24

One evening commute, I made a list of what’s typically seen on Paris streets: People coolly bumping into each other. Posters for expos about beekeeping or cheese. Comics stores and hobby shops. Motorcycles equipped with fleece mittens and lap blankets, to shield their drivers during winter. Clothing boutiques for two-year-olds that sell exquisite cashmere sweaters so small, so unlikely to suit a toddler for more than five weeks, that their obscenely high prices make sense: to wear such a thing was a privilege, even for a day.

I made another list, of what there wasn’t in Paris: No berets anymore, except on tourists. No more mustached bistrotiers. No Yale dropouts in khakis. No one loitering on Rue de Tournon. No bistros worth their price on the Boulevard Saint-Germain.

Bien sûr, there were still plenty of three-star restaurants. Beautiful parks to visit, and booksellers operating on the Seine. Fashion boutiques and épiceries, and boîtes libertines for politicians who wanted to let down their pants. Books penned by intellectuals about sex, yes, of course—which, I’ll point out, always seemed to be discussed in newspapers and magazines with an academic, detached familiarity, like your next-door neighbor had just shared with you his poems.

But no, Parisians were not rude, I told Americans who asked—it’s what everyone asked—at least no ruder than typical employees at Disney World. A single s’il vous plaît on your part went a long way. I said, You try being asked for directions every day in seven languages.

And yes, there was an expat store in the Marais that charged twenty-four euros for a bagel sandwich. Yes, most everyone in Paris spoke a little English, but speaking English in Paris remained a dead horse. Yes, poivrotes wore American Apparel leggings to flaunt their Parisian asses, which remained flawless, absolument.

Something new I learned: Mikhail Gorbachev had ideas about luggage. His face was the latest emblem of Louis Vuitton. For our digital campaign, he’d chosen Moscow as his city to remember, though during the interview we arranged, Gorbachev basically suggested that Moscow was a shitty convention center with bad traffic.

But when asked about luggage, specifically how he packed for traveling, Mikhail Gorbachev got excited. He packed his own bags, he said, and had a special method for stowing his shirts. He could imagine how his ideal suitcase would be designed. And so on.

Up next would be Keith Richards, Keef to the French. I begged Pierre to let me interview Keef. Pierre said no, the photo shoot and interview were being done in New York, and he couldn’t afford to fly me over. However … “The plan is for Keef to talk about London,” Pierre said. “So we will make the movies about London. I thought you could go do that instead of me. Chloe is upset about me taking so much time working.”

I said yes, of course, happily.

It sounded a long way away from infant nutrition.

At that point, I was taking time off from working on my novel to let it sit, and reading a lot of Henry Miller. He’d been pressed on me by Scottish Keith. Nothing highbrow, Keith insisted, only the good stuff, the sex that frightened Americans. Under the Roofs of Paris, for example. I started it one morning on the Métro. I was on page two when I started worrying about people reading over my shoulder: Marcelle wants us to look at her. She’s bending over her father with his prick in one hand, gesticulating with the other, and calling loudly for an audience.

Living abroad pierces your skin until one day you prevent it. You make yourself unshockable. The buildings on Rue de Rivoli give no new light, and you cease to see things fresh.

Same day, it was a chilly Wednesday, during my park time at lunch I thought how I didn’t want to reach that point, but it seemed bound to happen, Henry Miller or not. If I inspected myself honestly, the Paris I knew best was from my commuting hours, before sunrise or during the dark blue winter twilight, and it was difficult not to think of Paris, my Paris, as a hallway in a shopping mall.

But Henry Miller nagged me for thoughts like that, for being so pedestrian.

*   *   *

A note from the government arrived at the beginning of February: our health-care cards would be further delayed until proof of my employment was supplied.

Of course, proof had been supplied. But this letter was from a different ministry; they needed the proof supplied to them. Dossiers not being shared between ministries, I guessed.

Plus they’d need copies of our birth certificates, certified French translations, et cetera.

Thankfully, our physical well-being was fine. But the problem of our health cards had become arduous. The prescriptions we needed we purchased at full cost, from our pocket. Health department officials assured me over the phone that as long as we saved our receipts, we’d be reimbursed down the line, once our cards arrived. But that day appeared to be far away. Until then, our monthly budget would stay tight, and get tighter.

Lindsay texted to say she’d found a new boyfriend, Christian. We’d meet him that night, Lindsay said, at some party of Georgie’s at a new club in the Latin Quarter, above a block of art galleries.

The cold became penetrating after dark—it got into the bones—but the Left Bank that evening was alive with people carousing, eating daube niçoise, drinking wine in cafés behind plastic walls erected for winter.

The club, a new construction, had a peculiar fusion: white leather, loud house music, and a sushi menu with fish priced as high as cars. When we arrived, Richard the redheaded cupid was just leaving. He looked miserable. He told us the party was extremely dead. Ten minutes later, Lindsay showed up alone—tall, blond, and pissed. Her new boyfriend would not be surfacing, she said. He’d promised to come, then he broke his promise, and they’d had their first fight. Rachel suggested she bring him by for dinner the next weekend. Lindsay said okay, but we shouldn’t get our hopes up.

“Holy mother does he have issues with eating,” she said. “Meaning, he doesn’t eat. He smokes four packs a day and drinks Coca Light, but that’s it.”

Informed she’d just missed Richard, Lindsay said, “Well, you know he’s got money troubles.” Apparently Richard was depressed, Skypeing everyone he knew for consolation. Either money from his father wasn’t being doled out anymore, or Richard was expected to start adding to his own pocket. Richard had even begun busing tables in the Marais, Lindsay said, at the restaurant that served diner food to American backpackers—his Parisian nightmare.

After ten more minutes, the club was full. We mingled. Georgie was chatting up several stockbroker types, their hair oil looking très Société Générale. But again, who was I to judge? Wasn’t I standing there, too? Hadn’t I become a mingler with expats?

My portrait’s title was easy enough: Schmuck with Heineken.

And then we’d had enough.

A minute later, we were out on the street, and Rachel and I decided it would be our last event with A Small World, and Lindsay said yeah, hers, too.

*   *   *

End of the first week in February, I finally read my novel. Five a.m., the hour was black and icy. In the newspaper office across the courtyard, SORTIE signs were backlit in the dark, and Paris was a submarine.

But in the kitchen, as the baseboard heaters clicked on and smelled of flint, my book seemed to hum with life. At least for the first hundred pages, every turn of the plot was a surprise, even to me, and I was thrilled.

Fifty pages after that, I was ready to throw it out the window.

The book was DOA.

Oh, I knew enough to be able to say that, I swallowed whole careers. Carved up classics that never lost their power while I marveled at Greene, Austen, and Roth, never mind the regional specialists—never mind the global spymasters, island voices, and whiz kids whose novels I admired.

By the time I finished reading, I knew that in my book, there wasn’t much essential being.

Soft stuff, true soft stuff, seemed to be the hardest trick to pull off.

That morning, Paris was not partial. It was frigid, gray, and wet. The sun came up. The city’s colors colluded. No birds, no green. Rachel made breakfast and I left for work wearing a scarf, my coat, and a sky-blue baseball cap.

On the Métro, I thought, I’m no writer, I’m barely a rédacteur.

*   *   *

Let the hills ring: Sarkozy married Bruni in a modest ceremony attended by few guests. According to People magazine: “Acting as witnesses for the couple were French businessman François Bazaire of the LVMH Groupe and Mathilde Agostinelli, communications officer for the Italian luxury goods firm Prada.”

Something smelled off to me. When a luggage/fashion executive acted as one witness, and the other was Prada’s head publicist, wasn’t it likely—wasn’t it obvious to everyone—that the marriage of the Italian supermodel to France’s top divorcé had been arranged as a marketing exercise to benefit Europe’s economy?

Mid-February, a coworker’s cousin set up a parfumerie in one of the conference rooms. She was a big girl in three shawls. Evidently she made and sold her own perfumes. Some idiots, Doo-Doo and others, went in and spritzed themselves, so the whole office stank. For the rest of the day I had a jarring headache.

“Are you okay?” Olivier asked in the afternoon, peering from behind his monitor.

My head was resting on my desk.

“Do you remember,” I said, “the day in autumn when I ate my lunch here?”

“Ah, you do not like the smell of the perfumes.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, “but it’s too much. And this is not just an American thing.”

Olivier laughed. “No, you’re right. I have a headache, too. Let’s open the window.”

Olivier got up and opened the French doors to the balcony. A cold breeze blew in. Olivier announced loudly that if anyone wanted the doors closed, they could move to another room, but he and his American friend needed to be able to breathe, thank you very much.