Lost in Translation

After David and I spent hours looking at Napoleon’s horse, armor, and other French military stuff at Les Invalides, we went into the chapel which connected the two museum buildings.

Entering the main floor of the round, domed church, we confronted a marble balustrade encircling a big, round hole in the floor.  Leaning over the marble railing, we looked down into the basement, where Napoleon is buried in an ugly red marble sarcophagus.  The French honor their greatest man by putting him in a tomb the color of stale blood.  .

One glance at that was enough.  I looked around the circular chapel.  Jutting out like four corners were side chapels.  I walked around, green Michelin guidebook in hand, peeking into the alcoves where four of Napoleon’s associates are entombed in marble sarcophagi, imitating Ancient Romans. 

I paused before the tomb of Napoleon’s unfortunate brother Joseph.  When Napoleon was at the height of his power, crowning himself Emperor and putting his brothers and sister on thrones, he made elder brother Joseph King of Spain.  Wellington put an end to that, and Joseph ended up here, still a sidekick to his younger brother.    

A short, dumpy woman, looking more like a housewife than the typical Parisian, approached and asked me in French who was buried there.

“Le frere de Napoleon,” I said.  Then I realized her French accent was no better than mine.  I said, “Do you speak English?”

“A little,” she said, in a heavy German accent. 

I asked where she was from, and when she said, “Bamberg”, I told her my son and I were in Bamberg a week ago.  “Fine cathedral.” etc.  She asked where we were from, and when I said, “Chicago”, she said her daughter had worked in Chicago.  I told her that my older son, David’s brother, was stationed in Frankfurt. 

“Now you and your son make a . . . “
She made a circular motion with her arm, “. . . around Europa?” 
“Yes”
“I visit my daughter in Chicago, and we make a tour around the U.S.   We go to New Orleans.”
“New Orleans is great place to visit.”
“We go to Padre Island.”
“That’s in Texas!”
Her eyes grew big, and she said, “Texas is gross!”

So: I had come to Paris to hear a German tell me that Texas is gross!

In German, “gross” means “big.”   But maybe she was right.  Texas is gross.