Kiosk - Paris Chez Moi (page 4)

Paris Chez Moi
(conclusion)

I remember visiting a friend from back home who lived on the top floor of a limestone building on Boulevard Magenta, overlooking the bustling metro stop Barbè s-Rochechouart. When I descended from the metro—for it was one of the few lines that went above ground—several men wearing leather jackets chanted, “Marlboro, Marlboro, Marlboro, trois euros, trois euros, trois euros!” in heavy Arabic accents. It was easy to avoid them since they never made eye contact with you. Instead they scanned the area, one hand in a pocket (it was cold) and the other dealing out a pack in and out of the front flap of a jacket like a deck of cards. They were looking for cops who mostly turned away and busted them only for show. I bought a pack once, even though I hate Marlboro reds—and there were two cigarettes missing out of the pack. A small service fee, I guess.
In the daytime, Barbè s was peaceful enough. Men in understated thobes and Senegalese women in loud prints and baby slings seemed to occupy that entire corner on Boulevard Rochechouart where the biggest Tati (the French Wal-Mart) stood. People walked with no particular destination, sometimes loafing along smoking cigarettes (perhaps the missing Marlboros?) and catching up with other locals. Was this the new classe ouvrière, a working class of recent immigrants driven to the fringes and undesirable quarters of Paris? I hardly saw such a diverse group of people concentrated in one place in Paris. It reminded me of home, of something real. The colorful figures looked pleasingly out of place against the timeworn façades. But this was bona fide Paris, I thought, peering down at the mass of people shuffling about. West and I never made it out this far because no tourist destination or posh café landed at Barbès. Just people, living.

After classes resumed in the middle of the second semester, West went back to Bordeaux, paying me fewer visits, and Baptiste buried himself in books, leaving me to myself again. I lost the sense of wanderlust, abandoning my maps, and relying solely on memory. I didn’t want to go home. I spent my free afternoons at La Cinémathèque Française, one of the largest film archives in the world. It was once housed in the Palais de Chaillot beneath the shadow of the Eiffel Tower across the Seine, but moved to the 12th arrondissement in a modern building designed by Frank Gehry. Even on sunny days, I would watch two or three films in a row—on 35mm film reels—in a viewing cubicle. Sometimes when I got tired of that, I would see something more recent at Le Reflet Mé dicis or Le Champo near the Sorbonne. I found this an effective way to cope with my dwindling time in Paris. Two weeks before my departure date, without a single thing packed, I picked a gloomy film by my favorite director, Ingmar Bergman. The black and white classic was lonely, temperamental, and self-conscious—exactly how I felt. Then I read the subtitles:

The hopeless dream of being. Not seeming, but being. Every moment, alert! The tug of war—what you are with others and who you really are. The feeling of vertigo and a constant hunger to finally be exposed. To be seen through, cut down, even obliterated… Your hiding place isn’t watertight. Life trickles in everywhere.

I paused the movie and scribbled the words in my notebook.

            In May, finals had ended and the familiar summer gloom had come back to the city again. Even West came back for a while. A few days before my departure, West and I walked once more down Rue de Rivoli, starting at the center of Paris. We followed the busy street past the Jardin du Tuilleries and past the Louvre until the street funneled into the Marais, where we inhaled the smell of motorcycle exhaust and freshly baked bread emanating from the boulangerie windows. Down a few blocks, we paused in front of the Bastille column, saluting at the golden genie of liberty at the top. We walked north until Canal St. Martin where we stopped at Chez Prune for a drink around mid-afternoon. From there we continued up the canal until we found the metro and rode it above ground, past Barbès-Rochechouart and the Marlboro cigarettes, until Anvers. Then began our long ascent up to the ghostly white Sacré-Coeur. The basilica was intentionally built on the highest point of the city, visible from almost anywhere in Paris, in the middle of the most radical neighborhood at the time it was built in 1873. It was constructed with travertine, a hardening and whitening stone that towered over the pilgrims, calling them to Perpetual Adoration, uninterrupted prayer since 1885. But unlike so many who had made the pilgrimage, we climbed to say goodbye. The wind blew down the collar of my jacket, reminding me of the wintry day atop Centre Pompidou. We were far away now, sitting on top of the basilica ledge, gazing silently at the city below. All I could recognize was the Eiffel Tower and the top of Centre Pompidou, the red and blue a striking contrast to the aged rooftops.
            For the last two weeks I stayed with Baptiste after the study abroad program officially ended and I was kicked out of my apartment in the 14th. I went to the airport twice during that time, seeing American friends off and helping them haul their luggage through the metro. The third time it was my turn, Baptiste carrying the largest bag, another friend carrying the second largest, and I, the smallest—I was going home.
            After I arrived back in California, I bought another notebook—this one without a map—to replace the two I had filled over the course of the year. On the first page I rewrote the scrawled words from Bergman’s “Persona” and didn’t write much else for weeks. I avoided people, cringing at the sight of supersized food and gritted smiles, and lawns and tree-lined streets devastated by the dry California heat. My family noticed a change: “Oh you’re so European now!” And I cringed again. They mistook my insouciance and detachment for a European attitude, which in some ways it could have been, but I preferred not to think of myself as French anymore. Perhaps just homesick. I quit smoking and quit avoiding people, but I continued writing and thinking about Paris, adding my own narrative like all the others who had paid homage to the fabled city. My pilgrimage, rite of passage, or whatever you want to call it, was at last real.