I didn’t get to the Cote d’Azur until the 80s. The quaint fishing villages had been transformed to first-class resorts for the rich and famous. Cap d’Antibes was in the dead center of the Riviera and my roommate, the Model from Paris, was married to an ex-French paratrooper, who had a house on the rocks of the Baie Doree.
Guy was the jealous type, but his wife told him that I was gay. There was nothing between us and I could affect a limp wrist that Noel Coward would have envied, so Guy graciously extended an open invitation to visit his villa overlooking the azure sea stretching east toward Nice. A good guest has the gift of timing and I stayed away from Cap d’Antibes during the frenzied summer months.
By late-September the tide of vacationing hordes have retreated from the Cote d”Azur and I would travel south from Paris for a long weekend in paradise. Guy and his wife lived above the guest room. They had sex all night long and once in the morning before Guy went to work at his clothing factory. I slept with cotton in my ears.
One morning I went into the kitchen. The Model from Paris looked like she had serviced an Alaskan oil camp. That tawdry look had earned her a place on the covers of French Vogue.
“Morning.” She was making coffee for herself. There was no offer to make another cup. I was used to her moods.
“A good one.” The blue sea rivaled the cloudless sky.
“We have to do some shopping this morning.” She wasn’t a morning person. Her mean streak ran deep in the hours after the dawn.
“Okay.” I had shopped with her many times in Paris. Her purchasing process for a loaf of bread took an hour. A visit to the open-air market in Antibes could last hours. “I’ll be back after a quick swim.”
“Don’t disappear.” She went into his bedroom to take a shower.
I had about fifteen minutes and walked down the rocky path to the Baie Doree with a towel over my shoulder. An older woman was swimming twenty meters off the popular sand beach. I stripped off my shirt and kicked off my sandals. The sand was unsullied by footsteps and I meandered into the water without any chill. The temperature of the air was matched by the sea. I dove into the calm waters and surfaced a few meters from the old woman. She could have passed Greta Garbo.
“Bon jour.” I put down my feet and stepped on something sharp. I thought it was glass, until I spotted a foot-long fish swimming out of the sand. The older woman said, “C’est une vive.”
“Huh.”
“Une poisson avec les barbes poison aussi.” She spoke with the sing-song accent of the South.
I thought she was making up a word game about poisson for fish and poison. The French are clever with their language, but several seconds later a burning sensation crawled up my leg intensifying with every heartbeat.
“Poisonous fish?”
She nodded her head.
“Tres drangerous.”
“Vraiment?”
“Quais.” She strongly suggested that I get home and called SOS Medicins.
I obeyed her advice. She was native to this region. My foot was on fire and my knee felt like acid was running in my veins. I made it to the beach and climbed up the rocks to Guy’s villa.
The Model from Paris was dressed in a striped sailor’s shirt and levis. The pout of her face was for me. She looked at the wall clock. I was ten minutes late.
“It’s about time.” Beautiful women hate waiting for men.
“I think I just stepped on a poisonous fish.” I sat down and checked the bottom on my foot.
“Great excuse.” The Model from Paris sputtered out the words, as if I was telling a lie.
“It’s not an excuse.” Two puncture holes dotted my sole.
“If you don’t want to go shopping, just say so.” She had no use for men who stood her up.
“I think I need a doctor.” My body was on fire.
“Right.” She stormed out of the house and slammed the door. “Another day you’ve ruined. I don’t even know why you came here.”
The Model from Paris drove away from the villa, grinding gears through every shift. I was on my own and called SOS Medicins for a house call. The young doctor arrived within ten minutes.
“Ah, une wivre.” It was the Old French word for dragon. The doctor examined the wounds and then said in English, “A Weeverfish hides in the sand in wait for their prey. Their spines are poisonous. They are also very delicious. The restaurants cook them for boullabaise.”
“I don’t feel so good.” I was panicking as the poison reached my groin.
“You have pain, itching, joint ache?” He sounded familiar with the symptons and picked out the tiny spines with tweezers.
“Yes.” I was breaking out in a sweat.
“A little nausea?” The doctor searched his medicine bag for a syringe wrapped in plastic.
Nodding my head welcomed a wave of vertigo.
“You were unlucky to step of a vive with a strong poison. Normally fisherman stick a lit cigarette on the wound and it burns off the toxin.”
“I don’t smoke.”
“And it’s too late for any kind of heat treatment.” He filled the syringe with a liquid. “This is a histamine. I should take away the pain in a hour. Pull down your pants.”
I bared my ass and he stuck in the needle. It hurt more than the fish spines. “Thank you.” I was grateful for his care. Doctors in America stopped making house calls in the late-60s. The cost of his treatment was less than $50.
“Don’t worry, you will live, but you might be tired from the poison.”
“I’ll be taking it easy.” My body was sapped of energy.
“That’s part of the cure.”
He drove off in his Renault and I went down the small bedroom. I fell out cold within twenty minutes. The next two days I drifted in and out of consciousness. I had several dreams about Brigitte Bardot. She was naked in every one of them. It was a great sleep.
The Model from Paris suspected that I was on dope and didn’t speak to me for the rest of the weekend. I was feeling better on Sunday night and her husband drove us over to Eden Roc. The hotel terrace was glowing with a Riviera sunset. Guy ordered a bottle of champagne.
“I’m not sure if I should.”
“If you were going to die, you would be dead already.” Guy poured his wife the first glass.
We raised out glasses and waited for her to make a toast.
“Here’s to small fish.” It was a cruel toast, but then I expected nothing less of the Model from Paris.
“Le Wivre.” Guy and I clinked glasses and the Model from Paris smiled with pleasure. She loved her life and I couldn't blame her.
We watched the sunset and ordered boullabaise.
It tasted great. Even if there was no Brigitte Bardot this was still the Cote d'Azur.
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