Terrific, Terrible, and…Terrifying

It’s a warm sunny Saturday, May 12, 1990 and I’m driving to a job interview near Villaines-la-Juhel, in the Mayenne department of France, and as I approach I’m passing through one of the most beautiful landscapes I’ve ever seen. I’m thinking to myself as I drive “I have to get this job, this place is too beautiful!” I’ve seen paintings of the area done by Camille Pissaro, but the effect of seeing this beauty in all its flowery May splendor is almost too overwhelming. I decide that I will ace the interview and come to live here. “It’s all up to you to make it happen.” I tell myself.

The company is the biggest independent manufacture of musical supports in the world; CDs, cassettes, and vinyl records. CDs are still a recent thing, but they’re taking the place of the older supports rapidly. I responded to an ad for a Key Account Manager for their biggest customer, an English broker in the music industry with whom they have an exclusive contract for all of the UK, “Mayking Records” (and then there’s the coincidence that it’s the month of May).

It’s about 11 am as I pull into Villaines-la-Juhel, and my appointment is at 2pm, so I have some time to kill. I drive around the town, and the tour is quick. The population is around 3000 souls, and there are about 1000 employees working for the company I want to work for, i.e. almost the entire population works for them. There are only two structures of importance in the town. One is a massive church, “St-George’s”, heavy, grey, and ugly, and it doesn’t give me any desire to enter like some of the more beautiful churches and cathedrals in France. I’m not a believer, but I still like visiting beautiful buildings of any sort. There is one other edifice that particularly strikes me though; on the west end road, perched high on a hill and visible from everywhere in town, there is an enormous cubic shaped ruin of a fortress, all overgrown with vegetation, and on top of the ruin towers a stone crucifix, about 10 meters high (11 yards), that is about the height of a 3-storey building. The Christ figure is in iron, all covered with rust and green with oxidation. I go to check it out, because I can see that there’s a metal protection fence all around the top of the ruin at the bottom of the crucifix. I climb a trail with stone steps leading up to the top. All of the sudden I get chills, and an eerie feeling comes over me. It’s a strange place indeed. I hurry to leave.

It’s the year 1140, Mathilde of England gives the land of Villaines to Juhel II of Mayenne in thanks for services which he had rendered, thus the name of the township. A fortress is built, which serves in the Hundred Years’ War and falls into ruin. All that’s left is the dungeon, which remains accessible by a wooden doorway.

It’s now 1778, and Jean Cottereau, one of four violent, belligerent, and resolutely ignorant brothers is twenty-one years old. He’s known for selling boot-leg applejack. His father dies, and the four boys and their 2 sisters all take up salt smuggling, which is a very lucrative practice. They are on the border of two regions, one that has a very heavy tax on salt, and the other without a salt tax. The dungeon of Villaines-la-Juhel is one of many hideaways where they stock the trafficked salt. In 1789 the French Revolution breaks out, and the Cottereau brothers all fight as guerillas for the counter-revolutionary Royalist cause, Jean Cottereau takes the nom de guerre Jean Chouan (reference to an owl) and becomes infamous as the leader of the “Chouans”. The dungeon becomes not only a hideout, but also a torture chamber for captured Republicans, many who die horrible deaths at the hands of Jean Chouan and his band. Jean dies in 1794.

It’s now 100 years later, 1894, and the descendants of Jean Chouan and other famous counter-revolutionaries in Villaines-la-Juhel erect a crucifix in his honor on the site of the dungeon, making a pilgrimage there from all over the region on Easter Sunday.

My wife prepared a lunch for me, so I enter a small café on the central square and order a beer. When I start to set out my lunch on the table, the waiter scowls at me and points to a sign on the wall “No Pick-nicking” and says the same with a snarl. I drink my beer quickly and leave without saying goodbye, and of course without leaving a tip (I’m usually a generous tipper). I eat my lunch in the car and then refresh my breath. At 1:30 I ask directions at a gas station and go to my interview, which is in the middle of an enormous private forest. At the end of a long alley with woods on both sides there’s a Renaissance style castle and just behind it a large modern factory. I get there just in time, that is to say 10 minutes before the hour.

The receptionist has me wait in the reception area, and the interview finally starts at 2:35. The CEO and the Operations Director question me for about an hour in French, and then the CEO tells me that his brother is also a CEO, they’ve split the customers and his brother deals with England, but he’s away, so they ask me to come back again for an interview with him in one week, Saturday May 19, and of course I agree. I can’t come during the week because I’m working at the American University in Paris.

When I get back home, I enthusiastically tell my wife about how beautiful the area is, and she knows it, because she’s been there. It’s not far from her hometown in Normandy, a small village near Alençon. I’d already been to Alençon before but had never seen this area, called the “Alps Mancelles”. Alps because it’s an ancient worn-down mountain range, and Mancelles because of Le Mans. The area is set at the borders of 3 departments and 2 regions, Lower Normandy and The Western Loire, and has the highest point in the West of France at 712 feet above sea level. She agrees wholeheartedly that it would be great to live there. My wife loves nature more than she loves humanity. She tells me that the flora and fauna there is incredibly diverse, that you can often spot wild boars, foxes, hedgehogs, owls and falcons and many other kinds of birds, flowers, and trees…fish in unpolluted streams and rivers…

I come away from my second interview with a promise of a contract, and indeed, it comes by registered mail in the week. I’m to sign it and come back with it again the next Saturday the 26^th. Thursday the 24^th is a Bank Holiday and that means a 4 day weekend for most people in France, but they assure me that someone will be there in the office to take my contract. I’m to start my new job Monday July 2^nd, so I give my months’ notice. The salary isn’t a big deal, but better than I was getting, and we’ll have a lot less expenses too, and the pleasure of the pristine green surroundings. When I come back with the signed contract, my new boss Loïc is there. He says he’ll send one of the company’s trucks with some men to help us move. He gives me the name and number of an employee at the Town Hall and says to mention his name and I’ll be able to get an apartment. I get from the way he tells me that I couldn’t have got it without giving his name.

We settle into our apartment in Villaines, and it’s low income housing, but we’re sure that we’ll find better later. I start work in a strange ambience. In the streets everyone glares at us and at work no one talks to me other than what’s necessary. There’s a bus that leaves the center of town every morning for the employees and I decide to start taking it, who knows, maybe I can make some friends? My hopes are rapidly extinguished. No one will sit next to me, other than a young man with trisomy 21. He becomes the only person I talk to. I like my job, and my customers, and I put myself into my work. The years pass rapidly.

Our third child is born in March 1993, a beautiful boy that everyone loves. His older sister is 6 and his older brother is almost 4. We’re still in the low-income housing, and we don’t have any friends. We go on long nature walks on the weekends and fully enjoy this aspect of our new life. We apply for residence in an individual house in a new housing project, get one, and move in January ’94. It has a nice big back yard and I work hard to make a big sandbox and put up a swing set for the kids. It’s a lot nicer, but the newly build neighborhood is just underneath the ruin with the crucifix. We know now that everyone calls it “The Dungeon”. It’s been a long time since I stopped taking the bus and started driving to work. I buy an enormous 100-year-old stone barn in the countryside on half an acre of land with a big old oak and a sweet smelling hazelnut tree, and I get to work transforming it into a house in my spare time. It only cost me 120,000 Francs, the work will take years though. All of the neighbors start to attack us verbally. There’s a lot of jealousy. At school, the kids get their shins kicked and are called “dirty American” daily. One day I’m affronted by one of the neighbors as I’m walking up to the house, he says that my children attacked his and spits in my face. I know it’s not true. He calls me a pussy for keeping my calm and walking past him. We’re starting to live a nightmare.

On Easter, since it’s the first time we’ve had a real backyard, the Easter rabbit visits us and the kids have their first real Easter-egg hunt. They’re happy and enjoying their chocolate when we hear a big commotion…there’s a huge crowd of people gathering outside. We’re afraid that it’s for us that they’re gathering, because of all the threats and verbal abuse we’ve been getting. The group get bigger and bigger, until there are hundreds of people, and then they all leave, and climb the stairs up to the top of the dungeon. When they all get to the top, the space in front of the crucifix is completely filled. Someone at the front is giving a speech or a sermon, we can’t hear it clearly. Then we see everyone go down on their knees and bow their heads. There’s a few minutes of silence, and then everyone leaves… It’s very strange to us. We can’t figure out what they’ve been doing, but we figure it must have to do with Easter. Probably just some local tradition. Most of them go back into town, but a large group, mostly faces from our immediate neighborhood underneath the dungeon, gathers just in front of our house. They start to yell insults and threats. The children are terrified, and my wife and I try not to show our fear as we comfort them. We’re all cuddled together in our bedroom at the back of the house. I call the police from the bedroom phone as a large rock smashes through the kitchen window.

By the time the police arrive, the 4 tires of my new Peugeot 106 have been slashed, the windshield smashed, and “Go home Rican” scratched into the side in French. We have a garage, but only room for one car in it, the family car that my wife uses, a Ford Escort Clipper. Luckily it’s safe. Everyone scatters when they hear the police. They question us, but I don’t mention any names. I’m sure that it wouldn’t be a good idea, as I would certainly face repercussions. No one is hurt, but our happy Easter Sunday has been ruined. When we finally get the kids to sleep we talk for a long time. How can we stay here? What can we do? We don’t have anywhere else to go. The next day is a Holiday, and we go to visit the kids’ grandmother in Normandy to try to change their ideas. We don’t mention any of what happened to my mother-in-law. She’s very old and we don’t want her to worry.

We’ve learned a lot about the place and the people in the 4 years we’ve lived here. The direct descendants of Jean Cottereau, “Jean Chouan” and a most of his band are here. It’s almost like time stopped here and we’re living 200 years in the past, except with modern technology. Everyone is still Royalist and they would like to see a return of a king. The people are ignorant, intolerant, racist, violent, given to drinking, brawls, and use of vulgar language. Most people only take one bath a week on Saturday, and they stink. I had a woman working next to me in my office that literally made me want to throw up because of her smell. I complained to the HR Director and he told me “that’s a very American complaint”. I did get my own private office after that though. The two CEOs, the brothers, are from a noble family, and they are respected by everyone, even more than the police. So, I know how I’m going to deal with the situation, because I have to, if I don’t it will get worse, and my children are already terrified.

Tuesday morning my wife drives me to work, and I go directly to see my boss. First let me tell you about my relations with him: I report directly to him for my work, and I also give him English communication lessons one-to-one in his office after work, so we have a good relationship. I’m a valued employee because my managing of their biggest customer has been very good for them. I always solve all of the problems without the customer ever knowing that there was one. Now, I tell my boss everything that happened on Easter Sunday, and even the events leading up to that climax. I give him all of the names that I know. They are all convoked, and are ordered to pay the damage and to excuse themselves, with the added threat that if ever they try to get revenge or continue, one word from me and they are not only fired, but publicly humiliated and banished from the township. That’s the power of a noble in this place. For the next 12 years that we live in the area, we never have any more problems. I never do make any friends, but at least people leave us alone.