We perch on tall stools, sipping at beers spiked with peach syrup. It is 5pm on a Saturday and a garbage truck is thunder. ‘I am surprised there are any bins left to collect,’ observes G cynically.
M takes a video of a woman, with grey fraying hair, dancing in front of the flames. Her skirt billows out, dancing a duet with the breeze. Black smoke gropes for the grey monotony of the Paris sky. Does the carpet of cloud deafen the roar? Can you hear it? Bins once standing stand no more. Puddles of acrid plastic and the occasional wheel, well-fallen off.
Lately, the streets have spooked even the most anarchic of pigeons, chased rats, seasoned by revolt, to seek new refuge. Classmates bemoan the protests, the return to zoom, ‘but don’t you see,’ I say, ‘this is the Revolution!’. Rubbish pushes against seams and the streets burst forth like old pipes. Three friends cannot shower, or wash dishes. M’s plumber messages her to ask if she wants to get a drink. She rolls her eyes, ‘we didn’t even speak, I was still in bed’. It has been threatening to rain. For weeks, months, years? No matter, there is always time to take out the trash.
The room is hot and smells like gas. A black man cast in bronze holds a black earth, on fire. In Tonight no man will sleep, Adel Abdessemed plays Nessun dorma and sets himself aflame. Another room bears traces of pastel, paint, performance; space itself a palimpsest. I imagine my naked body painted red, like in Judy Chicago’s Woman and Smoke. A flare is gripped, close-fisted, and I am the mirage, gliding through a vast expanse. On the streets, on desert sands, my body in red is arrested, arresting, and I come to understand, this is art. The pointillist painting made of matches. It takes only one stroke to be struck.
They say you cannot find anything in Paris, that it must find you. L cannot find a rug. G cannot find superglue. C cannot find love. But I find a malachite crystal, tucked between two slabs of concrete. It is mesmerising, deep green. That same day, B rediscovers a stone I gifted to her before leaving, so many kilometres away. She rests it on her heart. I lose count of how many times have I said, ‘I am homesick from nature’.
We pour our peach-infused beer from one plastic cup into another and laugh our way down blue-cobbled stairs, into one of the many basements of the city. A group of Italian boys, with beautiful curled hair and perfectly articulated lips, sit in a crescent around the piano. Hand rolled cigarettes dangle from downturned mouths, pursed in concentration. Magic clings to our small, shared air like stale smoke clings to yesterday’s clothes. Pensive faces, pliés and ash animate Clair de Lune. The next tune is fast and three of us, all beautiful, dance. On the street I meet the moon, complement her haircut, and now we pinch one another to verify life is real. Together, we discover that the boundary between dreams and reality is permeable: a dotted line.
P rocks red clogs, red lips and says, ‘non merci,’ when offered a red rose wrapped in plastic.
I learn something simple. With musicians I fall in love.
There are two French phrases we all learn quickly, by heart: ‘as-tu un feu?’ and ‘je n'ai pas des espèces,’ tacking, ‘désole,’ onto the end to excuse our cold hearts, or as an afterthought, or because we might mean it.
My apartment is close to the fire brigade. On days where the sky screams blue it feels wrong that someplace, something burns. As it turns out, there is always a fire somewhere.
I am sitting on a bench facing Église Saint-Eustache. A man busks next to a fire truck. Figures glide past, extremities sheltered against the chill. I open my book, which in Paris is an invitation. My first guests are two elderly French men, who share one set of teeth between them. My assessment: harmless. One gawks when I tell him it takes 24 hours—yes, a whole day—to get here from Australia, the other does the best kangaroo impersonation I have ever seen. The pair carry sleeping bags and wear worn woollen jumpers, wide smiles and animate the conversation with gestures, the universal language.
My next guest in the turnstile of encounters has deep lines in her face and a sprinkling of fur on her chin. She shuffles up to me, wearing a purple headscarf and smoking a cigarette. She has something important to tell me, plus it is good luck—a good omen—to meet facing a church. ‘I will read your palm and tell you what I know, for only 50€,’ she insists, sitting next to me and holding my gaze. I appreciate her performance and am in a yes mood. I offer her 10€ and a piece of chocolate from my bag. We begin. A stream of firefighters climb up a ladder. The busker starts to sing a song about ‘pompiers’. Occasionally, a form bends over, sprinkling coins into his open hat like seeds, or stardust.
When flecks of rain begin to assault my page, I migrate to a nearby gallery, equipped with my new good-luck charm. I am instructed to write, ‘la tranquillité, la santé, le travail et l’amour’ onto a torn piece of paper, into which my mystic companion places a nibbled coffee bean. It must be soaked in whiskey overnight for its latent powers to be realised. I am giddy on Camus’ absurd. For 200€ she offers to bless my mother. I politely decline. Can you put a price on love? On fairy tales?
The gallery closes but the gift shop is open for another half an hour. I descend into another Paris basement. The cold bite of stone is thawed by shared words, warm spirits. On this day, we write about home. I write about blood.
The Seine is strung with blue fairy lights. Revolt sparkles through streets, trails along bridges. And then there is fire. People run, screams echo, boots are a discordant percussion. Black forms swarm like wasps, metamorphose into shadows. One could talk about police brutality, violence. Instead, N says, ‘the anarchist in me is annoyed I find men in uniform so attractive’.
R takes to the stage each Monday night and in his Scottish drawl—of honey, salt and rock—reads his poems. As he arrives at the line, ‘meteors in the deep abyss’, the power goes out: the abyss stares back. On the same stage, L sits cross-legged, knees stretching the skirt people mistake for a wedding dress, and raps her bare palms onto wood. ‘You turn the stage into thunder’, I say to her, smiling between poets.
When I return to Paris, August wants to rain. J smiles with his eyes and hangs up the phone when he sees me. It has been a long time! He tells me about his kids, his week off to visit friends in Rome, explains that I must get a residence permit, to be able to stay. Expertly he brushes batter into a perfect circle, and still, refuses when I try to pay.
‘The bartender at Chateau d’Eau is still just as rude’, M laughs, rolling her eyes and a cigarette. The sky is moody, promiscuous even. We sit under our arch, nibbling on oil, and wish the turnstile of eccentrics and drunks a ‘bonne soirée’ to send them on their way. It is nearing full moon. High-up windows fling open to the tolling of bells and the assault of building-block metal. No amount of sweat can loosen humidity’s grip on the city. A restlessness permeates the collective consciousness. There are questions raised about hot coals. And always, there is talk of fire.
Someone once told me that walking through the streets of Paris is like walking through soup. I think of it more as floating through a thick bloodstream: pulsating, intoxicating, deep crimson, and oh so very alive.
