The Accident-A tale from my time in France

The Accident

A tale from my time in France

 

It was the last Friday of September 1976, two hours before sundown, and my mother and I left Lausanne in Switzerland and started driving back home to Besancon, France. We’d spent two days visiting my brother Mataz. It was the last day of Ramadan and the trip was supposed to only take about one hour forty five minutes. So we decided to continue fasting.  My wife stayed home during these two days and she was expecting us back home before the time to break our fast.  

My mother was filling me in on all sorts of events that had happened in Syria since her last visit, one year before. Who married who, who had new born children, who graduated from high school and much more. She was extremely happy to be with us. I had paid for her round trip ticket; I took her shopping. My wife sewed her a few skirts and a jacket. We were doing our best to please her.

When we were silent she‘d be praying. She loved looking outside the car at the magnificent scenery of the Jura Mountains. She prayed for Allah to bless us, to make us successful, to return what we spent on her multiplied many times. When I heard her last prayer, I wondered how Allah was going to give me back what I spent on her and more, while I had a very limited income and no prospects on the horizon for any increase?

Suddenly she shouted “Ya Latif, Ya Latif, Ya Latif”. A speeding car appeared from a hidden curve from the other direction, two thirds of it in my lane heading towards me. This was a two lane mountainous road with steep rock walls along one side and a deep drop on the other. I tried to swerve as much I could to the right to avoid a head-on collision and I needed to avoid crashing off the mountain and killing my mother. The oncoming speedy car tried to veer to its right as well but there was not enough time….

My mother had been visiting us in Besancon for a few weeks. I was there doing my post graduate study at the university. I had a basic scholarship. My wife did some babysitting and I did some tutoring, and we barely made ends meet. We had eggs and macaroni almost every day because it was cheap. Meat was eaten once a week. On Saturdays, we went to the local farmers’ market, just before it closed, to buy what was left over of vegetables and fruits. My friend, Abdulwahab, with whom I came from Syria on scholarship, would go with me. We would jointly buy fruits and vegetable by the box, cheaper that way. But how to divide fairly the goods between the two families presented a dilemma at first. Then Abdulwahab came up with a genius idea! Every Saturday, alternatively, one of us would divide the merchandise and the other one would chose first.   

This was back in the early seventies. We lived in a government subsidized apartment complex; three buildings, each building had eleven floors, with a total of 540 apartments.  The complex did not have tennis courts, nor did it have swimming pools. Instead it had a mechanic club.  All tenants were low income families or students and were using very old used cars that needed constant maintenance and repair. The club was a one story storefront where the tools were stored. All repairs were done outside. The club was open from 5:00 pm to 8:00 pm during week days and Saturday and Sunday from 8:00 am to 8:00 pm. A professional mechanic was present to help in diagnosing the problems and giving advice.

Quickly I learned how to change oil, transmission fluid, brake pads and how to purge the break lines. I also learned how to replace a bad muffler, a leaky radiator, a defective water pump and cracked CV boots, not to mention replacing car body parts.

I used to have an old Renault 8 with high millage - over 150,000 km. One day, in the local newspaper, I saw an ad for a totaled Renault 8 with an intact engine of only 48,000 km. The owner even offered to deliver it. I bought the car. It was an excellent deal and I had it delivered to the mechanics club. That weekend, with the help of Abdulwahab, we removed my old engine and replaced it with the newer one. We worked on the two cars all of Saturday and Sunday until noon.

The next day, Monday, I was supposed to travel to Paris for a 3-day conference from Tuesday to Thursday. Sunday noon, the complex manager came and asked me “What are you going to do with this wrecked car?” I told him I would take care of it the following weekend since I was leaving town the next day. He frowned and yelled, “Monsieur Tarazi, vous ne peux pas la laisser ici. C’est dangereux” - You cannot leave it here. It's dangerous.

He was right. The complex had a lot of children and they would be very tempted to play with the wreckage.  I didn’t have money to spend on a tow truck. I was very nervous and I needed to prepare for the next day 4-hour drive to Paris. As the saying go, a friend in need is a friend indeed; Abdulwahab came up with yet another genius idea.

We went home for lunch and decided to meet again at the club at 2:00 pm. When we came back, we both wore welding helmets and gloves. The wreckage was gutted of everything. We brought from the club an acetylene torch (metal cutting torch) and went to work. In a few hours we cut the carcass into four pieces. Another good neighbor, who owned a pickup truck, volunteered to haul these four pieces to the junkyard. 

Near the club, there was a payphone. Most of us, the tenants of the complex, had no phone lines inside our apartments. We could not afford it. Every time we needed to make a local phone call we used this payphone. For international calls I had to go to the post office and wait sometimes three hours to get through to Syria. Soon the Arabs and other foreign nationals made a huge discovery. They found out that these payphones worked for international calls at the same fixed cost as making a local call (5 centimes!).  Long lines at any payphone started to form. People were calling Algeria, Tunisia, Syria, Lebanon and other foreign countries (courtesy of the French government!). This honeymoon did not last long.  These long lines alerted the authorities to fix their problem and the payphones were deserted again.

The car accident happened about a mile east of Pontarlier, a small French ski resort town, about thirty miles from home, Besancon. With both cars trying to avoid a head-on collision, the approaching car ended up hitting my side of the car, pushing me closer to the edge of the mountain. For a few scary seconds I lost control and felt we would plunge over the edge, but thankfully I was able to recuperate and managed to get my car to a full stop. I checked on my mom. She was terrified. Alhamdullilah, we both were safe. We had no injuries. We thanked Allah for protecting us from an imminent death. Was this a punishment for me doubting how Allah would return to me what I spent on my mom multiple times, when I had very limited income? That is what came to my mind, but then I remembered that Allah does not hold us accountable for what crosses our minds.

I managed to push open my door and got outside the car. After hitting me, I thought the other car would disappear; instead it stopped several hundred yards away.  The driver, who later introduced himself as Jean Claude, turned his car around and came and stopped right behind my car. “Ça va?” he asked. I told him we were fine and asked about him. He seemed okay. He apologized for causing the accidence. He suggested driving to Pontarlier and finding a café to sit down and get the insurance paperwork done.

In France, for most car accidents, police were normally not called unless there were injuries or a major dispute. There was a detailed insurance form designed for reporting accidents. The form was usually kept with the car registration. In most cases of accidents the forms would be filled out, signed by both parties, and then sent to their respective insurance companies.  

Jean Claude started driving towards Pontarlier. I followed him and we both stopped at the first coffee shop.  By the time we filled out the insurance forms it was sunset. I ordered chocolate milk and croissants for my mother and for me and we broke fast. We could not call my wife to tell her what had happened because she did not have a phone. We continued our trip and got home about an hour after sundown. My wife was so worried about us and happy to see us back home.

The next day, I drove the car to the insurance agency. I delivered the accident report. The adjustor came out of the office and examined the damage to my car. Then he used several thick reference books (computers were not available at that time) to manually calculate the cost of the repair. After about two hours he handed me a check of 3,500 FF.

The car needed a new passenger door, a new back left side door and the two outside mirrors. I always had an extra mirror attached to the front fender of the car to cover my blind spot. That weekend, on Saturday, I went with my friend, Abdulwahab, to the car junkyard, purchased two doors and two mirrors. The doors were different colors from the rest of the car. We bought a few spray paint cans matching the color of the car. Total cost of the parts and the paint was about 350 FF. By noon, the next day, we’d replaced the two doors, did some minor body work on the front fender and painted the whole left side of the car. It wasn’t a great body job, but for a ten year old car it wasn’t too bad either.

By me doing the work, with the help of a friend, I made 3150 FF. This was more than four times my monthly income. Over dinner that night I told my mom how Allah had answered her prayer. She then reminded me of Allah’s saying:

"And whosoever fears Allah and keeps his duty to Him, He will make a way for him to get out (from every difficulty). And He will provide him from (sources) he never could imagine.”