23

There was a lot to observe in Paris about seduction, about the Parisian manner of seduction. If only because seduction was the base syrup of most exchanges, business or otherwise, along with confrontation.

I found more lessons in my coworkers’ social-media updates than in watching lovers make out along the Seine—most of those lovers being tourists. Of course, plenty of French people still made out along the Seine; they simply had more company these days, Paris having so many goldfish in the privacy of their bowls … Anyway, my French coworkers used the Web pretty much the same as Americans did, but with greater respect for individual privacy—I never saw photos of any coworkers shotgunning beers, though perhaps shotgunning beers wasn’t the best test case—and, in almost all exchanges, with flirtation.

There was also greater tolerance for sexy material. Men, and plenty of women, would get up from their desks to cluster around whatever nude flesh was trending on the Web. Of course, it was excused as a business exercise; we worked in an ad agency, and we required inspiration. And French advertising didn’t lack for nudity. Like one condom TV spot that got passed around. Six of us clustered around Josette’s computer. The video showed a woman’s face and bare breasts responding to something being done to her offscreen—a lot of tickling, perhaps, during an earthquake.

“What I like is the music,” Josette said. The sound track had a young Wayne Newton saying thanks in German. “That and the joy that is presented by the contrast, rather than anything nasty.”

The men chimed in, Ah oui, la musique …

Josette was a designer. She had pestered me for weeks about wanting dinner at our house, to meet Rachel and enjoy some girl chat. Finally, we booked a date. The promised evening, I arrived home early with champagne and flowers, and found Rachel just cooking dinner, wearing a blue apron over her dress.

I said I’d noticed in the courtyard there were cones and machinery that hadn’t been there in the morning.

Rachel said, “Well, as of today we now have construction on five sides of the apartment. Five. That’s five of six surfaces now.” She explained: “They have to tear out the water main in the courtyard and install a new pipe—anyway, I think that’s what the guy said. It should take two months.” She paused. “I almost threw a can of soup through the window today.”

When Josette arrived in a thick winter coat, we were halfway done with the champagne, cursing our landlord. Luckily, Josette had brought more champagne, plus a plant.

Josette spoke perfect English from living in Los Angeles for two years. Over dinner, Rachel quizzed her about the men in the office—who was hot, who was charming, who interested Josette?

“How about that guy you work with, what’s his name, Bruno?” Rachel said.

“Oh, Bruno did chat me up once,” Josette said, “for a pull.”

“Get out,” I said.

“Sorry?” she said.

“It’s an expression. I mean, when?”

“Oh, during a fête,” Josette said. “We were having a dance, and Bruno asked if I wanted to go off with him. He said there were lots of empty rooms. I mean, he was rather direct. He was pissed, too—drunk, I mean,” she said, laughing.

Like a lot of Parisians, Josette learned her initial English from a British instructor, so she was always going on about getting pissed and feeling knackered afterward.

“And did you?” Rachel said.

“Well, no. For a second, part of me thought, Why not? He’s attractive, you know. But the rest of me thought, Hey, look, I’m not just some tart who has sex on the copy machine.”

Josette went on to say that Parisian women, by and large, were unfortunately tempted by their Frenchness to be weak. To give in. To let men do whatever they wanted. Herself included, Josette said. At the office one coworker frequently grabbed a breast when he gave her her morning bises, but she didn’t complain; she probably never would. What Parisian men ultimately wanted, Josette explained, was the coquette, the brainless cutie who plays at being a little girl until gradually she yields to his wolfishness, then bears him sons. Josette named several women in the office who fit this archetype. Ah, I said.

Rachel asked, “So what do Parisian women want?”

“Oh, romance, of course,” Josette said. “Power, charm. And force, it’s true.” She continued that Parisian women rarely desired a visitor or expat. Definitely no visitors who didn’t have their own apartments—too unstable. Parisian women were like Parisian men; they wanted the big love, and for the right guy they’d do anything. But unlike male Parisians, Josette said, the girls didn’t spread it around. We wouldn’t find many prudes among Parisian girls, nor many sluts.

“And please,” Josette added, “don’t give me your artists in love with Paris. These are the worst, the guys who go all franco-français. You keep your poets,” she said, laughing. “I hate the poets. Put him in a leather jacket. Give me a rough chap. You know, French women love a criminal.”

After midnight, when we were past drunk and I was making coffee, Josette said sadly, “You know, French men can be difficult to bear. If you’re the one breaking up with them? It’s impossible. God, they’re emotional.” She was playing with the foil wrapper on the plant she’d brought. “They’re womanish, you know? French women, I don’t think we fall in love so easily as the men. Not just like that.”

The next day, at work, Scottish Keith confirmed Josette’s findings.

“I tell friends coming over, do not attempt to date proper Parisian girls,” Keith said. “Big mistake. First, there’s no sex in it, am I right?”

Tomaso nodded that Keith was right.

“Second, Parisian girls want to see a lease on the first date,” Keith said. “You don’t stand a chance if you’re not French. Being rich helps, if you have a banana-colored Ferrari or what the fuck.”

“Or if you are a sexy motherfucker,” Tomaso added.

“Or that,” Keith said.

*   *   *

The newspapers showed President Sarkozy and Carla Bruni sightseeing during a trip to Egypt. The president wore jeans and a black turtleneck, and stood hunched against the wind. Bruni was beside him in jeans and a purple top, with a sweater around her shoulders. Two pyramids for background symbolized their pasts; perhaps they contained the mummies of previous lovers. Anyway, no matter that France knew its president to be several inches shorter than his girlfriend, in the Egypt pictures he appeared her equal. And the two of them looked happy. They were in love.

From reading the news and hearing stories from office friends—from female colleagues, and from male colleagues—an indubitable truth emerged about Parisians, that when they fell in love, they really fell in love. No aspiration was more important, profound, or dangerous. They didn’t go into it with reluctance or self-consciousness. They respected love like they did beauty: among life’s highest states.

*   *   *

The last Friday morning in January, Paris was a melancholy bubble. Dribbling rain, infernal cold. On the Champs-Elysées, as I exited the Métro and began my march up the hill, drivers sat in traffic, huddling inside their cars with the windows closed, or cracked open with a cigarette protruding like a snorkel.

I could picture the tables crammed at Café de Flore, with guests warming their hands over café crèmes—tourists downstairs, locals upstairs on the ugly but oddly charming brown vinyl seats. And in some Montparnasse garret, more likely a couch swap, a young woman who’d traveled all the way from Montana, or Vermont, was sitting down to write the Great American (in Paris) novel.

Meanwhile, I was going to the movies. Which could have been great. That morning, Pierre had asked me and a coworker named Arnaud to meet him at a theater at the bottom of the boulevard. A new film, Whatever Lola Wants, was being released soon in France, and the producers had asked for a “viral ad campaign” to bring in audiences. Well, worst movie I’d ever seen. Perhaps someday it would be a cult favorite—but I doubted it. The story had a blond American moron deciding she badly wanted to become a belly dancer after her Arab friend showed her footage of a master performer. The American, named Lola, then unleashed her gullibility and bodacious flesh (she was bodacious) upon Egypt in order to learn the Orient’s ways while sleeping around, offending local customs, and by hook or crook becoming an icon of gyration.

According to the publicity packet, Whatever Lola Wants intended to bridge East and West. Sure, on the back of every French cliché about Americans.

“You know,” Arnaud said as we walked back to the office, in the rain, “that was actually pretty good.”

“That was the worst movie I’ve ever seen,” I said.

“Come on,” Pierre said, “the worst?”

“Well, maybe the girl,” Arnaud snorted. “She was bad. And annoying.”

Pierre chided me, “It’s a popcorn movie. It’s for fun.”

For a while, we climbed the Champs-Elysées in silence. Then I was forced—forced—to explain how the movie had been an exercise of stereotypes: Americans as childish, naive, brutal, vulgar, thoughtless, selfish, domineering idiots—

“Don’t forget hot,” Arnaud said. “Her body? Waouh.”

“All we’re seeing,” I continued, “is what France already knows: dumb Americans and backward Arabs.”

“Well,” said Arnaud, “it is for a French audience.”

We reached the office, and the rain slowed. Pierre plunked down his shoulder bag and lit a cigarette. “Remember,” he said, “there was a gay Arab in the beginning. Isn’t that progressive? You don’t see many gay Arabs in movies.”

“I don’t know,” Arnaud said. “It was kind of P.C. Hey, I have an idea. Okay, what if we made belly dancing the new thing for women in Paris? We organize classes, start Facebook groups, throw an expo. You could do it in gyms, you know?” He turned to me: “It’s popular in the States, right? Rich women learn how to be strippers? Maybe we make that the new fashion in France.”

“Maybe this could work,” Pierre mused.

Across the street there was a hubbub outside Fouquet’s, the storied restaurant. A passerby said Sarkozy was inside having breakfast. At the same time, Carlos the programmer came outside to smoke. He laughed when he saw me, and pulled me close by the shoulder: “What’s up, my Negro?”

Then he noticed the publicity packet in our hands.

“Dude, what?” He shouted in English, “You guys going to the movies? Man, this is bullshit.” He turned to me: “Yo, dog, why you so hooked up?”