The Lock-Keeper's Daughter

Marie-Claire Fontaine, 58, grew up in a lock-keeper's house on the Canal du Midi. Her childhood memories preserve a vanished way of life.

"Our house was attached to the lock. The canal was our front yard, the lock chamber our swimming pool—though swimming was strictly forbidden. Papa would have whipped us if he knew how often we jumped in on hot days.

"Life revolved around the boats. The horn would sound—three long blasts—and Papa would emerge, no matter the hour. Mama kept coffee always ready for tired mariners. I'd help with the ropes, earning small coins and sometimes foreign sweets. Dutch chocolate, Belgian waffles, once even Turkish delight from a boat heading to Marseille.

"We knew every regular boat. The Marie-Jeanne carried wine, always listing to starboard. The Saint-Antoine hauled grain, sitting so low you wondered how it floated. Families lived on these boats—children my age who attended school in winter and worked the barges in summer.

"I remember when the Algerian families started arriving in the 1960s. The first was the Benali family, taking over a worn barge everyone said would sink. People whispered, suspicious of these dark strangers. But on the canal, work matters more than origin. The Benalis worked hard, maintained their boat, helped others through locks. Soon they were just another canal family.

"Automation killed our way of life. One day, engineers installed electric controls. Papa was kept on as 'supervisor,' but his heart broke. No more midnight calls, no more coffee with mariners, no more stories. The lock still worked, but its soul was gone.

"I became a teacher, moved to Toulouse. But I return often. The house is a museum now—'Traditional Lock-Keeper's Life.' Tourists take photos where our kitchen was. They don't know Mama's stove is gone, that the coffee pot in the display case never held real coffee.

"Sometimes I sit by the lock at dawn, when mist rises from the water. If I close my eyes, I hear it—the horn's call, Papa's footsteps, the creak of opening gates. The canal remembers. So do I."