“Mountains out of Morsels”
Austin Showen
Around 9 p.m. on one weekday night in April, an unsuspecting Parisian walking down the Rue Saint-Joseph may have felt something land on his head. I imagine this man – probably in his mid-twenties and definitely dressed all in black – reaching up to discover, nestled in his perfectly-coiffed hair, a small piece of chicken.
“Du poulet?” he might have muttered under his breath before tossing the chicken on the ground, giving a defeated shrug at the incomprehensibility of life, and continuing on his walk.
***
Dinner with the Deschamps family was a challenge from the beginning. Jet-lagged and terrified, I was not prepared for the surprise dinner party on my first evening in Paris, but I had no choice but to play along.
It was a nightmare.
When I first arrived at the Deschamps’ apartment, my host brother Edgar (who was two years younger than me, but at least twice as cool) explained that his godparents were visiting for dinner. I couldn’t show my confusion or frustration to Edgar – I had to act excited instead – so I nodded and gave him a dead-eyed smile.
While we waited for the godparents to arrive, my host mother Julienne tried to engage me in conversation. I don’t know what she said or how I responded – all I remember is being intimidated by her impeccable posture and her unsmiling face. Julienne, I learned, would not be an easy host mother to impress.
The doorbell rang and in came Edgar’s godparents, whose names I forgot as soon as I learned them. They had trouble with my name, too, so at least it was even – if I wanted to avoid confusion, I soon learned, I had to pronounce my name “oh-STEEN.” The French way.
I had thought that the French conversation with just Julienne and Edgar was difficult, but it only got worse when the godparents entered the equation. Despite my drooping eyelids and waning concentration, I managed to follow along just well enough to jump in once or twice, earning myself – in a moment that I will never forget – a thumbs-up from Edgar. He, the hyper-cool Parisian who seemed to have his life together at age eighteen, was proud of me, the weird, bumbling twenty-year-old from Kansas. Energized by Edgar’s validation, I fought back my fatigue to stand a little straighter. It might not be easy, but I would fight my way through this dinner if I had to.
The dinner ritual began as soon as Georges, my host father, walked through the door, bringing with him my other host siblings, Gilbert and Nathalie. Georges, the owner of an antiques shop, must have brought home the pottery, the statuettes, and the other curious artifacts that rested on almost every surface in the apartment; Julienne, who worked as an expert in engravings, was been responsible for the artwork that lined the walls of the living room. Georges greeted his guests, gesturing warmly, while Julienne maintained a stiff posture and watched from a few feet back. Edgar introduced me to my other host siblings, both of whom were university students visiting Paris for the day, and both of whom spoke French almost as quickly as Edgar.
Once we completed the introductions, we moved straight on to the apéritif, a process that was completely new to me: we sat in the living room, sipping champagne and eating cherry tomatoes, for about an hour before moving on to the actual meal. During this time, I tried to explain to a confused host-godfather that although he had visited Kansas City to sell air conditioning units, he probably had only been in Missouri, never Kansas; I saw Georges relax on the chaise longue while Julienne sat up rigidly next to him, lips pursed, her formality contrasting sharply with his casualness; and I fruitlessly attempted to follow along with an argument between Edgar and Gilbert, but they were talking too quickly, and I couldn’t hear them anyway over Julienne’s harsh, repeated “Arrêtez!” Stop! But they didn’t stop arguing until Georges finally went into the kitchen and announced that dinner was ready.
The dinner itself started out promisingly. Georges assigned seats to everyone according to some complex set of rules that I will never understand; I was sandwiched between Edgar and his godmother. Once we were seated, we dove straight into the meal. At last. The amount of food the eight of us devoured – roast beef, tomatoes, green beans, lentils, salads, and bread (oh, the bread!) – would put even my American family’s Thanksgiving feasts to shame.
I had to pay careful attention to my actions in hopes of gaining the approval of my host family – maybe even earning another thumbs-up from Edgar. At one point, I tried to put green beans on my plate at the same time as the roast beef, but Edgar urgently interrupted me. “Non, c’est froid!” No, that’s cold!
I pretended to know why the temperature of the green beans was a problem. “Ah oui, c’est froid.” I passed them on. Julienne gave me a stiff nod and what I imagine was meant to be a smile, although her expression never changed much from its default pursed-lipped grimace.
It was sometime after we finished the roast beef, but before we moved on to dessert, that the conversation started getting political. The several emptied wine bottles might have contributed to that shift. My knowledge of French politics being limited, I was out of my depth, but I gathered that the godparents were conservative nationalists, while my host parents were more progressive. The contrast between Georges and my host-godfather was incredible: the godfather was getting increasingly furious, while Georges seemed to find the whole thing hilarious. Every few minutes, Georges would roll his eyes, turn to me, and say with an apologetic shrug and a sly smile, “C’est mon point de vue.” That’s just my opinion.
The political debate continued through dessert, which consisted of an apple tart and a giant bowl of strawberries. Even after everyone else had left the table, still the godfather yelled his opinions, and still Georges laughed and rolled his eyes and shrugged. And still I sat there, bewildered and drained of energy, pretending to enjoy my first night in Paris.
No American should have to experience his or her first French dinner party while jet-lagged. C’est mon point de vue.
***
For the most part, the rest of my dinners with the Deschamps family went smoothly. Gilbert and Nathalie weren’t there often, but when they were, Edgar would almost always provoke them into an argument. Julienne would yell, “Edgar, arrête!” and Edgar would ignore her with a proud smirk. Georges would look at me, roll his eyes, shrug apologetically, and smile slyly. It was an odd family dynamic, but I learned to love it.
Even once I had established a comfortable role in the Deschamps family, two inescapable difficulties remained throughout my time with them. One: I was terrified of making any mistake, no matter how minor, under the watchful, judgmental, unflappably proper gaze of Julienne. Two: I have always had a tendency to overthink even the simplest problems. Something as mundane as a dropped piece of chicken can, in my mind, become a catastrophe.
Several weeks after I had moved in with the Deschamps, we were eating a delicious chicken dish that Georges had prepared. I had not yet mastered the knife-in-right-hand, fork-in-left silverware etiquette – and I was eating so voraciously that my knife slipped, and a small piece of chicken rocketed off the plate. Before I had time to react, it tumbled onto the table, down to my lap, and finally to the floor, leaving a trail of brown sauce in its wake.
Oh no, I thought. It’s over. Julienne will be devastated. I looked around at the faces of my host family – the last time I would see them, I feared, before they disowned me. But none of them had noticed. Thank goodness.
I paused to consider my options. I had been lucky enough to avoid notice thus far, and there was no way I would jeopardize that good fortune by bending over to pick the troublesome morsel up off of the floor. Not with Julienne watching. But if I didn’t pick it up at all, the maid would find it the next morning and inform my host parents of my grievous wrongdoing. No, I had to wait until the opportune moment: right after the rest of the family left to put their dishes away, but before Edgar walked back through the dining room on his way back to his bedroom.
My timing was flawless. Nobody was around to see me stoop down and pick up the chicken. Edgar walked back through the room mere seconds after I had stood back up. Success!
Picking up the chicken was step one. Step two, the much more challenging step, was to dispose of it. I could not convince myself to eat this cold piece of chicken that had been on the floor for half an hour. Georges and Julienne were in the kitchen, guarding the only trashcan on this floor; there was no way I could sneak past them. But if I stood in the dining room for too long, planning my next great move, someone would surely notice. After a series of quick calculations, I decided that my only option was to carry it upstairs with me. Once in my room, I would be safe.
My left hand holding the chicken and my right hand holding the railing, I made my way up the tight spiral staircase to the next floor, then again up the strange ladder that connected the second floor to the third. The weight of the chicken in my hand was slowing me down, and it was starting to feel slimy, but I was almost there.
Before I could celebrate my progress, though, I heard a voice. “Salut, oh-STEEN.”
h no. Edgar knows what I did. He’s waiting for me. “Salut, Edgar.” Twitch. Can he see the chicken in my hand? Can he smell it?
An odd expression flashed on Edgar’s face. Was it concern? Amusement? Confusion? “Ça va?”
Twitch. “Ça va,” I replied, though it must have been obvious that I was not doing well. I gave my best imitation of a natural smile, then started walking past him to my room. First this leg moves, then that one. Wait – should my left arm be swinging with my left leg? That seems wrong. Maybe swinging my arm is dispersing the chicken smell throughout the room. I’ll just keep them both still.
Unlike the conversation with his godparents weeks earlier, this convulsive walk from the stairs to my room did not earn me a thumbs-up from Edgar – but at last, I arrived. And nobody had noticed that I had dropped a piece of chicken on the floor during dinner. All was well.
Except it wasn’t. There was a crucial gap in my plan: what was I supposed to do with the chicken once it was in my room?
There was only one option. Only one way to dispose of this wretched morsel once-and-for-all. Not the trashcan; that would only work for a day or two before the smell would give it away. No. I would toss the chicken out the window, it would plummet down all six stories to the ground, and it would be out of my life forever.
With one final glance out the door to verify that I didn’t have an audience, I lobbed the piece of chicken and watched it arc magnificently through the air before finally falling out of sight.
I hadn’t considered at the time that the chicken might hit someone walking down the street. Although I’ll never know for sure, I like to imagine that it did.
