I’m sure there is some sort of Universal Karmic connection between my children’s behavior and the long history of border disputes between France and Germany. Just hear me out.
We made another jaunt over the border into France this weekend. (I’ll write more about that soon.) We live less than an hour’s drive from the border…but the border wasn’t always the border. In fact, given the history of the French-German border, I think they should just call it the Sorta-Borda, because (if history is any predictor) it will be shifting again any decade now. It’s like the San Andreas Fault in California—once the pressure builds, it will shift. It’s like my kids that way too…but more on that later.
About the “borderlands” of Germany and France: I recall some long-ago history class lecture about the Alsace-Lorraine region of France being passed back and forth between German and French hands over the centuries. The cuisine, town names, and architecture make this blatantly obvious.
But I’ve only just learned that this geographic game of “hot potato” has continued into the 1900’s, and included some areas of the Rhineland-Saarland in Germany. In the 1870’s, the French lost much of the Alsace region—as far in as Metz—to the Germans, and it wasn’t returned again until 1918. On the flip side, my husband tells me that parts of the present-day German Saarland were only “re-Germanated” in the 1950’s.
About Snarky Siblings: This historical perspective makes me feel a little better about the “border disputes” that have been going on in our family since we moved into our Scooby Doo castle-house—we seem to be stuck in the “Hassle in the Castle” episode. The kids are constantly arguing about which room is better, who gets which room, who then lays claim to the room that falls between the two rooms, who gets dibs on the top floor of the house, etc.
Holy Crum! I think we are heir to two legacies here—the teen/preteen gimmees, and the French/German borderland disputes. That equals “land-grab squared,” and it ain’t pretty. Whatever developmental/hormonal forces are at play with my kids are ramped up by some sort of historical/geographic energy field that is beyond our control.
That’s how it seems… and it makes for the better story. Who’s to say that it’s not true? With a little parental intervention, our in-house border disputes seem to be slowly working themselves out. Let’s hope they hold more firm than their European historical precedents.
You have to draw a line somewhere, right? And we’re a funny species…we draw lines everywhere. But lines, once drawn, just ache to be crossed. I’m not excusing this conduct, I’m just saying it seems to be a pattern of human behavior, or human misbehavior anyway.
So when you build a massive defensive fortification on your country’s border–though it may be a project of mind-boggling innovation and preparation, though it may seem impenetrable–well, it just seems like pressing your luck to call it The Maginot Line. You are just begging for trouble.
But, of course, no one had to go begging for trouble in Europe in the late 1930’s. Trouble sat on your doorstep with a capital T. And I’m sure all of France slept better at night knowing that the Maginot Line held its eastern border safe when the Third Reich escalated its rumblings in Germany. Slept. . . until the rumblings got louder and louder. Until countries to the east fell: Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland. Then the north: Norway, Denmark. The border: Belgium. Until the line did not hold.
For the most part, our local expeditions these first two weeks in Germany have been uncomplicated: vintage car shows and pastry shops. . . and more pastry shops. Mindless, sleek, or sugar-and-cream-filled offered a nice counterpoint to the stress of the frantic first two weeks: jet lag, radical re-orientation, frantic house hunting, and a litany of drivers’ tests, briefings, and meetings. But as life is beginning (just beginning) to normalize, it seemed time to pull our heads out of their eclair-induced stupors and really SEE something. And the first something that we really ventured out to see was pretty heavy stuff–perhaps not so much as a statement of gravitas on our part, but just owing to proximity and rainy weather.
We ventured just over the French border to Simserhof, to tour a fabulously intact section of the Maginot Line: a series of unfathomably huge underground fortifications that were built to defend the French border from the sort of threat that had manifest itself in the nightmarish realities of World War I.
A tunnel into the living and working areas underground at the Maginot’s Simserhof location.
For all of the brilliance of these fortifications–and they are truly amazing–the battle that arrived at their doors was not the First World War’s long drawn out trench warfare, but some new beast. Where “the line” was static and uber-hardened, the blitzkrieg was fast, arguably precise, and offered an element of surprise. And surprises abounded: many thought the Ardennes Forest of Belgium was impassable to German tanks. Mistake. The Ardennes proved passable, and because of the break in Maginot line (it did not run along the border of Belgium), the Germans simply came around the fortifications.
It doesn’t pay to judge: hindsight is always 20/20. But foresight is harder won. (It’s true in our national foibles, and it’s true in our individual lives. Personally, I’m questioning the decision to buy an entire box of eclairs at Cora Market in France–it’s calling to me as I drink my morning latte and just begging to be polished off before lunchtime. Ouch.)
I wish I had taken more photos inside the facility, as it was fascinating and extravagant— not in it’s lavish interior (the interior was austere) but in the audacity of its scale and hopefulness. It is like a military base built underground–with weapons and munitions, electrical generators, a “trolley system,” a filtration system for gas attack defense, multiple levels and elevators, chow halls and a modern (for its time) kitchen for officers, a pantry stocked with wine and cheese, bunk rooms, a state-of-the-art infirmary, etc. It was optimistic: after the hellacious First World War, this facility contained the hopes and promises of a secure border and a fighting force that could be effective from the shelter of a secure and dry “trench” stocked with coffee and wine, with relatively warm beds, with fresh air to breathe, full bellies, dry limbs, etc. It was a desirable set up, but flawed. War is a trickster and a shape shifter, and the Maginot Line was inflexible.
I didn’t take more photos because my hands were shoved into my pockets and shaking. This underground facility is very cold! Our walking tour lasted maybe an hour, and the chill had plenty of time to seep into my bones. If one hour of subterannean life and lack of sun can do this to you, what would it be like to be underground for months on end, even without a battle raging above and around you? Mmm, I shudder just thinking about it.
It’s a somber subject, but a fascinating place to visit. Simserfhof is located in Northeastern France, near Bitche (yes, Bitche) just over the border with Germany. Bitche offers it’s own sights to see–most notably its citadel on a hill. It was too rainy for us to tour the Citadel yesterday, but we drove through the town on our meandering way back home, and were delighted to see the following art above one of the town’s squares. A little levity was just what we needed as we left the Maginot Line and planned our own attack on the pastry counter of the Cora Market.
Jinkies! We’ve just rented a Scooby Doo house! It’s big, beautiful, and spooky looking on the outside. It’s charmingly ivy-strewn. (Is there a synonym for “strewn” that also implies overgrown?) The floorboards are definitely creaky. The staircase is winding and fits just inside an exterior wall that looks like a castle turret from the outside. The overall effect: it looks and sounds like a little red stone castle.
Maybe this sounds awkward and gaudy, but it’s not–just a cool, old house. It was built around 1900, and it’s a timeless beauty. (The bathrooms, on the other hand, are most definitely dated.)
The kitchen is the size of a postage stamp (a large postage stamp, thank you), but Dorie Greenspan (she of the Bon Appetit and cookbook fame) also works in a tiny kitchen, so let’s call this chic. Cozy and European? Petite and inspired? Okay, just petite. But the dining room, my friends, is spacious and gracious.
It’s hard to give you the full effect without a photo. I wanted to post a photo, but my kids have reminded me that we we have a rule: don’t go online and tell people where you live. There will be hell to pay if I break a rule that my kids have very responsibly upheld. So no photos for now. But mark your calendars: Halloween party at my house this year! We provide the Scooby snacks.
Aaahhh, it feels good to exhale and inhale again. Deeply, fully. We’re finally here in Germany. Dogs travelled well. We’ve found a house. We still have only the clothes and backpacks on our backs, but the day is coming when we’ll settle, and so I find myself actually breathing again. For, possibly, the first time in months.
But here’s the rub: I want to relax and enjoy, but not settle too much. The word settle is funny and a little unnerving to me–I get this visual image of fish food sinking down to the bottom of the tank. Then just lying there until it decays or gets gobbled up. Ewww. That’s not the objective here.
I love the fact that launching yourself into a new life and a new culture gives you fresh eyes, and does so often catch at your breath. It may be unnerving sometimes, but being a little off balance is heady stuff–an adrenaline rush. It’s fun!
I won’t deny it–it’s a relief to breathe again. But I’m pasting a photo below of one of the many moments today when my breath stopped and my heart skipped a beat. We’re in Europe! And that’s worth a few missed breaths.
No doubt about it–I hope the currents will allow me to waft around a bit in this life before I settle.
This blog is about to experience radio silence for a number of days while my husband and I pack a car with 2 dogs, 2 children, and too many suitcases and motor our way out of the deep South and up to the DC/Baltimore area to catch our plane. It will be a venture worthy of a John Candy and Steve Martin movie. . . Although, in my head, I see it playing out more like a Keystone Cops chase reel: frantic, flustered, hysterically funny but sometimes painful to watch, and all taking place at choppy double-time speed, accompanied by a warbling gin-joint soundtrack. (If you need the visual, it goes something like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKmpHvOzlxE )
Feel free to fill in the details of this misshapen trip in your own imagination. Once we set up camp on the other end, I’ll send up a smoke signal.
Travels and Tomes: One Expat's Amblings and Ramblings 