On Sunday,
and I sat down to discuss religion. John was raised Catholic and I was raised agnostic, at best. Below is a piece of flash fiction that I wrote years ago, which somehow feels appropriate given this weeks’s rendition of The Paris Writers’ Salon about religion, individual faith, and sanctified pastries.
For those of you who are new here, every fortnight on Sundays at 6pm Paris / 12pm EST,
and I sit down in his Latin Quarter apartment to discuss whatever we feel like live via Substack. Generally speaking, only paying subscribers can access the recordings of these conversations, but I’m feeling generous this week and also think this conversation, in particular, might inspire some folks out in the Great Beyond.Previous salon discussions have covered writing biographies, daily life in Paris over the centuries, and independent versus traditional publishing. The point is to be casual about it because life in Paris in the spring, especially for literary tour guides, is extremely busy.
In other news, I’ve recently—as of four days—officially moved into a new apartment and cannot wait to write something that honors the space where I wrote my first-ever Substack post1 and where I lived the past 4.5 years.
Until then, enjoy our chinwag about religion in all of its glory and problematics, and a piece of flash fiction based on a true-if-you-can-believe-it story.
La Religieuse
“Hello? Who is it?”
“It’s me. I’m sorry I’m so late. Here are some religieuses. You won’t believe what happened. My uncle left the other pastry box on the bus. I’m distraught.”
“It’s really not a problem. There’s only two of us anyway. We don’t need more pastries.”
“No, it’s not that. Do you remember Tante Odette, the nice old lady with back problems?”
“Ninety-degree angle?”
“Yes. That’s her. She died yesterday …”
“Oh gosh, I’m so sorry.”
“No, it’s okay. Well, it isn’t. But, you know. That’s how it goes.”
“When’s the funeral?”
“Well, that’s why I mention her. The funeral has been postponed. It was a bit complicated getting her back here because, well, she died in Belgium.”
“Oh gosh, I’m so sorry. Is something happening in Belgium?”
“No, it’s not like that.”
“Like what?”
“Nothing, I thought you were—sorry. Nevermind. It was complicated to bring her body back, though. We didn’t realize we had to repatriate the corpse.”
“Repatriate the corpse?”
“Yeah.”
“Whoa. I didn’t know a corpse could be repatriated. I didn’t know a corpse could be de-patriated either.”
“Neither did we. They stopped us at the border.”
“Who did?”
“The border guards.”
“Oh no.”
“Yes. It’s not every day someone admits to transporting a corpse. I mean, it was embalmed—she was embalmed. It’s not like we killed her.”
“No, of course not. So what’d they say?”
“They asked if she’d been repatriated, and we didn’t know what that meant.”
“What does it mean?”
“I still don’t know. But we had to go back to Belgium. That’s why we’re so late. Thankfully, there was a crematorium open on the weekend. It was easy enough to explain.”
“Do crematoriums have walk-ins?”
“It turns out they do! The urn shop was closed though. These small European towns, well, on the weekend? Forget about it.”
“Oh no.”
“Oh yes. There was only one place open on a Sunday, too, and it was Tante Odette’s favorite bakery.”
“Well that’s nice.”
“Yes. My uncle was beside himself, returning there without her. But we needed to transport Tante Odette.”
“You don’t mean a pastry box?”
“Yes, I do. Mind you, it was a nice box, made of wood, just like this one, and they wouldn’t let us pay for it. The baker was close with Tante Odette.”
“So what did they say when you got back to the border?”
“Nothing. The border guard recognized the pastry box and said he loved the religieuses, too.”
“What’s in that again?”
“Cream.”
“Ah, yes. I like the chocolate ones best.”
“Tante Odette preferred the custard. But after we got through, the car got a flat on the outskirts of Paris and so we had to take a bus to get back to the twentieth, and the funeral was supposed to be tomorrow but when we—”
“Don’t cry. It’ll be okay.”
“Not for Tante Odette it won’t. Given the ordeal, we ended up forgetting the wrong pastry box on the bus. The 69. Can you imagine? We called the transportation authority, but they didn’t find anything, which can only mean somebody took home an elegant wooden box of what they thought were pastries only to find—
“Oh no.”
“Oh yes.”
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