Gauloises and Gitanes

If anyone asks me what my favourite city in the world is to visit, my answer without hesitation is Paris. ‘I didn't know you were a romantic,’ is the usual riposte. Sometimes said sarcastically, sometimes posed as a question depending on the person asking. Oh Mon Dieu, Paris, the city renowned for L’amour, a city misunderstood, mislabeled and one which has to be explored for you to find its true beauty. For every kilometer out from the centre you go the more you get to discover the true Paris, the city which you don't find in any of the tourist brochures. The parts where it becomes a melting pot of cultures and styles all blended into creating this surreal backdrop for daily life to pass through. A city where if you sit still for long enough you'll be offered every type of illicit goods you could ever hope for if you were that way inclined. Where groups of young men bowl past you in large masses as a means of survival, stray fish become too easy a target and are picked off. Paris is a city where you need to be savvy to survive. 

My favourite haunt on a weekday is the flea market at the Rue Jean-Henri Fabre. I don't wish to stereotype France as a nation, especially not as a lazy nation which some might do, not me of course, but everything stops here between 1 and 2pm and moreover it vanishes without a trace on Saturday and Sunday's. The flea market that is, not France as a whole. Sure that would be a fine trick to pull wouldn't it. Here you'll find everything you never knew you wanted or needed in your life. I've never been early enough to know how they set some of the stalls up but you'll find tables of books which look like they've merely been tipped from a giant wheelbarrow. Just this huge sprawling mass of tumbling books. How you'd ever find anything is anyone's guess. Lord only knows where the books have come from, jackets falling off broken spines, the pages yellow after years of being subjected to the smoke of Gauloises and Gitanes from French men eager to tell anyone who'll listen that they make the greatest lovers in the world.

Wander around and you'll find giant lions cast in concrete, glass cases full of pinned insects, movie projectors. There's a giant metallic orange structure that looks like a space pod, an odd looking tiny little orange car styled as if it was built for racing, a large number 1 in black on a white circle on the side of the door possibly built for Oompa Loompas given its colour and tiny stature. To the untrained eye you'd be forgiven for thinking it's a vinyl junkies paradise with opportunities galore for crate digging but when you get close up you'll find dividers with headers like New Wave, Edith Piaf, one handily entitled French Français in case you weren't quite sure and my personal favourite Elvis Presles as if at sometime during the 60s or 70s they'd stolen and made him one of their own. Mind you there are enough knock off items here that maybe Monsieur Presles was a real person in his own right and enjoyed a big singing career in his native France.

If people watching is your thing then this is as close to nirvana as you'll ever get. Today I sat and watched as a rotund man in his late 50s, early 60s barked into a mobile phone constantly pinned to his right ear. His hair was completely white apart from a round patch of grey on the crown. He spotted this fantastical white bushy moustache that sprouted out down from his top lips across his fat cheeks. His short sleeve shirt may once have been white but now definitely more an off white, dark blue jeans only just held up by black braces and topped with a leather waistcoat. I prayed, half that the braces would give way for comical effect and half that they didn't because one can only dread to think what lived underneath.

Age creeping up on me, my feet start to ache and mid afternoon I sit on a table outside a café and a young girl who looks like she'd rather be anywhere else in the world at that moment comes to take my order. “Oui Monsieur?”

“Un thé sil vous plait.”

“Thé?” She replies looking confused. Then somewhere inside she must have been doing some mental calculations and come to the following conclusion “Anglaise?”

I chuckled, nodded my head and her manner changed to one more warm. Maybe she was a secret Anglophile or just amused at the stereotypes of Brits only drinking tea and her was a real life one living up to exactly that, who knows. “Anything else Monsieur?” Quite why I was still Monsieur when the rest was in English I don't know but it probably sounds better than Mr. 

“Non merci mademoiselle.”

“D’accord,” and with that she slapped her pen against the little pad in her hand and off she went back inside before reappearing a couple of minutes later with something that just about resembled tea. I made a mental note to ask for a can of something cold in future especially during the summer months but nevermind best not to upset the natives on their home turf I find. Instead I thanked her “Merci mademoiselle,” and hoped she didn't try engage me in any deep and meaningful conversation in French because ordering tea and saying hello and thank you is about my upper limits. I don't know why I thought she would really because no sooner had she left it on the table she'd gone again. Probably straight to check out her phone to see if some French boy was trying to convince her he was the greatest lover in the world. Who knows I might be wrong. Frequently am, especially the older I get. 

It was then I caught sight of the most incredibly beautiful young lady across the street stood with her right side to me. I've no idea what she was looking at but as she bent down to take a closer inspection I could see her face light up like a Parisian summer day and a smile radiated from her pretty mouth. Whatever it was that took her fancy I couldn't see but she was certainly enchanted and so was I. She tucked a strand of her long brunette hair behind her ear from out of her eye line. That incredible smile that had sprung forth like a pouncing tiger felt like it was magically transporting itself across the street and wrapping itself around my person like a warm tingling hug. I don't know how long I'd been staring and watching but somewhere in my head I heard my mother's voice telling me ‘It's rude to stare,’ like I was a five year old boy again and I thought to myself quite right mother and just as I'd decided I should stop the girl turned and looked straight at me as if suddenly aware she was being watched. Being a typical Englishman and with no claims to being the world's greatest lover I didn't try to style it out, I immediately lowered my head and hoped to Christ that the ground would swallow me up fast having been caught out. My inner naughty schoolboy took over transporting me back to my youth. Did you eat the last cookie? A shake of the head, the crumbs the dead give away. I concentrated on the tea in front of me and wondered if maybe it was as poisonous as it looked and would finish me off in record time before my now burning cheeks from the embarrassment set on fire. 

I took the cup in my hands and realised that drinking with your head bowed down is somewhat hard to do and thus was forced to raise my head. I clearly didn't think that plan through but that's another typical English trait if ever there was one or maybe just a male trait found the world over. Jesus it was ghastly, the tea that is, but no more than being caught staring at pretty young women in their mid 20s with their long flowing brown hair, a smile that would warm the cockles in the middle of Siberia at minus 20 degrees. I tried to subtly look and see what she was doing now instantly hooked like any good drug addict but as I lowered the cup back down to my disappointment she was gone. Maybe also a bit to my relief. I suspected if she had any degree of common sense she'd have run at that juncture. I'd have done the same if I was in her position I guess. I made a pact with myself at that moment to just stare at my tea, it would prove to be less problematic if nothing else. 

I put my right hand deep into my trouser pocket and fished around for the loose euros I hoped were still housed there and hadn't been half itched by some light fingered expertise for which certain parts of the City were famed for. Just at that moment I was distracted by a rat-a-tat sound of finger nails on the table and I looked up to see the same girl walk past and grin at me mischievously over her shoulder before turning back to look ahead and carry on without giving a second glance. I don't know if I was supposed to follow her. I took not looking back again as a sign that I shouldn't but boy if nothing else that smile made an old man happy. Far, far happier than the god awful piss water that the French confuse for tea. I left the young waitress a large tip which must have confused her because she would've been acutely aware her tea was like a warm cup of piss I'm sure but after all Paris is the city of love and when you get some joy in life you should choose to spread it around.