Farewell My French Love

by Nadine Williams

  But one steady bloke seems better than six years ago when I spent the weekend with her. Then, she had three men in her love life. One lover had been separated when they met and she described him as a ‘beautiful partner’. ‘We did not live together, but we were very bonded,’ she had said, clasping her hands together. ‘But then he got terminal stomach cancer. (She rubbed around her stomach.) ‘The children convinced him that he should move back home with his wife to look after him so his friends and community could visit him.’

  She had sighed as if remembering something painful.

  ‘When he was close to death, a mutual female friend telephoned and invited me to come and say goodbye. She said the wife had agreed and wouldn’t be home that afternoon.’

  Sandrine had cried telling me how weak he had become. Then she had continued in French: ‘He was in bed, of course and when his daughter left the room he told me that he loved me. But he also said that he loved his wife too, because she had cared for him like a professional nurse, but with love and tenderness.’

  She must have noticed my stunned expression because she added, ‘C’est la psychologie de l’amour en France.’ It’s the psychology of love in France.

  There was another older man, too, who lived in a hotel on Avenue Montaigne and she had known him for some years. ‘We are only occasional lovers,’ she had said. ‘I cannot talk of the third man because he is still with his wife.’

  As the waitress clears our table, Jane arrives looking cool and demure. Flashing one of her wide smiles, Sandrine says, ‘Allo, Jane.’

  ‘Hello, Sandrine. I’m excited to meet you because I read about you in Nadine’s book From France with Love,’ responds Jane.

  ‘Oh, Serge, he is forgotten!’ Sandrine exclaims over her old lover who featured in my memoir.

  And as we drink our coffees, I wonder how long it will be for Sandrine to exclaim, ‘Oh, Philippe, he is forgotten!’

  EIGHT

  LAST DAY IN THE LEFT BANK

  ‘The supreme happiness in life is the assurance of being loved for oneself, even in spite of oneself.’ Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

  Our last day activities in the Left Bank are Jane’s choice as per our day-about rule.

  ‘Let’s spend the morning together, but after lunch we can go our separate ways,’ she proposes over breakfast.

  ‘Great. I saw a fashion outlet on Rue Trois Saints-Pères along the taxi route to Boulevard Saint-Germain the other day.’

  We haven’t shopped together since Barcelona and I love shopping in Paris. Finding my larger size in Paris for spring fashion to wear at home will be très difficile and time is running out.

  ‘What if we explore those little green wooden boxes along the River Seine that were all closed?’ suggests Jane. ‘It’s Friday, they will all be open today.’

  I don’t mention Le Louvre. I have learnt to respect Jane’s right to choose. ‘They’re known as bouqinistes, and I’d love to search through the comics and old postcards,’ I add.

  We wile away an hour wandering along the River Seine ferreting through those iconic stalls that offer amazing finds. They are collectors’ dreams laden with historic books, ancient maps, posters and French film memorabilia.

  When we turn into Rue de Petit Pont I notice a pretty restaurant, Jardin Notre Dame, on the corner of Rue de la Huchette. A faint bell rings in my memory.

  ‘Oh, Jane, we sat in that little café on the corner, right there in the window on our honeymoon.’ I’m ecstatic. ‘We must go down that little street, Rue de la Huchette. It is one of the oldest streets in Paris and can be dated from the 1500s.’

  ‘It’s very Left Bank, isn’t it? So busy,’ says Jane.

  ‘The whole history of Paris happened in these ancient streets.’

  We amble along the winding, narrow mall cluttered with a blaze of colourful flags waving from upper windows, flashing neon signs and the occasional wall lantern. The pavement is dotted with bollards, placards advertising food and postcard stands. We pass a line-up of patrons outside the Theatre de la Huchette and stop to read touristy T-shirts for sale outside La Memoire de Paris.

  When we reach Le Saint Séverin café on Place Saint Michel, the heart of the Latin Quarter lies before us. It’s all so quintessentially Paris—the gracious Art Deco metro entrance, the Haussmann apartment buildings, the busy Boulevard Saint Michel, Pont Saint Michel and the huge open plaza, crazy with traffic. Splashed across the intersection is the imposing portal where Gabriel Davioud’s stunning statue of the Archangel Michael is set in its distinctive alcove. Completing the splendour is the Fontaine de la Place Saint Michel, guarded by statues of griffins.

  It’s hard to imagine that this idyllic landmark of Paris was once a rabbit warren of tenement houses and damp alleyways with open sewerage. Dreadful enough to be the setting for the barricades battle in Victor Hugo’s classic Les Misérables. La Place Saint Michel is also renowned for many street marches and protests which begin here. It’s not very far to the National Assembly.

  When Baron Haussmann drew a series of thick lines on a map of Paris, this old part of the rat infested, overcrowded city was wiped away in the mid-nineteenth century. He supervised the destruction of 25 000 dwellings. The landmark portal before us was an ingenious way for Haussmann to cauterise the blunt end of buildings devastated by the bulldozers as they cut a swathe for Boulevard Saint Michel.

  My heart is singing as we take photographs of each other. I ask a French man standing nearby, ‘Excusez-moi, Monsieur, pourriez-vous nous prendre en photo ensemble, s’il vous plaît?’

  ‘Bien sûr,’ he replies before lining us up with hand movements to declare, ‘Parfait!’

  ‘Merci.’

  We walk on down Boulevard Saint Michel until I recognise the distinctive grilled fencing of Le Jardin du Luxembourg. I hadn’t thought to take Jane here, but I exclaim in delight.

  ‘Jane, look ahead of us—the Jardin du Luxembourg. Why didn’t I think of it? It contains statues of the ancient queens of France. We must go.’

  ‘Why?’ she says, glued to the spot.

  I should have spoken calmly of Luxembourg’s significance and that the château at the head of the second largest park in Paris has been home of the French Senate since the nineteenth century. Instead, I snap at her, ‘Jane, this is the most amazing garden in the world!’

  ‘I doubt that, Nadine.’

  ‘Ernest Hemingway walked in this garden almost every day of his life in Paris.’

  She sighs deeply but makes no move towards the traffic lights.

  ‘Jane!’ I’m emphatic now. ‘You are not leaving Paris until you have seen the avenue of queens. If you see nothing else in this magnificent garden, you must see the life-size statues of the medieval queens who ruled France for a thousand years. There are twenty of them and they were commissioned in 1834 when South Australia was not even settled!’

  I pause for her acquiescence, but none is forthcoming. So, in exasperation, I lower my voice, but add a steely tone.

  ‘We can go in now when the weather is wonderful, or we can wait until we return from the Loire Valley next week when we only have one day together and when it may be raining; when we will need to take an expensive taxi ride from the Right Bank to the Left Bank. But, you cannot leave Paris without seeing the Jardin du Luxembourg.’

  She gives a little sigh of resignation and mutters that it’s her day to choose and walks towards the traffic lights.

  Soon we are strolling past the kiosk to the central lake, which is encircled by the queens on the higher level. They presided over an incredible millennium of French history. Queen Marie’s story has particular relevance to me today and I can almost hear Oli retelling it, as he did when we first visited here:

  ‘It was the seventeenth-century Queen Marie de Médicis, the Italian-born young widow of Henri IV, who ordered the Luxembourg Palace. The king was assassinated, and while still in a state of mourning, she took over ruling France as a regent for seven years until her son Louis XIII
became king in 1617. History records that she suffered enormously in grief, but she still achieved greatness.’

  I thought it amazing that a French man would know the history of the French queens as well as the kings.

  What is so enthralling is that women’s history is sculpted here in stone. The statues make a powerful statement about the queens’ significance and cannot be edited out. But in Australia we have very little recording of women’s history and certainly nothing as spectacular as this amazing portrayal of female power in France.

  I chatter away to Jane about the first few medieval queens such as Clotilde and Matilda, but I soon observe that she is unresponsive. So I lag behind pretending to try and read a difficult inscription. Her mood is like a millstone, I muse. There are eventually two queens between us, but I’m absorbed in their dress and their eras. I find them all listed in Véronique’s pocket book.

  Then I find Sainte Geneviève, who wasn’t a queen, but here she is as Patronne de Paris 423–512, draped in a simple gathered gown and head mantel with her long plaîts hanging down her body. So this is what she looked like, I muse.

  Some of these women are long-forgotten queens, but Anne, Duchess of Brittany, twice the Queen of France during the Middle Ages, is still revered in Brittany.

  Nor was controversial Clémence Isaure forgotten even though she wasn’t a queen. One French historian claims she was mythical. But others passionately believe she lived in the late 1400s and early 1500s in the territory of Oc. She was beautiful and gifted and a virgin. She fell in love with a troubadour who sang love songs about her, but when he died she took a vow of celibacy. She devoted her considerable wealth to the arts and was renowned as the mother of French literary culture. When she died her wealth was used to start the first literary society in France. France became the literary cradle of the world fostering generations of poets, playwrights and authors. I wonder if she knows of her amazing legacy to Paris, which continues to nurture creative talent centuries later. Isn’t that why I’m here, to be reinspired? Her statue is the most sensual as she seems to swing her hips to one side, swivelling her long skirt, dipping her head in a coquettish manner like that early photograph of Princess Diana.

  What I find fascinating about these French queens is their fearless use of power. I was never raised to understand power or that women had any right to power and I only began to understand that men and women have equal rights to opportunity in my adult professional life. No wonder I worked so hard as social issues writer to spread the gospel of women’s equality through countless newspaper articles.

  Yet, so many Australian women are still stunted by gendered societal roles in the twenty-first century. I had no sense of equality when I was growing up. Now I believe if we strip away constrictive social mores, women wield power as men. Whether it is the legacy of the powerful queens, or a lineage of strong French feminists such as politicians Simone Veil and Ségolène Royal or writers Marguerite Duras and Simone de Beauvoir, contemporary French women seem liberated and enjoy a real sense of personal power. Whatever the reason, gender relations in France are a stratosphere away from Australian society. The social affairs writer for Elle in Paris, Dorothée Werner, claims the foundation of society in France is that men and women know they are different but feel equal. She believes this leads to a more wholesome relationship. French men are ‘less of a caricature than in England, where you have the classic gentleman in the pub’.

  Many Australian men also identify culturally with the macho bloke in the pub much more than being an equal partner. I wrote a feature once entitled ‘The Trouble with Blokes’—a wrap-up of a national forum on men and family relationships which exposed many men’s views that feminism posed a ‘threat to male power’. In an accompanying comment ‘Macho Culture Can Mar Relationships’ I concluded: ‘My experiences with men and their shared lives tell me they want to lead more balanced lives, to adopt more caring roles at home and be more intimate with their female partners. But they will have to break down macho stereotypes, get their hands dirty around the house and put aside the god of sport to rediscover the joy of family life.’

  While many men still grapple with the power issue in a bid to change, little girls of my era have metamorphosed. When I went to school, the only public female role model presented to me was the Queen—and she lived far away in England. I went to a church where women were not allowed to become ministers and my mother taught me that women were subservient to men; that husbands were the God-ordained head of the household. These messages I took into my first marriage. How could it survive on such fallacies?

  Controversial eighteenth-century German philosopher Georg Hegel believed that history holds valuable lessons for our contemporary age; that every era is a ‘repository’ of a particular kind of wisdom, which needs to be mined for solutions to the problems of today. Standing here, I instinctively know this and latch onto his philosophy that I can find strength and direction from the life stories of these incredible queens. Women are so powerful, I tell myself.

  I could stay here all day but I have spotted Jane sitting on one of the steel chairs under the arbour of old trees. So I rush over to find her almost asleep.

  ‘Well, what do you think of the garden?’ I gush.

  ‘Nadine, sometimes I need to be made to do things,’ she answers softly. ‘I cannot remember when I have felt so peaceful and at one with nature. I look above me at these huge branches spreading out over me, sheltering me, nurturing me, and I feel at one with the universe.’

  I have never heard Jane speak like this, not even after we have meditated together.

  Her face seems to beam as she says, ‘It’s a shame we cannot stay longer, but you must be hungry, poor darling. Shall we find somewhere for lunch?’

  It occurs to me that Jane has enjoyed the Jardin du Luxembourg in her own way, not mine. Jean-Paul Sartre’s term ‘bad faith’ springs to mind—perhaps this is what I am guilty of. When we tell ourselves things have to be a certain way. Today, again, Jane has revealed her different outlook.

  I have been so perplexed by Jane over the past five days and now I understand that she marches to an entirely different drum from me. The queens were not inherently meaningful for her, but sitting quietly and reflecting upon nature was.

  We link arms walking out of the garden and cross the busy road once more returning along Boulevard Saint Michel. It’s Jane’s choice of lunch today, but she seems in no hurry.

  ‘I need to rest my ankle soon, Jane, or I really will need to go back to the hotel to rest. Otherwise, I won’t be shopping this afternoon.’

  ‘Okay. We will take the next one we come across.’

  It’s a small sandwich bar with a curved glass servery filled with ready-to-eat baguettes, wraps, croissants and cakes. High stools are tucked under a bench on one side.

  ‘Let’s see what’s down here for you to rest,’ she says, leading the way along the narrow hallway. At the back it opens out enough for a twoseater lounge and another round table with two chairs.

  ‘You sit here, darling,’ she says. ‘I need to return to the hotel for something, but Rue des Écoles is very close, so it is only ten minutes away. I will order you something to eat when I get back.’

  The pain eases almost as soon as I sit on the settee and hoist my leg onto the spare chair. I don’t move and no one comes to take orders, and when Jane does not reappear, I doze off.

  When I awake, 12.30 has become 1.20 pm and I almost shout aloud, Where the hell is Jane? ‘Fifty minutes!’ I mutter. Another ten minutes pass, but I’m so pain-free that I don’t move. I’m not alarmed, only annoyed—and hungry. And then, she appears as bright as midday sun.

  ‘Where have you been?’ I ask in a demanding tone.

  ‘Oh dear, Nadine, I have just eaten something at the front counter. I thought you would have got yourself something to eat.’

  ‘You didn’t think to check? You told me to wait, which is exactly what I have been doing for an hour!’

  ‘Never mind.
I’ll grab you a baguette. What would you like? Then we can take a taxi to Boulevard Saint-Germain to save your ankle.’

  ‘It’s not aching now.’

  ‘Very good. I knew all you needed was a good rest.’

  But I’m suspicious of Jane’s eating habits and wonder whether she has actually eaten anything. I sense her creative avoidance of food. Mostly, though, there is this sinking feeling of disappointment—that yo-yo of feeling elated at some small pleasurable exchange between us and then the crash of bitter disappointment over unmet expectations. I don’t ask where she was for the hour.

  Our last lunchtime in the Left Bank has been a disaster. I’m eating my baguette on the pavement as she hails a taxi because the afternoon is running away from us.

  ‘Let’s meet at 4 pm instead of 3.30 pm,’ she suggests as she checks her watch to note that it is almost two o’clock.

  ‘Arrêtez-vous là, s’il vous plaît,’ I ask the taxi driver, pointing to the fashion shopfront with Nouveau Destockage plastered on the window. He drops me opposite before taking Jane onto Boulevard Saint-Germain.

  When I was celebrity columnist and a fixture on Adelaide society’s A-list, my wardrobe was filled with lovely figure-hugging size 16s. But happy marriage and rich French foods changed my shape and finding my new size in Paris is like finding a needle in a haystack. So imagine my surprise when the svelte saleswoman responds to my question of sizes.

  ‘Bien sûr, Madame, mais pas ici.’ For sure, Madame, but not here. She waves her hand around the shop.

  ‘Venez derrière!’ She beckons for me to follow her through the archway into a rear storage area jammed with racks of garments. It is overwhelming and too depressing to trawl through a thousand size 8s, 10s, 12s and 14s.

  The saleswoman is a svelte fifty-something and smartly dressed in a tight black skirt with a pleat trim at the knee and an off-white cardigan edged with black lace. Size 10, I muse. Deeply tanned, she wears a number of necklaces, pearls and chains.