Low life | 2 May 2019

Santino was unusually short in the leg and, in his mid-twenties, was already rapidly losing his hair. He had recently come from Argentina to France to train as a tourist guide. He was earnest about his vocation and hoped one day, he told us, to become a guide specialising in Unesco World Heritage sites. To this end he was studying every night into the small hours, cramming into his head as much French history — and whatever else guides have to learn to pass the rigorous guiding exams — as he possibly could.

When Santino smiled, his eyes closed automatically and the effect was endearing until one saw the abjectness. During the week the impression deepened that at some point in his life he had suffered a great tragedy — apart from the overnight hair loss — and his training to be a guide was a fresh start in life.

So far his impression of French history was that it had happened in sections, each one introduced by a fanfare of trumpets. He was big on Henry IV — the good king who came to a sticky end — and on the essential facts of the Wars of Religion, such as that they were fought between Catholics and Protestants. He had dutifully tried to memorise the successive French kings. Also significant dates in French history, though some of these were more immediately accessible than others, and we had to stand idly or talk among ourselves while he angrily thrashed his brains for the right one. Because his English was not quite as good as he hoped or imagined it was, the same applied while he continued to search for the right word after all of our increasingly wild suggestions had been rejected.