Love Chunks and Sapphire often like to laugh at my tendency to use charades and sound effects in my conversations.
"For a writer, you rely a hell of a lot on acting out particular fart noises."
"Mum, did you really have to make that face to the post man?"
They claim that my whole family has this tendency and when we get together for big celebrations, there's a lot of 'Brrrrrrring' and 'Ppppphphtttttt' and 'Wockita whockita whockitas' being thrown into the mix. We understand each other completely and, if anything, this Read Family proclivity has served me pretty well as a non-French speaker (or comprehender) in la Suisse.
A few weeks back I was in the amusingly named XXX Sports Shop purchasing no, not porn, but three sets of cycling socks for LC. At the checkout, I'm always relieved when a 'Bonjour' whilst handing over my credit card is all the language skills I need.
The lady smiled at me and did her swiping thing when a huge wave of putrescent PONG swept us over both, the heat and strength making us both sway on our feet a little.
Her nostrils twitched slightly and all of a sudden she broke off eye contact with me, our shared smile now gone.
She thought that I had popped out a burst of flatulence so turgid that the sale posters were flapping up and down in the breeze. Now, it's a fair assumption that I do emit my share, but I'm always prepared to own up to them. But when it's not mine I'm far less willing to have it assigned to me. Besides, if I'd pushed out something this gaseous I'd be straight off to buy a new pair of pants before my appointment with the proctologist....
I was in a bind. The words for 'fart' and 'that old man who walked in behind me who is now browsing in the fishing gear section is the culprit' were way beyond me.
So I did what any member of the Read family would do and used my body and my voice to get my message across. Reaching to tap her arm, I said in French, "Non moi--------" and waved the air near my arse before pointing dramatically north, "------Il!"
Translation: No me...... HE!
I hopped on one leg, pinched my nose shut and violently shook my head. "Non Moi!"
"NO ME!"
She laughed, rolled her eyes at the Flatulent old Fart now holding up some hiking boots and bid me farewell. My reputation was safe.
But other occasions have also seen me rely on anything other than acceptable, clearly spoken words. Love Chunks works in a UN organisation where the official language is English, so most things are professionally-run, understood by everyone participating and no crossed wires occur.
Out in the real world, with drivers of mini-tractors full of compost who want you off the footpath, plumbers who apologise for being five minutes late and coffee shop ladies who detest all of their customers, it's more of a challenge to communicate.
Once again I found myself pointing to my own bottom, frantically fanning my hands around it in pantomimed disgust and shaking my head "NO" in order to get the concierge to understand that the lingering, dead-squirrel odour in Sapphire's unused bidet was not of our making.
I later discovered that grotesquely rubbing my stomach and screwing up my face before pointing to Milly and wrinkling up my nose was a good way to explain to the old lady who wanted to pat her that my dog had just run through the park and was covered in mud. "Orange, Madame, Orange," I said, pointing to a stripe on my top. "Milly is usually orange in colour and not the chocolate brown you see before you. Pat at your peril," my actions said.
Guillaime, our upstairs neighbour, joined me in the lift. With my hands forming a rectangular shape and my mouth emitting 'brrm brrrm' noises, he was made aware that we have a spare car parking space to rent. He nodded politely in that 'I don't know what the hell she's doing, but I'll let her talk so that I don't have to admit anything' kind of way before almost pushing me out when the doors opened to my floor.
At the chemist, I pointed to my shoulder and put on what I thought was a Meryl Streep-worthy sad face. "Ow," I groaned, my bottom lip folded over almost to the ground. "Chaud?"
"Hot?" Rubbing my shoulder, I continued to say, "Chaud?" and put on a smile to show that it would help me recover. Ten minutes later, I had a tube of Deutschland Deep Heat in my hands; exhausted after ten minutes of acting and not helped by the mother and toddler who wanted to 'help' the pharmacist guess my ailment.
Game show hostesses' gracious arm movements are another big help for this non-French speaker. "Yes, you can take the last tub of Quark," I say in English, sweeping my arm across the refrigerated cabinet in a 'Look at all these wonderful prizes' gesture of awe and generosity. The woman does, snatching it up and wheeling off before she has to thank the lunatic who let her.
Still, at the end of the day, I mostly end up completing my list of chores, buying the food we need and arriving home in one piece. Not, however, without a least one snigger.
Today's was at LaCoste; the over-priced polo tops with crocodiles on the pockets. A huge sign was in the window:
ACTION MAN SACS!*
Boy oh boy, who knew that they'd expanded their range that far?
* SALE MENS BAGS. Nowhere near as amusing to the locals who saw me bent over laughing.
Like all apartment buildings in Geneva - and there are lots - ours has a Concierge.
Now that sounds a lot posher than it really is because he's not a 'I'll do anything for you' smarmy chap at the luxury hotel counter or a French-speaker who offers to walk your poodles. Nope, he (normally a 'he' as one of the unofficial job requisites is unruly facial hair) just lives in the building and keeps the gardens, hallways, lifts and garages clean.
It's very hard work. Our guy, let's call him Fratman in a slight nod to his real name and because I've been using it in real life and it's stuck, is a busy little bee.
If he's not up before 6am putting out the green bins for collection on Monday, he's doing something similar for the rubbish on Tuesday and Friday or the 'Papier Receptacles' on Wednesdays. He brings them in no later than fifteen minutes after the garbage truck has been and cleans up any spills or blow outs. Considering he has six eleven-storey buildings with several hundred residents who share his street address, he has a huge amount of rubbish, cigarette butts, garden spaces and parking spots to keep tidy. He polishes windows, shared door knobs and letter boxes and - if bored and seeking a do-able dare - you could eat dinner off the parking bays.
He and I have a complicated relationship.
He can't help looking like an Orc with reading glasses (as I can't help looking like a baked potato) but he doesn't speak a word of English and I only speak about four in French. Like a Middle Earth baddie he seems to believe that if he YELLS AT ME the language will magically ooze its way into my blonde brain and we'll be able to converse eloquently ala Francais. Invariably he ends up waiting expectantly for my answer and is visibly disappointed when he only ever gets my inane grin and a 'thumbs up' sign.
Sapphire and I were shooed off the lawn when eating our lunch on a sunny summers' day because it is only for looking at not using; and the day I unthinkingly strolled across the just-mopped marble foyer saw his one eye steam up with rage before gesturing at me to "Sortez! Utilisez l'autre porte!" Merde and tete might have been muttered a few times as well.....
Then again, he apparently really loves me because I commented to Anne - a friend who lives on the first floor and is fluent in French - that Sapphire and I have noticed how hard he works. "Fratman never stops; he's like the Duracell bunny but with a big set of keys instead of drum sticks." She told him and he now beams at me with his one good eye.
Anne is now unwittingly involved in our relationship. The Fratman knows that we are friends. She is, after all, a nurse from New Zealand and I, the clueless cretin from Australia. Geographic proximity is enough.
"He's going to write a letter to the Regie," Anne exclaimed one morning, slightly out of breath from indignation and eight flights of stairs. "He knows that it's you who traipses mud into the foyer."
We'd had this sort-of-discussion via Anne before. Oh no, I reassured her. I mean him. Tell The Fratman that I wipe my feet very carefully and that mud gets stuck in the tread of everybody's shoes now that it's raining and snowing.
This appeased him for a while until he was out chatting to the gardeners (they literally hoover up the autumn leaves every week. Milly runs out to her dog forest afterwards and is absolutely puzzled at where her crunchy ground cover has gone) and he saw them. My rubber boots.
The Orc inside him knew - these weren't your everyday shoes; they were made for mud. And that Aussie Idiot was prancing around in them, dropping off clods at every step. He putt-putted past me in his mini-tractor with six steel wheelie bins trailing on chains behind him towards the bike cave. There was anger in the clouds of exhaust farting out behind him.
I wasn't surprised that he'd put the blame onto my shoulders and mine alone. "He's been watching you," Anne gasped. "He told me to tell you to leave your boots outside or...." she paused, in a bind between upsetting me and the shock of the information she was about to impart, "......you could be outside."
Since that indirect ultimatum, I now clip on Milly's lead, put on my Dog Walking Parka and head downstairs. In my other hand is a huge plastic bag containing my rubber boots and a large towel. When the foyer doors shut behind us, I take off my slippers and step into the boots, making sure they're resting on top of the grate should any chunks of dried mud fall off, and then reach over to fold up the bag, place the towel on top and my slippers on top of that.
After our walk, I again stand on the grate and deftly lift one foot at a time out of the boots and into the slippers and then put the boots in the bag. The towel is then used to wipe off any mud and water from Milly's legs, stomach and feet so that, several long minutes later, we can enter the foyer without leaving any significant signs on the floor that we were ever there.
The Fratman saw me a couple of days after this technique was initiated. "Tres Bien!" "Merci Beaucoup" and "Bravo" were gleefully yelled on his side and my go-to 'Thumbs Up' sign was acted out on mine: we'd found a solution that suited us all - Orcs, Concierges, Renters, Dumb Aussies, Dogs and Mud Magnets.
So can you imagine how annoyed I was when Milly and I returned from a lovely long walk around Parc de Trembly this morning and there was the plastic boot bag, her tummy towel but NOT my slippers?
WHO would want to flog a manky pair of second-hand slippers? They're worn down at the heel, have brownish stains where there was once fluffy blue lining and the outer velvet is festooned with orange dog fur.
..... I'm not risking any other pairs of shoes, so now it's a rapid tip-toe across a very slippery marble floor and a kind of half somersault from the door mat straight into my rubber boots that are still sitting in the bag with the straps wide apart for my landing. It reminds me of the awful first stages of puberty when our mothers would say, "Don't be impatient, you'll grow like the others soon."
Substitute 'grow' for 'become a glamorous international resident' and you'll see my predicament: will he now complain that I'm making the place look untidy with my amateur gymnastics?
