Michael O'Shea's Paris Journal
Paris Kiosque - October 1997 - Volume 4, Number 10
Copyright (c) 1997 Michael O'Shea - used with permission
WARNING : if mushy and tender stories of romance make you queasy, this is
not for you. You should stop reading now because I am going to wallow in
gushy sweetness with the innocence of a fifteen year old. OK, you will have
been warned.
Everyone always associates Paris with romanticism. As far as I was
concerned that was a notion that only unknowing tourists could dig. My
attitude came from the fact that I was secretly jealous of anyone who had
actually been in a situation that pre-disposed them to romanticism while in
Paris. I know it shows me up as a bitter and twisted soul but I don't care
'cos now I've finally got my heart-shaped "Besotted In Paris" badge.
Everyone should know what it's like to feel like they're fifteen at least
once in their lives. Here's what it was like for me.
We'll start from Waterloo this time. I'm meeting Vicky at the Eurostar
departures for a week-end in Paris. I go down the escalator from the main
concourse and there she is, a short-haired skinny boyish brunette with a
wide smile that makes me melt. We go through the check-in and have a
sandwich before boarding. Once under way we decide to get some drinks at
the bar. I look at the price of the beers and decide that if we're going to
be ripped-off we might as well do it in style. I buy a bottle of Champagne.
This is going to be a week-end to be remembered otherwise there's no point
in bothering. We return to our seats and serve the Champagne. It feels a
little ostentatious but it's so good. The Champagne is a brut (I forget
what brand it was) and is chilled : perfect. We chat throughout the whole
trip.
The train arrives in Paris at 23:55. We're both excited, I'm going to see
my pals, Vicky can't wait to visit the city. We need to phone but there are
no coin-operated phones in Paris. They were replaced by ones which work
with
smart cards.
Very hi-tech and all but right now we can't buy a smart
card. No worries, we cross the road to a cafe. We go to the bar and order
two espressos. With the change I go down to the phone in the basement.
Turns out this one doesn't use coins anyway ! I go back up and ask someone
behind the counter to connect it and they flick a switch which activates a
meter. I finally manage to call Christelle's number. Alex answers the
phone. Christelle will be back shortly, he'll be there and is waiting for
us.
Christelle met Alex a month ago. He courted her relentlessly until she
agreed to go out on a date with him. Three days later he moved into her
place and three days after that they decided to get married ! It's not
quite a love story, Alex needs work papers and so Christelle said she'd
marry him. They do love each other very much but they wouldn't have gotten
married if it hadn't been for the papers.
Vicky and I drink our espressos. I don't know if it's the coffee or the
fact she's drinking an espresso in Paris but Vicky loves the taste of hers.
She's quite surprised about how much I've changed in the last half hour
since we've arrived. I can't tell for myself but I must say that I'm
extremely happy to be here with her and feel like a fish in water ("comme
un poisson dans l'eau"). We look at the TV screen, it's the news. I watch
for a few seconds then adverts come on. I can't help watching the TV for a
few seconds every so often. I translate some of the adverts for Vicky.
We take the
Metro to Pere Lachaise. It really is a very comfortable system.
After a year spent in London and riding its Underground, the Metro, is a
luxury. We walk to the address, I type the code at the door and we take the
elevator up to the 6th floor. This elevator is one of those things fitted
into the stairwell of a building which was built years before they became
widespread. It can just fit two people and a couple of bags. Even then it's
a bit of a squeeze to get into the thing and avoid getting caught on the
accordion doors.
I've actually seen worse. One friend's building had an elevator that was
more like a coffin than anything else. If you shared it with someone else,
you had to be good pals because otherwise the closeness would have been
positively disturbing. You were literally 5 inches apart and had to hunch
your shoulders because it was too narrow.
Christelle opens the door. She got back literally two minutes before us. We
hug and kiss, I introduce Vicky and Christelle introduces Alex. We sit down
in the living room and drink wine and coffee. Alex is Yugoslav and his
French is pretty sketchy so Christelle has to translate certain things for
him. Vicky understands only vaguely what is going on so we switch between
speaking English (Christelle speaks a little) and French which I translate
for her.
At 2 a.m. I decide it's time to call a cab. I take Vicky to Les Halles in
the first arrondissement. The cab drops us off on the north side of the
park just beside
St Eustache cathedral. Most people like it, I don't. I
think it's an unfinished mongrel of a building which mixes gothic
architecture with some kind of a Roman temple front with round pillars and
a pediment (gable? The triangular bit held up by the pillars). It was built
in a gap in the buildings of its time which means it is stuck to other
buildings on one side and the other side (park side) is an awkward curve
where it probably was one side of a street.
The whole place is deserted. We walk across the park to the south side.
Vicky is asking questions about all the buildings, I point a few things out
to her. She likes the round
Bourse du Commerce
with its slate dome roof at
the west side of the park. I'm very proud to be walking her through this
place I know so well and which she finds completely fascinating. We enter
the Comptoir, a bar just on the south edge of the park. We sit down at the
bar and order two beers. The place is nearly empty which is quite a
surprise. Usually this place would have been full of beautiful young people
but even the waitress is at a loss as to why. OK, the weather's been
miserable all day long but it's not raining now. Maybe it's got something
to do with the fact it's the Fete de la Musique tomorrow. According to the
waitress, even though it's particularly bad tonight, the general feeling is
pretty gloomy these days.
We take off from there and go looking for a more lively place to have a
drink. We go to rue St Denis which started off as a red-light district but
which has gradually been cleaned up. There are still a few sex shops on the
street but the prostitutes have been moved on. They still worked on the
stretch of the road above rue de Turbigo but the Quartier Montorgueil got a
face-lift two years ago and the prostitutes moved on.
We walk around the monumental fountain on the square at the beginning of
rue St Denis. A small gang of young men start hassling us, doing an
impression of policemen, asking to see our papers. I just go along in their
rowdy game, being rowdy back and rapping away in their own street slang. I
laugh and offer to show them my "carte de sejour", my official work permit
from the time I lived there. They're pretty impressed as they're mostly
foreign themselves. They give me a pat on the back and go away. Vicky is
completely baffled at what has just happened. She said she hadn't
understood a single word of what had been said but that she'd seen me turn
into a French wiseguy for the space of a minute.
A band of three arab guys are playing arabic music. They're sitting on a
stone bench, three tramps, completely drunk. It's really funny. One is
playing a totally shabby looking violin à la arab, resting it on his
thigh, holding it upright holding the bow horizontally. Another one is
playing some large tambourine-looking thing with a huge hole in it and
another is singing and clapping his hands to the music. Some other arab
immigrant guys have stopped by just like me and Vicky. The musicians are so
drunk the music is simply a cacophony. We leave after a couple of minutes.
We go into the Front Page and go downstairs. The band is having a break so
we go back to the ground level where a band of three guys is playing the
most cheesy 60s and 70s songs. The singer is trying to sound like a young
teenage girl and is just annoying. We step out of there and go to the Pied
de Cochon for our dinner. It's now a bit after three o'clock.
End of Part I
Michael O'Shea, lived in
Paris for 7 years between October 1989 and April 1996 - roughly a third
of the 20 years he has lived in France. When he moved from Strasbourg,
he went to Paris pretty much as any other provincial going to the city.
Although he is not French by nationality,
he is in almost every other way, with a French
education, French body language and spoken French sans accent.
He currently lives in London.
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