On Paris 2024, part II
The Seine is closed. There has been so much noise for so long, ever since we arrived, that it takes me a while to notice that the cars are gone. The cafés on this side of the river have closed. The air feels less polluted and we can have the windows open, we can hear everything, every bird. There is no view other than straight up into the green trees, which feels healthier here in the middle of the city; yesterday we went to the top of rue de Belleville where you can see the layer of pollution over the city. We sleep better with the quiet street outside, waking up not knowing what the next day will bring, it feels like anything can happen.
There are no people, with my code on the phone I can walk along the river alone, this never happens. Like when we were here during Covid, and after meeting friends outside at the Champs des Mars playground, we walked across the bridge, past the tower, as the only ones. All the tourists—and the people who relieved them of their wallets and mobile phones—were gone.
It is as if we have a VIP card, we show our QR code to the police and they let us through, we can walk around Île Saint-Louis as we please, all the waiters say hello to us, hoping we will spend money in their establishments as not many people are allowed through. They even smile, which seems unnatural for them here in one of the most visited tourist spots in Paris. The water is brown, the sun is so strong and the only noise is from the stands being built. ‘It must be hell in Paris right now,’ a friend texts me while I'm sitting on the bank reading about Paula M. Becker and a letter she wrote to the Modersohns in May 1900: 'I have to talk, I have to, that's all. Or come to Paris right away. See the Paris Exposition of 1900. It's amazing too. I was there yesterday and today and tomorrow. All the wonders. All the nations. This is for you, Otto, so sensitive to colour.’
‘On the contrary, it is amazing here,’ I reply to my friend in the same words as Becker. ‘The sirens have been turned off, the most important sounds in the city.’ She writes that the pictures she sees look like a deserted city, like a war zone. Nobody on the streets except the police and all the roadblocks. I used to live here when I was twenty, in the building overlooking the bridge with the best view of Notre Dame. Buses would stop every five minutes, tourists would pour out to take a photo before rushing back in, and we would sit with our coffee with the French windows wide open and watch them. They are gone now, my daughter films it for her friends, look, we have the Seine to ourselves.
I see some colleagues from the residency swimming in the river, it's a heat wave these days, it's understandable that they want to. I think of the artist who wrote in our group chat that she was looking for a man she saw on the day of the launch, she wrote the time and place she saw him, what he looked like and what he was wearing, and asked him to write to her. The bravery of this is so impressive. I reply in chat and urge her to keep us updated.
An hour before midnight I fill up our metro cards and wonder how much more expensive everything will be in the coming weeks. The elections went in favour of the left, but now new alliances are being formed and things may not look so good anyway. I read about a mini-tornado in the Luxembourg Garden, where I have been studying the statues of French queens and legends. The article informs us that these whirlwinds can lift and carry light objects, but are mostly harmless. 'That Friday, all the conditions were right for it to form. It appeared suddenly, at the feet of a passer-by, and travelled several dozen metres before disappearing.’ I can only see it as a small protest against these games. Perhaps a sign of things to come.
These texts relating to Paris 2024 are a work in progress.