“The newcomers,” he explains, “haven’t got a clue about the spirit of Bayonne. There are a lot of Spanish, and a real lot of people from the Middle East. Not so many Syrians, no, because of the war, but Egyptians, yes. It’s changed everything.”
“But aren’t you all immigrants here?” I ask.
“We’re all Irish,” he says proudly. “And Italians and Polish as well. And it was the Dutch who founded the city. And, of course, before that, there were the Indians,” he adds, lost in thought now.
We fall silent for a moment. As is often the case when I’m in the United States, I try to imagine the place emptied of concrete and asphalt, populated by nomads and bison.
So it was not the Basque people who founded this city. The name refers only to the idea of a bay, Bay-On. In fact, two large bays and a stretch of water surround it: Newark Bay, New York Bay, and the peculiarly named Kill Van Kull, the strait onto which our little bar, Starting Point, would look out, if it had windows. The demographic details from Wikipedia, which I consult in English so I can present them to Francis, reveal that people of Hispanic origin make up 25 percent of the population, that indeed there are quite a number of Egyptians, and that the city is rather youthful, with an average age of thirty-eight in a total population of 62,000. We also discuss the meaning of the surprising municipal flag, which I have seen flying everywhere alongside the American flag: it looks like a French flag with a boat in the middle, except that the colors could be from Holland in former times. In any case, the famous Bayonne Bridge was for many years the longest steel arch bridge in the world, before it was superseded by four other bridges. It connects New Jersey with Staten Island and, from there, New York.
New York? Francis never goes there anymore. He used to go when he was young, and it was affordable. “I was a hippy.” He had long hair and headed off on his motorcycle to Grateful Dead concerts. Francis is angry as he brings up the long years of redevelopment on the bridge, which have recently made life hell for the city’s inhabitants. “Bayonne was an island,” insists Francis against all the geographical evidence, “but the bridge turned it into a peninsula.”
Perhaps the island he persists in describing to me is a metaphorical one. I am probably underestimating the poetic capabilities of this Trump voter. “It’s a city of fucking Democrats here. I love Trump! Yes, he’s a multimillionaire, but he didn’t take money away from anyone! I blame taxes! Taxes, taxes!” For ten minutes, Francis and I perform a play for which the script is already written. He knows it and he’s enjoying himself; I know it and I’m bored. Fortunately, he’s keeping an eye on his watch, so he can check his laundry. “I hate Clinton,” he says to me out of the blue. “I hate her! We want her executed!” He’s spluttering. “You’re French, you know: I want her guillotined.” And, all at once, I see pure hatred in the eyes of this ordinary man.
Finally, I manage to turn toward the young barman, a very attractive young man with beautiful tattoos. He tells me laconically that he was also born in Bayonne. “Welcome!” He smiles, as if to apologize for Francis, and offers us three Cokes.
So Bayonne, New Jersey, is not famous for anything, apart from the fifth-longest steel arch bridge in the world. And perhaps apart from its monument to the victims of September 11, recommended to us by the young barman. It is very difficult to locate, right at the end of the port area, well beyond Starting Point, and just before the golf course, which is open only in good weather. “Nobody here but me,” says the caretaker of the golf course inside his little heated shed, which looks like a mini Swiss chalet. The clubhouse, on top of an artificial hill, looks like a Bavarian castle crossed with a Breton lighthouse. “Nobody here but me” could be the motto for the whole area, or the motto for us lost travelers.
The monument is a giant drip of nickel suspended inside a tall brick frame, the interior of which looks as if it has been torn away. It’s something of a monstrosity, more than one hundred feet tall, resembling at best a tear, and at worst a saggy scrotum. This Tear Drop Memorial, also known as the Tear of Grief, has been the object of much derision. A plaque informs us that the monument, the work of the Georgian artist Zurab Tsereteli, dedicated “To the Struggle Against World Terrorism,” was a gift to the American people from Vladimir Putin, who traveled here for the unveiling on September 11, 2006, accompanied by Bill Clinton. Part of the tragicomic story behind this monument, which in the end I find moving, is connected to its initial homelessness. A New York Times article from September 16, 2005, recounts how Jersey City declined the offer when approached about the monument. It was supposed to be installed in Exchange Place, the district right opposite Ground Zero on the other side the river, but it was considered “too big” (not to mention too ugly). Several municipalities on the Jersey Shore passed the buck, until the city of Bayonne volunteered to take it. The mayor of Jersey City didn’t hesitate to say, “Be my guest!”
“It’s a weird city,” says the guy at the bar of the Broadway Diner, where we’re sheltering to get warm, a long way from Broadway in New York. “Half of this vast land was won on the water. Those Dutch and their polders. And it’s a city you can never leave. It’s a black hole. I’ve traveled all over the US, and there was someone from Bayonne everywhere I went. It’s like the locals try to get away, but they inevitably come back. You see all those big cargo ships leaving, but you can never leave. I’m stuck here too. I’m a fireman, signed on for five years, but even then, I’m sure I won’t be able to leave.” A huge green neon light above our heads promises “The World’s Best Pancakes.” I ask the guy if he’d like to order anything, but he sticks with his coffee. “Call me Jimmy,” he says, offering me his hand. I’m amazed that everyone here knows the other Bayonne. “It’s because there’s an exchange between the public high schools in the two cities. I went to the Catholic high school here. They’re both good schools, we’re lucky. But people here are weird, weird . . .” Jimmy repeats. “For example, a lot of them believe the water is contaminated with some sort of slow poison or hypnosis drug. And they’re not necessarily wrong: with all the industrial chemicals, what exactly is coming out of the tap? And the rest of New Jersey makes fun of us. There’s that awful joke: ‘When you date someone from Bayonne, leave him or her alone.’ And when I was little, I used to watch a cartoon that was supposed to be funny—this was on national television—and one of the characters would say, ‘Smells like Bayonne!’ Tomorrow is the anniversary of the founding of the city—at the town hall. One hundred and fifty years on March 10. Are you coming?” But tomorrow is actually when I have to go back to France. Jimmy gives a shrug.
The two charming waitresses want to introduce us to a young girl they have gone to find at the back of the room. It turns out she is the German language assistant at the high school. There’s a moment of confusion when we try to explain that German and French are not exactly the same. But the simple fact that we are European elicits enthusiasm. It’s impossible to imagine this scene across the river in New York, or in any city accustomed to tourists. I chat with the waitresses. “You speak the most beautiful language in the world,” one of them says to me over and over. She speaks five languages, but not French or German, even though she has a German passport; she’s Turkish, born in Germany, emigrated here. Her female colleague is Puerto Rican; the cashier is a Chinese woman. Antoine, my daughter, and I eat a lot of pancakes with a lot of maple syrup, and order hot chocolates, which arrive crowned with whipped cream, in half-liter cups. “In France, you eat like birds!” laughs the waitress. Jimmy has to leave. We shake hands effusively. When we go to pay, we discover to our surprise that he has picked up the tab.
We decide to drop by the supermarket that has just opened, a Costco starting up in the same semi-deserted area where the ferry terminal will be built. It is quite simply the biggest supermarket my daughter and I have ever seen. America, the greatest country in the world. Costco sells every conceivable product wholesale: groceries, clothes, toiletries, household appliances. For a start, the mayonnaise comes in three-liter jars, the cereal boxes sell by the dozen, and the shoppers all come in large sizes too. Neither the bodies nor the clothes resemble those in New York. The megamarket is clean, brand-new,
