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THE VOYAGE TO LYON

July seventh. I leave for Lyon.

B. was quite surprised.

He took me to the station, teeth clenched, without words.

Elsa slept so soundly I didn't have the heart to wake her up.

I am moving and yet motionless.

Locked in and yet protected on the train.

No one expects anything from me.

"What a happy day July 7th is! Goodbye, Lyon, goodbye.

This town must become sacred for me.

I promise myself that I shall not return, unless to start the Workers' Union

or to organize a provisionary government.

Otherwise, I shall never set foot here again."

Arriving in an unfamiliar place I always wish to leave right away.

Tear down bridges... burning bridges they say here.

"Le Tour de France".

Flora Tristan's diary of 1844

when she engaged in nothing less then to unify the French workers.

On her trail in Lyon.

Still, B.'s silence upset me.

What is he thinking?

He never speaks his mind.

Do you want to eat?

Yes, please.

Thank you.

What is this, Madam?

Pike dumplings.

Excuse me?

Pike. Fish.

Sick in Lyon... a few months to live.

Stomach pain, headache, nausea, vomiting...

She's unable to keep any food down.

On an empty stomach she runs from meeting to meeting.

Up and down the steps in the Traboules and the Croix Rousse...

What strange sounds...

This language is not mine.

I feel free to use it, but yet it escapes me.

Are you looking for someone?

No, not at all.

Eleonore Blanc, laundress

Flora's kindred spirit, she was 18.

When Flora died, she entrusted Eleonore her diary.

She lived in a house on Rue Luizerne. I found it at the cadastral office.

Now it is named Rue Major Martin.

No one can tell me where Eleonore's house used to be.

And there is no clue to find out.

I have been walking the district all day in the harsh sun.

Window shutters are closed, Lyon is empty.

No one left, except old folks and foreign workers.

Place des Terreaux, the square Flora had seen from her hotel window

is just like any other big city squares.

The former 'Hotel de Milan' is now the 'Zoom'-cinema presenting karate films.

She said, she had found the most intelligent French workers

in this closed, hostile city.

I can't even find an open bakery.

Excuse me, Madam... may I help you?

Do you carry etchings?

From the period between 1830 and 1849?

- That period only? - Yes.

I do think so. I'll go look... One moment.

Here is what I found,

if you'd like to sit down.

Thank you.

Here are portraits from that period...

I hope you'll like them, for...

I haven't got a lot. This one is very typical.

It's an officer?

It is a National Guard.

Wait, here's an officer of Lyon.

Here's one of a church.

Not for you? Well...

Have you anything of the Croix Rousse quarter?

Alas, I've lost the folder

with those etchings.

It must be in another folder.

But I do have something of the Croix Rousse:

weaving,

with a second empire loom, so that one -

imagine the empress herself weaving...

although she probably didn't do much...

That's all you have?

I haven't got much... Here's one -

of another loom, also a Jacquard loom.

But the workshops seem very large.

Etchings aren't very exact,

especially of that period. They tried to make it look nice.

Bellecour, perhaps...

Place des Terreaux? Yes...

I'm sorry... Here it is.

Here's one with a fountain, which doesn't exist now.

The Bartholdi fountain is of course more recent.

Another: the same fountain and carriages.

There is just one side.

They always show the Palais St. Pierre,

- and the city hall there... - Why?

Because from that side... you can see better here.

It's much more banal... in terms of architecture...

The south-west side is better. You have the same...

But finally turned out less good.

Are you from Lyon?

No, but I've been here a long time.

And may I ask what brings you to Lyon... are you studying here?

I've not been a student for a long time.

Ah, you're doing research?

No, I was a historian, but...

not any more.

I'm looking for traces of a woman who died long ago.

But I don't want to look for things that are already known.

That can't be easy.

Amsterdam. Herengracht.

The Library of Social History.

That's were I found Flora's diary - "Le Tour de France". The original manuscript.

Chaotic writing.

No space between entangled lines.

To me very obvious, more of a pictorial piece of handwriting than decipherable words.

"Le Tour de France" in Amsterdam,

a strange itinerary.

Flora died of typhus in Bordeaux, while travelling.

41 years of age.

Four months after she had left Lyon.

In November... died while travelling.

10 000 workers accompany her coffin.

Eleonore inherited the unfinished manuscript.

She had tried, but ultimately died without ever getting it published.

Others later on tried again... without success.

129 years buried and forgotten.

"Tonight, I tried to understand what Eleonore felt about me.

And I had the revelation, that a more significant love

than ever known would disclose itself to humanity.

I don't yet know what to call it.

I discover the love of God for humankind. Oh, how sublime!

A love without a gender. Nothing impure can soil it."

The laundresses did their work while standing waist high in the water.

Day after day.

I try to hear the laundry being slapped against the rocks...

The washing places with the worn steps,

the current the current carrying all along with it.

I'm not sure if I have found the right place.

Three wars between Flora and me.

A pit, a common pit. A lion's pit.

Heard the expression "to cheat death".

That's two francs forty, please.

Thank you.

All is well during the day.

I take Elsa for walks to see the ducks and water lilies, or go by the institute.

Today she picked clover for your desk. And she can get dressed by herself now.

I still can't believe you've simply gone away.

I understand your lack of satisfaction, but you should have a real goal.

Well, you will know why this is so important to you now!

But how is this even relating to us, to Elsa and me?

I have begun to wonder... if we really understand each other.

I've never insisted on that kind of a relationship.

So think about it again calmly and then decide...

so that we all know where we stand.

Yesterday the Wengers came to dinner and asked about you.

I'm sending along Professor Janin's address.

I've already announced your visit.

He certainly will be able to help you.

I might go to sleep now... with the image of you on my mind.

Good luck, your B.

Could I have some more?

Again?

There is not one of them worth crying over.

It's for a pregnant friend.

- You haven't been in Lyon very long? - Yes, at least I didn't know it well.

Are you from Lyon?

Me? I'm from Paris!

1949, 59, 69...

You've been here since?

Yes... almost forty years.

We came here at the exodus.

With your family?

With my mother.

My father left with his office-desk. He left in a big truck.

Don't know why he didn't take us along.

My mother and I took to the road.

We finally arrived.

We were tired, there was a barn...

so we slept in the hay.

And when we woke up...

we saw the whole German army passing by.

So back in the hey... and waited for two days.

The Germans were still there?

They had gone. First were the handsome Austrians.

Then we took smaller roads

and we went on

and didn't even know there was an armistice.

So we got here to Lyon before them

to the free zone, and stayed. I don't know why.

And you found him?

My father? No.

He probably rebuilt his new life.

You never looked for him?

My mother rebuilt her life too

here in Lyon,

which is why I'm here.

And your mother?

- So you were here in 1943? - Yes.

I saw a plaque in the street...

about 80 Jews who were arrested then.

They weren't arrested.

What happened?

They were all shot.

You were there?

Yes, upstairs,

I wasn't allowed to go out, I was only 16.

It was the Gestapo who came.

They rounded up all the Jews

and put them in the courtyard,

and shot them.

There were a few who escaped.

One still comes here regularly.

He jumped up to the roof in the back, the toilets.

Then he got away... and hid.

He could hide here in Lyon?

Sure. Sure. You know, I don't have a clue...

Oh, sorry, I'm informal...

The whole Gestapo was here...

and the French militia too. There are bastards everywhere.

There're bad people in every country.

There were women as well?

Men, women, everyone. It made no difference...

they were Jews, that was enough.

Eighty!

I didn't see it, but I sensed it.

You heard it?

Yes, and how! I heard it.

That was in February?

She originally wrote, before Marx:

"The liberation of the working class must be the work of the workers themselves."

They preferred to have a man say it.

She also wrote:

"The most oppressed man can still oppress another... his wife."

An ear-drum and a retina.

Little time-recording machines.

Otherwise: to be diluted, dissolved,

to vanish, fade away, to melt, disappear.

Where did she find the strength to rush about the city?

From one weavery to the next. Motivating workers to join the movement.

- Did you want to make a call? - No.

I'm only asking because we don't use the phone either.

In an unknown city I happen to meet the same person twice, in different places.

I should have become a private investigator.

You can see the bridge from the windows.

You see the bridge there?

They thought it was collapsing...

because they discovered cracks in the structure.

- I like to see bridges collapse. - Why?

At Tours I saw a bridge collapse once.

They discovered, that a lot of bridges...

wear out...

it's like a sickness of time.

Anyway, since that day...

the bridge went, I haven't crossed one.

I've stayed south.

As bridges give way, I go further.

I'm not returning.

This one would collapse too...

if they put up a sign:

"Wait for others and walk in lockstep"...

all bridges would collapse.

The rhythm of walking on the bridge in lockstep...

Armies never cross a bridge marching in lockstep.

They find that the heavy rhythm of marching...

affects not only stone but also the head.

You know the "Gnawa" rites in Morocco? Morocco? No?

- What's your name? - Elisabeth.

In Morocco there are rites...

and they beat drums all night -

That affects not only the body...

...it's also the head that collapses... like a bridge.

One forgets and discovers another shore.

- Elisabeth... - And what's your name?

Fernand.

You study rhythms or bridges?

I haven't decided yet.

Your real name is Fernand?

Yes.

Once upon a time, a child ate his dinner in the yard:

each evening a toad kept him company.

The child always fed him...

so the toad gave him gems and gifts.

One evening the child playfully hit the toad...

saying "Eat the big pieces too!"

The mother heard, and then saw the toad...

and killed it.

Soon the child grew pale...

and refused to eat.

Only two weeks went by before

the Death Bird sang and the mother had to bury the child.

I feel I've grasped something which had escaped me so far.

As if whatever told me...

now kept its silence.

I thought of my violin.

Made by a Viennese. Dated 1792.

I carry a sound with me...

Two centuries old, belonging to no one.

A sound that is history.

I listened to my footsteps.

I moved on, and my steps resounded.

My steps became hers.

The reverberation of Flora's steps, 150 years later.

An echo of her passing.

I remembered infrared machines,

which record things no longer there... already disappeared.

I thought of Flora's words:

"I want to change a world which is perishing.

An impossible task. But...

I only listen to my faith, my love, my willpower."

Flora, loved so much...

that when she was ill, someone spread straw in the street...

to soften the sounds of carriages outside.

What are you doing?

It's a memory aid for what's happening.

When? Today?

Yesterday, today.

It happened that...

an old man died...

but other things happened at the same time...

an unknown architect died the same day.

I didn't know him.

That one we all knew.

They're all dead?

No, but I learned...

that many died at the same time...

50 Lebanese...

it is not of equal importance.

- It's important. - It's important.

He was probably a good man...

who tried to be wise...

but what did he stop?

That's him in the biggest letters?

Yes, the Pope.

But he died of old age...

the others, those there...

What did he stop?

It makes me wonder seeing all that together.

To see several newspapers from the same day...

and all that happened in our world at once.

It's not the same as reading one article after the other.

Yes, but you say that... it's our world?

But that's the world of headlines, events, the news!

But this is the way I know what happens in our world.

That also helps one to remember.

Me too,

I'm trying to remember... a woman.

Ah yes! A forgotten woman.

But the term "memory aid"...

...does one need to aid memory?

Yes, my memory is insufficient

for reflection. To try to reflect,

you have to know everything.

But you can't. This is just a fraction of what happened today.

Just a bit, but it's all I know. There are too many things.

If you knew everything could you reflect?

You'd be overloaded.

But one must know... or you can't think properly,

and nothing changes...

the things that happened, happen again...

or they get even worse,

2 Parisian lawyers began a movement...

for the rights of the defense, which is a set-back.

What exists hasn't always existed. It was earned.

It was won.

Now it has to be defended.

If not, it's a set-back.

And all that's happening at the same time.

Which brings up new questions, which I didn't' have before.

I am wondering why the Pope...

never thought of stopping men like...

Pinochet or Franco...

from claiming to be religious...

or that old Nazi who says he's a Christian Democrat.

I don't have the answer the question just came to my mind.

It'd be odd to do that all the time,

see things daily with all the simultaneous information.

Taken in only by the eye, not by the mind.

It's not the same.

It's impossible. That's only a small bit...

to try to understand what happened

at the same time a young man lost himself...

for six months... with amnesia, he had no self-memory...

No one remembers the woman who really existed.

"Brouiller les pistes" Cover the tracks.

Waiting room in French means "the hall of lost paces".

The tree that hides the forest.

The tree behind which one doesn't see the forest.

One doesn't see the forest for the trees.

What have you been researching in Lyon?

I've done this.

But what does it mean?

I recorded footsteps...

that she might have heard...

even if I haven't got the same shoes.

That seems difficult, but...

what has it got to do with History?

Do you know her?

You've heard of her?

Flora Tristan, yes, but not much.

It's not my area of research.

What are you really looking for?

To imagine what she heard and saw...

what she smelled...

the colours, sounds, all that...

in Lyon, this city where... she stayed so long.

I'm repeating her journey.

My library and archive research...

the books I've read...

aren't enough for me.

It's hard to place yourself in another age.

You identify too much with her.

No, I know I'm someone else.

How else does one remember?

By means of the documents of the past and its people...

the historian's effort is to erase himself behind the people he finds...

letting them speak. Tracing their lives...

...and not promoting himself.

That's how one tries...

to find out exactly...

how they lived, died, ate, loved then.

I wonder if identifying with the pain, the suffering...

the emotions of women in the past...

can be transformed into action.

Otherwise it just remains passive understanding.

A Mirabelle is more relaxing.

No, no, that's fine.

What'll you have? Enjoy life while you can.

I'll have a big sausage.

That's not bad.

With steamed potatoes.

They're good with a nice steak.

Hello. What?

Is Mr. Falusi there?

What?

Yes, he lives there.

No, they've been there for two weeks already.

Yes, with his daughter.

Try again.

Ah... OK.

When will they return?

Tell them that...

No, I'll call again.

No, thank you, I rather call again.

I had some fish.

Good. Was it pan-fried?

- Grilled, grilled. - How did you make it?

With Béchamel sauce?

Béchamel sauce and into the oven.

I ate some very nice prawns.

And I had some rather nice lamb.

Gave myself a treat... With green beans...

"I'd like to return to a point that we all hold dear.

The fate of women, especially women workers.

What the revolution of 1789 brought to proletarians...

needs to happen for women soon.

But, sadly, we are far from this goal even today, in 1844.

Those who govern and the police can't stand me, because I side with the workers...

and the workers mistrust me, because I'm a woman and I fight for women's rights.

I must admit, I don't feel I have that kind of patience.

I want the workers to take 6 months to find out...

what took me 20 years to understand.

It is clear, that 7 or 8 years will be needed, for all my ideas...

to be spread and swallowed by the people."

- A banquet in Marseille. - In her honour.

250 workers attend.

She cannot eat.

The second and third edition of "The Workers' Union" is released...

The workers carry the printing expenses.

After her death, they collect money for 4 years, to pay for a tombstone in Bordeaux...

with the epitaph: Liberty, Equality, Fraternity.

"And that my mortal heart nonetheless may last,

a quiet, sure retreat, as are other men's,

and that my soul may not overfly this life in its longings, forever homeless."