Without Reservations_ The Travels of an Independent Woman - Alice Steinbach [11]
Love, Alice
During my first week in Paris I left the hotel each morning with a carefully worked out plan for the day. Knowing the plan was tucked safely in my handbag lessened the slightly chaotic feeling of living in a new kind of time, one that had no demands and no deadlines. I was unfamiliar with such a concept of time and it seemed slightly dangerous.
As I set out each day, I felt like a young child again, one who hadn’t yet learned the rules of manmade time: the rules of clocks and calendars, of weekdays and weekends. Except for the primitive markers of day and night, time lay ahead of me in a continuous, undefined mass. I began picturing it as some kind of strange but friendly beast whose appetites and desires were unknown to me. How, I wondered, was I to feed such an unpredictable creature? Having an agenda—I sometimes thought of it as a menu—helped give structure to this new kind of time.
At first I followed the plan precisely, as though I were a reporter on a daily deadline: Wednesday morning, rue de Buci open-air market and rue du Cherche-Midi; afternoon, Picasso Museum and place des Vosges; evening, organ concert at Sainte-Chapelle. I guess the idea of stepping out from behind the “camouflage of routine,” as someone once described it, still intimated me.
By the end of the week, however, I felt confident enough to exchange the old detailed plan for a new and much looser one. Instead of singling out specific places of interest, I decided to concentrate on the neighborhood that was to be my home. This area consisted, roughly, of the streets that lay between the Seine and the boulevard Saint-Germain, plus the square mile or so surrounding the juncture of the 6th and 7th Arrondissements.
The new plan was simple. I would walk—street by fascinating street.
For several days I did just this, getting to know the bookstores and galleries, the cafés and fruit vendors, the patisseries and flower shops. Each day I ventured farther and farther, extending my map of the familiar, gradually finding the places in my neighborhood that were to become part of my daily life. The bookstore in the rue Jacob devoted to gardening. A café on the rue du Bac that served small elegant sandwiches and pastries so delicious they were famous throughout Paris. The small grocery shop near the rue de Verneuil. The newsstand run by Jacques and Monsieur Jacques. The out-of-the-way tea salon on the rue de Beaune. Presided over by Madame Cedelle, this soon became my favorite place for lunch or a late tea in the afternoon.
It was there that I met Liliane, the most extraordinary looking woman in all of Paris.
I first saw her standing at the entry to the crowded tea shop, a woman with dazzling, almond-shaped eyes and skin the color of cognac. Liliane, a slender figure perched on stiletto heels, wore a short, tight, green velvet skirt paired with a peplumed, deep rose satin blouse. Positioned on top of her long, dark hair was a tilted purple hat made of fluted straw; attached to it, a stiff mousseline veil that just covered her eyes. The total effect was that of some exotic parrot set down among sparrows. So physically striking was Liliane that the sight of her caused a brief silence in the tearoom, as diners paused to take in her presence.
I watched as Liliane’s eyes scanned the tea salon looking for an empty table. There was none. To my amazement, she approached me. “Would you mind sharing your table with me?” she asked in English, her clipped accent carrying hints of time spent in England.
“Of course not,” I said. “Please. Sit down.”
Actually, I was delighted to have company. I pushed aside the postcards I’d been writing to my sons and motioned to a chair. Sharing a meal, I had learned, was one of the best ways to meet people when traveling alone. Sometimes a real friendship