Hausmann’s Top Ten

Things to Do – and Not Do – in Paris

#3  MISSING

“Come on, kids, let’s see the Tuileries,” I called behind me, heading off to explore the gardens.

We strolled beneath the horse chestnut trees, deep in conversation.  I mused about the Jeu de Paume, where Hemingway visited the Impressionists in the 1920s, as chronicled in his memoir, “A Moveable Feast.”

Several minutes later, I turned around.  “Where’s Lincoln?”

“I thought he was with you!”  Isabelle cried in a stricken voice.

Now ‘Missing Linc’ came back to haunt me.

Thankfully, Genevieve ran back to a park bench and found him engrossed in magic play, kicking golden leaves and singing.  He hadn’t even noticed we’d moved on, and didn’t know what the shouting was all about.  For not listening and following directions, he was rewarded with a single spank on the butt.

Tears!  Lower lip thrust out!

For the record, I don’t believe in spanking kids, except when they are at risk of being lost or run over, and a whap on the bum may remind them to be careful in future.   My older children were not so lucky.   Old wounds take time to heal.  Hopefully, not a lifetime!

Note:  In the midst of recording this incident, I was interrupted by Lincoln.   “You wrote that, Dad!” he cried in protest.  I had to negotiate a deal.  If he let me use this piece, I’d let him watch TV.  Another example of Hausmann’s bad parenting!

***

#4 TEA & SPARROWS

Sipping Moroccan mint tea and feeding the sparrows, right out of our hands, at the Café de la Mosquée, at 39 rue Saint-Hilaire.    When you enter the café, you smell jasmine and hear melodious chatter.

Parisians sound like birds, and birds like Parisians.

The walls undulate with Moroccan tiles; you hear the plashing of a fountain, transporting you to a peaceful garden behind high white walls.  You could be in Fez or Marrakesh.  The café is on the grounds of a venerable Paris mosque, a reminder that Islam is a faith that teaches Salaam, peace.

Flashback: When I came to Paris, in 1987, as a journalist writing about terrorism, the city was shocked by the Champs d’Elysees bombings, perpetrated by fundamentalists.   Back home, readers weren’t particularly interested in how French police hunted down Islamist terrorists.  It was too far away…  across the shining seas that protected America.

Tragically, September 11, 2001 changed all that.

Today, at the Café de la Mosquee I spot no wild-eyed fanatics hatching plots, as if they’d advertize themselves. Just Moslems, Christians, and Jews sharing tea and harmony, amid fluttering wings.

The sesame-seed and honey pastries are too sticky for my taste, but they’re great for crumbling and feeding the sparrows.   Put a few crumbs on your palm and stretch your hand away from your eyes, so the birds don’t think you’re watching. If you’re very still and patient, they will flutter over your palm and light on your finger, pecking the seeds.   I tried to snap pictures; alas, too slowly – the birds had flown.

Nearby, don’t miss the Jardim des Plantes, the largest herbarium in the world, with  9 million samples.   Tall trees line the sandy paths, and the leaves meet above the heads of strolling lovers, forming a green archway.  We noticed that the trunks on opposite sides actually lean toward each other, interlacing their boughs.  They appear to grow leafier on the inside, protected from buffeting winds.   I watched Isabelle walking with her arms stretched around the children, her long fingers interlacing their small ones.  A mother’s leafy boughs provide shelter from the storms of life.

***

#5  BOOKSTORES

For an adventure, go to Berkeley Books, tucked away at 8, Rue Casimir Delavigne, on the Left Bank of Paris.  It’s tiny in comparison to the fabled Shakespeare & Co., a hangout for expatriates on the Rue de la Boucherie.  Nor does it have a pedigree dating back to Sylvia Beech, who daringly published James Joyce’s “Ulysses.”

Berkeley Books is obscure and struggling; it deserves a look-see.

After isolation in Basel, stepping into the bookshop for the first time was a homecoming of the spirit.   The dusty smell of old paperbacks.   The dim light seeping through the rain-spattered windowpanes.  The floor-to-ceiling bookshelves stacked with titles from Asimov to Zola.   The faded titles, cracked spines, and yellowing pages bore witness to the hands that had held them, the eyes that had pored over them, the stains of coffee, tea, wine, whisky, and yes: of  tears shed over them.

They glowed, these hand-me-down books, with the fire of their creation, the joy and pathos of their stories, the revolutionary ideas banked like coals, awaiting new readers to breathe life into them.   Inhale their scent, crack open the covers, and you will taste a “Moveable Feast.”

Coming soon: #6 on Hausmann’s Top Ten List of Things to Do – and Not Do – in Paris.