stories from Paris

Our second day in Paris started with a visit to the Clignancourt flea market. It’s the biggest in Paris, and we spent hours there, but only managed to traverse a small portion of the whole. After blocks of vendors hawking cheap clothing and souvenirs, we turned a corner onto a street that led to a maze of antique dealers. Dusty old dolls, ancient stuffed lions, and mirrors darkened with age surrounded us. Despite thousands of other weird and beautiful old things, we came away with only one purchase, an old Limoges souvenir plate of Paris. The dollar is so low, even the flea market prices seem exorbitant.

Then a bus to Montmartre and a walk around the bustling streets filled with other tourists trying to capture the spirit of the place. The artists were priced out almost a century back, and what is left is an aggressive contingent of guys who will sketch a caricature of you for far too much money. And beauty everywhere; with a breath taking view of Paris from the cathedral and old bistros, cafes, and cabarets lining the streets. There was a store selling absinthe in bottles shaped like the Eiffel Tower, so perfectly ridiculous I almost bought one. But, again, the dollar is so low here that there is no such thing as a small purchase.

We rode the funicular down the hill and caught another bus across the city and the river to the Jardin du Luxembourg. I could better imagine Gertrude striding across this timeless park with Alice in tow than Toulouse drinking absinthe in the tourist ant hill which is now Montmartre. While children played with rented small wooden boats in the big fountain, statues of deities dear to me watched with ancient stone eyes. We rested up on one of the many benches before starting to stroll tiredly towards the river.

The sky was darkening up when we arrived at Shakespeare and Company, the famous bookstore that expatriate poets and writers frequented. They still are, apparently, because inside a poetry reading was going on. It was too crowded to enter, so we sat outside and watched while George Whitman, the eccentric nonagenarian proprietor, agitatedly tried to move the reading outside. Everyone else was too afraid of rain, so it continued where it was. I perused books from the shelf outside and was surprised when I looked at the price of the one that seemed particularly interesting and found it to be free. Were all the books outside free? No, the one I was holding appeared to be the only one. “FREE!” was written in the inside cover, with the following below it:

(FREE)

(GRATUIT)

(GRATIS)

wonderful!

beautiful stories!

Several pleasing ink drawings are interspersed thru the book, but carefully, so they don’t interfere with the printed words. “The Hakawati” is the book, by Rabih Alameddine, a writer who lives in San Francisco and Beirut. A hakawati is a storyteller, and this book is all about the transformative power of stories. Sitting outside Shakespeare and Company, a newly translated poem of Rimbaud’s being read inside, I sank contently into reading my free book. Who can understand how these exquisite and precious moments get constructed?

The dollar is low, but we have a metro pass for the week, which is good for every bus and train as well. That, along with our feet, is turning out to buy us a darn good time.

Muriel Rukeyser wrote, “The world is not made of atoms, but of stories”. I know she spent time in Barcelona. I wonder if she ever came to Paris?