Letter From Paris

By Harriet Welty-Rochefort

Paris Kiosque - March 2000 - Volume 7, Number 3
Copyright (c) 2000 Harriet Welty-Rochefort - Used with permission.

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The No Stress Café. The words fairly jumped from the pages of the French Sunday newspaper I was reading. What on earth could a no stress café be, especially when "no stress" is an oxymoron in Paris?

I was bound to find out so invited a friend to lunch and told her I'd pick her up in my car.

I accordingly sped away in my little blue Citroen AX from the suburb of Neuilly where I live to her place in the sixteenth. Since my route took me through the Bois de Boulogne, I was able to measure the full extent of the late December storm. It is a scene of devastation and sadness. Fully one-half of the beautiful trees are now down on the ground. Some have been cut and carefully arranged into neat piles of logs, others still lie criss-crossed on top of each other in their initial felled state.

Arriving near my friend's apartment, I whipped out my cell phone to tell her of my approach. Although there is no specific law relating to driving while on the phone, you can get picked up for phoning and driving in France under a clause in the "Code de la Route" (Driver's Code) which stipulates that the driver must be in control of his vehicle at all times. The fine is 1000FF (about $165 dollars) which makes you think twice. So I stealthily placed my call while checking out the possible presence of French cops. I'm a particularly good citizen (or chicken) though. Most Parisians gaily whip around in their little cars phoning their heads off and caring not a hoot about getting picked up. I've seen people madly chatting away, laughing like crazy or gesticulating in anger, as they drive around the Arch of Triumph. (Of course, I also saw a woman FILING HER NAILS as she drove around the old Arch). Now that, I can assure you, takes talent!

But back to no stress. I congratulated myself for arriving on time at my friend's place and told myself that for once in my life I would arrive on time at the café as well. LIttle did I know that getting to the No Stress Café would be so stressful. It seems that we hit every red light, got behind every slow driver, turned down every street that took us off in the wrong direction. We scrutinized my "Plan de Paris", a book of Paris streets no Parisian driver would ever go without, and found that we were driving away, not toward, our stressless café. Twenty minutes later, we finally got our bearings but by then couldn't find a parking place. When we finally did find one, it turned out that I had used up all the time on my parking card (a clever invention - you buy a card which you put in the meter instead of coins) so had to go to a "tabac" to purchase a new one. The "patron" told me I could write a check for it (you can STILL write checks in France) and when I had finished he looked at the name and signature undoubtedly to see if they matched.

"Merci, Madame Rochefort", he said with a smile.

My friend laughed. "Madame Rochefort?" she said? "What's that all about?"

"He's a clever fellow, that's what it's all about," I said. "Don't you know that the sound people like most in any language is the sound of their name? And at least he didn't call me Madame DE Rochefort. I can't stand it when people think they will flatter me by turning me into instant nobility!"

By this time, we were nearing the café which looked very New York or California (without the sun). Sparse high-tech decoration, friendly atmosphere. The food was your basic salad and light fare. As we ordered, I looked around and saw, right in front of me, a massage chair.

"That's it! That's why this place is no stress!" It turned out that the massage cost 50FF for ten minutes, not too expensive considering the going rates, and that massages took place after one had eaten. If not, the waiter explained, it's too complicated to serve the tables. (The café also sells little bottles of oxygen so that you can get some clean air on polluted days!)

I looked at the chair longingly and wondered why no one was in it. I took note of the fact that it wasn't exactly placed discreetly. An entire row of ten people could watch you getting worked on. If you don't mind that kind of visibility, no problem.

My friend told me she didn't want a massage but begged me to feel free. Sitting there on the banquette, appreciating my food, and especially seeing that no one else was getting a massage at that time of the day, I too passed on it. How I regret that decision! But let me pass on the address to you if you are in Paris, exhausted from sightseeing, and want a massage and a meal: NO STRESS CAFE, 25, rue Balard, Paris 15.

Ah, the Parisian café! The bad news is that the number of cafés has diminished over the years from 200,000 to only 50,000 today. The good news is that the ones which remain are making gigantic efforts to offer not just coffee and tea and light fare - but conviviality and a special atmosphere. The No Stress café is part and parcel of this new trend of theme cafés in Paris. In Paris you now find cybercafés, literary cafés, philosophical cafés, psychological cafés, cafés where you can get a tan and cafés where you can play Oya, a Japanese game as well as 200 other kinds of games unknown in France. The one that intrigues me the most, though, is the geography café. It's a regular classroom in the Latin Quarter and I hear that it is standing room only. Timor, Kosovo, Rwanda, all the "hot spots" of the world are discussed in geopolitical terms while waiters and waitresses rush to fill orders for drinks. I hear that the students even take notes! There are, of course, the well-known "eternal" cafés such as La Closerie des Lilas, La Coupole, Le Café de la Paix, La Flore and Les Deux Magots. And thank heavens you can still find café-bougnats, those authentic old style cafés run by Auvergnats who serve a good glass of red wine and hearty pieces of tasty sausage in an old-fashioned decor.

As you see, even if their number has diminished, there's still plenty of choice. I've got a little personal project in mind, which is to explore each and every one of them.

But first I'll return to the No Stress Café for that massage I didn't get last time. And I'll leave that major cause of stress in Paris - my car - at home.

Vive les cafés. Vive no stress Paris!

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Harriet Welty Rochefort grew up in Iowa and after college decided to travel to France. Twenty-nine years later, she is still there, with a French husband and two Franco-American sons. Her book, French Toast; An American in Paris Celebrates the Maddening Mysteries of the French, is a humorous account of what it's like to spend an entire lifetime struggling with sometimes incomprehensible cultural differences. The LA Times called the book, which was published by St. Martin's Press in January 1999, "wise and devastatingly funny". Harriet is currently working on a second book about the French which will also be published by St. Martin's Press. She and her husband Philippe have a Website, http://perso.club-internet.fr/hwelty/ which they cordially invite you to visit.

Editor's Note: Dear Readers, while our writers are always delighted to hear and to receive comments, both about their columns in the The Paris Kiosque, as well as your experiences in Paris, they are unable to answer any requests for travel information. Thank you for your understanding.