"Blowing Lungs Like Bubbles," Efterklang
Seeking refuge from Covid, Marguerite arrives in Biarritz after a harrowing trip.
Hello! You’ve found Faye’s Wing, a series of multimedia scenes about the creative quest for fulfilment beyond a fixed spiritual identity. It comes out every Wednesday, and features music and visuals from contributing artists. If you are new here, I suggest you start at the beginning and read the story sequentially. You can also check out my project overview for more info, or view the list of scenes you might have missed.
(…) ‘Biarritz. Please find us a place to land in Biarritz,’ I ask Julian. ‘The ocean will keep us safe.’
‘OK, Mags. I’ll send you the confirmation as soon as I’ve booked it. And we’ll sort out a train down from Bordeaux, too.’
The last time I visited the seaside resort, I was nine, and we were on our way to my grandmother’s place, in Spain. There must be musical acquaintances in the area, maybe we could… Later. Get out of here, first.
I finish packing at 3.30am and have just turned out the light when my phone lights up. Gatwick is three hours away, and the taxi service has cancelled. The ceiling wobbles as a wave of nausea hits me. Do I pass out? The next thing I’m aware of is being drenched in sweat, my body stiff and shaking uncontrollably. I hear Luke padding around the next room. Too weak to call out, I manage to text him. He looks terrified when he sees me; I’m usually the one who soothes him. As he strokes my hair, I tell him we’ve lost our ride to the airport.
‘It’s gonna be okay, Mom. I’ll get you another cup of tea. That helps, right? You like your cuppas. And I’ll find us a cab. What’s that guy’s number? And then try to sleep, yeah? You gotta keep your shit together. Can’t be coughing and blubbering and freakin’ out like this tomorrow, ‘kay? They won’t let us on the plane if you do.’
While he’s boiling water, I update the Teacher. Her response is immediate:
Teacher: Breathe, breathe now. All is okay. Here come prayers. I just heard that Spain is also in lockdown. It’s a lot to close up and move so suddenly. A lot. Your system is reaching.
My body softens a bit.
Me: Luke has convinced the driver to collect us.
Teacher: Excellent. Good teamwork. You are a fierce Yogini.
Our taxi driver is kind, and doesn’t seem to mind that we’re all masked up, or that I alternate manic chatter with profuse gratitude. He is Indian, which I take as a sign that the Goddess is protecting us. As we encounter one obstacle after another, he keeps smiling and shaking his head in that philosophical way. First there are roadworks, then we’re pulled over for a spot check just as we reach the last roundabout before Gatwick.
At the airport, I’m so relieved to see Ben, that I fall into his arms. No one left behind. We’re next slammed with extra luggage fees, despite travelling as lightly as possible. On the departure board, flights are, one by one, flicked to “CANCELLED”. Realising that he has forgotten his hat in the cafeteria, Sacha sprints back to retrieve it, disappearing into a tunnel of trolleys, just as our flight is called. We are the last to board a packed plane when he reappears, sweaty but grinning.
The whole time, tears stream down my face with every suppressed coughing fit, and it is Luke who holds my arm and steadies me. When the pilot announces that we’re about to take off, I catch a glimpse of the next song on my playlist just as another fit erupts. It’s Efterklang’s “Blowing Lungs Like Bubbles,” and I start weeping when I see the title. Luke turns away, hating any kind of scene. From across the aisle, Ben notices that my eyes are red, and elbows Sacha, who was staring out the window.
‘You’re freaking me out, he whispers. We made it—why are you crying?’
‘Sorry, sweetie, sorry. I’m just really tired.’
The sobbing resumes as we start our descent into Bordeaux. The boys have had enough of my public displays of emotion and pretend not to see. We cross the airport, sticky and packed with travellers as haggard as we are. Everyone seems to be walking in slow motion—though I am numb with exhaustion, my body can’t slow down, and the boys trail behind me as I race to the taxi stand and start hauling bags into the first cab. I would normally be peeking out the window for sights, but barely register the city, which echoes our silence. Bordeaux-Saint-Jean, a major railway hub, has turned into a ghost station. Every clunkety-clunk of our luggage bounces loudly against the million panes of Eiffel’s empty train shed. We are still two hours away from Biarritz, and there are no trains in sight. I find a bench and message the Teacher to update her.
Teacher: Calm yourself. The Goddess has you.
Me: I feel overwhelmed and grateful and guilty for all the love and help. Luke, aiming for comic relief as he mimics his little brother, keeps telling me to stop ‘pologisin’.
Teacher: Yes, stop apologising. You are breaking old habits of safety. You wanted to be home during these times, you had a gut instinct. Guilt is not useful, dear Yogini. I love you very much.
A train pulls in with a hiss, but its number doesn’t correspond to our tickets and no announcements have been made since we arrived.
The controller waves us on. ‘Montez, montez, madame. I don’t need to see your tickets, this will be the last one heading down the coast for a while.’
By the time we rumble into the tiny Biarritz station, it’s dark, and a heavy rain is falling. A handful of fellow passengers is quickly scooped up. We are too late for a bus, and the number at the empty taxi stand rings and rings. We have been travelling for 18 hours, and I haven’t slept in twice that long. After about forty minutes, a car turns up. The driver asks me if our street number is near the Italian restaurant at the top of the avenue, but I don’t have a clue. As we are jostled down glistening streets, his shortwave station spits panicked rumours.
Our cabbie is so riveted to a man yelling, ‘They’re going to shut us down! We’re next!’ in a thick Basque lilt, that he zooms past our street number three times. He lurches forward and backward, forgetting that we are even there, until Ben spots a closed pizzeria. At last, we have arrived and can take in the place that will be our home for the foreseeable future.
We flick on the lights as rain lashes against tall windows. To the right of the entrance, a streetlamp lights up a narrow balcony, and a curtain is drawn across a neon TV screen on the other side of the street. The place Julian has booked for us is a perfunctory holiday let, an angular joining of reds and greys against clinical white tiles. I’m making beds as the boys bring the last of our bags up the stairs, ready to collapse, when Sacha asks if we can go out for dinner.
‘Honey, I’m so sorry, but I think it’s too late. Nothing seems to be open nearby.’ I root around my purse and pull out a crumpled packet of digestives.
‘Here you go, love,’ I say, dropping biscuit dregs into his palm. ‘We’ll go shopping in the morning.’
The last words before falling asleep, a good hour later, are the Teacher’s:
Teacher: Be at ease, okay? The Goddess is watching over you. I’m here too. You are all safer there. Much safer. Stay strong.
* * *
When the President announces the first French lockdown thirty-six hours later, we are huddled over my iPhone. We have found the nearest shops, stocked the kitchen, and brought home a celebratory takeaway pizza. A day of ocean air and sunshine has miraculously stopped my coughing overnight. The mood around our grease-stained pizza boxes is solemn, as if approaching a momentous and uncharted occasion, one of those historic moments everyone will one day recall in vivid detail. We have left behind the chaos of England, with its spooked doctors and supermarkets ransacked for loo roll, yet carrying on and not keeping calm are usually French, not English, behaviours. It has all gone so fast that the disorientation of reversed cultural stereotypes clashes with the familiarity of my childhood language and flavours.
I am generally allergic to patriotism and politics, but an unusual pride creeps up as I take in the confidence of this young, eloquent president. I was in the Cotswolds when the Charlie Hebdo attack happened, in Bristol when Notre Dame went up in flames—both times feeling helpless and cut-off. This time, I am with my people; we will share whatever adversity lies ahead. Perhaps being in my homeland and hearing my mother tongue trigger a primal sense of safety. In any case, welling up during a formal address is a first for me. The president drills images of war into our collective consciousness, yet all I feel is relief.
‘Eight times,’ as Ben will later note, studying the transcript, ‘He mentioned guerre eight times.’ At least the boys speak enough French to get by, I muse.
When the speech ends, we all sit in silence, gazing into greasy cardboard as the enormity of the announcement hits us. An image of my grandmother flickers in my mind. Maybe my impulse to flee was spurred by built-in memories of wandering ancestors, Berber Jews on my mother’s side who moved to France in the Thirties. I have grown up on stories of grand-mère Ana escaping occupied Paris with jewellery tucked in her bra. Or perhaps I channelled her knack for surviving on bare necessities during the war, with her enduring suspicion of chicory coffee and so-called rabbit stews from cat meat. But she never outgrew her attachment to whimsy or luxury; strawberries could only be eaten off tartlets and she had a weakness for buying seaside apartments in Spain, claiming the dunes were pretty.
‘Boys,’ I announce after the iPhone screen has gone black, ‘get dressed. We’re going to the beach.’
We spend our last hours of freedom sprawled on damp sand, licking pink and vanilla ice creams against a flat grey sky. Backlit surfers trace arabesques on the horizon, more poignant, the crashing of waves louder, their swell more daunting. Couples push prams along the promenade, teenagers cluster on towels, dogs chase frisbees. Poignancy muffles the shrillness of beach activities. Behind us, grandparents treat their families to lunch on the casino terrace for the last time in a long while, and though we have come alone and it’s our first time on this beach, we are home.
I was pleading for her to make it! I could feel her despair when you described the open suitcases surrounded by belongings, and then at every obstacle. Not an easy couple of days under any circumstances, but to do it while so ill? What a feat of tenacity!
You convey her illness, her hope and her desperate travelling with such clarity, I was holding my breath until she was safely arrived and healthy again - and I lived every bump she encountered along the way. A great read.