Surrealism. Penelope Rosemont

were told sort of “smash the doll,” hardly funny in English, but certainly not the “sufferin’ succotash” that Sylvester was famous for in English. In this we didn’t “get no satisfaction.”

      In Paris I first saw homeless people; I didn’t believe it. Late one night walking home, light, fluffy snow in the air, we saw an old man and an old woman stretched out in the middle of the sidewalk. Were they victims of some bizarre crime, murdered and laid out neatly next to one another, the woman’s arm around the man? But it seemed impossible that any killer would be so careful. From closer, it was clear that their gentle faces and gray heads showed no sign of agony or violence. I stared down and noticed a tin cup near them with a franc in it; they were lying on a warm subway grate, sleeping. Sleeping an exhausted sleep on the winter streets, being murdered slowly. This had to be one of the worst crimes I could imagine, that the French state would abandon these helpless old people who looked like lost grandparents. We left all the money we had, not much, and went on, feeling torn apart by rage and guilt: rage that we couldn’t do anything and guilt that we had a warm room to go to.

      Later I saw others, some young people sleeping in doorways now and then. Never did I even consider that in a few years this tremendous shame would be found here in the U.S., too, with its vast riches. A society that forces people into homelessness violates the very premise upon which society is founded, mutual aid. A society that abandons its own people has lost its reason for existence. So-called “primitive society” has no homelessness, the people themselves with the help of their neighbors build homes out of what is available. Homelessness is an invention of “modern” society.

       Enjoying the Riviera

      Toward the end of January, we decided to go to the French Riviera in hopes of shaking the flu and maybe catching a glimpse of the sun and feeling warm for a while. In fact, it was not warm there, just a little less cold and just a little more sunny. We hitchhiked down, starting in Paris at Autoroute du Sud, and got a ride all the way to Avignon, where we were dropped off in the middle of the night in the cold pouring rain. The worst possible situation. I really thought we were in trouble, sure we would both have pneumonia by the next morning and would next be checking into a French hospital. But as luck would have it, we were standing there in confusion for less than five minutes when a large van driven by a woman stopped and picked us up. She had us sit all the way in the back. Then she called to us in several languages, in German, Spanish, French; she wasn’t getting through.

      I said to Franklin, “I’m not sure what she’s saying . . . ,” when she interrupted with a charming British “You speak English!” We all laughed. She invited us to have some peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches. Middle-aged, she was off adventuring on her own; we enjoyed talking with her. She drove us almost to Nice, where we got out of her van early in the morning and were soon picked up by a Frenchman, who spoke only French, driving a truck full of vegetables to market. We squeezed in front with him and enjoyed the sights as the high, old truck rattled along. Then we took a city bus and arrived in downtown Nice, exhausted but amused by the adventure. We checked into a hotel and slept.

      I was charmed to touch the Mediterranean Sea at last, the sea of the Odyssey, the sea around which great civilizations had developed and decayed, but the sea was asleep. Winter lethargy. We enjoyed Nice’s old town, the flower market, the hills, climbing up to the ruined chateau, but in no time, we were lonesome for Paris and on our way back.

      On February 2, we were in Marseilles. One of the first things we saw was a Chuck Berry poster, ten feet tall. We got a distant view of Château d’If where Dumas had set the first part of his Count of Monte Cristo, the world’s greatest novel of revenge, dearly loved by both Franklin and me. We visited the hilltop zoo; there we first heard the noon sirens tick off a concert of wolves, hyenas, siamangs, monkeys, etc., in one grand howl! The hair on the back of my neck stood up.

       Hitchhiking

      We arrived in Marseilles by hitchhiking and later we got a ride with a maniac Frenchman whose job was selling religious junk. His classy sports car was full to overflowing with plastic Madonnas, St. Christophers, and crucified Christs on the seats and floor and in the back window; I pushed a pile over and climbed in back. He drove his car at top speed over the curving roads, taking them as straight as possible by ignoring the center line, which he crossed and recrossed as if he were the only driver in the world. Perhaps he thought the 800 white plastic statues of St. Christopher would protect him. He couldn’t seem to understand why we were only too happy to get out once he finally pulled to a stop.

      We were stranded for hours holding our “Paris” sign in Aix at a star-shaped intersection that had probably been there since the days of ancient Rome. Just couldn’t get a ride in any direction, so we walked to the train station and took the next train leaving for Paris. So much for “the cure;” when we arrived, Franklin was sicker than when we left.

      We got a different room at our same hotel, Le Grand Balcon, when we came back from Nice. The romance between the hotel keeper’s son and a beautiful young woman was still hot, and we often found them sitting holding hands dreamily behind the counter. (There is a photo of two lovers on the Paris barricades that reminds me of them.) He welcomed us and added, “We have a different rate for long-term guests. You can pay by the week. It’s cheaper.” He talked us into taking a room on the second floor; the first floor of the hotel began a floor above street level. It was a nice, large room at the same rate we had paid for a tiny one.

      I think they were probably quite tired of the noise we made bounding up and down the stairs 25 times per day. In a letter, I wrote, “Much nicer than our last mainly because it is larger with two windows framed by red drapes. The room itself is gray with a large bed, a good-sized round table with three chairs, a chest of drawers which doesn’t open, a bookshelf/cabinet with doors that fall off when you open them, an extra bed covered by a black-and-white shawl, and a closet closed with a drape of the same pattern.