Memoirs of a French Holiday

+I read Hemingway that summer and reeled at his ability to write a simple story laced with such substance. The train rocked along the tracks, south toward the ocean. The siren wailed, melancholy, down through. Families around me chattered in Italian, gesticulating and inflecting the last word of each sentence, or names. The mamma unwrapped leftover pasta which she had fried in a skillet until it looked like a little pasta pie. She sliced it like one too and the starched smell of the noodles permeated the air conditioned atmosphere.
As we got closer to the equator, the passengers started speaking French, perfumes and colognes were exchanged, too, Italian for French, as soon as we crossed the border. Train terminals always smell like pee and are full of people yelling, kids screaming: things that I can’t stand. I walked fast away from the crowd, passing a few mangy cats. French cats. I wondered if they were different from Italian cats.
At sunset I walked into town. Handsome people sat in cafes drinking bitter espresso or bitter aperitif. The young people smoked cigarettes and wore sunglasses despite the failing light. Young eyes don’t care. I ordered something – I can’t remember what I drank in those days – and the waiter (smart man) told me that I had “cat’s eyes,” which I promptly scribbled onto my cocktail napkin after he walked away. Later, a French cowboy came and sat down. He had a photo album full of pictures of him getting thrown off bulls in Texas, Wyoming, and Berlin. He wore a big belt buckle, Wranglers and a cowboy hat, but he was still French and I would never have believed he rode bulls if he didn’t have that album full of pictures.
Somewhere around 10:00 as the stars were coming out, a bottle of Absinthe was brought to our table, complete with tiny slotted spoons and cubes of sugar. A man whose name I can’t remember poured the green syrup over the sugar cube, then added a bit of water and I watched as the potion turned white. I was glad that there was a Brit there. He translated until the men got too friendly and their wives spoke to them in harsh tones.
I lay on my bed back at the hotel and listened to the crickets. French crickets. I tried to imprint that moment in my memory forever.