// essays //
May 18, 2015 (original post 02/02/2015)
Drinking With Strangers
Lily Wilf
Predictably, I’ve learned many new things while living in Paris for the semester. Wine is cheaper than water, a bikini wax is cheaper than a load of laundry, and baguettes are not better than bagels. Unexpectedly, I’ve also learned how to milk a goat.
It all began with my search for something to read during my interminably long subway rides. There isn’t even a French word for “express,” let alone a Paris subway train that can be characterized as such. Two weeks and too many baguettes into the semester, my cravings for bagels were matched only by my desire to be around the noisy American Jews who eat them. (If there is one thing Parisian Jews are not, it is noisy. They have always been a quiet crowd, but I fear history is unfolding in favor of their silence.) So, I tracked down a used bookstore near school in a semi-cynical, semi-sentimental pursuit of a grumpy Jewish read. I found a lot more than that.
I had to undress halfway through the door of the shop, which, even from the street, smelled delightfully like sangria and pancakes. The aisles were as skinny as spaghetti, and incapable of accommodating the sweaters, down jacket, and backpack I had piled on me. A middle aged man and two young women sat on low stools in the shop’s one square meter of free space—I speak metric these days because it’s the only language Google Maps speaks here—clutching sandwiches and mismatched ceramic mugs. They beckoned me toward them, and handed me a mug of my own. Hot wine, the man explained in broken French, with maple syrup and cinnamon sticks. (Aha! Pancake sangria.) In speedier French, the young women introduced themselves as natives of Romania and Germany living in Paris to complete Master’s degrees in something geological or geographical. The man identified himself as Carl, the storeowner, and a long-time Canadian expat. Who are you, they asked.
Whoever I am, I am not much like them. I miss home; they’ve proudly left theirs. They eat ham and cheese crêpe sandwiches; I can’t conceive of a crêpe that comes without Nutella. They are in love with Paris, and I am not. I explained that I am an undergraduate student from New York, new to Paris, hungry for French practice, but at their store on the hunt for some Philip Roth, or something. Paris est rêveuse, non? The crew cooed at me: Paris is dreamy, isn’t it? They were telling, not asking. Before I could counter with my puzzlement surrounding Parisian laziness, shitty coffee, and absurdly long grocery lines, the German had hung my coat neatly on a hook, the Romanian had cleared a stack of books from a stool for me to sit, and Carl had disappeared into the depths of the store and reappeared with a fingerprinty copy of Roth’s American Pastoral.
I handed over six euro in exchange for the book and an invitation to go on a hike with the three of them and their friends some Sunday in March. They do it all the time, they told me, and they milk goats. Have I ever milked a goat? No, but I do like goat cheese. (Admittedly, a very Parisian sentiment.) Then you must join us. And on and on the Romanian went about how to milk a goat. It didn’t sound so bad, really. But not like much fun, either.
Inside this expat enclave of English books I’d found Paris’s biggest fans, and though none of them were Parisian at all, their lingua franca was French and their sensibilities were local. American Pastoral is everything they are not: Jewish, disillusioned, and quick. They are Paris: lounging, literary and altogether dreamy. I looked for some home, and I found some Paris. And it smelled awesome.
It all began with my search for something to read during my interminably long subway rides. There isn’t even a French word for “express,” let alone a Paris subway train that can be characterized as such. Two weeks and too many baguettes into the semester, my cravings for bagels were matched only by my desire to be around the noisy American Jews who eat them. (If there is one thing Parisian Jews are not, it is noisy. They have always been a quiet crowd, but I fear history is unfolding in favor of their silence.) So, I tracked down a used bookstore near school in a semi-cynical, semi-sentimental pursuit of a grumpy Jewish read. I found a lot more than that.
I had to undress halfway through the door of the shop, which, even from the street, smelled delightfully like sangria and pancakes. The aisles were as skinny as spaghetti, and incapable of accommodating the sweaters, down jacket, and backpack I had piled on me. A middle aged man and two young women sat on low stools in the shop’s one square meter of free space—I speak metric these days because it’s the only language Google Maps speaks here—clutching sandwiches and mismatched ceramic mugs. They beckoned me toward them, and handed me a mug of my own. Hot wine, the man explained in broken French, with maple syrup and cinnamon sticks. (Aha! Pancake sangria.) In speedier French, the young women introduced themselves as natives of Romania and Germany living in Paris to complete Master’s degrees in something geological or geographical. The man identified himself as Carl, the storeowner, and a long-time Canadian expat. Who are you, they asked.
Whoever I am, I am not much like them. I miss home; they’ve proudly left theirs. They eat ham and cheese crêpe sandwiches; I can’t conceive of a crêpe that comes without Nutella. They are in love with Paris, and I am not. I explained that I am an undergraduate student from New York, new to Paris, hungry for French practice, but at their store on the hunt for some Philip Roth, or something. Paris est rêveuse, non? The crew cooed at me: Paris is dreamy, isn’t it? They were telling, not asking. Before I could counter with my puzzlement surrounding Parisian laziness, shitty coffee, and absurdly long grocery lines, the German had hung my coat neatly on a hook, the Romanian had cleared a stack of books from a stool for me to sit, and Carl had disappeared into the depths of the store and reappeared with a fingerprinty copy of Roth’s American Pastoral.
I handed over six euro in exchange for the book and an invitation to go on a hike with the three of them and their friends some Sunday in March. They do it all the time, they told me, and they milk goats. Have I ever milked a goat? No, but I do like goat cheese. (Admittedly, a very Parisian sentiment.) Then you must join us. And on and on the Romanian went about how to milk a goat. It didn’t sound so bad, really. But not like much fun, either.
Inside this expat enclave of English books I’d found Paris’s biggest fans, and though none of them were Parisian at all, their lingua franca was French and their sensibilities were local. American Pastoral is everything they are not: Jewish, disillusioned, and quick. They are Paris: lounging, literary and altogether dreamy. I looked for some home, and I found some Paris. And it smelled awesome.
// LILY WILF is a Junior in Barnard College and a Contributing Editor for The Current. She can be reached at liw2103@barnard.edu. Photo provided by www.thewayofcheese.com.