A HISTORY LESSON

James Joyce has a short story in The Dubliners called, if I remember correctly, “Araby,” in which a young man wants to go to a fair based on the theme of A Thousand and One Nights. (I may have details wrong; I read it a long time ago.) He saves his pennies and dreams of the exotic wonders he'll witnesss, but when the night arrives, he can't leave on time because he has to wait for his parents to get home, or something. Anyway, evening comes and it's almost too late, but finally he catches the last tram out. By the time he arrives, though, the various stalls are closing, lights are being turned off, and his dream crumbles.

Why did this story come to mind? Because today was our “Araby.” We'd had a fantasy of strolling through a luxurious garden overlooking the Dordodogne, or experiencing our distant past by visiting The National Museum of Prehistory followed by a trip to Grotte de Rouffignac, a cave with prehistoric drawings. The weather prediction was for rain, so we chose the latter option. When we finally set off, the sun was shining, and thanks to Suzanne, our GPS system, we found the museum in record time. Bob turned up the street, which was about wide enough for a bicycle, and guess what? No place to park. Or directions to any such place. We had no choice but to continue on . . . and on . . . and on, hoping no car would come at us. Bob was growing more and more anxious as we drove for what seemed like forever. 

“Why not ask Suzanne to help us find a way back to the museum?” I asked.

Finally, we came to a real road and Suzanne said, “At the stop sign, turn right.”

Bob said, “I think I'm falling in love.”

Turns out, there was a parking lot, half a mile or so before entering the town where the museum was, and there was a tiny sign saying people visiting the museum could use it. So, we parked and hiked.

The museum is modern and nicely laid out, but it's small and everything is in French. No English translations or audio guides. The first thing you see is a glass case of a skeleton of Turkana Boy, and beside it, a

fleshed-out rendition of what he may have looked like. He was discovered by Leakey, not in the Dordodogne, but in Africa a mere 1.5 million years ago. Most everything else in the museum—bits of bone, arrow heads and “jewelry” made of animal teeth—date back a mere ten or twenty thousand years BCE. I think our favorite exhibit was a fleshed-out moose-like animal, now extinct. No transaction needed.

Okay, so why wouldn't an extinct animal and a 1.5 million-year-old ancestor satisfy our Araby fantasy? Well it would, but that's where things got dicey. We left the museum about noon, and the Grotte we wanted to visit closed for a couple of hours for lunch. There we were with two hours to kill and the hope that maybe we could get tickets to the Grotte if we hung around. The weather was still warm and sunny, so we decided to “do” the caves—the Grotte and Lascaux—tomorrow (May Day)--and instead, visit the gardens on our way back. Around 12:30, we stopped at a street market to pick up something for dinner, but it was just closing up: boxes piled up to put on vans, tarps being rolled up. We moved on, and by now, storm clouds were gathering. So, midway, we agreed to instruct Suzanne to skip the garden and head home. 

When we arrived, about 1:00 pm, the sun was still shining, but we agreed to roll up our tent anyway. We have four more days to find our Araby.