Bonjour, Comrade

Sara and Christian’s friend Nicolas has a house in Biarritz that he rents out to vacationers.  In the off-season Sara and Christian sometimes stay there.  So last October, when Val and I visited the Basque country, Sara and Christian came to Biarritz and we were able to spend a few days together.

One night Sara and Christian invited Nicolas’ aunt and uncle to join us for dinner.  We were a little nervous because we were told that they were commies.  No, really – members of the French Communist Party, which actually still exists.

Most of our French friends consider us arch-capitalists, so we decided we should stay away from sensitive topics.  I wanted to ask, “So hey, whatever happened to that Soviet Union thingy?” but Val talked me out of it.

We ended up having a friendly dinner, with lots of back and forth on a variety of topics.  At no time did Val and I threaten to turn them into wage-slaves, nor did they threaten to  send us to the gulag.  So class warfare was avoided, at least for the evening.

It turned out that we were the first Americans they had ever encountered up close – they don’t speak English and most Americans don’t speak French.  So they told us that they had approached the dinner with some trepidation but were pleased that we were more open-minded than they expected. 

Oh, and they said they were surprised to find that we were not obese. 

What??  

It’s amazing the stereotypes people have!  So we told them that from our side we were surprised that they were not wearing berets and carrying baguettes.  We all had a good laugh.

End of story, or so we thought.

Then the other day Sara told us that Nicolas had visited his uncle recently, who reported that he had been delighted to have met us.  He found us so open-minded that he decided we must be socialists!

I guess that was meant as a compliment.  Now I wonder if I need to join a secret party cell or read Das Kapital or something.  I would normally laugh it off but Val’s been humming a funny tune under her breath recently. 

Could that be the Internationale?

KVS