Fifty
years ago, an ex-naval officer invited two men with mental disabilities
to live with him. Now L’Arche has communities all over the world.
Maggie Fergusson talks to its founder, Jean Vanier
Late in the afternoon of June 22nd
1940, Hitler marched into a glade in the forest of Compiègne, 60km north
of Paris. A giant swastika was unfurled as he saluted columns of Nazi
troops, before hoisting himself into what had once been the private
railway carriage of Marshal Foch. Inside this, on November 11th 1918,
the Germans had signed the armistice that ended the first world war. So
it was an apt spot for Hitler, sitting in Foch’s chair, and flanked by
Goering, Ribbentrop and Hess, to witness the French surrender. Today, in
a replica of the railway carriage, you can watch old newsreel of the
Führer emerging into the evening sunshine and pulling on his leather
gloves with an expression of grim satisfaction. This was a significant
step towards the creation of his 1,000-year Reich. Four years later, of
course, the Reich had collapsed, and Hitler was dead.
Less
than an hour’s stroll through the beech trees, a rather different piece
of history is unfolding. Fifty years ago this August, a 35-year-old
ex-naval officer, Jean Vanier, bought a tumbledown cottage in
Trosly-Breuil, a village on the edge of the forest. The cottage had no
lavatory, one tap and a wood-burning stove, and he called it L’Arche—The
Ark. He then invited two men with mental disabilities, Raphaël Simi and
Philippe Seux, to leave the bleak, overcrowded asylum where they had
spent most of their adult lives, and to make a home with him. “There
was”, he says, looking back, “no huge idea of doing something special
that might change the world.”
He thought that he, Raphaël and
Philippe might remain one small family, able to fit comfortably into his
battered car for outings. But, like the biblical mustard seed, L’Arche
grew beyond all expectations. Friends came to visit, and were inspired
by Jean Vanier’s insistence that those with mental disabilities have
gifts that many “normal” people lack. More houses were bought, more men
and women rescued from institutions. Today, there are L’Arche
communities in every continent of the world—146 of them, in 35
countries, from Bangladesh to Burkina Faso, Ireland to the Ivory Coast,
Palestine to the Philippines.
Hitler’s
visit to the Forest of Compiègne and Jean Vanier’s arrival in
Trosly-Breuil are not as remote from one another as they might appear.
When the second world war broke out, Jean Vanier was ten. His father,
Major-General Georges Vanier, a much-decorated military hero who had
lost a leg fighting in the trenches, was Canadian envoy in Paris. In May
1940, as the Germans advanced, the family was forced to evacuate by
ship to Britain. From there, they returned to Canada, where Georges
Vanier later became governor-general—a position once held by the
novelist John Buchan. But something in the sea journey between Bordeaux
and Milford Haven had fired Jean’s imagination, and when he turned 13 he
asked permission to travel back to Britain and enter the Royal Naval
College at Dartmouth.
Most parents would simply have said
no. This was 1942, and crossing the Atlantic was treacherous. Hundreds
of German U-boats lurked beneath the waves, intent on sinking Allied
ships. Allowing a teenage boy to make a journey that was not strictly
necessary was, as Jean admits, “a kind of madness”. But Georges Vanier
was exceptional. A tireless promoter of unity between Francophone and
Anglophone Canadians, he was, for Mountbatten, “the greatest Canadian of
his time”, and for Lady Diana Cooper, speaking after his death, “the
dearest man ever to be given to a generation craving something finer and
nobler than themselves.” If Jean was certain that this was what he
wanted, his father told him, then he must go ahead. It was a formative
moment—“because if my father trusted me, then I could trust myself, and
if my intuitions were true, then I could work with them.”
We
are speaking in Jean’s sitting room in Trosly-Breuil, sharing a packet
of Digestive biscuits I’ve brought over on the Eurostar, knowing that
they bring back happy memories of his early childhood in a house near
Regent’s Park in London. He is now 85, white-haired and slightly
stooped, but still immensely tall, emanating both energy and peace.
Dressed in the blue anorak he always wears, whether meeting homeless
people or heads of state, he speaks steadily, using his long El Greco
hands to illustrate his words. The demons of shame, regret, fear, sorrow
and rage that prey on some old people seem strangers to him. Instead,
he is filled with joie de vivre and openness, an appetite to keep on growing and learning and trying to make the world a happier place.
Scattered around him are some of the
things he’s been reading, and they include—alongside piles of
correspondence—“The Road to Canterbury” by Archbishop Justin Welby
(“he’s super!”), the text of a talk by Christine Lagarde, head of the
International Monetary Fund, and “Synchronicity”, a bestselling study of
leadership by the American lawyer Joseph Jaworski. Next to him is a
pinboard with photographs of family and friends, and some of the people
he most admires: Aung San Suu Kyi, whose name we struggle to pronounce;
Etty Hillesum, a Jewish woman who died at Auschwitz, and whose diaries
he often cites; Sophie Scholl, a German student who was beheaded, aged
21, for resisting the Nazis.
The landline rings as we talk, and
Jean makes meticulous pencil notes in a pocket diary. There’s no sign of
a computer or iPad, but pencil and paper serve him well. In the 20-plus
years I’ve known him, he has never forgotten a meeting, or been late
for one. He is formidably disciplined. His naval training stood him in
good stead.
Yet,
as the second world war drew to an end, it became clear to Jean Vanier
that the navy was not his ultimate vocation. Shortly after the
liberation of Paris, in January 1945, he spent some leave at the Gare
d’Orsay helping the Canadian Red Cross receive survivors from
Buchenwald, Dachau, Belsen and Auschwitz. “I’ll never forget the men and
women who arrived off the trains—like skeletons, still in the
blue-and-white striped uniforms of the concentration camps, their faces
tortured with fear and anguish. That, and the dropping of the atom
bombs, strengthened a feeling in me that the navy was no longer the
place for me; that I wanted to devote myself to works of peace.” A
committed Catholic, he imagined he would probably become a priest.
Top Jean Vanier
at his home near Paris, in the blue anorak he wears to meet homeless
people and heads of state. He co-founded L’Arche with Philippe Seux and
Raphaël Simi (middle two)
Bottom Georges Vanier, who transformed Jean’s life by supporting his son in an “act of madness”
While
many of his contemporaries were getting married and settling down,
Vanier resigned his commission and spent a number of years living in a
community near Paris, combining a life of prayer with manual work and
the study of philosophy. Following this, on the strength of a thesis on
Aristotelian ethics, he was offered a post at the University of
Toronto. He discovered that he had a gift for teaching, a gift that he
retains in old age: an ability to hold large audiences rapt as he spoke
without notes or hesitation, and with minimal amplification. But still
he did not feel he was following his true star.
Then, in 1963, when Jean was 35, a
Dominican priest, Père Thomas Philippe, chaplain to Le Val Fleuri, an
institution for mentally disabled men, invited him to visit. It was a
terrible place—“The men had a little work, but the doors were
locked”—yet, despite an atmosphere of noise, depression and violence,
Jean found it “beautiful”. “This is my experience of having been in many
dark places—prisons, psychiatric wards, slums, leper colonies. There’s
something frightening, but also something beautiful, a sense of
wonderment. It’s mysterious. Maybe it’s the discovery that amidst all
the chaos, these people are human beings. I saw anger and pain in the
faces of these men, but also great tenderness. And each one of them, 30
in a constricted space, was saying, ‘Will you come back?’”
“They were literally saying this, or you felt that’s what they wanted?”
“They were literally saying, ‘Veux-tu
revenir?’ And behind those words I sensed a great cry: ‘Why have I been
abandoned? Why am I not with my brothers and sisters, who are married
and living in nice houses? Do you love me?’ A great thirst for
friendship.”
For
several months, Jean devoted himself to finding out more about the
treatment of those with mental disabilities. “I visited psychiatric
hospitals and institutions, I spoke with families. And I discovered a
whole world of suffering: these were perhaps the most oppressed and
humiliated people of the world. They were called stupid, mad, imbeciles,
foolish, idiots . . . All these words were used about them. They were not
considered really human—so as long as you gave them food and lodging,
you were doing a good act.” In Saint-Jean-les-Deux-Jumeaux, an asylum
east of Paris, 80 men lived locked in a building made of cement blocks.
They had no work, and spent most of their days walking around in
circles. And those who remained with their families were not necessarily
treated with more compassion. On a farm, Jean met a teenager who was
kept chained in a garage.
Outraged by these discoveries, many
people would have thrown themselves into pressing for reform. Jean’s
background meant that he was used to mixing with people in positions of
influence. Why didn’t he go straight to the top, I ask. Why didn’t he
launch a campaign? “It’s good to campaign. But I could only do what I
felt. All that I saw made me sad, maybe a bit angry, and all that I felt
I could do was to start living with some of these people; to take a
risk, and see what happened.”
What happened very quickly was that
Raphaël and Philippe began to bring Jean Vanier fully alive in a way
that neither the navy nor academia had. Raphaël had suffered meningitis
as a child. He could speak only about 20 words, and his understanding
was severely impaired. Philippe, a victim of encephalitis, talked over
and over about the same things, and lived largely in a dream world. Both
were physically as well as mentally disabled. Yet living with them,
Vanier began to understand what it meant to be really human. “We did
everything together—the shopping, the cooking, the gardening—but above
all we had fun. We found we could really laugh together.” With other
friends, Jean had been used to spending time doing things, achieving
things, having intellectual conversations. “But with Raphaël and
Philippe, I entered into a new kind of relationship. Before meeting
them, my life had been governed largely from my head and my sense of
duty; they brought out the child in me. I began to live from my heart.” Although
Jean had no grand plans, what he was doing chimed with the zeitgeist.
In France and Italy, parents of children with mental disabilities were
beginning to band together to object to large institutions. In America,
Wolf Wolfensberger was advocating “normalisation” of the mentally
disabled. The social services were keen for L’Arche to accept more
people, and because the economy was strong they were able to support the
fledgling organisation financially. Above all, though, there was an
abundance of young people keen to join Jean, and try living by his
example. “The 60s and 70s were the age of community: ‘Let’s get together
and not be controlled by authority!’ It was the hippies in America, it
was Woodstock. It was a huge moment.” Some stayed a short time, others
for life. And so L’Arche grew, opening more houses in Trosly, then in
other parts of France, then in Canada and beyond.
L’Arche communities are not uniform.
Some welcome those so profoundly disabled, both mentally and physically,
that they can neither speak nor walk, and the only means of
communication is touch. In others, disabled men and women go out to work
in gardens and studios. And, whereas Jean Vanier is a Catholic, Stephan
Posner, the current head of L’Arche in France, is Jewish, while in
Bangladesh and Palestine Christians and Muslims live together, and in
India many in L’Arche are Hindu. People with mental disabilities can be a
force for ecumenism: they tend to have an instinct for communion, and
not to split hairs over questions of dogma and belief. What all the
communities share, however, is a sense that they are not institutions
but true homes—places in which those with mental disabilities live
alongside “normal” people, all giving and receiving from one another.
The actor and comedian Steve Coogan, whose brother and sister-in-law
live and work in the community in Manchester, first visited Trosly as a
teenager, and it struck him as “radical and ordinary, all at the same
time”. “What L’Arche does brilliantly”, he says, “is to create the same
sense of belonging as you get in a family.”
Top Helping hands: Jean Vanier makes a point over lunch at Le Val
Middle Great and small: Jean with Marc, “le petit baron”
Bottom With Mother Teresa, who helped set up L’Arche in India
L’ARCHE
CAME INTO my life slantwise, through a series of nudges. While at
university, I made friends with someone working at Oxford High School.
Over supper one evening, she told me she was giving up teaching the
academic daughters of dons to go and live with mentally disabled people
in France. She told me about Jean Vanier. Impressive, I thought; but
perhaps a bit extreme. Then, the morning after I finished my finals, I
had a call from my mother. My brother and sister-in-law, who were living
in Tokyo, had had their first baby, a daughter called Mary. She had
Down’s syndrome, and multiple complications with her heart and lungs,
and was not expected to survive her first night.
Mary was lucky to be born in Tokyo.
The doctors there were prepared to perform surgery that would not have
been attempted in Britain—partly because the Japanese regard people with
Down’s syndrome as special. Tenshi, they call them: angels.
Mary found it hard to breathe, so the paediatrician constructed a tiny
tent around her, pumped in cold, damp “English” air, and weaned her,
slowly, off a respirator.
While
Mary was still in intensive care, it happened that Jean Vanier visited
Tokyo to give a talk. My brother went along. “If you ever have a chance
to hear him,” he wrote home, “I urge you to take it. His holiness is
almost tangible.” My brother is a career diplomat, careful with his
words, so this was pretty striking. Spool forwards a few years, and my
cousin Jock, a priest in Edinburgh, mentioned that he knew Jean Vanier.
“I’d like to meet him,” I said. So Jock wrote a letter of introduction,
and I headed off to France with a friend.
These were the pre-tunnel days, and we
were in high holiday spirits as our ferry arrived in Calais and we
drove through the vast, flat expanses of northern France. It was only as
we turned off the autoroute into the Forest of Compiègne that we began
to lose our nerve. In Trosly-Breuil, as we parked, a tall, thin man with
very few teeth folded himself through the open car window. “Tu fumes?”
he asked. What on earth were we doing here?
But that evening, and in the days that
followed, our fears subsided. We ate together in Le Val Fleuri, home to
a number of men who had lived in L’Arche for many years. Some, like my
niece Mary, had Down’s syndrome, others, like Raphaël and Philippe, had
suffered brain damage in the womb, or from infant illnesses. There was
tiny Marc, who by birthright should have been heir to rolling acres in
the Dordogne; Etienne, who looked like Ugolin in “Jean de Florette”;
Patrick, the cadger of cigarettes; Dudule, Jean-Claude, Olivier, Didier,
Pascal. Some were irrepressibly gregarious, others quiet. But all of
them welcomed us, laughed with us, were patient with our rusty French.
After supper, Jean Vanier tossed out tea-towels, and we all did the
washing-up. Then we sat around a log fire, chatting. Somebody produced
an old trumpet, and we cried with laughter as we tried in turn to play
it.
“I
could never prove this,” one of the assistants told me on that first
visit, “but I have a strong sense that these people know and understand
me at a deeper level than ‘normal’ people.” I began to have that feeling
too. On our second evening, there was a birthday party for one of the
men. Supper was followed by music, and dancing—which I’ve always hated.
Feeling self-conscious, but thinking I was putting on a good show of
enjoying myself, I saw Marc approach me. “Ça va, petite journaliste?” he
asked, with a wry smile, and came to sit with me. On the final evening,
overwhelmed by all I’d experienced, I went and sat for a while in the
little chapel. Didier, who walked and spoke with great difficulty, found
me there, sat with me, and rested his hand on my shoulder. People say,
and rightly, that one of the advantages of becoming middle-aged is that
you cease to be anxious about what others think of you. But I feel I had
an early taste of this in Trosly-Breuil in my 20s. Nothing I’d ever
learned or achieved could have impressed these people; they simply
wanted me to be myself.
Rowan Williams, former archbishop of
Canterbury, has been close to L’Arche since the 1970s, and has found it
similarly liberating. “What L’Arche does is to question our assumptions
that, in order to be living a life of worth and beauty, we need to be
fluent and successful. The affirmation of everyone, whatever their
capacity, allows those of us who think we are in control to face our own
vulnerability and failure.”
It’s easy, of course, to be
idealistic. Community life is tough. It offers no shelter from the
tedious, everyday challenges of irritation, jealousy, exhaustion; and
living with the anguish of men and women who have been rejected can
awaken feelings of anger, even violence. There is a danger that “normal”
people can be drawn to L’Arche in a search for meaning in their lives,
only to move on when their needs are satisfied. “And for the people with
learning disabilities,” one long-term assistant points out, “this can
feel like a double- rejection.” Her words strike an uncomfortable chord:
I for one have dipped in and out of L’Arche. Nevertheless, that first
visit felt to me like a kind of homecoming. “Come back!” the men called
as they waved us off, and I knew that I would.
Top House mates: Patrick (left) and Dudule have lived in Trosly since the early 1970s
Middle Bien dans sa peau: Emilie baking with the residents of La Forestière
Bottom Michel at home in Le Val
For
the poet Michael Symmons Roberts, who last year scooped both the Costa
and Forward poetry prizes with his collection “Drysalter”, an initial
visit to Trosly-Breuil was so life-changing that he’s never felt able to
return—“for fear of overwriting the memory”. He went there during the
mid-1990s, a confirmed atheist working as a documentary-maker for the
BBC. Commissioned to make an “Everyman” programme about genetic futures,
he interviewed scientists who argued that pre-natal screening would
allow us to eradicate suffering caused by inherited illness and
disability. Parents would have many more choices to make about whether
to continue with a pregnancy. But some philosophers were worried about a
future “eugenics of choice”, so Roberts looked for a counterweight in
the film, someone with a different vision of the future—“and somewhere I
read about L’Arche, and was struck by Jean Vanier’s claim that ‘in a
healthy society, the strong need the weak as much as the weak need the
strong’.”
With a BBC crew, Roberts spent a week
filming in Trosly, and from the first morning he was amazed by the
“extraordinary ordinariness” of the place. “There were these young
assistants from all over the world looking after men and women some of
whom were very profoundly disabled—unable to walk or talk or eat by
themselves. But there were no white coats; the place wasn’t
institutionalised, or medicalised, or advertising its own holiness. It
was just a group of people who wanted to live together. And there was a
sense of love that was almost tangible. I come from a loving family;
I’ve loved and been loved. But I’ve never encountered a pervasive
atmosphere of love like that before.”
Film crews are pretty cynical, says
Roberts—“to do their jobs, they have to remain objective and slightly
cold. You cannot move them. But they were moved by L’Arche.” What moved
them most? “There was a phrase Jean Vanier used when we interviewed him.
He described people with mental disabilities as ‘teachers of
tenderness’—and that’s what we experienced. Here were these men and
women who had no interest in social veneer, or education, or
achievement. They forced us all to take off mask after mask, until we
faced one another as human beings: a mutual transformation.” In the
course of the week, the filming became “almost irrelevant” to Roberts,
and after he came home “nothing quite looked the same again”. He no
longer felt persuaded by his atheism. While one of the film crew left
the BBC to live in L’Arche, Roberts later became a Catholic.
IN NOVEMBER 1994, I took a short
sabbatical from work and spent a month in Trosly-Breuil. I lived in a
house so close to the forest that at night it felt as if the owls were
hooting in my room. In the morning, I cleaned and shopped and cooked
while the six men and women I was living with went out to work—making
pottery and candles and mosaics, or gardening. Jean-Pierre worked in the
woods, and he’d come back at lunchtime and explain what he’d been up to
in a series of cartoon exclamations: “baf! boom! craack!” Sometimes, in
the afternoon, I’d wander through the village to visit my friends in Le
Val. Trosly is a beautiful place: thick-walled stone cottages with
crow-stepped roofs, hens clucking in back gardens, little plots of land
lovingly cultivated. All the toil and fruitfulness made me feel I was
living in the Book of Hours.
On my last evening, while I was doing
some ironing, Jean-Pierre came and propped himself in the doorway.
“Reste avec nous!” he said. English sound and French meaning merged
poignantly: I’d rested, but I couldn’t stay. Next day, I headed for
Paris. In Trosly, November had been purely November: misty mornings,
still days, cold evenings. At Charles de Gaulle airport, Christmas was
already in full swing—bright lights, tinsel, noise. Re-entering the
“real” world, I experienced the bends.
I’ve been back regularly to Trosly
since, and from time to time I’ve met Jean Vanier off the Eurostar and
driven him to give talks in different parts of Britain: he is in
constant demand as a speaker, whether to groups of prisoners, or
businessmen, or to the Anglican bishops at the Lambeth Conference, all
compelled not just by the story of L’Arche, but by Jean’s ability to
communicate from his heart as well as his head. And, though his courtesy
and serenity are unassailable, I’ve always suspected that he too finds
leaving Trosly unsettling.
“Yes, it’s true,” he says. “Somewhere I feel a little bit awkward.”
It’s partly to do with the praise
lavished on him when he’s introduced to audiences. “I feel that people
are saying, ‘You’re doing beautiful work’; and that doesn’t interest me
because what they are really saying is, ‘I’m glad you’re doing it, not
me.’ But it’s mainly that I find I have more fun, I’m more myself, when
I’m with people who are a little bit crazy. And our people are a little
bit crazy. I mean that they are not bothered by the need to conform—to
be dressed as they should, to do as they should. I don’t want to be part
of a world where everybody has to be the same, and to win—‘I succeed,
therefore I am.’ I don’t want to live under the tyranny of normality.”
Wherever possible, therefore, he
travels with his L’Arche family. In 1997, invited to receive an honour
from the Vatican, he flew to Rome with a group from Trosly. Pope John
Paul II, already frail, was visibly moved as they gathered round him.
Then, just as he was about to leave, he turned and shuffled back towards
them. Addressing the whole group, he appealed to them to “conduire
l’église au nouveau millennium”. Then, in 2003, Jean was invited by the
French government to receive the Légion d’honneur at the Elysée Palace.
“They knew that I lived with people with disabilities, so I said, ‘Could
I bring 40 or 50 people with me?’ They couldn’t say no.” Pascal, one of
the men from Le Val, sought out President Chirac and “threw himself
into his arms and embraced him. Of course, Chirac wasn’t really prepared
for that, but there was such openness and love . . .”
Top En famille: Jean Vanier believes in Aristotle's maxim that we cannot know one another until we've "eaten salt together"
On
March 21st this year, World Down’s Syndrome Day, Jean visited Pope
Francis, accompanied by members of L’Arche’s community in Rome. Italian
news cameras captured an encounter of extraordinary joy: a meeting of
twin souls, radically committed to the poor and the marginalised. But
implicit in the news coverage was a challenge. How would Jean respond, I
ask, to those who admire what he’s done, but who feel that they as
ordinary people, with jobs to do and children to look after, cannot hope
to change the world?
“You know,” he says with feeling, “I
think people don’t believe in themselves enough. Maybe they’ve lived
setbacks, complications in relationships, and it’s left them with a
latent depression—‘I’m no good.’ But at the heart of L’Arche is the
belief that every person is precious, and if I believe that every person
is precious, I have to believe that I am precious too. Every one of us
can make a difference, even if only in the way we look at people.
Walking in the streets, passing a homeless person for example, it’s not
so much a question of ‘Do you give him money?’, as ‘Do you really look
at him as a human being?’”
It sounds straightforward enough. But
these words—and the full implication of failing to recognise some people
as human beings—are brought home to me a fortnight later when I visit
Richard Keagan-Bull in L’Arche in south London. More able and articulate
than many in the community, Richard lives independently in a little
flat. Over a cup of tea, carried in on a William and Kate tray (“my
favourite couple”), we chat about his early life, and his travels around
the world as an ambassador for people with learning difficulties. He’s
humorous, intuitive and very good company. Then he tells me about his
holiday in Poland, which included a visit to Auschwitz. “What shocked me
most was that everyone had labels pinned to their prison uniforms. I
was there with my friends from L’Arche, one Polish and one German. And I
asked my friend what label I would have had. I don’t think I would have
been here today, nor none of my friends. I think that if I were there,
they might have decided to do some tests on me in their so-called
‘hospital room’. It made me quite angry, it did. I wanted to kick
something, I did. I feel quite angry now, I do.” I felt angry too,
thinking of my friends in Trosly-Breuil, and of my niece Mary. She’s 27
now, with a bunch of younger siblings, and, as her brother Joe says,
“she’s taught us all more about warmth, openness and enjoying the moment
than anyone else we know. Wherever she goes, and whoever she meets, her
joy is infectious.”
SO WHAT OF the future—is Jean hopeful
or fearful as he looks ahead? In the 50 years since its foundation,
L’Arche has never been without challenges: shortage of money, and of
assistants, ever more constricting health-and-safety regulations, and,
in some countries, political upheaval and even war. Through his
communities, Jean has been directly involved in some of the great
conflicts of the past half-century—in Ireland, Israel, the Balkans,
Rwanda. When we meet, he is particularly concerned for the communities
in Ukraine and Syria; shortly after I return to London Frans van der
Lugt, the Jesuit founder of L’Arche in Syria, is murdered in Homs. But a
lifetime of facing apparently insurmountable difficulties has given
Jean Vanier a kind of pragmatic equanimity. “Our world is a moving
world,” he says. “So the question is not, ‘will the future be good, or
will it be bad?’ The question is ‘what can I do today to accept myself
as I am, to accept others as they are, and to help one or two people to
fly?’”
While I was in Trosly this spring, a
group of young people were there too, spending a few days finding out
about life in L’Arche. The old farm building where visitors stay,
normally deeply peaceful, thrummed with hip-hop and games of football.
On my last evening, as I sat upstairs transcribing my interview, the
teenagers were gathered in the room below talking to Jean. I could hear
his steady voice, occasional silences, much laughter. Eventually, he
walked back across the courtyard towards his little house. Watching his
towering figure disappearing into the dusk, I thought of a line from a
16th-century Spanish mystic, St John of the Cross. “A la tarde,” he
wrote, “te examinarán en el amor.” In the evening of life, you will be
examined in love.
Top A man with a mystery: Etienne, who lives at Le Val, fell silent for many years. Now he is speaking again
Maggie Fergusson is literary editor of Intelligent Life and director of the Royal Society of Literature
Chicken souvlaki is almost always made with chunks of boneless
skinless breasts, which have a marked tendency to dry out when grilled.
To prevent this, we swap the traditional overnight soak in an acidic
marinade for a quick 30-minute brine while the grill heats. We then toss
the chunks of chicken in a flavorful mixture of lemon, olive oil,
herbs, and honey right before grilling. To prevent the end pieces from
overcooking, we protect the chicken by threading pepper and onion pieces
on the ends. Once cooked, the chicken is tossed with reserved sauce to
ensure that the exterior is brightly flavored and just as tender and
moist as the interior.
Grilled Chicken Souvlaki
Bright lemon flavor and charred-yet-moist, evenly cooked meat are the
hallmarks of good souvlaki. They’re also the hardest traits to get
right.
Serves 4
This tzatziki is fairly mild; if you like a more assertive
flavor, double the garlic. A rasp-style grater makes quick work of
turning the garlic into a paste. We like the chicken as a wrap, but you
may skip the pita and serve the chicken, vegetables, and tzatziki with
rice. You will need four 12-inch metal skewers. For tips on wrapping the
sandwich in foil, see related content.
Ingredients
Tzatziki Sauce
1
tablespoon lemon juice1
small garlic clove, minced to paste3/4
cup plain Greek yogurt1/2
cucumber, peeled, halved lengthwise, seeded, and diced fine (1/2 cup)3
tablespoons minced fresh mint1
tablespoon minced fresh parsley3/8
teaspoon saltChicken
Salt and pepper1 1/2
pounds boneless, skinless chicken breasts, trimmed and cut into 1-inch pieces1/3
cup extra-virgin olive oil2
tablespoons minced fresh parsley1
teaspoon finely grated lemon zest plus 1/4 cup juice (2 lemons)1
teaspoon honey1
teaspoon dried oregano1
green bell pepper, quartered, stemmed, seeded, each quarter cut into 4 chunks1
small red onion, ends trimmed, peeled, halved lengthwise, each half cut into 4 chunks4
(8-inch) pita breads
Preparation
FOR THE TZATZIKI SAUCE: Whisk lemon juice and
garlic together in small bowl. Let stand for 10 minutes. Stir in yogurt,
cucumber, mint, parsley, and salt. Cover and set aside.
FOR THE CHICKEN: Dissolve 2 tablespoons salt in 1
quart cold water. Submerge chicken in brine, cover, and refrigerate for
30 minutes. While chicken is brining, combine oil, parsley, lemon zest
and juice, honey, oregano, and 1/2 teaspoon pepper in medium bowl.
Transfer 1/4 cup oil mixture to large bowl and set aside to toss with
cooked chicken.
Remove chicken from brine and pat dry with paper
towels. Toss chicken with remaining oil mixture. Thread 4 pieces of bell
pepper, concave side up, onto one 12-inch metal skewer. Thread
one-quarter of chicken onto skewer. Thread 2 chunks of onion onto
skewer, and place skewer on plate. Repeat skewering remaining chicken
and vegetables on 3 more skewers. Lightly moisten 2 pita breads with
water. Sandwich 2 unmoistened pita breads between moistened pita breads
and wrap stack tightly in lightly greased heavy-duty aluminum foil.
FOR A CHARCOAL GRILL: Open bottom vent
completely. Light large chimney starter mounded with charcoal briquettes
(7 quarts). When top coals are partially covered with ash, pour evenly
over half of grill. Set cooking grate in place, cover, and open lid vent
completely. Heat grill until hot, about 5 minutes.
FOR A GAS GRILL: Turn all burners to high,
cover, and heat grill until hot, about 15 minutes. Leave primary burner
on high and turn off other burner(s).
Clean and oil cooking grate. Place skewers on
hotter side of grill and cook, turning occasionally, until chicken and
vegetables are well browned on all sides and chicken registers 160
degrees, 15 to 20 minutes. Using fork, push chicken and vegetables off
skewers into bowl of reserved oil mixture. Stir gently, breaking up
onion chunks; cover with foil and let sit for 5 minutes.
Meanwhile, place packet of pitas on cooler side of grill. Flip occasionally to heat, about 5 minutes.
Lay each warm pita on 12-inch square of foil.
Spread each pita with 2 tablespoons tzatziki. Place one-quarter of
chicken and vegetables in middle of each pita. Roll into cylindrical
shape and serve.
Marinate Twice
Briefly soaking the grilled chicken and vegetables in some
reserved marinade before wrapping them in a pita rehydrates their dry
exteriors and delivers bright citrus punch.
Softening Supermarket Pita
To soften up dry, tough supermarket pita, we moisten two of the
breads with a little water and then stack them on either side of two
unmoistened pieces. Then we steam the breads in a foil-wrapped stack on
the cooler side of the grill while the cooked chicken rests.
A Vegetable Shield
The age-old problem with grilling meat on a stick: The end pieces
overcook. We protect the chicken by threading pepper and onion pieces on
the ends. The charred vegetables taste great in the sandwich, too.
To create this refreshing summer dessert, we make a no-cook pudding
with fresh lime juice, sugar, cream cheese, condensed milk, and a secret
ingredient: instant vanilla pudding. After the pudding has thickened
and chilled in the fridge, we layer it with graham crackers and plump
fresh blackberries. Decorated with fresh lime slices, this trifle makes
for an impressive end to any meal.
Serves 12
Ingredients
1/4
cup (1 3/4 ounces) granulated sugar1
tablespoon grated lime zest plus 1 cup juice (8 limes), plus 5 limes sliced 1/8 inch thick8
ounces cream cheese, softened1
(14-ounce) can sweetened condensed milk1/3
cup instant vanilla pudding mix1
teaspoon vanilla extract12
whole graham crackers, broken in half1
recipe Large-Batch Lightly Sweetened Whipped Cream (see below)30
ounces (6 cups) blackberries
Instructions
FOR THE FILLING: Process sugar and lime zest in food
processor until sugar turns bright green, about 30 seconds. Set aside 2
teaspoons lime sugar. Add cream cheese to remaining
lime sugar and process until combined,
about 30 seconds. Add condensed milk and pudding mix and process until
smooth, about 30 seconds, scraping down sides of bowl as needed. With
processor running, add lime juice and vanilla and process until
thoroughly combined, about 30 seconds. Transfer custard to bowl, cover
with plastic wrap, and refrigerate until thickened, about 1 hour.
TO ASSEMBLE: Shingle 12 cracker halves along bottom
of 3 1/2-quart trifle dish or glass bowl. Arrange half of lime slices
upright around bottom of dish, wedged between cracker halves and wall of
dish. Spread 1 1/2 cups custard in even layer over cracker halves,
followed by 2 cups whipped cream. Sprinkle 5 cups blackberries in even
layer over whipped cream. Shingle 11 cracker halves over blackberries
along
edge of trifle and place remaining 1 cracker half in center. Arrange
remaining lime slices upright around dish. Spread remaining custard over
cracker halves, followed by remaining 2 cups whipped cream. Cover with
plastic and refrigerate for at least 6 hours or up to 24 hours. Just
before serving, arrange remaining 1 cup blackberries in center of trifle
and sprinkle top of trifle with reserved lime sugar.
We found that chilled heavy cream is easier to whip and get to
peak-form more quickly than if left at room temperature. Just a bit of
vanilla extract sweetens the whipped cream but doesn't make it cloying.
from http://www.onlinecookingschool.com/school/courses/176/topics/1611?extcode=LN14H1SAA Tabbouleh has long been a meze staple in the Middle East, but these days
it can be found in the refrigerator case of virtually every American
supermarket. Its brief (and healthful) ingredient list explains its
popularity: Chopped fresh parsley and mint, tomatoes, onion, and bits of
nutty bulgur are tossed with lemon and olive oil for a refreshing
appetizer or side dish.
Bulgur is made by boiling, drying, and grinding wheat kernels, so it
only needs to be reconstituted in cool water. But specific advice on how
to prepare the grains is all over the map. We experimented with
innumerable permutations of time and amount of water until we found the
best of each. And instead of water, we used a combination of lemon juice
and the water drained from our tomatoes, which we salted to draw out
their liquid. Soaking the grains in a flavorful liquid only made sense
for a salad that can taste washed out.
Next up, we found the optimal quantities of herbs that put the
emphasis on the bright, peppery parsley but didn’t discount the lemony
bulgur and refreshing mint. As for the rest of the salad, extra-virgin
olive oil tempered the tart lemon juice, and a few chopped ripe
tomatoes—salted to draw out their liquid—and sliced scallions rounded
out the mix. A smidge of cayenne pepper along with the usual salt and
pepper added zing. We added the mix-ins while the bulgur was still
soaking, which allowed the whole lot time to mingle, resulting in a
perfectly well-balanced dish.
Tools
pairing knife
chef's knife
cutting board
measuring spoons
large bowl (2)
dry measuring cups
liquid measuring cups
fine-mesh strainer
medium bowl
rubber spatula
whisk
Ingredients
3 medium round tomatoes (1 pound)
salt
1 bunch fresh parsley
1 bunch fresh mint
2 scallions
1/2 c medium-grind bulgur
2 lemons
6 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
pepper
Common Mistakes Made When Preparing This Recipe
Bought Wrong Size of Bulgur Bad Outcomes
The bulgur is overhydrated and mushy.
The bulgur is underhydrated and gritty.
What You Should Do
Most recipes using bulgur call for medium grind, so it shouldn’t
be hard to find this size in your local supermarket. But some stores
carry several types of bulgur in various grinds, so make sure you know
what you’re buying. Fine-grind bulgur is the smallest grind and is
similar to couscous in appearance. It requires less soaking, so it will
feel mushy if left to soak for as long as the recipe instructs.
Extra-coarse bulgur resembles steel-cut oats. It requires actual
cooking, so it will turn out crunchy in this recipe that calls simply
for soaking the grain.
Didn't Drain Tomatoes Bad Outcome
The tabbouleh tastes washed out.
What You Should Do
During our testing, we noticed that depending on variety, the
tomatoes contributed different amounts of liquid to the tabbouleh,
sometimes diluting its flavor and making it soupy. The solution was
salting. Tossing the tomatoes in salt and letting them drain in a
colander drew out their moisture, precluding sogginess. We then used
some of that exuded tomato juice to reconstitute the bulgur.
Used Water as Soaking Liquid
Bad Outcome
The bulgur is bland.
What You Should Do
Eliminating water from the recipe only makes sense for a salad
that can taste washed out. Instead, we start soaking our bulgur in a
combination of lemon juice and tomato juice. We then combine it with the
remaining ingredients and let it sit until fully tender. By that time,
it’s soaked up the flavor of all the ingredients it’s soaked in.
Soaked the Bulgur in Too Much Liquid Bad Outcomes
The bulgur is heavy and damp.
The tabbouleh is bland.
What You Should Do
We experimented with innumerable permutations of amounts of liquid
and we found that the less liquid we used, the better the texture. Too
much liquid left the grains heavy and damp, and washed out the
tabbouleh’s flavor.
Didn’t Soak the Bulgur Long Enough Bad Outcomes
The bulgur has not tenderized fully.
The bulgur is not fluffy or tender.
What You Should Do
The bulgur requires at least 90 minutes of soaking to become
tender. Any less and the grains will be crunchy. Once you combine the
liquid and bulgur, the grains will absorb it almost instantly and then
slowly swell into tender, fluffy grains if they’re given enough time.
Preparation
Core 3 medium round tomatoes, and cut into 1/2-inch pieces.
Toss tomatoes and 1/4 teaspoon salt in large bowl.
Transfer to fine-mesh strainer, set strainer in bowl, and let stand for 30 minutes, tossing occasionally.
Meanwhile, chop enough fresh parsley to yield 1½ cups. Set aside.
Chop enough fresh mint to yield ½ cup. Set aside.
Thinly slice 2 scallions. Set aside.
Juice 2 lemons to yield ¼ cup juice. Set aside.
Once tomatoes have finished draining, rinse ½ cup medium-grind bulgur in
fine-mesh strainer under cold running water. Drain well.
Transfer to medium bowl and stir in 2 tablespoons lemon juice and 2 tablespoons juice from drained tomatoes.
Let stand until grains are beginning to soften, 30 to 40 minutes.
Whisk remaining 2 tablespoons lemon juice, 6 tablespoons extra-virgin
olive oil, ⅛ teaspoon cayenne pepper, and ¼ teaspoon salt together in
large bowl.
Add drained tomatoes, soaked bulgur, chopped parsley, chopped mint, and scallions. Toss gently to combine.
Cover and let stand at room temperature until flavors have blended and bulgur is tender, about 1 hour.
Toss to recombine, season with salt and pepper to taste, and serve immediately.
The key to fresh tomato flavor in our creamy gazpacho Andaluz recipe
was salting the tomatoes and letting them sit to release more flavor. We
then followed the same process with the other vegetables—cucumber, bell
pepper, and onion—and soaked the bread, which we used to thicken the
soup, in the exuded vegetable juices. A final dash of olive oil and
sherry vinegar further brightened the flavor of our gazpacho, and a
diced-vegetable garnish made our creamy gazpacho recipe look as fresh as
it tasted.
Serves 4 to 6
For ideal flavor, allow the gazpacho to sit in the refrigerator
overnight before serving. Red wine vinegar can be substituted for the
sherry vinegar. Although we prefer to use kosher salt in this soup, half
the amount of table salt can be used. Serve the soup with additional
extra-virgin olive oil, sherry vinegar, ground black pepper, and diced
vegetables for diners to season and garnish their own bowls as desired.
Ingredients
3
pounds (about 6 medium) ripe tomatoes, cored1
small cucumber, peeled, halved, and seeded1
medium green bell pepper, halved, cored and seeded1
small red onion, peeled and halved2
medium garlic cloves, peeled and quartered1
small serrano chile, stemmed and halved lengthwiseKosher salt (see note)1
slice high-quality white sandwich bread, crust removed, torn into 1-inch pieces1/2
cup extra virgin olive oil, plus extra for serving2
tablespoons sherry vinegar, plus extra for serving (see note)2
tablespoons finely minced parsley, chives, or basil leavesGround black pepper
Preparation
Cut remaining tomatoes, cucumber, and pepper into ¼-inch dice;
place vegetables in medium bowl. Mince remaining onion and add to diced
vegetables. Toss with ½ teaspoon salt and transfer to fine-mesh strainer
set over medium bowl. Set aside 1 hour.
Transfer drained diced vegetables to medium bowl and set aside.
Add bread pieces to exuded liquid (there should be about ¼ cup) and soak
1 minute. Add soaked bread and any remaining liquid to roughly chopped
vegetables and toss thoroughly to combine.
Transfer half of vegetable-bread mixture to blender and process 30
seconds. With blender running, slowly drizzle in ¼ cup oil and continue
to blend until completely smooth, about 2 minutes. Strain soup through
fine-mesh strainer into large bowl, using back of ladle or rubber
spatula to press soup through strainer. Repeat with remaining
vegetable-bread mixture and 1/4 cup olive oil.
Stir vinegar, minced herb, and half of diced vegetables into soup
and season to taste with salt and black pepper. Cover and refrigerate
overnight or for at least 2 hours to chill completely and develop
flavors. Serve, passing remaining diced vegetables, olive oil, sherry
vinegar, and black pepper separately.
Technique
Achieving the Best Creamy Consistency
The trick to smooth, fully blended texture is all in how you add the olive oil.
BROKEN Adding all of the oil at once prevents it from blending properly with the vegetables, resulting in a greasy consistency.
PERFECTLY CREAMY Slowly drizzling in the oil helps the mixture emulsify, for a soup that is silky and rich—but not the least bit greasy.
Technique
Flavor Boosters: Salt—and Time Because of salt’s ability to dissolve in liquids and to draw
moisture out of meat and vegetable cells, it often enhances dishes in
ways that go beyond just making them taste saltier. Could the length of
time we salted our vegetables affect the flavor of our soup?
THE EXPERIMENT We
made two batches of gazpacho. For the first, we salted the tomatoes,
cucumber, onion, and green bell pepper in the recipe and let them sit
for 1 hour before pureeing these ingredients with their accumulated
juices in a blender. For the second batch, we skipped the salting step,
but stirred in the equivalent amount of salt after we pureed the
vegetables.
THE RESULTS The vegetables that were salted for 1 hour before pureeing produced gazpacho with fuller, more complex flavor.
THE EXPLANATION To
experience any foodstuff’s flavors, our tastebuds must be exposed to
its flavor molecules. But many of the flavor molecules in fruits and
vegetables are not only trapped within their cell walls, they are
tightly bound to proteins that also make them inaccessible to our
tastebuds. Vigorously blending—and chewing—release some of the flavor
molecules. But for maximum flavor extraction, salting the vegetables and
letting them sit for an hour works best. With time, the salt draws
flavor compounds out of the cell walls while simultaneously forcing the
proteins to separate from these molecules, producing a more intensely
flavored soup. Simply seasoning the soup before serving will not have
the same effect.
We skipped the traditional bread panade in favor of a little gelatin
to keep our kofte moist after grilling. And we added ground pine nuts
for richness and to keep the kofte from being too springy.
Serves 4 to 6
Serve with rice pilaf or make sandwiches with warm pita bread, sliced red onion, and chopped fresh mint.
Ingredients
Yogurt-Garlic Sauce1
cup plain whole-milk yogurt 2
tablespoons lemon juice 2
tablespoons tahini 1
garlic clove, minced 1/2
teaspoon salt Kofte
1/2
cup pine nuts 5
garlic cloves, peeled 2
teaspoons hot smoked paprika2
teaspoons ground cumin 1
teaspoon salt 1/2
teaspoon pepper 1/4
teaspoon ground coriander 1/4
teaspoon ground cloves 1/8
teaspoon ground nutmeg 1/8
teaspoon ground cinnamon1 1/2
pounds 80 percent lean ground beef 1/2
cup grated onion, drained 1/3
cup minced fresh parsley 1/3
cup minced fresh mint 1 1/2
teaspoons unflavored gelatin 1
large disposable aluminum roasting pan (if using charcoal)
Preparation
FOR THE YOGURT-GARLIC SAUCE: Whisk all ingredients together in bowl. Set aside.
FOR THE KOFTE: Process pine nuts, garlic,
paprika, cumin, salt, pepper, coriander, cloves, nutmeg, and cinnamon in
food processor until course paste forms, 30 to 45 seconds. Transfer
mixture to large bowl. Add beef, onion, parsley, mint, and gelatin;
knead with your hands until thoroughly combined and mixture feels
slightly sticky, about 2 minutes. Divide mixture into 8 equal portions.
Shape each portion into 5-inch-long cylinder about 1 inch in diameter.
Using 8 (12-inch) metal skewers, thread mixture onto skewers, pressing
gently to adhere. Transfer skewers to lightly greased baking sheet,
cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for at least 1 hour or up to 24
hours.
FOR A CHARCOAL GRILL: Using skewer, poke 12
holes in bottom of disposable pan. Open bottom vent completely and place
disposable pan in center of grill. Light large chimney starter filled
two-thirds with charcoal briquettes (4 quarts). When top coals are
partially covered with ash, pour into disposable pan. Set cooking grate
in place, cover, and open lid vent completely. Heat grill until hot,
about 5 minutes.
FOR A GAS GRILL: Turn all burners to high, cover, and heat grill until hot, about 15 minutes. Leave all burners on high.
Clean and oil cooking grate. Place skewers on
grill (directly over coals if using charcoal) at 45-degree angle to
grate. Cook (covered if using gas), without moving them, until browned
and meat easily releases from grill, 4 to 7 minutes. Flip skewers and
continue to cook until browned on second side and meat register 160
degrees, about 6 minutes longer. Transfer skewers to large platter and
serve, passing yogurt-garlic sauce separately.
Skip the Burger and Try This
These kebabs take only a little longer to throw
together than burgers but boast far more complex flavors and textures.
For sandwiches, serve in warm pita bread.
TANGY SAUCE: Ours features traditional garlicky yogurt, plus a little tahini for added complexity.
SPRINGY YET TENDER TEXTURE: Kneading the ground meat gives the kofte a sausagelike spring, while incorporating ground pine nuts ensures that it also stays tender.
WARM SPICES: Spices added to the meat, including hot smoked paprika, cumin, and cloves, contribute heat and depth.
FRESH HERBS: The bright, grassy flavors of two other mix-ins, parsley and mint, complement the kofte’s richness.
Less
than an hour’s stroll through the beech trees, a rather different piece
of history is unfolding. Fifty years ago this August, a 35-year-old
ex-naval officer, Jean Vanier, bought a tumbledown cottage in
Trosly-Breuil, a village on the edge of the forest. The cottage had no
lavatory, one tap and a wood-burning stove, and he called it L’Arche—The
Ark. He then invited two men with mental disabilities, Raphaël Simi and
Philippe Seux, to leave the bleak, overcrowded asylum where they had
spent most of their adult lives, and to make a home with him. “There
was”, he says, looking back, “no huge idea of doing something special
that might change the world.” 
Hitler’s
visit to the Forest of Compiègne and Jean Vanier’s arrival in
Trosly-Breuil are not as remote from one another as they might appear.
When the second world war broke out, Jean Vanier was ten. His father,
Major-General Georges Vanier, a much-decorated military hero who had
lost a leg fighting in the trenches, was Canadian envoy in Paris. In May
1940, as the Germans advanced, the family was forced to evacuate by
ship to Britain. From there, they returned to Canada, where Georges
Vanier later became governor-general—a position once held by the
novelist John Buchan. But something in the sea journey between Bordeaux
and Milford Haven had fired Jean’s imagination, and when he turned 13 he
asked permission to travel back to Britain and enter the Royal Naval
College at Dartmouth.
We
are speaking in Jean’s sitting room in Trosly-Breuil, sharing a packet
of Digestive biscuits I’ve brought over on the Eurostar, knowing that
they bring back happy memories of his early childhood in a house near
Regent’s Park in London. He is now 85, white-haired and slightly
stooped, but still immensely tall, emanating both energy and peace.
Dressed in the blue anorak he always wears, whether meeting homeless
people or heads of state, he speaks steadily, using his long El Greco
hands to illustrate his words. The demons of shame, regret, fear, sorrow
and rage that prey on some old people seem strangers to him. Instead,
he is filled with joie de vivre and openness, an appetite to keep on growing and learning and trying to make the world a happier place.
Yet,
as the second world war drew to an end, it became clear to Jean Vanier
that the navy was not his ultimate vocation. Shortly after the
liberation of Paris, in January 1945, he spent some leave at the Gare
d’Orsay helping the Canadian Red Cross receive survivors from
Buchenwald, Dachau, Belsen and Auschwitz. “I’ll never forget the men and
women who arrived off the trains—like skeletons, still in the
blue-and-white striped uniforms of the concentration camps, their faces
tortured with fear and anguish. That, and the dropping of the atom
bombs, strengthened a feeling in me that the navy was no longer the
place for me; that I wanted to devote myself to works of peace.” A
committed Catholic, he imagined he would probably become a priest.
For
several months, Jean devoted himself to finding out more about the
treatment of those with mental disabilities. “I visited psychiatric
hospitals and institutions, I spoke with families. And I discovered a
whole world of suffering: these were perhaps the most oppressed and
humiliated people of the world. They were called stupid, mad, imbeciles,
foolish, idiots . . . All these words were used about them. They were not
considered really human—so as long as you gave them food and lodging,
you were doing a good act.” In Saint-Jean-les-Deux-Jumeaux, an asylum
east of Paris, 80 men lived locked in a building made of cement blocks.
They had no work, and spent most of their days walking around in
circles. And those who remained with their families were not necessarily
treated with more compassion. On a farm, Jean met a teenager who was
kept chained in a garage.
While
Mary was still in intensive care, it happened that Jean Vanier visited
Tokyo to give a talk. My brother went along. “If you ever have a chance
to hear him,” he wrote home, “I urge you to take it. His holiness is
almost tangible.” My brother is a career diplomat, careful with his
words, so this was pretty striking. Spool forwards a few years, and my
cousin Jock, a priest in Edinburgh, mentioned that he knew Jean Vanier.
“I’d like to meet him,” I said. So Jock wrote a letter of introduction,
and I headed off to France with a friend.
“I
could never prove this,” one of the assistants told me on that first
visit, “but I have a strong sense that these people know and understand
me at a deeper level than ‘normal’ people.” I began to have that feeling
too. On our second evening, there was a birthday party for one of the
men. Supper was followed by music, and dancing—which I’ve always hated.
Feeling self-conscious, but thinking I was putting on a good show of
enjoying myself, I saw Marc approach me. “Ça va, petite journaliste?” he
asked, with a wry smile, and came to sit with me. On the final evening,
overwhelmed by all I’d experienced, I went and sat for a while in the
little chapel. Didier, who walked and spoke with great difficulty, found
me there, sat with me, and rested his hand on my shoulder. People say,
and rightly, that one of the advantages of becoming middle-aged is that
you cease to be anxious about what others think of you. But I feel I had
an early taste of this in Trosly-Breuil in my 20s. Nothing I’d ever
learned or achieved could have impressed these people; they simply
wanted me to be myself.
