 Normandy: Bayeux |
|
And before we knew it, we were back in Bayeux, settling in for croque madame (yes, that would be a ham and cheese sandwich with a FRIED EGG ON TOP) and salad and beer and ice cream while waiting for the train back to Paris. We met an eccentric guy from Australia by way of England and a lovely English couple. The gentleman half of the couple was from Yorkshire and a D-Day veteran, and we marveled at how young he seemed, and he said that he was nineteen and three weeks old on D-Day. He said they'd visited the grave of one of his best friends who died there and how his friend was only seventeen but had lied about his age in order to enlist and how lots of boys had done that. He said how he'd recently gone back for the sixtieth anniversary and the queen and the prime minister and the French president and the American president had all been there. I involuntarily made a little face when he said "the American president," and he smiled and nodded and made it right back. And they gave us tips for England and I loved them both. LOVE. I secretly took his picture from across the table. He asked the American guy with us what branch of the military he was in, and he replied that he was in the National Guard, and then his English wife said, "Don't guard your president!" and I laughed out loud but the American dude didn't seem to think it was all that funny. We eventually said goodbye and I told him I'd think of him in York. The zany Australian/Brit told me some madcap story about his Norwegian uncle's plane that had gone down (the man from Yorkshire described him when he left the table by saying, "he hasn't got any chips!" which I guess meant he had lost his marbles) and it was all very nonsensical but he got very teary at the end, and he clapped for the veteran and said because of him he does not speak German, and when we left, he closed his eyes, folded his hands as if in prayer, and nodded at us so kindly that I almost loved him a little bit, too. And it was just a beautiful day, the whole thing. Everyone we met and everything we saw. There was the most gorgeous weather, and the breeze blew in from the sea and the cliffs, and even though tourists were always milling about, it didn't have the feeling of a typical tourist extravaganza. It was just very peaceful and relaxed and even a little reverent. And I don't pretend to know anything of war or to know all the facts about what happened in these places, but to everyone here today, including myself, it really seemed to mean something. And no matter where any of us were from, we all walked on the paths and stood and quietly looked out at the water and thought about those who were here before us and the little piece of them that we carry inside ourselves simply by living on a planet and in a society so shaped by what happened here. I felt love for my country and for the world in a time when I desperately wanted and needed to. And for that reason and so many others, I will never forget going. And I refuse to be sarcastic or cynical about one tiny moment of it.
© Copyright 2004 elb |
|
