Another trip to Paris, another Evening after the Rain

On my next test, Paris in the rain, and making room for the unimaginable.

I will be called to testify, in person at the Quai d’Orsay, or by “Zoom”, about a citizen of France. In English, because in the words of a lycéenne, “your French hurts my ears.”

Stripping citizenship from a dual citizen is a complex process but, at least, she is not a Legionnaire as is “Ange,” a retired (never former) -kepi blanc, though his hat was black. He will be my translator, because he thinks my French is inadequate, too. He credited my catastrophic French in his 70s, coupled with our bad hearing, with the start, and cement, of our 50 year friendship because as young men, when he told me to “Pars maintenant” I thought he had said that a party was about to start. It wasn’t a party starting, and my French comprehension is much better now. So is my perspicaciousness. Still, I recall everything I hear, and no one questions my memory of events. The curse has served me well, or, Ange once said, “you serve it.”

France is loyal to its own and even coddled (then in Switzerland) Marc Rich, and some of his followers, when Giuliani exiled Rich for so called “tax crimes,” not even bending to let Rich attend his own daughter’s American funeral.

It takes a lot to strip a French citizen. It takes a lot not to bend, and not bending serves no one well. Countries and people who cannot bend, and those without empathy share that trait.

You can lose French nationality if the following three conditions are completed:

• You are a national of another State.

• You behave like the citizen of this other state.

• You have committed acts contrary to the interests of France.

After I complete my testimony I will need to be beaten up, because physically punishing myself is my go-to therapy, and I will flee to Cercle Tissier, don my hakama, and take some falls (ukemi) (受け身) until I ache. It often starts in my malformed ribs, and radiates from there. That titer takes less to reach, and less time as I age.

After the sun sets in Vincennes, a part of Paris nearly an hour away from my temporary bed in Passy, near the cemetery that I can see from my host’s flat, where Édouard Manet and Berthe Marisot are buried, Claude Debussy and Leila Pahlavi and Marcel Dassault, too, I will walk back in the drizzle and be drenched, and cleansed.

Paris at crepuscule. The light there can be disturbing, evincing memories like this:

Luigi Loir, Private Collection

I will pass this test too, probably because they know that my sponsor is a Legionnaire, who I met in a bar, a friend of five decades, and told me to “leave, now.” Then, he never did.

Friendships last longer than the pain that underlies the cause.

Once more before, night will turn to day.

My best teachers, of course, have been failures, errors, and the people who hated me, especially the lying ones. Now, the lesson will be taught: never break an oath.