Letters From Paris
When It Sizzles
The weather is heating up in Paris, and our editor and correspondent ROSECRANS BALDWIN is besieged by turtles, gastroenterologists, gay bars, and bureaucratic customer service. Another adventure from the land of France.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
- The Hot ______ of the Summer (Of Recent Note)
- Staycations (Of Recent Note)
- Ways We're Saving Money (Of Recent Note)
Also by Rosecrans Baldwin
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- Paris, I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down (March 19, 2008)
- Bonne Année (January 10, 2008)
- Le Coq Sportif (October 17, 2007)
Also in Letters From Paris
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PHOTOGRAPH BY ROSECRANS BALDWIN
In May, we were joined by Madame Tortoise. Mid-80s, elegantly dressed, and quite tall, she wears pearls and keeps her hair arranged in a hovering cloud. She fancies a thin silk scarf tied in a bow and reads the newspaper a few inches from her nose. But always, before she commences her daily reading (she brings several newspapers, though she seems to prefer Le Monde), she carefully lays down a linen napkin on the grass, edged with orange ticking, and on top of it a salad of red pepper and lettuce and cooked haircots verts, and then beside it her pet tortoise, who is about the size of a five-pound chicken.
The first time I saw her, the tortoise was midway through his lunch. When he finished, he went for a stroll. That day there weren’t many people in the park, so it was easy for him to roam. He climbed a short hill to the base of a tree, turned a slow circle, stopped, then seemed to take a nap.
The next week, I got to the park half an hour later than usual and he’d already finished his lunch and was on his walkabout. This time, though, a group of businesspeople was eating lunch under the tree. Not that it bothered the tortoise. But when one woman felt something nudging her in the back and turned around, she screamed, and Madame Tortoise had to rise and reclaim her pet. That took some doing: Madame Tortoise is not much faster than her companion, and it was a full three minutes from when she started to leave her bench until she reached the turtle (about 50 feet). By then the businesswoman had sufficiently calmed down, realized the turtle was a pet, and realized in fact the pet had an owner and that owner was now on her gradual way (creaking step, creaking step) to reclaim him. When she arrived, Madame Tortoise removed her glasses, peered down (paying no mind to the businesswoman), made sure the tortoise was fine, then went back to her bench. Twenty minutes later when he woke up, the office workers politely picked up their lunches and let him pass as he clomped his way home. The tortoise returned to his napkin, ate a few nibbles of lettuce, and then went to sleep.
May was the month of pollen. Everyone sneezing, carrying around tissue packets. Sarkozy, somewhere, was sneezing over his disastrously low approval ratings. A major weekly newspaper ran a cover with the large headline, roughly translated, “Four More Years, Whore.”
One afternoon a roving band of 30 teenagers stopped traffic on the Champs-Elysées, marching toward the Arc de Triomphe, followed by a battalion of 60 police officers in riot gear, marching in rows of two. I asked a French co-worker what the kids were celebrating. He squinted, looking into the sun. “That it’s May,” he said. “That they’re French, that they’re young. You will not understand.”
Often it will come up in conversation with other ex-pats how Paris feels walled-off to us outsiders, reserved exclusively for the natives. I’m reminded of an apartment listing a friend here found on Craigslist:
Exclusive EXCLUSIVITY—Magnificent studio 18m2 totally renewed, last floor, sight loosened on Paris. Beautiful room to be lived with US equipped cooking (oven, patches, refrigerator). Public prosecutor’s department. Very brilliant: several windows. SdE with wc. Close any conveniences. Street of Orillon. Metro Goncourt / Belleville / Crowns. Immediate availability. To seize!Finishing up a meeting one afternoon, a senior female executive said to a colleague in front of me, “It’s cute how the immigrants will speak French.” The same week, a Friday evening, a film editor and I were working late, taking a break on one of the balconies. By day, the Champs-Elysées below us would teem with tourists posing for pictures in front of their favorite luxury stores: Louis Vuitton, Cartier, Montblanc. At night they mainly streamed into the McDonald’s.
The film editor said to me, “So, do you ever try speaking French without an American accent?”
“What?” I said.
He shrugged. “Sometimes it’s difficult to understand you,” he said.
Phone calls are still the most difficult part of living in another language. Trying to understand someone in a tongue I just barely grasp without seeing their face—their eyes, their attitude—can be impossible. When we had a problem at home with our electricity bill, my boss was the one who called the electric company. Then in May, I started receiving calls six times a day from Orange, my cell phone company. The first time I answered, the woman asked if I’d like to participate in a marketing survey. I said no. She said someone would call back later. I explained I wasn’t likely to change my mind, but she’d already hung up. The phone rang again a few hours later, the same number. I let it go. After two weeks of ignoring my cell phone, I answered one day at work.
“Hello, this is Orange, your cell phone company. Would you—”
“No, I would not,” I said in French. “And will you please stop calling? Already I said no. I am going into a meeting. Your company calls me six times each day.”
Against the bureaucracy, the dossiers, and marketing exercises, you are powerless. Accept that you are powerless and prevail. Resist, however, at your peril. There was an air of deep affront over the phone line.
“Well, do you know why they call you?” said the woman.
“Yes,” I said, “to pose me the question of participating. An exercise of marketing.”
“And do you know why I am calling you today?”
“An exercise of marketing?”
“Are you going to let me explain?” she snapped.
“OK,” I said.
“Today I am calling you because Orange would like to invite you to participate in a few questions to improve our service—”
“Yes, exactly, I know,” I snapped, now getting flushed, still trying with my limited French vocabulary to be as clear as possible. “So, I do not have time for this. I told you that. I do not want to have this conversation.”
“But why?” the operator asked, incredulous.
By then I was shouting: “Because I said no! Because this time right now is my time! Have a good afternoon!”
“We will call you back,” she said, and hung up.
Nearly a year after moving to France, I still haven’t received my health insurance card. Also, we’ve just found out my wife isn’t covered under my insurance, despite assurances to the contrary; despite all our different applications and forms and dossiers, her status as wife hasn’t been sufficiently proven. (Having her status as wife confirmed by one government agency doesn’t mean the next one will necessarily believe us.) That said, this is all considered normal—inefficiency is to be tolerated, and I’ll admit all the civil servants, doctors, pharmacists, and health-insurance phone operators are each extremely patient, lenient, and helpful.
Far worse than her vertigo, my wife has stomach problems. We decided to schedule an endoscopy with her gastroenterologist. I’m in love with him: half-gnome, half-Meatloaf, about five-seven in tight black jeans and with long blow-dried hair that falls straight to his shoulders.
“You’re from New York?” he asked during our first appointment. His office, high above a chi-chi boulevard in the 8th arrondisement, looked like an architect’s, full of light and modern leather furniture.
“Yes,” we said.
“Then why you come to Paris?” he said. “New York is better. Much better.” He sighed. We’ve heard this before. In our experience, the city of Paris as a whole wishes to be transported to lower Manhattan. If good Americans go to Paris when they die, good Parisians move into East Village lofts.
Prior to the endoscopy, the doctor explained, we needed to get blood work done (in a separate lab), X-rays done (by a separate doctor), and have an informal appointment with an anesthesiologist to certify that my wife was fit to go under. I couldn’t help thinking cynically, everyone gets a piece.
It is because of endless meetings and mountains of paperwork, and a bewildering society-wide compartmentalization of duties and responsibilities, that France thrives. You will wait in line; you will choose your career in high school; you will be required to see two separate managers in order to return a pair of socks to a sporting goods store. Against the bureaucracy, the dossiers, and marketing exercises, you are powerless. Accept that you are powerless and prevail. Resist, however, at your peril.
“Hello. Is this Rosecrans Baldwin?”
“Yes.”
“Good evening. This is Orange, your cell phone company—”
“Yes. About an exercise of marketing. I understand. You called yesterday, and you called this morning.
“Excuse me?”
“You call every day. You want to know if I would like to participate—”
“Ah, I understand, you do not speak French. Excuse me, someone will call you back.”
“No, excuse me, I do speak French.”
“Excuse me?”
“I understand exactly what you’re saying. Completely. And I would prefer that you stop calling.”
“Ah, oh. OK.”
“Will you please promise me something? That you will stop calling me every day? Will you make it sure that I am deleted from the list of people of this exercise of marketing?”
“But you understand, this is Orange, your mobile phone company?”
“Yes. And I would like you to tell me that you will not call me anymore.”
“Me personally?”
“You, Orange.”
“You do not want to be called by your own cell phone company?”
“Yes. I would like you to tell me that I am deleted from this exercise of marketing.”
“I think it is better if we will call you back.”
“No. In fact, I would like my name to be taken from the list. Can I be deleted from the list?”
“No.”
“Then will you tell me that you will not call again?”
“I can only tell you that personally I will not call you again.”
“But someone else will.”
“Yes.”
“Can I speak to your manager, please?”
“Sir, a representative will call you back tomorrow.”
“Excuse me, please, can I speak to your manager?”
“No. You can’t do that.”
“I can’t speak to your manager?”
“What? Of course not. No.”
“Then can I speak to someone else, please?”
“No.”
“What is your name?”
“Goodbye.”
The legendary American film director was back from Africa, and we went over, my boss and me, to see photos from the trip and discuss an advertising project. We met high above Paris in a padded conference room, height-wise about level with the bells in Notre-Dame. Surrounding us were a dozen others—agents, assistants, executives, handlers, various public relations people—who sat quietly while we talked except to laugh occasionally as a chorus.
I’d thought obsessively for two days about what I’d wear to that meeting. Not that it made much difference. When we were running late, my boss decided we’d take his scooter. Which meant I’d be wearing the extra helmet one of the guys keeps around the office for any girls who need a ride (it’s bubble-gum pink). We arrived at the meeting nervous and breathless, me with my pink helmet under my arm. For 15 minutes the conversation went mostly like this:
Apparently the bar’s claim to fame is an open shower booth installed behind the bar. As we arrived, a beefy guy was just finishing lathering up, playing with a semi-erection the length of my forearm. Boss: “This is a nice photo.”
Me: “It looks awesome.”
Legendary American film director: “It was pretty awesome.”
Chorus: “HA HA HA HA HA HA.”
Back at the office, we stopped outside so my boss could smoke a cigarette, and out came one of the senior programmers who started throwing gang signs, wanting to know if the American director and I had been “all like totally wazzup?”
This is the same guy who always gives me a hand-squeeze and a wink while saying, “What’s up, my negro?” He insists that on our first meeting, I said, “‘Sup, my negro?” I explained early on this was highly impossible, that he should probably find me a new nickname. He rolled his eyes at the time, grinning, and punched my arm playfully. “OK, OK,” he said, winking. “But you’re still my negro.”
As I write this, he called me his negro this morning.
Life is not all work (6 a.m. to 11 p.m.), construction (now on all sides of the apartment, including beneath, since the water main’s been discovered to need replacing), or sickness (in addition to vertigo and gastritis, my wife has developed regular migraines). There’s also Madame Tortoise, our Parisian friends whom we love, bars to visit, all the wine in France. A friend from New York visited and wanted to go to a gay bar he’d heard about. So off we went, him and me, down to a place called Raidd Bar in the Marais. The room was packed, chest to back. Apparently the bar’s claim to fame is an open shower booth installed behind the bar. As we arrived, a beefy guy was just finishing lathering up, playing with a semi-erection the length of my forearm. We ordered Coronas.
“Thing is,” said the friend, “in Paris you just can’t tell which guy’s gay and which is not.”
“Your radar’s all fucked up,” I said.
He laughed. “Seriously, either everyone here is gay, or no one is.”
On the weekends, we travel when we can: around France and Paris, and also Italy, Morocco, Greece, the Czech Republic. To celebrate my birthday, we shot down to Marrakech. (Marrakech is to Parisians like San Juan is New Yorkers: two hours by plane, hot, and pleasantly cheap.) On the cab ride home from the airport after Marrakech, the driver was listening to a live punk show on the radio. One song lasted the entire ride. The chorus went:
Fire, fire, fire,But probably our best day was one closest to home, in Giverny, a tiny village near Paris where Monet used to live. We followed bike paths through fields, drank rosé by a creek. We napped in a tulip garden and looked at impressionist paintings that were a lot more interesting than I expected. Waiting for the train home, I had a profound feeling of satisfaction: I was pleasantly sleepy, lying on a bench with my eyes closed, when an elderly American couple approached.
Fire, fire, fire,
Fire, fire, fire,
Paris is burning
“Now if only this nice young man will move over a little,” said the woman loudly in English, bending over about 10 inches from my ear. “Oh, I’m afraid he’s asleep!”
“He’s asleep?” said her deaf husband.
“Well,” said the old woman, “if this young man would be so nice as to move.”
“Is he going to move?” shouted the husband.
“Maybe he will,” said the woman.
“He doesn’t speak your language,” shouted her husband.
Never mind there were several empty benches nearby, I sat up and moved over. Now all four of us were squeezed together. The woman profusely thanked me. I pretended not to understand her. The old man put down his cane, and my wife got up and moved to a different bench to have some room, but I remained in place, stewing. Then a gaggle of southern Americans came out of the station to wait for the train: five overweight middle-aged women yelling at one another, speaking at a volume reserved in France for emergencies.
And I realized, perhaps for the first time, exactly how we look. I’d forgotten how immense we are, we Americans, and how presumptuous and bullying in our naiveté. In a flash, I realized I’d become French, and smiled.
Then a pack of teenage French boys appeared. They overheard the Americans and started addressing them in English as though they were reciting from a language primer.
“Hello, how are you?” said one boy.
“Hello, how’s it going?” said another.
The women ignored them, continued conversing about which restaurant they’d go to that evening.
“Excuse me, do you have the time?” said one of the boys.
“Do you have some milk?”
“The milk is in the refrigerator!”
By that point, perhaps it was the rosé I’d drunk, perhaps it was all the Americans’ ankle socks and forward-facing backpacks, but I couldn’t stop laughing. One of the teenagers caught my eye and winked, presumably taking me for French, a co-conspirator.
The next morning, Sunday, we saw Audrey Tatou, the actress from Amelie, walking around our neighborhood, and I thought, funny, she’s much smaller in real life.
—Published June 19, 2008
