Not surprisingly, the morning we moved, Josephine had her part in the story.
Those huge cranes that lift furniture up into or out of an apartment are commonly used when people move in the city because stairways are so narrow or there is no elevator and 5 flights of stairs, etc (pictured in the post below). If you recall, when we moved into this apartment a year-and-a-half ago, Josephine was wringing her hands in the courtyard, afraid that such a huge machine would fall through the tiles and down into the cave below.
This year, her tone changed. Roles reversed and the neighbor on the first floor was outside almost in tears, while Josephine was assuring her that we had been first-class neighbors and that the crane-machine was not as vicious as it appeared. We were shocked.
Josephine defending us?
She came over to our side of the hallway later on that day to commiserate a bit, telling us that it was absurd how upset Marie-Laure had become - it was only a machine for moving people after all. We nodded in speechless agreement and then, inspired, Xavier ran to get the camera because we knew that she would be talking without cessation for the next ten minutes, regardless of what we did or said (including holding a camera in her face while she spoke).
So here it is: Josephine telling a tragic tale of the sick neighbor below and then, almost weeping, abruptly changing the subject to display her beautiful grandchildren (she even got Marguerite to concur that they are 'mimi' - cute).
I think she had caught wind of the fact that we would be moving that morning - she was dressed, coiffed and ready to go at a very early hour...
Ah, but I will miss the white-topped mushroom in her floor-length t-shirt sauntering outside of our door, trying to get a peep in.
October 24, 2008
September 1, 2008
Josephine Returns
We are at the Juda again. We stand there watching her hold someone hostage in the elevator for 10 minutes and then decide that such an event needs to be recorded on film. Xavier plays her game too well. After 30 seconds of watching her say her bogus 'goodbyes' and 'see you soons' (all quickly interjected by herself with her own running commentary on a different subject entirely), Xavier feels compelled to drive the action forward. He calls my name, loudly, "EMILIE!" You see her reaction. She jumps, as if she has been caught doing something she really shouldn't be doing. And then she quickly closes the elevator door, furtively (with no goodbye...after all that!).
"Qui c'est qu'appelle?" (Who's calling?) She demands, thinking it is the neighbor below. "Vincent?" She calls to him.
She shrugs her shoulders, befuddled and discomfited, the white topped mushroom, and saunters back into her domain.
Here she is, for the first time, in action.
"Qui c'est qu'appelle?" (Who's calling?) She demands, thinking it is the neighbor below. "Vincent?" She calls to him.
She shrugs her shoulders, befuddled and discomfited, the white topped mushroom, and saunters back into her domain.
Here she is, for the first time, in action.
July 23, 2008
Josephine
Our illustrious neighbor, Josephine, charms our “Juda” from time to time. Seen here, she is doing a great job fake-vacuuming as she glances furtively at the conversation of the neighbors above (whose door was gratifyingly open).
Now, I am fully aware that this photo may be classified as typical Josephine-like voyeurism. This is absolutely true. You see, her ways are communicable, catching. Xavier and I peep out of our Juda to catch her spying on us and on others.
I stopped writing about Josephine. I was trying to just ignore her entirely. It worked on many levels. I became perceptive to when she typically went out in the morning for bread and avoided leaving the apartment around that same time. I listened for her shuffling in her apartment while I would wait for the elevator to rise up the building. If I heard the shuffle of her slippers, I would rush down the stairs, two at a time to the sound of her door opening in wonder above me.
Sometimes she would catch me. She would foxtrot out of her apartment at the exact moment I had entered the elevator. She would stand there, still sporting her floor-length t-shirt, holding me captive in the elevator by keeping the door from closing (with the help of her considerable form).
These moments weren’t as bad as they might sound initially. She would usually start by reporting the activity she had monitored going in and out of my apartment, any strange sounds that she had heard from within; all of which was incredibly lackluster information. I live there.
She would eventually peter out; there was a general lack of rousing events streaming in and out of my apartment, and yet she would always manage to report it all to me as if I were a stranger to the place and as if she were letting me in on a huge secret. I would insist on the fact that I was late and then she would release me, telling me that I should come over anytime to sit and have tea with her, that she generally has nothing to do (a real eye-opener).
You see, I had a real visceral aversion to Josephine after our beginning episodes when she sabotaged my bike-riding life in Paris. After that, Xavier officially killed her plant, a leafy fern that sat innocently potted outside her door. He urinated into it for a week straight. I am certain that she was peering out of her Juda watching him and didn’t say a word because she found it so engaging. (As you can see in the photo, she has found a suitable replacement).
So, back to the picture. We have become like her. We peer out of our Juda. We listen for her heavy steps, for her shrill voice as a warning not to exit the apartment. I shut the windows and shades that face her apartment. We take note of, even snoop in, her life; albeit with a dissimilar motive to hers.
And yet, it isn’t just her peering that is contagious, it is also Josephine herself. I think I might take her up on her offer to tea.
Now, I am fully aware that this photo may be classified as typical Josephine-like voyeurism. This is absolutely true. You see, her ways are communicable, catching. Xavier and I peep out of our Juda to catch her spying on us and on others.
I stopped writing about Josephine. I was trying to just ignore her entirely. It worked on many levels. I became perceptive to when she typically went out in the morning for bread and avoided leaving the apartment around that same time. I listened for her shuffling in her apartment while I would wait for the elevator to rise up the building. If I heard the shuffle of her slippers, I would rush down the stairs, two at a time to the sound of her door opening in wonder above me.
Sometimes she would catch me. She would foxtrot out of her apartment at the exact moment I had entered the elevator. She would stand there, still sporting her floor-length t-shirt, holding me captive in the elevator by keeping the door from closing (with the help of her considerable form).
These moments weren’t as bad as they might sound initially. She would usually start by reporting the activity she had monitored going in and out of my apartment, any strange sounds that she had heard from within; all of which was incredibly lackluster information. I live there.
She would eventually peter out; there was a general lack of rousing events streaming in and out of my apartment, and yet she would always manage to report it all to me as if I were a stranger to the place and as if she were letting me in on a huge secret. I would insist on the fact that I was late and then she would release me, telling me that I should come over anytime to sit and have tea with her, that she generally has nothing to do (a real eye-opener).
You see, I had a real visceral aversion to Josephine after our beginning episodes when she sabotaged my bike-riding life in Paris. After that, Xavier officially killed her plant, a leafy fern that sat innocently potted outside her door. He urinated into it for a week straight. I am certain that she was peering out of her Juda watching him and didn’t say a word because she found it so engaging. (As you can see in the photo, she has found a suitable replacement).
So, back to the picture. We have become like her. We peer out of our Juda. We listen for her heavy steps, for her shrill voice as a warning not to exit the apartment. I shut the windows and shades that face her apartment. We take note of, even snoop in, her life; albeit with a dissimilar motive to hers.
And yet, it isn’t just her peering that is contagious, it is also Josephine herself. I think I might take her up on her offer to tea.
July 23, 2007
PARIS III
The bikes are in the cave. Josephine and her gall won out.
It came down to Xavier and me just trying to sneak out of the apartment, making as little noise as possible, to avoid her nagging. It was a futile attempt to escape her glare – for her eye is perpetually at one of her windows or on her Judas (as French people call the little peephole in a front door).
One morning I was leaving the apartment pretty early and found Josephine waiting for me in the hallway before I had even shut the front door. She is at least a head and a half shorter than I am, but twice as wide. “Je suis tres en colere!” (She was very mad), she cried. She took me, almost by the arm, and explained that she was going to give me a key to cave and she was escorting me there that moment to open the door. I felt like a boarding school kid being lead by his ear to the head master’s office. We arrived at the door to the cave and with terrible frustration, Josephine found that the lock to the cave was somehow broken, or that in her rapid attack plan, she had grabbed the wrong key. We went back up to the fifth floor to find the right key. Opening her door with ferocity, she cried out for her husband, Jean-Pierre, who was still asleep. He appeared in his striped pajamas, grumbling, and asked her what she was yelling about. He was to find the right key to the cave; she had already been up for hours, she explained, and thought that he could do something to help out. “Depeche-toi!”(Hurry up), she commanded again and again. The funny thing is that as she would bark orders to him, she would turn to me, look at me, and furtively wink – like she was showing me how to effectively operate a marriage. I thought to myself, life is hell for poor Jean-Pierre. Jean-Pierre was ordered down to the cave to get the key working, but to no avail. The lock was apparently broken! That morning I left Josephine practically sobbing by the door of the cave, frantically trying every key she owned. I felt bad and stayed for a little while, but after 15 minutes of saga I turned and said, “Bonne journee, Josephine,” walked to the courtyard where my bike was waiting for me and took off. Oh happy day.
Josephine’s assumption that the lock to the cave was broken turned out to be false. And in the meantime, Josephine had continued rallying the people of the building against our poor bikes. A sign posted above our bikes the next afternoon read: “The courtyard is not a parking lot. It is not a place for bikes. Please be polite and move your bikes to the cave.” After reading this, Xavier pulled out a pen and wrote, “The lock to the cave is broken. Please call me to discuss this…” The response that came next was the best. In big, thick, green permanent marker, written directly on top of his writing, the sign writer responded triumphantly, “C’EST FAUX!” (It’s false!) The lock, apparently, wasn’t broken at all; Josephine just has an issue with keys, I guess.
The whole sign thing was troubling. It went on and on and I just didn’t get how sign-writing is an effective means of communication…a bit passive aggressive (not that sneaking out our apartment to avoid the lovely Josephine didn’t reek of the same). The posted signs reminded me too much of my roommates when I lived in Hawaii, one of whom became so upset about other people consuming her sliced American cheese, she firmly placed a note on the wall by stabbing a large butcher knife into it. We all got the point and I pretty much avoided the kitchen after that point entirely (the cockroaches were a good enough deterrent anyway).
Finally, the last sign was posted. It was a sign threatening a visit from the syndicat, some amorphous, all-powerful person involved in the functioning of the building. (And I thought New York co-ops were bad). The syndicat came and went and we received a visit from a nice man who explained that the bike issue is, indeed, not a big deal, but even still, we would simply have to park the bikes elsewhere. We conceded. Since I use my bike everyday, it is now parked out in a public square near our house, waiting to be stolen or vandalized (pretty much inevitable in this city). And Xavier’s bike has been banished to the cave. He only uses his on weekends and so the journey down into the cave and back up is feasible once or twice a week.
Last weekend we were going out for a bike ride to enjoy the sunshine (which appeared, incidentally, for the very first time since I’ve been in Paris). I was waiting at the top of the stairs to the cave for Xavier to fetch his bike and watched him disappear down them, around the slanting stonewalls that smell terribly of toadstool. Behind me, Josephine was approaching. I caught her figure out of the corner of my eye and looked around for a place to escape to…the cave! I ran down the steps and turned the corner. But from above, Josephine’s voice boomed down. “Can you hear me? Can you hear me?” Xavier blew air out of his mouth in the typical French way (a ppuuuhh sound). “Yes, Josephine, loud and clear,” he replied. She went on for a moment about the bikes (of course), how much better it is they are in the cave, and trailed on…something about the mildew smell in the cave. Xavier retorted snidely, “Josephine, it smells bad down here and my bike is really heavy, I can’t seem to get it up the stairs. Can you please come down here and help me out?” Josephine’s response was another classic French noise (booouuff) and Xavier smiled amused as he hefted his bike up the stairs.
Xavier does this funny movie announcer voice, like the guy who narrates trailers for American films. It is the voice where his French accent is the least conspicuous and only occasionally you think he might have a slight speech impediment while the voice is going (but not an accent). We came to start thinking of ways we could get back at Josephine throughout this whole thing and Xavier would narrate our ideas like the trailer of a film. (Imagine the voice that starts the trailer): “Josephine is watching…she is always there…she knows what you are doing and why…she is at her window…she is behind the door…(and then long and drawn out): J o s e p h i n e…”
Mostly we came up with ways to sabotage her attempts to spy.
Scenario #1: Xavier finds sulfuric acid and covers her Judas with it, preventing her from spying from her front door ever again.
Scenario #2: We leave our front door open a tad, with all the lights off in the apartment. There is a large bucket of water balancing on the door from above. She will not be able to resist the lure and will enter the apartment. She will be soaked.
Scenario #3: Same set-up as Scenario #2, minus the water. Xavier and I are merely waiting in the dark for her to enter, look around and then we get close and scream. She leaves very frightened.
Scenario #4: (Background: Josephine has often looked at Xavier with coquettish eyes and smiles. Highly amusing. She is, again, a 65 year-old, white mushroom in a very large, floor-length, t-shirt at all times). So in this scenario, Xavier seduces Josephine with chocolates and his fox-like head and expressions. She falls for it and allows our bikes to stay wherever we would like them. The arrangement is maintained by only a few waves from the windows of our apartment from time to time.
We will let you know if we decide to produce a full-length feature. Meredith, maybe you could help out...
Here we are at the Sacré Coeur
It came down to Xavier and me just trying to sneak out of the apartment, making as little noise as possible, to avoid her nagging. It was a futile attempt to escape her glare – for her eye is perpetually at one of her windows or on her Judas (as French people call the little peephole in a front door).
One morning I was leaving the apartment pretty early and found Josephine waiting for me in the hallway before I had even shut the front door. She is at least a head and a half shorter than I am, but twice as wide. “Je suis tres en colere!” (She was very mad), she cried. She took me, almost by the arm, and explained that she was going to give me a key to cave and she was escorting me there that moment to open the door. I felt like a boarding school kid being lead by his ear to the head master’s office. We arrived at the door to the cave and with terrible frustration, Josephine found that the lock to the cave was somehow broken, or that in her rapid attack plan, she had grabbed the wrong key. We went back up to the fifth floor to find the right key. Opening her door with ferocity, she cried out for her husband, Jean-Pierre, who was still asleep. He appeared in his striped pajamas, grumbling, and asked her what she was yelling about. He was to find the right key to the cave; she had already been up for hours, she explained, and thought that he could do something to help out. “Depeche-toi!”(Hurry up), she commanded again and again. The funny thing is that as she would bark orders to him, she would turn to me, look at me, and furtively wink – like she was showing me how to effectively operate a marriage. I thought to myself, life is hell for poor Jean-Pierre. Jean-Pierre was ordered down to the cave to get the key working, but to no avail. The lock was apparently broken! That morning I left Josephine practically sobbing by the door of the cave, frantically trying every key she owned. I felt bad and stayed for a little while, but after 15 minutes of saga I turned and said, “Bonne journee, Josephine,” walked to the courtyard where my bike was waiting for me and took off. Oh happy day.
Josephine’s assumption that the lock to the cave was broken turned out to be false. And in the meantime, Josephine had continued rallying the people of the building against our poor bikes. A sign posted above our bikes the next afternoon read: “The courtyard is not a parking lot. It is not a place for bikes. Please be polite and move your bikes to the cave.” After reading this, Xavier pulled out a pen and wrote, “The lock to the cave is broken. Please call me to discuss this…” The response that came next was the best. In big, thick, green permanent marker, written directly on top of his writing, the sign writer responded triumphantly, “C’EST FAUX!” (It’s false!) The lock, apparently, wasn’t broken at all; Josephine just has an issue with keys, I guess.
The whole sign thing was troubling. It went on and on and I just didn’t get how sign-writing is an effective means of communication…a bit passive aggressive (not that sneaking out our apartment to avoid the lovely Josephine didn’t reek of the same). The posted signs reminded me too much of my roommates when I lived in Hawaii, one of whom became so upset about other people consuming her sliced American cheese, she firmly placed a note on the wall by stabbing a large butcher knife into it. We all got the point and I pretty much avoided the kitchen after that point entirely (the cockroaches were a good enough deterrent anyway).
Finally, the last sign was posted. It was a sign threatening a visit from the syndicat, some amorphous, all-powerful person involved in the functioning of the building. (And I thought New York co-ops were bad). The syndicat came and went and we received a visit from a nice man who explained that the bike issue is, indeed, not a big deal, but even still, we would simply have to park the bikes elsewhere. We conceded. Since I use my bike everyday, it is now parked out in a public square near our house, waiting to be stolen or vandalized (pretty much inevitable in this city). And Xavier’s bike has been banished to the cave. He only uses his on weekends and so the journey down into the cave and back up is feasible once or twice a week.
Last weekend we were going out for a bike ride to enjoy the sunshine (which appeared, incidentally, for the very first time since I’ve been in Paris). I was waiting at the top of the stairs to the cave for Xavier to fetch his bike and watched him disappear down them, around the slanting stonewalls that smell terribly of toadstool. Behind me, Josephine was approaching. I caught her figure out of the corner of my eye and looked around for a place to escape to…the cave! I ran down the steps and turned the corner. But from above, Josephine’s voice boomed down. “Can you hear me? Can you hear me?” Xavier blew air out of his mouth in the typical French way (a ppuuuhh sound). “Yes, Josephine, loud and clear,” he replied. She went on for a moment about the bikes (of course), how much better it is they are in the cave, and trailed on…something about the mildew smell in the cave. Xavier retorted snidely, “Josephine, it smells bad down here and my bike is really heavy, I can’t seem to get it up the stairs. Can you please come down here and help me out?” Josephine’s response was another classic French noise (booouuff) and Xavier smiled amused as he hefted his bike up the stairs.
Xavier does this funny movie announcer voice, like the guy who narrates trailers for American films. It is the voice where his French accent is the least conspicuous and only occasionally you think he might have a slight speech impediment while the voice is going (but not an accent). We came to start thinking of ways we could get back at Josephine throughout this whole thing and Xavier would narrate our ideas like the trailer of a film. (Imagine the voice that starts the trailer): “Josephine is watching…she is always there…she knows what you are doing and why…she is at her window…she is behind the door…(and then long and drawn out): J o s e p h i n e…”
Mostly we came up with ways to sabotage her attempts to spy.
Scenario #1: Xavier finds sulfuric acid and covers her Judas with it, preventing her from spying from her front door ever again.
Scenario #2: We leave our front door open a tad, with all the lights off in the apartment. There is a large bucket of water balancing on the door from above. She will not be able to resist the lure and will enter the apartment. She will be soaked.
Scenario #3: Same set-up as Scenario #2, minus the water. Xavier and I are merely waiting in the dark for her to enter, look around and then we get close and scream. She leaves very frightened.
Scenario #4: (Background: Josephine has often looked at Xavier with coquettish eyes and smiles. Highly amusing. She is, again, a 65 year-old, white mushroom in a very large, floor-length, t-shirt at all times). So in this scenario, Xavier seduces Josephine with chocolates and his fox-like head and expressions. She falls for it and allows our bikes to stay wherever we would like them. The arrangement is maintained by only a few waves from the windows of our apartment from time to time.
We will let you know if we decide to produce a full-length feature. Meredith, maybe you could help out...
Here we are at the Sacré Coeur
June 19, 2007
PARIS II
Xavier and I were lying in bed talking the other morning. It was the weekend and we could finally both sleep in and talk about the week. As we talked, I turned toward the window and watched the patches of mid-morning sunlight streaming in through the open window onto the weaving of our sisal rug. I listened, trying to be as enduring as possible, to his rather bossy ideas of how to best approach pursuing work here in Paris. Xavier always means well in these conversations, but sometimes misses the point that in order for me to feel peace about the process, it has to be mine. He has the tendency to try to solve immediately. Even so, I was feeling peaceful, like it will be fine.
The sunlight on the floor changed slightly; the angle of the sun had caught itself on something new. Jospehine, our dear dear neighbor, had opened her window and was falsely fluffing the flowers in her window box, taking the opportunity to catch a glimpse of our life across the courtyard. This particular window of hers faces ours directly. As a result she considers herself very lucky. This is apparent by the amount of time she devotes to tasks that require her to hover directly around this window…waiting for the moment that we are doing something of interest (and the threshold for something interesting for Josephine is actually very low; standing in the room suffices). For example, she found Xavier vacuuming the room absolutely thrilling. He is handsome, but in this case, she could only see his legs and the base of the vacuum since the curtains were half-way drawn, hardly enough motivation to watch enthralled. I could picture the way her face fell when Xavier closed the curtains fully so that she was blocked out from scrutinizing his housekeeping.
Our peaceful moment was interrupted by her shrill voice penetrating the morning air. She had been up for hours fussing. Knowing that our window was open and that we could unmistakably hear her, she leaned far out of her window to holler down to a neighbor two floors below her and across the courtyard, whose window was providentially also open. “Les velos!” Josephine bellowed. I thought perhaps the neighbor below might not be receptive to this kind of communication – blather across the courtyard through open windows, but au contraire. Josephine had found an audience. Xavier and I giggled with wide eyes as they discussed the calamity of our bikes still being parked in the courtyard. "What audacity! What a daily inconvenience to each tenant in the building! Insolence! The bikes must be brought to the cave!" (Said as if decreeing some kind of sentence for a couple of criminals).
The bike issue really makes me laugh. It is a huge courtyard. They are two lovely bikes with baskets and they are parked nicely and neatly by the trash cans. When Josephine first spoke of the “cave” that first day we moved in, I thought it was a funny term she used for a basement. I am American. I can’t get away from that sometimes. No, I should have taken here far more literally. The cave is exactly that. A huge hollowed out medieval space below the building made of stone blocks. When I was brought down there by the guy who did all the work on our apartment, he warned me on the way down not to be scared. The door to our allotted portion of the cave looks like the door to a medieval prison, with a lock like that and all. The spiders even looked like they were from the 12th century. I was scared. And to be honest, I want nothing to do with the cave. Carrying my bike down the winding stone, semi-dark staircase everyday seems like a really mean sentence decreed upon me. Like I’ve done something criminal by owning and riding a bike.
The situation became more complicated when my handbag was stolen in Rome (in which the precious keys to the cave were stored). Xavier and I were taking a little nap on a shaded bench in that hot city and I had placed my handbag just underneath us, thinking that I would sense anyone who tried to come that close. Not so. The Italians have a reputation that, unfortunately, they lived up to nicely for us those few days we spent in Rome. To be fair, I loved Rome and the Italians…the strange Vatican experience; the monks and nuns selling Jesus paraphernalia at the gift shops, the wretched beggars sprawled on the streets in supplication (I think assuming that their tragedy and piety in begging would be more lucrative and convincing to the gawking tourists), the endless rows of grey plastic chairs in the middle of the vast Vatican courtyard, all presumably awaiting a visitation from the Pope…the Italian men, letching at any woman under the age of 65 (“maybe just one kiss is possible?” over and over)…the scalding sun already in early June…the rich sense of place that permeates all of Europe in the architecture, the vestiges of civilization preserved, especially for Americans…and the cab drivers, oh the drivers. One night Xavier and I were returning to our hotel in a cab and our driver was absolutely wild. 19 years old, soccer jersey, big smile, not a word of English, loud loud music (which, ironically was in English, a hip hop song called “Wild Boys”…absolutely fitting and he didn’t even know it) and the most insane driver I have literally ever experienced. I thought drivers in New York cabs were a bit reckless. However, there is a world between an imprudent New York cabbie and this fellow. Red lights meant absolutely nothing to him. People in the street didn’t really mean anything either. Neither of these were indications to slow down or to stop. He didn’t even really consider that a road (even an Italian one) is fashioned for traffic that runs in two directions. Both lanes were his, the sidewalk, the cop he almost ran over and then had a brief exchange of pleasantries screamed over his music and the noise of acceleration, his.
Back to Josephine. It has now been a full week that the bikes have been in the courtyard and Josephine’s nerves are entirely shot. I was laughing about it until I heard a persistent and severe knock on the door this morning. She had spoken to Xavier on his way in from work last night. (You see, she peers through the peephole in her door every time she hears noises in the hallway. The sound of a key in the keyhole of our door is utter excitement for her. It means we are home for surveillance). She jumped out of her apartment, hearing his noises in the hallway, and demanded straight out that something be done about this galling situation. Xavier feigned a call from his father and quickly removed himself from the situation promising to make a copy of her key to the cave as soon as possible and get the bikes down there. Coward. It was me who had to face her music this morning. Standing in front of me, she was wringing her hands, literally. I watched her as she pressed them against each other over and over again, her face twisted in suffering.
By the time I shut the door, it was me who was fretting. I called Xavier at work and told him that he must do a better job of explaining the situation to her, or reaching some understanding. Wise Xavier. He responded, “Emilie, don’t you see that this woman is delighted? She has something to agonize about, to fret at night, even to lose sleep over. She is in heaven. She can’t believe her luck, that she got such neighbors.”
In so many ways Xavier is not French in any sense. He is, by nature, in a hurry, impatient. Efficiency is chief. Our biggest fights in moving have been over my inability to be passably efficient in moving boxes to and fro or in getting up and down staircases quickly enough. This is not French. His co-workers drive him mad. He turned to me last night and said, “It is impossible to work between 12:30 and 2:00pm at my office. There is always someone missing, gone for lunch. First, it is lunch all together and then coffee, of course. A procession. I am considered antisocial because I skip out on coffee. I am already tortured by the whole process.” And meetings, he cannot deal with. He plans to tell his boss outright that the meetings stretching over the entire morning are unacceptable. But French people seem to love them. In many ways, Xavier is very American. It is a good thing he is in business.
Xavier the businessman
My favorite bike path along the Seine
This was taken with my mobile phone while buzzing around Paris on my bike
The sunlight on the floor changed slightly; the angle of the sun had caught itself on something new. Jospehine, our dear dear neighbor, had opened her window and was falsely fluffing the flowers in her window box, taking the opportunity to catch a glimpse of our life across the courtyard. This particular window of hers faces ours directly. As a result she considers herself very lucky. This is apparent by the amount of time she devotes to tasks that require her to hover directly around this window…waiting for the moment that we are doing something of interest (and the threshold for something interesting for Josephine is actually very low; standing in the room suffices). For example, she found Xavier vacuuming the room absolutely thrilling. He is handsome, but in this case, she could only see his legs and the base of the vacuum since the curtains were half-way drawn, hardly enough motivation to watch enthralled. I could picture the way her face fell when Xavier closed the curtains fully so that she was blocked out from scrutinizing his housekeeping.
Our peaceful moment was interrupted by her shrill voice penetrating the morning air. She had been up for hours fussing. Knowing that our window was open and that we could unmistakably hear her, she leaned far out of her window to holler down to a neighbor two floors below her and across the courtyard, whose window was providentially also open. “Les velos!” Josephine bellowed. I thought perhaps the neighbor below might not be receptive to this kind of communication – blather across the courtyard through open windows, but au contraire. Josephine had found an audience. Xavier and I giggled with wide eyes as they discussed the calamity of our bikes still being parked in the courtyard. "What audacity! What a daily inconvenience to each tenant in the building! Insolence! The bikes must be brought to the cave!" (Said as if decreeing some kind of sentence for a couple of criminals).
The bike issue really makes me laugh. It is a huge courtyard. They are two lovely bikes with baskets and they are parked nicely and neatly by the trash cans. When Josephine first spoke of the “cave” that first day we moved in, I thought it was a funny term she used for a basement. I am American. I can’t get away from that sometimes. No, I should have taken here far more literally. The cave is exactly that. A huge hollowed out medieval space below the building made of stone blocks. When I was brought down there by the guy who did all the work on our apartment, he warned me on the way down not to be scared. The door to our allotted portion of the cave looks like the door to a medieval prison, with a lock like that and all. The spiders even looked like they were from the 12th century. I was scared. And to be honest, I want nothing to do with the cave. Carrying my bike down the winding stone, semi-dark staircase everyday seems like a really mean sentence decreed upon me. Like I’ve done something criminal by owning and riding a bike.
The situation became more complicated when my handbag was stolen in Rome (in which the precious keys to the cave were stored). Xavier and I were taking a little nap on a shaded bench in that hot city and I had placed my handbag just underneath us, thinking that I would sense anyone who tried to come that close. Not so. The Italians have a reputation that, unfortunately, they lived up to nicely for us those few days we spent in Rome. To be fair, I loved Rome and the Italians…the strange Vatican experience; the monks and nuns selling Jesus paraphernalia at the gift shops, the wretched beggars sprawled on the streets in supplication (I think assuming that their tragedy and piety in begging would be more lucrative and convincing to the gawking tourists), the endless rows of grey plastic chairs in the middle of the vast Vatican courtyard, all presumably awaiting a visitation from the Pope…the Italian men, letching at any woman under the age of 65 (“maybe just one kiss is possible?” over and over)…the scalding sun already in early June…the rich sense of place that permeates all of Europe in the architecture, the vestiges of civilization preserved, especially for Americans…and the cab drivers, oh the drivers. One night Xavier and I were returning to our hotel in a cab and our driver was absolutely wild. 19 years old, soccer jersey, big smile, not a word of English, loud loud music (which, ironically was in English, a hip hop song called “Wild Boys”…absolutely fitting and he didn’t even know it) and the most insane driver I have literally ever experienced. I thought drivers in New York cabs were a bit reckless. However, there is a world between an imprudent New York cabbie and this fellow. Red lights meant absolutely nothing to him. People in the street didn’t really mean anything either. Neither of these were indications to slow down or to stop. He didn’t even really consider that a road (even an Italian one) is fashioned for traffic that runs in two directions. Both lanes were his, the sidewalk, the cop he almost ran over and then had a brief exchange of pleasantries screamed over his music and the noise of acceleration, his.
Back to Josephine. It has now been a full week that the bikes have been in the courtyard and Josephine’s nerves are entirely shot. I was laughing about it until I heard a persistent and severe knock on the door this morning. She had spoken to Xavier on his way in from work last night. (You see, she peers through the peephole in her door every time she hears noises in the hallway. The sound of a key in the keyhole of our door is utter excitement for her. It means we are home for surveillance). She jumped out of her apartment, hearing his noises in the hallway, and demanded straight out that something be done about this galling situation. Xavier feigned a call from his father and quickly removed himself from the situation promising to make a copy of her key to the cave as soon as possible and get the bikes down there. Coward. It was me who had to face her music this morning. Standing in front of me, she was wringing her hands, literally. I watched her as she pressed them against each other over and over again, her face twisted in suffering.
By the time I shut the door, it was me who was fretting. I called Xavier at work and told him that he must do a better job of explaining the situation to her, or reaching some understanding. Wise Xavier. He responded, “Emilie, don’t you see that this woman is delighted? She has something to agonize about, to fret at night, even to lose sleep over. She is in heaven. She can’t believe her luck, that she got such neighbors.”
In so many ways Xavier is not French in any sense. He is, by nature, in a hurry, impatient. Efficiency is chief. Our biggest fights in moving have been over my inability to be passably efficient in moving boxes to and fro or in getting up and down staircases quickly enough. This is not French. His co-workers drive him mad. He turned to me last night and said, “It is impossible to work between 12:30 and 2:00pm at my office. There is always someone missing, gone for lunch. First, it is lunch all together and then coffee, of course. A procession. I am considered antisocial because I skip out on coffee. I am already tortured by the whole process.” And meetings, he cannot deal with. He plans to tell his boss outright that the meetings stretching over the entire morning are unacceptable. But French people seem to love them. In many ways, Xavier is very American. It is a good thing he is in business.
Xavier the businessman
My favorite bike path along the Seine
This was taken with my mobile phone while buzzing around Paris on my bike
June 5, 2007
PARIS I
I am sitting in our new apartment, which happens to be a dream. It is in the central north part of Paris (9th arrondissement) and has just been renovated nicely. Big, thick moldings (about a foot or more) along the floors and in some rooms, molding that runs halfway up the wall. The ceilings too. There are three fireplace mantels, in the living, dining and master bedroom. And the whole thing just has a lot of charm. The apartment is much bigger than I thought it might be, with windows almost floor to ceiling and they've just been replaced; not a sound when they are closed. I can have window boxes with flowers in all the windows, especially the kitchen one, so I am going to need my mother, Julie, and my garden editor at Martha Stewart Living to consult me on what to plant, etc. I am really excited. I feel like I've walked into a really enchanting life and providentially, it is mine. There is a nice room for Marguerite and an entirely extra bedroom on top of that. I am going to put a desk in there and the little piano Xavier acquired for me, but the point is that this room is a perfect place for guests. An entirely superfluous room that needs to be occupied by your bodies. This apartment is way better than a hotel, so I expect all to visit, and soon.
Right across the hall from us lives a woman named Josephine. She is amazing. Xavier and I came to see the apartment on Monday night when I first got here and she heard us come up the elevator (to the fifth floor, her apartment faces ours across the hall), she opened her door widely and made a little speech about the new hallway runner she just purchased and installed for the common good. She really didn’t even say hello. Next, there was a little lecture about the elevator door and how noise in the hallway is something she cannot tolerate. (Thank goodness none of our walls directly abut hers). She looks like a mushroom with a white top in a nightgown (and we’ve seen her three times now, in the exact same nightgown with the same stains on it right above the navy blue writing on the chest).
Do you remember in the movie "Amelie", the woman at the base of the building who was into everyone’s business and knew what everyone was doing and where each tenant was? Buildings in Paris formally have these women, called “concierges.” Well, Josephine is not the concierge of this building, but she certainly thinks so.
All of our things from New York were delivered this morning and there was major busy-bodiness from Josephine going on. She heard the movers and ran out of her apartment, down the elevator to the courtyard, where the movers and our things were congregated. “Mon jardin!” she kept lamenting, while puffing out her cheeks, totally exasperated. Our building has a main entrance off the street, which opens into a big, square courtyard, where most of the apartments face. It is nice, because our apartment is silent albeit we live on a rather major road in Paris. Jospehine, like most things in the building, has taken control of the courtyard. Truly, it is a handsome “jardin”. Plenty of potted ferns and rhododendrons and nice big plants. But her reaction to the movers’ hands on her pots was like a mother whose stroller sheltering her brand new baby was being moved by some bystander. She was not happy. Fretting, she ran next door and found the true concierge and demanded that someone act as a sentinel for her plants as the movers were setting up the huge lift that would hoist all of our belongings from the courtyard up to one of the windows of our apartment (that indicates how big the windows are; a huge, three cushion couch fit through one of the windows easily).
I was looking on and found the whole endeavor delightful. It seemed impossible to simply bring in a lift and basically never to have to climb a step with all the stuff. Josephine had a different perspective. Her next panic was that the lift would crack the tiling of the courtyard and then, worse, fall down into the caves below! (This is what she called the storage area in the basement of the building). At one point, Xavier looked at me and said, “We are going to have to walk a fine line with this one…we really don’t want to make an enemy here, and at the same time, she’s got to know what is hers and what is ours. Our apartment, for example.” He looked scared. But, to be honest, I think she is hilarious and, in fact, as I write, the bedroom window is open (so is hers) and I can hear her through the courtyard bossing her husband around in their apartment.
The most delightful part so far has been Xavier’s sister, Marie, and her family. They have a really incredible little apartment in the south of Paris. She is a painter and I wish you could see how meticulously they’ve renovated this apartment. There is a dearth of “things,” almost in a way I didn’t really think possible with two little kids. We were laughing as we sat down to have lunch (an avocado, endive, cucumber, tomato salad and an assortment of cheeses, olives and onions) on the day I arrived, because Jules is appreciative of me, since I am about as articulate as he (he is two). Not really, but Louise (7) has fully embraced her role as my French tutor. And Jules makes the funniest noises all the time. He has longish, brown, curly hair and is always dressed in blue and white horizontally striped shirts with little buttons on the shoulder, classically French. Louise has her hair perfectly coiffed, split down the middle with a headband running across the two sections.
After educating me on the nuances of 16th century french living: the moat, the many princesses gliding gracefully about the chateau, the elves and sorcerers, the horses and kings and queens, and of course, the monster (Jules, who crashes the castle and chortles, overjoyed with himself), Louise read books to me for three hours yesterday. Listening to how she sounds out words is such a lesson for me. And she is so long-suffering and patient. I often make her pause to clarify a word or to explain the sense of something. She calmly looks at me, smiles and says, “C’est a dire” (that is to say), and then gives details and examples to make things clear. While reading a delicious book about 100 different types of princesses, we came across “poudre” (powder). I repeated the word “poudre” and Louise repeated the word and then chose snow as the first explanation for the word…and then chocolate powder when baking a cake…and then she looked into my eyes and asked, “c’est clair?” Yes, clear indeed, Louise. Xavier teases me and says that my best friend will be a seven-year-old, that I have a lot to learn from her. It is true. And Marie, Xavier's sister, is such a beautiful person. Like Louise, she is incredibly enduring and kind to me. She will make me a big bowl of tea and then ask which of three types of honey I would prefer: lavender honey, orange honey or rosemary honey. Three types of exquisite honey; that is luxury.
This is our apartment | Dining Room
The Entry
Marie (Xavier's sister), Jules, Louise
Right across the hall from us lives a woman named Josephine. She is amazing. Xavier and I came to see the apartment on Monday night when I first got here and she heard us come up the elevator (to the fifth floor, her apartment faces ours across the hall), she opened her door widely and made a little speech about the new hallway runner she just purchased and installed for the common good. She really didn’t even say hello. Next, there was a little lecture about the elevator door and how noise in the hallway is something she cannot tolerate. (Thank goodness none of our walls directly abut hers). She looks like a mushroom with a white top in a nightgown (and we’ve seen her three times now, in the exact same nightgown with the same stains on it right above the navy blue writing on the chest).
Do you remember in the movie "Amelie", the woman at the base of the building who was into everyone’s business and knew what everyone was doing and where each tenant was? Buildings in Paris formally have these women, called “concierges.” Well, Josephine is not the concierge of this building, but she certainly thinks so.
All of our things from New York were delivered this morning and there was major busy-bodiness from Josephine going on. She heard the movers and ran out of her apartment, down the elevator to the courtyard, where the movers and our things were congregated. “Mon jardin!” she kept lamenting, while puffing out her cheeks, totally exasperated. Our building has a main entrance off the street, which opens into a big, square courtyard, where most of the apartments face. It is nice, because our apartment is silent albeit we live on a rather major road in Paris. Jospehine, like most things in the building, has taken control of the courtyard. Truly, it is a handsome “jardin”. Plenty of potted ferns and rhododendrons and nice big plants. But her reaction to the movers’ hands on her pots was like a mother whose stroller sheltering her brand new baby was being moved by some bystander. She was not happy. Fretting, she ran next door and found the true concierge and demanded that someone act as a sentinel for her plants as the movers were setting up the huge lift that would hoist all of our belongings from the courtyard up to one of the windows of our apartment (that indicates how big the windows are; a huge, three cushion couch fit through one of the windows easily).
I was looking on and found the whole endeavor delightful. It seemed impossible to simply bring in a lift and basically never to have to climb a step with all the stuff. Josephine had a different perspective. Her next panic was that the lift would crack the tiling of the courtyard and then, worse, fall down into the caves below! (This is what she called the storage area in the basement of the building). At one point, Xavier looked at me and said, “We are going to have to walk a fine line with this one…we really don’t want to make an enemy here, and at the same time, she’s got to know what is hers and what is ours. Our apartment, for example.” He looked scared. But, to be honest, I think she is hilarious and, in fact, as I write, the bedroom window is open (so is hers) and I can hear her through the courtyard bossing her husband around in their apartment.
The most delightful part so far has been Xavier’s sister, Marie, and her family. They have a really incredible little apartment in the south of Paris. She is a painter and I wish you could see how meticulously they’ve renovated this apartment. There is a dearth of “things,” almost in a way I didn’t really think possible with two little kids. We were laughing as we sat down to have lunch (an avocado, endive, cucumber, tomato salad and an assortment of cheeses, olives and onions) on the day I arrived, because Jules is appreciative of me, since I am about as articulate as he (he is two). Not really, but Louise (7) has fully embraced her role as my French tutor. And Jules makes the funniest noises all the time. He has longish, brown, curly hair and is always dressed in blue and white horizontally striped shirts with little buttons on the shoulder, classically French. Louise has her hair perfectly coiffed, split down the middle with a headband running across the two sections.
After educating me on the nuances of 16th century french living: the moat, the many princesses gliding gracefully about the chateau, the elves and sorcerers, the horses and kings and queens, and of course, the monster (Jules, who crashes the castle and chortles, overjoyed with himself), Louise read books to me for three hours yesterday. Listening to how she sounds out words is such a lesson for me. And she is so long-suffering and patient. I often make her pause to clarify a word or to explain the sense of something. She calmly looks at me, smiles and says, “C’est a dire” (that is to say), and then gives details and examples to make things clear. While reading a delicious book about 100 different types of princesses, we came across “poudre” (powder). I repeated the word “poudre” and Louise repeated the word and then chose snow as the first explanation for the word…and then chocolate powder when baking a cake…and then she looked into my eyes and asked, “c’est clair?” Yes, clear indeed, Louise. Xavier teases me and says that my best friend will be a seven-year-old, that I have a lot to learn from her. It is true. And Marie, Xavier's sister, is such a beautiful person. Like Louise, she is incredibly enduring and kind to me. She will make me a big bowl of tea and then ask which of three types of honey I would prefer: lavender honey, orange honey or rosemary honey. Three types of exquisite honey; that is luxury.
This is our apartment | Dining Room
The Entry
Marie (Xavier's sister), Jules, Louise
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