Preface

A homeless man was living under the awning of the restaurant downstairs while it was closed during the fall Covid lockdown. He was one of those ageless fellows you sometimes see living on the street, with a scruffy beard and unruly salt-and-pepper hair that rose high over his ears. Could have been 40-years-old, could have been 70—couldn’t tell. I’d walk by him while leaving and entering my building, especially in the evening since he was often gone during the day, and furthermore I was in the habit of taking evening walks during that period. Bonsoir monsieur, I’d say on my way out. Bonne nuit, I’d say on return. I tried several times to engage a bit of conversation—asking him how he was doing or if he’d eaten that evening—but in response he just half-smiled, half-nodded. I guessed he didn’t understand French. Perhaps it’s better that way. I mean, how friendly do you want to get with someone living on the street?

I can’t imagine what it’s like to walk a mile in his shoes, but he wore a pair of old sneakers that didn’t look to be holding up too well as the autumn damp took hold, so I took him down an old pair of shoes that I should have gotten rid of long ago. He just sort of looked at me and nodded when I set them down beside him. He didn’t try them on in front of me, just nodded.

The next day he was wearing them.

He never looked at me as though he was asking for anything. Thankfully. Anyway, I’m sure there are organizations that provide clothing for the homeless. He actually had a nice fall jacket, grey with fur-like lining. It looked warm enough in mid-November. Nevertheless, I also took him some socks, some underwear, a couple of pair of old pants and a few t-shirts. We’ve all got too many t-shirts. He was smaller than I am but not by much; I figured they’d fit. Nothing special. Honestly, I am not a generous guy, but there he was, and I had some stuff… You know how it is, right? He never said anything when I brought him these things, just a kind of a nodding greeting or maybe thanks, a slight mumble, a sort of nmmn.

He slept on an old mattress placed on top of lots of cardboard to keep the mattress dry, and he used other big sheets of cardboard as a blanket. The cardboard had images of bicycles on it because bike shops were receiving lots of them in preparation for Christmas sales.

In late November the weather turned colder and damper. I had an old tattered blanket in the closet, so I took it down one afternoon. I left it for him between the mattress and the cardboards. Just an old blanket—I hadn’t used it in years.

He also had a little three-legged stool that I’d see him sitting on some evenings. He’d sit there eating dinner that an association for the homeless brought by or that he’d brought back from the make-shift soup kitchen up the road. And here’s something curious: Sometimes, late in the evening, I’d look out the window and see him sitting on his stool just beyond the edge of the awning, in the light of the streetlamp, writing in a notebook. Occasionally he’d be writing when I went out from my nighttime walk. I once asked him what he was writing (after all, I’m something of a writer myself) but he just nodded, mumbled a little nmmn, then sort of stared at me until I said good night and walked away. As I say, he didn’t seem to speak French.

People go to sleep so early these days, and I like writing at night myself, so I’d be up in my flat writing and the only other person I knew who was awake would be him, down on the sidewalk, writing in his notebook, just beneath the edge of the awning, in the light of the streetlamp. I felt a strange kind of communion. Like we were the only two people on earth to describe the world as we respectively knew it at that moment.

One afternoon a couple of weeks ago, when he was absent, I took down a notebook—I have plenty—and left it on the stool for him, along with a few pens. That’s pretty much it. End of story. It wasn’t as though we were buddies or anything.

But I do wonder where he’s gone. You see, he stopped sleeping there sometime during the past week. I don’t know when exactly because on December 15 we entered a new curfew period where you couldn’t be out without a valid reason from 8pm to 6am and my view of his dwelling space is blocked by the awning of the restaurant below. I didn’t see him at all during the day this past week, though that wasn’t unusual. I’d look out my window at night hoping to see him seated on his little stool beneath the light of the streetlamp, writing in his notebook. But he wasn’t there. This troubled me, and it kept me from working. For a few nights I went downstairs toward midnight to peek out the front door just to see if he’d returned—feeling a bit clandestine just stepping out onto the street—but he hadn’t. Could someone who lives on the street be subject to curfew? Maybe he’d been given a bed in a shelter. Or else he just moved on.

This evening I saw that all of the items that made up his dwelling area had been cleared away. The mattress was gone. The big cardboard sheets were gone. The three-legged stool was gone. The city clean-up crew must have taken everything away. Just a few scraps of cardboard remained on the ground along with a mask, an empty milk box, a plastic-wrapped sandwich….

Then I saw, peeking out between two pieces of cardboard, the notebook that I’d left for him earlier in December. The brown-beige cork-like cover of the notebook is the same color as the cardboard, so I guess the crew didn’t see it when they cleaned the area.

I picked it up and saw there was writing inside. So I brought it upstairs. I feel like a bit of a thief, to tell the truth, but apparently he isn’t coming back and eventually it would have gotten trashed if left outside. I can always give it back if I ever see him again. Inside there’s writing in all directions and in different types of characters: Latin, Greek, logograms, cuneiform, hieroglyphics, and even some figures that look like Neolithic wall painting. And strangely enough, there are a few pages written in English. Imagine that: for the six weeks that he’d been there I’d been walking by him and saying a few words to him in French—Bonsoir monsieur, Comment allez-vous? Vous avez besoin de quelque chose? Vous avez mangé ce soir?—and it turns out that he speaks English, or at least writes in English. So while I was trying to speak to him in my second language, we could have communicated better if I’d used my first.

Among the pages in English, there’s a poem. It’s near the back of the notebook, unless it’s the front—depends on how you open  it, because it starts in one direction then you have to turn the notebook over to continue reading. It’s entitled On Winter Solstice Night… which is weird because this is December 21st, night of the winter solstice.

Here’s the poem I found:

On Winter Solstice Night

‘Twas the night of the Solstice, when all through the flat
Not a creature was stirring, not even the cat;

Cute, right? You recognize that? Riffing on a visit from Old Saint Nick. But it’s more than that. Better that I read it to you. Give a listen. Sit back. I’ll start again.

Audio – A Reading of On Winter Solstice Night, Author Unknown
Read by Gary Lee Kraut

Preface, audio, poem © 2020. All rights reserved.

The post On Winter Solstice Night (Includes Audio) appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

You’re sitting at your desk 24 hours after the outset of the fire at Notre-Dame after being up much of the previous night, first having dinner with a friend, then standing in silence on Ile Saint Louis watching the blaze peter out, then speaking and texting with family and friends six time zones away, then having a Skype interview with NBC 10 Philadelphia during which you’re asked to describe how you feel, and you’re thinking you should stay in for the evening to work up a text on the subject of the monumental blaze for your website when you remember that you have an invitation stating that Prince Robert of Luxembourg, owner of Château Haut-Brion, would be pleased to have you attend that evening at a secret location in Paris the celebration of the new vintage and branding of Clarendelle wines, and you think WTF, you’re in Paris, you have the rest of your life to describe your relation to a monument that you’ve been inside a thousand times and seen 10,000 times from a distance, where you’ve taken hundreds of visitors of all ages and where twice you lit a candle, furthermore you’ve already posted a picture on Facebook and gotten dozens of likes, loves and teary-faces, and Notre-Dame is going to be alright.

So you take a shower and get dressed and put on your father’s old cap and take the metro a few stations then walk toward the secret location that was announced on the second invitation (the first invitation having said that Prince Robert de Luxembourg’s people will give you the address of the secret location if you accept that first invitation to receive the second), 13 rue de Sévigné, in the Marais.

Inspired by Belmondo

Passing the National Archives along Rue des Francs Bourgeois you sense that someone is walking beside but you but don’t pay attention because an important thought whips through your head about Notre-Dame and you stop to set it down in your notebook. Walking again you’re aware that a man is moving alongside you at the same pace and he may or may not be the person who was walking beside you before but you don’t look over because another brilliant thought about Notre-Dame is now whispering in your ear, so you stop to write it down.

Walking again you glance over to see the man, a young man, is now alongside you again and you turn a second time to look at him curiously in the eye and he looks at you boldly in the eye and says that he likes your look, a lot, and that it reminds him of Belmondo in some Belmondo movie that you’ve never seen, and his smile invites you to slow down to absorb this as an enormous compliment, and since you’re 60 and he’s, what?, 25?, and really just looks like a sturdy good-looking kid, perhaps with some Asian blood, who happens to be a fan of Belmondo in that Belmondo movie, you say, both of your still walking, Thank you, I’ve never heard that before, it must be the cap. Really, I mean it, sincerely, that’s a great look, he says, so relaxed in his offering complimentary gift, so pleasantly, naturally, confidently, flatteringly present there alongside you that you can only think to thank him again as you walk abreast.

He now asks if you’re a journalist, which is such a surprisingly specific question that you stop and tell him the truth: Sort of, you say, sometimes. How did you know? Because you kept stopping to write something down, he says with clarity and ease and you ask if he’s a journalist too and he replies No, I’m a poor student. You pretend to not pick up on the word “poor” and ask if he’s studying journalism, to which he replies No, applied mathematics and social sciences, and you’re incredulous that neither the gods, nor the prophets nor the saints speak with such bright-brown-eyed, round-shouldered assurance as this young man with dense jet black hair who now says, again, that he really likes your look with that cap. You reply that you need it so that your bald head won’t get cold whereas he certainly doesn’t have to wear anything to get by, and in saying so you resist reaching out to touch his perfectly healthy, vibrant black hair because this isn’t just any student, this is a poor student, and the secret location that you’re going to is in the Marais.

You continue to walk together, you asking about applied mathematics (Is that as difficult as it sounds? In fact I’m not starting until September. Easy then.), he asking about journalism (What are you writing about? Notre-Dame. I could have guessed.), until he says he’s turning right on Rue Vieille du Temple and, slowing down, you bid each other a good evening, after which you’re nearly disappointed that he didn’t actually show you his gigolo card so that you don’t have to wonder as you walk on, resisting the urge to look back, if you’ve just missed out on the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Inspired by Terror

Nevertheless, you feel flattered, and happy – how often does someone compliment you out of the Paris sunset blue like that – and spring is definitely in the air – and Notre-Dame, Notre-fucking-Dame, well, it’s not like after the November 2015 terrorist attack where 24 hours later you could still hear the echo of gunshot at the end of your street and had to deal with fear. Everything’s going to be alright here – everything is alright. Not only that, but the fire will be a blessing for tourism, money is already being promised by obscene millions, the French Catholic Church is bathing in a new identity as a survivor, French firemen are being praised in terms normally reserved for describing their pectorals and buttocks when their annual semi-nude calendar comes out, and everyone knows that Notre-Dame was in need of a structural makeover anyway.

You remember when in the wake of the terrorist attack NBC then MSNBC called for an interview, but you didn’t get much airtime because you didn’t respond on cue with the sought-after soundbites of tears, despair, defiance and hope. You were simply there, nearby, thinking, looking forward to dinner with friends. And the Catholic publication that called some time later because they wanted to know how someone like you, living in a martyred neighborhood, felt about the neighborhood after the attack, and what you felt by then was that everything was going to be alright, really, now that same publication has called again this afternoon to ask how you felt when you heard that Notre-Dame wouldn’t collapse from the fire and you may have again missed the mark because you told the journalist that you never believed that it was going to fall, that yes you were concerned that the rose windows might come crashing, which would have been the sad indeed, but that you never doubted that the structure would stand because there it stood, growing in international stature as you watched its crown of fire diminish in the night.

Inspired by Rejection

And here you are walking with your pseudo Belmondo look along Rue des Francs Bourgeois without imagining terrorists with semi-automatics rounding the corner, and what a lovely evening it is, the light of the setting sky playing with the stone of the Carnavalet Museum to the left and the Paris Historical Library to the right, Place des Vosges in the distance, with the promise of a wine launch party at a no-longer secret location on Rue de Sévigné, where you’ve arranged to meet an acquaintance who asked you last week to be her plus one – though you told her that you couldn’t be her plus one because you received your own invitation (which specifically denied the possibility of you bringing a plus one) and will have your own name on the guest list.

Except that once you’ve nodded your way past the bouncer with a nonchalant “I was invited,” the model-tall young woman at the guest-list desk asks for your first name and you mistakenly give her your last name because the last time you were at a party with a list alphabetized by first names was in the third grade, but your last name isn’t there so you redirect her finger by giving her your first name (realizing that it’s only natural that a Prince Robert of Luxembourg event would alphabetize by first names since he probably shuns any soirée where his name might be listed under L) and you find that neither your first name nor your last name, nor, just to case, your middle name, is on the list, leading the stylish guardian of said list to ask Who invited you? The PR rep from New York, you reply, after which she raises the bar and asks for his name, which you don’t remember because you’d never heard of him until he sent you the first invitation to suss out your interest in attending the soirée at the secret location that was then revealed in the second invitation accompanied by the joyful note That’s wonderful news that you will be able to join.

You now understand why there was no “us” at the end of that phrase, because when you ask to speak with the PR rep from New York you discover that he’s not there express directly how he feels about your not yet being able to join anyone. You look on your phone to retrieve his name from one of his messages but can’t find any, so you tell the tall guardian of the list that you’re here for Prince Robert of Luxembourg’s wine launch party, to which she replies from a height undoubtedly accentuated by heels that you’ll understand that this is an exclusive, private party and she can only let in those who are on the list.

Actually, you’re inside the party already and can see nearly the full scope of the place, and while she’s checking the name of someone who’s arrived behind you, you examine the loose group of about 50 people standing in pairs or threesomes, wine glasses in hand, talking and drinking with no apparent interest, and you sense that whatever list these people are on it is neither an A nor even a B list, but how could they be since you were invited?, that with the exception of a 4- or 5-piece band playing a worldwide hit from the 80s, meaning some effort was put into planning this event, the soirée doesn’t feel the least bit exclusive, and that the location isn’t so much secret as rented, meaning that all that’s left of the point guard’s original description is “private,” which isn’t a very enticing adjective in and of itself since it could just as easily be attached to “toilette” or “Idaho” as it could “soirée.” So you politely wait until she looks down at you again then say that you were invited as an American journalist by the PR rep in New York whose name you don’t remember but it’s really not that important so if she’d like you to leave you will, at which point she says Just a moment and goes to get someone from the sparse crowd because she knows as well as you do that the only person who would want to crash this party is an alcoholic and she really just wants you to produce a name and get on with it.

Inspired by Acceptance

The woman who now approaches you is a midsize brunette with glasses and a non-smile, meaning that she can only be the Paris PR rep. You expect her to ask your name but instead she asks who invited you, to which you reply Prince Robert of Luxembourg through his NY PR rep whose name you can’t remember, which leads her to say that she can’t let you in without knowing that person’s name because you must understand that this is a private party. At least she’s dropped the pretense of it being “exclusive.”

You have three choices: you can pull an Oprah (listed under O?) after she’s been told that a Hermès handbag wouldn’t go with her skin color and let your (79) followers know that you’ve been judged by the way you look (apparently not enough like Belmondo in that Belmondo movie), which would likely lead to you losing several of your followers who would accuse you of being insensitive to racism or, worse, of comparing your feelings to Oprah’s; you can leave with your ego intact because you never bring your ego to such events and really don’t care whether or not you’re allowed in other than the fact that you came all this way, which would lead to several sub-choices as to what to do if you do leave—walk over to view of the carcass of Notre-Dame, go to a bar, seek out the math student?; or you can search through your email on your phone again to find the PR guy’s name, which you do because, what the hell, it’s in there somewhere and you’re just one name-drop away from a glass of wine and some canapés.

Eventually you find it, you show the guy’s email signature to the beautiful giant who goes to retrieve the Paris PR chick, who mildly apologizes in a mildly annoying way by saying You understand we just needed a name because this is a private party, which lets you know that she’s not the boss at the agency because any boss would at that point consider the matter closed and lead you graciously to the bar instead of immediately disappearing into the crowd – or trying to but the crowd is too thin to disappear into – and as she walks away you think you would have had an easier time getting admitted to a press conference about the stability of Notre-Dame.

Inspired by Haut-Brion

You see another sort-of journalist you sometime run into at events involving wine and food and go over to say hello, followed by a handshake and an exchange of ça-vas, and you tell him that you see from his recent articles that he’s all over the place, in a good way, which he accepts as a compliment without offering in return anything but a look that tells you either that you never really knew each other so no need getting too chummy now or that he’s been hitting on the girl standing next to him and you’re clouding his image, probably both, so you go to the bar and ask for a glass of one of the six Clarendelle wines “inspired by Haut-Brion” on tap that evening, the merlot.

Prince Robert of Luxembourg is nowhere to be seen, not that you’d recognize him, but if he were here you’d surely notice someone fawning over him, yet no one appears to be fawning over anyone, let alone the wine. Everyone has a glass in hand, but no one is explaining it or examining it or discussing it, as the band now plays something hummable from the 90s that sounds no different from their take on the 80s. You stand among the others like extras on the set waiting for the stars to arrive, but it’s clear that they won’t be arriving because this is the party. The event is a reflection of the merlot itself: well-groomed, pleasant enough, needing something more than flower-topped canapés, sans plus, but here you are, not disappointed just hoping to catch someone’s eye so as to share a moment.

You reach for a canapé on a table beside a women standing alone and ask which wine she’s tasting. She looks at her glass as though surprised that she has one, says The bordeaux, then gazes off into the distance though the room is too small to have much distance to gaze off at, and you realize that your Belmondo look from that Belmondo movie is not having the same effect on her as it did on the young man on the street. Or would Belmondo try harder? If you had the nerve you’d ask if she’s a journalist then tell her that you’re a poor student in applied mathematics and social sciences, and you laugh at your own spinelessly unspoken humor, which makes her walk away.

Inspired by Mourning

You carry your glass to a room that you couldn’t see earlier from the guest-list desk and a woman sitting on the couch in there waves at you. It’s the acquaintance who’d asked you to be her plus one, whom you’d forgotten about and whose name you should have dropped from the get-go. You didn’t see me when you came in a while ago, she says, as you faites la bise, and you tell her about the trouble you had getting into the exclusive private party at the secret location. You mean here? she says, that’s strange, but it’s good that they know you now, you’ll want to be on their good side. Contemplating that you reach toward the plate of flower-topped canapés that’s just been placed on the coffee table before you but a young woman stops you with a shark’s smile so that she can take a picture before you destroy the plate’s symmetry, leading you to conclude that you’ve either just taken your first steps into being initiated among the Illuminati or this is a primer event for influencers with under a thousand followers.

You and your non-plus-one talk a bit about Notre-Dame, and she tells you that she couldn’t bear to look at it burning and that she doesn’t want to drop a bombshell on you but her father died the other day, but it’s okay, I mean it’s not okay, but he died, I’m here, he was 87, it’s alright, I’m glad I came out. You sympathize and let her know that you know it’s tough and that it’s good she came out this evening, you’re glad to see her, to have a drink together. You’re engaging without being intimate, and she understands that her sadness is her sadness, not yours, and you’re cool with letting her talk about it if she wants or not talk about it if she doesn’t want, and when she says that she visited Notre-Dame just the other day after learning that her father had died because he was Catholic, you almost put your arm around her but instead say It’s good you did that. A pause follows, and after a moment you ask which wine she’s been drinking and she looks at her nearly empty glass and says the Saint Emilion, it’s quite good, and you say you’re going to try some and would she want anything while you’re at the bar and she says she’d like to try the rosé, would you mind getting her a glass.

Inspired by More Wine

In the short line at the bar you try to have two conversations about the wine but neither the man ahead of you nor the woman behind seems interested. You wonder who these people are but the answer is clear: they’re people just like you who showed up because they were invited, and you further wonder if maybe more beautiful people were due to show up but thought it inappropriate to go to a wine tasting while Notre-Dame smolders, but still, why is no one interested in communication even if they don’t pick up on your Belmondo look?

You return to the mourner and hand her the glass of rosé, for which she thanks you, and the two of you have an insightful conversation about the wine and food and journalism/influencer business—yours, hers, theirs. The two of you have a good laugh—well, you laugh, she’s not really in the mood—about the tagline “inspired by Haut-Brion” on each of the Clarendelle wines because it’s such a ballsy way of saying “the producer of this wine owns Haut-Brion, one of the world’s most prestigious wine châteaux, so consider yourself lucky to get this close to the real thing,” but what the hell, it’ll surely work in wine marketing among a certain set, and the Saint Emilion really is quite decent, nearly elegant, just trying too hard to be something it’s not – Haut-Brion, for example. But what do you know? The rosé is quite nice, she remarks, she who has had Haut-Brion before.

Eventually you both get up to go to the bar to try the sweet “amberwine,” grabbing canapés along the way, and, new glass in hand, your drinking companion is thoughtful enough to introduce you to a friendly member of the Paris PR team who says how pleased she is that you could come, asks for your card and, unaware that you’ve already met her less welcoming colleague, re-introduces you to the midsize brunette who still thinks that it’s a good idea to half-apologize for not letting you in immediately because it’s a private party. The amberwine is pleasingly sweet and smooth, something to enjoy with friends rather than the PR team, so you and your soirée companion return to the other room and take a seat. Dessert canapés are promptly set before you.

You talk some more about Notre-Dame, and you tell her about your interviews with NBC 10 Philadelphia and the Catholic publication and remark that if you’d only learn to express sadness, fear, anger, despair or hope on cue you might get more airtime and print space, and she says, Well, men aren’t very good with emotion, and you say, No, that’s not it, they all want you to say how you feel but never how you relate, who are you with respect to this?, what is this with respect to you?, isn’t that the question? Besides, we live in Paris, where everything’s going to be alright, and you both take a final sip of your smooth amberwine.

As you’re leaving, the friendly half of the PR team practically dances over to tell you both how glad she is that you could come—if there were more people here with her enthusiasm it might have felt more like a party—and gives you “a little gift” which is actually quite generous: a box of three bottles of Clarendelle wine inspired by Haut-Brion. It feels like a first key to a series of locks that will eventually lead you to drinking Haut-Brion (inspired by itself) from a holy grail saved from the fire at Notre-Dame.

Once outside you say good-bye to your acquaintance-cum-friend, adding a final word of sympathy and expressing hope to see each other again soon, with a bise.

Inspired by Nudity

Alone on Rue de Sévigné you consider the various paths home. If you weren’t carrying a box of wine you’d go over to see Notre-Dame, a 10-minute walk from there, but heavy gift in hand you elect to return the same way you came, along Rue des Francs Bourgeois toward the Rambuteau metro, and when you arrive at the corner of the Carnavalet Museum and the Paris Historical Library, one of the most expressive corners of the Marais, you notice coming in the opposite direction, an old acquaintance whom you haven’t seen in years.

Hey, it’s been a while, you tell each other, and you faites la bise and ask each other what you’ve been up to this evening, and you tell him that that you’ve just come from private party at a secret location nearby and he says that he’s just had dinner with one of his nude models, because it turns out that he no longer runs an art gallery but is a photographer particularly inspired by nudity and it turns out that you are too, just not as a photographer.

You were introduced a long time ago by a mutual friend because he’s American, you’re American, he runs an art gallery, you work in tourism, but you’ve probably only met four or five times, when he invited you to an opening at the gallery or, as here, by accident in the street, so you never really knew each other, yet you find yourselves chatting away like old friends catching up after many years. For 45 minutes you swap stories at the corner when he suddenly says, You look great in that light, can I take your picture?, don’t move, and you don’t move, except to follow his instructions to face that way, now turn your eyes to me, now hold it, hold it, I’m waiting for the rabbi to get closer, he looks like you, don’t turn to him, hold it, stay with me, hold it, great!

You ask him to send you the picture so that you can see if you look more like Belmondo in that Belmondo movie or like a rabbi in this Marais street, and you talk some more under the Paris light at the picture-perfect corner of Rue Pavée and Rue des Francs Bourgeois, eventually exchanging phone numbers and promises to get together soon, maybe do a photo shoot, ending with a bise.

Inspired by Home

As you reach Rue des Archives you see coming up the street the number 75 bus which can carry you home, so you hail it down at the stop and hop on, say bonsoir to the bus driver, ding your Navigo, slide into a seat by the window and reach for your phone to check the feed but don’t take it out because what more do you need from the world right now?, and WTF, you live in Paris, you’ve been told you look like Belmondo, you’ve been told you look like a rabbi, you’ve been given three bottles of Clarendelle wine, you might someday pose in the nude (again), you aren’t in mourning, Notre-Dame is going to be alright, you’re headed home, and if someone were to ask how you feel right now you’d say Inspired.

© 2019, Gary Lee Kraut

The post Still Life in Paris, Inspired by Notre-Dame appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

Preface

For over 150 years, from the mid-19th century to the early 2000s, eastern Paris was been home to a dense, working-class population, both native and immigrant, including Italians, Jews from eastern Europe, Portuguese, Muslims and Jews from North Africa, Southeast Asians and Chinese, and others. But as real estate pressures in Paris have pushed prices upward, recent arrivals to the area are more likely to be professionals and entrepreneurs with easy access to 20-30-year bank loans.

Part 1: Chadors, Communists, Cannibals

On a bright and quiet Sunday afternoon, two visitors in Paris, strolling down rue Jean-Pierre Timbaud in the 11th arrondissement after languishing over brunch at Benoît Castel further up the hill, were surprised to come upon several shops selling head scarves, formless robes and Muslim prayer rugs.

Hajibs, she said. Shaylas, khimars, chadors, abayas.
Are those vocabulary words we were taught at the Alliance Française? he said. They’d met the previous fall in a conversational French class at the Alliance back home.
No, I learned them from my friend Shandra in yoga class.
How about burkas? he said.
I don’t see any burkas. You can’t wear them in the street in France, so maybe they’re sold in the back.

There were pictures of the Koran and of Mecca in one window. There was an Arab-language bookstore across the street.

Is this the hipster area you wanted to show me? he asked.
It’s the right street, Jean-Pierre Timbaud, but I didn’t expect to find Islamic shops, she said.
Or is it Islamist? he said.
Depends on who’s wearing them or is making their women wear them. Some just call them modest.
Yeh, he said, Isis.

She was blonde, athletic, in her late-40s, and wore a purple-and-yellow-striped knee-length summer dress. He was a few years older, in decent shape for a CFO, wearing knee-length shorts and a polo shirt.

He removed the cap from his Nikon and took a picture of the headless mannequins.

Among the articles that she’d printed out to bring on this 6-day trip to Paris she’d brought along two to guide them today. One was an article about Benoît Castel, the pastry chef in whose shop they’d just enjoyed an excellent brunch, from France Revisited. The other was an article about hipster hangouts and trendy boutiques on rue Jean-Pierre Timbaud from The New York Times. She took out the Times article and looked at it again.

Strange, she told him, this doesn’t mention anything about Arab shops in the neighborhood.

He was now taking a picture of the Cannibale Café whose terrace splayed across a street corner at the base of a handsome beige brick building. It was one of those nonchalant café terraces that makes you want to live in Paris.

These people don’t looked like they shop for chadors, he said of the men and women scattered among the outdoor seating.

Cannibals, she said with a laugh. That’s more like it.

Walking on, they look down an opposite side street.
Bar Al Muslim, he read. I didn’t think Muslims were supposed to drink alcohol.
Dar, she said. There must be a D behind the “For rent” sign. Dar. It means place or something like that.
How do you know that?
I’ve had a life, sweety.

They were both divorced, with grown children. He had learned French while in Brussels for work for three years. She had studied French in high school and college and had continued to learn the language when she and her ex-husband lived in Lyon for two years for his job. They began dating a few weeks after meeting in French class at the Alliance Française. This was their first trip to Paris together. They both felt that their French was quite passable and headed toward fluency. They tried to refrain from correcting each other’s mistakes and pretended not hear each other’s accents. He never let on that he thought his French better than hers; she never let on that she thought hers better than his.

Just ahead the street open to a long square formed by the juncture of two nearly parallel streets.

Here we are, she said.

There were lots of bikes parked on one side, and near them a pharmacy, a pizza place, and a café called L’Arbre Jaune, the Yellow Tree. Seated in the café were the same types people as at the Cannibale, the same that stood in line for brunch at Benoît Castel, the kinds they both thought of as Parisian.

Beyond the Yellow Tree café was a building called Maison des Métallurgistes, which was divided into two parts. While she looked in at the part indicated as a cultural center operated by the city, he walked on to the other part.

He was examining the window display of what looked like Soviet-era pictures when she came over to him.
Metal workers union, he said.
Steelworkers, she corrected.
Right, steelworkers. Communists.
Are you reading that or just saying that.
Remembering that, from French class.

That’s the name of the street we’re on, she said, pointing to a plaque dedicated to Jean-Pierre Timbaud.

Parisian steelworker, she read, union militant CGT.
CGT, that’s the name of the union here. Communists.
Killed by the Nazis.

By the bus stop, where a woman with a head scarf waited beside a woman in a bright red-and-white African robe, there was a statue.

They read the title of the statue but for a moment neither of them ventured a translation because stuck on the word “répit.”
Must be “rest” of the worker, she said.
Respite, he said, of the laborer, with seven weeks paid vacation.
It doesn’t say that, she said, hitting his arm. Silly.

I wonder where Communists go on vacation these days, he said.
They probably vacation in France and complain about the system while enjoying cheese and wine, just like us.
Do I complain about the system?
Well you should. But you won’t as long as the system is lifting your stock portfolio.
My adorable lefty, he said. But you’re right about one thing, he said as two women in gray hajibs walked by in one direction and two African men in knit skullcaps passed in the opposite direction, we’re not in Kansas anymore.
That’s for sure, she said. Not a meth addict or a white supremacist slogan in sight.

They stood by a multi-colored water fountain observing people crossing the square in one direction or another: men in beige robes and slippers half off their feet; a woman with a green and yellow robe with an infant swaddled on her back; a group of young men in jeans and t-shirts hanging out by the bikes; a man wearing a yarmulke; a biracial couple.

It’s a melting pot, she said.
Some things don’t melt, he said.
I don’t like when you sound like my Nazi brother-in-law.
Just saying, he said. I’m enjoying this as much as you are.
He motioned to the Yellow Tree, where sat men and women dressed the same way they did back home, just neater and in smaller sizes.
It looks like the people in the café were just teleported there, he said, because there’s no one dressed like that walking in the street.
More cannibals, she said, confusing herself with her own joke.

They’d examined the buildings on the one side of the square and now they visited the other. There was a public nursery school next to the Saint Paul Catholic School next to the Omar Ibn El Khattab Mosque.

He’d noticed a sign on the wall of the mosque and got up close to read it. It was a simple but official-looking printed piece of paper with a letterhead in Arabic and a notice in French.

Advice to the faithful, he read aloud.
Notice, she said coming alongside him. Notice to the faithful.
He continued: We inform you that counting from Friday 29 December 2017, following to the decision of Mister the Prefect of Paris, the occupation of the public space during the prayer of Friday is strictly prohibited.
She took over: This decision will be applied by the presence of forces of order.
Enforced by the police, he said. We invite the faithful to take their dispositions…
To make proper arrangements, and to come close to…
No, to go to another mosque such as the caserne fish shop door…
That must be the name of the mosque—in the 18th arrondisssement or the mosque of Porte Bagnolet.
Thanks for helping us to preserve our mosque.

I wonder if this is where they filmed that video, she said. Every time I post a picture of France on my Facebook page my cousin in Israel sends me the same video of Muslim men praying in the streets of Paris, with the title “America Next” question mark.
She must be friends with my cousin in Oklahoma, he said. When he heard that I was coming to Paris he sent me a video like that entitled “Death to the West.”
They looked around the quiet square. The only people passing by were two joggers in shorts.
It’s a slow death, she said.

Or maybe not, he said.
He pointed to the Amen travel agency at the end of the square, with a picture of Mecca on the wall.
From what I gather, she said, the young professionals are the ones moving in. But what bothers me is that while our cousins tell us that every Muslim is a potential terrorist, the New York Times Photoshops the Arabs out from a travel article about a neighborhood with a mosque and a dozen Muslim shops.
Maybe the Times thought it would scare off American tourists if they mentioned it, he said. Everyone’s got an agenda.
What’s yours?
He winked at her and took her hand.
They both laughed.
God, I love Paris, she said.

Text and photos © 2018, Gary Kraut

Continue to Part 2, The Wall of 3 Crowns.

The post Paris Street Talk: Chadors, Communists, Cannibals appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

Part 2, The Wall of 3 Crowns

Two road diverged after the Yellow Tree café and they, standing by the Amen travel agency, they took the one less traveled by buses, thinking wrongly that it was the continuation of rue Jean-Pierre Timbaud. No matter, it was just as fair, and they soon spotted a colorful wall down the block there.

Birds and words had been spray painted on the wall against a bright blue background. Along the wall was an open door.

If an open door is an invitation, she said, what’s an open door with a Doberman lying across the threshold, a guarded invitation?
A sign that the door is being repaired?

The dog’s coat was as black and shiny as a burka the beach. It gave them a lazy look and incuriously set down its chin.

That’s not a Doberman, he said. That’s a mutt hoping to find some pinscher or weimaraner in his 23andMe report.

They looked beyond the open door. Within was a cheerfully graffitied space between two buildings, with dozens of potted plants and a cabin of sorts in the back. It was altogether about twice the size of the Airbnb they were renting in the Marais. Two men sat at opposite ends of a long wooden table, one reading a newspaper, the other leaning over the table. They appeared to be waiting for Godot. For a moment neither looked over.

Bonjour, the man and the woman said from the threshold.

At one end of the table, a bearded fellow of about 30 looked up to them, muttered bonjour, then immediately turned back to what he was doing: drawing with a blue marker on the table. The other, probably in his 50s, got up, picked up a piece of paper from the table and brought it over to them.

You can come in, he said. Visit. Take pictures. Sit down. Whatever.

He sat back down at the opposite end of the table from the man who was coloring the table with a marker. He picked up the newspaper and began reading.

The man and the woman looked at each other and entered.

It disturbed him that the fellow had mentioned that they could take pictures, as though he saw them not as strollers idling by on a Sunday afternoon but as sightseers seeking photo-ops. Then he realized that his Nikon was hanging from his neck.

He read aloud, in French, a heading on the little brochure he’d been given: The 3 crowns collective, what is it?

The older man had apparently been waiting for the question. He turned to them and explained: This was an urban wasteland where people used to throw trash and was occasionally squatted by homeless people and tagged. Now it’s a project run by the Collectif 3 Couronnes, all volunteers, to lodge one or two homeless people at a time until suitable permanent housing can be found, while welcoming all comers to rest, gather and socialize and some to make graffiti. He’s one of the graffers, he said of the fellow with the blue marker at the other end of the table.

The graffer didn’t look up. Both the man and the woman thought he might socially stunted.

Which of these graffiti did you do? asked the man.
The graffer, pointing with his marker, said he’d done Coluche here

and Guardians of the Galaxy there.

How do you choose your subjects?
It’s for the fun of it, he said. You can’t take yourself too seriously. Keep it colorful.

The Guardians were obviously superheroes—he recognized Rocket Raccoon. But who was Coluche? He looked up Coluche on his phone as the men returned to what they’d been doing: drawing on the table and reading a newspaper. Coluche, he found, was a popular comedian and the founder, in 1985, shortly before his death in a motorcycle accident at the age of 41, of Les Restos du Coeur, a non-profit organization whose mission is to help and assist the poor and the destitute, particularly by providing free meals and participating in their social and economic insertion.

How long do they stay? she finally said. The homeless.

It depends on how long it takes to find more permanent lodging, said the older man, and if they’re willing to stay.

We couldn’t get some to stay here at first, said the graffer. They didn’t like the place.
There’s no electricity, said the other, and that’s a dry toilet over there behind the curtain.
But it’s shelter? said the man with the camera. And they need shelter.
You might think so, said the graffer. But if the goal is to get real lodging of the kind we all deserve—and that’s the goal—then this is unacceptable to some. And some didn’t like all that was going on in the neighborhood, you know, out in the street, up there.
It’s calmed down though, said the other.

She realized that the graffer, far from socially stunted, had been sizing them up before speaking.

Where else do you do graffiti? she asked.

That led to a conversation between the two of them about the evolution of graffiti-friendly neghborhoods in Berlin, Budapest, Tokyo, Boston and elsewhere. As they spoke, the man with the camera took pictures. Listening to the conversation he was as surprised by the graffer’s knowledge of the world as he was by her apparent knowledge of the places he spoke about. She’d never mentioned knowing anything about street art or that she’d ever been to Budapest.

The graffer spoke about art squats, squatters, travel and graffiti. She thought him too well traveled to have ever been homeless in a needy sense. He seemed to be more of a traveler, seeking out people, places, experiences—someone on a personal quest. She politely asked how he lived, meaning how he managed the economics of his life, and he mentioned his paid decorative work for clients.
What do you like about squats? she asked.
Studio space, he replied, and the people. We need to help people—help each other—on a local basis rather than look for mega solutions from politicians. Money doesn’t help in that case, it corrupts.

She, for her part, believed in mega solutions and in the importance of education, statistics and the fight against demagogues and fake news. Helping people individually, we should all do that. But only top down had significant results. Didn’t the French think that? Or had she misunderstood something.

Sometimes I think about leaving the city to live in a small town and help people there, he said.

There was a pause in the conversation. She got up and examined the potted plans while he continued to take pictures.

The older man had said little since she’d begun speaking with the graffer. It was as though they took turns entertaining the guests. The graffer then brought him back into the conversation by saying it was he, the older one, who cared for the plants.

We ask the person we’re housing to take care of the plants when I’m away, but if I come back after a two- or three-week absence they’re dead.

I hope you mean the plants, said the man with the camera, but the fellow didn’t seem to get the joke. Where do you go? he asked.
I leave, said the gardener.

I’d like to take a wide shot with the table in it, he announced. Do you mind if you’re in it?
I don’t want to be in any pictures, said the gardener, getting up from the chair.
How about you? he asked the graffer.
I don’t care, he said. I don’t believe in copyright.

They chatted with the men a bit more then nodded to each other that it was time to go. They shook hands and said good-bye. They stepped over the dog and out to the street.

Did I ever tell you how good your French is? he said to her.
Yeh, the first time you tried to get me into bed.
Well it is. I just want to say it again, sincerely this time.
He offered his hand and she took it.
I guess it’s true what they say about visiting Paris, she said.
What’s that?
That it even turns pigs into romantics.

Text and photos © 2018, Gary Kraut

Return to Part 1, Street Talk Paris: Chadors, Cannibals, Communists.

The post Paris Street Talk: The Wall of 3 Crowns appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.