This Strange Eventful History

Barbara feels as though she transformed during her time in law school. Once uptight, she now occasionally smokes marijuana with other “women’s libbers.” She enjoys the freedom that her studies provide and relishes driving to campus in her Mini Cooper. She’s happy that her mother is staying with them because managing the household and the children was difficult on top of her law school work. Her mother and François learned to get along over the years, and now their friendship appears genuine. She and her mother sometimes still disagree, but they too get along better than they used to. Now, however, François’s parents and sister are also visiting, and they’re another story entirely: Barbara finds their presence irritating and disruptive. She doesn’t agree with their religiosity and often finds herself scoffing at their “Catholic piety” and retrograde views on the role of women as wives and mothers. She still wonders how she could have attached herself to a family that was so decidedly foreign, so French, though she admits that she finds François’s “Frenchness” sexy. She reflects that had she married her Canadian boyfriend, whom her mother tells her has grown “fat and ruddy with drink” (229), she would have lived a tediously staid life in the suburbs and never traveled at all. This life, with its difficulties, is likely preferable.

François, always traveling for work, calls to tell her about a terrible accident, a collision that killed two men. He can’t return home yet. Barbara prepares an elaborate French meal for his parents, and at the table François’s father speaks much more openly and plainly about international business than François ever has, telling her details about the kinds of accidents that François is now dealing with. She finds the conversation alternately interesting and tedious but, as she cleans up the dishes after dinner, reflects that, given the chance, she wouldn’t change anything about her life. Marriage, child-rearing, and dealing with in-laws are all difficult, but she’s happy, if only relatively so.

In Sydney, staying with his son’s family, Gaston watches his granddaughters and reflects on his own youth and on François’s and Denise’s early years. War upended both his and his children’s lives. By contrast, Chloe and Loulou have a calm and peaceful existence. He loves his grandchildren and has enjoyed his time in François’s home and the opportunity to rest and to observe his family members. He still adores his wife but realizes that their age difference has begun to catch up to them: She’s older than he is and is beginning what seems to be a slow decline.

He loves François too, though he wishes the boy were more interested in science and technology. He has a successful career, but Gaston knows that his son would prefer to be a writer. He wishes François and Barbara were less modern and more religious, but he and Lucienne appreciate the effort the two make to preserve and honor French traditions and customs when he and Lucienne are in town. They planned a long and leisurely journey back to Toulon, where they now live, but they receive word that Denise was in a single-car accident. How strange, he thinks, that there wasn’t a second car involved. Perhaps she accidentally swerved off the road. She was visiting with an old friend, Estelle, from their Argentine days, and the accident occurred after Estelle left. Denise was in critical condition but alive. He and Lucienne would instead return to France quickly, by plane.

The far-flung family gathers in Toulon for Gaston and Lucienne’s 50th wedding anniversary party. François and Barbara, now living in Canada with the girls, arrive early. There will be a small dinner, for immediate family only, followed by a larger party for everyone the next evening. Chloe and Loulou are happy to be accepted by the local French children and enjoy swimming at the beach under the deep blue Mediterranean sky. Gaston reflects on their wedding, in a church that is now (and was, before becoming a Christian church) a mosque. He loves Lucienne just as much now as on the day they were married and thinks to himself how many strange places their life together has taken them.

François sits in his study, thinking. His friend Larry’s son just unexpectedly died in an accident. Chernobyl is in the news. All around the world, there’s trouble. He and his family are relatively prosperous, but he reflects that he too is unhappy. He feels his intellectual powers weakening and laments his decision to quit graduate school in favor of a more lucrative career path. He has been able to provide for Barbara and the children, but they still seem to resent him. No amount of money is ever enough for them, and they don’t stop to consider what their financial security cost him: the life that he wanted to lead, a life that would have better suited him. To cope with all the stress, François now drinks small sips of vodka secretly throughout the day. He never has enough that he’ll be found out but increasingly relies on this “medicinal” drinking as a coping mechanism.

Even though the girls are grown and out of the house (Loulou is studying law in Canada and Chloe is studying in England). François feels a sense of resentment from them. It is with his wife, however, that François struggles the most. Barbara doesn’t appreciate him, doesn’t seem to love him, and would certainly never center his needs the way he has always centered hers. The two recently went on a trip to Miami and Key West together. He thought it would be a nice respite from the Connecticut winter, but they argued the entire time. Barbara found fault with everything, and François found fault with Barbara. How strange that their love should have turned into something so ordinary and shabby. He can’t lie to himself: They aren’t happy in their marriage, and he isn’t happy with his life.

Chloe and her boyfriend, Oliver, visit Denise in Toulon. Denise wonders if the two will get married and then reflects on her own life. She never married and was always in love with her friend Estelle’s brother Jacques. He’s long married; he was married even when she first met him. He has four daughters and a beautiful wife. She found out some time ago from Estelle that Jacques has been having an affair for more than a decade and that he fathered a child with the woman. After the shock of that information, Denise crashed her car and had a long recovery in the hospital. However, she pushes those thoughts away. She adores Chloe and is happy to host the girl and her boyfriend.

Denise has her own apartment but is staying with her father, Gaston, now in his eighties and widowed. During Chloe’s visit, the four have a heated discussion about French Algeria and colonialism in general. Denise still painfully feels the loss of her home country and is upset to find Chloe so ready to critique the colonial project. She angrily asserts that the French were in Algeria for 100 years and loved the country. Her father, surprisingly, is more circumspect. He admits to being a product of colonialism but now sees it as an exploitive system. He also points out that both the US and Australia oppressed and exploited their indigenous populations and that they too should be viewed through the framework of settler-colonialism. This assertion unsettles both Chloe and Denise, but the conversation shifts and they’re soon amiable once more.

Chloe and Oliver return to England via the ferry. Chloe wants to become a writer. Barbara always encouraged her reading, and the two often exchange letters about various literary figures and the MFA programs Chloe is considering. She feels a great sense of excitement about literature and writing and looks forward to embarking on this new adventure. She reflects on her family too: Her grandparents’ apartment in Toulon always felt like the center of her nomadic world, and she adored her grandparents. Her grandfather took excellent care of her grandmother, even during the dementia of her later years. Now alone, he seems content in his life with Denise and his housekeeper. The world has changed so much, Chloe thinks, since her grandfather was young. Communist governments in the USSR and Romania fell, and Chloe is thrilled with the geopolitical shift and the hope it represents. The large French conglomerate corporations that her family members worked for were bought up by a series of companies and are now owned by the Australian firm Rio Tinto. The firm intends to return some of its mining sites to their original indigenous ancestors.