The Greens — here called Les Verts — led a spirited demonstration by Montmartre residents on Sunday, protesting the damage to the city air from the constantly increasing traffic. Bernie and I noticed advance signs posted on phone poles and fences and shop windows over the last couple of weeks.
The morning of the protest we got up early and hurried down the hill. All the streets leading up to the Butte were blocked with lines of people and wooden barricades to keep the cars, trucks and tour buses at the bottom. White sheets painted with green acrylic saying LET PARIS BREATHE! were hung across the barricades. Even the Open Tour double-decker buses were turned back at Rue d’Orsel. The tourists had to get out of the buses and take the funiculaire or walk to the top. I heard later they complained bitterly.
People were driving up to our barricades, declaring they were Montmartre residents. When we didn’t let them through, the shouting started. One woman even jumped out of her car screaming directly at Bernie and me that she thought we were pro-choice. It’s sometimes hard to get, isn’t it? A brain glich or a personal obsession? We had to laugh. Bernie laughs in a low woo woo woo grumbling sound.
The two of us stayed at the Rue Lepic barricade for most of the morning, enjoying the excitement and comraderie. Just for this gala affair, I found an old green shirt and cut an armband for me and a bandana to tie around Bernie’s neck. Our friend Nathan was already there, nonchalantly leaning against one of the barricades when we got there. He had printed out the Let Paris Breathe slogan in a fancy font on his computer and then duct taped it to the front of his nice blue dress shirt. A green silk scarf was knottted jauntily around his neck. He looked very bon vivant.
Nathan was one of the first people we met when we arrived in Paris. He’s a rare character and I love him. He has been a leftist activist for years. Every year he becomes more eccentric, and of course that’s one of the reasons we’re friends. When we first met, he lived in an apartment close to ours. Now he lives in a foyer soleil, which is a sheltered apartment for those over 60 on low incomes, with shared services such as a laundry. Retirement homes are a rarity in France.
The top of his head is smoothly bald with a few large freckles and his hair that fringes around the edges has gone from salt and pepper to gray to white over the last two or three years. His eyes have a faded milky look, the tell-tale sign of cataracts. As his arthritis and whatever else has progressed, his walk is slower and he leans slightly forward like an old tree bent by constant high winds. Yet with his familiar tweed jacket and black beret, the essence of Nathan never changes. His skin remains unwrinkled, as if he has somehow been protected from stress and worry. Nathan. The eternal optomist, full of cliches that he truly believes.
Bernie and I often encounter him in the very place where we first met — on a bench in the Place du Calvaire, overlooking the most exceptional view of Paris. It’s a regular stop and rest spot for Bernie and me, complete with lovely old shade trees, several benches and a drinking fountain. Nathan calls it our “stoop and rest spot.” It’s not in the tourist guidebooks so they usually don’t find it and it remains a quiet getaway for locals.
Nathan was afraid of Bernie at first. He’s never had a dog. Never wanted one, he insists. The day we met, Nathan and Bernie walked stiff-legged around each other. It’s a male thing, I guess. Bernie ignored him after that, but as we spent time together, they warmed toward each other. Bernie began to wag his short stump of a tail at Nathan’s approach. Nathan began to smile when he saw Bernie coming. Eventually, they admitted to being downright fond of each other and Bernie is just as happy with his big old head on Nathan’s feet as he is on mine.
Nathan and Bernie and I go on small jaunts togther every once in a while — a stroll along the River Seine for a French vanilla ice cream cone from one of the carts, or to the Place du Tertre for lunch at an outdoor cafe. Yes, it’s a tourist haven. But it’s also fun and the people watching is excellent! Our favorite is the cafe with the red and white scallop-edge umbrellas, just because it’s cheap if you know what to order, looks so festive and it’s in the middle of the cluster of artists who fill the square to sell their paintings. Bernie is quite a hit with the waiters there. They fuss over him and offer him all kinds of exotic leftovers as they clear tables. He always leaves them an extra tip.
Nathan’s family emigrated to the Bronx in New York from Russia when he was three. He insists that exactly on his 21st birthday, he flew to Paris and never went back except for brief vacations. Here he met and married Fanny. She died a couple of years before I got here.
Nathan is gregarious. He collects friends the way other people collect tea cups or porcelain figurines or pretty blue glass to display in the window. He has a joie d’vive that’s intoxicating to be around. He spontaneously bursts into song or does a little soft shoe dance routine, balancing on his cane and then twirling it with a grand flourish! He seems to know everyone and have a wonderful time of it. That’s what made what was about to happen so shocking.