Luncheon of the Boating Party (54 page)

The slalom of the narrow
as,
the most precarious, was a highlight second only to the jousts. At the last minute, Paul signed up.

“You’re crazy,” Pierre said.

“I’m feeling lucky.”

“Have you ever paddled an
as
?” Pierre asked.

“No. How difficult can it be? Just dig and drag, left right left?”

“Ha! You’ll see,” Alphonsine said. “Just don’t lean.”

All the boats bore a racing name for the day. Guy’s was
Le Barbare
Joyeux,
and he did look like a jolly barbarian with that outrageous mustache, and that small tongue of a beard below his lower lip. One was
Double Pression, Tapped Beer,
and Tomahawk’s was
Le Jupon Léger, The
Loose Petticoat.
Le Hook’s was called
Quel Chahut, What an Uproar,
referring to the dance. Paul’s was
La Verseuse, The Coffeepot,
the kind with the side handle, liable to overturn.

“Oh, bad luck for him,” Pierre said.

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“Brave
canotiers,
” Gustave shouted. “Take your numbers.”

Two boats competed side by side in each race. The gunshot cracked.

“And they’re off, ladies and gentlemen, galloping nose to nose,”

Raoul shouted.

“This isn’t a horse race, Raoul,” Alphonsine said.

“No, lady, but it is a competition,” he replied. “Who better than me to announce it?” He pretended to hold a megaphone. “Curving to the right, left, right, like snakes slicing the water.”

She and Aline laughed. He was swaying back and forth to the

rhythm of his announcing.

“As close as they can get to the markers. Tomahawk in
The Loose
Petticoat
leads by a nose, holds her lead on the turnaround.
Tapped
Beer
scrambles at the turn. Tips. Rights herself. Presses on. It’s
Loose
Petticoat
by a chin, a neck.
Loose Petticoat
holds the lead for three more turns, two, one—and it’s
Loose Petticoat
by a neck, the winner in race one, and Tomahawk is one step closer to being the champion in the painting.”

“Ugh!” Auguste groaned. “A neckless pile of hay smack in the middle of my painting.”

“Race two,” Gustave announced. “
The Coffeepot
versus
What an Uproar
. Take your mark.”

This was Paul’s race so they all cheered for him, but he had trouble keeping his prow straight even in the setup.

“It doesn’t look good,” Pierre said.

“Le Hook in
What an Uproar
shoots off,” Raoul shouted. “He stays close to the course. Paul in
The Coffeepot
swings wide, passes the fi rst buoy, swings left, passes the second.
Uproar
pulls ahead.
The Coffeepot
oversteers, grazes the buoy, tips, rights itself. Paul’s still in, still in, friends.

Oops! No, yes, he’s still in but wobbling.
The Coffeepot
approaches the turnaround, tries a tight turn.
The Coffeepot
tips. The brave
canotier
digs in his paddle, too hard. He tips the other way.
The Coffeepot
pours him head first into the river.
What an Uproar
wins by default.”

“Oh, no!” shouted Aline. “Does he know how to swim?”

Raoul continued. “A yole is dispatched to retrieve the unlucky
canotier.
He refuses the offered oar. He swims, ladies and gentlemen, swims

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to the bank and climbs up, red-faced and grinning. Grinning, ladies and gentlemen!”

Paul came to the table shaking off water. “I was just getting the hang of it.”

“Be glad you’re better with the sword than the paddle!” Pierre said.

Such a man, this fellow Paul, Alphonsine thought. He didn’t brood over what might have happened in the duel. He threw himself into life again.

Guy was next in
Le Barbare Joyeux.
He skimmed each buoy neatly, pulled ahead, danced arabesques on the water. “
The Joyous Barbarian
wins his race, but that’s not all, ladies and gentlemen,” Raoul said. “The finals are yet to come, pitting the three winners against each other.”

Tomahawk won against Le Hook, and in the final race, Tomahawk

kept Guy a half-length behind on the upstream. Auguste groaned miserably the whole time, but Tomahawk swung too wide and Guy paddled like a maniac and won. Adding his points from all races, he took the championship. On the platform, Papa anointed
The Joyous Barbarian
with the Rowers Championship Cup,
Coupe du championnat des rameurs,
and “a chance to appear in the championship painting,
Les canotiers de la
Maison Fournaise!
” and the band played “La Marseillaise.”

Alphonsine and Auguste looked at each other. “Well, it could have been Tomahawk,” he said.

Alphonse’s big jousting event,
les joutes à la lance,
was next.

“If he doesn’t win,” Alphonsine murmured, “he’ll feel he let Papa down. And they’ll both be raving mad that he spent Sundays posing instead of practicing.”

“A fine thing to tell me now,” Auguste said.

Teams of eight rowers, one helmsman, and one jouster were dressed in white with either blue or red sashes. Wearing canvas shoes with rubber soles, the jousters strapped on their padded shields and took up their three-meter lances equipped with flat leather discs at the forward end.

The two heavy wooden barques, the red and the blue, were waiting at the barge, each one having a
tintaine
at the stern, a raised platform two meters above the water where the jousters would stand. Uncle Titi ferried the teams to the barge so they could hear Gustave announce the rules.

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Papa stood on the dock, and Maman came out to stand beside Al-

phonsine.

“Alphonse is worried about Hugo,” Maman said.

“I can understand why,” Pierre said. “He’s bigger than Alphonse.”

“You can write an article,” Paul said to Antonio, “for your journal in Milan.”

“Good idea. This will be entirely new to them.”

“Jouteurs sur les tintaines,”
the master of the jousts called, and the fi rst two teams, from Bezons and Bougival, stepped into each boat and the jousters mounted the platforms.

“You can write that for more than a century,” Paul said, “the sons of the lance have observed the same ritual, adapted from medieval tourna-ments.”

“I see. The horse replaced by the barque, the field by the river,” Antonio said.

“But the ardor, the bravery, and the challenge remain the same,” Paul said. “This keeps alive
le patrimoine,
our national cultural heritage.”

Far enough apart to build up speed, at the trumpet’s blare, the rowers bent to their oars like machines, and the water churned behind them.

“It looks like they’ll ram each other,” Antonio said.

“Yes, sometimes that happens,” Pierre said matter-of-factly.

A thud, and one jouster was shoved, but he kept his stance. The barques were rowed to the opposite starting marks and charged toward each other again. In a powerful blow, the jouster from Bougival was thrown back and tumbled into the water. Cymbals crashed, tambou-rines rattled.

“Now what happens?” Antonio asked.

“Two new teams take their places,” Paul said.

Croissy with Hugo the Bull on the
tintaine
beat Petit Gennevilliers.

Argenteuil and Chatou were next.

“Alphonse is up against Jacques the Red,” Alphonsine said. “He’s a vegetable farmer, a big show-off. It would be Alphonse’s worst humiliation to lose to him.”

The oarsmen plowed the water and
La Barque Rouge
got a quick start, but
La Barque Bleue
dug in and gained speed.

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Raoul took up the role of announcer again. “The best-known jouster, Alphonse Fournaise, nicknamed the Hippopotame, stands solidly on the
tintaine,
lance in the air, muscles taut, ready for the colossus in red. Rumor has it that Hippopotame has not been at practice. He’s been lounging on the terrace for weeks, posing for some painter. We’ll see whether he’s got what it takes to send this wiry farmer flying. First encounter, Jacques thrusts his lance and it grazes Alphonse’s shoulder. He tips, he rights himself. No score. Second encounter. Alphonse plows into Jacques’ stomach.

The man doubles up, remains standing. Third encounter, neither com-batant is willing to yield the
tintaine.
It appears to be an impasse. Bout four, and Jacques the Red breaks his lance against Fournaise’s shield.”

Alphonsine winced. Maman cried out. Alphonse was pushed back-

ward, but he thrust forward his arms. Bent-kneed, he righted himself.

“Five bouts,” Auguste said in amazement.

“Once more the master of the jousts bellows,
‘Allez-y!’
” Raoul was shouting now. “They meet. They clash. The blue lance pounds into the shield of the red-sashed jouster. He’s shoved backward. One leg lifts.

He teeters. He’s out of control. He’s
in
the water, ladies and gentlemen.

In
the water indeed.”

“Bravo à vous, Jouteur Bleu!”
Angèle sang out, which started a chant that spread along the bank. Even Maman yelled it.

The winning teams Bezons and Croissy fought, and the winner,

Croissy, remained to take on Chatou.

“This is the one he’s worried about,” Auguste said. “Hugo the Bull.

A bruiser and a fi ghter.”

Alphonsine held Maman’s hand.

“I hope he won’t get hurt.” Maman’s voice quavered.

“Oh hisse! Ho!”
The barques drove at each other, and the
Barque
Rouge
, skewed at an angle, rammed Alphonse’s boat. Alphonse was thrown off balance and fell to his knees, but he stayed on the
tintaine.

“Point against
Barque Rouge
,” Gustave declared.

“He’s tired. He wouldn’t have been knocked down otherwise,” Ma-

man said.

They heaved at each other again. Alphonse broke his lance against

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Hugo’s. He took up the spare for the next bout. Both of them delivered blows. Neither was unboated. On the fifth encounter Alphonse heaved forward his lance, perfectly timed, expertly aimed to strike Hugo’s shield off center, spinning him off balance and sending him fl ying. The splash drenched rowers of both teams.

Earsplitting cheers rent the air.
“Bravo à vous, Jouteur Bleu!”

“Nice try, fatty,” Pierre shouted.

The band played a fanfare, and Uncle Titi ferried Alphonse’s team ashore. Alphonse raised his lance over his head with one arm and held it aloft all the way to the dock. The crowd made way for him and slapped him on the back as he strode up to the platform, the lance still over his head. Papa, with chest puffed up like Alphonse’s, bellowed,

“True to old traditions, Chatou takes the honors of the day. Alphonse Fournaise is declared the champion!” He presented him with the
Coupe
du championnat des joutes à la lance
, and the band played “La Marseillaise” yet again.

Guy’s and Alphonse’s teammates and their friends together with the models took over the upper terrace for the victory champagne.

Alphonsine tugged at Auguste’s sleeve as they went upstairs. “Guy can decline and that would free you. I know the two of you aren’t on easy terms.”

He didn’t give her a clue to what he was thinking.

On a big silver tray on the table sat
la pièce montée
, an enormous mounded dessert awarded the winners every year, a boat of cream puffs, stuck together with caramel. Above it in almond
nougatine
was the sticky Arc de Triomphe, ordered from Paris. Guy got the first taste, Alphonse the second. Papa poured champagne amid general rowdiness.

“Now we have two champions in the painting,” Ellen said.

“And it’s painted by a champion painter of Chatou,” Papa said.

She felt her throat constrict. She tried to say to Guy with her eyes:
Refuse politely
. She had another solution.

“Tomorrow?” Auguste asked Guy.

“I’m a workingman during the week. It will have to be very early.”

“Fair enough.”

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Her mind tumbled and boiled.

They all settled down to enjoying the dessert.

A drunken
canotier
leapt onto the iron grille to the terrace, reached through the bars and lifted Ellen’s skirt. Gustave pulled her away and Alphonse hurled himself over the railing onto the rogue and carried him, flailing and throwing punches, to the bank and tossed him into the river to hoots of laughter from his teammates.

The small orchestra on the barge played Offenbach’s Barcarole again and people began to promenade along the bank. The music gentled the crowd as twilight approached. A second barge for dancing was towed to the middle of the river, and Uncle Titi ferried people back and forth.

Maman nudged Alphonsine in the small of her back. “Go and dance.”

She went downstairs and let Uncle Titi take her. Everyone was

changing partners. Alphonse was dancing with Ellen, and Angèle was with Raoul. She waltzed with Paul, with Antonio, and then with Raoul, lurching along. He was so gallant and had been so entertaining that she said she would cheer for him as well as for Gustave the next week at the sailing regatta. But it was Auguste she really wanted to dance with. She felt he owed it to her. A dance. What was a dance, after all? Lasting only a few minutes, a privacy of two in a swirling crowd, an opportunity for something to pass between them.

But no. He danced only with Aline. Alphonsine stood there with

hope, angry with herself for having that hope. Despite feeling so dis-pensable, she wanted him to come to her. She waited through a
gavotte,
but when people started a
chahut,
she stepped onto the launch to go back. At that moment frivolity didn’t suit her mood. As Titi ferried her back she watched each dancer imitating an animal. Kangaroos, gazelles, horses, cats all moved in a frenzy under the colored lanterns.