Paris
17 February 2019
There’s a frost on the river as I wake, and the moon
is fat and yellow as it descends to the horizon. Still dark, and up betimes for
the early train. Today will be an encounter with one of my first lovers. The
heart beats pit-a-pat.
The French still shit in their rivers. Mine host is
an expert fluvial. In that capacity he has been called in to assist the
French government in rationalising the national regulations relating to the
governance of boats on inland waterways. Already the dossier is enormous, involving a wide range of
actors and “stakeholders”, but it has become even more complex now that the
European Union has begun to codify its own set of practices and principles. A
veritable mountain of paperwork. He explains that the consultancy Cap-Gemini
has been brought in to assist the process. In the various office sessions you
have large tables and huge computer screens, where people sit and cogitate and
shuffle data and attempt syntheses. I take a cursory glance at the massive
volume that he dumps on the breakfast table. I am struck by the paragraphs on
the breaking strain of mooring ropes (charge de rupture des cables).
But more particularly, the section on eaux usés – waste water.
For which it is specified that all boats shall have an inboard container for
their waste waters.
Last night we had a wild
party on board. Fifteen of us musicians, plus friends and family of our hosts.
We love to play here, because the wooden floors and walls of the peniche resonate viscerally with our
instruments. And the potted palm in the corner bows and bobs with the rhythm of
dancing feet (we are afloat, so tout bouge).
There was food galore. I bought oysters and gilt-head bream at Bastille, and we
fired up a brazier on deck. The lady of the house cooked up choucroute á l’Alsacienne. And the beer and wine
flowed. And all through the evening the guests had occasion to mount the six
wooden steps that lead to the boat’s diminutive and cosy toilet. Once there,
they read the illustrated instructions which tell that the discharge is
effected by operating a hand bilge-pump that is bolted to the wall. Fifteen
pulls for piss, and twenty-five for anything more substantial. And then, hopla, you flush into the river below.
Our friends are conscious
that ça ne peut pas durer à longue.
Sooner or later the long arm of the law will exercise itself in the manner of
their shitting, and things will have to change. It is for this reason that they
are attracted by my discourse regarding sponges. Notably, the capacity of these
little creatures to filter water and eat the shit therein. Mine fluvial host
takes a notion to propose to the authorities a project for the planting of
freshwater sponge beds at riverside boat moorings. A bio-solution to the basic
problem – that he and his wife would like to be left to shit in peace.