Jeudi, November 27
At Gare de L’Est, waiting for the Nancy train, sitting next to a Holocaust deportation memorial.
11am. breathing out fog.
It’s going to be freezing in the east. It was minus 6 degrees last night.
Feet and fingers are numb.
A café proprietor pours a glass of boiling water over his tiles. Steam rises. He mops briskly.
The temperature is dropping.
Faure’s Requiem takes us into the mists of the East.
The sun, low on the horizon, breaks through and cuts like a laser from one side of the carriage to the other. Sitting opposite, a devoted Joseph, sporting a shaved head, gold earring and three piece light grey business suit, cradles baby Jesus in his arms as if the baby is made of wafer thin porcelain. Mary sleeps. We arrive, Nancy is full of sunshine. A taxi with two chatty drivers, delivers us to Lay St Christophe and Jacqueline’s. Joelle was back last year with Nanou to visit her Mother. I haven’t seen Jacqueline for 3 years.
Vendredi, November 28
Lay St. Christophe’s winter sun rises behind the southeast corner of the patio window and sets behind the southwest corner of the patio window, never rising high in the sky. When I first arrived in London from Western Australia, the early April, English sun never rose high in the sky. I felt uneasy about that low sun.