Paris Times Eight (5 page)

One night when I was feeling oppressed by the coldness in the apartment, I decided to go for a walk through Saint-Germain in the dark. As I walked down the streets where Joyce had wandered half blind—he had once lived in the neighborhood—I became aware of the Friday-night crowd, consumed by a voluble joy. Their joviality startled me; I had become so used to gloom. Out of nowhere a man started walking next to me, speaking to me charmingly in French, a proposition to drink with him, I think, to share in the beauty of the night. His advances terrified me. I was like a bug under a stone suddenly exposed to the assault of daylight, and I squirmed and looked left and right for a place to scurry away to, to flee. It was an unexpected response. The poor man became alarmed and in the most polite of terms begged my forgiveness. He gave me a tiny bow and walked away. He probably thought I was mad.

I went to a coiffeuse to get my hair cut and styled. After I returned to our borrowed apartment, I saw myself in the large Louis
XV
mirror in Luc's sitting room; I can't recall why I was in there. But Luc didn't comment on my new, chic look. Nigel noticed, however, and said, “Have you done something with your hair?” I froze. I waited for a compliment to follow, prayed there would be one. “Pretty,” he said. That's when I caught my reflection. I looked at myself, hard. Yes, pretty. For a day.

Jenna took me to the Rodin museum, where, like Miss Jean Brodie with one of her kilted schoolgirls, she educated me on the fecund possibilities of art. “Look at the thrust and curl of the body.”

It was a tiny carving, entitled
A Dryad and a Faun,
and it depicted two nude forms in an arabesque of desire. I wanted to reach out and caress the marble, so smooth and sensually inviting. As Jenna said, there was raw sexual energy pulsating just beneath the surface of the polished stone.

She moved on to the next in a series of amorous couplings. I stared, transfixed, at one carving that showed a male penetrating a female with such force that the ramrod form of the penis could be seen jutting out in the flesh on the female's back. “I'm getting horny,” Jenna said. Her words shocked me. I was amazed that such smut could come out of such a supercilious mouth. I was also discombobulated by her response to the art, all wrong, of course, according to what I had learned in high school: art that excites feelings of desire in us is improper. Surely Jenna knew this Aristotelian rule of aesthetics?

I thought to say something, assert my knowledge. I coughed. Jenna laughed. She called me a prude.

“Oh, you're a lot of work.”

She said it in a way that sounded affectionate, like I was a pet cause. I nodded in agreement. I had much to learn. I knew nothing of sexual freedom. I was afraid to fall. Art had been sheltering me from libidinous sin, and here was Jenna, of all people, tearing down the walls, exposing me to the elements of my own fears and apprehensions. So maybe she was a good teacher after all.

I left the museum that day without declaring the stirring of my loins but deciding to loosen my sense of decorum, which was outmoded and too old for my age anyway. Art was vital—I knew that—but in more ways than I had allowed.

It was during rare moments like these, with Jenna guiding me toward new pools of knowledge, that I was deliriously happy to be in Paris. I never wanted to leave. Despite the bitter taste of some of the medicine being forced down my throat, I felt that the experience was good for me, good for my post-adolescent soul in its quest for new sensations. That was the fantasy. Reality inevitably followed.

Jenna and Nigel had conspiratorially befriended Luc, unbeknownst to me. He was now sitting with us at the dinner table, talking with them, ignoring me. One day he invited the family to accompany him on a day trip to the Château de Vaux-le-Vicomte, near the village of Maincy in the region Seine-et-Marne, less than an hour's drive from Paris. As the children were included, I had to come along. There, on Luc's gill-gray skin, I noted a sudden blush of excitement brought on by the aristocratic grandeur of the
17
th-century architecture. Or was it the middle-aged coquette holding onto his arm with all the put-on frail charm of a Marie Antoinette?

The largest château of its time—Vaux-le-Vicomte was the precursor to Versailles—the house that Nicolas Fouquet built was so daringly opulent that it drew the ire of Louis
XIV
and sealed his former finance minister's fate. The King himself was at Vaux-le-Vicomte on August
17
,
1661
, the night Fouquet hosted the debut of Molière's ironically named
Les Fâcheux
(The Angry).

Once the curtain had fallen on the play, Fouquet lit up the night sky with a spectacular fireworks display that shone unnatural light over his stately gardens with their cone-shaped trees and spiralling hedges that looked as if traced by a giant Spirograph. It was his final moment of glory.

Louis, suspecting that Fouquet had stolen public money to fund such a home and furious to have been upstaged by a member of his own staff, immediately had Fouquet arrested and eventually jailed him for life in the fortress at Pignerol. Fouquet died there twenty years later.

It was one of those stories of Paris's past that made my skin crawl. Violence lies always just below the city's surface beauty; betrayals, beheadings, blood running like water down the cobbled streets. That brutality was palpable still in the texture of everyday Parisian life—the aggressive driving, the bumper-car parking practices, the general rudeness of strangers when you, a tourist, asked for a direction.
“Là-bas,”
over there. Anything you were ever looking for in Paris was always, coldly, “over there.”

Luc took us on a tour of the château, since restored to Fouquet's splendorous taste by the present owners, who actually lived on the premises but were far from sight, at least on that day. We strolled through rooms with chandeliers hanging from ceilings that were covered with painted images in gilt frames. We marvelled at the black-and-white marble floor and at the tall, arched windows that once shone light on the moral philosopher Voltaire as he lectured Fouquet's illustrious guests (no doubt on the folly of hubris) while leaning, perhaps, on the rose-red quartz table mounted by a massive bronze statue depicting hounds savaging a stag.

Afterward, Luc led us deep down into the dungeon, where I imagined Fouquet had probably been first imprisoned, still in his party clothes. The lighting was dim. The stone walls felt damp and cold. We were feeling our way into the gloom, waiting for our eyes to adjust to the blanketing darkness. At that moment Jenna tripped over a stone in the floor and fell. Luc dove at her feet.

He bent to pick her up. He was almost as scrawny as she was, but he was ready to carry her, Prince Charming– like, into the sunshine, to revive her among the roses. The scene made me want to puke.

Back at the Paris apartment, the intimacy thickened at dinner. The meal consisted largely of a single boiled artichoke naked on a large white plate with a small bowl of melted butter at the side. The four of us sat at the dinner table that could easily have accommodated sixteen. We were spread out around the table, with large spaces between us, like points on a compass. I had never eaten an artichoke before. Jenna, Nigel, and Luc were connoisseurs, and almost in unison they each plucked a leaf from atop the topiary-shaped vegetable and, after delicately dipping it in the sauce, clenched down with gritted teeth to scrape off a sliver of flesh.

I watched carefully. I would have to follow their lead if I wanted any dinner, and I would have to make sure I didn't commit some kind of faux pas lest they mock me some more. I took a leaf and put it in my mouth. It was spiky. I made a face. Jenna pretended not to notice. Luc smothered a laugh. Oh. I see. I am not supposed to eat the whole thing. I spat it out. Shrugged, self-deprecatingly. Soldiered on. We were all of us doing the artichoke striptease, one leaf at a time, round and round the rotund body, penetrating to the heart.

“How sensuous,” Jenna said. Luc moaned in agreement. I looked at Nigel. Shouldn't he do something? He seemed to be locked inside some kind of inner monologue concerning an obscure philosophy. I was startled to find inside the plant a bearded center protecting the delicacy within. I commented that it looked like a walrus. Jenna said, “It's a vagina, darling. It's why the artichoke is the most glorious of aphrodisiacs.” She looked at Luc, a captive audience of one. He applauded her wit. Jenna delighted in being outré, especially at my expense. I plucked at the grizzled bush until I exposed the heart. With one bite I discovered what all the fuss was about. It was tender as a petal, velvety soft and delicate, a taste like spring rain. Jenna was delighted.

“You see, Luc, she isn't without promise.”

“But Zhennah,” said Luc. “She ez too thin.”

They were speaking as if I weren't there.

“In Frahnce we like our women not to be too thin. But you, Zhennah, you are pur-fect.”

That was it. I threw my napkin onto the table and stormed off to sulk inside the laundry room, the only place I could have some privacy, but not before—and it even shocked me—I uttered the word “assholes” under my breath but loud enough for all to hear. I was sick of being humiliated because someone else needed to feel superior. It was my one moment of rebellion.

Jenna demanded that I return to the table, and in the most galling way told me to apologize to Luc for my rudeness. I was seething now. I wanted to run away. But I had no money of my own and nowhere to go. I was the au pair, indentured for the rest of my stay in Paris, forced to eat not artichoke anymore, but crow.

I returned, anger making my backbone ramrod straight, and in imitation of
Zhennah,
proclaimed in a flowery voice dripping with sarcasm,
Je m'excuse.

Luc loved it. A few days later he asked for me to go out with him, without Jenna or Nigel. It was a luncheon date in the country with a married couple, friends of his, Mireille and Claude. The destination was Chantilly, the town renowned for its lace, where many great feasts had been consumed at the behest of General Condé, chief courtier of Louis
XIV
. What was it with Luc and the Sun King?

Condé's legacy had inspired the establishment of a five-star restaurant that on Sunday afternoons attracted Parisians in search of the religion of food.

Called the Table des Lions and located inside the old
fourrière,
a walled compound where carriages used to be housed, it was close to the Chantilly forest and château, a hunting retreat at the time of Louis
XIV
. It attracted a well-heeled crowd. Everyone was dressed in country chic—silk scarves tied just so and well-cut blazers worn with tight but impeccably pressed jeans. As in most French dining establishments I had so far visited that summer, the talk was as thick as the cloud of blue cigarette smoke that hung in the air. The dark wood interior was offset by white linen tablecloths that supported settings of silverware that to me seemed dauntingly French—four forks and an equal number of knives, several differently sized spoons including one as big as a gourd. I observed quietly, wondering how I would tackle it all. I decided to let Luc lead the way. I discovered that day that he was something of a connoisseur, which surprised me, considering that he always looked underfed.

I thought that by taking me there he was offering me a peace pipe of sorts, and I probably tried a little too hard to show that I was grateful. I laughed at his pale jokes. I took a cigarette when he offered one. I looked enraptured by a conversation involving truffles. Luc's friends—she a pharmacist, he a banker—were enthusiastic gourmands who wanted to identify every ingredient of every mouthful of food. I remember thinking how boring they were, how silly. Still, I played along. I drank the wine appreciatively and, when asked to describe the flavors dancing on my tongue, I said, a little whimsically, that I could taste chocolate and pale blue robin's eggs. Everyone at the table laughed. It felt good to be away from my keepers.

But even away from Paris, I wasn't free of its oppressive influence.

There had been several courses—herrings marinated in oil followed by a rabbit in white wine and a veal marengo served with stuffed baked potatoes, peas with bacon, and lettuce. There was strawberry charlotte for dessert and an upside-down apple cake served with eau de vie and black coffee. I thought it was over. Five hours had passed. And then the cheese trolley rolled our way, boasting dozens of choices—
Camembert, Gruyère, Roquefort, Brie.
Luc lifted a spoonful of a creamed cheese with berries that he wanted to put in my mouth. I guessed that all the rules had changed. He said, “You must eat.” I declined, saying innocently enough, “I am full.”

Zut! Catastrophe!

Luc put down the spoon, the smallest one. He leaned in to me and whispered, “In Frahnce it is
impoli
to say that, I'm full. It is
une gaucherie.
You understand?” I understood.

“You never say, I am full. You say
non, merci.
You politely decline.”

He left the table, ostensibly to wash his hands. His words had smarted.

Later, when we went to the château where Condé had feted legions of guests, I heard the story of his chef who had committed suicide when the fish arrived late at a banquet. I felt his pain. I would have liked to kill myself then and there for being a social embarrassment. In Paris it seemed I would always be on the outside looking in. No matter how much I wanted the city to embrace me, it would always keep me at arm's length while wagging a finger in my face. I had rarely felt that I fit in—at home, at school, among my peers. But in Paris that feeling of alienation intensified. I didn't belong there, either. I shuffled back into my life as the au pair, taking the children to the park to play on the swings, playing hide-and-seek amid the statuary of gods, goddesses, nymphs, satyrs, dukes, duchesses, playwrights, painters, and other assorted heroes and heroines dotting the Paris landscape.