April in Paris: a cliché that works. Broad tree-lined avenues and outdoor cafés teeming with people smoking or entertaining deep thoughts or both. Masterpieces of the Louvre, eminent skeletons of Pere Lachaise. The splendor of Notre Dame that the Nazis couldn’t bring themselves to blow up, or was that Sacre Coeur? In the midst of all this beauty it would be rude not to have an existential crisis. Ghosts of the Impressionists walking the cobblestones of Montmartre, haunting the fleshpots of Pigalle. The French Revolution, the Cinematheque, Anna Karina and her two swains running across the Louvre in nine minutes something. A schoolboy plagiarizing Balzac. Herald Tribune!
Paris, 9:30 p.m. Chaos at Charles De Gaulle Airport, endless renovations of the Metro, new arrivals herded onto buses and snuck into the city — is there a standard chic test we’ve flunked? Stink of piss as you emerge from the Gare du Nord into the twinkling evening: I lift my suitcase to avoid running over a man in rags snoring open-mouthed by the door. The cabbie’s nose so big that when he turns around to ask for the address I instinctively duck. He’s delighted to discover a street he’d never heard of.
Dog turds on the sidewalk, used metro tickets carpeting the street. I punch in the security code and the lock clicks open. The elevator is out of order. The stairs creak and groan like an arthritic grandmother. My suitcase bangs painfully against my leg as I drag myself up to the third floor. Much later I will recount with exaggerated horror how I carried a huge suitcase and a giant backpack up four flights of stairs in Paris. The point of the story won’t be the weight of my luggage or the creakiness of the stairs, it will be the fact that it happened in Paris.
Sidewalks of Montmartre: bolts of cloth, bins of cheap shoes, chatty men at the grill making Nutella crepes. Schoolchildren clambering onto an antique merry-go-round. African men in colorful baggy pants saying, “Hello, where are you from?” and starting to tie string around my wrist. “Don’t be afraid, I am giving you a gift.” “No, really, no thanks.” Tourists lounging at outdoor cafes, cameras at the ready in case Amelie appears. Lung-busting walk up the steps to Sacre Coeur. Dark inside. Novenas for sale, 10 euros, candles for two euros, whatever happened to the Reformation? Then again, those women seem happy to pay for salvation; they linger at the gift shop over crucifixes and medallions. Outside, souvenir shops bursting with overpriced merchandise, men with sketchpads offering to draw your portrait. I send out text messages to friends. Hey I’m in Paris, what are you doing?