Tita (23 page)

pou
louse.

promenoir
standing room area in a theater, for which you can get cheap tickets. From
promener,
“walk” – originally the area was for all spectators to stretch their legs during intermission.

propriétaire
owner; landowner.

propriété
property; estate.

Quel amour d’enfant
what a dear little child.

ramonet
in parts of southern France, an overseer or foreman who looks after workers on an estate. His wife, the
ramonette
, organizes the women workers and cooks for everybody. The
ramonet
receives a yearly wage from the estate owner.

religieuse
a nun; a cake consisting in a small cream puff above a larger one, with chocolate or mocha inside and on top, that’s supposed to look like a nun in a habit.

rentrée
return from summer vacation; beginning of the school year. It always takes place on the first of October. 

Requiem aeternam
eternal rest.

Ribouldingue
one of the cartoon characters in
Les
Pieds Nickelés
, the friendly fat one with a beard. From
ribouldinguer
, “to party”, probably from franco-provençal
riboule
, “harvest festival”.

roman-photo (or photo-roman)
romantic story that looks like a comic strip, except it uses photos instead of drawings. From Italian
photoromanzo.
The genre was invented in Italy in 1947 and soon became very popular in France. It’s part of the
presse du coeur
, “press of the heart”, a derogatory expression for romance magazines. 

Rosa mystica
mystical rose. From Greek
mystos
, “mysterious, hidden”. One of the names in the Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

rossignol de mes amours
nightingale of my loves.

rouille
a sauce made of garlic, chili peppers, bread crumb and olive oil, eaten with bouillabaisse. 

Sabaoth
a Hebrew word meaning “armies”. So,
Deus Sabaoth
is the God of Armies, but nobody seems quite sure whether these are the armies of Israel, the angels, the stars, or the whole universe.

saint-honoré
a cake consisting of creampuffs with a lot of cream and caramel around and on top of them.

Sainte-Trinité
Holy Trinity. A mystery: three persons (Father, Son, Spirit), one essence. No women or girls.

Sans Famille
without family. A French novel published in 1878 by Hector Malot. Translated into English as
Nobody’s Boy
by Florence Crewe-Jones in 1916. 

sardana
the traditional circle dance of Catalonia; the music written for the
cobla
that accompanies it. The word (probably from
Cerdà,
“inhabitant of Cerdanya”) dates from the 16th century; the dance was codified in the 19th century during the Catalan Renaissance. From the beginning it was linked to republicanism, and it was repressed during the dictatorships of Primo de Rivera and Franco. Most Catalan composers have dedicated part or most of their work to the sardana. It is popular throughout Catalonia and beyond, with hundreds of groups organizing each year thousands of gatherings, festivals and competitions.

Sciences Po
shortened name for
Institut d’études politiques de Paris
, “Paris Institute of Political Studies”, a French school specializing in social science and international relations.

Ségur, comtesse de
(1799-1874) a celebrated writer of children’s fiction. On the cover of her books, she made sure that “née Rostopchine” was always added under her married name. Sophie Rostopchine was born in St Petersburg and grew up in Russia. Her family went into exile in Paris, where she married Eugène, comte de Ségur, when she was twenty. They had eight children. Sophie started writing in her fifties, for her grandchildren. Her novels are mostly dialogue, and the most interesting parts are about bad, inventive children as opposed to their nice, sensible friends. The author doesn’t openly encourage bad behavior, but she describes it with gusto.

Série Noire
an imprint founded in 1945 by publisher Gallimard for non-conformist crime novels and directed by translator Marcel Duhamel. It started with Peter Cheyney and James Hadley Chase, going on to Raymond Chandler, Horace McCoy, David Goodis. The first French title was Albert Simonin’s
Touchez pas au grisbi
.

sixième
sixth. It’s the name of the first year of secondary education. In France, the last year of secondary education is called
terminale,
the last but one is
première
, and so on. Yes, we start from the end.

Soir de Paris
Evening in Paris, a perfume created by Ernest Beaux in 1928 for the Bourjois brand.

sou
a currency unit no longer current in France since 1947 but still remembered: older people call one franc
vingt sous,
“twenty sous” and five francs
cent sous
, “a hundred sous”. From Latin
solidus
, “solid”.

Stella matutina
morning star.

surexcitation
overexcitement.

tabernaculum
tabernacle; Latin tabernaculum, “tent”, from
taberna,
“hut, shop”.

tamborí
a small percussion instrument which is part of a sardana
cobla
. Cf cobla.

tartine
a slice of bread covered with butter, honey, jam or another spreadable ingredient.

Touchez pas au grisbi
(1953)
Don’t Touch the Loot
, a novel by Albert Simonin, who also wrote the screenplay for the Jacques Becker film (1954).
Grisbi
is a slang word for “money”, from the name of a coin, the
griset
, from
gris
, “grey”, from Frankish, a Germanic language. 

Trénet, Charles
An extraordinary singer and songwriter, born in Narbonne in 1913. His father was a lawyer and a composer of sardanas. Trenet is sometimes called
le fou chantant,
“The singing madman”, perhaps because he always sounds so happy. He tells stories about a man who’s left his horse at a nightclub’s cloakroom, about Canadian pharmacies where you can buy toys and ice-cream but you can’t see any medications, about a garden where ducks speak English, about a missed appointment between the sun and the moon. Sometimes he starts speaking, sometimes he makes noises; you never know what baroque juxtapositions and bouncing alliterations he’s going to come up with.

Turris eburnea
ivory tower.

une diablesse
a she-devil. From Christian Latin
diabolus
, “devil”.

Vaillant
:
le journal the plus captivant
Valiant: the most captivating magazine. A comic weekly published by the French Communist Party. From medieval Latin
valens
, “strong, energetic”.

verbo
in word. Ablative case of Latin
verbum
, “word, expression”

Violettes impériales
(1953) Imperial Violets. A Franco-Spanish film by Richard Pottier, music by Francis Lopez, with Luis Mariano, Carmen Sevilla, and Simone Valère. It includes the song
L’Amour est un bouquet de violettes
, “Love is a bouquet of violets”, where we learn that we’d better hurry to pick these little flowers before they wilt.

voiture
French word for “automobile” and “horse-drawn carriage”. From Latin
vectura,
“transportation”.

zibeline
sable. From Middle French
sabelin.

Acknowledgements

For their generous help with various chapters and drafts of this novel, many thanks to Nicola Keegan and Laurel Zuckerman; to Reine Arcache Melvin, Laure Millet, Hannah Davis Taieb, and especially to Georgia Smith; to Mary Ellen Gallagher, Gwyneth Hughes, Dimitri Keramitas, Barry Kirwan and Christopher Vanier; to Janet Skeslien Charles; and to Linda Healey, who turned copy editing into an adventure and, for me, an education.

For encouragement and inspiration, thanks also to Pansy Maurer-Alvarez, Rose Burke, Dylan Brie Ducey, Florent Faguer, Manolita Farolan, Mathilde Fleury, Alystyre Julian, Anne Korkeakivi, Claire Lecoeur; to Julie, Boris, Léonie and Samuel Lojkine; to Alassane Ly, Ken MacKenzie, Lori Soderlind, Lesley Valdes, Evelyn Walsh, and Katharine Weber.

About the author

Marie Houzelle grew up in the south of France. Her work has appeared in the collection
Best Paris Stories
(Summertime Publications), in
Narrative Magazine, Pharos, Orbis, Serre-Feuilles, Van Gogh's Ear
, and in the chapbook
No Sex Last Noon
. "Hortense on Tuesday Night" was chosen by
Narrative Magazine
as one of the five top stories of 2011. "Belle-famille", a story in French, came out in Kindle Single in July 2013.

After Toulouse, Liverpool and Berlin, she now lives in Ivry, near Paris.

Q & A with Marie Houzelle

1 ENGLISH

Why do you write in English?

My first (defensive) reaction: “Why not?”

I know, English is not my “first language”, (“native language”, “mother tongue”), the one that’s supposed to be
mine
. As a child I spoke French, Occitan, Catalan, and Spanish. French was the language of Parisians and suchlike. Of my mother. Of school. Not ours, particularly.

I wrote my first journal in Spanish. English came a bit later. Latin (a lot of it) in schools, for ten years, starting when I was nine. Swedish, through university classes. German, when living in Berlin in my early twenties. Then a few others.

None of them ever felt mine, but they all allow me to swim in them, more or less clumsily – clumsiness, hesitation, uncertainty being part of the enchantment.

After the secret Spanish journal, there were some literary efforts in French. I was not happy with the results. Meanwhile, I was writing in other languages, for pleasure. On the train to work, watching my children in parks, spying in cafés.

And most of my reading was in English. So when I heard about a week-long Paris Writers Workshop, I signed up. Recklessly.

I brought my latest journal pages. The instructor, Jake Lamar, was energetic and encouraging. Rose Burke gave me a magazine article she’d just written about Alice Notley and Douglas Oliver’s weekly workshop at the British Institute. I didn’t join until the spring semester — I was a bit shy. But I immediately felt at home. There I met several congenial writers. We co-edited a magazine. Soon, there were more groups and more friends, supporting and inspiring each other. Paris is a good place to write in English. 

2 CHILD

What challenges did you face writing from the point of view of a child, and not just any child, but a precocious child?

I believed in my narrator from the start. In her voice. Friends told me that brainy children are annoying. That Tita sounds too smart for her age, that I should make her two years older. Or four. Or six. But I wanted a chapter about her first communion, so she had to be seven. Anyway, she’s weird. She wouldn’t sound less weird if she were older. She’s precocious in some ways, backward in others. She’s Tita.

3 PÉLICAN

What inspired the character of the terrible mademoiselle Pélican?

My characters usually have models. At least, to start with. Then, as I write and things happen, most of them travel pretty far from the actual people who inspired them (or, more precisely, from my impression, my memory of these people). And there are a few I make up on the way, as if from scratch.

But mademoiselle Pélican is (as far as I know) very much like the remarkable teacher who, for a few years, dominated the school part of my life; who taught me a lot; who made me want to check everything she said, and learn as fast as I could in order to get away from her.

4 BOOKS

Books are very important for Tita. Why? How do books change her life?

A lot of reading is going on around Tita, of many kinds, from
the Latin mass at school to photo novels in the kitchen, from fashion magazines to the local newspaper, from thrillers to Gide or Stendhal.

Her interest in books is one aspect of her passion for words and their combinations. Her brother Etienne insists on precision; her sister Justine favours outlandish locutions; for her grandmother, “words are just tools to help get things done”; her mother “never pays much attention to words”, and her words (as a consequence?) are often “at odds with the facts”. There’s also her “wooden” ballet teacher (“You always know what she’s going to say”).

For Tita, words are alive, each one has its music, its color, its texture, its taste. To get to know them more intimately, she spends a lot of time in dictionaries — not so much the encyclopaedic kind, which could instruct her about things, as the ones that concentrate on the words themselves, their journeys through time and across languages, the changes in their spellings and pronunciations. She delves into Grevisse’s
Le Bon Usage
every time her teacher “makes a dubious assertion about French”. Tita’s favorite occupation is “to think about words”.

In spite of good relationships with friends and family, Tita often feels like an unfortunate oddity. In the worst situations, books allow her to escape into other places and approach
individuals who feel like kindred spirits. They introduce her to a larger world. They also inspire her to invent her own stories, the ones she tells her younger sister and the ones she produces as plays with her friends. And the draft of her latest play is what leads to the solution of a serious predicament. 

5 GIFTED CHILDREN

Are there programs for gifted children in France? Is Tita’s experience typical of the gifted child’s experience in France? What exists for gifted children?

I don’t know much about gifted children. I never thought of Tita as a particularly gifted child. She’s precocious in school and as to language, handicapped in other ways (unable to dress herself or eat on her own, bad at drawing, tennis and ballet).

In France, middle-class parents often try to get their precocious (or allegedly precocious) children into elementary school a year ahead of the rest. Later on, a clever child who is bored and defies teachers can skip a year, sometimes two. It’s also pretty usual for a child who doesn’t do well to repeat a year. These are the main ways most schools seem to deal with any kind of problematic students.

Tita’s progression, in a small private school with only two classes for all the children between 2 and 14 years old, is easy, almost seamless. A problem only arises when she’s ready for secondary education and wants to leave that school.

6 CUGNAC

Many readers have commented on your beautiful evocation of a lost world. Is that how you feel about Cugnac? Is it a real place?

Cugnac is inspired by the small southern town where I grew up. I lived there until I was fourteen.

When my children were small, they often asked about it. They always wanted more stories, so I had to devise developments and variations. My fictional tales soon became sharper than the original memories.

I’ve never felt any nostalgia for my childhood or its backdrop. I enjoy cities: their wonder and variety, their countless, exotic social constellations.

Still, as it turns out, I’ve now lived for many years in a town, just outside Paris, that’s much bigger than Cugnac but where I probably enjoy a similar social ambience. It takes me ten minutes on my bicycle to get to the National Library, twenty to Notre-Dame, and I have something to do in Paris practically every day. But in Ivry too the local life is intense, with music, cinema, library, politics, outdoor markets, art gallery, yoga, cafés, and lots of intriguing neighbors.

There are even grape vines across the street in the Parc Départemental. In my small yard, an olive tree and a fig tree.

7 FRANCE PROFONDE

What is “la France profonde”? How do you think it has changed since the 1950s?

The expression usually denotes, in an ironic tone, the alleged “real people” from the provinces, the opposite of what sophisticated Parisians stand for. It can also, more seriously and maybe positively, designate the rural, rooted, traditional way of life, as opposed to a multicultural, globalized culture.

I don’t think it could ever evoke the southern society described in
Tita
, then or now. At least from the times when the Romans annexed Gallia narbonensis (capital: present-day Narbonne) on their way to the Iberian Peninsula in the 2d century BC, the south of France has been open, linguistically and culturally, to European and Mediterranean traffic and exchanges. It has long resisted centralization and it can be seen as the opposite of Paris in many ways, but certainly not as traditional vs. modern, or deep vs. smart.

8 OCCITAN

Occitan is actually spoken by Tita and her neighbors. What is it compared to French? What is its place in France? What outlook do you see for Occitan?

Occitan , like Italian, Spanish, French, Romanian and the other Romance languages, is derived from oral Latin. It was the main language spoken in southern France and in parts of Spain and Italy until the end of the 18
th
century.

The Troubadours, who sang their Occitan poems in many medieval European courts, created the first literary works in a Romance language. Occitan literature, after many ups and downs, is still alive even if, from the 16th century,
langue d’oïl
(i.e. northern French) became the dominant administrative and literary language of France,

The French Revolution saw linguistic diversity as a threat to national unity; subsequent governments did their best to eliminate it. From 1882, compulsory education speeded up the process: in schools all over the country, the children who went on speaking local languages, even in the schoolyard, were punished and shamed.

In the late 1950s Tita grows up in a country where, for the first time, most of the population has been made to learn French in elementary school.

In rural areas, the six or seven years spent in school mean that everybody can read French, write it and interact in it, but Occitan, in the south, remains the main or only language of daily life.

In cities as well as in small towns like Cugnac, everybody speaks French at least part of the time, especially among the middle and upper class. Usually, subjects like national politics, ideas, school, films, fashion, are discussed in French; Occitan is preferred for local news, morals, gossip, family matters, the weather, and proverbs.

The fifties are a transition period, when Occitan is still alive as a main or secondary language, despised by some and seen by others as precious and endangered. Interest in local languages and lore will grow as these tend to disappear with urbanization, the influence of television completing the effect of universal education.

In the 21
st
century, you seldom hear Occitan on city streets or village squares. But the language is now treasured, and studied. Like twelve other regional languages (e.g. Breton, Alsatian, Corsican, Basque), you can learn it in many secondary schools. There are even quite a few bilingual nursery and elementary schools. Universities teach its history and its literature, from the Troubadours to a rich array of contemporary novels, plays, poems and songs. 

9 CATHOLIC

Tita’s Catholic education is at the centre of her story. Is her path one that many people could identify with?

Tita may appear devout because she’s enthusiastic about ceremonies, incense, flowers, music. She’s inspired by the idea of a different life: early in the morning when she walks to mass before the town is awake, as a hermit maybe when she grows up, in heaven when she dies. A life before or without food, or even without a body.

But she’s puzzled about all the “sin, fault, and iniquity”, she has a strong dislike for the Sacred Heart, she doesn’t seem to take martyrs too seriously, and she sounds more than sceptical about the miracles of Lourdes.

Tita attends a Catholic school because, traditionally, people who belong to her father’s social group send their children to Catholic schools, whether they’re practising Catholics or not.

Tita’s parents happen to have no interest in religion. Her father even seems repulsed by it. Her mother goes to church on Sundays like her friends, but that’s about it.

In the late fifties Catholicism is still central to French society, but only a minority of the French population attends mass every Sunday, especially in the south. Meanwhile, Tita learns in school that missing Sunday mass is a mortal sin that can send you directly to hell.

Soon the Catholic Church will lose its predominance. Nowadays, around half of the French population (with wide variations according to polls) still declares itself Catholic, but most of these “Catholics” don’t believe in a personal God, half of them hardly ever set foot in a church, and very few go to mass regularly. Practising Catholics seem to have become a tiny minority, while the proportion of those who declare themselves atheists or agnostics keeps growing.

10 OLDER

You published your acclaimed debut novel after the age of fifty. Do you have any advice for older writers?