The Neon Groves of Paris:
Surrealist Journals June 1994; Days 1 - 3
Paris Kiosque - May 1996 - Volume 3, Numero 5
Copyright (c) 1996 Michael Fontana - Used with permission
Day 1
Daylight broke at three a.m. by my American watch. I awoke in a small room
with anxiety-provoking yellow wall-paper, a shower and a bidet. The rest of
the day involved a walk, after a breakfast glass of lemonade that cost $8
American. Down the Champs-Elysées to the grand fountains spraying out onto the
sidewalks. She could be anywhere, I told myself, folding and unfolding a
digitaized photo of Juliette Binoche form her latest film, Bleu, which I'd
stolen from the Internet. Hers was the face I'd impressed upon the city of
lights, or perhaps that it had impressed within me, as I read Soupault's Les
Dernieres Nuits de Paris. Instead of being expelled from Surrealism with
Soupault and Artaud for an "isolated approach to the stupid literary
adventure," I could only be held accountable for this stupid romantic
adventure, chasing after phantom images of a woman from films and a book, as if
a page of my life might turn her from print to flesh.
I found nothing, of course, except the downward pull of my physcal hunger. I
purchased ham, crakers, Volvic water, "Coke Light," and "cookies" that were
actually wheat crackers coated on one side with chocolate. Later I bought a
peach and a handful of apricots and gouda cheese, as the hunger I'd nourished
in America was released in spite of the austerity I sought to impose upon
myself. I listened to French radio, watched a snippet or two of "Seinfeld"
where Jerry's customary inanity was lent sophistication because he delivered it
in a romantic language.
Day 2
I took my next breakfast at a small patisserie, including a café au lait and
pain du chocolat.
I toured the Louvre but the humidity and crowds drove me
to feeling as if I'd pass out. I hunted for the woman in the crowds until it
occurred to me, as I was swept along by the animal motion of these hundreds of
bodies pressed into one, that she wouldn't take to a museum focused on two
primary works of art that each featured a woman in a stateof truncation by the
male hand and eye: Venus with her arms lost to a vandal the way the limbs of
women are amputated in pornograhpy; and the Mona Lisa, with Leonardo working to
contain that glimmer of a smile.
This crowd knew nothing of art. They had a
difficult enough time not reaching out to touch the works or using flash
cameras on it even when asked politely to refrain in six languages.
Underneath the pyramid of glass outside I anticipated that like the ancient
Aztecs I'd be granted flames of wisdom by the sun's breath beatiing down upon
me and indeed I was: there came a woman along the walks, her skin as pink as
roses, her body thin with hunger, her hair dark and short like Juliette's. She
blew her nose in a white handkerchief that I imagined held the consistency of a
moth's wing. After she passed, I discovered that my pant-leg was being nuzzled
by my first Parisian cat, a sign that not only the ancient Aztecs but the
Egyptian gods and goddesses as well supported me in my quest.
Day 3
Morning and my hunger rose again. I sated it with a visit to Ed l'epicier,
picking up a dry and crusty box of bread, chocolate cookies, a bottle of Golf
Cola Light, slices of ham and a pungent cheese. I walked to a nearby park and
ate on a beach, sparrows landing at my feet and chirping for crumbs. A French
boy all of eight or nine years approached to ask me for the time, after which
he sampled all his English words on me. I interrupted him once to show him the
Internet photo of the woman for whom I searched. He replied, "but monsieur,
this woman is, how you say, everywhere!" At this point the sky broke open,
even with the sun still beating down. The boy fled to a nearby shelter where
he laughed at me as I continued to eat my food, soaking up the water as if it
were another portion of his laughter.
I next decided to take the Metro to Place Stalingrad, because that name seemed
disjunctive in this city and I suspected that the woman I sought might just
thrive on such disjunction. A group of young black men vaulted the Metro
turnstiles as if they were in New York City. As I awaited my train I was
approached by two young Japanese woment who were lost and unable to read the
Metro map. I tried to help them by speaking English, which they knew better
than French. A Frenchman who also spoke English led them on their way.
Instead of exiting at Place Stalingrad, I rode the train along with these two
women, following them as I would a signal-light at sea.
They left the train at rue Pigalle, so I did too. They disappeared into a
throng of American tourists arriving on buses for the D-Day commemorations.
Like a hawk in flight, bending the air in ever-tightening circles, I inspected
the marquees for photographs of the performers, in case one of them might match
the picture in my pocket. None did. I drank two or three small glasses of
vin blanc at a brasserie, then returned to my flight pattern (and "flight" is
such an interesting word here; flight from what: to what?). I discovered women
here but none who were her. A group of women leaned against the wall of a
crumbling building next door to a fruit stand; women sat in negligees and
teddies inside darkened bar rooms. All had been broken by sexual commerce,
stripped of romance, left as empty holds in which love was replicated in all of
its external motions but absent of love's hunger for specificity, any body
taken in its absence failing to recreate the body of the One.
I entered a neighborhood restaurant that sealed rue Pigalle against my
purposes. During the course of my meal I witnessd a fist-fight within the
restaurant walls. Outside, a man stole roses from a street vendor.
... Days 4 and 5 - when Michael finally finds her - will appear in the
next number of Paris Kiosque.
Michael Fontana contributed "The Neon Groves of Paris: Surrealist Journals June 1994"
as part of the Travelers' Tales, Francescape and Paris Pages
writing contest.
