The French countryside stands hazy in the background, filling in the edges, softly framing the road that runs like a ribbon through my memory: a dusty country road winding through the farmlands of the Haute Marne, past the petit château just outside the little village of Juzennecourt. For the first 18 months of my life I wandered with my parents, following my father’s military career. During that time we paused in five dwellings, in five towns, in four countries. In 1953, we arrived at Juzennecourt. The old manor house, with its thick stone walls, round turret, and hedge-protected grounds, was to become my sixth house and my first real home. Life was magic at le château, which carried the name Val Beurnon. We shared the country estate with rabbits, ducks and chickens, as well as gardens that housed another whole universe of tiny creatures. My world was full of new life to discover. As I summon up memories of that far-away time, a handful of moments stand out from the history I’ve re-created using old photographs and family stories, misty-edged images strung like beads along the thread that is the road. I am howling tears of grief and betrayal on the stone steps leading to the kitchen. Monsieur Macé, the
gardener, has just walked past me with my favorite rabbit “Snowy” dangling from his big hands. I have been assured that there are two kinds of bunnies in our hutches, the pet rabbits and the eating rabbits, and a tragic mistake has been made.
With a child’s open heart I forgave Monsieur Macé, learning that it was all a part of life at le château, where our meals came from the land and even toddlers participated. My special job was to help Madame Macé, the cook, whenever we had escargots; sitting on the kitchen counter, I would catch any snails attempting an escape and plop them back into the giant pot to be cooked for our dinner, along with fresh garden vegetables.
I am hiding in the barrow, next to a big squash. Monsieur Macé has wheeled us to the kitchen where Madame Macé thanks him for bringing her such beautiful legumes to prepare for dejeuner. She reaches to pluck me from the barrow and I dissolve into giggles as Kin, my au pair and beloved companion, reminds her that I’m not a vegetable to be put into the pot for supper. Kin pinches my cheek, saying, “C’est dommage. You’re so young and tender, ma petite chouchou, my little cabbage.” On weekdays I ate breakfast and lunch with Kin and the Macé’s in the kitchen, then dinner with Maman in the dining room. During the days she often worked in her room, writing, but at night she was all mine, at least during the week when Papa was away working. On weekends, when he returned to “our maison”, Maman put
aside her writing and I then had two more adults to circle around me.
Weekends could be exciting times, with company “chez nous”. My parent’s friends, from many countries, would gather at Val Beurnon. Guests and musicians came in from the road and the château rang with music and laughter as the fiddles reeled and my parents and their friends danced on the lawns. I am caught in a whirl of big people who bend over to chuck me under the chin and admire my new party dress. My special friend, Gaston, holds me high above his head so that I am taller than all the others as we polka around the yard. It was great fun, but also a relief when the company left and I returned to my cozy weekday world with my three
best friends. Secure in their loving care, I could continue my explorations. A favorite place was at the back of
the property, where I could stand half-hidden in the hedge and watch the road as it wound its way past our gate and up the hill, disappearing over the crest. It had crooked wooden fences following it on both sides, to keep it in its bed. When Papa was home he would take me walking on the road.
I am running as fast as I can to get up and over the hill but he catches me long before I reach the top. Laughing, he swings me into the air and settles me on his shoulders. We step over the fence to cut across the meadow and through the woods. When we arrive at the back gate, Papa tells Maman, “This little Lishi is a born traveler. Always wanting to see what’s over the next hill.”
I knew what was over the hill. Every Saturday I rode there in the auto, with Maman et Papa, up and over the hill to Juzennecourt. In the village, as at home, everyone had a special role, something they did that no-one else did. Our first stop was to pick up our washing from the laundress. Then we visited the butcher and, while Maman shopped, the butcher’s wife showed me the ducks in the cages at the back. We bought éclairs and bread from the baker; only one loaf as the baker’s son would visit us at the château mid-week with big crusty rounds of fresh bread circling the handlebars of his bicycle. The cobbler would have Papa’s shoes repaired and the grocer would help Maman with her list while Papa and I picked out bonbons from the jar on the counter. We sometimes met Monsieur and Madame Macé in the street and I would run to their open arms. Unlike most of the villagers, they had two roles. At my home they were the gardener and the cook; here in the village Monsieur was the mayor and Madame was the mayor’s wife.
In the village we spoke with everyone we met and everyone made a fuss over me. They bent over and greeted me, “Ah, little Lishi, you look so pretty today in your green hat.” “Lishi, ma petite, come let me show you les petit lapins, the baby bunnies.” Papa et Maman basked in this adoration of their wonderful child and reflected it back onto me. I drank it all in and wrapped my arms around myself to keep it close as we drove back over the hill toward home. That first year at Juzennecourt shines golden in my memory. Partway through that year change insinuated itself into my youthful domain. First, Maman grew a big belly and went away, returning with a “baby brother” named Marc. He was smaller than I was and drew away much of the attention that had been mine. I resented him terribly but soon realized he was there to stay, so I tried on the new role offered me by Maman, that of “Mama’s
Big Girl” who took care of her little brother. Besides, I still had Kin to console me. I would always be her “petit chouchou”, even though she now looked after Marc as well. And then, one day, Kin left to return to her home in Luxembourg, never to be seen again. This was as bewildering to me as if the sun quit shining. Kin had been with me for as long as I could remember. I had thought she would be there forever. Kin has kissed me and jumped into the waiting taxi, looking upset. I am standing in the road with Maman watching as the taxi drives away, up over the hill toward the village. Maman holds my hand tightly. Kin doesn’t look back. My heart hurts. Despite the changes, life continued at our country manor and I learned to adapt. A new au pair arrived to look
after my brother and myself, but Marc was the apple of her eye. The Macé’s were still my special friends,
encouraging me with loving attention, allowing me, “three years old, such a big girl now”, to participate in the daily chores on the farm. Then came the day we left Juzennecourt. We had driven away before, for holidays, but this time felt different. This time Monsieur and Madame Macé had tears in their eyes as they hugged me. I am looking through the back window of our auto. “Wave goodbye,” says Maman. Through misty eyes I see the Macé’s standing in the road with their children lined up next to them, waving as we drive away. Behind them, the road curves its way up the hill toward the village.
We flew in a plane for a long time and landed in “our new home”, a place called West Virginia. Maman et Papa said that we were really home now, in our own country, but it didn’t look like home. Everything was different. There were no fields or forests, only row upon row of houses. The houses weren’t made of stone but of a smooth material painted in pastel colors. They sat one next to the other, like in the village, but each had a small fenced yard that kept them separate from their neighbors. No-one had gardens, or rabbits, and the road that ran in front of our house was a faceless road: perfectly flat, covered with grey cement, kept in its bed by sidewalks. Nobody walked in the road.
As I got to know the place, I saw that the people in the houses kept to themselves as well. They said hello over the fence but never congregated in the square, as the villagers had, to laugh and dance with their neighbors. No-one seemed to have a special role; everybody looked pretty much like everybody else. Maman et Papa changed their names to Mommy and Daddy. Daddy left each day, like all the other daddies, to go “to work”, and returned home each night. Mommy, unlike most other mommies, also left each day “to work”, except when, like the other mommies, she was busy introducing baby sisters into our family.
Every year or two we moved to another “new home”. Other than small differences in the succession of kids, neighborhoods, and women who came each day to watch over us, each town carried the same basic characteristics. I eventually adapted to our mobile life in the “home country”, fulfilling an American ideal by learning to leave my past behind and blend into each new place. Conversely, the constant moves entrenched in me another American characteristic: that of being independent and self-sufficient.
Every summer our family took a driving holiday: a Rambler full of kids rolling across the country. In every state we invariably passed a winding dirt road heading off over a hill and the sight would fill me with a deep yearning. My eyes and heart followed each little road for as long as it was in sight, while our station wagon sped away down the highway toward the next National Park. I promised myself that when I grew up I would return and find the ends of those roads.
I left home in the late ‘60's and set out to realize that promise. Since then I have walked, hitchhiked, and driven winding roads across several countries, as well as continuing the family tradition of moving every few years. In the forty-some years since I left Val Buernon, I have paused in fifty-six houses in thirty towns, on three continents, in six countries, eight states, one province, and a territory.
Over the years, I have slowly pieced together who I am and what I want, finally accepting the innate restlessness that continues to send me down new roads. I have learned that I don’t have one special role in life, but many, and that, like a chameleon, I can blend in wherever I am. I have built relationships with many people in many places, some lasting, most fleeting: all taken on cautiously due to an ancient expectation that one of us will no doubt be leaving before too long. Whenever possible I make my home in a beautiful location with acreage, a garden, and wild rabbits in the fields around me. And, to this day, every time I see a road snaking its way across a country landscape, particularly a dirt road bordered with a crooked wooden fence, I am filled with an insatiable desire to follow that road, up over the hill... home.
Sebastopol, CA 1997
You can find a photo essay of the chateau, Val Buernon, in the Photos section of this site:
Comments