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From the school where he worked, adjacent to Place des Invalides, he made his way south along Boulevard Des Invalides to Rue de Babylone, crossing there and heading due east. The December air was cold, damp and welcome; he walked into it with extreme prejudice, taking deep lung breaths and blowing the fog out in front of himself. “I must quit smoking,” he thought, his lungs burnt with the crisp air.
He had time now to devise a plan and gird his nerves. This was not his normal trip across the city after work; it was a one time mission to Bon Marché, the luxury department store.
Recently, a friend had needed some help to purchase a sofa at Bon Marché and together they had somehow managed to carry it out of the store and into the Paris Metro during the afternoon rush hour, where it was just able to stand up, and then carry it out of the metro to the friend’s apartment. It was a crazy, exhausting and, in retrospect, hilarious caper! But hadn’t the whole year been a caper in some sense, one extraordinary event after another. Eleven months after arriving it was a little more difficult to bring up the wild sense of exhilaration he felt at having made it to Paris on a student visa, found lodgings and employment, however meager the wages, and succeeded in some sense as an expatriate. But everyday reminded him in some small or magnificent way that he was alive in France.
Now here he was, two days from Christmas, walking through Paris to one of the most exclusive department stores in the world, where on that previous visit he had seen a display table of Foie Gras, the fattened goose liver; a display that featured the finest to the most humble (humble foie gras, now there’s a thought), beckoning to every shopper “Celebrate Christmas as only a Frenchman can, with delicious Foie Gras.” He wasn’t a Frenchman, but he was dedicated to the notion that he would celebrate his only Christmas in Paris like he’d been born there, schooled there, and shot out into the world of work, women and pleasure like he belonged there. “The crisp air and these large breaths are making me light headed,” he thought. He tried to think of anything but the next few minutes and what it might mean to him and the rest of his life.
Finally he arrived. Bon Marché in front of him, a small line moving through the large glass doors. He joined them, receiving the looks of the locals that he’d gotten used to over the last eleven months. He was not one of them, and how they knew befuddled him at first, but then over time he became aware of the fact that he looked completely different from every man his age. He was taller, broader, more angular, more of every damn thing, and together it reminded him of the fraud he was; a young man of no means, of no great heritage, living the life of a 19th century scion of a well known family, sent to Europe to accumulate wisdom and culture, to take his place among the elites of 5th Avenue. Yes, it was a caper, running now for a nearly a year!
Inside he was suddenly warm, having done the walk in perhaps half the time? or less? He removed his cap and like he’d done many times he let it fall into the hood of the sweatshirt he’d started wearing recently under his thin blue jacket. He tried to remember from his one prior trip to the store where the food section was. He walked along slowly, afraid to stop and look around and find his bearings. The store was overwhelmed with shoppers, French shoppers, each one a little more annoyed than the last one who passed him or crossed in front of him. But the French were always annoyed; it was a their national, and natural, personality; their daily public excursions marked by annoyance and on occasion downright irritation with the lives around them. They were only easy when they were indoors, away from so many of their compatriots. At first he thought it was just him, that they sensed his otherness, which they did, and leaned against it. But eventually it occurred to him that he was not held any lower than the most French of the French. In fact, at times he noticed a slight give in their collective annoyance when they perceived he was a guest of La Patrie1.
He found an escalator and started on his way up to the higher floors. At the second floor there were row upon row of the great wines arranged by region, he turned away and found another escalator. He remembered then to make a plan, so he loosened his belt two holes worth, as discreetly as possible, with one hand. The third floor, Le Grand Epicerie. Yes it must be here, somewhere. He walked around, moved as much by the crowds as his own volition. There was foie gras everywhere. On shelves, on end caps and on large tables in the center of traffic hubs like the town squares you find in all old French villages. There was even fresh foie gras in thirty different preparations under glass in the refrigerated section. Finally he noticed a large crowd around one of the center tables. He approached and voila, the very object of his quest. In cans of various sizes, distinguished by the blue, white and red of the French flag, was the foie gras he’d seen on his previous visit. He politely made his way forward, listening to the hubbub around him as people discussed the value of one can over another. There were so many choices in size and variety; some with mushrooms, some with cognac, some straight, no filler. He decided to keep it simple; his hand found the cans of plain foie gras and took two, one in each hand, examining the price. He placed one back on the table as he turned back around into the crowd and the other one disappeared under his sweatshirt. “Trop cher2,” he muttered, to no one in particular.
At the escalator he stood sideways to view the crowd above and below him. He drew no noticeable attention. The can firmly behind his belt, he longed to make it out the door, but still to be unhurried. Finally back on the first floor he ran into a crowd near the doors, so many coming and going had created a bottleneck. There was a strong tug on his arm. He turned, surprised, and found a smiling French fellow holding his hat. “Ahh, merci Monsieur,” he said reflexively. A moment later, hat on head, the crowd pushed through the foyer and onto the street, the crisp air welcomed again. His face was damp, surprisingly, and the cold air sprang against the sweat under his clothes. He moved along swiftly and crossed over the river at Île de la Cité, walking right under the gargoyles of Notre Dame Cathedral.
He stopped on the other side of the river and retied a shoe, and caught his breath, on a bench along the river Quai. There was no one behind him now. He sat down and painstakingly moved the can from under his belt and into his satchel. He tightened the belt and put himself back together, then relaxed and made his way slowly to his humble lodging at the edge of the 11th arrondisement, on Boulevard Voltaire, stopping along the way for a half baguette and, in another shop, a single slice of ham. The busy proprietress watched him enter, and with her last breath of patience heard him ask, as he had many times before, for the “jambon.” The meager transaction, a single slice of ham, still required the entire litany of polite dialogue3 from her and him, challenging her long and closely held sense of decorum.
“Et pour Monsieur?” asked she.
“Une tranche de jambon, s'il vous plaît, Madame,” said he.
“Une tranche de jambon, pour Monsieur,” said she. Then slicing and packaging.
“Et voila, une tranche de jambon, pour Monsieur. C’est un franc, cinquante, Monsieur,” said she.
“Voila Madame,” said he, handing over a two franc piece.
“Voici Monsieur, votre monnaie,” said she.
“Merci Madame, au revoir Madame,” said he.
“Merci Monsieur, au revoir Monsieur,” said she.
He never left without smiling broadly at Madame and she always returned the favor by slightly raising her eyebrows.
In his room, he ate half the bread and ham, and smoked several cigarettes, read some books and fell asleep to Radio Montmartre.
The next day was Christmas Eve. He had no work scheduled, and the school was closed. He decided to do his laundry and give his room a thorough going over. Time to shape up. On the small table was the remnant of the bread and ham from the previous evening, wrapped in paper. The foie gras sat there as a reminder of his brush with expulsion, the single anti-social act that could have changed the arc of his life. He hated seeing it, and pushed it behind some books.
He stopped on the way to the laundry for ‘cafe’, as he did every morning. He took a double shot, no milk, straight, and several brown cubes of sugar to melt within. As the dryer bounced his clothes around he ate half of the sandwich. “I’ll take a long shower this afternoon, hot water, a good scrub,” he thought. He stopped on his way back at the window of a patisserie. It had a “Pur Beurre4” sign in the window. “A purist”, he thought, a man like himself, a man of character, without compromise, willing to stay loyal to tradition even at a cost to himself. A young woman who worked in the store approached the front window to remove a customer’s requested cake from a glass case. She caught him dead in the eye, and they looked at each other for a long second, neither giving anything away. “I cannot afford your delicacies,” he thought. “Yes, I know,” she thought. She wrapped the cake with impeccable, devastating skill. He walked home.
After his shower he dressed for the Christmas Eve party in his newly washed clothes. Blue jeans, he owned nothing but blue jeans. He had one button up shirt and one sweater, dark blue, corded and mended in a few places, not very well. After eleven months everything was a little worn, the shoes, the pants, all of it. But it would have to do. He grabbed the foie gras, and in a moment was down three flights of steps and into the street. There was little traffic, car or pedestrian. He’d left too early to take the metro, so he would walk the whole way to the 7th arrondisement, several miles.
When he arrived the hosts were abuzz with things to do. He was not the first guest, but the only one with kitchen skills. He dropped the foie gras onto a table of foodstuffs, and began to help. There were potatoes to mash with butter, the French way, bread to slice, hors d’oeuvres to arrange on platters. He made the sauce, careful not to call it gravy, from the pan juices. He was busy and helpful and at ease as the room filled with other expats, mostly Americans, but a couple of Aussies, and an Irish girl he’d not seen before. The table of foodstuffs filled up. He started to arrange this and that on large platters. There were half bottles of olives, and cheeses of various kinds that had already been cut into by a dull knife, opened half bags of nuts, and a large can of “Foie Gras.”
They, the collected guests, descended on the table of hors d’oeuvres, Christmas toasts were made, someone asked who brought the foie gras? He acted like he hadn’t heard and continued in a conversation with a fellow he knew. Later he helped to carve the roasted chickens. Much wine was drunk, and everyone he talked to mentioned the Christmas tree, stolen from in front of a nearby police station; it had added much to the jollity of the evening, they all agreed.
Little by little he became aware of the fact that he meant nothing to any of the expats in the room, and he was not alone; none of them meant anything to the others. It’s to be expected, he reasoned. Our only connection is that we are expats, so we fraternize easily and are just as easily forgotten. Temporary players in each other’s temporary life. He tried to remember how he had been invited into this throng, and it took him a minute to figure it out. The last Metro ran at 10 PM and the hour was close. He made a hasty retreat with as few good byes as required.
He shook his head at the thought of the foie gras, holding himself upright in the Metro, swaying with the tracks and the wine. Eleven rootless months, he had lost track of many things, and found out a little about himself, but not enough. The thought of the next and last few months sobered him.
The fatherland
Too Expensive
Here is a translation of the purchase of ham:
“And for you sir?”
“A slice of ham, please, Ma’am”
“A slice of ham for the gentleman”
“And there it is, a slice of ham for the gentleman. That’s $1.50 sir”
“Here you are Ma’am,” $2
“And here’s your change sir”
“Thank you Ma’am and goodbye”
“Thank you, sir, and goodbye”
Pur Beurre means pure butter, no substitute fats, a sign of quality.
Merry Christmas Tom! Great writing as always. Hoping for a part two , for New Years, eh?
Great story, Tom!
Merry Christmas to you and Mary🎄