1 La Bergère Marriage is absolutely archaic. It is a device people use to avoid facing the fact that we are all solitary and perishable . Jacques Cousteau Jacques Cousteau met Simone Melchior at her family's Paris apartment in the summer of 1936. She was seventeen, the daughter and granddaughter of French admirals, born on January 19, 1919, in Oran, Algeria. Until she was five years old, her family lived in Toulon, the home port of the Mediterranean fleet, then moved to Japan, where her father was a diplomatic attaché. By the time the Melchiors returned to France, Simone was a teenager fluent in Japanese and infected with wanderlust. Though her horizons were limited by her gender, she was a lycée student whose interests went far beyond keeping a house. She would later say that her dreams always included the sea. The soirée at which Cousteau met Simone was one of many hosted by Marguerite Melchior to introduce her daughter to eligible navy men. Cousteau was fixed on Simone from the moment he walked in the door. Feigning indifference, he registered a stunning, compact young woman with flaxen hair, high cheekbones, and a seductive mélange of amusement and confidence in her alert green eyes. For her part, Simone quickly picked out the animated, wiry young man holding a movie camera of all things, not something she expected at one of her mother's parties. He was obviously navy, judging by his posture, but dressed in civilian clothes. She was instantly enchanted by his presence, a delightful blend of curiosity, delight, and confidence, and she liked the way he brashly panned his camera around the roomful of people holding cocktail glasses and chattering. He had a long, rural face, deeply etched by lines in his forehead pointing down to a long, sharp nose. Another set of concentric arcs wrinkled each side of his mouth, emphasizing a dazzling smile that he seemed to measure out for effect. As he wound the camera with its little silver handle, he moved his arms as though they hurt him. Simone's father easily noticed his daughter's interest in the officer with the camera, led him across the room to her, and introduced Ensign Jacques-Yves Cousteau. Admiral Melchior added that Cousteau was an aviation cadet living in Paris with his family while recuperating from injuries suffered in an automobile accident. Cousteau took over the conversation, explaining the accident to Simone as though telling an adventure story in which he was simply a character swept along by events beyond his control. Five months earlier, he was just about to graduate from flight school when he borrowed his father's Salmson sports car to go to a friend's wedding in the hills west of Bordeaux, where he was based. The Salmson was fast and nimble, but when the headlights suddenly dimmed on a hairpin curve, he careered off the road into the darkness and blacked out. Only the luck of a farm truck on the otherwise deserted mountain road saved his life. Cousteau regained consciousness in the hospital with twelve broken bones and a paralyzed right arm. His doctor told him that his arm was numb because it was infected and probably should be amputated. Cousteau refused amputation. He would rather die than live as a one-armed man. A few days later, the infection resolved itself and his bones began to heal. After months of physical therapy, Cousteau was out of plaster and walking around, but he was in constant pain. He was finished as an aviator, and though he could not know it at the time he was again very lucky. Every man in his flying class would be killed during the first few weeks of the war with Germany that was three years away. Cousteau, at twenty-six, was nine years older than Simone, and he had already sailed around the world--with his camera--on the training ship Jeanne d'Arc . Flying airplanes had been one of three possible life courses Cousteau had ceremoniously Excerpted from Jacques Cousteau: The Sea King by Brad Matsen All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
