| The girls awoke in the backseat to Dad swearing his head off. They were in a sound sleep after a long, warm afternoon touring the cave paintings at Lascaux. I don’t know what they might’ve first thought as they opened their eyes and saw nothing but stone walls inches from the side windows of the Ford C-Max. “Turn the goddamn lady off.” I cursed at the N8, actually, not so kindly requesting Raquel to do so. The Lady was instructing me to take the next left, for 20 yards. When Nokia Maps on the N8 was actively navigating us, we called her The Lady. We were trying to get to our hotel, in the center of Sarlat. Central Sarlat is a medieval town, with narrow cobblestone alleys. For some reason, The Lady sent us on a left turn, across busy oncoming traffic, down one of these alleys. The end of the alley narrowed down to a walking passage that was about 2m (6+ feet) wide with a 90 degree turn onto an alley just as wide. Even Pythagoras couldn’t solve how to get the C-Max through that. So, I had to back up the fairly steep alley, including some small stair steps that I hadn’t noticed on the way into this predicament. I should have known before committing down that road, from the glances pedestrians gave me as I started to turn. I looked in the side view mirror before backing, and saw one lady had already taken refuge in a shallow doorway off the side of the alley. She knew I would need every inch of width I could get. Narrow alley, stick shift car, irritable Dad after a long day of driving. Not a good mix. The car was packed with our luggage and 3 kids, but Raquel was already outside, trying to help me avoid invoking the collision insurance on the rental. I had to slip the clutch to get enough power to slowly make my way backwards about 50 yards. I really had to gun the motor and slip the clutch to make back up over the occasional stair steps. As I was looking backward, I failed to notice the smoke start to drift from under the front of the car. A crowd was beginning to gather. The older gentleman who gave me the funny look at first was now gesturing madly at me to avoid backing straight into a projecting wall. More smoke. More people gathering. One lady waved excitedly at the front of the car. I think she thought the car was on fire. I didn’t know how to say, “It’s just the f__king clutch burning‚” in French. Some pointed and laughed, while a baby, ignored in his stroller due to the commotion, started to cry. Probably from the rancid smoke. I don’t know what they make clutches out of these days. Surely not asbestos any more. But whatever it is smelled like boiling vomit after a fish dinner. Bounce–made it over the final step and back out on to the real street. The girls were still laughing half an hour later‚ and periodically complaining that the smell was giving them a headache. We parked the car outside of town after figuring out that it’s not possible to reach the hotel by car. And the nearest main street is closed on Saturday because of the street market. We parked about a half mile away, but I think you can still smell the car when you step out of the hotel. |
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