Even Paris Has Its Perks

I am bitter and alone the afternoon I land at Charles De Gaulle Airport. It is the second week of January. P has just flown back to the States and is between stints in the Peace Corps (having just been evacuated from Turkmenistan and reassigned to Morocco). He flies out the same day as me. I am going to Paris to “cheer up” from what has been an exceptionally dreary English winter.

It doesn’t work. In fact, it does the opposite of “work.” Within hours of arriving in Paris I begin to notice the first signs of illness. The back of my throat feels irritated. My head aches. I want to take a shower badly, so I locate my hostel in Montmartre on a subway map and make my way there by subway. Once above ground I get my bearings and set out in the direction of the hostel. An elderly French man approaches me and, from what I can deduce wants to know directions to some place nearby. I give him a shrug and he nearly spits in disgust that I am neither French nor know where he’s going.

Eventually, the hostel* presents itself and I approach the desk where the two “clerks” are practicing scatting along to Ella Fitzgerald. As I check in I’m subjected to a litany of rules and regulations for my stay. Breakfast is available, but there is an extra charge. I pay it. You can stay at the hostel during night-time hours but you must exit the building daily between the hours of 12-4 for cleaning. You may use the internet, but it’s one Euro for ten minutes and the keyboard is, obviously, European.

I’ve barely made it up the stairs and to my room, a shared bunk situation (and one of the least friendly rooms I’ve ever witnessed), when three rowdy Canadians arrive, smelling of horse manure. After acknowledging me with a vigorous, “HEY!,” they begin dumping out their human-sized rucksacks, spilling the molding contents on the floor and laughing about who has the worst smelling- and looking- stuff. I’m appalled, obviously, so I head to the shower, hoping to find a moment of stillness following a rough day of travel.

I inspect the shower before entering. If I put my hands on my hips, my elbows touch the tiled walls. In order to make the water come out of the faucet, you have to press the handle in at all times, which means that in order to wash my hair I must press my lower back into the faucet and hold while the stainless steel makes a semi-permanent indentation in my spinal column.

I’m sick and exhausted the next day. Lock-down begins at noon, of course, and I know that, of course, but that doesn’t change the fact that I’m now wandering the streets of Paris alone and, frankly, grody. After nearly half an hour of searching for a decent vegetarian meal (I know, me and my self-imposed dietary restrictions! I deserve this, don’t I!) I discover, down an obscured side street (I love obscured side streets! Call me crazy!) a tiny, yellow, vegetarian restaurant. There are a few couples dining somberly but seemingly slightly happy about their food. This is where I’ll eat my meals the next five days.

By the fifth day, I’m looking city-weary and I’m skint. The city has definitely taken it out of me. I walk into the restaurant and heave myself into my usual booth, taking out the book I’ve started reading: Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast. Prepared to eat yet another meal alone, I start in on the book. The waiter, with dark, floppy hair and a broody smile approaches my table with today’s specials. He smiles down at me with pity in his eyes. I think myself, momentarily, a character out of a Dickens novel. Any of them.

After ordering the ratatouille with water, the waiter shakes his head. “Non,” he says. I wish desperately for me to speak decent French or he English at this point. Can he see into my bag how little Euro I have left? Is he refusing to serve me? He turns on his heel and heads to the rear of the restaurant where he will prepare my meal. Did I mention this was a one-man operation of a restaurant?

I look at the door, noting the hand smears of little kids that were here earlier in the day or over the past couple of days, and contemplate ditching. I think about leaving because I barely have enough to pay for the meal and I’m not sure what my waiter-cum-chef is “cooking” back there. But Hemingway’s pull is strong and I hear the sounds of spatulas hitting pans in the back, so I cut my losses and decide to stay.

When he returns from the kitchen some twenty minutes later, my waiter holds, in his right hand, a glass of red wine, in his left, the most wholesome meal I’ve seen on my travels to date. “You’re sick. Wine helps,” he tells me in thick, juicy English. “On the house!” he proclaims as he turns, again, towards the back and a ringing phone.

Savoring each bite and swallow, over the course of the meal I do begin to feel better.

It must have been the wine.

*Incredibly, a Google search revealed the hostel to me again! Anyway, looks like they don’t do the lock-down anymore. Needless to say, I’d still give it a miss, people.