Myweekin.net > Postcard from Paris 1

Postcard from Paris 1

Saturday 02 February 2008

&am

Actually, I can’t seem to reset my alarm. It’s one of those laser things synchronized to GMT. It’s frozen at 6.30AM. I’m afraid to touch it.

Parisian bedrooms aren’t normally very big but my bed’s enormous. I don’t like sleeping in coffins. And I don’t like pajamas. I pull on my robe and slip on a pair of red Charvet slippers. They’re red because I saw a philosopher wearing red slippers in a painting by David (or was it Ingres?) and I always thought it would be kinda cool and suave to have the same. They’re very soft and very nice. Much nicer than gloves. I bought them at Place Vendome. A little handwritten card appears in the Charvet window twice a year alerting you to sales items available on the second floor. A tiny elevator takes you to a tiny room where all kinds of wonderful things are literally falling out of huge cardboard boxes.

My kitchen is tiny. I like plunger coffee. I buy a particular blend called La Sicilian from a little place near Les Halles. I abhor French coffee. It’s too bitter, too black. When the coffee’s done I take a nice big milky cup of it to my dressing room, switch on the laptop and get to work. That usually takes me through two or three cups. I don’t have a desk. I sit on a leather sofa in my robe and slippers. Soon it’s time to think about lunch. I like listening to Bach in the bathroom. Sometimes, just for the hell of it, I brush my teeth while I p;rsquo;m in the shower.

If I’m running early, that is before midday, I head to the Café des Initi& ;eacu te;s at Place des Deux Écus, around the corner from the Bourse and the Galerie Vero-Dodat. I have a crisp Sancerre or a chilled Sauvignon if it’s bright. Or a St Julien if it’s murky and threatening. If I’m running after midday I take the Metro to Place Concorde, skip across the rue de Rivoli and pop into WH Smith for some English language papers and mags. Then it’s down the road to the beautiful small bar at the Hotel Meurice where I hang out for an hour alone and at peace. It used to be lovely smoking a cigar in here, sorting through newsprint, drinking. Not anymore.

It’s quite strange even walking into a place like the Meurice now and seeing the effect of the new no-smoking regulations. It’s weird. You can actually smell the polish they use on the marble floors. The absence of smoke and the like makes me quite nostalgic as I sit there in the bar nursing my morning Americano. I felt for my old Swaine Adeney cigar case and began to feel sad about the many smelly café’s, smoke infested wine bars and creepy Tabac’s I’d used throughout this great city that were now lost forever courtesy of globalisation and picky tourism. Such a pity but it was bound to happen. The past year there was a distinct shift in ambiance in many stuffy restaurants and bistros where lighting up between courses was languidly and superbly tolerated by the nonchalant proprietor but secretly detested by his squiffy customers. You felt distinctly damned in that slight way well-bred Parisians have of showing their discomfort or displeasure in public. It’s hard to describe. It’s more a vibe, a slant of the shoulder, a twitch of the lips, something infinitely more subtle than the showy things they do in New York or Sydney. Like actually confronting you at your table.

I looked down at my dwindling drink. It doesn’t taste the same. I ordered another one. There was no stopping me now. In my mind I was bidding adieu to those stray particles of ash floating in the froth of my café crème; to tiny dogs nosing dirty cigarette butts under my shared table; to hacking, blue veined, coughers leaning wearily over ancient zincs; to the bitter taste of tar wafting into my mouth on entering certain establishments; to hefty dry-cleaning bills and visits to the rue de Buci pharmacie for the latest ultra-strength shampoos. Yes, it was goodbye to all of that and at the same time good riddance to all those morose, smelly students clogging up the aisle of my favourite tabac with their girlfriends and their roller-blades, their noisy debates and their hairy petite-Gitanes.

Yes, it’s very sad. It’s sad for those who can still remember their first experience of a Parisian café at seven in the morning or three in the afternoon or nine at night, the interior lit up like a Christmas tree and the tables inside and out choked with people and smoke and life. Yes, we’re the lucky ones. But then, this is the New France which everybody wants but nobody wants to change. Something has to give.

I contemplate the papers in front of me, look at the dark coloured walls and try to recapture that first café experience: we were jet-lagged and hungry, crashing the previous day at 9PM and waking at 4AM raring to go. The packets of airplane snacks and chocolates we managed to separate from our rucksacks only stimulated our appetites so we ditched the hotel and commenced our lonely prowl through St Germain des Pres like a pair of sleek and slender Love Cats (yes, this was the eighties). The cobbled streets were slicked with moonshine. Enormous grey buildings towered over our heads. Stuffed animal heads and African masks followed our elongated shadows. Shutters banged and lights flickered. It was magic.

But were so hungry. And thirsty. But everything was shut! Our stomachs were churning. We could smell the new bread baking in the rue de Buci. We played football with oyster shells in the rue Mazarine. We wrote our names on Allard’s dusty windows. It only made the pain worse. There was no respite. We had time to kill. We found the building in the rue Grands Augustins where Picasso painted Guernica. It was tall and imposing with massive gates and a courtyard like a nineteenth century police station. We turned into the Quai and looked down at the Seine pouring like instant coffee around the Pont Neuf and Ile de Cite. We rattled the bouquinistes locks and skirted the Louvre until we came upon Senneliers, suppliers to Picasso and Matisse. The shop was painted black in those days with gold lettering. Now it’s green and doesn’t look as nice though inside it’s much the same: strange paper from India, bottles of red ink from China and pots of powdered colour from Belgium.

My stomach was giving me real grief. We decided to cut back into St Germain rather than persist with the Quai Voltaire. So it was back towards the Pont des Arts, right into the rue de Seine, left down the rue Beaux Arts and straight past the hotel at number 13 where Oscar Wilde aged 46 died under an assumed name after “two days of agony”, left along the rue Bonaparte until, at the junction of the rue Jacob and rue Saints Peres, we saw a truly magical sight: lights; an open door; a burly man overturning chairs; people in the window blowing on little cups; and a huge brown paper sack of baguettes dumped on the bar. The neon sign of the Hotel de l’Universite where James Joyce stayed on his first visit to Paris twinkled in front of us as we entered the cafe.

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