Round the Bend in Paris
The first thing I did when I stepped out of Gare-du-Nord station, all bright-eyed and with a tune on my tongue, was buy a pack of cigarettes. I’ve never bought my own tobacco on account of me not being much of a smoker. I mean… I’ve had plenty of cigarettes when I’m drinking, but those have always been leeched off my friends (and that doesn’t really count). My pedestrian smoking habit has never compelled me to buy my own tobacco, yet here I was, in a dingy little Tabac shop opposite the station, purchasing a pack of Marlboro Golds.
Mere chance or whim didn’t shove me into that tobacconist; a scheme two months or so in the making had predestined not just this purchase by my presence in Paris – but the two go hand in hand, really. I’ve always wanted to make a solo trip abroad. And I’ve always wanted to make a trip without any accommodation where I’m required by my own demented law to stay up all night and roam the streets. Naturally, I decided to combine the two when I found ridiculously cheap tickets on the Eurostar to Paris two-ish months ago. Given my overthinking nature, my excitement for the trip was occasionally alloyed by trepidation. Wild, and thankfully fleeting, fancies ran through my head about being mugged of my phone, wallet, and passport in the small hours of the Parisian night, leaving me stranded and destitute in a foreign land. Fortunately, nothing so extreme happened. But the actual chain of events, and the cause behind this sleepless and strung-out account, of my trip, written on the verge of a physical and psychological collapse, might be of some interest to you.
Or not, I don’t know.
I had arrived at 9:45 in the morning, and my train back to London was the very next morning at 7:42. This was my third dalliance with Paris, my first two were under the strictures of a schedule however, so I didn’t get to explore the city properly. Now, I had given myself just under twenty-four hours of gliding through the city, gorging on its marvellous sights, and… smoking a cigarette per hour.
A light rain was wetting Paris, cutting through the mist that shrouded the ghostly city when I lit my first cigarette and began walking towards Montmartre. Seagulls fought ferociously over half-eaten sandwiches, bits of bread falling out of the sky like bombs, as I walked over dingy railway bridges through the 18th Arr. Nestled between the apartment buildings and cafes, I came across steep, straight, and long stairways that carved ascension up the neighbourhood.
Taking the stairs up cleared the air up as much as the graffiti from the walls, until I was at the foot of the magnificent Basilique de Sacré-Cœur du Montmartre. The top of its great dome and vertiginous tower were blurred by the mist, as if the place was in two minds about which world it belonged to; the living or the dead. Buildings experience time on a scale vastly different to humans – at least the ones not made out of shitty construction materials that can be demolished by a wolf’s blow. Where a mere human lifespan winks in and out of existence like anti-matter particles, buildings live through many generations, witnessing the city grow around them. The smoke-stained stone gargoyles and angels of the Basilique de Sacré-Cœur, who have seen god knows how much, regarded me with insect coldness. Humbled by my smallness but unable to confront it anymore, I swiftly moved on, feeling much like a flea free to pounce around a boundless megalopolis.
Walking up a steep and meandering incline, the ground finally flattened at a street, lined on both sides with gift shops and bistros, some of them closed, most of them open to what little business they can catch on a ghastly day. The street opened out onto a lively little square called the Place du Tertre. Awnings from the bistros were down, under which beautiful people sat drinking and chain-smoking with faint smiles upon their faces. A swarm of school girls were taking selfies with the coffee they acquired from a nearby café. A couple of painters sat with their easels under large umbrellas, their brushstrokes trying to keep up with the ephemeral and shifting landscape around them. I stood there in the middle of the square, breathing it all in – no doubt looking like a complete fool to the locals.
I came here seeking Paris, and as I took in lungfuls of air with the zeal of a bloodhound catching a scent, I felt I was on the right track.
The next order of business was visiting the Pére-Lachaise cemetery. It was time to pay my respects to the dearly departed. Google Maps claimed it was an hour and ten on foot from where I stood. I resolved to do it in forty minutes.
My route took me through the 19th and 20th Arrs. where construction works and overly-crowded markets underneath Metro bridges choked the streets, leaving little space for cars and humanity – but that didn’t stop either from trying to stake their claim on the ground.
Dubbed the rougher parts of Paris by many, I feel that’s an unfair and one-dimensional view of the area. Sure, it lacks the spotlessness and regal splendour of inner Paris and you’re very likely to get accosted or mugged if you don’t have your wits about you at night. But that’s because here clearly doesn’t get as much development funding as the more affluent parts of the city. Urban planning and policy lobbyists loathe to see funds allocated to neighbourhoods in need when that money could instead go to the areas they live in. This being a largely multicultural neighbourhood also accounts for the absent funding. Scores of Algerian, Malian, Portuguese, Senegalese, and Martinique people bobbed and weaved through market stalls, flipping off overzealous motorists. Despite the lack of development funds, this is a bustling district that pulls each of your senses in a different direction with its colourful and heady delights. Where the affluent and posh parts of many places are marked by architectural conformity and royal sterility, areas lower down the social ladder have a beautifully sordid character uniquely their own. Away from the immaculate boulevards and brilliantly decorated cafes, here was another piece of Paris.
All in all, it’s only a matter of time before this place gets ruthlessly gentrified.
With the mist clearing away, the rain had the sky all to itself and began pouring in earnest. I had an umbrella in my backpack. But because of my aversion for carrying things in my hands and not wanting to block my view of a city I came to seek, I refused to use my umbrella – a decision I’d come to regret a week later because of a vicious flu. The more I walked through the rain, my mind became aware of a sensation which was soon impossible to ignore. My toes felt damp in my shoes… I unzipped my boots in a panic and found the front of my socks wet… on both feet! After an annoyed inspection, I found a tiny split on the side of my shoes where it bends with the movement of my step. It wasn’t a terribly large hole but it was enough. It takes the smallest hole in an astronaut’s suit to damn them in the vacuum. My skin crawled all over. Few sensations, I believe, are more odious to the human condition than walking around in wet socks. Buying new socks would’ve been futile as they’d just get wet too. And my shoes weren’t broken enough to warrant throwing them away on foreign soil; a cobbler would be able to make quick work of them when I get back. So, damp foot in boot and onwards was the only way to go.
After this mini-tragedy, I thought I deserved a treat – coming from a person who has never once denied himself a treat in any circumstance – so I bought a pain-au-chocolat. I wolfed it down in seconds on the street, so flaky was the pastry that enveloped the smooth chocolate; I immediately went back and bought myself another.
Soon, I was crossing the threshold over into the resting place of the dead. There was a sudden and palpable shift in the atmosphere when the Cimetière du Père-Lachaise embraced me with its low walls. There was a solemn sense of stillness all around; everything – including the frenetic dance of air molecules – came to a respectful standstill. The gaunt winter trees lining the cobbled avenues bowed low over the dead. Reading a map of the place just past the entrance, I could still hear the sounds of the city beyond the walls: a dirge of car horns and blaring sirens. But these symphonies sounded muted, as if coming from afar and not the other side of this wall. The deeper into the cemetery I went though, the city’s song was supplanted by Nature’s hymn; the rustling of trees in the wind with occasional birdsong. Even the rain had ceased by now, but enough water had gotten in my shoes that I felt it sloshing around down there - however, that didn’t matter, the tranquillity here had numbed me. Or maybe it was the cold…
As far as the eyes could see, gravestones stuck out of the ground in loose formation like the teeth of some ancient earth god. Most were made of stone while some of marble, but the ever-encroaching moss made no differentiation between the two. Crosses abounded everywhere: blocky ones, angular ones, ornately medieval ones, crosses engraved with floral patterns, some were free-standing, some were engraved straight onto the tombs. I took out my earphones and began my aimless stroll through this placid necropolis.
Each breath of cold and clean air settled on my glassy soul like vapour on windows. Such was the serenity here that even the wild and perpetual clamouring of my monkey mind was sedated into blissful silence. I felt alert but also indifferent to worry, for I was in the presence of those who had experienced lifetimes of worry towards their ultimate slumber. Temporarily, I shared in their invulnerability. There were a couple of people to whom I wanted to pay my respects: Jim Morrison, André Breton, Chopin, Oscar Wilde, Marcel Proust, George Rodenbach, Camille Pissaro, Edith Piaf, and Georges Méliès. However, the futility of aimlessly wandering through a cemetery home to hundreds of thousands of graves in search of a handful became immediately clear to me. I was soon lost in a deathly monotony of damp, moss-covered stone. Family crypts and mausoleums with spectacular stone-work, despite their marriage of aesthetic and historical beauty, made for poor sign-posts to navigate the place with. Soon, I stumbled across another map, took a picture of it as well as writing down in my Notes app all the graves I wanted to visit, and in which district (areas by which the cemetery is divided in) they’re located. Armed with my reference material, I zipped from one end of the graveyard to the other, spending a couple of minutes with each of my idols.
Leaning on the railing that separated Jim Morrison’s grave, I lit another cigarette while listening to The End, puffing away on the verge of tears while the instrumental freak-out at the end of the track hammered my ears. Someone stuffed bits of dirt near Jim’s grave into a plastic tube as a souvenir. My souvenir, on the other hand, was the tar I was pumping in my lungs.
I came across a spotted black and white cat out on a stroll between the headstones, so, naturally I followed it as far as I could. Once it became aware of my presence, it circled around some graves, leapt up on a wall, and disappeared within the bushes; never once stepping on a grave. I encountered the curious feline once more on my way out, they were eating a pile of cat biscuits between two graves.
Having seen everything I wanted, I set off towards Notre-Dame Cathedral. It has recently reopened fter the conflagration that ate through its roof a couple of years ago, so I thought it’d be wise to see it before some other catastrophe befell it. Some places, due to certain environmental factors, have a short shelf-life; like Venice for example. Go see it above ground while you can before you need to rent scuba-diving gear to visit its aquatic ruins. And I hadn’t considered Notre-Dame to be such a place, until the construction fire incinerated its spire and left a gaping hole in the roof. On the other side of the English Channel, Big Ben was also being renovated at the same time and I was convinced that it too would burst into flames like its French relative.
I took the Rue de la Roquette through the 11th Arr. which took me past the Place de la Bastille. Where the imposing fortress of Bastille prison once stood is now a large U-shaped intersection that’s inundated with motor traffic all day. Right in the middle of the Place is the slender Colonne de Juillet with its gilded angel brandishing the torch of liberty. I paid little attention to this, for my mind was occupied by what I was drinking. Didn’t peg Paris for the kind of place to find a chai latte, especially with oat milk. I chased this lightly-spiced beverage down with another cigarette while I walked past the Opera. In no time I was upon the banks of the Seine. I stopped on a bridge at the Pont de Sully and watched its murky green waters flow under me, wondering what the hell were the French government thinking with trying to host the Olympic swimming games in these jaundiced depths. I’d pay to watch the Thames pitted against the Seine over which has the dirtiest waters.
As I walked along the river towards Notre-Dame, my eyes feasted upon the Hausmann apartment buildings, with their ornamented balconies and angled mansard roofs, that decorated the city. These are the buildings which give Paris’ boulevards their grandiose standing; their corniced heights focus lines of perspective down the lengths of the boulevards, creating an urban snapshot of wonderful symmetry. Their architecture is understated yet exploding with pompous sophistication – much like the buildings lining most of London’s West End and Regent Street.
With the shadow of Notre-Dame blotting out the hazy sun, I was surprised to see that most of its exterior was still scaffolded. But then again, a burn victim will wear their bandages for a long time before they can comfortably take them off. Though the union between the cathedral’s gothic stone-work and its exoskeleton of steel scaffold felt unnatural at first, the longer I looked upon this strange combination, the more they harmonised. This dense web of steel rods, in their cold and colourless monotony, complemented the cathedral’s smoke-stained façade. The whole cathedral felt like a living being, regenerating its lost limbs one cell at a time. New skin hasn’t grown over its skeleton and muscle yet. It’s brilliant, turreted spire was back though.
I joined the incredibly long queue before the entrance, but thankfully it was a quick-moving one. The closer I got, more of the cathedral’s divine decoration leapt out at me. Within minutes, I was entering this prodigious edifice by its dazzling front doors, aptly named the Portals. Figures of saints, martyrs, and seraphs were carved in tiered arches above the door with a masterful hand. As this was the Portal of the Last Judgment I was entering, marvellous bas-reliefs were carved into the stone under the arch, depicting a procession of souls being ushered away by angels while another lot were being carried off in chains by demons. From top to bottom, there wasn’t a single surface that had escaped a chisel and hammer.
Once inside, the first place my eyes went was up. A huge vaulted ceiling that curves up like clouds in a storm, greeted me with its warmth. Or perhaps the warmth came from the thousands of people milling about. Further down, where the perspective lines from every aspect of the architecture direct your gaze, a priest was delivering a sermon in French. I could understand nothing but the music in his airy voice. Alongside the fantastic scale of the place, I was struck dumb by how brilliantly the place had been restored. One wouldn’t be able to tell that only three years ago the place didn’t have a roof. Neither did the place look like half its exterior was covered in scaffolding. The place had been given a proper winter clean; its stones the shade of fresh cream. I was expecting some frescoes though, but we can’t have it all, can we?
I found a place to sit under this gargantuan, fresco-less ceiling and let the sounds of a French sermon fill my ears. The last time I had sat down was on the train that brought me into the city, so I was luxuriating in my rest. I also used this brief moment to plan my day ahead. By not having a place to stay, I had put myself at the mercy of whenever the bars would close, so I had to find someplace that stayed open as late into the night as possible. My saving grace was a place called Au Pied de Cochon. It was a Wednesday and where every boozer in Paris kicked its patrons out at 2 am, this oasis stayed open till 5 am! Spectacular. That meant I’d only be out on the street for two and a half hours until my train back to London. The decision was instant and obvious.
I had a little wander around the cathedral, through its side halls, past its various chapels decorated with religious art (Old Masters and contemporary paintings, sculptures, and friezes). With tall ceilings, each chapel looked out through massive stained glass windows of interlacing lines done in turquoise, red, and ultramarine. I also came across a confession chamber and as someone came out, I was suddenly gripped by the intense desire to volunteer and confess my sins. But what would I confess? There was far too much. Anyway, I was too tentative as someone who could sort through their sins quicker than I stepped up and went in with the pastor.
Further down, I happened to look up when I was held spellbound by an overwhelmingly beautiful sight. My sight met one of the cathedral’s circular windows, those large and arcipluvian eyes that look out across the sweep of Paris. Even in the grey afternoon light, those stained-glass windows looked like kaleidoscopic flowers in bloom. Countless shades of blue, purple, and red bristled and lapped each other, radiating out along the window’s shape.
On the far end of the cathedral is another brilliant circle, this one illuminated by electric candlelight in concentric rings. The golden light shone with a radiance matching the treasure they keep in the circle’s centre. Protected in a glass and gold tube is supposedly the same crown of thorns Jesus was made to wear while he was being crucified. The gold thread by which this ring of rushes is held together is commensurate with the Catholic Churches religious profligacy. While people filed through a gate to go pray before the crown, I prayed by taking a picture of it which I’ll probably never look at again.
Despite my lack of any religious beliefs, the sense of divinity I felt exuding from every part of this cathedral was beyond dispute. Every architectural choice, each piece of art, all the bas-reliefs and friezes, even the lighting felt like a calculated prayer to the spirit of Christendom. Were the €2 candles also a part of God’s divine plan? Because the people who designed and built this cathedral did so under the influence of religious fervour, they’ve imbued every stone with second-hand holiness. It’s why even the most strident atheist can’t help but feel somewhat carried away by the bombastic energy of a Black congregation.
All religions and spiritual beliefs channel the sacred essence of the universe in their own way. Their iconography isn’t just the vehicle that transports the message; it’s the message itself. I hear infinity whispering to me through the repetitive patterns of Islamic art as much as I do through the pomp and splendour of Catholicism, the reserved simplicity of Buddhism or the ancientness of the Hebrew script.
I wanted to grab a bite soon, but there was one very important business for me to attend. I had to find where the album cover for Lonerism by Tame Impala was shot. It’s a beautifully candid picture of people hanging out under the scorching summer sun in the Jardin du Luxembourg, taken from the other side of the fence. The place was only a ten-minute walk from Notre-Dame, so in that a-way I headed.
You can see the Luxembourg Palace off in the background of the image so I found the front and began walking away from it. I could see patches of grass intervalled by gravel walkways and eventually those boxy trees. And there’s the fence! I was in the right place. The green sign on the fence was no longer there but that didn’t matter. All I had to do was line up the shot and take it. Apart from the polar opposite weather and the total lack of people, I think I replicated it rather well, don’t you think?
Now it was time for both me and my phone to eat. I brought my phone charger (and an extra cable to charge my earphones) with me, but without a place to stay I was reliant upon charging my things at cafes or bars. I resorted to being that person. I imagined myself as a beggar, lugging all my electronics and chargers with me in a bindle and panhandling for plug sockets. Please sir, may I charge my phone?
My phone’s battery is so utterly useless by now that that percentage points drop before my eyes. I required my phone for navigation and, most importantly, for music. Despite being incredibly sparing with my phone usage, I was down to 21% and I was getting pretty desperate.
I was attracted like a moth to the bright marquee lights of a place called La Rotonde. Like some electric jewel, it blazed on the Boulevard du Montparnasse, blinding everyone with its brilliance. I strolled into its plush, red interior, like the inside of a blood vessel; waiters likened to white blood cells in their starched shirts flitted to and fro with trays laden with wine and nibbles. I walked up to the maître d’ – the chief white blood cell - a stocky type with ashen hair who refused to decommission his outgrown suit. He ignored me for the duration of his phone call.
He mumbled something in French at me - monsieur being the only thing I understood – once he hung up.
“Can I have a table for myself?” I asked in timid English.
What kind of imbecile is this? his eyes said. I had done absolutely everything wrong. I’ve become too used to the borderline servile manner hospitality staff adopt in Britain. Having worked many years across bars, restaurants, and cafes, though each place is different in how they treat their customers, coddling is the general rule. Also, when you eat out somewhere, chances are you have to wait by the door to be seated by staff. For the most part, French front of house staff prefer minimal contact with their customers. Wham bam thank you ma’am. So where I should’ve just walked in, grabbed a table, and waited until someone came to take my order, I had done the exact opposite by poking the bear in the black suit. What’s worse, I had spoken to him in English, and he let me know of my transgression by replying in the most condescending tone, “There are tables everywheeeere.”
Suddenly I felt like I was the stupid one. I was under no illusions about his rudeness, but his paint-thinner tone had stripped my conviction of all its colour. He was right, after all, there were empty tables all over the place. I wanted to run away and try my luck elsewhere but that would be tantamount to waving a white flag. Clearly I was a thorn in his side, so the best I could do was dig the spike in deeper.
“I need a table with a plug rocket to charge my phone,” I said.
He shrugged his shoulders with a jerk that could only be intended to buzz an insect like me away. I stuck two fingers, like the prongs of a plug, into my other palm. That seemed to clear things up, for the puzzlement on his face was replaced by an equal measure of annoyance. Like snatching a fly out of thin air with a pair of chopsticks, he grabbed a passing waiter, blurted something in angry French, and pointed towards the corner of the restaurant.
The waiter to whom I was pawned off to was a tall and spindly man with a thin moustache straight out of a French facial hair catalogue. His resting bitch-face and incredibly kind manner seemed to contradict each other.
“There is a plug on the floor sir, you can charge your phone there,” he said after taking my order. With the manner of a dehydrated person stumbling towards a tap of water, I pulled my phone charger out of my bag, attached a British-to-European adapter, and pulled the curtains aside behind which the plug socket was. I was confronted by a truly confusing sight… In a single floor socket was plugged an extension block with space for three plugs. Two were already filled. When I tried to plug my charger in, it wouldn’t fit! I use a Macbook charger to juice my phone, and anyone who’s used one knows how bulky they are. Because the extension block was circular, with each socket angled inwards, my charger was getting blocked by the other plugs. Maybe I’ll switch the plugs around, I thought as I took one out, instantly regretting my decision when an entire wall of fairy lights lost its power. A poisonous fear filled me as I quickly tried to put the plug back in, causing an additional wave of disaster. Not entirely used to European plugs with two pins and a hole, in my terrified fiddling I was getting the alignment of the hole in the plug and the pin in the socket wrong. Things got so bad that I accidentally knocked the entire extension block out of the socket, killing the lights of two entire front-facing walls of the restaurant. My heart jumped into my mouth with a stifled scream as I stabbed the loose plug back into the extension and the extension back into the socket. The pins were scraping against something, odd… that’s not a sound it should be making. When I looked down, a metal plate on a hinge covered the socket. This safety feature was being my undoing! I swiftly lifted the metal plate with my other hand and jammed this unwieldy block back in. Half of the restaurant around me flickered like a dying bulb as I tried to brute force the plug. After a few moment’s panicked struggling, the plug was back in and the restaurant lights stopped blowing my cover.
Rendered infinitely small by this monkey business, I looked around, expecting scowls from staff and customers alike. I thought the chief white blood cell would be looming over me with a butcher’s knife. But he wasn’t, and by all appearances, no one had noticed me getting bested by a bunch of cheap 10m fairy lights. I felt like I’d gotten away with a crime in broad daylight.
But that still left me with the small matter of how to charge my things. No matter which way I try to stick it, my charger won’t fit. And I had already ordered, so I couldn’t just leave. However, charging my phone was the only reason I had walked into this bloody establishment. I looked around the restaurant for similar plug sockets on the floor and my eyes latched onto two metal plates, similar to the ones that covered this socket.
When the waiter arrived with some wine and olives, I asked him, “I’m sorry to be a bother but this plug socket doesn’t have space for my charger. I see a couple of empty ones over there, can I sit closer by them?”
Completely unbothered by this request, the waiter said, “Yes you can sir, but I don’t know if they work or not. I know one of them is definitely broken.”
“That’s fine, I’ll go test them myself, no need to trouble yourself.”
“Alright sir, let me know and I help you move your things to whichever table you like.”
The first plug socket was a bust, obviously. A wave of relief washed over me when I plugged my phone into the second socket and the charging symbol appeared. Now we’re in business! Able to finally relax I nourished myself with two glasses of wine and some French onion soup (what would be my first of the evening) while reading Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell. A memoir, the book chronicles Orwell’s experiences of being flat broke in Paris and London; working as a plongeur (or dishwasher if you’re boring) at the seedy Hotel X (some astute people have identified it as the Hotel Lotti), while wandering as a tramp on the unforgiving streets of London. I thought it a fitting read for this trip.
By the time I left La Rotonde at 18:26, the sky had darkened. But the sun’s disappearance had awakened the city in a blaze of hot electric lighting. It’s truly impossible to ignore Paris’ long and colourful tradition of urban illumination that goes all the way back to it being one of the first cities to use street lamps. Frenetic photons from signs, marquees, adverts, lamps, floodlights, traffic, and phones whizzed past my eyes, reflecting off the wet pavement, vying for my attention.
Also, Paris – I find – looks much prettier at night without broad daylight exposing its disgusting charm. Like walking into a nightclub during the daytime.
Having eaten, charged my phone and earphones, rested a while, and used the toilet, I felt like a new person. Completely revitalised and a touch tipsy. So I lit myself a cigarette as I marched down the Boulevard Raspali with Thelonious Monk blaring in my ears and the city unrolling at my feet. I had my doubts earlier but I was now convinced that I’d be able to survive the night without trouble. With the neon energy that was surging through me, I couldn’t possibly be cold or tired.
The incandescent sabres of searchlights were sweeping across the sky, its source quickly becoming clear. Through the gaps between slanting apartment roofs, I spotted the summit of the Eiffel Tower, its rotating searchlight howling through the clouds. This was where I’d go next, I decided as I followed the twinkling of this north star.
Random rues with intensely orange streetlamps shoved me out onto fire-lit boulevards, trailing them until I lost sight of the tower, jumping down another rue until I had that iron mistress square in my vision again. It wasn’t long until I was standing in the tower’s shadow, craning my neck up to marvel at its graceful curve that pinches out its immovable base into a fine point at the top. I found a bench in a little park at the tower’s foot where I continued reading my book, interrupted by a family of corpulent rats as they scuttled out of bushes into discarded crisp wrappers, retreating to the anonymity of the bush when any human got close. Completely enthralled by their back-and-forth sprint, I looked like the perfect stationary target for street salespeople to peddle their mini Eiffel Towers and light-up helicopter slingshot toys. Many approached me with their wares but I was far too busy studying rodent habits. What finally broke my concentration was the need to pee.
So I got up and began what would end up being a one-hour search for the toilet (most of it spent walking back and forth twice over the Pont d’léna to find a public toilet that turned out to be closed and on a boat…). Feeling cheated by the street signs, I finally Googled where the nearest public toilet was and relieved myself there. Once again a new person, I decided to walk down the Avenue Kléber towards the Arc de Triomphe.
At the circumference of that gigantic roundabout that encircles the Arc, I was at a total loss about how to cross this road. A deluge of noisy traffic shot past over a road the width of a motorway. I’m sure there was a crossing somewhere but did I really have to walk all the way around – crossing probably five additional roads – just to get to the other side of this one? Finding an opening in this ceaseless torrent of traffic and plunging headfirst through the gap seemed the only sensible option. While I waited for my window, I spotted a group of girls staging an impromptu photography session (complete with artificial lighting and diffusers) right on that great road. In no time, a cop shouted at them from the window of his car and the women dispersed, giggling fantastically.
A van was making a three-point turn on one of the previous roundabout exits. This affected traffic in the same way as stepping on a running hose pipe. With the flow momentarily cut off, I sprinted across this wide stretch of road, stepping triumphantly upon that vast island on which the Arc stands. Describing the magnificence of this triumphant structure seems like a superfluous waste of words. Everyone has some kind of image of the place in their heads – a gigantic arch in the middle of the city. But that mental image doesn’t translate its sheer scale as witnessed from standing right in front of it. There’s a reason why you can still see it from the other end of a long and straight Boulevard. Also lost in translation are the cornices running along every interior and exterior surface, accenting its silhouette with splendid patterns. I walked “inside” and gazed up at the flowers and wreaths carved into its curved ceiling. I experienced the same bliss I felt earlier today before the Portals of Notre-Dame.
A notification on my phone was what earthed me from my reverie of architectural self-indulgence. It was a text message from my friend Pedro, reading;
nice big arch they got there innit
I suspected he might have been stalking me using the Find My app, a common practice among our friendship group.
After my quick visit to the Arc, I took a lowly stroll down the Champs-Élysées towards all the shops - because why not, even if I didn't plan to buy anything. I didn't make it very far down the street though because a sight so repugnant made me leave the way I came. Was I hallucinating this massive, silver-studded jewellery box as tall as an apartment building and about an entire block wide? I rubbed my eyes. No I wasn't. Silver-accented light illuminated all its edges, streetlamps reflecting wildly off its shiny surface. Those magnificently tall trees which line the Avenue des Champs-Élysées reached only half of this box's height. The buckles alone, which are supposed to keep the receptacle shut, were the size of a van. The person responsible for this monstrosity wasn't afraid to make their identity known, as the box was covered from top to bottom with Louis Vuitton logos. You can imagine my befuddlement. Such a ghastly, Instagrammable sight. The last time I was in Paris, the Louis Vuitton store was a modest affair with floral neon lights burning through the night. And right next door to it, an entire apartment building was obscured behind a plastic facade that teased the opening of the new Chanel store at the time. And now the Chanel store was open and in business, so LV decided to do one better and open up a hotel (their first ever) next door to their competition. Yes, that ugly Pandora's box is an LV hotel. Does this Parisian pissing contest between LV and Chanel date all the way back to the Revolution? What does this even achieve? Such profligate waste. But then again, I'm walking down the Champs-Élysées, what else did I expect?
It was now 21:25 and I had seen everything I wanted to during the day. This is it, I thought. Time to lock into a steady momentum of drinking that will keep me going through the indifferent night. I forget the name of the first bar I went to because the only thing that attracted me about it was that it’s outdoor seating wasn’t deserted. People sat in vivacious huddles, drinking beer and smoking side by side around plastic tables of white imitation marble. What you must remember is that I was stranded on a Wednesday, the beginning and end of the week equidistantly far, so the place wasn’t exactly popping. Hence my pickiness.
I took a peek within its cramped and intensely blue-lit interior where the place held more people than it ought to. Waiters were expertly surfing through the tables. I ordered a Bloody Mary with another onion soup, lighting another cigarette when they arrived. Funnily enough, the onion soup here, though half the price of La Rotonde’s, was twice as good.
If you’re going to drink all night you have to take all necessary precautions. Drink water between each drink! came the echo of my friend Belle’s sage advice. So, I downed a couple of glasses of water after paying and headed towards my next haunt….
Merely three doors down. I also have no recollection of what the second place was called. I barely even remember what I drunk. I do remember having another onion soup and a cigarette with whatever mystery concoction I downed.
Inky forgetfulness was spilled all over the parchment of my memory, blotting out the next 40 minutes to an hour. What chain of events brought me to the resplendent Café Kléber are totally unknown to me. But here I was. My fingers were going numb from the cold and I recall the desire to sit someplace warm and indoors. I found a table by the glass wall of an enclosed verandah from where I had a perfect and unobstructed view of the Eiffel Tower. The heating was on full-blast, feeling like dragon’s breath. I had another onion soup (god knows how many I was on now) and a glass of red wine with some olives. It was while I sat there, reading and nursing my glass of wine, when my fortunes of the evening began to diminish.
Maybe it was the heat or my intoxication or both, but as my vision slid from one line to the next on the pages before me, my eyelids began to feel weighty. It was taking considerable effort just keeping my eyes open, to the point that the words on the page made no sense anymore. I scarcely made it through a sentence on my first round when I’d have to go back and reread it again. I furtively glanced at my watch to find that it was only 23:45! Knowing that my train back to London wasn’t for another eight hours made me severely doubt my ability to make it through the night. Even if I made it to the night haven that was Au Pied de Cochon, would I be able to stay awake there until they kicked me out at five. And I still had another almost three hours – a veritable eternity to my soporific self – until my deliverance.
As sleep began its death march towards my consciousness, the plangent war cry of trumpets vibrating the air, the enthusiasm and confidence I felt earlier in the evening began failing. Morale was incredibly low in the trenches. My braincells had resigned themselves as cannon fodder against this insuperable threat.
Stop this nonsensical talk right now! I can do it. I’ll manage to stay awake. Rubbing my palms across my face, cleaning my glasses, and taking another healthy sip of wine straightened me out… for half a minute. The more I tried to ignore the encroaching lull of sleep, the more hyperaware I became of the effort it was taking to keep it at bay. It wasn’t long before I started nodding off, my head flopping forward only to instantly click back alive again. The enemy was at the gates and the only thing on my mind was desertion.
This entire no-accommodation arrangement was being thrown into a regretful light now. What a fool I was. Shamefully I looked up hotel prices when reality’s palm left its stinging imprint upon my cheek – the only rooms I could reasonably afford were too far out the city. And there was no point in paying over a hundred euros only to sleep for a couple of hours. There was no choice but to see this night through.
Just before midnight the Eiffel Tower began its final lightshow of the day. Every now and again for a few minutes, the Tower launches into an epileptic fit of exploding lights rapidly blinking all over its majestic body. Against the velvety black of the firmament, it looked like a galaxy of stars were going supernova, their deadly light reaching me without it having to travel the vast gulfs of space. The moment the clock struck 12 however, this photon bombing run suddenly ceased, taking with it the orange floodlights that illuminated the whole Tower too. Plunged into darkness, it felt like the Tower was Photoshopped out of the night sky before my incredulous eyes. I couldn’t help but interpret the plug being pulled on the Eiffel Tower as my own inner light going out. Without the hopeful glare of my north star, my prospects of wakefulness seemed bleak.
Right. I’ll stay here for another hour, then walk another hour to Au Pied de Cochon, which means I’ll only have to keep myself awake at a table there for three hours. That final hour I stayed at Café Kléber was punishment for my neck, so often was I nodding off and jerking back to pitiful awareness. Things reached a new low when I was reading the section of the book where Orwell is chronicling his experiences of rough sleeping on pavements and benches in Paris. Despite the acerbic language with which he described the stiffness in his bones and the inability to sleep more than a half hour as a time, the mere mention of sleep was pulling me deeper into my own. When I succumbed to a sliver of sleep this time, my hand muscles disengaged along with my neck, causing me to drop my book on my glass of wine, knocking it over.
“Shit!” I yelped as I came hurtling back awake to this mess, the neighbouring tables snatching curious glances my way. That was it. Red wine all over the table (miraculously not a single drop on my book) and my nerves in tatters, I could stay here no longer. With the swiftness of embarrassment, I wiped up this puddle of wine, washed my face with cold water in the toilet, paid my tab, and left with my tail between my legs.
I lit a consolatory cigarette as I walked through the cold cold night towards my final resting place. Au Pied de Cochon is in the 1st Arrondissement, in the city's nucleus, surrounded by the remains of royal palaces and hotels. The streets were totally deserted, only the occasional car noisily blurting past. With no people or traffic in the way, I could hear the city’s heartbeat more clearly; radiating off the streetlamps, beaming off the stately buildings, rolling over the empty roads and walkways, blanketed under a sympathetic sky. After a few kilometres of weary walking, I found myself right in the middle of the Place de la Concorde, leaning to catch my breath against that massive and ancient obelisk from the Temple of Luxor that pins the square to the ground. Having experienced innumerable years, being snatched away from its twin, and a perilous journey from Egypt to France, this monument now witnesses with tiredness with puzzlement.
While crossing the road to get to the other side of the square, a sight made me halt right in the middle of the road. It was the Champs-Élysées I happened to be crossing, and were it not totally devoid of traffic at that time, I wouldn’t have stopped to gaze longingly at the Arc de Triomphe, which rested like a crown on the other end of this avenue. A procession of trees and orange streetlamps curved up in supplication towards the Arc, bathed in floodlights. I wasn’t the same person who visited that monument merely a few hours ago. My mood and energy had plummeted so low that the elation I formerly felt when I visited the Arc seemed to belong to a different and more pleasant age. The approaching headlights of a car compelled me to finally get out of the middle of the road.
I walked past the voluptuous columns of the Hôtel de la Marine, which stood large in not just stature but also emptiness, then down the Rue de Rivoli. Also deserted, the street ran so straight and long that the line of streetlamps on both sides converged into a fine point down the horizon of my vision. Like two perpendicular lines drawn with fire. With the Louvre and the Tuileries on my right and one pricey fashion brand after another to my left, I felt like a go-between for some symbolic tryst between capitalism and monarchy. The peasant boy who simply delivers the letters.
The 1st Arrondissement is the business and financial district from which the city of Paris spirals out. I had reached the main nerve, a regal cloister of immaculately white-washed palace facades, ornate fountains, and gilded equestrian statues. Given its torrid history of class warfare and exploitation, it’s a place as detestable as awesome. Usually I feel really out of place in ridiculously affluent areas. Maybe it’s my demeanour or the general plebian vibrations I put out. But as I walked in this neighbourhood lightyears away from my tax bracket, I didn’t feel the usual sensation of forcing the wrong jigsaw pieces together. Perhaps it was the lack of people that made me feel more at ease. Just me and the skin of the city. I always find it telling how denizens of the night (homeless, drug peddlers and users, sex workers, and wanderers) descend upon and reclaim those parts of the city that are denied them during the day. Slight though it was, haunting sacred ground to redress the balance of society felt good.
On the otherwise misty and dead Rue Coquillière, Au Pied de Cochon was a lighthouse along this empty and featureless coast. A red and pink neon sign of a pig clutching a Manhattan between its trotters rubbed its colours off on the tops of trees. The pavements outside this brasserie were glowing with laughter and life – even though no one was sat outside. For a place that stayed open till 5, I imagined a dark and dirty establishment with few and suspicious faces; not this brilliant carnival! The house was almost full in this culinary palace of gilded iron railings and crystal glass.
An incredibly handsome and polite waiter who showered me with short snippets of conversation throughout the time I was there led me to a table in the corner. Red and white cubist murals of motor vehicles mixed in with floral reproductions adorned the walls, reflecting in the many mirrors all over the place, giving me an explosive impression of fragmentation. This bore down on my weak head like a smith’s hammer.
The walk through the cold had woken me up a bit but I was under no illusions about my tenuous wakefulness. Before long, sleepiness would begin a second volley upon my senses. But I had a solution, yes ma’am. Another onion soup (my last and best of the evening) followed by a very bland platter of sea bass served with mash and a white wine sauce were the gunpowder that I stuffed down my barrel.
And the ammunition?
I grabbed that jovial and stubbled waiter. “Could I please have an espresso martini every twenty minutes?”
With a sidelong look, he punched the order into his till and sent my bizarre request shimmering across the network towards the till at the bar. My waiter seemed puzzled at how quickly I’d cleaned my plates when he brought me my first drink. From this point on, the night descends into a tortuous tug-of-war between intoxication and sleep, my brain being the rope.
I was reading my book, drunk as a mule, minding my own business, when I spotted a pair of bespectacled eyes peering at me from the table opposite me. When I put down my book and acknowledged him with a smile, he mumbled something in French at me. From his tone, he seemed welcoming, though. I told him I didn’t speak his language.
“Why you sitting alone?” he asked me in an accent thicker than a wedge of Roquefort. His radiant manner matched this look; a bright mustard-coloured jacket paired with navy chinos and a pair of white trainers. Simple and understated. His thick horn-rimmed glasses just about matched the colour of his jacket. His hair slicked back and a thin moustache that looked drawn on with a pencil brought out the shape of his knobbly skull.
“Because I like my own company.”
“Come sit with us!” he slurred while waving me over.
As his was a table at the end of a long couch, a stained glass decorative screen obscured his companion. He was a fair-faced man with a slight stubble (just like our fine waiter) and blue eyes that shone like jewels in his pale face. I remember neither of their names. Neither do I remember what we talked about. Small talk, no doubt. But human interaction was keeping me awake so I stayed put. After finishing their oysters, the other man began sipping the accompanying red wine vinegar out of a spoon.
As we approached five in the morning, little by little, the place was emptying out. During the last hour, only two tables remained; us and a trio sat a couple of tables down from us. The staff were circling overhead like vultures, trying to scare us off. I could tell they all desperately wanted to go home and we were preventing that. Having worked in hospitality before, I’m more than familiar with the thinly veiled spite for the customer who refuses to take a hint. I had become the thing I once used to loathe. The men who’d waylaid me kept trying to order more things, even after the kitchen and bar were closed. I felt proxy embarrassment, but what else could I do? These men were my salvation, for now. When I returned from another trip to douse my face with cold water, they had cleared out. So naturally, the parasite jumped to the next host as I began a conversation with the final remaining table. It was two American men; a tall, pale, bespectacled person called Josh and a short, ruddy, inconspicuous one called David, accompanied by a beautiful Brazilian woman with cloud-soft features called Maíra. The Americans were quick to invite me over, as they had strict instructions to finish their drinks and leave. Josh couldn’t stomach the caipirinha Maíra got him, so I got to down the rest. The boys were catching the 08:30 train to Amsterdam from Gare-du-Nord, which was convenient for me so I tagged along.
What we talked about on that long and lurching walk to the station, I hardly remember. The drunkard wakes up with a hangover and a hole where their memory once was. This deterioration usually happens under the cover of sleep. But because I haven’t slept yet (still), I’m conscious of my memory, licked by flames, burning out right before the eyes of my mind. All I know is that I was filled to the eyeballs with alcohol and coffee and my brain felt like it was about to implode.
In a zombified state I took the escalators up to the Eurostar lounge, passed through security without incident and awaited my train. Delicious anticipation of sleep tickled me as I sat there staring into nothingness. I knew the moment I sat down on the train I’d pass right out. Sweet release!
You’ve probably gathered from my suggestion earlier that I was denied this release… I leaned by head back against the cushioned seats of the train and closed my eyes, an act I had been dearly avoiding for hours. But my brain refused to turn off. Not that anything in particular was happening up there. Just static. Pure, deafening, hypnotic static.
An eternity passed within the space of two and a half hours, after which I was dropped back in London, where the weather was no different to how it had been in Paris. I wasn’t appreciative of this continuity; my Parisian sins weren’t welcome back here.
When I staggered through the front door of my flat - a mere day after I had vivaciously left – I felt like a drunken sailor who touches upon their homeland after a trecherous journey. Needless to say, I was in a state. Smoke coming out of my ears. Slurring my breath. And unable to sleep. There was only one thing to be done about this. I poured myself a gin and lemonade and sat down to write.
My throat and I aren’t on speaking terms right now. I’m in the dog house. Nearly an entire pack of cigarettes was a step too far for a novice smoker such as myself. I can’t even write the dreaded C-word without recoiling and wanting to cough my lungs up. As I’m writing this, waiting for my brain to burn itself out so I can be embraced by a beautiful void, I’m thinking to myself; did I find Paris? Was there even something to find? Unsure. But it sure as hell found me, and made very quick work of its willing victim.
