Delusional Deja Vu

In 1988 I spent the summer in Perpignan, France. My good friend, Olivier Brial, arranged my stay with his cousin, Jacques Vial. The family house was in the center of the old Catalan city. Olivier's parents were out on Carney-Plage, a middle class beach resort. Nothing special and certainly not the Riviera. Still ot was free accomodations and the house was the office for the Vial law firm and every day we gathered a hearty lunch and then sprawled throughout the first floor on the sofas and chairs. Everyone had their favorites. It was a quiet city that summer. Everyone was at the beach or on holiday. I was writing a short story collection set in the East Village 1978-1980. Intook the train the Colliure further south on the border of Spain. The Mediterranean waters were warmer than the Rickaways and the rocky beach more pleasant than the wide commercial strand of Carnet Plage. I still went thery y bus. It was close. At night I wandered through Perpignan. I never found any place to drink. Not in the Gitane quartier or next to the Foreign Legion barracks. Thankfully Jacques invited me on two day trips to Barcelona. Lunch with Catalan business associates and stopping in Cadaques to play blackjack at Le Perlata. I never really won or lost. The Vial family owned casinos on the Core de Rousillion, but his one-armed uncle banned all family members from visiting them. "No one wins at gambling," he told us at a family dinner outside town. Oliver and his redheaded Californian girlfriend Cindy came down from Paris with another friend. It was a good weekend. After they left, I felt stranded. At least it wasn't Lille. One Friday after lunch Jacques led me outside and said he had to ask me a favor. "Anything." At least until I heard the request. "Tonight my wife wants me to attend a chamber music concert up in the Pyrenees at an ancient monastery." "Not a chance " As a revolutionary these quartet concerts like a musical reprise accompanying the ablutions of ancien regime. "Please. just come. I'll being a great bottle of wine. plus you'll get into the mountains. I'll drive and you can ait in the front. The women will behind us and we'll roll with the windows open I wasn't sold, but he had been a good friend this summer. We met at the cafe in the center of town. Olivier's sister ran the bar. I fortofied myself for the ordeal with two calvas. "So you are going with Javques?"