Carolinesaid that if I wrote this no one would believe it, but it’s true, so . . . .
On our first trip to Paris together around 1983 we checked into ahotel that had been recommended to us by a friend who had stayed there beforeand liked it a lot. We arrived on agray rainy day following a 10-day stay in London where friends had lent ustheir house in Putney, although it really seemed as if they had lentus their entire London lives and outlook, and we experienced that city joyfully andgratefully.
Caroline, looking very lovely with her London smile and Brown's of South Molton Street haircut, had a dreadful cold and Paris imposed a dissonant tonebeginning with the very first taxi ride from the airport. When we arrived at our hotel reception, itgave off an ominous bad vibe, which translated into open hostility when an angry-lookingmale clerk eventually descended from asort of raised alcove office to check us in. We were all American smiles and cooperative fluent-enough French, evenwhen we were shown to an ugly room in a back corridor on a low floor. When the door closed, we looked at each otherand agreed that it was like being locked in a trunk.
Despite Caroline’s malady,we decided to press on with the day and had a great afternoon, lunching atWilli’s Wine Bar (still extremely new, we learned of Mark Williamson and StevenSpurrier’s restaurant through our heavily-marked Gault-Millau Paris guide) anddropping in at the headquarters of J. Danflou, the famed producer of cognacs,armagnacs and eaux-de-vies. (From ourguidebook we thought we’d be visiting a retail establishment, but these wereactually the Danflou corporate offices. Theytreated us royally, insisting we sample a wide range of their amazing liquorssold in the famous medieval-shaped bottles, and M. Danflou himself stopped byto shake our hands and say rather portentously: “I love Americans, but I hateGermans.”)
Later that evening afterturning in, Caroline woke up crying and practically on fire. She asked me please to get her aspirin. I dressed and visited the front desk, wherethe same devil from earlier in the day was on duty. I asked him for several aspirin in perfectlyserviceable French and he told me that if I did not vanish from his sightimmediately he would call the police to arrest me. I told him that would be fine; perhaps one ofthe gendarmes would have an aspirin on him.
Getting nowhere fast, Itold Caroline what happened and seeing the look of desperation on her face Isaid that I knew that Paris had all-night pharmacies marked by green orblue-green crosses and I would visit one of those. She looked really alarmed then, but I knew Ineeded to take care this.
We were in a perfectlylovely Parisian neighborhood and my nocturnal stroll felt very “I am aSurrealist in Paris out past midnight.” Louis Aragon and Andre Breton were definitely guiding my steps to thefirst druggist, who couldn’t have been more cooperative and furnished me with tablets, sore throat patentmedicine, soothing lozenges, etc.
Returningto our weird hotel, the sight of Caroline’s relieved face wasuplifting and revivifying. (Those were the dayswhen simple pleasures visited more often.) She took the pills and liquid and felt much better in the morning. We phoned our friends, asked if we mightreturn to London to finish out our vacation with them (we were not tired ofLondon yet; we were not tired of life), spent one more terrific Run For YourLife Day in Paris (Eiffel Tower, Yves Saint Laurent, Saint-Chapelle,Montparnasse and the Latin Quarter), anddeparted Dodge for Londinium where we showed our friends things about Putneyand environs that even they didn’t know.
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