Books

• Abbey books
• Flo’s shop, Rue Monsieur-le-Prince
• Polidor for lunch
• A walk to La Tour d’Eiffel
• Time out
• Dinner with Lars and Helena at Cafe Vagenende

Bookshops are the reader’s alladin’s cave, are they not? We head for Abbey Books this morning and find it in the gentle Paris rain in a back alley over in the Latin Quarter. It’s more book storage than library with every available space crammed with titles, old, new, hard, soft, shelved, stacked and buried. The shelves are so close together that we can only slip between sideways, and then so tight and books so close that I can’t bring them into focus without going cross-eyed. I dig deeper while Di heads off to visit Flo, a friend she’s kept in touch with since we were here in 2018. I’m looking for something from Meister Eckhart, ‘down in religion under E…or perhaps M’, the proprietor suggests, without confidence (this useful tit-bit reducing my catacomb search time from a week to three days). Despite Swami Savarati-like contortions, whilst listening to an American descending the dungeon stair complain that ‘it’s a fire trap’ and he’ll ‘stay not a moment longer’, I find nothing. It was a fun journey, though. Apparently, sexual variations is a popular Christian title?

I reconnect wth Di and Flos, and we head for our booking at Polidor (after the bar meal the other day). We’re on time and the place is quite but in less than 20 minutes it’s packed with Paris lunch goers enjoying their wine and repast. As luck would have it, two fellow countrymen share our table, an author (John) and movie producer (Roger). John has written prolifically of Paris walks and history (amongst many other topics) and regales us with tales of Hemingway, F Scott Fitzgerald and Gertrude Stein, stories that all unfolded only blocks away. In fact, he knew the fellow who introduced Hemingway and Fitzgerald. I comment on Hemingway’s use of Cezanne’s broad brushstrokes as a metaphor for condescending writing to the bare essentials. Apparently, Hemingway, very poor at the time, would walk down through Jardin de Luxembourg to avoid the tantalising bistro aromas (that he could ill afford) and land at Gertrude’s partner’s place (Alice) where she’d ply him, on empty stomach, with the fruit from the bottom of the liqueur bottle. Tanked, Hemingway would then head to Musée du Luxembourg, where a lot of expressionist works were displayed before they were moved to the Louvre, and ruminate on great art (including Cezzane) under the influence.

Roger tells the story of a film shoot in Marseille where, fobbed off by Parisian officials, they approached Marseille locals for permission to film. Local government, essentially the Mafia, replied, ‘of course, no problem’. But it’s a period piece so we’ll need to remove all cars from the streets?’, ‘No problem’, came the reply. On the morning of the shoot, there were cars everywhere, ‘no problem’ re-confirms the official. A truck comes along, picks up and removes all the vehicles in the street, ‘no problem’, says the official, you pay us, car owners pay us to get cars back, win-win’. The mafia boss arrives on the day, resplendent in full-length fur coat and gold chains, keen to be included in the movie. Roger needs to have the delicate conversation about the unlikely presence of full-length furs and gold chains in period pieces. Apparently, it all worked out well.

We learned also that the Polidor is the restaurant at which Owen Wilson talks to Hemingway in ‘Midnight in Paris’. He leaves, and when he turns back, having forgotten to ask Hemingway something, only a laundromat can be seen. The laundromat is just across the road.

We walk to the Eiffel Tower – because we can – catching glimpses of the tower’s now cloud-cloaked top as we wander through the back streets. I think we tubed it home and had a kip.

Later in the evening, we walked to the Belle Époque styled Cafe Vagenende in Boulevard Saint-Germain to meet Lars and Helena, Colin and Jo’s friends from IMEDE, who had travelled from out of town to see us…in the pouring rain. The ceoliac thing doesn’t often bother me, but I confess this evening, I could not but gaze wistfully at the Souffléed pike quenelles in Nantua sauce (traditionally made from a creamy bechamel base, crayfish butter and heavy cream), enjoyed by Lars, Helena and Di….served in beautiful copper pots with brass handles. Outstanding! It was delightful to meet and share a meal with Lars and Helena.

We walked home in the rain, wet pavers reflecting the warm glow of the cafes and bars, still welcoming the night watch of Paris till long after we’d gone off to bed.