WHEN THE HEART OF DOWNTOWN HAD A SOUL
by Clotilde BERNADI-PRADAL
Yes! Toulouse was joyous, on this beautiful summer day in 1939 when we made our entrance into the Rose City. Admittedly, they had not displayed all the tricolor flags to celebrate our arrival: it did not matter, Toulouse had a festive air which impressed me because we had not experienced any kind of celebration for the last three years.
When I put my feet on Toulousian soil for the first time, it was in the middle of the afternoon on the sidewalk of the rue Saint-Jérôme, facing number 8. We could clearly hear the dance music that the orchestra was playing on the main plaza, Place du Capitole. Although the story of Bastille Day pertained to us too, we did not go dancing. At night we heard bells and it made me very sad.
Back then, the Saint Georges quarter had a soul we would discover little by little. Obviously, it was with merchants that we established relationships most easily. Despite the proximity of the first department stores, small shops abounded in this area, particularly along St. Jerome Street; they were picturesque and lively.
Mr. Salles bakery will remain unforgettable for those who partook: small, fragrant, and there was the warm hospitality of a man with a generous heart who would eventually be a brave resistant. On the right front wall, for the house was at an angle with Paul-Vidal Street, was a naïve painting representing a donkey on which was written: “Bien faire et laisser braire” (Do well and let them bray). It was a bit unusual for a bakery sign, but Mr. Salles must have had his reasons.
On the same sidewalk, a haberdashery run by a suspicious old lady was plainly anachronistic and gave off an unpleasant odor.
“Jean,” the barber, was jovial and talked politics, “holding court” with the aide of his wife, bleached blonde, opulent, helpful, cheerful, and wielding the razor with dexterity. Facing the arched windows of our two furnished rooms, was the plumber’s workshop which belonged to Mr. Aversencq, whose grey haired wife was a good simple woman with a certain timidity. I have a touching memory of the times when, taking me by the hand, she would make me go up into a quaint apartment to give me candy and even a few small glasses of prune spirit, without exchanging a word, using sweet gestures that warmed my heart.
It would take too long to talk about each of the many merchants. There were various grocery stores where I diligently practiced my deciphering of the advertising and commodity labels – butchers, a creamery, a wine merchant, a slightly chic pastry shop painted apple green, two laundromats exhibiting in their modest storefront windows crocheted lace placemats, impeccably starched and completely outdated.
There were also antique shops, small restaurants, clothing stores, and a stationery shop, “Chez Falandry”, where children hurried after school. And what else? A whole teeming world, living in harmony, to which was added every morning many hawkers who praised their goods with very distinct cries that reminded us a lot of our prewar Spain. The loud florist, posted at the corner of Rue Saint-Antoine-du-T, was offering pretty bouquets, while other merchants offered cooked cheeses and cereals, wandering endlessly through the streets where motor vehicles were extremely rare, as evidenced by the random set up of the upholsterer, or me, learning to ride a bike on a huge one built for men, donated by neighbors.
Around noon, the pathetic and tremulous voices of singers looking for tips, replaced the cries of merchants who were wrapping up. From those singers we heard the fashionable tunes without really understanding most of the lyrics. At night fall, it was the newspaper seller who animated the streets with her slightly discordant cries: “La Dépêche” 7 pm! “La Dépêche”! I understood “Ladepeceter”, and I often wondered what it meant. I can still see this woman in her navy blue pea coat, small, thin, wearing glasses under a cap where we could read in gold letters: “La Dépêche du Midi”. I handed money to her and she always flattered me with: Thank you, my little bunny, my little cabbage, and even sometimes, my little onion or my little lamb – I did not understand very well. These names seemed to me curious and fun. In Spain, I had often been called jewel, pearl, treasure, and even Queen. The order of values was definitely not the same in both countries, and out of the terms of endearment, I preferred by far those of the newspaper lady, feeling more comfortable in the skin of a rabbit than that of a queen.
Although I was schooled in Madrid in a pilot institution where French was taught as early as kindergarten, my knowledge of that language was in fact very limited. I knew how to say: “Le chat boit son lait dans le bol”, sing: “Quand trois poules s’en vont aux champs”, and not much more. So at first, I had a very hard time making myself understood.
One day, on my way to buy bread crumbs, out of logic I asked for powdered bread. Everyone laughed in the bakery, but they did give me bread crumbs. I was not as successful the time when, after having worked at length to say: “des œufs” (eggs), I finally decided to go ask them at the dairy, and returned home with … a can of salt. Every morning I went to get “la lait”1 (milk) and they would smile benevolently. My mistakes did not embarrass me, thankfully, and I persevered in studying French, being careful to avoid saying la berra, la porta, la carota like many of my compatriots.
The international political tension was becoming more and more intense. The war with Germany was imminent: everything was going to happen again …
The war broke out. The newspaper seller shouted the headlines with obvious pride, and we took interest with some lassitude.
December arrived. We were dazzled by all the stores’ flashy displays as the holidays approached. For the first time in our lives we bought and decorated a Christmas tree – in Spain, the Three Kings bring gifts on January 6th, and for us on that day was a great feast prepared with much love by mommy. Already, we were “francesizing” ourselves2.
For the small children, there were a few toys and books by the Comtesse de Segur, which I did not like. From the branches of the tree we hung many sparkling barley sugar candies, and tangerines. In the furnished bedroom, dark and cramped, it was a strange Christmas, where the happiness of finding ourselves together did not erase the sadness of exile and the anguish of disease. They were predicting a very cold winter and the sidewalks were covered with ice.
The Toulouse refugee committee had made available to some exiles a disused fire station, at 6 rue du Conservatoire. We moved into it at the beginning of 1940. Although the building was quite dilapidated, we were very glad to find there was a real apartment with a kitchen and windows overlooking the street. Most of the apartments, some very small, only gave onto rickety alleyways encircling two levels, two humid courtyards like a theatre. There, men and women struggled to regain a semblance of normal life, while keeping amazingly good humor, at least on the outside. This is explained twofold by the Spanish proverb that says: “Cuando el Español canta, o está triste o no tiene blanca “ (When the Spaniard sings, or he is sad or he has no dough.
The people of the “barracks” became popular in this old neighborhood where they were a novelty and intensified everyday life. The children went to the Center School where outstanding teachers like Mr. and Mrs. Fonvieille3, and Ms Cazaux welcomed them with solicitude. Despite the difficulties of language, many of these children, aided by the skills of their masters, were soon to be among the best students. It was the same for the few older students who were admitted to high school. Some of their teachers still remember them fondly.
Adults integrated differently. A doctor would convert into a math teacher, an engineer into a waiter, a journalist became an electrician, etc. An old teacher who once had F. G. Lorca as a pupil, did not hesitate to transform his tiny room into a shoemaker’s shop, where shoes were repaired quite well, although it was often the scene of exciting and endless games of chess.
In the evening, many had in their hearts to dress as well as possible and go to nearby Café des Américains. It had an orchestra and was presenting musical revues.
Were they looking for a Spanish atmosphere, or only the social gathering that would help them stay up into the late hours? Isolation, in misfortune as in joy, is intolerable to Spaniards.
For me, the borders of Toulouse were those of the Saint Georges quarter. I would never venture outside it. Sometimes my brothers and I would go stick our noses against the windows of a taxidermist or naturalist on rue du Rempart-Saint-Etienne, driven by the universal curiosity of all children for the animal world. On Place Lucas, they were making huge posters intended for the cinema’s marquee, announcing the films of the week. The sight of gigantic Tarzans, beautiful women, gangsters, wild beasts spray-painted with garish colors, was for us an amazing spectacle.
A few rare times the boys went to Cinéac, rue d’Alsace, where on Thursdays they had morning showings.
We the women and girls, were knitting mountain coats for the army (we were paid eight francs a piece), and also gloves. Many neighbors began to place orders with us. All the while, I tried to devote some time to learning French, aided by my older brother. The first novel I read in French was “Graziella”. I cried a lot after the death of the heroine. Then came “The ladies with the green hats” and “Paul and Virginia,” and after, I do not remember the order of the books I read in that language which without my realizing it, would almost take the place of my native tongue.
With the arrival of refugees from the north of France, we were asked to leave the barracks. Most of my compatriots left for Mexico or Venezuela. We could have gone too, but by then, we had painful reasons for wanting to stay in Toulouse. So we managed to find an apartment far from the center, towards the town of Blagnac. Farewell Saint Georges quarter where we had lived a page of our lives that we would never completely turn.
For over thirty years I came back often to roam these streets, these small squares, on the lookout for a past that time was desperately erasing. Merchants have disappeared or changed gradually, then it was the houses’ turn to go. One day, suddenly, I thought I found myself in a bombed out city: rubble piled up at the feet of wall sections which shamelessly revealed fragments of painted wall which were once parts of modest houses or even slums. They laid bare the bowels of the neighborhood. From some rectangular shaped pieces of wall paper one could guess what was once a bedroom, a tiled corner made for a sink … How many obscure lives had been spent there, with neither car nor washing machine, no synthetic carpet, no color TV, ignorant of oil production but supportive of each other, knowing how to give a hand – even if it was empty – knowing how to smile.
In the midst of this desolation, they hurriedly placed a huge multi-storied parking lot run by private police (who were especially lacking in courtesy). During the holiday season, lines of cars waited by the entrance along the adjacent streets for the coveted parking places.
I have found myself standing for long periods on the rue du Conservatoire, opposite number 6. The first courtyard offered the most depressing spectacle which I will not describe. Looking up to the first floor windows, I could have said to myself, as could Mr. Seguin’s goat watching from her enclosure at the top of the mountain: How could I have lived here? But no, I knew very well why and how I could have lived here. My only thought was that from these rotten windows I had once listened avidly to the notes rising from the music Conservatory, I had watched the comings and goings of the musicians and their romantic silhouettes, and for long afternoons, I had stared at a narrow and wonderful piece of blue sky.
Gradually, from the rubble of the Saint Georges quarter began to rise magnificent modern buildings, pleasant and in very good taste.
For some time, they were adjacent to the last hovels, offering an unusual and somewhat tragic sight. One day the horrible barracks of the Rue du Conservatoire fell too and the street itself disappeared giving way to a beautiful building. Likewise, the Café des Américains was replaced by a most modern retail shop complex. I am for progress, I like new lines, clean streets, large window panes… but I wonder why this new kind of life is accompanied by a ferocious individualism and a heartbreaking dehumanization. For it is a fact that in these large developments, people ignore each other, with few exceptions. Today what is called “discretion” in the relations between human beings is, in my view, a deplorable indifference toward neighbors, and the new residents of the Saint Georges quarter are definitely more foreign to each other than we were at a time when we communicated with ease even if we did not have a common language. It is perhaps also why in trying to forget the dirty streets of old, the sewer rats, the peeling walls, the foul odors, I still find myself searching for 6 rue du Conservatoire, forgetting above all that “the form of a city changes faster, alas! than the heart of a mortal “4.
1 “le lait” is correct. Milk is feminine in Spanish but masculine in French.
2 We called “afrancesados” the Spanish who, under Napoleon’s invasion, lived on good terms with the invader. The term is pejorative.
3 Maurice Fontvieille died shortly after his deportation. Those who were privileged to be his students have never forgotten. The school and the street now bear the name of the deceased master.
4 « la forme d’une ville change plus vite, hélas ! que le cœur d’un mortel » Baudelaire: “The Swan”, Flowers of Evil