num_pages: 141
description: Simply Paris. Delightfully funny &amp; amusing. Who hasn’t dreamed of going off to Paris? Not merely a fly-by-night vacation, but actually to live there. What would it be like to get to know Parisians? Are they as flamboyant as they’re pictured? What do they eat outside three and four-star restaurants? What do they wear when not strolling the Champs Elysées?I’d fantasized of living there since my teens—after first seeing “An American in Paris”: Gene Kelly dancing on the cobble stone streets, painting local scenes, making love to Leslie Caron. I was possessed by his tiny garret overlooking the neighborhood with a lovable grandmother in her flower stand, children waiting around him for bubble gum and English lessons.Coming to my senses just before approaching the mid-life crisis, I sold my house and set off, eventually winding up in the French capital where I settled in for the next four years with my new found partner, John. The garret, yes! In an antiquated building in the old Les Halles market area, climbing 147 steps to the top floor. No lovable grandmother: Mme Requin, the concierge, was to be avoided whenever possible. Our street was creased with small shops: wine, cheese, wonderful food—and sex! In the doorways and sometimes perched on the cars, young ladies solicited customers nonstop; we became friends with Mme Gilbert, their “patron,” who often used us as cover-ups during police raids. Besides picking up the language, we acquired basics in gastronomy; along with their food and wine, there was the bureaucracy to cope with, which we found the French had brought to a fine art. The first word in every French bureaucrat’s vocabulary, and perhaps in the French language for all I know, is Impossible! complete with exclamation point. It’s on the tip of their tongue like a pure drop of venom which they spit out at the first opportunity. Nothing gives them as much satisfaction as those four syllables and their accompanied shrug: AM-POSS-EEE-BLA!I became “Mon petit choux” to Mme Rosa with her pushcart in the market, whose produce was hardly ever fresh, but who managed a brisk business nevertheless. Yet make the mistake of offering less than her asking price, as I once did, and the dowager quickly became a granite boulder. But Mme Rosa soon took to me and when I approached her cart, she would burst forth and give “her little cabbage” a warm embrace. M. Bertholle boasted: .I’m worth MILLIONS. . . MILLIONS! capital letters and all. In meanness and greed, in naked avarice, he out-Scrooged Scrooge! Where all his stinginess came from was a mystery. What could have prompted such behavior in a man of such obvious wealth? He had a particular fondness for gilt picture frames. One wall of his living room was a blaze of ornate gold leaf; the frames were empty! “I find the frame infinitely superior to the picture, so I have decided they should have pride of place in my house.”And we did find one flamboyant character, Claudette, recovering from an intermittent love affair that fell apart: “I can’t treat this casually—until next week.” But it wasn’t long before she became engaged to Hans, a young German art gallery owner. This time it was serious and they were off to Japan for the honeymoon. The wedding would be in Paris on their return. One couldn’t be too careful on such serious matters.I had a harrowing experience when lured by a gang who set out to rob me and narrowly escaped. Ironically, one of them, Alain, an Arab, Jewish teenager, then furtively followed me around the city, found out where I lived, and waited outside our window until his presence was known.And then I encountered a soldier who invited me to his room, held his revolveragainst my stomach while “suddenly a click reverberated.
language: English
title: Simply Paris
publisher: Open Forum Living Digital Archive