The hostel was in the reflection of Montmarte on a street too small to allow the passage of a postal truck. From the grocer on the corner, we got a long baguette and spreadable cheese. On the other corner, we bought two packs of the world’s harshest cigarettes. Somewhere else, we burdened ourselves with wine; this was our ritual.
In the courtyard enclosed by kindly stuccoed buildings, someone among us had raised the umbrella and we gathered closer to it when the light rain started falling. We gathered, but did not leave. Above us, one French matron called to a neighbor’s French boy, out of the wide swinging and tall French windows. The deep yellow curtain over the window brushed, lightly, the blue door next to it, the door that stayed open in the summer heat.
The white string clouds mulled around the sky. Ours was an afternoon of pleasure overload. I could imagine the white dirt leading to the Louvre being edged and pushed and transformed by this little pre-evening rain.
In my left hand I held a glass of cool white wine; in my right, a cigarette was sheltered by my palm. Strewn in front of me were the empty silver triangles of already eaten cheese. As a former mother, I whimpered with joy, watching the life of Paris rise 4 stories above us. I tilted my head back to watch the small water droplets fall straight down toward me, splash my cheeks and roll away. I smiled…how sweet the French rain.
03-11-07