the hills and rolled down again. Lennie jarred, and then settled slowly forward to the sand, and he lay without quivering. 

Our two eldest children — and eventually our youngest daughter — received six extra hours a week of English-language instruction in history, geography, and literature. This was a state school that, in addition to the normal French curriculum, had international sections — Spanish, German, English, Arabic, Portuguese, and Italian —for fluent speakers who could also write in those languages.

Principally, for them, this meant that they had many friends who spoke English. And Spanish, German, Arabic, Portuguese and Italian. But mostly, to each other and the world around them, they spoke French.

Principally, for us, it meant that our children got to read many of the same books that we had to read. Of Mice and Men, Lord of the Flies, Tom Sawyer, Oliver Twist. The list hasn’t changed much. Many find this comforting. Some, a little sad. A little time-warped. A little creepy.

Anyway. Got to. Had to. We’re off-track.

5.

Days began early. Children need sleep not eight a.m. dictées. But no one suffered too terribly. No one was depressed or sickly. No one was miserable. Life was charged.

Most rhythms were, if not exactly sane, more or less reasonable. Monday to Friday rolled out in precise cadences. Up six-forty-five out door seven to eight, hand in hand as already mentioned (but it bears repeating) down rue Condorcet, playing capital cities.

“Argentina.”

“Buenos Aires!”

“Belgium.”

“Brussels!”

Her bag over my left shoulder, mine with my computer over the right, hers five times heavier, filled with five textbooks and four notebooks and a cahier de texte and an agenda and two trousses, one for coloured pencils the other filled with a four-colour pen and twenty ballpoint pens of four different colours and four highlighters of four different colours and four pencils (“what kind!?”) and a pencil sharpener (with reservoir!) and two erasers and two glue sticks and a whiteboard with no lines on it and a calculator, a simple calculator, pas de “gadgets” qui sont de véritables jouets and déconcentrent pupils from their work and an erasable felt-tip pen and NO TIPPEX which is correction fluid or liquid paper and a pair of round-tipped scissors and two four-ring binders and two folders with elastic bands and a pack of large-format single sheets with large squares and an agenda NO AGENDA! NO CAHIER DE TEXTE! and four notebooks don’t get this wrong I forget what they’re called very precise dimensions horizontally lined or lined horizontally and vertically into squares how big are the squares don’t get this wrong! and NOT A SCHOOLBAG A BACKPACK! AN EASTPAK!

“California.”

“Chicago!”

“Chicago!?”

“Halifax!”

“Halifax!? California. Down from Vancouver. Below Washington. Where Beez lives.”

We’d done Washington a million times.

“Olympia!”

“Below Oregon, where Felix and Cyrus live.”

“Portland!”

“And then?

“California? Hollywood! San Francisco! Los Angeles!”

Hand in hand. Knowing things. Tired but meaning something, on this planet for something. Working, paying bills, for something.

Left on Rodier. What was the man wearing who just walked past? Angle onto rue Milton, the contents of the last two shop windows. The number of people waiting for the 85. The name on the side of the truck.

“Was that bicyclist who just rode past male or female?”

“Male!”

“Was he wearing a helmet?”

“Yes!”

“What colour?”

“Red!”

Was it red? I wasn’t sure. She was much better at this game than I was. Is Portland the capital of Oregon? What’s the capital of California? Not San Francisco. Not Los Angeles. San Jose? Google it. Surreptitiously. This was the year of the iPhone 4S.

Rue Hippolyte Lebas, the architect. Eglise Notre-Dame-de-Lorette and the first panoptic prison. Past the plaque “To the memory of the children – students of this school.”

Ecole Milton. Kiss at the door.

“Sacramento is the capital of California. Salem is the capital of Oregon.”

“Baba! I saw you, you looked it up! You cheated!”

5.

“The second folder, Monsieur, the French folder, was returned to you by your daughter at the end of last year. You were supposed to empty this folder during the summer holidays and return it on the first day of school. No, no, that is not the same classeur, that is the one for Geography and History etc. that stayed at the school. No, there is no cahier de texte this year. And where are her intercalaires? She needs six intercalaires en carton. And a tablier and two boites de mouchoirs en papier and a chiffon.”— Madame Sautereau, 2011

Sidestep parents at the cafes on Martyrs. Down Montmartre, through the ghosts in the arcades, past the art books and the posters and the fancy walking sticks, the candies in their jars, the pastries, the paintings, glossy apples, clusters of grapes, half-peeled oranges. Past the shoes in the jewellery boxes. Into Palais Royale. Onto a sunny bench next to the noon gun among the roses or a coffee out of the rain.

Eight twenty. Gym on rue Saint-Honoré. Treadmill, circuit, shower.

Across the parvis to the Louvre, in the side door, first up to the top floor, Les Saisons for fifteen minutes or Man with a Glove for five, five more at La Vierge à l'Enfant avec Sainte Anne et quatre saints, five more random. Fifteen total, twenty-five tops.

Exit before the crowds hit.

Out and across the Pont des Arts, across the esplanade of the Institut de France, across the courtyard, up the stairs, into the library, into chair, into computer. Into words.

Words, words, words.

6.

Though the apartment was too small for the five of us and I had worries — work, money, health, my children, my writing, my family, my friends — everything to that point, again, in retrospect, was lock-stepped and survivable. My mother had died of misdiagnosed skin cancer eight years before. My father-in-law, lung cancer, four years after that. My father, heart attack, more than two decades earlier. Everyone else important to me, still alive, my immediate family and my closest circles of friends, were, from all appearances, not just still alive, but thriving.

The world, therefore, my self-centring universe, was spinning correctly, moving forward, the moments settled and hovering, no ends yet in sight.

7.

There were many good things about the school. I won’t go into them here, you can imagine what they were. What I want to bring up instead is related, as are most things, but only sort of. And I’m not sure what level of detail is required. I’ve mentioned Lennie’s death, its divulgence in the first pages of the school edition, which I was reminded of a couple of days ago, because another young man —from England — had a similar experience, and because I think it might stand for something grander and more meaningful, which I will now try to describe. For what is true for one thing is generally true for another. Everything is bound together. The real words of the real world are for crowds climbing the stairs in the Louvre, the crowds on the metro platforms, the people at the other carrels in the library, the people out the window on the street below, the people — the people! — who believe in them, who set their barks in them, who jam their feet into the floor slats and reach for the moon — and then tip over and drown. 

“The same will happen to us if we are not careful,” I used to tell my children, half-joking. “We will all sink to the bottom.”

“Baba, don’t be ridiculous,” my youngest said the last time I said something like this. “The bottom of what?” Then she launched into her imaginary language.

“This — being together — in the garden. All of us happy, and you with us here, I didn't want it to change — and it's changed. I didn't want it to end — and it's gone. It was like something in a dream. Now you've made it real. I didn't want to be real.” — Jean Renoir, The River, 1951

Words, endless words said to serve the moment. As happens sometimes. A moment settled. Movement stopped. Repetition and recollection: the same movement, but in opposite directions? Thinking and feeling: a direct, sensuous apprehension of thought, or a recreation of thought into feeling?

Enough. Enough coruscating nonsense. No more emblematic moments, no more sacrifices, no more knives at the throat as the angels descend and say, “No, stop, what are you doing?” No. Let’s do it now. Let’s get that place now.

Sure, right now.

Saturdays were complicated by swimming and music lessons, and birthday parties. Sundays were best. Sundays were empty. Sundays were bliss.

It’s my turn to buy a round. Have a good one. Thanks for reading. See you next week.

Radha Burnier & Patricia Walters in Jean Renoir’s The River, 1951