Literature

From the whole world to the heart of the world (in motion)

7 reading minutes

written by Arthur Billerey · December 29, 2020 · 0 comment

Du monde entier au cœur du monde (en mouvement)

The title of the Cendrars collection that everyone knows could fit this little human book, just published by Bernard Campiche. Why a little human book? Because it's a story, a portrait, a life journey. Marcel's among his family, his family's among the customers of the Café des Chemins de fer, his customers' among the thousands of people who passed through the city of Fribourg and the Pérolles district in the 20th century.^th century. This story or slice of urban history can be read in one sitting. The anecdotes from the life of one of Marcel's daughters, who grew up in the Café and in the Pérolles district, are pure authenticity. They have been told in her own words, and her memory is intact. Jean Steinauer's pen is there to preserve it. The reader, seated in front of his apple café, can thus learn and be entertained, enjoying one of the unheard-of powers of literature, that of going back in time.

«In the beginning was a hole lined with greenery, which urbanization was to convert into a giant garbage dump and children's paradise: the Grabe, or Pérolles ravine. The neighborhood of that name grew up on its banks, long magnetized by the Café des Chemins de fer run by Louis Cotting and his ﬁls Marcel. Three generations lived and worked in this little house, among a cohort of waitresses and a clientele of workers and craftsmen, students and partygoers. People came as neighbors, as families. The owner's cheekiness and savoir-faire ensured a warm welcome and a great atmosphere.»

From all over the world

Whether they were farmers, pensioners, workers, craftsmen, entertainers, unemployed, students, partygoers, or whether they were from Fribourg, Italy or the USA, with or without an immigrant background, Café des chemins de fer's customers came from all walks of life. And that over three generations. It could be said that the customers seated at the end of the Café are not the same customers as at the beginning, drowned out by all the comings and goings, but for some regulars or serious regulars, their presence has defied time. Just as the involvement of some has defied closing times, so much so that a petition was born for the Café to open permanently on Sundays, which worked, the vox populi always prevailing.

«Dear and beloved Totolle, It is with deep dismay that we have learned that your establishment remains closed on Sunday mornings. We therefore ask you to leave it open so that we can quench our thirst in due form. Thank you in advance.»

A deeply human passageway and crossroads for several segments of immigrant lives, including the lives of Italians from the second wave of post-war immigration, the Café served apple coffee to workers at dawn, provided relaxation for workers at lunchtime, but also moral relaxation, the release of nerves, the little daily catharsis that people need to breathe a little and forget the turpitudes of daily life. A table was set aside for this purpose. It was called the liars' table, and it was a table where the fibrous heart of the bistro beat:

«Every bistro has a table where its heart beats, the table of the owner's friends. It is expressly reserved “for fishermen, hunters and other liars”, as the inscription on the Kurbaus in Fluehli, Entlebuch, says. It's an enclave where nothing is truer than the unbelievable, a place where seriousness is forbidden, where one must speak loudly and laugh out loud.»

And then the charm begins. As mentioned above, the story can be read in one go. The anecdotes, the history of the Café and of the generations, are brought to life in their entirety by the writing, which here is rough-cut and trimmed, free of the useless or unpleasant fat of memories. The identities of Marcel, his father and his family are not threatened by bad memories. Nothing is transgressed, everything is transported in the best conditions, which also reveals a collective work to arrive at this result so close to the essential, touching the reader to entertain him.

At the heart of the world (in motion)

These customers and their lives over three generations have undergone many urban changes. The city of Fribourg and the Pérolles district have their own history. Post-war Fribourg was still rural. Tractors and trucks populated the roads. Green spaces and vegetable-filled gardens, which are now coming back into fashion in our inner cities and suburbs, were plentiful. There was also the Grabe, a scrubby, rat-haunted ravine where children played childish games, chasing each other, fighting, kissing for the first time, smoking twigs and chasing rats away with stones. These were the days before apartment blocks, which sprang up like mushrooms as early as 1950. Today, the neighborhood is colorful with schools and kebab shops, burgers and Chinese restaurants.

The evolution of the Pérolles district, its urbanization, its industries, its architecture and its temporal evolution, as recounted in this little book, enables the reader to understand the urban issues that directly influenced the Café des Chemins de fer in terms of the origin of its clientele, but also, and perhaps more importantly, in terms of its working habits and its more intimate, interior and professional transformations. The evolution of technology also played a part. Cars are developing, and the democratization of television in the home will radically change the age of customers. As did the creation of an Erasmus-style program at the University of Fribourg in the 1970s, which led to the arrival of several American students. The Café des Chemins de fer is thus at the heart of a world on the move.

«Television arrived in the late 1950s. Families crowded into the bistro in the evenings to watch the cult programs: Continents sans visa, Henri Guillemin's lectures. In summer, for the soccer World Cup, the owner installs the set in the garden, given the crowds. But when TV reaches families, young people go out to the bistro to meet up with friends. They replace the workers, who desert the bistro after dinner to watch TV in their slippers. The Chemins de fer's evening clientele took a youthful hit that would continue under Marcel's reign.»

This double rhythm, which comes both from the heart of the Café des Chemins de fer, with its organization, its owners, its employees, its customers, its stories, and from the body of the Pérolles district, also in motion, shaken by the unalterable progress of society, gives the reader of this little book pleasure and exhilaration in reading. The exhilaration of pausing and feeling alive while reading about other people's lives, as if a tenuous thread were connecting us all in the simple and unique act of existing, in the sleeve of each of the many lives that make up the world and our cities. And the simple and unique need to pause for the intoxication of the halt, of rest, of frozen time. This is also the word of Marcel, who, as a boss, says it with humor: «Happy moments of pause, which bring together around a glass (...) those who are looking for work and those who are afraid to find any.»