My Vieux Lille Doppelganger

As I walked home from work one evening last week, having hopped off the train as usual at Gare Lille Flandres, I found myself moseying along the narrow pavement of Rue Angleterre, appropriately close to home, metaphorically and literally, for a Brit. It was about 7pm and I’d walked that route many times before at similar times of the evening. Nothing unusual at all.

It was already quite dark and I was tired. Recognising that someone was running towards me from a little way ahead, I sent out my Pavement Waves (see blog Pavement Waves) but, as usual, the runner and I seemed to be heading for the almost inevitable collision but, this time, it was clear that this person was intentionally running specifically towards me. It wasn’t the usual wave-related issue at all.

It was a child, male and probably between 2 and 6 years old. (Having little experience of children, I struggle to know what criteria to weigh so as to make a good guess as to the age of a small child like that but I’m reasonably confident that the young chap was in that bracket). He was a chipper little sort. He had a great big mop of curly hair, a well-balanced running action for a bod so young and a great big wide smile beneath 2 beaming eyes.

He was excitedly repeating a word, over and over, as he approached me….. “Papa! Papa! Papa!”

I quickly dismissed the notion that he might be a small, passing Italian pilgrim who’d mistaken Lille for Rome and me for The Pope and decided that, unlikely as it seemed, the young fellow had probably mistaken me for his Daddy.

As he plonked himself immediately in front of me, leaving me no choice but to stop completely, I was laughing out loud. There he was, by now looking immediately up into my eyes from a metre or so below my somewhat higher eye level, still smiling, still repeating “Papa! Papa!” This was one excited little guy.

For my part, I was extremely amused but quite moved at the same time. As someone who never had kids, being called “Daddy” isn’t something which tends to happen and I found it really sweet. I enjoyed the moment, as much as he’d clearly slipped up. Still, he was so close to me now that I couldn’t help wondering why he hadn’t sussed that I wasn’t who he thought I was.

I guess none of this seems really unusual on the face of it. These things happen and who knows the thought processes of an excited child? He could just as easily have seen me as being Barney the Dinosaur approaching him on the pavement if I’d happened to arrive into his little World in the middle of a flight of fancy which told him to expect that.

However, there are 2 things about this pleasant and amusing little incident which still stand out as a bit unusual to me.

1) A few weeks earlier, the very same child had made the very same mistake as to my identity in a different place in Lille. As much as I’m not always too hot at distinguishing one child from another, on the earlier occasion, I’d shared the laugh with his real “Papa”, who’d arrived on the scene “out of nowhere” within a few seconds, in fits of giggles. This second time, there he was again, real “Papa”, this time in almost uncontrollable hysterics. Again, we shared the fun of the incident. In my best French, I said to him “You realise that’s the second time he’s made that mistake with me?” “Yes, sir!”, he said, “He’s got himself mixed up again, hasn’t he?” My answer to this was that “It’s clearly because we look so incredibly similar…. Maybe we’re twins who got separated a long time ago”. Real Papa was bent double by this stage, laughing into his knees and I wished each of them a good evening and walked off with a big grin on my face. I could still hear loud laughter behind me.

2) Real Papa is a really nice, friendly guy, (just like me! ;o) ) Physically, however, he's about 25cm shorter than me, has very close-cropped hair (a couple of millimetres at most), he seems to have about twice as many perfect teeth as there are in a standard set and he's probably as black as black people ever get.