Reminiscences

Reminiscences

Patricia, my cleaning lady, came round as usual yesterday afternoon and, as usual, we sat down and had a coffee before she started. I was preparing a paella for Daniel, Steve and myself that evening so conversation got on to food and, somehow, what had been available during the war. Patricia said her father had been taken away for forced labour in Germany (one of the 300,000) but that her uncle had fled to England with De Gaulle and had subsequently been parachuted back in to organise the maquisards in the area. This made me make a mental note to ask Daniel that evening if he had ever thought of making a film of local reminiscences of the war.

He hadn't and estimated it would take too long and be more work than he was inclined to undertake. Conversation then turned to the Foreign Legion, which still exists and in fact has its headquarters about 40 kilometres away in Orange. I had a vague impression of it as a force in some way suited to the dirtier jobs governments get involved with but I didn't know much about it. Daniel explained that it is still today based on a simple premise that would have obvious attractions to people in certain situations. If a man is accepted by the Foreign Legion he can sign on under any name he chooses and thereafter has that identity; his previous identity is expunged. He signs on for five years and, at the end of that time, has the right to French citizenship under his new identity. Clearly, this is going to appeal to people with criminal pasts of one sort or another but could also be very useful to, for instance, political refugees or witness protection programmes. As far as I know, it is a unique formula; I've never heard of anything like it applying elsewhere.

It reminded me of a novel by Romain Gary whose title escapes me but that I had read during my late teens. The protagonist had been a prisoner of war in Germany and formulated an idea to avoid ever stepping on ants as a way to preserve his humanity. Living in the Chad when it was still a French colony, he had grown fond of elephants and embarked on a programme of punishing those who hunted them for their tusks, If he caught elephant hunters, he would shoot them in the buttocks with a shot gun. This held no danger of being fatal but was always very painful for a long time. For this “crime” he was hunted across the Chad by the Foreign Legion (hence the connection) and the novel recounts his escapades and the attempts to capture him.

And so, back to the cross-beams in my bedroom. It rained yesterday for the first time in nearly a month, which avoided my having to water the bulbs in the pots outside.