The Return of Barbapapa

It was the year 1970. The world was a battleground, both between nations and within them. The cold war always threatened to become a hot war, leading to a nuclear holocaust. The war in Indochina was taking countless casualties. In the Middle East, everyone was waiting for the next conflict or massacre, while the wounds of the previous ones hadn't healed yet. Anti-war movement, anti-racism movement, women rights movement, and other social-political movements were fighting to achieve their goals, resulting in conflicts in everyday life.

In such an atmosphere, something strange happened. In France, an unknown creature grew out of the ground, like a flower. He called himself Barbapapa, was pink, and could speak. More importantly, he could shapeshift, turning into everything.

When he learned about the problems our world faced, he decided to teach children about friendship and love, to make them better people, in order to end injustices and hostilities when they grew up.

Barbapapa found a female of the same kind, Barbamama, and together they had children and made a big happy family. They all liked human children, played with them, and took care of them, specially the ones who their parents worked.

Antoine was a young child back then, one of the numerous ones which Barbapapa's family had taken care of. Now, many years later, he is a retired old man, but still remembers the good old days. The desire to see his childhood friend and caretaker once again, brought him back from the US to France. He was accompanied by his American wife, Brenda, who was twenty years younger than him. His first wife, who he had children with, had died years ago, but Antoine found Brenda, and believed this was his second chance at life.

After a long flight, they got off the plane together. Antoine was very eager to meet Barbapapa and his family, but Brenda ... not so much. She was more interested in a typical tourist visit to France.

They took a taxi, and gave their destination. The driver told them that it was a long drive, and expensive, but Antoine didn't care.

"You're sure about this?" Brenda asked, "It sounds like a children's story. If this Barba-whatever thing exists, he should be famous. How come I have never heard of him?"

"Of course he is real!" Antoine answered with a smile, "Even after all these years, I remember him clearly. They made animated TV series of him and us. Children loved him, and he loved everyone, specially us. He just doesn't like to show off. You'll see!"

The taxi traveled along the narrow country roads of the French countryside. Brenda stared out the window, feeling a mixture of skepticism and boredom, while Antoine leaned forward, his eyes searching for any sign of his childhood friends.

"Even if he is real, how are you sure he is still alive?" Brenda asked her husband, "A long time has passed since then."

"I'm sure." Antoine answered with certainty. "Back then, we asked him how long he lives. He said, he gets old and dies after a while, but when he is put into the ground, he grows like a flower, and comes to life again. So, he practically lives forever."

"We're here," the driver announced, while parking in a place which was far from what Antoine remembered.

Antoine stepped out of the taxi and froze. He didn't see the towering oaks or the sprawling, emerald canopy that was once their playground, where Barbapapa family also lived. Instead, he saw concrete. Long rows of apartment complexes rose toward the sky, their balconies crowded with laundry lines and satellite dishes. The air didn't carry the scent of grass, it smelled of exhaust fumes and roasting coffee from a nearby cafe. The forest had been devoured by a city.

"There must be some mistake," Antonie said, "This is not the place I was looking for."

"Well, it's the place you asked me to bring you to." The driver said with an indifferent voice and face expression.

"He is right," Brenda said, checking her phone, "this is exactly the place. Perhaps it has changed since the 1970s."

Antonie paid the driver, and sent him away. He stood there, confused, taking in the unfamiliar, not so beautiful scenery.

"Well, what should we do now?" Brenda asked, sounding bored.

"I don't know. Let's check this cafe. People may know where to find Barbapapa."

They entered. The cafe was not very busy. "Excuse me," Antoine said, leaning over the counter. "I am looking for the forest of the Barbapapa family. My childhood home was nearby, but the trees... they are all gone."

The barista, a young man, hardly even look up from the espresso machine. "The forest? Monsieur, you’re about thirty years late to see it."

"But where is Barbapapa? Do you know him?"

"The big pink thing? Not really." the barista said, his voice flat, "But there is a man, Peppin, who always talks about some pink blob that could turn into other things. He’s still around, and known as the town's drunk. He usually hangs out by the fountain in the square, feeding pigeons and arguing with the wind."

The name rang a bell. Peppin, or Pep as children used to call him, was one of his childhood friends. Eager to meet his friend, Antonie went to the fountain in haste to find him.

"Pep!" Antoine called out, as he recognized his friend from a distance.

The man by the fountain was a grown up and sad caricature version of the boy Antoine had known. Peppin sat on the edge of the stone basin, wearing an old coat and smelled of wine. It was like ages had passed since the last time he had trimmed his messy hair and beard. He was in the middle of a conversation with a pigeon, while holding a piece of stale baguette. "Huh?" he said, as he looked up to see who was calling.

Antoine stopped in his tracks. The bright-eyed, adventurous boy who he played with was gone. In his place was an old man, who looked like he had been weathered by too many winters and too many bottles. He looked half-crazy, talking to birds.

"It's me, Antonie!" he said, faking a smile, "You remember me, right?"

Peppin looked confused at first, but suddenly a spark of recognition ignited in his eyes. He nearly fell off the fountain ledge in his haste to stand up. "Antoine!" he yelled, opening his arms wide. He lunged forward, smelling strongly of cheap wine and tobacco, and wrapped the other old man in a hug.

"How are you my friend?" Antonie asked.

"You old fool! You actually came back!" Peppin yelled. Stepping back, and holding Antoine by the shoulders, he said, "Look at you! You look like a proper gentleman."

The comment made Antonie sad. He had hoped to be able to say the same, or even better things, about his friend. But he couldn't, if he wished to remain honest.

"It's so nice to meet you again Pep. How have things been?"

"Not so good. You see, things have been going downhill for a while. If I knew I would have ended up like this the last time we met, I would have committed ..." Pep held his tongue, realizing how sad his friend gets if he hears the rest of the sentence. "But enough about me. How have you been? Why did you come back to this dump?"

"I came to see Barbapapa again."

Pep's face went pale, and he stayed quiet for a while. Brenda joined them. Antonie introduced his wife. Brenda was clearly disgusted by Pep, and tried to keep her distance.

Realizing his friend's hesitation, Antonie said, "So, Barbapapa ... Where is he? It seems like you are the only one who remembers him around here."

Pep stared at him with widened eyes. "You came to freshen the wound of old Pep, haven't you?" with a trembling voice and body, he continued, "The horror, I still remember it. No matter how much I drink or smoke, it doesn't go away."

"Why? what happened?"

"It was more than thirty years ago. I saw it with my own eyes. They were cutting down trees to build apartments. Barbapapa couldn't take it. None of his family could. They needed the trees, the vegetation, to live. They sank into the ground, screaming. He tried to pull them up, but couldn't. Finally, he began sinking himself. 'Pep, help me!' he yelled. But I couldn't do a damn thing. 'Tell the children. Tell them to let trees grow and make this place green again. Then we grow again. We won't die, we just stay down here, until you help us!' and then the Earth swallowed him. They covered the spot with concrete, and built on it."

A heavy silence settled over them. Antoine stared at the grey expanse of the apartment complexes, which now looked like prison walls, keeping the Barbapapa family under the ground, stopping them from spreading friendship and love in the world.

"But why didn't you tell me?" Antonie cried, "What about the others? Did you tell them? Why hasn't anything been done about it?"

"I tired. I really tired. But you know what? The children who he raised, some of them are living in these apartments. What can I do? Walk to their doors and ask them to demolish their house and their neighbors' houses? You know how much a house costs here? I live here myself. Not in one of those fancy apartments of course, but a small place. What can I do? I have no place to go. I know how sad and sorry I got when I realized I couldn't do something, so I didn't want it to happen to anyone else. That's why I stayed quiet."

"Wait, the ground ... He said they don't die. They just stay down there until we help them. Until we make the place green again."

"And when you picture that will happen? Who is going to pay for it? Even if that happens by some miracle, just imagine how would the Barbapapas feel if they come up again and see what has happened to us and the world? Let them rest down there, I say. It's for the best."

Antoine looked away, speechless. He started walking away. His childhood dreams were ruined. Brenda followed him for a minute, and then asked, "Are you done now? Can we go to the hotel?"

He sat down on a bench, thought for a while, and then said, "No. I won't accept it. This is not the end. I will bring the Barbapapas back."

"Don't be ridiculous. What do you see in those Barba-whatever things anyhow?"

Antoine just stared at the buildings for a while, then said, "They didn't just give us a place and things to play. They showed us how to be kind when the rest of the world only wanted us to be afraid."

Brenda looked disappointed in her husband, and said, "Don't be stupid. Just remember the facts, the things you told me. They turned into airplanes, and took you for a flight, or turned into cars, and gave you a ride, things like that, right?"

"So?" Antonie asked with a frown.

"Did they have a permission to fly? What if a military radar had detected and identified them as Warsaw pact spy planes, firing missiles to shoot them down? Did any of them have a driving license, or insurance? What if they had crashed into something while driving? The things they did sound like child abuse to me."

Antoine stared at her, momentarily stunned by the sheer practicality of her logic. For a second, the absurdity of the question, asking for the legal permissions and insurance of a shapeshifting pink creature, made him feeling stuck between an urge to laugh and getting angry.

"Why were those things so much into children anyhow?" Brenda continued, "Did they make money out of it, like running a kindergarten?"

"They didn't want money. They wanted us to be happy."

"So, what job did this Barbapapa have?"

"His job was to love us, that was his only profession. He didn't have a salary or a tax ID. He had a heart that was larger than Paris."

"Okay, but he had a large family. Seven children and a wife as you told me, right?"

"Yes," Antonie said, staring at his wife, "What are you getting at?"

"I'm just saying a stay at home dad, with no job and income, who plays with children all day, doing dangerous irresponsible things, may not be a perfect model for children."

Antoine was disappointed to see his wife calculated the value of lives with such standards. But she didn't wait for him to answer.

"Do you want your children or grandchildren to end up like him? If you value him so much, why didn't you live like him, playing with children, spreading kindness?"

Antoine thought for a moment. The question moved him a little. He had no answer for Brenda, at least nothing that he wasn't ashamed to say out loud.

Brenda waited for him to answer, but when she got none, asked, "So, what are you going to do now? Buy the apartments, demolish them, plant trees, and wait for this Barba-whatever to come back?"

"Yes," Antoine replied, his sound unsure.

"Okay, but don't expect me to put up with it. In order to bring that pink thing back, you should spend all your savings, take large loans, go back to work to be able to pay them back, work even harder than before, sell the house, car ... everything. You should say goodbye to vacations, starting with this one. Even then you'll be short. You don't expect me to be a part of this, do you? Because I made things pretty clear when we got married."

Her words hit Antoine hard. He began to count the apartment blocks, estimating their average square footage and the likely cost per square meter in this particular district of France. He subtracted the value of his retirement portfolio and the equity in his American home, factoring in the current exchange rate of the dollar to the euro. The numbers of his life, the figures he had spent decades accumulating, began to swirl in his head.

The numbers didn’t add up. As Antoine looked at the buildings, the idealism left from his childhood collided head-on with the cold reality of real estate. He realized that buying these buildings wouldn't just require his savings. It would require something around twenty times more. He imagined the paperwork, the endless bureaucracy, the legal battles with tenants who wouldn't want to leave their homes because of Barbapapa, and the expensive cost of demolition. The thought of spending his twilight years as a poor man, running in courtrooms, offices or banks, fighting for a piece of land, suddenly felt less like a rescue mission and more like a slow and painful suicide.

He always knew Brenda had married him mostly, if not wholly, because of his money after his first wife had died. She had never even tried to hide it. There was no reason for this much younger woman to stay with him, if he had nothing but a vague hope to bring back his childhood friend.

Antoine looked at Brenda. She wasn’t cruel, but had different standards and priorities. To her, the world was a series of transactions. To him, the world had once been a place where a pink creature could turn into a giant slide just to make a toddler laugh. But that was a long time ago. He thought perhaps it was time to be more realistic.

"Okay, okay," Antoine said, his voice sounding hollow. "I won't do it. I can't do it."

"Good," Brenda replied, as she leaned in to pat his hand. "Now, let's find that hotel. We didn't come on a vacation to get sad, did we? I’m sure we can find a nice restaurant in Paris, have a nice dinner and drink, and put this whole Barba-whatever thing behind us."

She took his hand and led him away. Brenda was smiling and happy, but Antoine looked confused and shocked, wondering who he was, and what he stood for.