Reflecting on an enduring relationship with a benevolent French family, a skeptic comes to ponder a possible order, or meaning, to things amid the magic of The City of Lights…
by: Alan Swyer
Among my college friends, I could always be counted on to be the skeptic. I was the one, given the increasingly tribal nature of American society, who ridiculed claims that a social contract existed. When it came to biblical stories — Noah’s Ark, the parting of the Red Sea, etc. — I was the one who called them tall tales. As for the history we were force-fed, no way could I swallow yarns about the Pilgrims and Native Americans joining together for a first Thanksgiving, or John Washington innocently admitting, “I cannot tell a lie.”
Due to the suffering throughout the world, I was also the voice of dissent in conversations about an all-knowing supreme entity, or some putative master plan.
That made concepts such as “destiny,” or “fate,” hard for me to swallow.
Yet years later, reflecting on my enduring involvement with the French family that embraced me, I had trouble viewing all the unlikely coincidences as either arbitrary or random.
Even more difficult was attributing our shared history to luck.
My first sighting of two of the people who would help shape my future came when I stepped on-board the S.S. France. Having purchased an expiring ticket for less than the price of a cheap flight, I was accompanied onto the ship by my mother, father, sister, brother, and grandmother. Spotting a striking, and certainly French, young woman standing with a distinguished-looking older man, I had a pang of jealousy that was interrupted only when my mother, embarrassingly, pointed out a lifeboat. “For safety’s sake,” she declared, “wander around and find as many as you can so you’ll always know where they are in case of emergency.”
I humored her with a nod, then hastened to stash my luggage so as to begin the voyage that I hoped, figuratively as well as literally, would take me from the New Jersey of my childhood to Paris. At last the family farewells culminated with one final piece of advice: “Ask for the first sitting at dinner,” my mother counseled, “so you can get a good night’s sleep.”
Filled with the raging hormones of a twenty-year-old, a good night’s sleep held less appeal than a root canal. Wasting no time, I joined the line for dinner assignments. “Early sitting or late?” I was asked. “Late,” I replied, handing over as much of a tip as I could afford. “Preferably, with females.”
Miraculously, the table to which I was assigned was a veritable harem — Hanna from Austria, Emma from England, Lulu from Denmark, and Gunilla from Sweden — each one bright, bubbly, and to someone from industrial New Jersey, wonderfully exotic. Even more astonishing, the woman who took the seat immediately to my right was the vision I’d spotted upon arriving: Marie-Christine, returning home to Paris.
“What are you thinking?” Marie-Christine asked when she saw me shaking my head.
“It’s silly.”
“Tell me.”
“My friends would never believe this!”
While all my new table mates proved to be charming, it was Marie-Christine who dazzled me. Though I was excited to learn that she had spent June, July, and August doing summer stock in New England — an experience that convinced her acting was not the profession for her — it was something else that made me even happier. Instead of being a romantic interest, the older man who had seen Marie-Christine off was her stepfather, a Paris-based American who had been in New York on business.
When queried by Marie-Christine about why I was Paris-bound, I explained that after two years of college I had managed to talk my way into writing the Paris section of a travel guide for the youth market to be published by Simon & Schuster. In addition to having a mandate to do everything imaginable, plus a modest expense account, I further justified my adventure by arranging to enroll at the Sorbonne.
It was thanks to Marie-Christine, more than any classroom, that my immersion in French language and culture became successful. Playfully accusing me of speaking French like une vache espagnole — a Spanish cow — she insisted that I avoid English whenever we were together. Additionally, during meal after meal on-board the ship, she persuaded someone accustomed to the pastrami sandwiches, sausage-and-pepper subs, and pizzas of New Jersey to sample vol-au-vent au poulet, rillettes de canard, and entrecôte a la bordelaise, plus cheeses such as camembert, reblochon, cantal, and chevre. For even greater impact, Marie-Christine insisted that the movies we watched together on the ship — among them A Man And A Woman be exclusively French.
Having found a maid’s room in a six-floor Parisian walk-up, I quickly recognized that despite my head-first leap into French culture, one part of me remained indelibly American. With no shower in the communal bathroom at the end of the hall, I wanted no part of a bathtub used sporadically by my neighbors.
Armed with a newly acquired student card, I went to the Paris University Sports Complex with the hope of joining the basketball team. Informed that there were only two spots for foreigners, and both were taken by guys well over 6’5”, I asked about other possibilities. Not sufficiently skilled in golf, tennis, soccer, rugby, or the other sports suggested, I shrugged. “Nothing else?” I mustered in French. “Only if you are a boxer,” was the disdainful response. “Oui, oui, oui,” I responded, having spent time in the ring at the local Police Athletic League. That meant that in addition to being entitled to a swim and a shower six days a week, I, who at that point knew no one in Paris other than Marie-Christine, quickly acquired fifteen teammates who soon became friends. Plus boxing provided an extra incentive to become proficient in French, so as not to get hurt.
Upon learning that a stenographer would be present at every Sorbonne lecture hall, which meant that notes would be sold at the end of the school year (which unlike the U.S. meant no semesters), I rarely bothered to make an appearance. Instead I spent time exploring my new city. That translated not merely to museums and tourist attractions, but also restaurants, bars, cafes, and clubs, as well as parks, racetracks, revival cinemas, galleries, and everything else I could think of. What I made a point of avoiding, however, were the Saturday morning American softball games in the Bois de Boulogne, plus the cafes and clubs catering to people in Ivy League sweatshirts. And only for the sports scores did I occasionally read the International Herald Tribune.
Because one of my pitches to Simon & Schuster was a section I called “For Your Rich Aunt Or Uncle” — in case a visiting relative said “Pick a special place for dinner” — periodically I ventured into a four-star restaurant. On my first such foray, though accompanied by Marie-Christine, I was treated exactly like what I was: a young American with a limited command of French. The two of us were seated near the bathrooms, condescended to, and overcharged for wine. To avoid a repeat, I began showing up at high-end places near the end of lunch, then displaying my credentials. Arriving for dinner, if high-ranking politicians — or even Catherine Deneuve or Belmondo — were waiting to be seated, I, together with my date, was instantly led to a prime table. More often than not, we even wound up being comped.
At times my explorations were solo, as when I stumbled upon a small club called Aux Trois Mailletz, where between sets I wound up having drinks with the expat Bluesman known as Memphis Slim. During the months that followed, the two of us became friends, to the point where when he saw me arrive, Slim would segue from whatever he was playing to “If You See Kay, Tell Her That I’m Not Around.” Both of us would laugh, and so would another American who also became a friend, a singer named Mae Mercer. Mae had no idea how prescient she was when, late one evening, she predicted that much of my professional life would revolve around music. If only she could have somehow seen my involvement with people like Ray Charles and Solomon Burke, or the music-based documentaries I made years later.
Many times, though, I was accompanied by Marie-Christine. If she was busy, I would occasionally reach out to her brother, especially when a destination was in a questionable neighborhood.
Still, I had no way of knowing that their mother and stepfather were part of what was known as Le Tout–Paris until I first attended a soiree at their apartment overlooking the Seine. After a conversation with an older man with a twinkle in his eye, I asked Marie-Christine who he was. Edgar Morin, she explained, was a Nobel Laureate in Sociology.
Marie-Christine was surprised that I started laughing. “What’s so funny?” she asked.
“What am I doing here?”
“Ne t’inquietes pas,” Marie-Christine assured me. “You belong.”
At the next gathering, I was stunned to learn I’d been speaking with yet another Nobel winner: Jacques Monod, Laureate in Biology.
A month later, the friendly American with whom I had a chat proved to be none other than James Baldwin.
A couple of weeks after that, it was Francoise Gilot, author of My Life With Picasso.
In more ways than one, I was far, far, far from New Jersey.
Over ice cream one afternoon at Berthillon on Ile de la Cité, I finally asked Marie-Christine how it was that her mother and stepfather moved in such rarefied circles. “John works for the Congress For Cultural Freedom,” she explained, “which among other things publishes a magazine called Encounter. His job is to interact with writers, artists, and intellectuals. Plus there’s the Chantal factor,” Marie-Christine added, referring to her mother.
“Which means?” I asked.
“Anyone John doesn’t know, you can be certain she does.”
It was on a Christmas trip to an ancient walled village outside of Saint-Tropez called Ramatuelle, where Chantal and John were among the first Parisians to own a vacation home, that I got to know Chantal as more than Marie-Christine’s mom.
Always the first two people to awaken each morning, she and I would chat over yogurt, fruit, baguettes, and tea. I was beyond flattered that Chantal, the most interesting and stylish woman I’d ever encountered, wanted to know about my plans for the future. Timidly, I revealed that my dream, however preposterous given my background, was to direct films.
In contrast to my own parents, who had campaigned since I was in utero for me to become a doctor, lawyer, or at the very least a dentist, Chantal was delighted. “Tu vas y arriver,” she insisted. “You’ll get there.”
During another early morning conversation, I was stunned to learn that Chantal hadn’t always been the sophisticate I’d come to know. Born into a bourgeois family in Lyon, she knew little about Parisian life before marrying an accountant and moving there with him to start a family. When their kids were still young — Marie-Christine three, Didier not quite two — circumstances changed abruptly when her husband was killed in a car accident. Though her initial impulse was to flee with her two young children, something made Chantal resist. A series of tempestuous affairs with the kind of men previously unfamiliar to her — a songwriter, a book editor, a painter, then an actor — gave her entree to a world that quickly became her own.
“If I can evolve,” Chantal assured me, “so can you.”
Amused by my ever-increasing bond with Chantal, Marie-Christine playfully accused me of preferring her mother to her. “Not entirely true,” I teased in response.
“Alors dis-moi,” Marie-Christine then said, “is your family very different than ours?”
“Are you kidding?”
“In what way?”
“Let’s start with dinner. With your family, there’s no suspense.”
“What kind of suspense?”
“When the screaming will start. In your family, people actually get along.”
“Isn’t that the way it is supposed to be?” wondered Marie-Christine.
I nodded. “Plus Chantal and John seem to like each other,” I added, even though Marie-Christine’s stepfather remained somewhat mysterious.
Buoyed by Chantal’s pep talk, I took advantage of Paris being a film mecca by spending more and more time in the city’s myriad revival houses and Cinematheques. Often that meant American classics by Orson Welles, Howard Hawks, or Buster Keaton. Other times, Children Of Paradise, Le Doulos, or Pierrot Le Fou. Or Yojimbo, The Seventh Seal, or a Fellini.
Discovering that a boxing friend named Paul Martin owned a 16 millimeter camera, I decided to try my hand at a short film. For a couple of weeks I labored over a two-character script without dialogue in which two young people miss the last subway and have to make their way across nighttime Paris on foot. Determined to follow the New Wave by using available light, I recruited Marie-Christine and Didier as actors, while Paul handled the camera.
Though others reacted well to the eight-minute film that resulted, to which I added music by Erik Satie, most encouraging were the responses from Marie-Christine’s mother and stepfather. Chantal was effusive, promising me that my talent would lead wonderful things. Even enigmatic John Hunt dropped his customary reserve. “Well done,” he exclaimed. “Well done indeed.”
All too aware that the school year — and my Simon & Schuster assignment — would soon end, I canceled an Easter trip to Italy to spend time in Ramatuelle with the family with whom I felt more comfortable, and far more appreciated, than with my own.
Yet though John Hunt was gracious and welcoming, there remained a distance between us that didn’t exist with Marie-Christine, Didier, or Chantal.
Thanks to the lecture notes I purchased, plus my increased command of French, I passed my oral exams, then relinquished my maid’s room. Stowing my belongings at Paul Martin’s place, I flew by student charter for ten days in Scandinavia.
Then it was back to Paris for a stopover before hopping a train for one last taste of Ramatuelle. There, Marie-Christine and I wrestled with the painful reality that, at least for the immediate future, our time together was ending.
Each of us recognized that with no immediate prospects of employment, and no desire to put our dreams on hold — Marie-Christine as a journalist, me as a filmmaker — a shared life, if it was to happen, would have to wait.
With difficulty, I flew back to the States, not knowing when I would see my favorite people again.
Even with frequent excursions to Manhattan, my return to New Jersey seemed grim. While taking courses to finish my degree — and, before cell phones and the internet, corresponding with Marie-Christine by airmail — I planned my next escape. As soon as possible, I would be Hollywood bound.
That became more of a reality when my editor at Simon & Schuster called to offer an assignment on a follow-up travel guide, one focusing on the US rather than European capitals. Instead of accepting the chapter on New York, I begged my way into covering Los Angeles, thereby partially subsidizing my move west.
Once more in a strange land where I knew no one, I was stunned when a postcard arrived. Forwarded first from my college residence, then from my parents’ address, it brought news that seemed miraculous. Marie-Christine and her family had relocated near San Diego in La Jolla. If ever I made his way to California, she wrote, it would be great to see me again.
I took off that Friday for the first of many trips down that way.
Upon reaching La Jolla, two realizations quickly became apparent. First, though our feelings remained as strong as ever, the ardor Marie-Christine and I once shared had evolved into a different kind of affection. Instead of lovers, we were closer to brother and sister. Even more startling, Marie-Christine’s stepfather had taken a job running the Salk Institute because of a bombshell revelation: the Congress For Cultural Freedom had been secretly financed by the CIA.
“Was John –” I started to ask.
“Aware?” Marie-Christine interjected.
“Or actually CIA?”
“J’en sais rien,” responded Marie-Christine. “I have no idea.”
Soon, Chantal and John began hosting soirees similar to those I attended in Paris. As before, I found myself in head-spinning company. Jonas Salk was usually there. So was Jacob Bronowski, the author of The Ascent Of Man. Plus Austryn Wainhouse, translator of Marquis de Sade. Even more exciting, and far more approachable, was the philosopher Herbert Marcuse, usually accompanied by his protege, Angela Davis.
Seeing my head spinning, Marie-Christine wandered toward me. “Je sais ce que tu pense,” she said in French. “I know what you’re thinking.”
“What am I doing here?” I said with a laugh.
“Etant un membre de la famille,” she said definitively. “Being a member of the family.”
The resemblance to the evenings in Paris became even more striking when John arranged to bring two Visiting Scholars from Paris: Edgar Morin, together with his French-Canadian model-actress wife, plus Jacques Monod.
Late one Saturday night, while Marie-Christine and Didier were trundling off to bed, I was surprised when John approached. “Tired?” he asked me.
“Not really.”
“Then let’s open the Cognac that Edgar brought.”
Though never before, not in Paris nor in Ramatuelle, had we spoken at length, we started out discussing everything from books, film, and politics to favorite Parisian wine bistros, before venturing into what each of us expected the future to be. Even more surprising, John began recounting the unlikely journey of his life. A distant descendant of Buffalo Bill Cody, he was sent at a young age from his native Oklahoma to a prep school in New England, only to drop out midway through his senior year to enlist in the Marines. After serving, he managed to talk his way into Harvard without a high school degree, then embarked upon what he assumed would be his calling: teaching English at a private school in Massachusetts.
Married with two kids, John found himself waking up every night in a cold sweat. In a “now or never” moment, he announced to his wife that to keep from going crazy, it was time to drop everything and move to Paris. That went from far-fetched to possible when, thanks to a college friend, he was offered a position there at the Congress For Cultural Freedom.
Not quite three years later, his wife, who never fully accepted or adjusted to life in Paris, issued an ultimatum: either they as a family immediately return to the States, or she would take the children without him. John promptly filed for divorce
Alone in Paris, John fell into a funk that ended only when his secretary caught pneumonia. Her temporary fill-in, Chantal, proved to be someone who changed John’s life in ways he never dreamed possible.
Given his customary reticence, John’s sudden openness astonished me. But it ceased abruptly when I asked about the revelations regarding the CIA. “Let’s save that for another time,” John stated. “But I’ve got a present for you.”
The gift was an advanced copy of an autobiographical novel called Generations Of Men that John had written based on three men born in Oklahoma: his grandfather, his father, and himself.
I dove into the book the moment I returned to L.A.
Though over the months that followed John and I had several other late night chats — including one after party in which Francoise Gilot, who’d been lured from Paris, was successfully fixed up with Jonas Salk — my attempts to learn about John’s involvement with the CIA continued to go nowhere.
A year-and-a-half later, Marie-Christine called to say that John had accepted a job at a Manhattan-based think tank, which meant that the entire family would be leaving California.
Again I was left wondering when I would see them again.
Though still no closer to my goal of directing, I got a career boost when I sold a largely autobiographical script about growing up white in a Black neighborhood in New Jersey. That led to a series of assignments. First came a rewrite on a comedy. Next, an adaptation of an adventure yarn. Then finally one that thrilled me: the true story of a Harlem playground basketball legend.
Chosen largely because I was the only one in the film community who had actually seen Earl Manigault play, I nevertheless requested two research trips to New York. The first was to wander the streets of Harlem together with Earl. The second to interview several of Earl’s contemporaries. On each visit I managed not merely to rendezvous with Marie-Christine, who was staying in Greenwich Village with our mutual friend Claude Picasso, but also to enjoy a meal with Chantal and John.
Despite having done considerable research about the Congress For Cultural Freedom and its ties to the CIA, my questions continued to be deflected.
“We’ll get to all that,” John promised. “When the time is right.”
Once more I was left to wonder if that time would ever come.
Two years later, Marie-Christine and her family returned to France, she and Didier to Paris, Chantal and John to a medieval village near Avignon called Uzes.
More unsure than ever when I might possibly see them again, I was approached about a potential rewrite on a film that the producer called “a psychological thriller.” After forcing my way through the amateurish script, I explained that what I read was neither psychological nor thrilling. Asked how it could be saved, I suggested that instead of focusing on the killer, the protagonist should be the father of a girl who was murdered in the same way several years before. Also, I would change the gender of the FBI agent. “Why?” wondered the producer. “To create a love interest.”
As I continued to make suggestions, the producer interrupted me. “When can you start?”
Instead of answering, I inquired about the budget. Told it would be a cheapie, I tried to end the conversation, saying, “Thanks but no thanks.”
“But your ideas are great,” the producer insisted.
“Take ’em,” I stated. “They’re yours.”
“C’mon,” he begged. “What’ll it take to get you to say yes?”
“I’ll coin a phrase,” I joked. “Let me direct.”
“Why you?” demanded the producer.
“Because if you hire a guy who works at that scale, midway through production he’ll be hustling for his next job. Whereas I’d fight like hell to make it my calling card.”
Later that day, I was hired.
Due to the rigors of pre-production, filming, then post-production, close to a year went by before the re-conceived thriller was released. Then came a call from the Directors Guild, asking if it was true that I spoke fluent French. That yielded an invitation to serve as a mentor during a program in Brittany for aspiring French writer-directors.
After a week in Saint-Malo, I headed to Paris, where I had dinner with Marie-Christine and Didier. The next morning, I boarded a high-speed train to Avignon, where Chantal picked me up.
Though my stay was delightful, and Uzes beyond picturesque, my quest to learn more about John’s involvement with CIA went nowhere. “We’ll get to it,” John again assured me. “When the time is right.”
Thanks to the advent first of Skype, then of Facetime, communications with my French friends became easier and far more frequent as the years went by.
Though I was often asked when I might return to France, it wasn’t until after I was married and had a kid on the way that such a trip became possible. Inspired by my youthful experiences in France, I wrote a largely autobiographical script that attracted a French producer.
That led to serious location scouting. In Paris, I made time for a dinner with Marie-Christine and Didier, who did their best to prepare me for an excursion to see Chantal and John, who had relocated to Lyon. John’s disinterest in money, Marie-Christine explained, coupled with a series of bad investments, meant that their standard of living had fallen precipitously. Worse, Didier warned, John was in bad shape, which meant that Chantal had gone from wife to caretaker.
Still, I was both shocked and saddened to see two people who meant so much to me looking frail and diminished. Chantal, as I’d been warned, seemed not just older, but exhausted. John’s decline was even more dramatic, alternating between being a pale version of himself and a lost soul.
Seizing a lucid moment, I once again asked about the Congress For Cultural Freedom, Instantly, John tensed “I know I’ve promised,” he managed to utter, “but I’m going upstairs to lie down”
“John,” Chantal reminded him gently, “there is no upstairs.”
I watched as she walked her bewildered husband to their bedroom.
“I’m sorry,” Chantal said when she returned.
“What can I do to help?” I replied.
“Promise you’ll come see us again.”
I returned to Lyon on my next trip, only to find that John’s moments of lucidity were even less frequent. Worse, his command of French had vanished, and he mistakenly believed he was in New York,
Only after Chantal led John to the bedroom to rest after lunch did she acknowledge that he had indeed worked for the CIA. In fact, she added, John was ordered not to marry her, due to her artistic ties, which in their eyes were far too left-wing. “John refused,” Chantal stated proudly.
As for details about the CIA, the Congress For Cultural Freedom, and whether John had ever been a real spook, that information, Chantal stated, could only come from him.
Once filming was completed, I flew to California to spend a week with my wife and son. While there, I received the call I’d been dreading. Her stepfather, Marie-Christine informed me, had died of a heart failure.
That meant that enigmatic John, who had allowed me into his world, but only so far, would forever remain mysterious.
Two days later, as I was headed to the airport to catch another flight to Paris, Marie-Christine called again. Bereft without John, Chantal had passed away in her sleep.
“I feel so bad for you,” I said to Marie-Christine.
“Toi aussi,” replied Marie-Christine. “Tu fais partie de la famille.”
Despite my sadness, in the weeks, months, and years that followed, I found myself taking solace in the fact that, as Marie-Christine reminded me, I was considered a member of the family that meant so much to me.
Alan Swyer is an award-winning filmmaker whose recent documentaries have dealt with Eastern spirituality in the Western world, the criminal justice system, diabetes, boxing, and singer Billy Vera, plus a new one, When Houston Had The Blues. In the realm of music, among his productions is an album of Ray Charles love songs. His novel The Beard was recently published by Harvard Square Editions.
