Paris: Day Four (part II)

After our first exposure on the Champs-Élysées / Place du Concord run, and after negotiating the B Line from Saint Michel to Gare du Nord and back, we were now jaded Metro pros. Well, that’s an exaggeration. We had some competence navigating from point A to point B. So we hopped the underground train at the Sévres-Babylone Metro station just across from L’Oisseau and found ourselves back at our hotel in less than a half-hour.

Exhausted. Hot, sweaty, sleepy, and exhausted.

Our room at the Hotel du Lys was not quite as stifling as it was on Thursday, the day before. Overall the day was cooler and breezier, and that helped cool our air-conditioning-free abode. My wife lay on the bed that took up 70 percent of the free space and was out cold in five minutes. I, too, I must admit, fought fatigue and heavy eyelids. I parked myself at that shelf that doubled as a desk, overlooking the drab yellow stucco-like wall fifteen feet away outside the open window. I read some more Victor Hugo, but my head drooped. I turned some pages in Devotion to the Sacred Heart, but my eyes dropped. Surrendering, I spread our blanket out on the floor and laid down, using one of our carry-on bags as a pillow. Darkness closed out the world, and I took some deep breaths – and was wide awake.

Oh well. These things happen to me. Frequently.

I returned to the desk. All this shifting and shuffling about disturbed my wife. I worked on my idea list that I began the sleepless night before on the bathroom floor. Glacially, time passed, until it was close to 7. Time to decide what to do with tonight, our last night in Paris.

My wife thumbed through some of her guidebooks and settling on a small place called Le Reminet, which promised a view of the Notre Dame Cathedral. I was game. We did the whole shower-get-dressed ritual. Surprisingly, we did not slip out a window and fall six stories to our deaths squeezing past each other getting ready in that tiny room. By 7:45 we padded the cool, twilight streets of Paris. And twilight in Paris lasts about two hours.

We repeated our journey from eight hours ago, heading up to the Quais, then east to the looming Cathedral. Instead of crossing the Pont Notre-Dame, though, we continued on, walking the side of the street opposite the Seine. My wife mentioned that she was sad for me that we never got to see Shakespeare & Co. Book Store, written about so glowingly in Frommers or Fodors or whichever one of the books we had. It’s a store custom-built for me, she said. Suddenly – there it was! I saw it first, recessed a bit behind the store we were passing, and pointed it out to her. “Go on in,” she urged, and eagerly I went.

As I entered, I immediately envisioned a great used book store of outstanding quality and character. Uneven floors, narrow aisles, multiple levels, shelving stuck everywhere: from floor to ceiling, corners, tables, doorways. Little handwritten subject signs, stuck here and there as unobtrusive guideposts. In stores like these I seek out three such guideposts: Philosophy, Religion, and Science Fiction. After staking out a plausible route through the tiny, packed store, I found myself at the Science Fiction section … and was disappointed. Two columns from floor to ceiling, but no dog-eared books. No, everything seemed new, or “second-hand” new. Not 1970s ancient. Not even 90s ancient. I knew anything I picked off the shelves would be too expensive, especially with the plus-thirty-percent exchange rate penalty. And it was true. I did note a greater selection of PKD books than you’ll find in an American store, and believe me, I was tempted. Around the corner I found Religion, and it was two simple horizontal shelves, each four feet long, one above the other. Nothing of note (when it comes to Religion, it’s gotta be written before 1960 to be worthwhile; all the books here were modern). I glanced across to Philosophy – ah! Larger, almost a whole wall. But there was a man and a woman examining those books ahead of me, and he in a wheelchair … a quick mental calculation realized the payoff wouldn’t be worth the effort.

So, I went out and located my wife sitting on a bench, admiring a view of the Cathedral across the street and over the (unseen) river. We traveled another block east and then there sat Le Reminet, sandwiched between two other open-air restaurants, on the opposing side of a diagonal street, just behind a fourth eatery, which just happened to block any appreciative view of Notre Dame. Oh well. We walked up to the entrance and stepped inside.

A tall, skeletal, deep-voiced man with little personality immediately greeted us. French Lurch I dubbed him, though he also reminded me of that “Time Warp” hunchbacked guy from Rocky Horror and resembled in passing Sasha Baron Cohen. Anyway, French Lurch asked us if we had reservations – darn! – we said we didn’t, and he told us to “wait here.” He returned and said we could be seated inside. Le Reminet was a narrow restaurant more than twice as deep as it was wide, and we sat at the table farthest back. After bringing us drinks – my usual 50 cl of Kronenbourg, the wife a Sauvignon Blanc, if I’m not mistaken, French Lurch ran through the specials. One of which was – pigeon! Yah! Part of me sorta kinda considered it, but recalling all the fat little guys pretty much owned Paris, how could I? I even joked that one of them swiped my passport off me while I wasn’t looking and I had to fork over a euro to get it back. But, no, neither of us indulged in that bird, opting instead for more traditional fare of salmon and scallops.

Dinner was superb, our conversation was great, the atmosphere was pleasant. Then, a party of six Americans sat down next to us. Two older couples, all at least in their sixties, and two girls in their late teens or early twenties, who sat on the side of the table next to us. They talked like girls in their late teens or early twenties tend to do, loud, proud, and without a care of how anyone outside their social group perceived them. Which is to say, I didn’t mind listening to their loud banter, they very actually very amusing. You see, they didn’t know we spoke English. We learned the one girl got accepted to NYU and was looking forward to attending. Then, the other glanced over to our table and they starting discussing our dinners. “I think they’re having the salmon,” one of them rather loudly said to the other.

“Yes, we are,” my wife said, “and it’s excellent!” They were surprised and perhaps a little embarrassed, but we all had a good laugh. They chatted a little bit about their trip, we of ours, small talk, only for a few minutes. Then we wished each other well and resumed our dinners, us finishing up, they just starting.

We left Le Reminet around 8:30 pm, the sun still above the horizon somehow, keeping the day alive. We crossed the street north and slowly walked west, passing by the Notre Dame Cathedral (one last time!), savoring every view from every angle. Were we here only eight hours ago? Time passes funny in Paris … too fast, yet every moment seems a lifetime.

Before long we were before those bookseller stands, now all closed and locked up for the day. I decided we should go down a nearby set of stone stairs and walk along the Seine – what is a trip to Paris without a walk along the river Seine, especially as the sun was setting? My wife agreed, and we strolled down on the cobblestone pathways, passed couples and groups of friends sharing bottles of wine, loaves of bread, cheese, fruits, sitting on the stone wall a few feet above the waterline. Every now and then a group had an instrument, someone strumming a guitar, or there was a radio; it was a very festive yet remarkably low-key affair. Couples arm-in-arm passed us by. We passed people taking pictures of the scenery; they passed us when we paused to take it all in. We had to dip our heads as we walked under each of the several bridges that spanned the Seine. Massive tour ships as well as four-man motorboats thrummed up and down the river at regular intervals. We watched in dismay as one jerk on the northern side of the river emptied a bottle of champagne or wine into the Seine, then dropped the bottle in. Sacrilege!

The sun now set, we climbed another stone stairway back up to the street. I distinctly began to feel the clock ticking; our last night in Paris was dwindling down to only an hour or two. We walked west on the Quai Saint Michel all the way up to the Pont Neuf, which our taxi drove us over to get to the Hotel du Lys nearly thirty-six hours ago. Then we crossed the street and walked back in the other direction, back towards the fountain. My wife decided she wanted gelato. We passed many eateries on the way, but none had what she wanted. Finally, we took a right off the main road and strolled through the winding, narrow, cavernous side roads, some eerily deserted, some with groups of two, three, four walking to some exciting destination. We passed an art gallery in the middle of showing an exhibit. The night life was starting to develop exponentially as it gradually got darker and darker. Then, just off one of the side streets connecting that triangle of bistros by our hotel, we found – if not exactly gelato, then a very good soft ice cream place. The attendant was so nice and friendly I let him keep the change. I think it was two euros in coins, and he gave me a look like Christmas came early. We walked a block over and sat on a stone wall eating our ice cream.

On the other side of the street, set in the sand-colored wall of a nondescript building, was a strange door. It was strange not because it looked to be made of dark oak in a medieval fashion; it was strange because it was only four feet high! An Asian couple hovered about it, and eventually the man took the plunge: he opened it and crawled in, dropped down on to unseen steps. His companion followed. Must be a restaurant, we surmised, but that entrance was definitely intriguing. Perhaps if we had another night …

By now it was dark. Must’ve been a little past ten. We thought a bottle of champagne – a half-bottle, really – would be the best way to end our trip. A toast to Paris! So we began walking again, in ever-widening circles, around our adopted neighborhood of the Saint Michel triangle. Oddly enough my feet didn’t hurt anymore. We walked past the fountain, south down the Boulevard Saint Michel, passed the book stand under the canopy, then turned right, this time west on the Rue de Ecole. We headed northwest up on the Saint Germain, then found ourselves at the Seine again, the Quai Saint Michel. Crowds were forming all over, people waiting in line for restaurants. We were dowsed in cigarette smoke as we passed countless open-air eateries. I saw the first movie theater in Paris. (Forget what was playing, but there were posters everywhere in Paris for Prometheus and David Cronenberg’s Cosmopolis, starring that creepy Edward dude.)

Our search for champagne was in vain, for two reasons: we wanted only a half-bottle (no hangovers trying negotiate the Metro to Charles de Gaulle airport!) and we wanted it relatively inexpensive. No place could fulfill both qualifications. So we kinda moseyed on here and there, commenting on people, places, and things. I remember passing a Canadian-themed pub, several Indian and Japanese style eateries, a gaming store (castles and figurines in the window), a 50s-style Americana joint, a Gentleman’s club called, er, Gentlemen’s (of which I threatened to go several times later on that night). My wife thought it would be a spectacular idea to open a Mexican restaurant in Paris. I agreed; it seemed the only national cuisine not represented in our wanderings.

Every day in our Parisian travels we would hear that European siren, be it ambulance or police, that EE-aw, EE-aw, EE-aw, and it would echo throughout the streets and landmarks and you could never quite pinpoint where the vehicle was. Every day, walking, sitting at an outdoor café, in a large park like the Tuileries, every day we heard that siren. And every time I would remark, “There goes Matt Damon!” You know, Matt Damon of Jason Bourne fame, hijacking police and EMT vehicles from various European countries, fleeing the scene after taking the authorities on very expensive (in terms of body work and collision damage) wild goose chases. That night I uttered my last, “There goes Matt Damon,” and still my wife smiled at the lame, overused joke.

Finally, all good things must come to an end. We found ourselves back at the Rue Danton for the third or fourth time, and then, a couple buildings on the Rue Serpente, we were opening the big plate glass doors of the Hotel du Lys. ’Twas a bittersweet denouement. Tired yet contented we did our best, we scaled those six flights of spiraling stairs to our room.

Which was remarkably more cooler than the previous night. Thank God! We showered, changed into some dry sleep clothes, called the girls back home. I was exhausted again, as usual, as was my wife, I’m sure. This time we decided to sleep with the windows firmly closed; the heat shouldn’t be so bad, and I was willing to wake up a little sweaty in exchange for a solid night’s sleep. Lights went out sometime after midnight, and you know what? So did we.