Michael O'Shea's Paris Journal - II
Paris Kiosque - May 1997 - Volume 4, Number 5
Copyright (c) 1997 Michael O'Shea - used with permission
Part I was published in
April's Paris Kiosque.
I write the postcard to Veronique, a gorgeous young French lady who I met
in London the previous week-end and am feeling a bit mushy about. The
absurdity of me dating a French girl in London makes me smile to myself. At
this moment a guy sits beside me. For some reason I stay aware of him as I
write the postcard. I finish, get up and as I'm leaving I realise that he's
looking at me in a rather intense way with a slightly querying look on his
(I must admit) pretty face. Uh-oh ! Narrow escape from an awkward
situation. I swiftly go back towards Rue de la Roquette.
I look for a Tabac, I need a stamp for my postcard. I spot the 'carrot'
somewhere further up the street and head for it. The Carotte is roughly
like two long blunt red cones stuck base to base and fixed above a
tobacconists' awning to signal the shop. I ask the lady for a stamp,
"...please". She answers "I can't sell you one single stamp, all I've got
is books of ten". She might as well have finished with "...you moron" the
way she said it. Splitting a book of ten stamps must have represented some
"anticonstitutionnel" crime in her eyes. She obviously thought that I
deserved the Guillotine, no matter if I'd asked her with a smile and a
please. I don't want to spoil my day arguing with her so I just leave. I'd
nearly forgotten I was in Paris, what with all those kind people in the
Metro !
I walk a hundred yards up the street and find a Bar-Tabac and get my stamp.
A post box is very conveniently fixed to the outside wall of the Bar-Tabac
and I take this as a good omen for the rest of the day. I decide to go and
check out the record shops. I notice that the neighbourhood has a bunch of
new shops that must have opened in the year I've been in London. I get a
pleasant surprise, there's a Hi-Tec shop here ! Maybe I'll be able to
replace those wicked shades I lost in a party in London. Oh bliss ! There
they are, I pay straight away. Things are getting better and better. I have
a little conversation with the young lady keeping the shop. She used to
work in the Hi-Tec opposite Kensington Market in London where I bought the
first pair ! Small world.
I walk further down Rue De Charonne towards the Rue Du Faubourg Saint
Antoine and go into an art gallery. I'd been here about a year and a half
ago during a promotional festival where all the artist studios in the
neighbourhood were open to the public. Today it's quiet. I remember that
I'd been really impressed first time over. Yes, same artists. A man and a
woman partners in life and in art. The woman does little water paintings of
characters which look slightly overwhelmed by their fate but shown in an
endearing and funny way. The colours are sombre but warm. The technique is
perfect. The man also has pictures of characters. These are drawn entirely
with scribbles. From a few steps back you don't see the scribbles, just
shades. All pictures contain a little element of humour. Wow ! Art without
the Fart ! The man also does pictures with just a few curves and lines on
them. The lines are drawn with very thick layers of paint, they almost look
like mouldings. They are quite pleasant.
The man (alone today) looks up from his table where he is painting some
more pictures. We say hello and start chatting. We discuss the art in the
shop. The place is his studio as well as his home and gallery. "That way I
can sell pictures at a reasonable price", he says. I nearly buy one there
and then but decide I'd better give it some thought and come back later if
I still feel like it. I tell the guy that his curves remind me of
something. I'm thinking about some native tattoo art and while I'm tackling
with my references, the artist says "Aah mais c'est le geste, le geste
evoque toujours une sensation familiere" : "Aah but it's the movement of
the hand, it always reminds you of a familiar feeling". What had I said
about the Art without the Fart ? This is France kiddo ! I just let him
burble on about his intellectual motivations for drawing curves and not
blotches, smiling and nodding. I leave him to work and continue my little
stroll.
I stop in a bar for an expensive beer (not by Paris standards) and a chat
with a barman I know. I have looped right round and end up back on
Bastille.
I sit down on a bollard just soaking up the sun, mind totally
empty, absolutely relaxed. Three young guys walk up to me. One waves a
scrap of paper under my nose and produces some gurgling sounds. The note
says "Musee Carnavalet, Metro St Paul". I look at them and answer in
English which immediately puts them at ease. As I suspected, they're
English. I offer to walk them to the museum. Having nothing better to do,
their coming along is convenient. I walk them towards Saint Paul and we
chat about Paris and London. On the way I suggest that we go and take a
look at La Place Des Vosges which is just off Rue Saint Antoine.
The
Place Des Vosges
is a square with a park. It was all built as a whole,
all the houses around the square and the garden are all part of the same
plan. I think it was built sometime during the 18th century as a sign of
gratitude from the ruling power to the region of Alsace but don't quote me
on that ! The houses are built over an archway that covers the pavement
(sidewalk) that runs all around the square. The houses look like little
manors on stilts : they have steep slate roofs with oval windows, they are
made of a mixture of stone masonry and bricks and the high windows tell of
a ceiling height of at least 4 meters. Under the archway there are a
multitude of galeries and designer clothes shops. Of course there is a
restaurant which has a terrace under the arches. In true Parisian spirit,
showing that you can afford to eat at that restaurant in that location
compensates for the disagreement of having tourists force their way through
a small gap between the tables to get past the restaurant.
A socialist ex-minister lives on this square. You can see the works of art
in his lounge from the street. He has got a huge abstract bronze statue of
a skinny man by some really famous artist and some paintings hanging off
the walls. France, the country where the socialist politicians made their
fortunes during their 14 years in power. The three guys and I notice the
Musée Victor Hugo
on one of the corners of the square. The guys decide to
visit that. I leave them to continue my walk after they have profusely
thanked me for the little tour.
I walk along Rue Des Francs Bourgeois towards the Rue Vieille Du Temple.
This part of town has some of the oldest buildings around. Some are 400
years old ! The streets are narrow and full of Parisian Saturday shoppers
swarming along the narrow pavements and the road. There are virtually no
big names on the shop fronts, those stay on tourist-ridden streets. The
shops here have a special flavour to them, they seem to sell quality
original goods whatever the speciality. There's a feeling of quiet
sophistication about them. East of the Rue Vieille Du Temple is the Jewish
neighbourhood. West of the street is the gay neighbourhood. In the jewish
part you have Jewish delis, and Jewish restaurants. In the gay part there
are gay shops, gay restaurants, gay bars and a gay cabaret. I reach the
street marking the borderline and turn left towards Rue de Rivoli. Orthodox
Jewish men walk by in a group, a few yards on a group of gay boys walk by
in a group. I've sometime wondered which side of the street did gay Jewish
men live ?
I pass Le Petit Gamin De Paris on my right. That's a great restaurant which
serves beautiful steaks with great sauces. After that I pass a big double
door to a courtyard on my right. Each of the panels has a carved medusa
head screaming at the people passing by. I go into Chez Richard, a place I
used to go to rather frequently. Richard is there, we swap news and I move
on. I pass the Majestic Cafe, a gay bar, then the Petit Fer A Cheval (the
little horseshoe) which is a perfect specimen of a Parisian bistrot. I stop
off at the Pick Clops (don't ask me what that means, I don't know) and
drink a couple of beers while talking with the barman. I take off and head
along the Rue De La Verrerie towards
Hotel De Ville. I call Nicolas and
Stephanie and we arrange to meet up half an hour later at the Pick Clops. I
go back there, they are late, I drink more beer. They arrive finally and we
catch up with each other's news of the last year it's been since we've met.
I've known Stephanie for a while now. It must be at least 4 or 5 years. I
knew Nicolas through a friend I went to school with in Strasbourg. I'd only
met him a few times previously to him coming to Paris to start in his first
job. Two years ago I introduced them and they fell in love, just like in
films. Now they're getting married. We talk about all that has happened to
us and I suddenly feel like we have somehow become old friends. After
nearly two hours' conversation we're feeling rather hungry so we decide to
go to a sushi bar I know. We leave the Pick Clops and walk west towards
Beaubourg. We cross rue Beaubourg along which we can see the Pompidou
Center. This part is a cobbled pedestrian zone. There are loads of little
restaurants along the way. The Bistrot Tokyo is on the corner of Rue Des
Lombards and Rue Quincampoix. It serves, among lots of other things, a
good-value bowl of raw fish on rice : Chirashi Sushi. We eat there and have
more to drink.
We leave the restaurant, walk to Boulevard Sebastopol a few yards away,
turn right and walk up to rue Rambuteau where we turn. We sit down in the
Petit Marcel. Another ultra-Parisian Bistrot. The counter is polished
stone, there is an old specked mirror running along the wall opposite the
bar. The ceiling has plaster mouldings all around it and the walls are
decorated with painted characters which have probably been there for
decades. We are sat at a stone topped "gueridon", one of those circular
tables just big enough to fit two espressos and four elbows. We drink more
beer until I have to leave to go to Jerome's party. By this time I'm
feeling a little tipsy with all I've been drinking this afternoon. We all
go to catch the Metro at Arts Et Metiers where we say goodbye and separate.
In the Metro, on the platform I walk past two tramps. It strikes me that
tramps are different between capital cities. In London, you find all sorts:
young, old, a few alcoholics but most still act like human beings,
they've just run out of luck. Here, most of the tramps are brutal and
extremely dirty, they're mad and scary. They look and behave like cavemen
probably would have. Is it the cheap red wine they drink out of plastic
bottles that makes them like that ?
I get out of the Metro at the same stop as the previous night : Exelmans.
Tonight's party is in a road parallel to the one where yesterday's party
was held. One would think that I choose my friends in the 16th
arrondissement. There's already about 40 people in the apartment Jerome
shares with one flatmate. It's is a nice big flat on the corner of the
building at the second floor with a balcony that runs along the outside of
the lounge and dining room. Around the entrance corridor there's the
dining-room, the kitchen, the lounge, a first room, the bathroom with the
second room ensuite. The whole thing is about 80 square meters. It goes for
7 to 8 thousand francs per month not including the electricity or the
phone. The kitchen window gives on to the cemetery, cool.
The people here are all a little bourgeois. They've all been to trendy
business schools or they're more or less connected to show-business.
Fortunately, they're alright and one can have a nice unpretentious
conversation if one wants. I know quite a few of these people. No great
friends but still, acquaintances I'm glad to see. For a change I've got
something to tell them. One of my ex-girlfriends is there. We're both
really happy to meet again. It's been at least a year and a half. The party
goes on merrily until someone points out a strong smell of something
burning. People look out of the window and shout that there's a vehicle
burning further up the street. Everybody troops out onto the balcony that
runs along the outside of the whole flat. It's quite strange, it's the
first time I've actually seen a vehicle burn. It's even stranger seeing
this happen in the 16th arrondissement which is supposed to be quiet and
safe. I wouldn't be surprised if someone was mad not finding a parking
space and burned the van out of spite.
At about 4 a.m. I'm having a nice conversation with a young lady called
Laurence. We leave the party with another girl also called Laurence.
Laurence #1 has just passed her driving license and it's quite comical
being her passenger. She hasn't really got the hang of the clutch and
getting out of the parking space along the kerb means bumping the car in
front and the car behind us quite a lot. We drive along exactly the same
route the taxi took us last night along the Seine. Laurence #1 (driving)
lives past Bastille (where I started the day) and Laurence #2 lives
somewhere near St Paul. We drop Laurence #2 off and keep on going to
Bastille.
Laurence #1 feels like chips. Something makes me think that she probably
doesn't know what this part of town is like at this time of day. I guide
her up Rue De La Roquette to the Kebab shop. As per usual the crowd at that
time of night (morning, I should say) is pretty rough. I boldly go and get
some chips. I'm in full cock-sure mode so it's OK. I must say that I've
seen many a fight spark off on this junction and I'm rather attentive as to
what's going on. I wish I'd made her park a bit further up the street, she
looks like an invitation for trouble : she's blonde, good looking and the
car looks alright.
Somehow, the crusty crowd does not react. Some guy has tied a huge dog to
the bumper of a car. When another car goes by, this guy starts exciting the
dog by shouting at it and the dog goes nuts. It is so bloody huge that the
car it is tied to just rocks about while the dog pulls against its leash.
All this situation gets me edgy. I've been back with the chips for just two
minutes and Marie-Charlotte (nickname just like Sloane) wants some
mayonnaise. I go back out expecting anything to happen and get some
mayonnaise put on the fries. At this point I'm wondering why I'm doing
this. I get back in the car and suggest insistently that we move on. We
park a bit further on and finish the fries. She drops me off at Hafid's
place at 5:30.
Hafid and I wake up at about 13:00. We eat breakfast slowly, talking about
how we spent the night. I call Christelle and we agree to meet in the
Charbon (Coal). The cafe is on the corner of Rue St Maur and Rue Oberkampf
in the 11th arrondissement. This place is pretty impressive, it's really
quite large with a high ceiling. The walls are panelled with wood. The
place has a worn feel to it. There is a bar which runs down the right side
nearly all the way to the back. To our left as we walk in there is a
section where people can sit in open booths, there is a line of small
tables along the left wall. There is a section at the back where people go
if they want to eat a decent meal. The place is packed so Hafid and I go to
the bar.
I don't know what the place was meant to be before it was a bar. There are
arrays of partitioned shelves like oversized pigeon-holes above the bar.
There is what looks like some kind of hoisting machinery. One can only try
to guess what was hoisted up and stored in those shelves. Two big globe
lamps are held by pantograph arms to the shelf uprights. More of these
globe lights are suspended from the ceiling on the end of long chains.
There is a fresco which covers the whole width of the room at the back. It
starts at 3 meters off the ground and goes all the way to the ceiling which
must be well over 4 meters high. It shows what could be a dance hall from a
century ago with people dancing and socialising. The place is extremely
trendy and packed all day long.
Christelle arrives late (as you do in Paris) with Lara, a young Yugoslav
woman. Christelle has got pink hair today. She's a quite attractive girl.
I've never been turned on by her but she usually has to fight guys off.
Somehow all these guys who get a crush for her have something tragic about
them. They all either get hysterical or get suicidal if she doesn't want to
be with them. She's a bit of an artist and does stage decorations, paints
frescoes in restaurants and works on the sets in feature films. She works
in a seedy bar in-between the jobs. We leave the Charbon immediately, she
wants us to go to the terrace of a tunisian cafe on Boulevard De
Belleville. It's a ten minute walk, Hafid chats with Christelle as we walk
and I chat with Lara. Lara is coming to London in April or May and wants to
speak English with me as much as possible. Her english is quite good and
the Yugoslav (goes down better than Serb) accent adds a little exotic touch
to it which makes the whole thing quite nice. Our little gang attracts
looks all along the way : Hafid and I are both 6 ft 2 in tall and
Christelle and Lara having the looks they have would turn heads in a
convention of spinal injury victims.
We walk along
Belleville
in the sun. We come across Muslims, black people,
Asian people and Jewish people. All these different races and creeds ignore
each other totally which I suppose is the best way, after all. Interracial
love was invented by white man to try and solve his guilt problem, the
others don't feel in any way obliged to endorse the idea. I'd been through
this neighbourhood plenty of times but this was the first time in seven
years spent in Paris that I'd come here on a Sunday afternoon. It's all
very new and all very nice.
We get to the cafe, the place is packed. We have to wait a few minutes for
a table. Hafid and Lara sit down and Christelle and I go inside to place
our orders. Inside, there is a big room which is a mixture between a
grocery, a deli and a cafe. There is another room further back which serves
as a restaurant. Attendants and manager shout orders across the room in
Tunisian. We order mint tea and fresh lemonade and return to the table. We
spend the next hour or so just babbling on about all sorts of things.
Christelle tells me about a guy she has met she is thinking about going out
with (ok, shagging). He's a full time gogo dancer, he lives rather well of
it, he's good looking and he seems to be a nice person. As if his job
wasn't already peculiar enough, the guy showed Christelle a set of pictures
of himself which are part of his professional portfolio. One of them shows
him doing a handstand ... naked. God only knows what is going to happen
between them but I already know that it's going to be in pure Christelle
style : epic.
I have a train to catch. We stand up and say goodbye, we hug and kiss and
promise to visit each other soon. Hafid and I go back to his place. I get
my stuff, jump into a cab where the driver tells me all about his political
beliefs, get into the Eurostar and speed off back to London at 320 km/h.
I'd immersed myself fully in the Paris atmosphere and here I am thrown back
with a jolt into the antithesis of Paris : London. It looks like I'm not
done with Paris; as much as I love London, Paris has left a mark on me. It
always leaves a mark. Not always for the best reasons but it's a powerful
place and you can't just stop thinking about it and turn your back on it. I
ride the London Underground looking through the windows into the dark and
imagine I'm moving past the Alexander III bridge with its golden horses.
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, and can be contacted via
michael.oshea@royalblue.com.
