Leaving Amiens
The cathedral (light show or not) was twice the size of Notre Dame, and famous for having the actual head of John the Baptist (one of four, right?). The skull is encased in gold and bulletproof glass, and I definitely heard "Jean-Baptiste" during the mass. The service was in French, and Brother Shuler was sitting in one of the pews. I slid in next to Bethany and saw the gleaming altar and various elderly people scattered among the benches. Their singing echoed off the walls and seemed to raise the ceiling altogether. It was a beautiful place to be.
Dr. Seely made sure that we had all seen the weeping angel. I imagined a woman, head thrown back in grief, wings battered and ashen. But it wasn't. It was a statue of a small boy, maybe three, slumped down with his pudgy face in one hand, crying as though he'd been left at a gas station by his mother. I stared at it. The other angels nearby were smiling and laughing, encircling the Virgin and Jesus, but this little boy looked down at mortality and just wept. Why do you weep in this place of God? You're so young. Why do you cry for our sakes?
This was only the beginning of our somber day. Despite the bite of macaroon (Amiens is where they were invented), there wasn't much sweetness to be had.
The Somme and Arras
We stopped at a crater. It was from an unearthed landmine and some ninety feet deep. Just a great grassy hole. There were even wild daisies growing at the bottom. The trees around it were young and other pockmarked places had never been healed. The farmers around these parts dig up bones of WWI soldiers pretty regularly, along with shrapnel, bullets, and other artifacts. One landmine a few years ago killed a lot of farmers at once, just plowing a new spot of ground. In spite of the sunshine, it started raining as we stood there in white clay mud. Appropriate.
The Newfoundlanders who fought in Arras memorialized the place. Our walking tour took us around the now grassy trenches, to the view from the Caribou statue, clear to the cemetery at the other end. Many have no name, despite Kipling's epitaph "Their Name Liveth For Evermore". It was a little cemetery, full no doubt of soldiers who were forever considered MIA. According to our guide, the bodies dug up today continue to be buried in such cemeteries all over the countryside, as close to where they died as possible.
My favorite place we stopped at was another such cemetery, except that there were 6,ooo or so graves--not even ten percent of what was lost in a few hours in the Somme. Dr. Tate gave us each a little wood cross bearing a poppy to place wherever we liked; some put theirs on soldiers of the same age, some imagined brothers and friends, some chose family names. I went in search of one such name, looking through hundreds of graves. The rows were fifteen across, and in many places, only one or two had names and birthdates. The rest said "A Soldier of the Great War: Known Unto God." There were thousands here. Mothers could not mourn at their burial, or even at their death, because no one knew.
After pointing out family names to other girls and some thirty minutes looking, I found one. Alec McKay, of the Tyrnside Regiment, died at 23 years old. Someone had placed a black and white picture of him there, among the little yellow roses. I stared at it, memorizing the words, when I noticed a white cross already put there. Was I related to someone on the program? Perhaps I'd find out later. I smiled and decided that Private McKay did not need two crosses. I touched his little tombstone and hurried on--everyone was leaving. I found an unknown soldier of the Highlands Infantry who had no roses on his grave. I put my cross there and cheered for all the Scottish lads who'd served and died.
Home to London
The beauty of a vacation in Paris on Study Abroad is that home is still London. We were relieved to be back...the rain looked so familiar, the damp streets of Diagon Alley and Grosvenor Square, and Tony narrating all the while why Britons drive on the wrong side of the road. Here's the reason:
"Back in the day, swordsmen were predominantly right-handed. Naturally you'd pull your sword from your left buckle and engage on the right side. Think of a jousting tournament. You hold your spear with your right arm and charge on your opponents' right side. It carried on to this day because horses and carriages did the same thing."
Whether our driver was pulling our leg, we may never know. Kudos to Tony for driving a right-sided charter bus in France where everyone drove "on the wrong side of the road". The other cool thing we learned, back when our card game was drawing to a close and we approached the Cliffs of Dover, was that Ian Fleming lived near those cliffs and would take an express to London. The train's number? OO7.
It was nearly 10pm when we came home, starving and wet. The enthusiasm was infectious!
No comments:
Post a Comment