A Paris Affair

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The Streets of Paris

Preparations and Departures

Café Liberté

Dinner Out

Sightseeing

Tourists in the City

A Night on the Town

Every Vacation Ends

“Oh-laaa! Tu me fais chier quoi, Paris de merde! Ville des putain de lumières! Tu m’emmerdes!”

Valérie swore angrily as she tried to wipe the thick smear of soft, fetid dog shit off her shoes. “City of fucking Light! Go fuck yourself!” she muttered. The quaint Paris cobblestones, and in fact all the streets of Paris, were a landmine of dog turds. And they were a racing course of nasty little speeding four-cylinder cars, and of scooters driven by rude and careless teenagers.

She found the building. With Mathieu trailing, she entered the courtyard and tried to wipe her dirty shoe on a mat. She and her son made their way up the four flights to the medical specialist’s office.

The receptionist looked at Valérie with undisguised boredom. “I’m sorry, madame, but there’s nothing I can do for you. Your son requires this form—” she held one up in the same manner that a primary-school teacher would use with a pint-size pupil “—before he can have this appointment with the doctor.”

“But I have the appointment already. This is it. It is now,” Valérie said, pointing to her watch for effect. “How can someone have given me an appointment that I’m not allowed to have? It makes no sense.” Mathieu was whining at her side. He’d been complaining for most of their errands. “Maman, juice! Thirsty! Juice!” he repeated, tugging at her pant leg.

Valérie rummaged in her handbag and found a small bottle of water and handed it to him. He drank. The break in his whining felt like a release of some of the overwhelming, exhausting pressure in her head. Mathieu, her younger of two children, was almost five, and should have been speaking in complete sentences. But he wasn’t, and when her veil of self-denial was finally lifted by the primary school’s refusal to admit him because of language development issues, she’d unhappily begun to travel the routes of help for developmentally delayed children.

The receptionist sighed heavily. “The appointments are given six weeks ahead. Madame, all the families understand that they have those six weeks to have their assessment done before they are permitted their initial follow-up here. Everyone knows that before they arrive here. I’m terribly sorry you didn’t understand that, madame, but it’s commonly understood by all the doctor’s patients.”

Valérie had fought so many of these grinding, bureaucratic battles since they’d returned to Paris that she knew it was utterly pointless to continue any exchange with the receptionist. “Bon. Merci, madame. Au revoir,” she replied, with necessary courtesy.

“Au revoir, madame!” clipped the receptionist in return. Valérie gathered her grocery bags and stuffed the folded blank forms inside. They left the office and made their way back down the four winding flights of stairs.

Mathieu hung on her coat they walked through the drizzling rain, dodging aggressive human and car traffic. “Watch your step for dog poop, Mathieu,” she instructed. They walked back down into the métro, where Mathieu’s jacket pocket became snagged on the turnstile. He got stuck and began to wail. People behind him complained loudly and shoved their way through the next turnstiles. She unhooked his pocket and untangled him. They struggled through the crush of humanity on the platforms and trains, through six stops and two line changes. The air was stuffy and stale and the cars were crowded. Valérie fought her way to empty seats and plopped her son on them to keep him from whining for at least a few stops.

Then, back up the escalators and stairs from the métro to the street, where she tripped over the knee of a woman sitting on the pavement, begging for money. The woman yelled at Valérie, who decided this city was a horrid little piece of hell.

After walking the four blocks to their building, they wearily climbed their own three flights. Each step up drained energy from Valerie’s body. Reaching the final landing, she felt as if all her vitality had been leeched out, bit by bit, by those nasty streets, regulated offices, irritating shops, stifling Métro cars, and finally, their own never-ending stairs.