 |
Remembers |
For one American couple, Trenet
always will symbolize our Paris
By
RON MILLER
of TheColumnists.com
THE DARKEST moment of a dreary, rainy holiday weekend came last
Monday afternoon (Feb. 19) when an email arrived from Paris.
It was from our friend Karen Sharpe ("A New Life in Paris"),
who brought the bad news that Charles Trenet had suffered a stroke
and died the night before. He was 87.
"There have been tributes all day on the radio," Karen wrote, "and Le Monde did a special section."
It meant a sorrowful evening for me and for my wife, Darla. Trenet held a special place in our hearts. For most people, it meant the passing of yet another era. Trenet was truly the last of the great troubadours of French chanson from the first half of the 20th century. In France, he was an immortal musical genius from the time of Maurice Chevalier. Many gave him credit for inspiring the later era of Jacques Brel and Charles Aznavour. But for us, he would always be the joyful soul of France personified.
How that happened to be the case is one of our favorite memories together.
It was in the mid-1970s. We started a long vacation trip to Europe with a week in Paris. At first, it seemed nothing was going to go right. We arrived in April during a major transit strike, which sabotaged many of our plans to get around the vast city inexpensively. The subways and bus lines weren't running and you had to fight dozens of tourists for the few taxis that came by our hotel. The only bus we could catch was one taking tourists to Barbizon and Fontainebleau. We took it, then bailed out after Barbizon and walked the village streets and the old palace grounds rather than suffer the humiliation of being part of that gaggle of god-awful tourists.
Back in Paris, we decided to walk as far as we could each day since it was apparent we weren't going to be able to ride. At least, it would bring us into more direct contact with the French, we thought. However, that wasn't always a memorable experience. Americans weren't exactly worshipped in Paris at that time because of the Vietnam War debacle, but we were determined not to be the "ugly Americans" they might have expected. I figured a good place to start with the French was by trying to speak their language as much as I could.
Even though I'd barely avoided flunking out of my college French classes, I spoke French to every French person we encountered. It didn't work every time. Darla likes to remind me of the time we went out for a late dessert at a sidewalk cafe. I ordered her a chocolate mousse--and they brought her a grilled cheese sandwich! The waiter refused to take it back. His argument, as I pieced it together from the few parts I understood, was that it was what I'd asked for and I was damn well going to keep it!
One night I succeeded in ordering us tickets to a rare performance of "The Eagle," the silent film with Rudolph Valentino, in a charming little arts theater only the French seemed to know about. It turned out we were the only people there who could read the original English title cards, which had some very funny lines. We laughed out loud a lot, which brought us Gallic glares. We could only assume the French title-writer hadn't done a very good translatiion.
Perhaps my greatest French language achievement was the time Darla conned me into going into a very upscale little lingerie shop to help her buy some lacy undergarments for her teenage sisters back home. It seemed the sizes meant no sense in American terms, so I was pressed into service to explain exactly what sizes we needed. To his eternal credit, my college French teacher, Mr. August Armanasco, had never lowered himself to the point where he taught his students how to say terms like "underpants" and "in the crotch area" to giggling salesgirls. However, I came to wish that he had. Anyway, I'm still proud that I somehow explained it all and Darla went home with some exotic Paris lingerie for her sisters.
We were even more encouraged the following night when we found a marvelous little French-Algerian restaurant frequented only by locals and I was able to get through an entire meal without speaking a word of English. I even was able to describe Darla's umbrella--excuse me, parapluie--to the hatcheck girl and retrieve it after dinner without resorting to English.
All
this attention to my French language skills is important because
it leads me finally to our magic moment with the immortal Charles
Trenet...at the Olympia.
For years, I'd been reading about the famous Olympia theater
in Paris where so many great international entertainers performed.
When I learned we could walk there from our hotel in a fairly
short time, I proposed that we try to see a show there. Our concierge
told us it probably wasn't worth trying because the greatest
living French singer, Charles Trenet, was playing there that
week.
But we happened to walk by the box office the following morning and I managed to get two tickets to that day's matinee performance. I double-checked the curtain time and figured we could spend the morning at the Louvre, then skip lunch and rush to the theatre for the afternoon matinee. That's exactly what we did, but I got screwed up on the times during my dialogue with the box office guy and they didn't want to admit us when we arrived that afternoon. The reason: Trenet had already been performing for 90 minutes and our seats were in the center section down in front, right in his line of sight.
Of course, I didn't understand what the theater people were telling me at the time because they were all chattering in French. I just kept insisting that we had tickets and didn't want to miss the performance. So, they reluctanly ushered us down in front and, as we awkwardly sidled down the row to our seats, we felt the eyes of the immortal Trenet upon us.
What happened then is open to conjecture, but the one thing we did find out later for sure is that Trenet had completed his act and was just rolling into his encores. To this day, though, we both want to believe what we think we happened: Trenet saw a young American couple desperately trying to reach their seats to see the final moments of his show--and very kindly decided to give us a day to remember.
With great zest and animation, Trenet began to run through one classic hit after another. He either did them all over again for us--or else he had already performed 90 minutes worth of chart-busters that somehow never showed up on any of the many albums we bought over the years from that day on.
Furthermore, he made us feel as if he was performing just for us.
Trenet composed and performed some of the most haunting and romantic songs ever written. His greatest is supposed to be the lyrical "La Mer," which Bobby Darin turned into an American hit by recording it as the jump-tempo "Beyond the Sea." But my favorite is "Que Reste-t-il De Nos Amours?" which most Americans remember as "I Wish You Love" ("'I wish you shelter from the storm, a cozy fire to keep you warm, etc.") Darla's favorite: "Il Fleut Dans Ma Chambre."
That day, though, what impressed us most was the many carefree novelty songs Trenet had in his repertoire, which he sang while dancing, prancing, laughing, chatting and making some very bizarre, cartoon-like sounds that even Mel Blanc might have envied. If you want to hear that side of him, play his "Boum" or "Mam'selle Clio."
But most of all, he was a great music hall-style performer (who also wrote novels and acted in movies)--and a romantic pixie in human form. That day he put on the greatest stage performance I've ever seen by any entertainer--and left my wife and I with a warm, rosy feeling for the French that we've never lost to this day.
Trenet will be with us always. The day he died, we had his CD "La Joie de Vivre et De Chanter" ("The Joy of Living and Singing") in our car stereo, ready to put on. Our French is no better today than it was in the 1970s, but he spoke to our hearts some 35 years ago--and we still hear his message of friendship and love as clearly as we heard it then.
© 2001 by Ron Miller.
You can comment on this column or contact Ron Miller with an email to: talkback@thecolumnists.com
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