I squinted into the low light. The worse my vision got, the more frustrating it became to wait for someone. Anyone could be him. Why there he is, bending over just so, perhaps he dropped his scarf! Or there he could be, but who is the girl he is with? There he comes, with his brother, oh but too tall, that one. I worry faintly that I won’t recognize him when the moment comes, that too long an absence has changed him or dulled his image in my head.

And there he is. So familiar, he sticks out of the crowd like a beacon, looking so American with his broad grin and complexion ruddy with overflowing happiness. An American in Paris! I run to him and give him a large hug. But he isn’t American, not completely. He scolds me laughingly and says, “That’s the American way! We are in France so we must do it the French way!” Bisou, bisou, et comment ça va? A fine tradition of France. He tells me that his brother originally had plans for tonight, then cancelled them so he could come to see me, then fell ill and couldn’t do anything at all. I express my condolences. “I just laughed at him,” he says, in the manner of brothers.

We are eating overstuffed dinner crępe at a small cręperie. He calls it the Qdoba of cręperies. He says some people know him for five months before they become suspicious that he isn’t completely American. He says usually it is when he says the word “salmon”, because he can’t help pronouncing the “l”.

“I don’t know where that makes me from, but the word has an l and I’m going to pronounce it!”

He admits that some people catch him right away. “Out of 10,000 people, how are they the ones who notice? What is it that they notice?”

“With those people, I may talk about salmon too soon,” he muses.

We think about the last time we saw each other. It wasn’t so long ago, but it was still before he even met her, his other half. The last time we were together, he didn’t even know she existed. I wonder if I had told him under what circumstances we would next meet if he could ever had fathomed so much happening in slightly over two and a half years.

“What is that beautiful building?” I ask as we walk along the narrow Parisian street, warming our hands on our dessert crępes, mine Nutella and banana, his chocolate and banana. He thinks it is the Pantheon, and a nearby street sign proves him right. He tells me that Victor Hugo was buried there, the Curies might be buried there, and someone like Descartes was possibly buried there as well. He points out a nearby church. “She and I were walking here one night, and we came upon a great crowd with children playing music and everything… turned out the Pope was here!” I am impressed. “Do you see how I just name-dropped the Pope just there?” he adds, grinning. “I didn’t actually see the Pope. But he was there. ”

The front of the Pantheon was even more gorgeous than the back. “Someday, I, too, will be buried here,” he concludes with a grandiose sweep of his arm. The front of the Pantheon was still adorned with the memory of Christmas, with a grove of trees and ornaments and baubles and velvet bows hanging from their branches. The street bowed around the entrance to the grand building, and as we approached its apex, the hill fell away towards Paris and the Eiffel tower came dramatically into view, lit up against the night and framed by the buildings.

“I didn’t know that would happen,” he says. “I promise I didn’t secretly take you on a romantic walk,” he assures me. He points out the great libraries of La Rue des Ecoles, this one of the Sorbonne, this one languages of the Arabic world. For my part, I took him to see Jussieu, where the lab I am visiting is located. It is a great monolith of concrete, metal and asbestos, surrounded by a moat built after student riots almost destroyed the university in the 1970s. Now large iron gates lock the students out after hours, and the only way in any other time is by spindly bridges that arch across the moat through spiked metal gates. There was a sculpture garden full of tired, filthy, pale blue, metal amoebas on sticks, crowded by geometric temporary classroom spaces decorated with primary colors.

“Someday,” I said, gesturing, “I will be buried here.”

He said someday he would come back with his new wife and see the things properly when the gate was open, and his only explanation for the more than forty-five minute trip would be that this girl he knows said they were awesome.

When we reached Le Metro, we laughed raucously with American abandon, made jokes about conquistadors, and generally talked much too loud, making a promise that we wouldn’t let this much time go by again, that we would take our long-planned vacation in Montreal, and other promises that neither of us had any idea if we could keep. We said goodbye in the American way.

Is it true that Paris is full of dog merde traps?
» Nuttz on 2009-01-15 08:06:24

Wow.. that sucks... I guess tourists can't walk and admire the buildings at the same time to avoid from stepping on dog poop or urine.
» Nuttz on 2009-01-15 10:08:44

R:C
I remember that one.

And this one--a classic:

http://graphjam.files.wordpress.com/2008/04/funny-graphs-shakira-hips.gif
» ranor on 2009-01-15 11:38:58

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