STES-MARIES-DE-LA-MER
of the search for the gypsy father in Galicha
1950 - 26 years
"The plane went straight up very high, I had gone to other horizons, I wanted to stop for two weeks at Stes-Marie-de-la-Mer and get to know the gypsies there. I had a great need to change my identity. , to invent a new identity for myself to better understand myself and to be better understood by others, that without any premeditation, this affirmation came out of my head: "My father is not my father, my blood father is a gypsy, Romanian, horse trainer in a circus "Everyone believed it straight away, it finally seemed that I was understood. Everyone believed it so much that for me in this game, it had become a reality. My Romanian father, I wanted to find his trace in Stes-Maries-de-la-Mer. "
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"I have the impression of living a kind of dream which wakes me up and gives me an inner joy, a strength rather, a calming. Since my arrival here, I told you, I felt very lonely, a little unhappy, worried, as if in front of a gate that I could not pass, all these gypsies, gypsies, sinti, travelers as they call themselves, looked at me very hard, came to ask me for cigarettes and all tried to take me away. were scary and above all I felt very disappointed, I did not know how to approach them, how to make them forget that I was the woman, the rupine, the rich woman as they say. And I thought of leaving Stes-Maries with a fleeting impression and exterior of a race which for me has always been nostalgia and in which I did not enter. "
"The gypsy caravans come by all roads: organized trailers, mounted on stilts or simple trailers covered with a tent in arches pulled by a horse."
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"Old cars and splendid rococo drawn by old horses, or by gasoline cars of any kind but more often by horses. They are disgusting and sometimes beautiful.
In the blues, the mauves, everything settled down according to their fancy. "
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In addition to this, you need to know more about it.
“Yesterday evening, around ten o'clock I went around their camp with a hell of a scare. All around their fires, conspirators, were hermetically sealed or looked at me provocatively. They do not mix between tribes, and must all beware of each other.The wind tires me, I would like it to stop for five minutes and everything to stop spinning.
This morning, I had to take a room for four days in the village because in the hotel, everything is retained for its four days. They also take advantage of it and ask for five hundred francs per room; so I use the belt to establish a balance. "
In addition to this, you need to know more about it.
In addition to this, you need to know more about it.
In addition to this, you need to know more about it.
"I walked for a long time and I lay down on the sand, but after two hours this wind was driving me crazy, a beach that looks a bit like the Belgian coast, a lot of dunes but no one in it; every now and then a guy with horse with a long pike in hand, bull-keepers, white horses running free, lots of marshes; it's splendid as poetry. "
"And then the gypsies were coming more and more and in the evening there were parties. They sang Spanish tunes very much like Arabic, playing the guitar, drinking and dancing. Already in me was rising a mad love for them. , a desire to be one of them that hurt inside me. Everyone brushed against me, looked at me a lot. I spoke to myself, a woman and a stranger with a dozen of them, jostling each other to approach me like men near a woman. Among them, there was a boy, almost a child, of unheard-of purity and beauty. You would not have stopped looking at him, but above all for this purity.
He barely looked at me, didn't ask me for cigarettes or to go out with him. "
A very handsome boy in his twenties with a rose in his mouth (where did he find it? There are no roses here), very beautiful girls all pregnant and many, many children ...
"Galicha, little gypsy, so pure, so beautiful, illiterate. I wanted to teach you to write to defend yourself; you, you protected me with your scarf when it was windy, you tied it around my neck, or you forcibly slipped your weather-colored jacket over my shoulders.
We slept together on the sand, mixed; we slept together in my room where you would just climb out the window, laughing at the white sheets of the bed; you had never slept in a real bed, then at dawn, like a cat, you would jump out the window and we would eat bread, cold meats, fruit; your gaze narrowed when I wanted to buy me. "
"Sometimes your eyes would get sad, a big car would pass and you would say, 'I would like to own it and go away with you.
Fifteen days, we have lived for two weeks an impossible dream.
There were tourists arriving from everywhere, insolent, noisy, sometimes rude. You took me outside the party, where the gypsies spent their parties. You borrowed a guitar, I wanted to send mine to you from Belgium but you refused. You refused everything. Sometimes you said to me: "you talk too much". You only believed in actions and you were right. I, loving you in the present, I betrayed you because I was escaping further. "
Mais est-on vraiment plus libre quand on a un papa gitan?
"The day you left you clung to me and my eyes were full of tears, you didn't want to leave. Cousins came, you quarreled, like a gypsy. Your words revolved around me and you left, shrugging your shoulders as if you were cold, walking behind your little cart, pulled by a horse, sitting on the sand, like in a dream, I saw you disappear. But it was a painting; I, I I was going by bicycle to Tunisia, ashamed, unfaithful, I was running away, I hated myself. The next day, I got on a big boat for the first time, towards Tunisia, another dream; and I had already forgotten you. "
Galicha (Henri Fournier) sent two letters to Poucette in Tunisia, written by a friend. The second letter came from Ariane where he had taken refuge with a cousin after falling out with his parents. He begged him to make a decision, to fulfill his promises and to come and join him as soon as possible. Poucette wrote to him, but rather travelogues, which worried Galicha.
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Some time later a letter from Galicha's mother followed.
Gignac 20 - 10 50
Mrs,
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I received your letter and in response I let you know that my son is married and I would like the correspondence to cease with him because I want the household to go well.
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Nothing more
Receive Madam, my
Respectful greetings
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Rose
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At the age of 10, Galicha had been engaged to a little gypsy.
As a result, Poucette never wrote again.
