A Parisian Soirée

Jim Haynes with Author Talia Carner

          Tucked in a Parisian residential is an unkempt garden. Or rather, it is a pathway along the side of a building in which two-storey high windows allow peeks into artists’ ateliers. Just past a shed with boarded windows, one side of the path is planted with fruit trees. Take a few steps onto a narrow brick terrace, and you face the door to Jim’s world.

            Jim’s home is built upon a quirkily impressive history of literature and theater—and his love of people. The home has a kitchen that occupies one-third of the first-floor living area. In that kitchen, every Sunday evening for the past three decades, volunteers cook up a dinner for up to seventy strangers who’ve heard of Jim’s soirées.
             In our American standards—and perhaps in European standards, too—the living room is tiny for such an ambitious hosting. An upholstered bench runs along one wall, supplemented by a couple of chairs. Above them, a long shelf exhibits books by authors close to Jim’s heart.
             The real action of the evening, one soon discovers, is in the people who gather in that room, and by necessity, spill onto the terrace and the garden. A couple of ex-pats who’ve long settled Paris are helping around the party. The rest are either tourists from all corners of the globe seeking the flavor of old literary Paris, or temporary residents of Paris. It is easy to make introductions as one must squeeze close to a dozen people to fetch ice from the only commercial-size appliance in this otherwise modest dwelling that manages to whip up a meal for so many guests. The red and white wine, extracted from the spigots of cardboard pegs, help set the mood.
            I was first handed a bowl with three servings of three totally unidentified food. Each piece or mush challenged me with its different shape and texture, but I failed to guess what it was. Nevertheless, I trusted myself (and Jim) enough, and found the food to be quite tasty—yet still unidentified. Someone said this dish had Asian influence, and I was unable to argue one way or another. The main course was more familiar, though less edible, for the slab of meat that had never suffered the heat of fire or oven was to be consumed with only a fork. I recalled my visit to a French family back in the 1970s, where I was served my first raw meat, but it was eaten at the table, with the benefit of a knife.
            Even though we were all Jim’s guests, in his e-mail he suggested a 30 Euro donation (about $40) per person. He asked that the money be discretely placed in a recycled envelope, while Jim, sitting high on a stool at the back of the room, welcomed every person and ticked them off his list, noting the envelopes. One guest speculated that the octogenarian Jim landed a weekly income, cashing in on his long reputation and the media exposure his evenings had received. Totally legitimate in my mind—and well worth it. I found myself engaged in interesting conversations: An Australian duo of a mother-daughter visiting Paris; a Minnesota couple on a tour of Parisian most notable gardens (Jim’s is not on the list;) a mixed Caucasian and Black American couple that had inherited an apartment in Paris; a French web designer practicing his English; a retired architect with set views about the many countries in which he had worked.
            There is no secret to a successful Parisian evening: Put dozens of strangers who enjoy travel and meeting other people in a room with a garden, feed them, pour them wine, and let them start talking.
                       

More about Jim Haynes: http://www.jim-haynes.com/

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New-York-based novelist Talia Carner's explores the world's social issues. See www.TaliaCarner.com
           
            

Paris, here I come!

             In my four years at Alliance Française, a French-language high school in Tel-Aviv, we all became Francophiles. We belted out French songs, staged school plays in French—and cursed in French. A romantic teenager with three language at my disposal and a flare for writing, I penned poetry in French.

            The summer after our junior year, a selected group of students was sent to France on a month-long mission, which included almost three weeks in Paris. That memorable first trip turned up decades later as the seed of inspiration for my novel JERUSALEM MAIDEN.

            Somewhere along the journey into French language and culture, a dream sprouted: one day I would spend a semester at the famous Sorbonne university in Paris, where I would study Civilisation Française.

            Life, though, had its own agenda, and the dream never materialized. And while in the decades that followed I visited Paris numerous times, I put behind not only that youthful fantasy, but also the language I had once loved. In my twenties, I moved to New York, made English my daily language—and soon the language of my career, first in business, and then in the literary world. When my American husband and I traveled through France, I acted in restaurants and stores as an American tourist that did not even speak French. The Francophile part of my life was erased.

            And then, in 2005, while penning a novel set in Jerusalem, my protagonist surprised me and took off to Paris. Only after I packed my bags and chased her there did I realize that unbeknown to me, the author, her move had been motivated by my very first school trip in the 1960s. It was then that I had imagined my grandmother—the inspiration for JERUSALEM MAIDEN—as an artist there during the avant-garde era.

            What did I know about Paris at that historical time? In the two weeks prior to leaving home to follow my protagonist, I trained my oral muscles and grey cells with verb conjugations and nuanced pronunciation. My husband was amused when I walked around the house mouthing forgotten words and phrases. 

            In Paris, for the first time in decades, I spoke the language as I became a flaneuse, a wanderer, now exploring the city though the eyes of my protagonist in 1924, at a time when most houses had no running water, few had electricity or gas lines, and sanitation services were provided by the slop wagon into which residents emptied their chamber pots. I sat at dusty libraries and leafed through tomes of history—in French.

            In 2010, when JERUSALEM MAIDEN was preparing for publication by HarperCollins, I set out on another project, investigating the history of a painting that had been in my family. I grew up with this museum-size canvas and was so attached to it that after my sister inherited it I commissioned an artist to copy it. Now I contacted long lost cousins, a brother and a sister whom I had met only once forty years earlier, and whose grandparents had originally purchased this painting. Raised in Germany, the brother and sister—now with their respective spouses—lived in different parts of France. The first phone conversation with the sister turned into an almost two-hours long chat. A week later I spoke with her brother, and after forty delightful minutes, he put his French-speaking wife on the phone. Like the others, she was warm and delighted at the renewed contact.

            Three months later, my husband and I piggy-backed a trip to Europe with a get-together in Paris with these cousins. The three couples spent fabulous four days, where we bonded beautifully. Since both my cousins’ spouses spoke no English, I chatted in French from morning to night. My husband, who spoke only English showed the best of his bonhomie self. Although my grammar was far from perfect, it was clear that it was intuitively ingrained, as only someone who had once been fluent in the language could have mastered.

            A year ago, in the spring of 2012, Ron and I visited each of the cousins in their respective hometown, where again I spoke only French. Soon, I was flooded with memories of my high school years when the language and its cultural nuances had meant so much to me.

            This past Fall, at a conversation with a young man who was on remission from cancer, he brought up the question of a bucket list. “What would you do if you had only one year to live?” he asked.

            After some thought, I replied, “I’ll eat chocolate.”

            He burst out laughing. “That’s it? You’ve done and seen everything? I haven’t even been to California!”

            Later, I reflected on my pathetically short wish list. Had I really accomplished everything I could ever dream of? Or did I not dare dream outside the obvious, beyond what was available to me?

            My old desire to spend a semester in the Sorbonne popped in my head. At this time in my life, nothing held me back from making it happen: I had the financial means, my children were emancipated adults, my husband a busy independent man. Besides being French-challenged, he had always enjoyed Paris for just a few days at a time. On the other hand, he always supported my interests. With his unending encouragement, I had blossomed.

The first problem I encountered was that the student body at the Sorbonne that had once been so appealing, hadn't changed: they were still twenty year olds. And a semester was too long to tear myself from my life.  

I approached my husband with the request of a birthday gift of only one month in which I would tailor my own language and culture program. Sure enough, a quick Google search brought up language immersion classes for business executives, presumably in their 40s rather than in their 20s. I discovered groups of expat writers that conducted French conversations, and I signed up for lectures about art and theater along with architectural walks. I would take my exercise and dance classes in French and would even play Mah-Jongg in French.

There was a moment—turned into hours--in which I panicked.

In today’s world of Internet, I could view photographs of each furnished apartment from every possible angel. It would be my home for the month, a place to cocoon alone. But that’s when reality hit me. I had never been alone! Even in the solitude of writing, Ron had always been in the background. After thirty-five years together, I was accustomed to his ever-present care and friendship. Since he struggled with the same separation anxiety, I had to keep my bravado. I forged on with my plan--or my bucket list would once again be reduced to only one thing: chocolate….

I will be leaving for Paris in 8 days. Stay tuned.

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Novelist Talia Carner lives in New York. Her latest novel, JERUSALEM MAIDEN (HarperCollins, 2011) deals with the struggle between freedom and faith. (www.TaliaCarner.com)