Comment dit 'awkward'?

My developing language skills have been met with various attitudes from the French, ranging from kind and forgiving (“Don’t worry, you haven’t been here long and you’re making great progress”), to ill-at-ease (I’ve had several uncomfortable moments when my French skills and the person’s English skills finally reached their limits and the person didn’t really know what to do with me), to what could pass as politeness but what I take as impatient and slightly condescending (despite my attempts to speak French, the person responds in English – I hate this). But never, ever has a French person bullied me into speaking English...not until last night, that is.

Let me set the scene. I was at a French friend’s birthday picnic on the Seine. The evening temperature was perfect, the slightly cloudy sky made for some beautiful, soft sunset colors, and our spot on the south side of Île St. Louis afforded us a lovely view of Left Bank apartment buildings, the elegant Tour d’Argent, the impressive Institut du Monde Arabe, the edge of Notre Dame, and an endless parade of bateaux mouches cruising the river from the golden hour into the night. There was a mix of (mostly) Frenchies and some Anglos, including myself, N, another American, and several Aussies. Everyone was sipping wine, munching on light picnic fare, chatting, and generally enjoying themselves when things took a turn for the strange.

The Instigating Event occurred out of my earshot, so I’m reconstructing events from hearsay. Apparently one of the French women was taking pictures of people and asked N, two of the Aussie ladies, and a French guy to pose for her. After she took several minutes to first try to snap the photo, she noticed one of the Aussies, fellow blogger Le Tigre in France, “wasn’t smiling” (even though apparently she was—you know those parents who take a light year to fiddle with the camera and get it just right, turning your initial natural smile into a sullen clenched-jaw? Well, apparently that was the situation). The Frenchie called the Aussie out on it in a “what’s wrong with you?” tone, some banter ensued, the French woman continued to harp on it, and eventually the Aussie said she was fed up with the situation and so could they please move on. The French woman didn’t cotton to that idea.

The ensuing tirade would be just about the time I and the people I was chatting with started to take notice of the situation. My friend was trying to mediate, arguing that the language barrier had probably caused a huge misunderstanding, but this angle wasn’t making progress with the French woman, who just wouldn’t back down. Blah blah why does she not want to smile for my picture blah blah (I mean, seriously?) and the Aussie got more and more irritated, eventually storming off and leaving my friend to continue unsuccessfully appeasing the Frenchie. My little posse just behind them went from awkwardly trying to pretend to not be listening to forming a Peanut Gallery, snarkily commenting on how ridiculous the situation had become. Eventually one of us, an Anglo with great French skills, intervened and tried to convince the Frenchie to let it go, it wasn’t important, this wasn’t a family member or a spouse so why continue bickering? (The real question was, why was a woman in her 40’s acting like a tween scorned in a schoolyard scuffle?) But no, she kept going, now having clocked a total of over 10 minutes. Incroyable.

“Why can’t anyone smile? What’s wrong with smiling?” This, directed right at me, who hadn’t even been involved up until this point. I couldn’t take it anymore. “I’m smiling! We’re all smiling! You’re the one who isn’t smiling! It’s all good. Everyone’s having a good time.” My little outburst either threw her off-guard or only incensed her more, because then she switched gears entirely and focused her insanity on me and the two innocent Aussie ladies standing next to me.

“Il faut mélanger. Vous ne mélangez pas”: her accusation that we hadn’t been mingling, when for the past couple hours we’d (well, I can only speak for myself) been talking to different people, Anglo and French. Then she forcefully grabbed the three of us by the hands, and despite our protests, dragged us over to a circle of three French men. “Tiens. Now you can speak English.” She then introduced each of us to a French man, essentially pairing us off, and then yelled patronizingly at us girls, “Now you can SPEAK ENGLISH!!” in a manner that told us this wasn’t a suggestion, it was an order. OK, I thought, this woman is batshit crazy. Was this a warped attempt to play matchmaker? Have her French friends practice their English? Carry out some strange, misplaced revenge scenario? I felt like a linguistic rag doll.

I could’ve simply walked away, but that would’ve been rude to my assigned ami. I turned my back to the French woman completely and loudly exclaimed to the French guy, “Je peux parler français, en fait, tu ne dois pas parler anglais.” I started blathering on in French, going through the small-talk motions. But what did this guy do? Throughout the entire conversation that ensued, he only spoke English. Grrrrr!!! Is my French really that bad, or was he too scared to cross Notre Dame de la Folie? I overheard the other Aussies speaking English to their assigned dudes. With most of us speaking English, how did that crazy lady manage to win?

Anyhow, as strange as it was (and other Frenchies among the crowd agreed), the Incident of Infamy at least provided some humor to what was an otherwise pleasant, peaceful evening. The party continued, the vin rouge kept flowing, and the laughter carried across the river on the July nocturnal breeze.