By Gavin Murphy
When you miss the last metro, and you don’t have money for a taxi, the deserted backstreets of Paris seem almost foreboding as you trudge from block to block, arrondissement to arrondissement, especially if you are away from the big illuminated boulevards and lost in the maze-like Marais after dark.
I had run out of money days earlier and had been haunting Western Union, but no cash came. She said she would send the money. I had gone to the place where you wait in line to make an international telephone call. I had purchased the jeton with some of my few remaining francs and entered my booth and used the slug to make a collect overseas phone call.
She had said she would send the money.
There was wine at the fête but no food. Not even a smelly camembert. And so maybe I’m a little drunk (but one is almost always a little drunk in Paris). I am lost and definitely getting tired.
Then there it is. On its side, as if tossed to the ground – the bicyclette. It isn’t new but it looks functional. No lock.
I walk past. Stop. Look back.
I’m peddling but I’m still lost. Suddenly I am on the Rue de Rivoli, a street I recognize. There is a strong breeze at my back, propelling me and invigorating me at the same time. I pass the Hotel de Ville, the splendorific city hall of Paris. It is late so the fancy shops nearby are closed and there are few people and cars about. Soon the imposing edifice of the Louvre appears to my left and then I am peddling next to the gardens of the Tuileries, shadowy at night with slumbering statues of the gods.
I try to skirt the Place de la Concorde but a concrete barrier forces me into the mad traffic. Now, amidst speeding cars and fencing headlights, I bank around a giant fountain. Above me is the ancient obelisk from Luxor dedicated to one of the Ramses. I try again to get to the perimeter but blaring horns signal that I should keep peddling forward.
To swerve or stop is to die.
I am sucked deeper into the vortex of squealing tires and menacing fast moving metal that sweeps like a frightened school of fish around a second fountain and beneath the fantastic granite needle covered in hieroglyphs, around the place where the overheated guillotine mechanized death.
We race past the Orangerie – the fanciest greenhouse ever built – and then the Jeu de Palme, Napoleon III’s tennis court. I again attempt to extricate myself from the spinning traffic but end up swept along for another lap in the racetrack like oval that wraps around the fountains and the obelisk, cars whizzing and swerving by within inches of my handlebars and tires. Then, as if by a miracle, the centrifugal force in play as we loop around and hit a straightaway opens a channel in the traffic that spits me out right onto the Champs Elysees.
I peddle along with the traffic uphill toward the Arc. There are still stragglers wandering the wide sidewalks after emerging from the movie theaters and late night cafes. I am winded by the time I reach the étoile but can’t resist taking a spin around the massive monument to Napolean’s obsession with all things Roman. I spy a group of gendarmes looking my way and cut off onto the Avenue Victor Hugo. A whistle blows but I keep peddling.
It’s an upscale neighborhood. I cruise through the Place Victor Hugo, where streetwalkers wearing expensive fur coats congregate. One sits behind the wheel of a parked Ferrari.
A couple side streets take me to the Place du Trocadero, where, just beyond the monumental Art Deco pile that is the Palais de Chaillot and the Jardins du Trocadero with its massive fountain and then across the Seine stands the Eiffel Tower, illuminated by blinking lights. Hitler famously used the setting as a backdrop. Those buried in the adjacent cemetery also have a good view of the tower.
I see the lights are still on in the Cafe du Trocadero and the Kleber, next to the metro.
I am close to where I live now in a chambre de bonne – former servants’ quarters – on the top floor of a fancy apartment building.
When I get to the apartment building – a minor art nouveau showcase in itself – I don’t know what to do with the bicyclette. I decide to take it up to my room as riding it was so liberating, like suddenly being able to walk again, but my room is up seven flights of stairs. Those of us dwelling in the garret are not allowed to use l’ascenseur.
Merde.
I wheel the bicyclette quietly through the front doors and at the bottom of the stairs hoist it up onto my shoulder. It is pretty heavy. I get only a couple flights up and the concierge spots me. She is yelling at me in rapid French.
“Oui Madame,” I say. “Oui, bonsoir madame…”
As I disappear up the stairs I hear her exasperated voice.
“Oh, ce garçon!”
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Posted November 2024
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