Houseboat on the Seine: A Memoir Read online

  I cut and fit the top piece exactly the same as the bottom so the overhang on the outside will drain the rain away from the window. Then comes the real test. I need to cut the side pieces so they’ll have the right angle to compensate for the tilt outward of the top and bottom. I could measure, but I trust my eyes more than any ruler. I make the cuts and it comes out fine.

  I’m so pleased I decide to reward myself by going to the café across the street, the Café Brazza, the one Alfred Sisley painted in his five paintings called The Inundation of Port Marly. I was so taken with the different ways he handled the sky in those paintings that I wasn’t paying enough attention to the water. I should’ve been. Also, I’m just inside the café and am about to order when I remember I only have fifty centimes in my pocket. I smile around at the customers, the waiters, then back out. I don’t even have enough to buy a box of matches and save face.

  Soon, I’m thirstily back at work. I work all morning and manage five frames before my stomach tells me it’s lunchtime. Thank the Lord, Rosemary packed a baguette filled with Camembert cheese with a touch of mustard, butter and mayonnaise. I fill a carafe with water, sit down on the floor of the downstairs and eat. Nothing can taste much better than a sandwich like this when a body’s been working hard and is really hungry. It would be better with a nice cold beer, but beggars learn to do without.

  After lunch I’m back at it. I have one frame finished while there’s still light in the sky. Then I think of the miter box. I can’t work tomorrow until I have one. I scrounge around, find three appropriate pieces of wood and nail them together. Using my square, I cut a straight cut, a forty-five-degree and a thirty-degree angle. I’m not about to trust my eyes, cutting angles like that on the round part of quarter round. I’ve learned my lesson there. I finish the job as the light is disappearing. I stash my tools in a safe place, line the wood against the bulkhead, go upstairs and then down the wobbly gangplank.

  I’m a rotten backer-upper but I get out of the chemin de halage in the almost-dark without back-up lights. But when I roll up onto National 13, the road into Paris, the traffic is appalling. I waited just a little too long again. It takes me more than an hour to work my way through, practically playing bumper cars until I pull into our neighborhood. Then it takes another ten minutes to find a parking place. I pull my car into a mini-space for my mini-car, with only six inches to spare. It’s about time we move out of Paris. God bless the English for making the Hillman with a short wheelbase.

  First Things First

  I dash up the sixty-six stairs and Rosemary greets me at the door with a kiss and two unopened letters in her hand. I’m still puffing, so I sit down at our big dining-room table in the middle of our living room, take a knife from the setting Rosemary’s made for the meal and open them. Out of one floats a thousand-dollar check and out of the other, a check for fifteen hundred. I sure hope I get to painting again, but for now I’m dancing around the room with Rosemary and dreaming of frisette! We’ll have the most beautiful boiserie this side of Versailles.

  During dinner, I explain to Rosemary and the kids what I’ve been doing all day. I even make a little drawing so they can understand more easily. I’m really proud of my squeeze-jam system of building the window frames, putting friction on my side. Kate, our oldest, is beside me at the table. She’s watching the drawing carefully. She looks up at me.

  ‘But Dad, you’re an artist. Why aren’t you out there painting, instead of doing all this building of windows on a boat? Almost anybody can do that kind of work. Nobody can paint the way you do.’

  I lean down and kiss her.

  ‘You’re right, Kate. But I really want to have this boat fixed up so we’ll have a nice place to live near school for all of us. But even better yet, I’m going to have a wonderful studio, good light and big enough for me to do anything I want. Imagine, I won’t always be smearing paint over everything.’

  She looks at me and smiles.

  ‘OK, then. That makes sense. But don’t take too long fixing it up, or only work on it part-time. It’s painting that’s important.’

  I explain to all of them what I want the boat to be, a place that is a boat, sure, but almost like a house with big windows and individual bedrooms for everyone. We’ll have a good-sized kitchen and a deck all along the river side with planters and flowers growing out of them.

  ‘We’ll even have a nice flat front deck, and most times when the weather’s good, we’ll eat out there. Just imagine that.’

  Matt, who’s fifteen, leans toward me, almost spilling his soup. ‘And can we have a rowboat just for ourselves?’

  ‘Sure can. We’ll park it between our big boat and the shore. It’ll be our own private rowboat harbor.’

  After dinner, I go to bed early. I’m groggy with fatigue. Maybe I’m getting into shape with all this stooping up and down, crawling around on my knees, climbing up and down that gangplank, pushing heavy things around, chasing after that monster sander, but it doesn’t seem to be showing up much. I’m just tired.

  One Window to the Other – I’ve Been Framed

  I’m out there again early next morning. Rosemary, the kids and I share breakfast at seven and then scoot. She needs to beat her way all the way across Paris, just as I do, but then she needs to work her way through more traffic in the west suburb. She earns her money at that school, just with the driving, let alone teaching. She’s driving our old Simca station wagon, one I bought for five hundred dollars two years ago.

  I’m still driving this miracle Hillman we bought in England: Rosemary’d like to drive the Hillman, but the kids are getting too many and too big to fit. Actually, I’d be better off with the Simca because it has a large roof rack, but it doesn’t work out that way.

  Everything’s where I left it. I start taking careful measurements on the insides of the window frames. For this, my eyes are just not enough. Cutting forty-fives on the round side of quarter round is tricky business. But it’s fun. I work my way into the swing of things and in the first half hour have the outside quarter round on the first window cut and in place without too much butchery. The rest of it goes that way. On the way out to the boat, I’d stopped at our BNP bank in Garches and deposited the two checks. I have the checkbook with me.

  In Le Pecq, they have another large building-supply place called Chez Mollard. It specializes in metal, kitchen and bathroom fixtures, plumbing pipes, nipples, etc. and, oddly enough, glass. I need to order the glass cut and at least three pounds of putty. I’ll start out with a kilo and hope it will be enough.

  I’ve measured each window frame carefully, watching for any differences from side to side and top to bottom. Each window is slightly different, but considering how we cut them, they’re all fairly straight and square. When they aren’t, I can adjust by knocking the top and bottom sills with a hammer.

  I have the list of measurements with me when I drive into Chez Mollard. I drive into the very back of the yard, where they store huge sheets of glass. There’s a felt-covered table for cutting. I show my measurements to the glazier there, and he asks some questions about my numbers. I always forget to put a cross through my sevens and a hat on my ones, the way the French do. I tell him I want triple-strength glass and that there are ten pieces to be cut.

  I’m going to build a swinging frame for the large back window at the end of the boat. It’ll swing up and hook to the ceiling so I can get furniture or large paintings in and out, but I won’t buy that piece just now, I’m not sure I can fit it into the car.

  He searches in his stockpile for a moment, then pulls out a large pane of glass and carefully lays it on the felt-covered table. He’s marking my measurements on it with white chalk. I explain with finger and hand motions how I’d like him to cut a millimeter short on each side. I know from experience that having a piece of glass that is just a millimeter or two too large can be a short trip to madness.

  He works quickly. I swear, being able to cut glass must be something one is born to. He uses the same
little cutter with the rolling blade on the end that I have. He snaps that glass with the same slits on the sides of his tool that mine has, but I’ve never been able to manage a clean cut. He measures, marks, cuts as if it’s automatic, he doesn’t seem to have a consideration that it might crack or break anywhere except where he wants it to. He’s careful not to waste any of his glass, picking pieces that have already been cut from the large plates stored in wooden bins behind him.

  After he finishes the first one, he wraps it in newspaper on another table and hands it to me. The way he handles it, one would think it were metal or wood. I know it’s glass, and I’ve broken more than one sheet of glass trying to transport it from one place to another. And this glass is heavy. I’d forgotten this about glass, but then I’ve never bought triple-strength glass before. This glass is more than an eighth of an inch thick. I’ve already decided to carry the glass in the Hillman with the back seat down. There’s about five centimeters to spare sideways and ten lengthwise. I go out to back the car up close. I had no idea he’d be cutting right away. Most times when I’ve ordered panes of glass, I’ve had to wait a day or two.

  Piece by piece, he cuts each plate, wraps it in newspaper, then I, nervously, carry it over to the car. I carefully slide these plates of glass in, trying not to touch the sides of the car. By pure luck, I have an old blanket that I’ve spread over the floor where I’m stacking. I’m glad I have my gloves with me or I’d probably cut off about half my fingers; the edges of the glass are very sharp. Using the newspapers around them helps. For one thing, I can see where the glass is when I’m trying to maneuver it into this narrow space. When it’s just clear glass, it’s easy to miss exactly where the edge or a corner is.

  I’ve marked each piece he’s cutting with a number on my list. And he’s marking that same number on each pane of glass. We’re working together with hardly a word between us. It’s mostly the fact of my rotten French, but also I’ve found glaziers not to be big talkers. They need nerves of steel and concentration. Chatterers, such as I am, could never make it.

  When he finishes, he shows how he’s marked each number on the glass in the upper-right-hand corner of the plate so I’ll know how to fit these irregular pieces in. I’d never have thought of it. I guess I’d have been swinging those newspaper-covered, sharp-edged glass plates around in the air trying to find the right way they fit in. There are so many ways to do things wrong.

  Now he’s making the calculations of the bill. I wonder if, in France, they sell glass by weight, volume or sheet. I’ll never know. He hands me the bill to take up to the office. It’s a maze of numbers, multiplied, divided, added.

  This yard, with all its varying materials from toilets to telephone poles, with I-beams as long as fifteen meters, has all bills, no matter what, go through the main office up front. This is a real holdup. It takes more time for the office staff to go through volume after volume filled with plastic-covered pages, lined and counterlined, than it took the workman to cut the glass. In addition, there are long lines waiting.

  Finally, a young woman takes my bill and does the calculation of how much I’m going to owe. Thank the powers that be for those magical checks, money in the pot. I hope they’ve cleared. I’ll write my check as if they are. Then I go to another window, another line, to pay. This cashier is wearing high plastic cuffs and a green shade over his eyes, so he looks like a gambler. He examines my check carefully, looks at the bill, seemingly checking the figures, and then gives me a stamped receipt – stamped three times, that is. I don’t know what to do next. The guy behind me, impatient as we all are, points to where the glass was cut, out in the yard.

  I go back there, and the glazier is already cutting more glass. He takes my receipt without looking at it and spears it onto what looks like a ten-penny nail driven through a block of wood. It’s almost filled to the top with other receipts.

  Sliding Board with Glass

  Nobody stops me as I drive carefully through the gates trying not to go over any bumps. I drive to the boat at a wicked twenty kilometers per hour and creep along the bumpy chemin de halage. I’m sure I’m cracking all ten panes of glass. I go by way of the chemin de halage because I couldn’t possibly carry them to the boat from the street – they’re too heavy or I’m too weak, or a combination.

  But when I look in back of the car, everything seems fine. Now, how to maneuver them down the bank and into the downstairs boat. I decide to carry them one at a time. Just as well; I’d probably break my neck on the slippery muddy bank.

  I have on my old work jeans so I sit down at the top of the bank and hold a glass pane over my head. Watching for branches of trees and digging my heels into the mud, I slip and slide to the bottom. This way isn’t very dignified, but it’s safe. I manipulate the first plate down to the water’s edge. From there, I’ve already decided to slide the panes along the ladder with the wood liners from before. I lean out over the ladder, pushing the pane as close to the boat window hole as I can. Then, in semi-panic, tiptoeing, I clamber up the rickety gangplank, down the steep steps and reach out the window trying to catch the pane before it drops off into the drink. There’s a fair amount of water movement today. I imagine some boat with a heavy load has gone by and sent wavelets up our little bras mort of the Seine. But, nonetheless, I do have that first pane in the bottom of the boat, safely resting on the sanded wooden floor, wrapped in slightly wrinkled and muddy newspaper.

  My question now is, do I make an exploratory operation to see if I can fit this window into its waiting, wood-lined hole in the metal hull, or do I bring all the glass down before its too dark and before I lose my nerve. Prudence ultimately wins out.

  By the time I’ve gotten the last sheet of glass down and into the boat, as well as being absolutely pooped, I’ve worn holes in each cheek of my jeans and mud has penetrated into the most amazing parts of my underpants and certain secret facets of my anatomy. I’m sure there must have been some other, better way, but it’s done. I take off the destroyed jeans and wonder whether I should write to Mr. Levi and inform him of one definite weakness in his product or write a letter to Nike complimenting them on the durability of their shoes.

  In the privacy of the upper boat, I do my best to scrub off some of the mud. I turn my underpants around so there is some coverage to the rear, then sneak my way back uphill to the car. I spread some old rags and newspaper over the driver’s seat, and head for home. I don’t exactly feel I’m retreating in defeat, but it definitely looks that way, especially from the rear.

  Out Like a Light

  When Rosemary and the kids see me, they howl. There’s all kinds of comments about my toilet training, or who’s been kicking me all over the landscape. I act up a bit, showing off the crotch of the jeans where the seam has split right to the fly. The fly is holding, but just. Finally, Rosemary stops laughing.

  ‘I know there must be some perfectly good reason why you look like this, but I’ll never figure it out. Come on, Will, let us in on the secret. I thought you were going to be installing glass in those windows. In my mind I had you neat and clean, packing in putty, sliding the windows in, tacking them lightly in place, all on this beautiful sunny day. Whatever happened to make me so wrong?’

  I give them an abbreviated version of the problems with my panes of glass, my personal pains in the ass. I make a big deal out of the glazier cutting the panes from huge sheets of glass. I promise to take any one of the family who’s interested to see him doing it. But I make them promise to stand quietly out of the way and not cause any fuss. I realize I should have checked before I promised. Chez Mollard probably has ten kinds of insurance reasons not to allow a band of kids wandering around the yard.

  After dinner, I’m having a cup of my fake coffee called Caro when, in midsip, I catch myself falling asleep. Rosemary is across the table from me drinking her usual cup of Gentle Orange herb tea. My head dunks and I almost spill all over the table. Rosemary walks behind me.

  ‘Come on, dear, go to bed. You’r
e falling asleep in your cups. You’ve worked too hard these last few days, and it’s catching up on you. Come on, now.’

  I don’t need much coaxing. I down the last of my cooled Caro and head for the bedroom. I can hear the kids up in their play area playing Monopoly, not doing homework. The next thing I know, Rosemary is beside me, unbuttoning my shirt. I’m really out of it. She undresses me like a baby, and I’m not fighting.

  ‘You can’t go to bed like this, Will. I’ll start the shower and put out your pajamas. It won’t be a minute. Now don’t fall asleep on me again.’

  The bathroom with the shower is right next to the bedroom. I hear her running the shower. I stand up, and I’m leaning on the door when she opens it.

  ‘Will, this is too much. Come on, now, get moving, the shower will freshen you up. Be sure to wipe out all that mud between your legs and everywhere else.’

  For complicated reasons having to do with another of my construction projects, that is, remodeling the interior of this old carpenter shop into an apartment, the shower is up two steps to provide drainage. Rosemary stands there with the soap in her hands until I’m inside, and she pulls the curtains.

  She pushes soap through to me. The water is just right. That’s one of the advantages of being married to the same woman for a long time – she knows exactly how hot and how hard I like my shower. I know she doesn’t like hers as hard or as hot as I do. Our special knowledge comes from years of trying to take showers together.

  I slowly start scrubbing myself in the crotch. Boy, I am really stuffed with black, gooey mud. The water in the bottom of the shower begins to look like the Mississippi, dark and muddy. Rosemary’s hand reaches in again, a palm filled with shampoo.