Memories of a Caroloregian: the Kingsport pages

Jean Nicaise

Translator's note: Square brackets [ ] enclose clarifications or explanations. Italics show when Nicaise himself uses English.

Part 2: Washington, D.C.

          The next stage of our initiatory trip we will reach by train: Washington. "Be sure to leave on a train of the company that sold you the tickets," we have been advised, the reason being that several private companies run lines to the same destinations. We must not miss the Pennsylvania Railroad.

          Again it will be a Sheraton that houses us during our stay in the federal capital. This time all 200 or so exchange teachers from every country invited by Sen. Fulbright are gathered together. In the course of one well-lubricated evening, a Norwegian whom the Gestapo had tortured by hanging him by his feet got into an argument with a German, who had the clumsiness to tell him, "Norway? What a beautiful country. I spent the year 1943 there!"

          Who has not experienced a similar lack of tact on the part of our former occupiers? Thirty years later, in France, the guest of a shared neighbor, a former Luftwaffe pilot and I will drink a glass of champagne together. Learning that I once lived in Chatelet, he says to me,

          "Ah! Chatelet, I know it. I was based at the Florennes air base during the war."

          "Well, if I had met you then," I say, "I'd have wanted to see you dead!"

          Our host, on hearing this response, is unable to suppress a scandalized exclamation.

          The citizen of the [German] Federal Republic [West Germany] answers back, "But I understand completely, Mr. Nicaise."

          In conclusion I raise my champagne glass and say, "Prosit! [Cheers!] Here we are today getting together with no animosity. Doesn't this prove the stupidity of war?"

          "I am in complete agreement. To your health!"

          The German-Norwegian quarrel in Washington didn't end as peacefully: a third person had to intervene to separate the two drunk antagonists. It was just a slight hitch in the otherwise beautiful cosmopolitan harmony in which the English language facilitated cordial contacts and beyond, to judge from the rapid and flagrant formation of international couples. So much the better if world peace is to be won that way rather than through marriage!

          I run into our German at poolside.

          "I'm not racist," he says, "but there's no way I'm swimming: there are too many blacks."

          The Sheraton is at the time hosting a conference of black academics. As we will learn, such a racial mix was definitely beyond expectations in the South. The employee who made the reservations didn't realize that it was a black association. He paid for his blunder by getting fired. It hardly seems right that segregation should be allowed in the federal capital where the population is majority black.

          We haven't been brought together in Washington to frolic in the swimming pool in beautiful weather, cheered by the cicadas' song, nor to work at drinking cocktails that sometimes favor tender touches and sometimes nationalistic blows.

          We are invited to attend informational programs given by the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. I quickly realize that our briefing in Brussels, given at Mrs. Deflandre's behest, was very complete. Here I go to the first session, which closes by taking a picture of our imposing group on the steps of the department building. My preference is to devote these last few days of vacation to seeing the city.

          The first thing we do is visit the Capitol, which houses the Congress. Notified ahead of time, Sen. Fulbright arranges to have a press photographer take a picture of him together with the two of us and Anne-Marie [another Belgian Fulbright].

          Taken at a distorting, low angle, the picture robs my wife of her natural slimness. [Here Nicaise inserts the photo just described, taken outside on the steps of the Capitol with the dome in the background.]

          Washington is an absolutely beautiful city. It was built on virgin land beside the Potomac, near Mount Vernon, the village where President Washington's residence was built and which we visit. Placed in the middle of a majestic lawn, it overlooks the river. We take a cruise on a tour boat to get back to the federal capital.

          It was a French architect, Pierre L'Enfant, who designed the layout of the capital of the USA. He was inspired in part by considering Paris and the military tradition of the 18th century, for which  assuring the defense of the city was a paramount concern. The layout has wide avenues raying out from circles to enable cannon to fire in all directions. Until now the city has never suffered an assault, thank heavens. Its architecture is inspired by Greco-Roman art: the Corinthian columns and pediments topped by friezes or bold bas-reliefs are seen at the Capitol, the National Gallery, the Supreme Court building, the Treasury Department, the wonderful "memorials" of Lincoln and Jefferson, the National Archives. All of these buildings are constructed in the middle of gardens and parks. The Jefferson Memorial is reflected in a lake, the Tidal Basin, fed by a tributary of the Potomac that determines its depth and bordered by 3,000 cherry trees from Japan, given by the city of Tokyo in 1912. Its rotunda is engraved with these words from the author of the "Declaration of Independence": I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.

          We devote the better part of an entire day to the National Gallery of Arts that the travel guide appropriately describes as "a triumph of architectural beauty." Air-conditioning adds its comfort to our strolls through admirably-arranged galleries hung with the masterpieces of painting from primitives through Impressionists. It's a panorama of Dutch (no less than sixteen Rembrandts), Flemish (notably two beautiful female portraits by Rogier van der Weyden), Italian (in particular the Alba Madonna by Raphaël), Spanish, English, and French art. You go from room to room in silence and peaceful contemplation because there are no bunched-up groups of more-or-less distracted people gathered around a guide who is shouting himself hoarse. At the entrance you rent a set of headphones and listen to commentary (exclusively in English) broadcast by radio.

          Not only is photography allowed, you are given instructions and precautions to take when using a flash.

          At midday we eat lunch in the museum cafeteria so as not to waste time looking for a theoretical place for food in a part of town dedicated exclusively to art, to the memory of great men, and to the administration of the federal State.

          I've held on to the memory of another discovery, the Folger Shakespeare Library. This library collects books printed in England between 1475 (incunabulas) and 1640, hundreds of manuscripts, and items related to the author of Hamlet, including a model of his theatre.

          We leave Washington with greater regret than we did New York.

          In the sleeping car, I run into my first linguistic difficulties in trying to understand the jargon of the black employee serving us. At breakfast I'm not content with ordering bread and jelly. Like a good American, I opt for two eggs "sue le plat," fried eggs. This simple order draws a question of which I understand only one word, which sounds like "down?" Questions are a real trap. With everything else you can gather from little, vague head movements or grunts when the person you're talking to has figured out your approval or disapproval. A question requires a response -- that's the problem! When I ask my server to say it again, I hear what sounds like "Snup o down." All I can do is repeat "fried eggs." This is obviously not what the Negro expects. He shrugs his shoulders, goes away, and brings me … two fried eggs. Later on I learn that the question was "sun up or down?" meaning, as you've probably figured out, "soleil dessus ou dessous?" It's obviously a challenge to figure out why your server is quizzing you on cosmology when all you've done is order two fried eggs! Confronted with my incompetence, he had decided that I would eat my eggs with "the yellow on top."

          I start to worry about the effectiveness of the book-learned English that had satisfied my [Fulbright grant] selection jury. Gone with the Wind, I thought, had familiarized me to some extent with the language and the accent of the South, which Margaret Mitchell tries to render in the dialogues of her famous novel. But now I feel like I don't have a clue. Even if you don't speak a word of English, you know that "oui" is translated "yes." Well, no it isn't! It's yah. The pronunciation is somewhere between yè with a very open è and the German ya. To my great shame, I have myself taught that yes is translated oui. But Parisian adolescents and dullards use ouais, and of course everyone has known since Villon [French poet of the 15th c.] that il n'est bon bec que de Paris [only Parisians know how to talk good], isn't that right? It's also wrong to say that "petit" (p'tit) is translated by little. In America it's lil'l and is written that way in some dialogues.

[Translated from the French by Jud Barry]