The rain has subsided for now. The clouds are likely waiting for me to lace up my shoes. Walking in the rain in Paris isn’t so bad. The sound of the rain hitting my umbrella is pleasant, and the light from the lampposts glistens on the sidewalk.
Janice
18
Our First Fight
Christophe continued to shower me with affection: bringing me coffee, holding my hand, taking the occasional mousetraps out to finish the job. (Now I know why Ratatouille was set in Paris.) Everything was perfect.
Until I changed things.
When I first moved in and saw that Christophe had repainted and made the house pretty, I was delighted with all of it. However, the carpet in the bedroom horrified me. We’re talking 1985 carpet that they install in schools. So I went ahead and laid a floor on top of the carpet. By. My. Self.
Why?
Because Christophe thought the floor was just fine as it was. When I asked him about changing the floor, he explained, quite reasonably, that he didn’t own the place and a new floor crossed the line of home improvements that he could do. I had already duct-taped over holes along the floorboards and wondered if anyone would cross those lines.
I had never actually installed a floor before, but my dad is a flooring guy, and when I was a kid, I picked up a lot watching him. Still, I was a little scared to start. Not only because I had just moved in with a guy and he said no. But the first time doing anything new tends to bring up plenty of fears of not being talented enough, smart enough, or even just physically strong enough. To combat said fears, I did two things:
I told a few friends I was doing it. They did a wonderful job in giving me the permission I wanted to give myself to lay that floor.
Remembering my twenty-minute trick from when I cleared out my apartment back in California, I set my alarm. I told myself I only had to do it for twenty minutes and then I could rest and move on to something else. With the support of friends behind me and twenty minutes ahead of me, I began. After the first twenty minutes, I had a few planks down. They were looking pretty good, so I put another twenty minutes on the clock and another few planks down. Four hours later (including another trip to the hardware store because I hadn’t measured correctly), I was done and the bedroom was worthy of being featured in a design magazine. The job was akin to putting together a big jigsaw puzzle or massive sticker collection. I had a pile of dull blades from my cutting knife, bruises up and down my arms, and a smile of satisfaction on my face.
Three cheers for me!
I also had half a pack of the planks left over, so I covered the old shelf in the bathroom, and my original smile of satisfaction turned into beams of pride.
Then Christophe came home.
There are those moments at the beginning of a relationship when you test each other. I suppose this entire exercise was a test to see what he was like when triggered. He came in the house, looked at the floor, looked at me. I beamed. “I did it myself!” He said nothing. Instead, he suggested we go to the grocery store to get food for dinner. And in that little jaunt up the street, he was silent, a different silence than the usual language barrier. He was probably wondering, Is this how she is? And I was wondering the same about him. Is he a silent-treatment guy?
Somewhere between the apples and oranges, he turned to me. “Why did you change the floor after I said no?”
“Because you said no, and I wanted to do it anyway. It makes me happy, and I like to be happy.”
Talking to someone in another language makes you simply cut to the chase. You just don’t know enough words to pussyfoot around a situation.
“It makes you happy?”
“Yes.” Hands on hips. “Even if it makes you mad.”
He laughed. I laughed. He likely wondered what he was getting into by dating me. Later he admitted that, though he retained his opinion that it looked fine before, he noticed that my added joviality around the house made me sexier.
“Great,” I said. “Can we get shower doors now?”
He sighed. I decided not to push it. We came home, and he played love songs on the guitar while I made pasta.
In Paris, insistence on beauty has seeped into the culture so much that Parisians become offended by having to look at something that isn’t lovely. It’s probably why everyone gets dolled up to run across the street for two minutes to grab a brioche. Why yoga pants are only for yoga or lounging around alone at home. Why the green garbage trucks patrol the city like an occupying army. Or why, when you’re just out grabbing a few groceries to feed your family, you expect to be treated to a beautiful food display to feed your soul.
Or why you’ll change the bedroom floor anyway.
Dear Áine,
History is everything and everywhere in Paris. You walk on it, sit on it, and live with it every day. Train stations, streets, and cafés are named after famous people or events, and everyone seems to know why. Everyone knows where Hemingway sipped cocktails (where didn’t he?), that Edith Piaf sang for cents on the streets of Pigalle, and that George-Eugène Haussman carved Paris into the grand city it is today. He gave himself the title of Baron even though technically he was merely a Monsieur. He tore down and rebuilt Paris under the rule of Napoleon III, who gave himself a title too—Emperor of France. Napoleon III is not to be confused with Napoleon I who actually WAS the Emperor of France.
“Baron” Haussman built bridges, bourgeois apartments, and grand boulevards. These streets “happened” to be wide enough for the government to flex its military muscle on the people. A cannonball, after all, can’t make a sharp right in a medieval town.
It all worked out in the end—more or less—and these days, come Bastille Day, crowds gather to cheer the tanks, trucks, and soldiers as they strut their stuff in the parade.
A few streets escaped Haussman’s ambitious plans—my street included, which makes my apartment older than any building across the Atlantic. People have been making meals, making babies, washing, and sleeping in my petit palace for centuries. And though I try not to think about it, they’ve likely died here too. People who may have even had a hand in building up the new city around them.
I don’t sense ghosts though. They are probably out enjoying the warm weather. I think I’ll do the same right after I head to the post office to send off this letter. The flowers are in bloom, and a few trees are wearing chestnuts like earrings. It’s a new day in Paris. History in the making.
Au revoir!
Empress Janice
19
How Would You Like Your Eggs?
Unfertilized, please.
It was August. A few months into my life with Paris. I was in bed and hoping for menstrual cramps. It was day 34 and my period usually arrives on day 28.
Pregnancy, or the possibility thereof, really puts into perspective how much love exists between two people.
I would have been relieved at the sight of blood. I was definitely falling in love with Christophe, but it felt too soon. I was still seeing about us. The two of us.
Years ago, I dated a man who wanted to have a baby with me. At the first opportunity, I broke it off, my fallopian tubes nearly tying themselves in knots in order to say, “No, this guy’s swimmers are not going to mingle with these eggs.”
Christophe and I had been careful and consistent in our lovemaking, but our numerous rolls in the hay during our first few months together weren’t putting the odds in our favor. A few sperm slipping by multiplied by the daily conjugality? Only abstinence is 100 percent.
I spent the morning drifting off into the pregnancy scenario. I was in my mid-thirties. I was not sixteen. I was an adult. We would deal. And though it was great that the option for termination exists, it was not an option for me anymore. I was with a man who could be a good husband and good father. The only hesitation was that it was too soon. We were fresh. We were new.
He came home for
lunch with couscous and eggs of some sort of “delicacy.” They were boiled eggs wrapped in ham and steeped in a salty, brown gelatin. Why do the French always dress food like it’s going to a black-tie event? They were eggs. This was lunch at home. Why all the fuss? Let them be. But they were here, and they were cold. It was hot in Paris that day. This was no time to turn on the stove. No reason to turn up the heat.
“Do you think we should get a pregnancy test?” I asked, wondering if he’d say, “No, don’t worry about it,” or “Yes, let’s find out now.”
“You want?” he replied, which is also what he said when he thought I was suitably warmed up for intercourse.
“No, forget it. I’m afraid taking the test will make me pregnant.”
He laughed. I laughed nervously. I wasn’t kidding.
He grabbed his house key, saying he’d be back in five minutes. In that five minutes, I cried and prayed. Please God, let me not be pregnant.
The eggs were left on the plate untouched.
When he returned, I unwrapped the home pregnancy test. I asked if he had ever done one of these before. He had not. Nor had I.
The instructions were in French. He read the French while I searched for the English instructions online. We agreed to collect the urine in a cup, soak the stick for twenty seconds, then wait the interminable three minutes for the results. We used a stopwatch.
We kissed inside the three minutes and agreed that whatever happened would be good. I swear the test was designed for a three-minute wait so that couples would come to some sort of definition of where they stood as a couple: peace accord, matrimony, or an amicable parting of the ways.
A minute and a half in and I glanced at the instructions that were printed in French. I was preparing for Not pregnant or Pregnant, but I realized that I needed to look for the Pas in front of enceinte.
Pas pas pas pas pas pas, please let there be a pas.
Our eyes darted between the stopwatch and the screen. Minute three arrived.
Pas enceinte.
I was relieved. He kissed me.
Our eggs were waiting. We sat down to lunch.
In a split second, his true feelings showed on his face. He was devastated. I started to cry.
“Maybe in a year?” he asked.
“Just not now,” I responded.
“Okay.”
I swallowed hard on my egg. We finished lunch.
“Coffee?” I asked.
“You want?” he said.
I nodded.
Later, I sat in the park and watched children play. I mulled over the episode from lunch. What was so wrong with pregnancy? Every person at this park was the result of that moment when the test read positive. When there was no pas in front of the enceinte.
There was a young mother playing on the equipment with her child. She had bucked up. What’s my problem?
People have children all the time, and with less than what Christophe and I had. We had much love and kindness for each other. And though he didn’t know it, I had a decent portfolio that happily grew greener the more I painted my little letters. Maybe he had one too. Maybe we were rich and we didn’t know it.
He came home after work, and I announced that my period was still MIA. He rubbed my belly, and I quipped, “That lump is just fat. Too much cheese.” He laughed and told me he loved my lump. I was wearing a sundress. I took his sweatshirt off a hook, rolled it in a ball, and put it up my dress, mimicking a big pregnant belly.
“Bonne. Tu es très belle,” he remarked and took a photo with his phone.
I stared at the bump. This isn’t so bad, I thought. I remembered the young mother in the park. Was her pregnancy the result of planning? Or was her test without the Pas the result of a careful but consistent month of lovemaking?
I guess it depends on how lucky you are.
Christophe and I didn’t make love that night. We said our I love yous and our je t’aimes. I tried to say I loved him in Polish. He advised me to stick to learning French for now. I stared at the ceiling and gave myopic attention to the slightest movement in my belly. Was it dinner working its way through? Or was something else working itself out?
Dear Áine,
A cemetery may seem like an odd place to come across a love story, but they say these types of things come along when you least expect them. After finding all the notable celebrities at Père Lachaise Cemetery—Oscar Wilde, Jim Morrison, and Edith Piaf to name a few—I came across an old lady carrying a heavy load. Normally, I don’t stop to talk to strangers in Paris because they’ll likely talk back in French and I’m still soaking up the words from my textbook, but this frail-looking creature looked like she could have used an extra hand, so I asked if I could help.
She nodded. “It’s water,” she explained. “I fill up the bottles at the main gate.” Strangely, I understood her even though she spoke French. I asked her the universal traveler question, “Where are you from?” She told me she was from Poland, which explains why I understood her. I told her about Christophe, who is also from Poland but speaks to me in French. By now, I can’t quite grasp the French language with a French accent, but I can understand some of it when spoken with a Polish accent.
As we walked through the cemetery, she told me that she and her husband left Poland during the war. “Everything was gone,” she said. “Gone.” They started again in Paris and had a good life. It wasn’t always easy, “But we always had love, and that meant we had more than most.”
She stopped, and we set down the water. She looked over to a grave. “He died last year,” she said. In front of his grave was a lush flower garden. She bent down to pull a few weeds. “We lived in a small apartment nearby,” she said. “He always wanted to give me a garden.” I told her I was sorry for her loss. “Don’t be, dear,” she said. “I loved him enough to want him to go first. I was always better at handling the difficulties.” She smiled wide. “He was better at the lighter side of life. He may be gone but not everything is gone. He left me with enough good memories to see me through until it’s my time.”
She straightened up, put her hands on her hips, and said, “Now, you’re learning French. It’s all about the verbs. Learn your verbs.” We spoke further about this and that and soon it was time for me to continue on. As I turned to leave, she said, “Don’t be sad for me, dear. This is how it should be. Though it may not seem like it, this is a happy ending to a long love story. It’s what we all hope for. Thank you for helping me carry my load.”
I realized later that I didn’t catch her name. Whenever I return to the cemetery, I stop by his grave. I check on the flowers and pull a few weeds. For a long time, the flowers bloomed beautifully, until one day I returned to find a garden of stems and withered leaves. It was then when I found out that her name was Rose.
Janice
20
Rosé-Colored Glasses of Summer
The next day, my period arrived and I resumed my long walks across the city.
Summer in Paris was warm breezes, open-toed sandals, and gallons of pink wine. Flowers were nearly falling over themselves, hanging out windows, their petals lapping up the sunshine they hadn’t tasted for months. Ladies were sashaying up the street and down through the Métro in brightly colored summer frocks. I saw many polka-dot undies wedged into some jiggling bums. Those ladies must not have realized how transparent their dresses really were, or they forgot to wear their slips, or they were French and that’s how they rolled.
And then there was rosé wine.
Rosé is a refreshing young wine with hints of floral and grapefruit. And it’s light as lace. You’d expect to see a few young girls sitting on patios drinking this blushing bride of wines. Rosé, before I knew better, was what people who don’t drink wine slurped at weddings. I considered it wine-lite. It was sweet, cold, and…did I mention sweet? And after a few sips, there was a sense that this grape Koo
l-Aid was a bit…off.
In the United States and Canada, wine lovers scoff at the stuff. You’re having white Zinfandel?! But here on the streets of Paris? Rosé was an honored beverage, a perfect combination of the reds of a cold winter and the refreshing whites of a hot summer. And Parisians were clip-clopping in their shiny open-toed sandals to the nearest bar to partake in this refreshing pleasure. It became so popular in France that in 2008, it surpassed white wine sales. This was a big deal. The French aren’t into change. At all. But they seem tickled by this pink potion.
Even big burly men with bellies out to *here* maneuvered themselves into sunny seats on crowded patios to sip dainty glasses of rosé while conversing about the president, women, the economy, and that whole mess. Je crois this and je crois that. “I believe” everyone had a different opinion on everything in the Eurozone, but we all agreed that rosé was where it was at when it came to summoning sunshine.
Now that I was going to be in Paris for the foreseeable future, I had to get busy finding friends to sit with me on patios and sip rosé. As Sandro mentioned in Rome, I had to find people with whom I could eat, drink, and laugh. Since returning from Italy, I had only been approached by men, or rather, whispered to by men in the street. I never caught what they said as they walked by so I ignored them, pretending I didn’t hear. Max, the English-speaking bartender at Christophe’s bar, informed me that they were whispering, “Adventure?”
“Does that actually work?” I asked, wide-eyed in my innocence. “Is that a thing?”
Paris Letters Page 11