This One is Ours

by Kate O'Donnell

  ‘Un peu,’ I’d said at first. A little. Then, when my confidence built, I’d say, ‘La moitié (half),’ even when I’m not sure I do understand exactly half, but it is near enough.

  I take notes like maps. Poverty to wealth. Like the American Dream. We studied that in history class back home too. This idea that all Americans could be whatever they wanted to be, that it was their god-given right to expand west across the map, taking no note of who had come before and whose paths they were treading upon, whose stories they were rewriting.

  Someday this information will be useful to me.

  ‘You like beautiful things, don’t you?’ asks Delphine one day, out of the blue.

  ‘I do,’ I say, wondering where this is going.

  ‘If you aren’t doing anything this weekend, we should go to the marché aux puces.’

  ‘Oui, d’accord,’ I say, agreeing.

  The marché aux puces. I know what this is; it’s the flea markets. I’ve read about les puces. (I’ve been pronouncing it like the colour puce, like ‘pewce’. Turns out it’s more like ‘poo-se’.)

  ‘Cool. I’ll play tourist with you,’ she says. ‘I have to go quickly to the gardens early in the morning, but how about we find ourselves tomorrow at the metro around ten?’

  To be clear – she is just saying ‘let’s meet at the metro’, but ‘we’ll find ourselves there’ is the literal translation of the French. It might seem silly that it took me so long to understand, and maybe I shouldn’t focus on the literal, but that’s how I’ve been getting by. Half understanding.

  Maybe one day I’ll be fluent, and when I’m fluent I’ll translate differently in my head. But for now it’s a process. Understand the French words. Translate them back to English. Interrogate the words for the correct meaning.

  For example, when Delphine said angrily to Léon the other day that the way the government has ignored the gilets jaunes’ demands and at the same time encouraged the right-wing racists makes her shit, she didn’t mean it literally. Ça me fait chier just means she’s really angry about it. She’s not actually pooping with rage.

  We haven’t even gone down the stairs into the metro station when we run into Olivier. I immediately burst into flames, and I hope no-one notices. Mwah mwah.

  I want to ask him to come with us, but because going to les puces wasn’t my idea, and I know the French stand on ceremony, I keep my mouth shut, careful not to offend.

  ‘See you soon,’ he says, coming close to faire les bises goodbye. I feel his hand on my waist and hope I don’t liquefy under his touch.

  ‘Is there actually something going on between you and Olivier?’ asks Delphine, as I watch him walk away.

  I’m not sure how to explain what we are. We haven’t had the conversation.

  Olivier and I have messaged and he’s sent crooning texts telling me he hopes to see me soon and asking how my sketches are coming along.

  I’m not brave enough to say I think he might be my boyfriend. So I just say, ‘Yeah, we are good friends. He helps me with my art.’

  I worry that my face and the heat I am radiating will give me away.

  Delphine doesn’t say anything, but I feel as though she thinks he is a bit of a wanker.

  She just doesn’t know him the way I do.

  But, then again, I am smitten like a kitten.

  On the way we see a series of posters that have been put up in the metro. They are blocky illustrations or prints or something. I’ve seen one of them a few times now – a simple silhouette of a factory, with a fist rising from the smoke stack printed in red, in black, in an inky blue. The text changes from poster to poster. Sometimes it’s Macron démission! Macron resign! Sometimes: La lutte continue.

  ‘The fight continues,’ translates Delphine.

  There’s something so simple and powerful about the posters. They’re handmade, or designed to look like it, and so the art and the artist don’t seem far away from each other. But they are arresting and smart. I try to take photos when the train stops at the stations.

  ‘This is a really common kind of poster,’ says Delphine. ‘Like we were looking at the other day. It was popular during May ’68. This is what Jean-Michel was talking about at the garden.’

  I’m startled to realise I know what she means. Suddenly, other connections synapse and whizz in my brain. May 1968. Paris. Protests. Guy Debord. The Situationists. The Society of the Spectacle. I am still trying to make sense of it all, but what I do know is that the posters are so interesting visually, as well as in their context.

  I think about what Delphine said. How do we break out of the Spectacle?

  I try to not think about Olivier as we catch the metro to Porte de Clignancourt, changing at Barbès–Rochechouart. Out of the metro and under an overpass, then we are beyond the périphérique. We’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto.

  Paris’s main arrondissements all fit inside this almost oval-shaped part of the city bordered by the périphérique, a freeway of sorts. Outside this are the suburbs, which in French are called banlieues. I hadn’t crossed into the suburbs since first arriving.

  Saint-Ouen, the district where the markets are, is rough. I feel nervous, which I haven’t often felt in Paris. Okay, a little in Belleville at the start.

  But then, after a few blocks of trash-and-treasure market stalls, we arrive at the undercover goldmine of antiques and vintage gems.

  Time stops having any meaning while I am at the flea markets. I keep forgetting Delphine is there as we rummage carefully through each stall selling trinkets and crafts, clothes and furniture. In a saucer full of button badges I find one that says: Soyez réalistes, demandez l’impossible. Be realistic, demand the impossible. It’s in black type on a red background, and I buy it immediately for Crow.

  Here is a list of the things I see, covet and photograph:

  Deep sea diving suit.

  Vintage boots and dresses to die for (where I get told off for taking photographs).

  Boxes of vinyl records.

  Teacups and saucers.

  Burnished silverware (and dirty silverware).

  ‘You take a lot of photos,’ Delphine observes as I scoot away from a dress stall, the owner wagging her finger at me.

  I slide my phone into my pocket. ‘Do I? Too many photos?’

  She shrugs.

  ‘It’s because I try to put up at least one photo a day on Instagram,’ I explain.

  She laughs. ‘I think Guy Debord would judge you and your attachment to the Spectacle.’

  This is the night. The night. The best of my life, and one I will remember forever.

  Claudette and Léon have gone to Bordeaux for the weekend. They’re going to be away for two nights, and while I don’t set out to immediately break all the rules (my host family’s rules, Toby’s rules, my parents’ rules), that’s just how it plays out.

  I have, however, planned how this night might go, since I read about the concept of the dérive. It is a way of moving without great intention through an urban environment, letting the footpaths, buildings and surprise encounters direct your route.

  Delphine shrugs when I tell her I’m going out. ‘Just make sure you come home,’ she says. She doesn’t want to come with us, so it’s just me, Olivier, Léa, Amandine and Victor.

  It all starts at 59 Rivoli, which was once an artists’ squat (before that it was surely some rich person’s house or a bank or something), and you’d be forgiven for thinking it’s still an artists’ squat. As you walk in from the street, it’s like someone’s painted a welcome message and then forty-five other people have had a go on top of it – bright colours and shapes graffitied on. The effect is haphazard and inviting – as though everyone is welcome here and anything goes.

  We climb the staircase, which is painted just as bright and lurid as the entryway and which spirals up and up, and we vis
it the studios filled with artists. They’re creating Modernist and Postmodernist and Anarchic art, and the walls are all covered in colour and pattern and slogans.

  ‘Imagine having a space here to create and display your art,’ says Olivier. ‘I can see myself here.’

  ‘Me too,’ says Amandine, as she sits on a little stool in one of the studios and immediately looks at home.

  ‘I don’t know how I would feel having people walking through and seeing my unfinished pieces,’ I say. ‘I wonder if it would be like them seeing you half naked.’ I blush as soon as I say naked, and don’t look at Olivier for a good minute. Thankfully everyone moves on into the next space.

  I like the concept of this place, but I also wonder about these artists whose sketches and ideas are automatically part of the show. Their drafts look just as curated as the finished products. Where are the real flops or aesthetically jarring mistakes? I think of how I sift through photos to find the best one to add to my feed. But what about the ones where my finger creeps into shot, or the selfie where I’ve failed to consider the angle properly? I think about Delphine and Guy Debord and the Spectacle. Maybe there’s a place for keeping these in view. Maybe the naked and unfinished are more powerful, and shouldn’t be deleted or kept to yourself.

  There is a band playing in a big dark room, and that’s also what we’ve come for. African beats thud right through me, rolling and building and pulling me into the dance. The band raps and the crowd sings and the beat beats on.

  We dance. People throw their arms up and close their eyes, and I’ve never really been part of a scene like this before – I didn’t even know I liked this kind of music. Léa wiggles around me and I feel so anarchic! Like the world is offering so many things to me, and I can invite in what I want and push back on others. I am wild and I am free.

  Olivier comes close and he smells like oil paints and spicy cologne, and his hands feel good around my waist. Our bodies touch as we move with the music and the crowd, and I’ve never danced like this before with someone who likes me. I’ve never danced like this with anyone.

  When it begins to get more crowded, the vibe starts to change and we decide to leave.

  ‘On se dégage d’ici!’ says Olivier. Let’s blow this joint.

  ‘Get ready, everyone, for our all-night dérive!’ I say as we spill out onto the street.

  I explain the concept of the dérive. ‘We just walk,’ I say, ‘and let our feet take us where they want to go. We allow ourselves to make discoveries.’

  ‘And then what happens?’ asks Victor, whose cigarette glows red like a tiny homing beacon.

  Guy Debord says you need to follow the contours of the city, but I’m not sure how to say contours in French. And anyway, if we can’t find the contours – which we might not, as I don’t know what they look like – I have a secret weapon.

  In my pocket is a fistful of scraps of paper with little directives written upon them: turn right, turn left, take the second left, go straight ahead, spin around the next lamppost, take five steps to the right and take a photo, now take a selfie.

  ‘The dérive will help us travel to places we might not already know and will open us up to surprising situations.’ I think I’ve understood it right. ‘Are you ready?’ I ask, looking around at my friends and making my voice a bit mysterious. ‘We are in this together. You can’t dérive on your own.’

  ‘We will be explorers of the night,’ says Olivier, and he wraps his arms around me and lifts me off the ground – I haven’t been lifted up since I was a kid. It’s freeing and fun and frightening all at once. He laughs, probably because I am squealing (in a classy and romantic way, of course).

  ‘Which direction shall I take you?’ he asks.

  We are just delighted to be alive and to be together. I feel light and like I am exactly where I am supposed to be.

  Everyone knows Olivier and I are together, and it is the first time in my life that I’m part of a ‘thing’ – that I’m paired.

  I catch his hand and pull him alongside me. ‘On va par ici?’ I ask.

  He wipes a smudge of pizza sauce from my lip and licks it off his thumb. His lips are beautiful, and I burn and spark when I think about how those lips have kissed mine.

  Then he pulls me gently in the direction I’d indicated and waves to the others. ‘Allons-y! Let’s go!’

  We are so young. So free. Liberté, egalité, jeunesse!

  We dance on the Alexandre III bridge, and the Eiffel Tower’s light show delights me, even though the others make fun of me, and the whole experience is yet another reminder that what I am doing is amazing. I know my experience is special and privileged. It’s as though I am in a dream or a movie and, appropriately, the city turns it on for me.

  It is warm enough that I leave my coat unbuttoned and we wave at cars and shout to passers-by as we drift along the river.

  We take videos, a constant stream of Insta stories. For a few hours we make films. We run alongside the houseboats on the edge of the Seine and get some superb footage when I accidentally disturb some ducks. Our conversations are inconsequential.

  There’s fog descending and it makes the lampposts cast yellow pools of light. Red lights from the cranes dot the horizon.

  Olivier and I kiss on the deserted forecourt of Notre Dame cathedral. It is 2 am. Victor, Léa and Amandine have gone to find more food, but I’m not hungry and it seems like Olivier isn’t either.

  This is proper kissing, and it turns out I am hungry, in a way.

  I want you, I think (but I don’t say it. It feels terrifying and too soon). I don’t think my body has ever felt like this before. Not even in my many, many dreams, not even the most vivid.

  Even while it is happening, I’m thinking, How do I know how to do this? And I feel astonished by instinct and animal nature. At first, I think human nature, but actually humans are idiots and I swear it’s the animal in us that leads this part.

  Olivier holds my face as he kisses me, like they do in the movies.

  Time stops, and there is even a moment when the ground under my feet disappears, the great cathedral is gone from my consciousness, and we are suspended alone, in a dream.

  I am glad when Victor, Léa and Amandine come back – wielding crêpes and singing, inexplicably, La Marseillaise (the French national anthem, of all things!). It feels safe to have my feet planted back on the ground, to have gravity reinstated. I never expected love (or whatever this is) to be so destabilising.

  ‘Did you know they keep bees on the roof of the Notre Dame?’ says Victor.

  ‘Bees? For honey?’ I ask, staring up at the gargoyles, the flying buttresses, the delicate beautiful spire.

  Victor nods and smiles. Bees and beehives have always seemed so functional and staid to me, but in a flash they take on a magical quality.

  Our night is like Paris in a painting. We are drifting in the fog in an Impressionist urban landscape, and I have to pinch myself and shake myself, and it all feels delightfully unreal.

  We buy croissants from an early-opening bakery on the Rue des Abbesses and stave off eating them until we have walked up the hill. I am starved. Our nuit blanche (our white night, our all-nighter) is making itself known, but we trudge up the hill anyway, pressing down on the tops of our thighs for momentum.

  We walk up to the Butte de Montmartre and sit on the steps below that mighty Sacré Cœur to look out over the watery dawn of Paris.

  We pass around the croissants and they’re still warm inside the thick brown paper bag. Flaky crumbs fall onto the stone steps, which are so cold that I take my sketchbook out of my bag and slide it underneath my bum.

  It is the most wonderful view. Perhaps even better than from the top of the Parc de Belleville because this one is being shared with friends, and with a buttery croissant and a warm arm around me. I give Olivier a little kiss just for no reason.

  A
mandine points out the Centre Pompidou – blue and red and yellow pipes that rise above the city. Victor extends his arm to indicate the Gare du Nord, an expanse of flat roof. Léa, indefatigable, performs an arabesque – her toe pointing perfectly straight out behind her and her arm raised in a way that points to the tippy top of the basilica.

  ‘What I’m going to do,’ I say, my head resting on Olivier’s shoulder. ‘I’m going to make a pencil and watercolour sketch with all these buildings waking up.’ I wave my arm across the sky to demonstrate the buildings I mean.

  ‘That would look pretty,’ Olivier says.

  ‘And it will be in blues and greys with white space and blurred lines.’

  Olivier’s fingers are entwined with mine, and he says, ‘I can see it already. You’ve made a beautiful drawing.’

  I’ll call it L’Aube. Dawn.

  All I need is some good quality paper.

  Tourists have started to arrive. Olivier photographs the tourists. He then takes a photo of me and turns the camera around to take one of the two of us, snuffling his face into my neck and leaving light kisses that tickle and make me thrill.

  Our dérive has taken us through back streets and has disoriented us appropriately. Though we ended up in the least secret place in the city, my mind does feel opened and reset and renewed.

  I am happy, I am tired, I am surprised, I am elated.

  I have signed up for a printmaking workshop at the École des Beaux-Arts one Monday afternoon in mid-April. Our art teacher, Véronique, is leading it and encouraged me to come along.

  In French you say gravure sur bois for woodcut, or gravure sur linoléum if you’re doing a linocut. When I told Olivier about it, he said he wanted to come too.

  I take the metro over to the 6th arrondissement, where the classes are held. The 6th is the one in all the photos: Saint-Germain-des-Prés and the beautiful Boulevard Saint-Germain and the expansive, duck-filled Luxembourg Gardens.

  Because I am a keen bean, I arrive in the 6th way too early. I could have walked, I think grumpily. I go into a newsagent and buy a copy of Les Inrockuptibles, a music and culture magazine, to pass the time. Fortunately there’s a nice bench to sit on, and as I leaf through the pages, I learn some interesting slang. I’m impressed with myself for working out the words. It is like doing a puzzle.