[Continued from previous issues]
NIGHTTIME SPECTACLE
The Eiffel Tower at night looked like a golden queen, solemnly growing larger as our boat approached. Some of the Ukrainian passengers had dozed off, tired by our bus travels, and could have missed the sight, but for our pushing and shouting, “Wake up! You’ll sleep in Brovary! This is Paris!”
The French capital was an ocean of blazing light, out of shape and focus in the dark, the city now consisted of colorful dots, lines, and patterns. The Bridge de Vienne smoothly transforms into the Palais de Chaillot, with sparkling pleasure boats plying the Seine beneath.
We were snatched from the reverie by a crowd of roller skaters. A dark rustling mass rolled past, unruffled, when a column of bikers wearing black helmets raced from round the corner. These characters scorn traffic rules. In fact, they wait for the red light to throw their bikes forth. Very like the stubborn bull’s instinct.
We headed for the Champs Elysees.
The street proved narrower than I had expected, but very long, with a host of sidewalk and countless benches, bathing in neon colors. Looming grandly at the end was the green Arc de Triomphe.
We hardly made it to the Metro station; as in Kyiv, they closed at midnight.
THE PARASITES!
Back at the Hotel Formula One, we all went for the long-sought shower booths (no special booths for ladies and gentlemen).
I was very impressed by the drying room. Whatever contrivance it had blew me all over with hot air from head to foot. In the opposite booth the air was icy cold, so I immediately realized how Kay must have felt in the lap of the Snow Queen.
It was midnight. Happily, we packed into one of the rooms to share impression. Someone had bought some Camembert cheese covered in white mold. And the smell was something. It would have been hard on our senses but for the realization that real French cheese was like that. We partook of it and agreed that it had a specific taste. Someone defined the experience, “It smacks of goat.” I don’t know about goats, but eight of ten fellow countrymen refused the delicacy.
Suddenly the goat subject was changed to perfumes. Our girls had found a store with a 30% discount and bought eau de toilette . Dasha, the most experienced of them (a gossip columnist with a Kyiv newspaper), gave us a professional account, “French goods made in France are nothing like goods imported from France. Take their scent. Here it costs eighty bucks, just like in Kyiv, but in Kyiv it smells a bit of lilac and quickly evaporates. Here the fragrance is so strong, like a bucket of lilacs.” And then she was desperately economic, “Damn it! Why on earth did I have to buy two bottles?”
Twenty minutes passed with everybody sniffing the bottles until we all had lost all appetite and sense of smell. The women were clicking their tongues appreciatively.
The wine had been drunk and white mold consumed. We all left for our rooms.
Yours truly, his roommate Mykhailo, and group leader Vasyl ambled to their room with the fireproof door, dropped on their beds, and were instantly asleep. It was on the third night of the bus travel when our bodies were finally in an appropriately horizontal position. Yet in the middle of the night someone started banging on our bulletproof door. It was so thick that we first thought someone was trying to break down the door of the next room. Deep in sleep, we thought it was a bad dream, but then we heard the muffled yell, “Vasyl!”
He was on the top bunk with low sideboards lest the occupant drop on the one sleeping underneath. And the bed underneath was wide, with yours truly and Mykhailo sleeping almost like family.
Mykhailo was the first to respond to the shouting. Drowsily he got up and opened the door, letting in blinding light from the corridor and two vague female silhouettes. And then we heard a stage whisper on the verge of hysteria, “We’ve got bedbugs!”
Vasyl stirred in his bed, shell- shocked by sudden light and incredible news. “What do you expect me to do?” he murmured groggily.
“But you’ve got to do something!” the women were shouting now. Like in that joke, except the situation was anything but funny.
“At first we couldn’t understand what was happening, we were tossing and turning in bed, then we realized something was biting us. We turned on the light and just stood and gaped. Our sheets were spotted with blood! You must talk to the manager. We can’t stay in that room!” The ladies were filled with resolve.
Indeed, spending the first night in Paris with prehistoric parasites did not seem overly romantic, but actually quite original.
Writers and movie-makers have written and shown a lot about les miserables , the discreet charm of the bourgeoisie, and splendeurs et miseres des courtisanes , yet none has paid any attention to the bedbugs of Paris. In other words, yours truly is the first to fill this gap.
Reluctantly, Vasyl climbed down from his bed. Putting on some clothes, he swore under his breath, “Damned France!”
We got up at seven in the morning when sober lemon light filled the room, and Vasyl told us that he didn’t even know how to say bedbugs in English to the manager, but he remembered the word insect and, using sign language, he had shown that those bloody insects were biting. The manager had finally grasped the meaning and had the shivers, but he was not surprised. He hurried upstairs and escorted the Ukrainian ladies to another room.
The three of us discussed the problem. All I could remember about the legendary parasites was that they had once inhabited a student dorm and, if attacked by insecticides, would hastily retreat to the next room through the electric sockets. Warily we eyed ours.
Down at the canteen, when asked how things were, we said everything was OK, except that some of the group were bitten by bedbugs. Of course, everybody thought it was a joke. No one could believe it for a moment and Vasyl had warned us against making a big thing of it. The bitten ladies were not in a talkative mood, either. The manager had refunded them four days’ cost, so they were financially satisfied.
EXCURSION TO THE FUTURE
In the morning, Paris looked hung- over and in the evening, like a courtesan getting ready for a ball. Our bus took off on a sightseeing trip in the gray morning haze.
Lidia, our guide, said that we were surrounded by a variety of architectural styles, ranging from Louis the whatever to Napoleon III. As for Louis XIV, the guide insisted that he was an exceptional conqueror and had built a soldiers’ home later known as the Invalides . Personally I remembered from history books that he made numerous conquests among the fair sex and built the Palace of Versailles to accommodate his amorous pursuits.
Tall buildings with mansards turned out to be a “nineteenth century luxury” and the Napoleonic cult emerged forty years after the emperor’s death, when all the negative consequences of his military campaigns were forgotten and the people remembered only the French imperial triumph.
Following an information current, we headed for the Defence, one of the most unusual districts of Paris.
After the war many French architects developed a fancy for US styles. They were given a large plot in the suburbs for experimentation (on hearing this I wondered why the central square was being used in Kyiv).
We drove under a mass of clocks shaped like a cluster of grapes, with a lone Arab standing underneath, probably waiting for his date. (A good place, for he could always shake his head at her being late and point to either of the clocks). A huge metal wheel was ingeniously mounted right beside the royal palace. Yet all this avant-garde stuff seemed of little consequence compared to the architectural phantasmagoria of the Defence.
It was a powerful outburst of architectural imagination. The New York principle of self-aggrandizement is subordinated to cosmic aesthetics. This giant business district of Paris seemed like a mind-boggling shooting area for a science fiction movie like The Fifth Element . Glass place skyscrapers frozen in totally unexpected forms. The feeling was that flying taxis, buses, and spaceships would appear any moment. The glass capsule of an elevator gliding smoothly upward would reach the roof of a giant building (shaped like a rectangular O) and then take off and fly into orbit.
LOSS OF PHOTO FRIEND
After the fairy-tale Defence, we headed for the legendary Cathedral of Notre Dame. It was the first time I saw the famous church with my own eyes. It was raining heavily, and the cathedral looked somberly gray, forbiddingly impregnable, but with a savory touch owing to blooming red roses at the foot of the grand structure: stone and flower, strength and tenderness, sword and heart. All this looked like an illustration for Victor Hugo’s Hunchback of Notre Dame . Boiling passions behind the ascetic facade. We will return to the legendary place on a bright day. It will look entirely different then.
As it was, we trudged along to have lunch at a student canteen on the outskirts. Once inside we felt that all French students were Blacks and Arabs. We Ukrainian nationals could not quite figure out the food-dispensing system and raced from one buffet with delicacies to the next, until we found a cash register manned by a Black at the end of the hall. Like ours, the French students could have a couple of glasses of cola free and had to pay only for the third. Economy!
I had my Olympus photo camera hanging around my neck. The table was laden with dishes, so my fatal mistake was to hang it from the back of the chair. Everybody was paying close attention to white table wine. It sells at the cost of water in France. And so when we drove off to listen to a professor’s lecture on the perils of narcotics ten minutes later (a compulsory condition of the trip), I remembered that I had left the camera at the canteen.
One of the group leaders made a call with his mobile phone and was told by the canteen’s security guard that the camera was nowhere to be seen.
Eleanor, the veteran bus traveler, uttered a remarkably merciful phrase (I would appreciate its significance later): “Perhaps you’ll feel better knowing that someone stole my $300 camera before the trip.”
I laughed, “You’d be surprised but your information hasn’t made me any happier.”
“Then perhaps you’ll be interested to know that they sell disposable cameras. Someone lost his camera during the previous trip, so he bought a disposable one.”
“Now that’s what I call essential information.”
FLOWERS AND RABBITS
We were in downtown Paris. Beautiful patios of the Palais Royal. In one of them we saw a pile of metal balls on a plate, in another one striped stubby poles like those you see at the circus, except that there were no lions or tigers. All those ultramodern urban contraptions proved a harmonious addition to ancient architectural projects.
While on the Rue Rivoli, we dropped in at a pet shop. There were glass aquariums with fish and glass boxes with rabbits and puppets. There were also cages. Customers were allowed to poke their fingers through the bars and everybody was doing just that, with puppets and kittens of all colors and shades happily pouncing at them. I especially liked a tiny big-eared French bulldog. One of the cages was inhabited by an ordinary gray striped valley cat, but the price tag read 500 euros. I thought that smuggling cats from Kyiv might be a profitable business.
A girl in a green blouse chose a small brown rabbit, and her big-eared little brother was placed in a colorful gift box, the whole transaction being scornfully watched by a large white cockatoo, probably thinking there you are, another poor soul crated for shipment; best to keep a low profile.
Out of the pet shop and into a florist’s, I saw heaps of flowers: a jungle of orchids, tulips, chrysanthemums, and more. The fragrance was so strong, it made my head spin. And I had more pollen on me than the stamens, a little more and I would spring buds.
Finally we got to the department store. There were numbers of departments stenciled on the linoleum floor. Not asking for directions in principle, we tried to spot a photo shop, it was like a television quiz show. We found it after twenty minutes of wandering, with a pretty salesgirl stationed in the center of the photo realm. A reel of film cost seven euros and a disposable camera, loaded, eleven. The camera was cheaper than the film.
Fully armed again!
A PURELY UKRAINIAN ADVENTURE
We started our climb of the Montmartre in the evening, five of us, almost an alpine team. All the way up from the Opera, through the Av de Clichy known for its sex shops and brothels. The shop windows were packed with women’s legs. I have in mind here not whole female dummies, but just the legs displaying panty hoses. The sight was not disgusting. I imagined men’s legs and felt no aesthetic inspiration.
Pimps with broken noses were standing guard by the doors to the brothels, surrounded by displays of pornographic photos. Spotting me, they would jump forth, shouting oui, monsieur ! I told one of them, a black with a musketeer beard, “No, comrade!” To which he immediately responded, tovarishch, davai, davai! [Russian for come on, comrade]. From then on the phrase was a catchword with our tourist group.
Eleanor told us that the higher a cafe was on the Montmartre, the lower the prices. We were tired and starved, yet our girls, spotting a cafe, would shout, oh no, the prices! In reality, the prices were reasonable (if one hryvnia equaled one euro). The Ukrainian economic level is approximately five times lower than the average European.
We stepped into a very small Arab shop and bought vodka with the suspicious label Poliakoff (0.35 liter at 4 euros). No one knew how to ask for glasses in French, so I tapped a dirty coffee cup used as an ashtray. The shop owner understood and gave us five glasses. The girls bought wine.
Ten minutes later our ascent to the Montmartre could be compared to climbing Mont Blanc. Finally we spotted a small restaurant with the welcoming sign Montmartre. Once inside, we were warmly greeted by a fat Arab.
As in Ukraine, customers were not allowed to bring alcoholic beverages. Three of five of the group were obsessed with the idea of having vodka to ease the stress of the climb.
We ordered pizza and the shop owner started by placing a huge carafe of water and tall glasses. Eleanor had a brilliant idea: “Let’s fill some of the glasses with water and the others with vodka.” Quickly, I filled some glasses with vodka under the table. It was just like old times!
And then the funny part started. I placed the glasses with vodka on the table and saw that they were no different from those with water, and then somehow we got confused: which glasses had what in them. The situation was so ridiculous we started guffawing. The shop owner was no longer smiling, eyeing our group suspiciously, thinking just look at these crazy foreigners, becoming crazy drunk on water!
There was a no smoking sign, so Eleanor stepped outside to light a cigarette. I wanted to proceed with under-the-table vodka dispensing, but the girls hissed at me. And then I had my own bright idea. If a customer could step outside to have a smoke, he could also step outside to have a drink. We all did and returned tipsy and happy. It was a brilliantly executed quick deployment alcoholism maneuver!
AT THE SUMMIT
Another two or three flights of stairs and we were at the top of the Montmartre, Place Theatrale. It looked very like Andriyivsky uzviz in Kyiv and there were painters in evidence. Even though it was evening and the lighting was poor, they tried to sell pictures to passersby (you buy it, monsieur, you will have a good look at it home and love it). We squeezed into a narrow street at the end of which loomed the white elephantine body of the Basilica of Sacre Coeur. We crawled out of the street crevice and found ourselves face to face with the architectural wonder. We stepped inside.
I sat in a wood armchair of the Catholic church and prepared to be left alone with the Supreme Spheres, but I was not left in peace. Two minutes later an old man wearing a beige shirt started to show everybody the door; the church was closing for the night. Alas, even there my soul knew no tranquillity.
There were no clochards or suchlike by Sacre Coeur, instead a group of drunken students hung around on the vast stairs, drinking cheap wine, kissing, singing, and playing guitars. It is the Mecca of lovers from across the world. Pairs were determinedly climbing many stairs to touch the Church of the Sacred Heart. Apart from French, I heard German, Polish, English, and Spanish.
The public viewing platform opened on a gorgeous vista of nighttime Paris. Pink sunset, something to remember for years. Yellow fading sunbeams lent the city an antique touch. Narrow Kyiv streets in the vicinity of Independence Square look like those we saw below, except that to picture what we saw one had to multiply the old Kyiv streets a hundred times over.
