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By Root 2122 0

I remember her well: dark, thin, and beautiful the way some Spanish women are beautiful. She graciously received me in her apartment near the Champs-Élysées. Sitting with me, hands poised delicately on her knees, she was delighted to answer my questions. Unfortunately, I didn’t have any. I had no idea how to interview a beauty queen. What was I supposed to ask her? Her views on German disarmament, her favorite authors, what she thought of the winner of the Prix Goncourt? I fidgeted, and she waited, serenely at first and then with mounting impatience. I was so confused I couldn’t see straight, and in the end I opted for frankness. “Mademoiselle,” I stammered, “I don’t know what I’m supposed to ask you. Could you give me a little help?” She burst into applause, as though she had just heard the best joke of her life. “You really don’t know? Well, that’s the first time this has ever happened. Okay, take this down.…” She proceeded to tell me about her diet and exercises. Then she cited some figures. I asked if it was a phone number, and that produced a fresh burst of laughter. “You claim to be a journalist? And in Paris?” It wasn’t my fault. How was I supposed to recognize her measurements? I wrote it all down like a student and, sweat running down my face, pieced together an article I hoped no one would read, or whose byline, at least, no one would notice.

Fortunately, I would not have this problem with Miss Israel; I wasn’t supposed to write anything about her. But she did cause trouble of another kind. The paper had forgotten to send me the money required to show a young Jewish beauty queen the hospitality due to one of her exalted status. I had to borrow left and right, for, unfortunately, this queen was cultured and intelligent. She wanted to see the real Paris, not just the Eiffel Tower and the Folies-Bergère. She wanted to go to the theater, to concerts, and so on. My various press cards came in handy. I must also admit that I rather enjoyed the envious glances; it wasn’t so bad being the attentive escort of Israel’s most beautiful woman, especially since Miriam (that was her name) had plenty of character and spirit. She asked many questions about Paris, which I was delighted to answer, improvising with an aplomb that I am ashamed of today.

Perhaps this is the moment to make a confession. In those days I often made up stories about Paris, descriptions you won’t find in any guidebook. The problem was that too many Israeli visitors insisted I show them the Louvre and the Place de la Concorde, Montmartre and the Russian cabarets. At first I was a conscientious guide, telling only what I knew, but then I realized that my tourists were disappointed. They wanted more interesting stories. The façade of Notre-Dame, with its Jews in pointed hats, was not enough for them. Nor was the Palais de Justice, where, in 1240, by order of King Louis IX, the first disputation on Judaism between Rabbi Yehiel and the convert Nicholas Donin was held.

Did my visitors know that the king and queen attended the event and that it was Donin who persuaded Pope Gregory IX and King Louis IX to order the Talmud burned? “We learned all that in school,” they said. “We want to hear about other things.” So I began inventing anecdotes for every statue, stories for every square, memories for every monument. I didn’t see how rearranging the capital’s past for an hour or a morning could do France any harm. Until one day the inevitable happened. I was at the Place de la Bastille addressing a small group of French speakers who listened raptly to my description of the Revolution. I was in top form. I even gave them the names of the officer who first threw open the prison gates and the prisoner who fell to his knees to beg for mercy. In the next cell a princess awaited death. She was ready to die, but changed her mind at the sight of the officer. Suddenly, to her friends’ chagrin, she began to shout of her love of life and the living. I could easily have gone on until the next revolution but for the cry that then came from a gentleman unknown to me. He was, unfortunately,