The Paris Two-Step
I fell in love with Paris at 16
I was an au pair in the country - Seine-et-Marne - and at the weekends would come into Paris and stay with my mother’s friend Nina, a Russian émigré who had been in Shanghai with my mother’s family. She lived in a tall apartment near Passy in the 16em, where the wooden lift wobbled up to the fifth floor. It was decked out in mahogany and Chinese rosewood, sculpted by ancient hands. The kitchen was tiny, with an overwhelming smell of gas and always very cold. “I love it cold, I was born on the Chinese border with Harbin.” Harbin is one of the coldest places in China/Russia. Nina was as free as a bird with me and all the parental control she had promised my mother was dropped immediately. She told me I had to be independent, get lost in Paris, and always smile my way out of trouble.
VHS had just come onto the market - it was the new exciting technology. On the Champs Elysees there was a smart shop-cum-showroom showing what VHS could do. They used Bowie’s 1980 floor show filmed in 1973 as an example which ran in a loop on a central screen all day long. Looking at it now, it still brings that feeling of wonderment and awe, I see the magic and beauty of Bowie and smell Paris in the air, with the backdrop of the cars and the chatter on the street, the cigarettes we shared, the coffee we drank.
There we were a crowd of young Bowieites, Fashion, turn to the left. Fashion, turn to the right, Ooh fashion, We are the goon squad and we're coming to town. Beep-beep, beep-beep (Bowie Fashion.)
Bowie memorabilia, flags, scarfs, sweet and innocent and oh so young. Standing side by side, we were a gang, a family, hooking up each Saturday at 10.00 am when the shop opened. (I believe it was near the Lido.) We knew every word, every gesture, every nuance of the songs. We became the Bowie club.
We were in love.
Some of the Moroccan kids who worked down the road in the newly opened MacDonalds would hang out here. Later I would follow them down to a basement where the French fries were made. We’d wash bags of potatoes and put them through the chipping machine. My friends were first-generation French of Moroccan parents. I learnt about North Africa, ate my first Tajine, learned how to henna my hair and I was falling in love with Paris at 16.
Paris was a street where all stories pivoted. It did not go east and it did not go west, it went all round. I did not go to tourist places or museums and had no idea where any important landmark was, but I knew the names of the cleaners in Les Jardins du Luxembourg like Gerard, who wore an Andy Cap and had a dog called Mascot. His wife worked in a small cafe nearby. She was a thin lady with brilliant black eyes like crow’s eyes, on the watch for customers. She’d spit into her cloth before she’d clean the table-tops.
This was Paris I loved.
Then, it all changed, as things always change. We change. I grew up, travelled more and then Nina died, and with her all those memories went.
Her stepchildren sold her flat, and even the small painting of her as a young girl in Russia which hung on the back wall in her sitting room, which she had promised to my mother, went. Everything went, along with the far away smell of the winter jasmine flowers she had brought with her from Shanghai and my address book with my Moroccan friends' contacts, which I left in her boudoir drawer to look after for me.
All went.
I was not enchanted by Paris anymore. I stopped going there, the memory hurt. I just passed through without stopping much, and when I did I felt unfulfilled until this November when I went to the film festival.
Yes, this time round I fell in love with Paris all over again.
The Golden Tree International Film Festival held at the Club de l’Étoile was exhilarating. It is the first nomination in two years and there was no way I was not going to be in Paris for that. The Festival opened in Beijing and closed in Paris. There were striking films, a great chance to showcase our work, an afterparty with sushi in splendid piles, waiters to serve us, Cuban musicians - it all felt surreal. And a nomination out of 4,260 entries, whittled down to 20.
No, we did not win, but being here and breathing in this air is as good as winning. (The documentary has gone on to Mexico and then to Iran.) The winning film deserved to win - Beloved, by Yaser Talebi, an Iranian director - about an 80-year-old lady who lives alone in the mountains with her herd of cows.
Oh, it felt so good to be alive.
However, this is not why I fell in love again - it was re-finding Paris and what I had so loved at 16 years old. That Snapshot of Paris.
Long walks, getting lost, chatting with waiters in cafes. One waitress, Jino, has worked in the same place near Notre Dame for 42 years. She is retiring in December. “It is all a memory game, each time you try and outsmart yourself when you take orders, to remember everything, especially a long and complicated order, they’re the brain-training-best.” Have you been happy? “Of course, or I’d have walked out, I did my PhD in people working here.” She smiles and rubs the table with her cloth. I think of Gerard’s wife and Mascot.
One afternoon I sit drinking coffee on the Champs Elysees by the Lido for old time's sake. Elegant women smelling of expensive perfumes from Al Jazeera, the Qatari perfumers, walk past the street dwellers who have occupied an alcove. A talkative Parisienne of about 32, Fatine, is with her mother at the next table. We chat. She coaches couples on how to keep going in their relationship. She is beautiful under the warmth of the November terrace heaters. My recipe is conservative, it is written by my mother and it works. It is the holy trine: good food, good comprehension and good sex.
That’s all?
“That’s all, no more, no less.”
It’s a bit old fashioned. No?
She looks at me with her shining green-blue Kabil eyes. Old fashioned! If you want love to last, you have to treat love and partnership like a dance, a two-step, one decides to lead, the other will follow, back and forwards, it’s as simple as that. Dance in the kitchen, dance in friendship and then dance in bed. Believe me, it works!” She smiles perfect white teeth , her mother smiles too, an older version of her daughter.
White teeth and happy marriages.
I wander some more, and more, to the home of graffiti and Belleville, where Edith Piaf was born at number 72 rue de Belleville,
all day walking as Paris keeps on love dancing,
even the crows are kissing,
to the famed Tati clothing store, now closed yet still intact.
And walk till the the lights go out …
yet somehow they flicker on forever …
The Paris Two-Step with Edith Piaf singing - Fais moi valser
Thank you for passing by … Enjoy your week and, if you like this story, share it.
Jeanne, with love
I would like to share the retrospective on our Canadian comrade Shahin Parhami - documentary filmmaker - who was commemorated in Montreal at the end of November. He had battled a rare cancer for a year.
Dr. Donato Totaro, a friend and faculty member of Concordia University, instigated and made possible the articles and memory of Shahin for the last volume of offscreen which you can read here.
THANK YOU X
https://offscreen.com/issues/view/volume-25-issue-11
After chatting every single full evening in the last week, except a couple of them going to a concert, and a job that took all the rest of my time save sleeping, I read at last, and watched Shang Xin Fang.
I liked the idea of a number of about one-second takes of certain scenes, where you're surprised that they had their effect in such a short view. Same for a few subtitles... so you *have to* rewind to be sure to have got the message! Four full days to celebrate an event, what a good idea. I'd like to organize some this...
I've never been to Paris, but feel like you gave me a great introduction. I'm excited to explore these films you share with us!