High life
Paris revisited
Taki
Papa Hemingway knew a thing or two when he wrote: 'Paris is like a mistress who does not grow old and always has other lovers.' Unlike people who live in the present; Hemingway's emotions existed in the past, and Paris was a place that I suspect gave him more pain than pleasure towards the end. It is not hard to under- stand why, either. Paris never really changes, the smells are the same, the taxi drivers are the same, the Parisians are the same. Nostalgia is the city's cheapest com- modity.
A cynic might ask, nostalgia for what? Again, an easy question to answer. Pri- marily nostalgia for one's youth. Or in my case, the time when I thought of nothing other than chasing girls, going to night clubs, and riding an Argentine off in front of the clubhouse of the Polo Club in the Bois. In Papa's case Paris meant the place where it all began, where the trip really started, and as everyone knows, the voyage is what counts, not the arrival.
As I said, the trouble with Paris is that nothing changes. Go down the rue de Bac, turn left on the rue de Lille, and you see the tiny pension that once served as your favourite cinq a sept rendezvous during the late Fifties. Or, walk up the rue Francois Ier, and in the corner of the rue Pierre Charon there is La Belle Ferronniere, the bistro where the Paris Match boys used to hang out, as well as all sorts of ladies of the night. One of the waiters asks you why you've stayed away for so long, which doesn't make it any easier. Best of all, drive on up the boulevard Montparnasse and dine at the Closerie des Lilas with Parisian friends who speak of nothing except the beauty of women, a typical French habit that is full of gentility and fun. At the Closerie the ghosts are real. The piano player plays tunes you heard almost 30 years ago, and you recognise a couple of faces from way back then.
After the hell of Athens Paris seems even more beautiful. This time I chose to stay at a small hotel on the Right Bank in order to be close to where my children are staying. My room is huge, with a large fireplace and windows that start at the floor and rise almost to 14 feet. Every morning I look out over the gray slate Parisian roofs and listen to the sounds of the city waking up. As I'm with the wife and children I am drinking very little and not night-clubbing at all. Ergo I'm up at the time I used to go to bed when I lived here. The effect is one and the same. There is nothing like Paris at daybreak.
The only changes I've noticed in Paris are that there are now more Arabs. And more places in which they keep the money they have ripped off us since 1973. Even Merril Lynch, which used to be in front of the Travellers Club near Le Rond Point, has gone oily. It is now the Bank of Dubai. As far as buildings are concerned the French are light years ahead of the rest of Europe. There is a blot on the Left Bank where the Tour Montparnasse stands like an undulating finger (middle finger) to good taste, and there is Le Baubourg. Otherwise the Palumbos of this world have failed in Paris. They've ruined the vista through the Arc, but that is about all. The French know how to preserve their heritage.
And they know how to commemorate French heroes. All last week I wandered around Paris seeing some old friends, but mostly showing Paris to my four-year-old boy, and nine-year-old daughter. Our favourite visit was to Les Invalides. My boy was open-mouthed when he saw the tomb of the great Napoleon (especially when I let it slip that we have the same birthday). We also saw the tomb of Marshal Duroc, the man who first approached Maria Walewska de la part de l'Empereur, and who died by taking a direct hit while galloping next to Bonaparte. When my son saw a first world war taxi (there to com- memorate the part taxis played in saving
Paris in 1917) he asked me, 'Is that Napoleon's taxi, Papa?'
Well, it might be hard for young children to understand about glory and heroic deeds, but the message can be got across. All one has to do is to take one's children to Les Invalides, rather than the movies. And maybe my visit there is the best thing I've done so far for my daughter. It might keep her from falling for such un-Invalides- like people as Warren Beatty or Keith Richards one day. Let's hope so.
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