The death of Paris (greatly exaggerated)

FRIDAY, MAY 16, 2014
The Weekly Screed (#676)

The death of Paris (greatly exaggerated)

by David Benjamin

PARIS — In mythology, Paris was a Trojan prince who left his first wife to steal Helen from Greece, cuckolding Helen’s hubby Menelaus and launching the Trojan War. In combat, Paris was a notorious coward eventually wounded by Philoctetes. Paris died gradually after Helen begged his first wife, Oenone, to nurse him, a request Oeonone refused, leaving Paris to expire, after which Oeone, in a belated onset of grief, threw herself onto his funeral pyre.

In Europe, Paris is a city which, like its mythological namesake, is dying gradually. Or so say its legion of mourners, all of whom remember a better, livelier, more relevant Paris in good old days that are as recent as the turn of the millenium and as distant as the Belle Epoque.

Last night in Paris, strolling with Hotlips along rue de Sevre, I saw a living picture postcard from that golden age. Seated at a table on the sidewalk terrace of a café, she was a profile, her legs crossed, sipping from a glass, ebony hair swept back, skin tinged with a subtle blush, smoldering eyes that could — if you risked any inspection longer than a glimpse — wither you with disdain. There was something in her of Louise Brooks, Ingrid Bergman, Anouk Aimee, completely French but absolutely international and — in the moment you see her there casually public and indifferent to her perfection — heart-stoppingly beautiful. She is more often visible in Paris, in more colors and shades, that in any city on earth.

If she was here for the doughboys of 1918, for the GI’s of ’45, and now, here, eternally, for Hotlips and me, on the terrace of the Café Les Oiseaux whispering French nothings into the ear of an arm-candy boytoy escort, how dead can Paris be?

When I first saw Paris almost 35 years ago, I read, in several magazines, the city’s obituary, written by people who’d been here ahead of me. Since then, people who landed 20 years after me have sadly recounted the changes that killed Paris before their very eyes. This could be as simple as the closing of an iconic department store (Samaritaine), the felling (and replanting) of the chestnut trees on place Dauphine, or the demises of Serge Gainsbourg and Memphis Slim.

A thousand city-diminishing tragedies have struck Paris in my time, and yet I can still lay my hand on the marble thigh of any sculpture in the Tuileries and feel a pulse. I cling to the faction who believes that any city’s life force is its indefatigable capacity for change.

When I first came to Paris, the original L’Entrecote restaurant still stood on rue Verneuil, dispensing the best steak in Paris with its ambrosial béarnaise sauce. Today, L’Entrecote is a chain serving cheapskate tourists, still with a decent steak and a nice béarnaise. But it’s no longer the best steak in town, and I don’t know where that best steak is. But I know it’s there and it’s probably the best steak in the world. Because this is Paris.

When I was first in Paris with Hotlips, the best dessert in Paris was the tarte fine aux pommes chaudes at a little bistro near St. Germain des Prés, called L’Échaudé St. Germain. But when the old couple who ran the place retired, they took the recipe with them. There’s still a best dessert in Paris, but now it’s the rice pudding at La Regalade, way down on the south fringe of the 15th arrondissement.

To quote a dead Parisian, “Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.”

(Oh. Almost forgot. We’ve also found the best soup in Paris, around the corner from our apartment on rue St. Jacques, at a Chinese joint called Mirama. This soup is so popular that the broth vat is the size of a Japanese bathtub.)

Speaking of bests, there isn’t a subway system in the world better, cleaner, faster, safer, easier to negotiate than Le Métro. If this town is dying, why are half the subway stations newer and brighter than your average Swiss toilet? The Métro stays the best because it changes. The central line from Chateau de Vincennes to La Défense now has suicide barriers and the middle-of-the-line stations have been spiffed to the hilt. I was worried that renovation would ruin my favorite station, Franklin D. Roosevelt, which conveyed a murky funkiness that distinguished it from every other stop on the Métro.

Thankfully, although the new FDR is totally different, it’s as lovably weird as ever. Its designers somehow lent the station the indirectly-lit ambience of a 1960’s bachelor pad as it might have been displayed in the front section (between this month’s “Playboy Philosophy” sermon and the centerfold) of Playboy.

How can you call dead or dying a city with the chutzpah to turn a subway station named for a paraplegic Depression Era president into a mass-transit version of Hugh Hefner’s TV-show boudoir?

To quote another president, here’s change I can believe in.

Besides, for everything Parisian that vanishes or re-upholsters, there is the Paris that preserves stubbornly so much of itself. The Plague victims in the Catacombs haven’t moved an inch in centuries. Paris hasn’t torn down a church in my lifetime. The museums are as timeless as their mummies, and there are still hundreds of sore-backed workmen who know how to lay cobblestones in perfect scallop patterns between the granite curbs in the back streets of Paris.

And Parisians? They’ll never die, they’ll never entirely behave and they’ll never be as predictable as New Yorkers. Our waiter at lunch yesterday went goofy with joy at seeing us and insisted on taking our photo not once, but twice with both our cameras (failing both times). Few citydwellers are as charming as Parisians.

Or as rude. Today, as I aimed for the door of my bank, a Parisian woman of a certain age (not to be confused with the goddess at Les Oiseaux) cut in front, buzzed herself in and turned on me as I tried to follow her into the foyer. She shook a finger, fending me backward, and said sharply, in English, “One by one!”

I’ve only been back here 30 hours, but I’ve already had a dozen slights, delights and adventures. Imagine how fun this city would be if only it were still alive.