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Every summer it was the same thing.. The great family transhumance that took us to the little village of Ousinieres, a port nestled in a dead end, a stone’s throw from Toulon. It was a place where I passed marvelous days as Tarzan, perched in the umbrella pines in the Hotel Provencal gardens, scrutinizing the hostile jungle. I returned to reality, regularly smeared with an awful resin that was like dog-shit and brought on my mother’s wrath; when I think of that marvelous woman, I remember the anger as theatrical and her wrath filled with gentleness.
Every morning around six o’clock, when the mistral (a violent wind in the south of France) permitted, my father came to wake me up.
“Out of bed, it’s time to go fishing. I don’t know who loaded me down with a lazy deck-hand like you!”
As fast as I could I gulped my Banania (a chocolate drink) and we got to the miniscule port where a few little boats danced (at that time only wooden “pointus” if you please sir! No junk in plastic!)
My father’s little boat was a real public danger. All jury-rigged from top to bottom like a World War I veteran, the little barque was the laughing stock of all the other fishermen. I even saw women making the sign of the cross when we headed out to sea!
On the prow of the boat painted in black letters was: “Joseph”. That was the name that my father chose to christen his floating wreck. The reason, of course, was very simple, (for those who know my family) “Joseph” was destined to honor Stalin, the little father of the people whom, at the time, my father venerated and there was no joking around with the discipline of the party!
Once aboard the fragile skiff my father pulled up the basket filled with a sort of sea snail that the fish, in principle, loved
; we cast off and spent a crazy amount of time starting the “Goiot” motor, it was treacherous junk that usually obstinately refused to get us back to port, especially when bad weather moved in and catastrophically obliged us to row back. During that period, going fishing with my father was always a perilous adventure!
When he decided that we had reached a good fishing spot, he threw a big rock with a cord attached (which served as our anchor) over the side and happy fishing! We rubbed our hands together chuckling in anticipation, we pulled out the mean fishing line that was rolled around pieces of cork, we hooked on our sea snails and threw the heavily weighted line out into the sea praying that all the rockfish and the other residents of the coastal water would find our offerings to their taste.
Usually, it was well before the first strike that my stomach started to give irrefutable signs of sea-sickness. I grew pale, then green and rapidly lost interest in everything, vainly trying to resist the certain death that awaited me.
Those among you who have never been sea-sick can’t possibly understand the sentiments of resignation, abandon and pain brought on by this unholy experience! Sea-sickness my friends, is without any doubt a little foretaste of hell. You only wish for one thing, before vomiting up your entrails, and that is for a savior to come and slit your throat to relieve you of that inhuman torture.
My father teased me endlessly and, slapping his thigh, roared with laughter.
“Hey little girl, little sissy! What is this, a fresh water sailor!” And other charming appellations of the same order. I could easily have strangled him if I had had the strength and then I could have used my “Opinel”(pen-knife) to finish the job.
The next morning when my father woke me to go fishing, I had only one idea in my head. I would show him that I wasn’t a little girl, that I was tough and he was going to see what he was going to see. And hopelessly, I spent most of my time bent over the side returning to Aphrodite my delicious Banania under the jibes of my paternal.
This went on until that holy morning (thank you God, I’m not ready to forget that morning!) when… miracle….! No more sea-sickness! Nothing! Not even a little nausea… zero, I won, I had defeated that Beelzebub fuckhead! I had become a man, a real man.
My father stopped making fun of me and instead he smiled, rolled a cigarette and offered it to me, the cigarette of complicity. Sheer bliss. Back at the port we made a stop at the “Seaside Bar” where I had my first Pastis (an anise based alcohol), the sign of my success and my rite of passage to adulthood.
It wasn’t long after that that the my father’s tub the “Joseph” sighed it’s last sigh and sunk in the port at Oursinieres, all by itself, just like that; signaling the end of a public danger.
My father, after a few days or mourning, bought a new boat that he christened “NIKITA”.
The times are a- changing …