A letter from Montmartre

Dear Leyla,

No, it was not Simone de Beauvoir that made me travel to Paris. You are wrong there. I know you used to joke about “The Second Sex” as it hid in the shadows for so long and then when it finally came out into the spotlight, we both read it, hoping to find out what the secret was. You said it was all too complicated and people would be happier if they could live a simpler life. And we both agreed Simone de Beauvoir lived far from a simple life. I think sometimes of how far ahead she was of her time. She did not have to find a lifestyle that other people often had thrust upon them, it was enough for her to be herself. And of course, she so desperately wanted to become an author.

You know it is easy for me as I sit here on Montmartre sipping my Pernod, to picture her walking down the street to her favourite café where she would meet Sartre and her disciples for a Sunday literary discussion. All dressed in black with that beret slightly tilted to the side, head high, eyes focused straight ahead as she walks past the primitive studios with no running water or heat in this prolific art colony. Noise flooding out on the cobbled streets from the bohemian basement bars. The smell of cigars, Gauloises cigarettes, coffee and burning coal. The place where poverty turned into a creative force of luxury and where the artists and bohemians thrived. Yes, you will laugh at me. “Fancy her, sitting at a café somewhere in Montmartre! What is she doing there?”

You did not want to come with me, remember? All those years ago. I told you I was ready to go. I needed to see the world and I desperately wanted to see Paris through a dirty window on the Metro, just like Sartre. You laughed then, just as I know you will be laughing now when you read this, thinking to yourself “did you not grow up?’ You see my appetite was not only for food and bodily desires, but I also needed to physically be there, to enter the world of those that I had been reading and I desperately needed to have my senses filled with their thoughts and experiences. I was not satisfied with only reading about their worlds, I had to be there. This was the home of the bohemians, the artists where surrealism and cubism came to life and Hemingway wrote “The Sun also Rises.”

I was going on seventeen that summer. It was the last year of school and now when I think back, I know I could have done better in some of the subjects. But my mind was filled with books and music and as time went on, I found those subjects at school not only boring but soul destroying. There was no comparison to going to a concert and letting the music take you on that mysterious journey to the unknown or to sit under the elm trees by the art gallery with a book that made the journey become possible. My imagination was set free, and I was not satisfied until I could see it all for myself.

I am so grateful I bought that ticket. That was the summer I grew up; it was the summer that I fell in love, and it was the summer that I learned life was so much more than the view through my school window.

I am back at the hotel where I stayed all those years ago. Would you believe it is still here on the Boulevard St Michel and if I did not know better, I swear to you the carpet has not changed after thirty-five years. Could that be so? The décor is worn of course, and the double bed must have seen many mattresses, and I might add, this one is extremely comfortable. I pulled the sheets apart yesterday to find out what sort of mattress it is. Would you believe it is a latex. I have heard they are the absolute best, no wonder I have been sleeping so well!

I love being here again and I love sitting here in Montmartre with my notebook and pen just like I did way back then. You should have been here; we would have made the perfect young couple. You with your drawings and me writing poetry and nonsense stories. But you were far to occupied trying to establish an organised life for yourself and I think, if you don’t mind me saying so, that bourgeois life offered more comfort for you to follow in the end. Never mind, we are all free to choose our various paths.

Yes, I sat here. Not exactly in the same spot, I think my café has closed but this one is close enough to feel familiar. I wrote in my notebook about the great minds that had been drawn to this part of the world. Hemingway, Strindberg, Balzac, Joyce, Orwell, Steinbeck, Gertrude Stein, Fitzgerald etc. only to mention a few and little did I know that I was sitting literally a few houses away from Simone de Beauvoir and Sartre’s meeting point. I could have easily run in to them. They met on Sundays; I sat here every day during the time I spent in Paris. I did not know this was their stomping ground. And what would I have done if they had walked pass, or if they had come in to my café? I don’t know that I would have been game enough to ask for an autograph in my notebook or to engage them in some creative chat, it seems childish somehow. Perhaps I would have been too shy, too humble, just because of the cult that surrounded them and had seemed so far ahead of its time and became something that we now lived by. Did they create it? Was it our generation that developed it and made it known? I don’t know, somehow, they owned it, didn’t they? They wrote the “Love pact contract” promising each other to stay true without marrying and with the freedom to have other partners as long as they disclosed their sexual adventures to each other. And they did stay true to each other, all the way to the end.

I did not know when I sat here that Sartre was getting a bad reputation, having sexual relationships with his younger students, about my age. Why should I be surprised? I should have guessed it. After all Simone had affairs with young women, so what was so different? Perhaps it was the discretion, something happening behind the scenes and not brought out there for everyone to judge and discriminate against.

You told me recently that I am not young anymore, and that I should act my age. Well, let me tell you something. Last night I was young and alive. You won’t like this, but something happened while I was eating my omelette at the café opposite the Opera House. The air was chilly and heavy rainclouds began to appear as the sun set. I was determent to stay at the outdoor cafe and the waiter kindly brought me a blanket for my legs. Paris at night is a cascade of lights and colours, a vibrant pageant alive with excitement. Cars and people passed, footsteps blending in with the sound of the engines, high heels cluttering against the cobbled footpath, a couple stopping getting ready with their umbrellas. Paris fashion, hats, long coats, expensive handbags of brand names such as Dior, Gucci, Versace, and Louis Vuitton. Scarves in subtle colours all passed by like a live fashion show in front of my eyes. I reached for my notebook, I had to jolt these impressions down. I did not get far; a man approached me. He just appeared and stood in front of my table, blocking my view out to the street. He smiled as he said, “how would you like to visit the Eifel Tower in the rain?” Thoughts ran through my head. Was it so obvious I was a tourist? Did I look English? Was he joking? It was a minute or two before I answered. I had to, he was still there, silent, saying nothing with a gentle smile playing across his lips. It was not me answering him, it was the young me from a long time past, and the words just jumped out of my mouth.

“You know, I would love to!”

There you have it! Would you believe I did not only get to see the Eifel Tower in the rain, but I also drank hot chocolate with whipped cream at the top of that famous landmark and laughed as we watched the lights of Paris dance in the soft rain beneath us. I felt like I was on top of the world, and I was, well, almost. I should not tell you this, some things are best kept secret, but I will let you know just because you called me old. I was seventeen again and there was fire in the night. We drank wine and danced on one of the old tugboats on the Seine, making love on an ancient brass bed surrounded by red velvet curtains and drops of rain making music on the roof. And somewhere there was the sound of an accordion. I could have been dreaming all of this, but I found something this morning that proved it was real. It was the blanket the waiter so kindly had put over my legs and that the man had put over my shoulders to warm me on top of the tower. I will bring it back tonight of course, to that kind waiter.

I can almost feel you drawing breath now. “Has she gone crazy?” “What in the world is she doing?” I can hear you. Well, no I have not gone crazy, I have just decided to live. Just like the authors and artists before me, just like the ones I read all those years ago. Just like I did when I was seventeen. Only this time it will be me telling my story!

I must finish this now. I have things to note down in my book….

” There is a woman walking on the sidewalk opposite the café. She wears a long black coat and a beret slightly tilted to one side. Her eyes are focused straight ahead. There is something familiar about her…it could not be….”

Oh, my coffee just arrived.

Ps. I just picked up a copy of “The Second Sex.” Time to read it again!

Love

Anna