French Toast (6 page)

I slunk out, feeling like someone's help. But that was many years ago. Now I would yell, “
Don't you ever speak to me in that tone of voice
.” Alas, I was not brave enough then.

My very first experience with Parisian coldness was with an exgirlfriend of my husband's. Being a rather friendly type, I stuck out my hand to shake hers. She looked at it as if it were a dead rat. I withdrew my outstretched hand and shoved it into my pocket.

I must admit this didn't get me off to a good start. Okay, she was an ex-girlfriend and maybe had some scores to settle. But then, her refusal to shake my hand may just have been the famous French reserve. An American working at a French magazine told me that she worked in the place a full year and a half before she began to get slightly friendly with the women there. She said that in the end, she even began to come to appreciate their distance.

Still, who wants to wait years and years to have a friend?

Once you get your French friend, you may find yourself in a different relationship than with your American friends. Perhaps because it takes so long, when it finally happens, you find yourself bound up in a very possessive kind of relationship. Your French girlfriend will tell you if your hose are the wrong color or if she doesn't like your hair or your furnishings. She can, because you are now Friends.

La Parisienne
has many talents, among them giving virtuoso performances, particularly when it comes to dinner parties. Many years ago, I told my husband that I thought it would be much less of a production just to have people over for a drink. He explained to me that this wasn't done, mainly because you don't have people cross all of Paris for a drink. Therefore, if you live in Paris, you will find it almost impossible to escape the dinner party. So there you are in a Parisian home. The hostess is invariably not only slim and well coiffed, with perfect nails, but she also has done an unbeatable job of preparing the meal.

Meanwhile, the poor American slob (me) is ruminating, Why is she so perfect? Is there a secret? Why do I let it all hang out? Look at that glass of wine. I guzzle it; she sips it.
Différence
. I look at the
mousse au chocolat
and put on five pounds; she eats everything on the plate right down to the petits fours and is as slim as a rail. Oh Lord, give me a
fat
Frenchwoman. (Incidentally, large sizes in France start at a size
twelve, which gives one an idea of what one is up against.)

For all of those out there who are wondering how Frenchwomen manage to stay slim in a country where food is an ongoing passion, I am here to tell you that I have found the answer! Through careful observation, I have noted that when invited to dinner parties, Frenchwomen joyfully accept everything but take minuscule portions. Many opt for a glass of fruit juice or a nonalcoholic beverage before the meal, and while they may munch on a peanut or take an olive, I have found that I generally end up taking all my before-dinner snacks back to the kitchen almost untouched.

Let me give you an example, something that occurred, once again, at my sister-in-law's home (the best place in town). For a little spread for ten guests, she had made marinated green, red, and yellow peppers, salmon with dill, and an aspic with foie gras and artichokes for the first course. This was followed by a
gigot d'agneau
(leg of lamb) with
pommes sarladaises
and
tomates provençales
, then a cheese plate with eight different varieties of cheese, and, last but not least, a
mousse au chocolat
, a
tarte aux myrtilles
(blueberry pie), and a
crème caramel
. I checked out my neighbor's plate and saw that she had taken a tiny slice of the lamb with a teeny helping of potatoes. No wonder she wears a size eight dress! I checked out the plates of the other women present and can report that it was the same deal. So
although there were many delicious courses, no one ended up feeling too full. I can also report that the women drank champagne and red and white wine, but, once again, in moderation. Incidentally, while we're on the subject, it is very impolite for a woman to serve herself wine. If the glass is empty, you just have to wait for it to be refilled. I blush to think that in my younger, innocent days, I served myself once the glass was empty. How utterly gauche!

Then there's The Laugh: Frenchwomen emit a little light tinkle, like pleasant bells. I (and some of my American friends) have been known to snort, snuffle, gurgle—in short, make all kinds of noises that stridently break ice. This is not my paranoia. A French girlfriend once confessed to me that she was so embarrassed by the hysterical laughter of two of her American friends that whenever she invited them to her apartment, she made sure to close the windows.

For some reason, Frenchwomen know how to keep their voices down. My personal noise level is so high in comparison that at dinner parties, I often have the feeling the sounds coming out of my mouth will shatter the Baccarat.

Of course, Frenchwomen have a long tradition of being told to keep the decibels down. In the late nineteenth century, the Baronne Staffe wrote, “Those who are blessed with a soft voice have received a great gift of nature. If you are born with a soft voice, keep it therefore
like the apple of your eye; if you have received at birth a harsh voice, try to soften it. One must unceasingly keep watch over one's voice, constantly keep it at the right level. . . .”

At a rather chic party, a young boy reared up from
under
a table, where he shouldn't have been in the first place, at an inopportune moment and crashed into a tray with twelve gorgeous crystal glasses. Shards of shattered glass flew everywhere, but the hostess didn't miss a beat, busying herself with cleaning up the mess. You never would have known from looking at her perfectly composed smiling face that she was upset. Personally, I would have let out a loud scream.

Nothing has changed since Henry James wrote one hundred years ago that “French women are very formidable. In France one must count with the women.”

I'd almost have a complex if I hadn't seen how positively unsisterly Frenchwomen can be. They do not band together as we do in the States. And they don't share tips. In the States, if someone you like compliments you on a new blouse, you might just tell her that you got it on sale at Saks and that if she rushes, she might be in time to get one, too. In France, this kind of sisterly sharing is something I have rarely encountered.

One Frenchwoman attempted to explain the difference between Frenchwomen and American women to me, and it made a lot of sense: “I can't see a film like
Thelma and Louise
being made in France,” she stated.
“In France, we position ourselves in relation to men. Of course Frenchwomen have women friends—but they are a bit suspicious of having a foreign woman for a friend. You Americans have a spontaneity that inspires a lack of confidence in Frenchwomen.”

So that's it! This wariness of other women, and the indisputable fact that American women are “spontaneous” (prompting suspicion) may be the reason for a certain secretiveness. After all, another woman is potential competition. If you compliment a Frenchwoman on her hairdo or manicure or necklace, she'll say thank you and smile, but you can bet your bottom dollar she won't open up and tell you who did the hair and nails or where she got the necklace. Why not? If she did, then you would know and you'd end up looking as good as she does.
Logique, non?

Frenchwomen seem to avoid direct arguments with men. To wit, a conversation on rape I had at a dinner party with friends. This conversation would
never
take place in the United States, by the way. Jacques (not his real name—the guy definitely needs protection) maintained that it is impossible to rape a woman without her consent (!) and that marital rape is inconceivable. I tried to explain to him that if the woman refuses and the man goes ahead, it is rape. Our conversation went on and on, but we never came to an agreement, and he is now convinced that I am a crazy American feminist. Crazy, yes; feminist, moderately so (by American standards,
not all that much; by French standards, quite a bit—it all depends on your point of view). The Frenchwomen present that evening somehow managed not to get involved in the debate.

I've been to zillions of dinner parties in France in different social classes and situations. I can assure you, dear women readers, that you see and hear things you would never even contemplate seeing or hearing in the United States. The Frenchwoman does not seem to feel the need to assert herself the way we American women do. She's too polite to act offended if she's left out. For example, at the home of a French intellectual, the host dominated the conversation and the women present, who were the wives of intellectuals but not intellectuals themselves, simply did not talk for the duration of the meal. All this is considered normal. What I am saying is, whatever the situation, whatever the social class, compared to American women, Frenchwomen accept the backseat. Period.

Whether the backseat is “good” or “bad,” and whether they take it because it's the best option, is another story. Search me, as they say. If I knew the answer, I would have figured out the Frenchwoman. And as you can see, I haven't . . . yet.

In some ways, Frenchwomen are much less on their guard around men than we Americans are. They do delicious things, such as laugh at off-color jokes, and don't yell sexual harassment when complimented on their
hairdo. They can disagree with a man—and keep their cool. So refreshing.

For example, in the rape conversation, the two Frenchwomen present let us (me and another non-Frenchwoman, who took Jacques's side) slug it out. They didn't sit there like dead fish, nor did they ostensibly change the conversation. I don't actually know what they were doing, so unobtrusive were they. But by not getting into the argument, they ensured that the dinner party remained a party and not a knock-down-drag-out. When I called to thank my hostess, I told her I hoped her husband wasn't too upset about our altercation. “Jacques?” She laughed. “He's crazy.”

Clearly, conversations in France are very different from conversations in the United States. Maybe it's the wine, but somehow people can get into pretty heavy matters, even be diametrically opposed, but stop short of punching one another out. The good French hostess, of course, is there to smooth everything over. She's experienced at this. After all, she has to contend with her French husband, and any American wife married to a Frenchman can tell you that's no small matter.

I admire Frenchwomen: They have a real big secret they're not telling anyone. Their husbands must be babied. I adore Frenchmen (I married one, didn't I?), but
I wouldn't be alone in stating that their behavior is often totally weird and that their relationships with women are frequently, shall we say, not based on equality. This is why many women who are married to Frenchmen squirrel away money to buy things for their houses. Not because the guy doesn't have any money, but because he's going to have to make a comment. Nothing gets past him. So as not to have to hear it, the woman becomes a master at subterfuge. I know the case of an American woman who bought a piece of furniture without informing her French spouse, who had a tendency to give her a hard time about prospective purchases. It was a rather large dresser with three drawers. He never did notice—and it was at that point that the woman figured out that she was free to do what she wanted
without
egalitarian consulting. Seize the power!

There's a point to be made here about the Franco-American marriage. The American woman who has married a Frenchman finds herself in a rather odd position. She, who likes to think of herself as independent, freewheeling, and in power, finds herself at a triple disadvantage. She is on
his
territory, speaking
his
language, contending with
his
friends and family. Even if her dear husband happened to be the most democratic person in the world, she starts out with a few counts against her and spends an inordinate amount of her time simply defending herself. A few women never make it, divorce,
and leave. Others become philosophical or assimilate, or both. Whatever the solution, it's a struggle.

This extends to small matters. Frenchmen want you to pack their bags, pick out their shirts, et cetera. When I complained about that, a female French friend of mine told me I shouldn't. If you pick out his clothes and pack his bag, she told me, you'll have a fighting chance of him looking nice, the way you want him to. I meditated on this and decided that she definitely had a point. I now, more or less, pack my husband's bag, and it's true, he does look better.

Another thing that fascinates me about Frenchwomen is their rather special mother-daughter relationship.

• My neighbor, who has two daughters, stopped on the street to talk to me the other day. She told me that her daughter was going to a private school in our area (only twenty minutes by car but a good hour on public transportation), so my neighbor gets up every morning at 7:00
A.M
. to accompany her to school. The daughter is twenty.