I went back to Paris for a few days to meet my Father, but we never actually arranged where or when. In the end, we missed each other. The first time I went to Paris was with my Father. I was around 12. The square in front of Notra Dame was for parking. I still recall the smells on Boulevard St. Michele, before the Greek restaurants replaced the Thai, Vietnamese and French ones, the musty smell from the throng of people, the acrid smoke of Gauloises, the sweet smell of what I called “African Doughnuts”; huge rings of fried batter, as big around as my head, dipped in sugar, and of course the olfactory counterpoint of the open urinals doting the street.
Those urinals are gone now. I’m hesitant about the new, self-sterilizing outhouses that replaced them. First of all you have to pay: not very civilized for an otherwise civilized place. In times of high traffic there’s always a line because of the long turn around time. The way they work is this, once you’ve finished your “business” and leave the toilet, closing the door triggers the cleaning cycle, which is like a carwash turned inside out. The room is flooded with disinfectant and then blow-dried. One story has it an elderly lady opened the door to leave, then remembered her purse and when she went back to get it, the door closed. You can guess the rest.
The Quartier Latin was more bohemian then. The streets were exotic, filled with movement, color and sound, black people in bright robes selling African jewelry arranged on colorful blankets along the Boulevard St. Michele and Boulevard St. Germaine, music and the sound of drums in the background, bookstore tables stacked with paperbacks, students and hippies sipping coffee or Pastis outside bistros, and street performers everywhere. I even saw a fire-eater, a nifty trick on a crowded street. I tended to stick pretty close to Dad. A few years later, I “discovered” the Shakespeare and Company bookshop, before I learned that it was famous and that Earnest Hemingway borrowed books there when he didn’t have any money.
Paris is like a first love. I was lucky enough to live in Paris in 1993 and 1994. My heart skips a beat whenever someone mentions it, or an image flicks across the TV screen. I’m back as often as I can.
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