Le dernier Metro

The title of today's piece is taken after a Francois Truffaut movie. Made in 1980, set during the last war, it stars Catherine Deneuve, who is, as she has been for 45 years, the most beautiful woman in the world.

Paris is a private city; many secrets happen behind the sidewalks, behind the massive and forbidding doors. Some, however, are right in front of us, waiting for us to find them. They are still hidden; it takes some effort to find them.

We found one on Friday night.

Hidden in plain view, by itself on a quiet street way out in the 20th Arronidissement, in the village of Belleville, annexed to Paris only within the past hundred years or so, is the Parc du Belleville. It is above Pere-LaChaise Cemetery. About 5 blocks from a Metro station (just about the theoretical maximum distance one CAN be from a Metro station in Paris), right there, around the bend. . . there are a few street lights here, and as you crest the hill and veer to the left, there is a pool of limpid, ecru light spilling onto the narrow sidewalk. It must be here, the street dead ends at a cliff at the top of the Parc.

Over there, on the left -- it is so much smaller than imagined, a tiny, narrow room -- if the door were wider it would hit the bar when it opens -- a row of tables down the right side of the building, and three more on the left after the bar. Perhaps 45 people could fit into this dingy, buff-colored room with the photograph of Edith Piaf in the back and the black and white tiles so typical of old Paris' bistros.

It's a throwback. Come on, it's not dangerous to go somewhere unexpected -- step in. You've been brave enough to telephone and make a reservation and survive the experience. Your reservation is for 8:30, you enter at 8:27, and, lo! behold! Every table is reserved, only the names on the cards are "Edith Piaf", "Josephine Baker", and "Maurice Chevalier". You are a few blocks from Menilmontant, another neighborhood annexed in the 20th century, which spawned Chevalier.

You are about a million miles from the Champs Elysees at this moment, and 70 years from the present.

You are about to step into pre-War Paris.

The bar, the refrigerators behind it with their buff-colored doors that are two inches thick, with the pull-down latch handles typical of the 1940's -- the architecture, the paint itself, might well have seen the German occupation. And little has changed.

You are seated. The telephone is next to your table, on the wall. It never rings.

It is useful, however -- the large ardoise, or blackboard, with the evening's offerings, is propped on the phone for you to read.

There are 4 entrees, a soup and three salads. There are 6 main dishes, and two desserts. Simple fare -- a steak; roasted lamb shanks, blanquette du veau, a veal and mushroom stew served in a white "blanket" over rice.

You order -- a bottle of tap water is placed on your table automatically -- no room for foofy water here. Wine is available -- one flavor only -- vin maison -- by the bottle or by the pichet, or pitcher.

The room fills in moments -- the whole long wall is occupied by a single group of about 30 people. How did they all get here at once? There's three generations -- it's not a business group, that's for sure. A young man of perhaps 16 is carrying a large, unwieldy case by its handle. Several of the young men step up to the bar; others begin to drink at the table. A short chorus of "happy birthday" is sung in French.

The salads arrive -- two whole cold goat cheeses on a slab of country bread, toasted, sitting atop greens for Kelli; Endive, lamb's lettuce, roquefort and walnuts for me. Better than I was expecting.

As we are waiting for our main dishes (Kelli, the steak, which is typically French, meaning utterly untrimmed, and about 50% inedible, and me, the veal stew, for which I've been Jonesing for two weeks; finally, I've found it, and it's as good as I hope), she arrives.

I don't have the power to describe this woman -- finch-like, I think, comes close -- delicate, high voiced, petite, yet dressed in a dark red organdy dress with a skirt that has petticoats underneath, and bright, brilliant, St. Louis Cardinals-red high-topped sneakers. The look is altogether la Boheme, including the many bracelets and the intricate ivy-vine tendril tattoed from her right wrist halfway to her elbow. She is somewhere betwen 40 and 65 years old, probably; or not.

She lugs case after case into the back of the room, setting them on top of the silverware service furniture. A few are clearly accordion cases -- French accordions, with buttons on both sides, no keyboard. They look just like the half-dozen vintage instruments on the shelves above the heads of the birthday group.

Shortly after nine, she announces to the barman (right next to our table) in this improbable bird's voice that an aperitif would be of great benefit to her voice.

About 9:30, as the plates are being cleared, she unpacks an accordion, opens the cases, and they turn out to be expanding file wallets. Inside, they contain many sheets of paper, and on those sheets of paper, many words in French.

Words to songs.

Songs that you are about to sing.

The entire restaurant becomes the stage for a theater with no spectators.

For three and one-half hours we whisper, bellow, and generally gasp with joy at the fact that French, perhaps the most difficult language on earth to understand when sung, actually turns out to be pretty easy to SING in -- at long last, music that is MEANT to come out of my nose........

the second pitcher of wine goes down well. The foursome of Swiss people at the adjacent table have toasted us, have begun to speak to us in a polyglot of english, french and german (the two closer to us), and english and french (the two farther away). The closer ladies have trouble coping with the accordion music -- one actually gets severe "chicken skin" from the music, and begins itching uncomfortably.

I have a dear friend whose wife is deathly afraid of clowns; I did not know this when I got him front-row seats to Fool Moon at ACT a few years back. Poor Kat had to excuse herself at the intermission, because the show is done entirely in mime by graduates of the Pickle Family Circus; she missed her husband's stage debut -- I knew one routine looked for a certain type of person from the audience, and her husband was perfect for, and perfect in, the part. Still, it was then that I learned that fear of clowns is real, and pretty serious to those who suffer it.

Apparently, fear of accordion music is, also -- where I just get a little giggle of glee at the thought of 2,000 Chinese children in Mao jackets standing in Tienanmen Square playing "Lady of Spain" on their Chinese-made accordions (this is the visual image I got when at the Chinese Trade Show at Fort Mason 20 years ago, when we FIRST saw ANY products from Mainland China -- people came to the show solely to try Tsingtao Beer -- but when I turned a corner and saw two dozen mother-of-pearl and candy-apple-green accordions in the case, my imagination took off at breakneck speed and produced the image above), some people get physically ill. Our immediate neighbors went home early.

Nobody else did.

AT one point, the lights dimmed and a birthday cake came out with a Roman candle on it. Try blowing THAT out, kids.

The young man opened his case and pulled out his own accordion, got up and played two pieces. Older folks from his group began to dance, and that then became a staple of the evening, along with the raucous, uproarious, and remarkably in-tune singing. The most "modern" song we got had a copyright of 1960 -- some were more than 150 years old.

Then, individual members of the "audience" got up and started doing solos with the musician, or call-and-response songs, or even, in one case, a gentleman wore the accordion on his back, and the lady danced with him while playing it behind HIS back.

To suggest that a marvelous time was had by all is to radically short-change this experience. How often do you get the chance to step into a time machine? How often do you TAKE THE CHANCE? Why not?

Of course, as always in Paris, there was a price to be paid. Yes, you are absolutely allowed to have "too much fun", but it's not on the installment plan, it is pay-as-you-go.

We exited the building at 1:15.

Le dernier Metro, the last Metro, is at 1 AM.

From our spot atop the cliff above the park, we could see the Montparnasse tower. You can see it from most parts of Paris, and somehow, it always seems just about 10 blocks away.

Not this night.

The symbol of modern Paris, it looked 70 years away. The Eiffel Tower was almost too small to find.

We were a long ways away. From anything.

We descended a staircase of perhaps 100 steps to reach the street below the park. The map book showed a Taxi stand a few blocks away. We found it.

Unfortunately, none of Paris' 11,000 cab drivers had the same map book we use, apparently. None were at the taxi stand. We began to walk, from the outside edge of the 20th.

We walked, from abandoned taxi rank to abandoned taxi rank. We shared the streets, for the first hour, with young couples too much in love to go home yet -- much handholding and smooching was observed -- and, just at the French don't eat French Toast, they apparently do not French Kiss in public -- it is all pretty tame and enchanting.

We crossed the 20th, and crossed into the 11th. We found the rue Oberkampf, and walked from one end of it to the other. We reached the Canal St. Martin. We saw 10. 955 of Paris' 11,000 cabs, each with a yellow light on top, indicating it was already occupied.

We went to the Bastille, we crossed into the Marais, in the 3rd, then the 4th, Arrondissements. We trudged through the Marais, looking for a night bus, but they just changed the night bus system in october and haven't put up the schedules and routes in all the bus shelters yet, so we never found one.

We walked through the Place des Vosges, past the Hotel Sully, and over the Sully Bridge to the Ile St. Louis. Then, across the island, and into the Latin Quarter at the Arab University. Then, along the river front for another half-mile. We found one taxi stand which was occupied by someone who was, himself, occupied by several other people, each of whom took turns holding coversations with each other. After a while, we abandoned that spot, and trudged to the Place Maubert, about 4.5 miles from where we began the evening. There, we had about 20 companions waiting for the one cab every 15 minutes that came by.

After three cabs were taken by people who had arrived after we did, I decided that being polite in 27 degree weather had its shortcomings. We wandered to a corner, and when a white-lighted cab came down a side boulevard, we literally went into the street and stood in its way.

The cab driver pointed out that, on a Friday, they only make money between 1 and 3 AM, until they have taken home all the people who have missed le dernier Metro. A young, well-spoken (in English, too) Arab with a spotless Renault cab, he was very apologetic when he took a wrong turn that took us a block or two out of the way -- I could not have cared less; we were off our feet.

These "common" folk who make a city run often know the most about it.

I asked him if he lived les Banlieu, the suburbs where the troubles had been happening last month. He said "no, I live further out in the country. Paris is a very, very stressful city to work in -- if you are not here for the art, for the monuments, for the history, it is a very hard place to be. I need one day a week where I hear birds instead of sirens."

Saturday, we walked through the Jardin des Plantes, the arboretum for Paris, which also holds its small zoo. Saturday evening, we joined my old friend Mel, from San Rafael, who has led a very successful life by any measure you can devise, and who now lives and works part of the year in Paris. He and his wife, Judy, treated us to dinner at a fabulous restaurant not far from the Arc du Triomphe -- French food, prepared in the minimalist Japanese style. I haven't seen them in way too long; it is beyond ironic that we connected in Paris. We have promised to stay in closer touch back home, too.

Sunday, we slept in, went to two separate street market areas, each as it was closing, then returned home to find our markets closed, also. We will pack, we will meet Claire for one last evening at a brasserie where I might just have choucroute garni, and then we will pack, face the brutal task of getting 80 pounds of luggage down those 85 stairs, wander around the corner, and hope, and pray, the since le premier Metro will already have begun service, we can get a taxi from the rank around the corner at 7:45 to take us home.

* * * * * WARNING -- PHILOSOPHY COMING * * * * *

John Ruskin, British writer and art critic who considered a great painting to be one that conveys great ideas to the viewer. His works include Modern Painters (1843-1860).

Ruskin believed there was only one way to possess beauty properly, and that was by understanding it. A thoroughly untalented artist as a child, he grew up to write a pair of books on the subject, The Elements of Drawing (1857) and The Elements of Perspective (1859). For four years he lectured at the Working Men's College in London, teaching primarily Cockney tradesmen to draw. "There is a satisfactory and available power in everyone to learn drawing if he wishes, just as nearly all persons have the power of learning French, Latin or arithmetic, in a decent and useful degree."

It wasn't about drawing well, or about becoming an artist. Ruskin believed that the true value in drawing was that it teaches us the disciplne of seeing, the power to notice, rather than merely to look. Imagine, for a moment, if you will, just how passersby would regard you, were you to stop in the street and look at something, anything, long enough to be able to sketch it. This shows how hard-wired we are to inattention.

The process of looking, truly looking, at something, may serve to help us figure out what is missing from it, or what is present that causes us to describe it as "beautiful", "harmonious", or even "sublime".

Ruskin also believed that people have the ability to "word-paint", to cement their impressions of beauty. While I can not draw a lick, I understand the concept -- when Ruskin was shown a series of misshapen and nearly unrecognizable drawings of the English countryside produced by some of his students, he said "I believe that the sight is a more important thing than the drawing; and I would rather teach drawing that my pupils might learn (to see), than teach them (to see) that they might learn to draw."

Freidrich Nietzsche, the nearly unapproachably dense German philosopher of the late 19th century, said the following in remarking upon the works of Joseph de Maistre, who wrote two books, one on a journey around his bedroom, and another on a journey around his bedroom at night.

"When we observe how some people know how to manage their experiences ----- their insignificant, everyday experiences ----- so that they become an arable soil that bears fruit three times a year, while others ----- and how many there are! ----- are driven through surging waves of destiny, the most multifarious currents of the times and of the nations, and yet always remain on top, bobbing like a cork, then we are in the end tempted to divide mankind into a minority (a minimality, in truth) of those who know how to make much of little, and a majority, of those who know how to make little of much." (emphasis is mine).

It is my sincere hope that, through this process of writing these past five weeks, I have accomplished two things. One is entirely within my control -- I write so that I may learn to see -- the discipline of describing, sometimes several days after the fact, what happened, when, in what circumstances, and where and how, causes me to think afterwards, but even more so, to observe during. I write for myself; to ensure that I have at least made an honest effort to wring every drop of experience out of the everyday experiences of being, here. The writing is for me.

The reading, however, is for you. And over that, I have no control at all. It is as if this were inscribed on a streamer of paper and set adrift in a gale -- perhaps it is read, perhaps not, perhaps partially. Some read for fun, for the genuine (and, occasionally, the absurd) humor, some for the descriptions. I would be very proud if, even for a few paragraphs, I could honestly be placed in Nietzsche's minimality of those who know how to make much of little.