At A Paris Café

Mid-August, 1972. I stumbled out of the cool, light-modulated bowels of the Louvre into natural sunlight. A blistering, muggy afternoon sunlight that I would not wish for, even on the coldest day of winter.

But … I was in Paris.

I walked towards a café I passed on my way to the museum that morning. As soon as I saw it, I knew I had to go there. It was exactly what I imagined a Parisian café would look: Red awning jutting out to the street; tables outside within a territory marked by a chain and iron bars a foot from the sidewalk; people lingering over small cups of espresso, looking bored, and dangling cigarettes between their fingers. And it was right next to the river.

The café, called Le Depart, was an easy walk from the Louvre. I had looked around for some landmarks so I could find it more easily that afternoon. I had crossed the wide busy street of Boulevard Saint Michel to a small square already crowded with tourists. The statue of a winged angel—Saint Michel, most likely—stood high at the end of a building. Below him, two gargoyles spouted water into a rectangular fountain I had seen in my guidebook.

I arrived at the café at about four in the afternoon, my brain mushy from lack of sleep and centuries of great art. I was appalled to find a line waiting outside. I took my place at the end of the line and swiped my sweaty face and neck with a handkerchief I fished out of my back pants pocket.

The street was busy and if I hadn’t been tired, I would have found much to entertain me. But all I could do was shuffle from one foot to the other, step forward whenever the couple in front of me did, dry my face and neck once in a while—and yawn. A fit of yawning seemed to have come over me.

About half an hour later, a waiter motioned for me to follow him. Despite the heat, I asked if I could have an outside table. He said, “I’m sorry, monsieur. N’ya plus. No more. Better inside, quand même.”

I was not exactly sorry I had to settle for an inside table. The café walls were glass and I could watch the bustle of the impinging world from where I sat.

The waiter led me to a table just vacated by a couple of young people. They had the unmistakable air and smell of privileged Americans. Clean-cut, nicely scrubbed, fair, golden-haired, and confident. They left behind a faint smell of marijuana. Maybe they were students like me, enjoying a summer in Paris.

I sat down on the hard chair, so small that I was not sure it would support my long body. At six-foot-two, I towered over most of the French I had met since I arrived the day before. Luckily, I was thin and lanky. I adjusted my ass on the seat. Yup, there was enough to support me.

The short, wiry waiter stood next to me, saying nothing, with a plastered smile on his swarthy face. He was getting impatient. I could sense it.

In my best approximation of French, I said, "Un café, s'il vous plait; no, pardon, un café au lait."

His mouth stretched into what looked, to me, like a mocking smile. "Pas un café américain?"

I blushed and returned his smile. Sheepishly. Was I that obvious? I shook my head.

I knew I was awkward—in ways that proclaimed me as some rube from the American backwaters, and this man’s amused scrutiny made it plain to me he could easily see I didn’t belong.

Did I think I could blend in among these Parisian bohemians? I had prepared for this trip, done as much as I could not to stick out like a sore thumb. I watched French films. I spent months memorizing useful phrases in French—twisting my tongue, swallowing certain sounds and nasalizing others, and recording myself to hear how I sounded. But with this waiter’s one remark, all those months crumbled to dust inside my brain.

Easy enough to repeat strange words, alone in my apartment, but as hard as I tried, the French had trouble understanding their own language when I, a foreigner, spoke it. I found that out as soon as I descended the Night Ferry from London at Gare du Nord.

When the waiter had gone for my café au lait, I looked around the crowded café. The table to my left was so close I could put my arm around the man who sat at one end of it, right next to my chair. I didn’t dare look at him too closely.

I shifted my gaze to the young woman sitting across from him and stared. I felt my heart skip a beat or two. Conscious of getting hot in my ears and my face, I looked away. Then, I stared again from the sides of my eyes.

She was the full flesh and blood incarnation of my fantasy of the beautiful and delicate French woman. A pert, turned-up, little nose, large brown doe eyes, and a somewhat wide mouth, made irresistible by an attractive full lower-lip pout. Her abundant chestnut hair, shining with streaks of sienna, tumbled down past her shoulders. In the soft, late afternoon light, her porcelain face reminded me of my younger sister’s favorite doll.

She caught me staring at her and she stared back at me, inviting me with her eyes. But an indifferent smile curved her lips down at the corners, telling me to keep my distance. Part woman; part girl. Teasing and retreating, all in one gesture.

I was mortified to think she might have found me merely amusing. I started fumbling inside my backpack for the thick and compact Lonely Planet guide on France.

The waiter came back with my cup of coffee, rattling precariously on a saucer. He put it on the table, and tucked a piece of paper—l’addition, I assumed—under the bowl of sugar. I opened my mouth to thank him, but he walked away without so much as a glance at me.

Two round disks in cellophane rested next to my cup of coffee. Shaped like big M&Ms, one was white, and the other dark brown. I peeked at the table to my left. Their cellophane packages were empty. I also noticed their coffee cups were nearly half the size of mine.

I picked up a disk and turned it around, wondering if it was something I had to put in my milky coffee.

"Bonbons." A sweet voice floated from the table to my left. I felt my heart skip again.

I glanced up at her, at those clear, inviting eyes, at the smile that now lifted the corners of her lips. She was leaning back against her chair, cigarette in one hand, her arm supported by the other arm resting against her stomach.

She said, "Candy. You eat it, if you like, with your café au lait. The white is mint, the other is chocolat."

Her voice was caressing and lilting. I thought her accented English utterly charming. "Eat" and "it" sounded the same, and she used the French word for chocolate, with a silent "t" and a "sh" sound at the beginning.

"Merci," I said with an embarrassed smile. Should I have said something more? I wished I had memorized some standard phrases for times like this, but I never thought I’d get googly-eyed over a French girl on my first day, in my first Parisian café.

She smiled broadly. "You're welcome."

Every other Parisian I had dared to speak to in French, if they heard me and bothered to answer, always did so in English.

I picked up my coffee and took a few gulps. Partly so I wouldn’t be tempted to stare at her again.

I opened my guidebook to Paris,. The pages were full of underlines and notes in the margins. I was too lazy to write out a plan for my trip the way my friends had done.

Their idea of adventure was unlike mine. They chose to spend summer break backpacking cross-country from Pennsylvania to California on one of those cheap Greyhound bus tours that charged less than $100 for three months.

“And,” Damien said, “you could go anywhere you want.” Then, he added with a sneer, after a pause, "Why Paris, Ryan? All those old buildings."

“Yeah, but they’re grand old buildings.”

The backpacking trip had been what he called his “brainstorm,” and he got everyone but me excited. They all thought it was great. They had been eager to go.

Me? My idea of an exciting vacation didn’t include sleeping in a bag on top of rock or dust and being bitten by mosquitoes. I didn’t need a soft bed, just one on which some creature couldn’t crawl on me, and in a place where I wouldn’t wake to the cawing of crows.

Damien’s sneer turned into a snarl. "So much beauty in your own country. So much unspoiled natural scenery. I don't think you'll find anything like it anywhere in France."

"No, maybe not," I answered meekly.

Pugnacious Damien. We loved him, anyway, because he was loyal and generous. His accusing eyes added, "You traitor."

I did not tell them I had been planning my trip to France for six months, saving up for it, foregoing beer, snacks and too many rowdy nights out with them.

"Oh, don't bother with him," Bart said to Damien as he winked at me and placed an arm on my shoulders. "Ryan’s soul is in museums. We’ve always known that."

To me, he said, grinning, "Enjoy yourself, but don't get so caught up in pictures and statues that you miss out on those sexy French women. I'd like a report of you ravishing one of them."

I smiled and did not answer.

So, we parted ways. They jumped on their bus, eager for the vast American adventure awaiting them, and I walked, alone and clutching my cheap ticket, into the claustrophobic womb of an Icelandic Airlines plane to London.

A train, a ferry, and another train later—all part of the Night Ferry—I woke up the next morning in the city of my dreams.

Paris. Would it live up to my fantasies? I expected so much of it. Some kind of magic oozing out of its famed sights, museum treasures, and historic cafés; out of its wines, cheeses, and pastries.

"Where are you from?" The sweet voice glided in again, jolting me out of my reverie.

I glanced briefly at her and said, “Pittsburgh. In Pennsylvania.”

I turned to look at the man she was with. He seemed a lot older, at least in his late thirties, with a good head of dark hair, the fuzz of an unshaven chin, and deep-set eyes with long lashes. Handsome, I admitted. And masculine, darn it, despite the slight and lean figure beneath his shirt.

He was poring over a thick, stapled document, indifferent to his surroundings, and oblivious of the beautiful creature across from him.

"What do you do?” she asked, persisting. “Are you a student?"

"Yes. I'm going to graduate school at Duquesne University in the fall. It’s in Pittsburgh."

"Duquesne? That is a French name. Do you know why that is the name of your school?"

"I'm not sure. I think there was a fort by that name somewhere in the area and it belonged to the French when they were there, when you guys were there."

She frowned, thoughtfully. "There was French royalty, you know, a Marquis Du Quesne, in the 18th Century."

"Maybe he was one of the French colonialists."

She was so casual I began to feel more at ease. I could look her straight in the eyes for a few seconds at a time.

"Are you also a student?" I asked.

I was curious about her, and I wanted to keep her talking so I could gaze with impunity into her flirtatious eyes. But I also sensed that every passing minute brought me closer to unfamiliar ground I was both eager and wary to explore.

"Ah, me, yes. I too am at university. I study film."

"How interesting! I'm impressed. Do you want to make films?" I said, forgetting how self-conscious, how awkward I felt.

With her ever amused smile, she scowled at me as if she thought my question very odd. "I will first have to work as assistant. I'm doing so now. But after many years, when I have learned very much, yes, I want to make films. But I like to write, too. So, maybe I can be a scenariste."

Her companion raised his head from his reading and laughed to himself. He had interrupted the question I was about to ask. He said something in rapid-fire French.

She answered in equally rapid French, and for some minutes, she seemed to have forgotten I was there. I opened my guide book again.

The waiter returned and asked, "Voulez-vous …, monsieur?"

What? Voulez-vous—what? I gave him my stupid look.

"Something to eat, monsieur?" he said with an elaborate shrug. Shoulders rising higher, brows raised, mouth twitching in a non-smile. I was struck by how different it was from the quick casual American shrug.

"Un sandwich, si’l vous plait," I replied.

“Quoi?” He frowned, then his eyes widened.

"Ahhh! Sanweech. What kind, Monsieur?" “Sanweech.” That, too, was different. He nasalized the first syllable and accented the last. He walked away and came back with the menu.

I was hungry. Although still bright and warm outside, it was close to six in the evening. I had not eaten since a hotel breakfast of two croissants, some fruit, and coffee liberally doused with milk. I went through the menu carefully.

The animated exchange to my left had ceased. My Dream Girl's male companion was once more bent over his document, and she was back to languidly taking drags on her cigarette.

She said, "You like ham and cheese in a baguette? I always see Americans eating them on the streets. Try the croque monsieur. It is better. But maybe you will prefer the croque madame. It has an egg on top. They make it good here. They use brie, not gruyere, so it is all creamy inside, nice and crunchy outside."

"Of course. Croque monsieur is also ham and cheese, isn’t it?" I couldn’t tell brie from another cheese, but I was willing to learn. "I don't need the egg. Croque monsieur, then. Thank you for helping me decide."

Her smile reached her eyes and lit up her face. Was she pleased that I had taken her suggestion?

Between puffs on her cigarette, she talked to me.

“So, what do you study?”

“Philosophy. I’m starting a Master’s program.”

“Philosophy! Mon Dieu, a thinker! But what is a Masters? Is that after a licence?’

“I don’t know what a lee-sance is, but you get a Master’s after a Bachelor’s degree at a university.”

“Ah, oui, je comprends. I understand. In France, it is, in fact, what you get after a licence.”

We were interrupted for a short instant with the arrival of my "sanweech." The waiter, who had another order balanced on his other hand, all but slammed it in front of me. "It is hot, monsieur."

As I hungrily chomped on my croque monsieur, she asked, “Are you going to another city after Paris?”

“No, I’ll be here for two weeks and I think even that isn’t going to be enough.”

“Yes. You must live here for years to really know Paris. You will always find something you did not know before.”

“Were you born here?”

"No, I come from La Rochelle. A little town on the Atlantic coast. We have great oysters there, you know—the best in the world—so if you like oysters you should go there next time you come to France. And you must come again because there is so much to see and do in France. It is not just Paris, you know."

That amused smile again, this time, with gentle mockery. She thought me ignorant about her country. I nodded, not quite as mortified by her smile as I was by the waiter’s mockery of my American ways.

I didn’t know if I liked oysters, never having tasted them. The only shellfish I had ever had was shrimp, and it had been dry, tough, and coated in so much batter that I thought I should have ordered fried bread instead, except I didn’t know if anyone made those things.

“So,” I said, "why did you come to Paris?"

"Why, why?" She laughed.

Okay, dumb question.

She quickly recovered from her mirth. "If you want to make film and you are serious, Paris is where you go. This is where cinema started. If you want to paint, you can come here, too, but maybe for that, London or New York is better right now."

She went on to talk about what was essentially a history of film, and then she gestured with her cigarette at her companion. "You know, he is an assistant director on François Truffaut films."

I stared at the man sitting next to me, my curiosity piqued. He glanced quickly and distractedly at me—his eyes were a sexy, translucent blue. He smiled, but it was a distant smile. I doubted that he was aware Dream Girl had referred to him.

I gained a new respect for this distant, insouciant individual. Why, he had to be famous! Not like Truffaut, of course. I had probably seen his name up there on film credits. I admired creative people, and good filmmaking to me was at least as creative an art as making a picture or a sculpture.

Among film buffs at the university where I graduated, François Truffaut was respected and admired. He was a staple on campus films and I had seen a couple of his that were shown every year. Someone from the group sponsoring the showing of his films gave a short introduction, and said Truffaut was part of the Nouvelle Vague.

I had very vague ideas about the movement, but I wanted to impress Dream Girl, so I said, "Wasn't he part of the Nouvelle Vague?"

"You know about Nouvelle Vague?"

Her eyes lit up and my ego swelled. Now, if she didn’t ask me anymore about it, I would think myself lucky.

She did not. Instead, she, herself, expounded on films and directors of the period after she lit another cigarette. I made a mental note to watch as many as I could of those films, the French titles of which were sliding off her tongue. She certainly knew her film history.

A couple or so cigarettes later, she paused and I smiled, waiting for her to say more. She raised an eyebrow, smiled back at me and said, “Well, that is all I want to say. I am sorry I talk too much.”

“No, no. It’s interesting,” I said, but my thoughts were elsewhere—on that unfamiliar ground I was now getting deeper into.

While she talked about Nouvelle Vague, I had been thinking of how to introduce myself, ask Dream Girl her name and invite her out for coffee. Any misgivings I first felt, I quelled by telling myself French Man was just someone she worked with. Anyway, he was too old for her, too indifferent. And, I was willing to wait until he left.

I was still gazing into her eyes when he rolled up what I knew now to be a script for Truffaut’s next film. He said as he stood up, “Alors, on y va.”

I had expected Dream Girl to stay. Maybe that was naive and silly of me.

She gave me that amused smile before she snatched her bag from the back of her chair, and slung its strap on her shoulder. I felt my heart sink to my stomach.

She looked at me once more, her lips forming a "good night." But, as she was rising from her seat, her eyes twinkled. "Why don't you come with us? We go to a place, I think, you have not yet seen."

My heart jumped back to my chest. But I hesitated, glancing up at French Man who stood next to his chair waiting, a blank look on his face.

She shrugged him off. "Oh, he will not care. He has an apartment at this plâce and he and I will go there after. But we can show you the square first, and we can take you for a drink at a very nice bar there. Then, you can go back to your hotel or stroll around Paris. It is beautiful at night."

She turned to her companion and they talked in French—about me, I assumed.

He looked at me, smiled, and said ruefully, "Of course, come with us. If Emmanuelle wants."

The English words seemed to abrade his tongue, and I could almost feel his pain, struggling with them. I returned his smile, or maybe I smirked.

Dream Girl said, revealing perfect teeth in a broad smile, "I told you he does not mind. He says it will amuse him. He does not know Americans, you see, and he learns more, if you come."

So, I went with them. I was uneasy about being the American specimen invited to come along for French Man’s amusement. But I brushed it away.

I thought we were going to walk or take the subway. But they led me through narrow winding streets bustling with people and into a quieter area where a car—his, obviously—was parked.

French Man drove through some streets and into a square framed on all four sides by brick buildings. The square had a large garden, a symmetrical jardin a la française with four quadrants of grass, adorned by fountains and canopies of well-trimmed trees, and divided by wide pathways of tamped earth. I knew, from my guidebook, that I was at the Plâce des Vosges.

If this assistant director guy had an apartment here, then he was probably raking in some money. Built in the 17th-century, the Plâce had once housed royalty and had continued to attract the well-heeled.

That evening, it teemed with people. The benches under the trees were all taken. If I had time to lounge around the square, I would have chosen the discomfort of the islands of grass, joining the crowd lolling about. The fountain in the middle of each island gurgled—grand but unobtrusive—and to me, a rather romantic backdrop for strangers sharing the gentle waning hours of light.

I was fast learning that in Paris, you were hardly ever far from crowds. And for me, those crowds called up scenes in Impressionist paintings I had, so far, seen only in art books. Complete with the inevitable festive air—in a Manet, Monet, or Renoir, for example—when people, though unrelated, came together to soak in the wonders of a place or a happening.

We strolled along the covered, columned passages and stopped, once in a while, when something attracted me, or they wished me to know some fact about France that should interest me, the tourist.

We stood for some time by the door to Victor Hugo’s apartment. Dream Girl said, “It is closed now, but you should come back to see it tomorrow. Have you read Victor Hugo? He’s famous, you know. For Hunchback of Notre Dame. They have made a movie of it. Do you know it?”

I shook my head. She seemed disappointed, and I resolved to find out more about the book. I was more the visual type and not much of a novel reader, so if reading it proved too much, I could always watch the film adaptation.

I found the boutiques boring, but many claimed to be artisanale. They displayed unusual objects, some of which I thought beautiful. Unfortunately, those shops were closed.

“It is the congée,” she said. “The summer break. Many ateliers and boutiques close in August and September. Paris is better in October. Next time, come in October.”

I said, “Are you going on a summer break?”

“Moi? Alors, this is my break. I am a stagiaire, a—comment dire—someone learning from the masters.” She expected me to supply the word.

“You mean a trainee?”

“Yes, that is it—a trainee in the crew of Truffaut.” She beamed at me, then inclined her head towards French Man. “I work with him. He is my boss. And also my lover.”

I stared at her, speechless. What a perfectly timed blow to the fantasies I had been weaving in my head!

My heart sank back to my stomach. Her frankness floored me, crushing that unfamiliar world I had begun to build around her and me. She smiled, sweetly, innocently, as if her disclosure came in the natural course of getting-to-know-you.

I stole a glance at French Man and thought once again—begrudgingly—he’s too old for her, and too uncaring. He had barely said a word since we left the café, but had ambled along with us, as if he was our chaperone.

I could not help blurting out to her, “How old are you?”

“Ohhh, nineteen. Next month. How old are you?” She did not seem to have caught the drift of my question, and looked a tad offended that I asked about her age.

“Twenty-two, in two months” I said. My feet were in danger of sinking into the concrete pavement. What was I thinking?

Even in the presence of French Man who didn’t know much English. I had hoped—not tonight but maybe tomorrow night or the night after—that she would consent to meet me for coffee, and from there, take me around the famed nightclubs of Paris. And, yes, my fantasies went beyond coffee and nightclubs.

I dragged myself through the last tedious passage of the Plâce until we ended up at a bar. It was, she said, French Man’s favorite haunt. He went there every morning for a cup of coffee, and every night for a drink before returning to his apartment. It was nearly ten, and daylight was finally easing into twilight.

They sat on one side of the table and I, on the other. A mere two feet, but by then, an unbridgeable two feet. He ordered a Cointreau, with plenty of ice for Dream Girl. Then he said to me, “Pastis, you try it with me, yes?” He turned to her.

She said, “Pastis is a liqueur. It has the smell and flavor of anise. It is served with water and you mix the two. Very French. He likes it. Maybe because it is very similar to Absinthe. You know absinthe? It used to be the drink for artists. About a hundred years ago.”

I gazed at Dream Girl’s eyes—dancing eyes that could still melt my reluctance. I smiled despite my resentment, and lied, “I’ve seen it mentioned somewhere.” A little conscience-struck, I added, “But I confess I have no idea what it tastes like.”

“I am sure you will like it,” she said with her flirtatious smile.

I met French Man’s inscrutable gaze. “Yeah, why not? Pastis for me, too.”

I finished the Pastis, though I cared little for it. It did teach me that anise was not to my taste.

Dream Girl and I talked. French Man listened, nodding whenever she translated what I said for him. I could feel his gaze on me the whole time, but he never gave any sign he found anything I said interesting. At least he didn’t pretend to be bored.

I never did learn much about him. He kept his reticence. I suspected it was, at least, partly because he had trouble with English. Or maybe, he was just suspicious of me all along and was watching me closely.

Sometime, during our liqueur, he put his arm around Dream Girl’s shoulders, pulled her close to him, and nudged the side of her face with kisses. She wriggled her head, smiled, and cupped his chin with her hand. He repeated his playful assault on her several times until we parted.

She didn’t seem embarrassed by it, but neither did she seem to enjoy it much. Or, did I think that because I was jealous of him?

Still, she never kissed him back. And she didn’t stop talking to me. Once or twice I fought an urge to push him away from her.

After a while, French Man stared straight into my eyes. For a moment. A very long moment. I stared straight back at him. Neither of us blinked.

Did his eyes glint with an implicit challenge? He certainly smirked.

In the end, it was me who averted my gaze, to feast for the last time on the face whose inviting eyes belied her amused, indifferent smile. The memory of it would be all I was left with.

He said, looking at her, “American men like French women, yes?”

He smiled at me. A soft, disconcerting little smile. A smile in which I saw—maybe even felt—a silent, if fleeting, kinship.

I saw then where his charm came from and how much it could beguile a vulnerable girl. I smiled faintly back, and answered with a wordless nod.

Dream Girl’s gaze drifted from me to French Man, back to me. She shrugged. In that French way.

C’est la vie!

Not long after, he said something about being fatigué. He stood up, nudging Dream Girl’s arm and pointing his thumb towards the door.

Without a word, she rose from her chair. She raised her right hand, and waved her fingers slowly, up, down—twice—in parting.

I followed them out into the square. She looked back, and winked at me before she walked away with him.

They strolled away. Towards his apartment, I presumed. He with an arm around her shoulders, and she with hers across the back of his waist.

I stood watching them for some moments. Clutching my fingers tighter around my Lonely Planet.

They disappeared into one of the arched doorways, and I turned towards my hotel three miles away. Just one of many shadows trudging back to empty rooms. In the legendary city of lights. City of my dreams. Of lingering fantasies I could only cherish.

The next day, I would visit the Musée du Jeu de Paume to get lost among the Impressionists.