PART III: Life at Barbès...

A & I had almost given up all hope of finding a place to live in Paris and had even begun thinking about changing our return tickets and go back home, when suddenly things took a sharp turn. We were sitting in Gicks's office one morning, when one of the Consejero's Deputies walked in. She heard us talking about our difficulties finding an apartment and how we were thinking of giving up and that's when she told us about M. She said her previous intern had stayed at the home of a Parisian lady who rented out rooms in her apartment to foreign students. She couldn't guarantee that the woman would have a room free for us but she gave us her number and said it wouldn't hurt calling.

Gicks once again helped us with the actual calling being as we didn't want to blow our last chance with our non-existent French. Our heart literally stopped beating throughout the conversation. We couldn't understand a word Gicks was saying but when she started writing down a telephone number and an address we realized we stood a chance! Gicks hung up and told us the woman had indeed an available room but she (Gicks) didn't recommend we take it. Our jaws literally dropped to the floor! She proceeded to explain to us that M apartment was in Barbès-Rochechouart, which at that point meant nothing to us. She didn't explain further but simply said that it wasn't a "nice part of town" and that we could probably find better. Still, if we insisted we wanted to visit the apartment M would be happy to meet us during our lunch break.

We thanked Gicks for all her help and explained that we really didn’t have the choice as we had to leave the youth hostel by the end of the week and since beggars can’t be choosers we graciously took the address and headed out to meet M.

The nearest subway station to M’s house was on a different subway line than that which we took to the office. We didn’t mind changing subway lines but as we came out of the Barbès-Rochechouart subway station we began to realize what Gicks had meant. Up until then, A and I had only seen two parts of Paris really. The Mouffetard area, where we staying and the 2nd arrondissement, where the offices were located. You could say both of these parts of town are what one would call Posh. Nice buildings, cute shops, nice restaurants. Typical Parisian chic style. We later learned that Barbès is the corner where the African, Indian and Arab neighborhoods in Paris converge but at that moment we couldn’t help wondering for a second if we hadn’t left the city. Walking out of Barbès metro station you suddenly felt in another world. A sea of people walking to and from every direction, dressed in clothes neither A nor I had ever seen and speaking languages we both knew were not French but couldn't understand nonetheless. The streets were dirty and the buildings were pretty grungy. There were several street vendors and quite the traffic jams. Still, coming from Mexico City, this place didn’t really faze me as much as perhaps it did A and getting past the first shock compared to everything we’d seen up until then, we proceeded to look for M’s building.

It didn’t take us that long as it was right across the street from the subway exit and we found it quite easily. We rang the bell in her apartment and let out a last silent prayer as we waited for her to answer the door. If this didn’t work out we really didn't know what we would do.

But the minute we met M we knew we would be ok. She opened the door with a huge smile and gave us the “bise” (kiss on each cheek-- the French way of saying hello to friends). My first impression of her and one that stayed with me throughout the entire time I lived with her was that she reminded me of my mom. Not in a physical way (she was quite small in height and quite hefty in size) but more in the way you could immediately see she was an extraordinary woman who had led an interesting life. Throughout the interview she never stopped smoking, lighting one cigarette as soon as she finished the previous one and drinking coffee. She didn’t speak a word of English but somehow we understood each other quite well. She showed us her "guest book" where all her previous students had left little messages for her after they'd left and quickly showed us the page where the previous Mexican intern had written. She told us how much she had enjoyed having "Veronica" stay with her the previous year and that when Gicks had called her that morning she had immediately been delighted at the idea of having two mexican girls stay with her again.

She explained to us that she lived with one of her two sons and had two rooms, which she rented to foreign students. One of the rooms was already taken by a Canadian woman studying French at the Sorbonne and so she could only rent us the other room that we would have to share A and me. We proceeded to check out the room in question, which consisted of two individual beds, a couple of night stands, a big closet in one corner and a small desk. She then showed us the rest of her apartment, which consisted of the other room, a small bathroom, a water closet, a living/dining room, the kitchen with a small back room where her son slept and her own room in the back of the apartment. It was a small place (which actually I realize now was quite large for Parisian standards) but we thought it perfect. She then told us the rent was 600EUR per month each plus a month deposit upfront. We slowly and nervously began to explain that we could pay the rent but would not be able to pay the deposit until we received our paycheck at the end of the month. She immediately nodded her head and told us she understood and let us know it was not a problem, she could wait for the deposit.

The rent included all the utilities plus dinner each night, which would be cooked by her. She said she didn’t have a curfew but did ask that if we wouldn’t be coming home in time for diner to let her know beforehand. She also said that we could use her washing machine and take anything we wanted from the fridge in the morning to make breakfast before leaving for work. We would have to take care of lunch ourselves during the weekend. This all sounded too good to be true! She asked when we wanted to move in and we asked if we could do so that evening. She said absolutely and she came back with a set of keys for each of us!

And that was that! As we said “see you later” to her before walking in the elevator we couldn’t stop smiling. Once the elevator doors closed A and I looked at each other and laughed and hugged right then and there.

So that's how we met M and came to live in her appartment. And what a fantastic experience it was during those first few weeks.

Every night we’d come home from work and M would have cooked some incredibly delicious French dish. We’d sit down to dinner with the Canadian woman (for the life of me I can’t remember her name), M’s 15 year old son who would sometimes join us, M, A and I. It didn’t take long for A and me to get used to the entrée/main course deal and it became sort of a fun game to try and guess what M had cooked for us each night on our way home after work.. She’d also always have a fresh baguette on the table which we’d save for the next day for breakfast along with the amazing salty butter she kept in her refrigerator.

Although conversation at dinner time was quite difficult during those first few weeks, M did everything in her power to try and teach us how to fully live the Parisian experience. She would buy the Pariscope for us each week and underline theatre shows or concerts she thought we might enjoy. She would print out information of places to visit or bring us the opening hours of the museums for us to check out. She would always ask us what we had planned for the week-end and suggest new things we might want to visit. We would sit there and nod our heads, going “oui, oui” while eating her delicious food and trying desperately to belt out a few words of French.

As much as I loved living with M those first few months, looking back I can’t say she was exactly patient with our level of the language… she would see what we were getting at and then hastily fill in the blanks and continue the conversation. This would frustrate me sometimes, but I figured that just listening to her speak and trying to follow the conversation was perhaps just as good for us learning French at that stage as trying to stutter two or three sentences at the table. Because conversation was mainly piloted by M, we knew very little of what she did for a living or about her life while we were at work. We sort of understood she was divorced and tended to some sort of paper-flowers shop in Montmartre with a good friend of hers. I immediately recognized the extreme lefty/socialist in her and had to smile when she would go off on her rantings about the French government, wanting desperately to add my own 2 cents to the conversation but helas not being able to, language being the main barrier but also because, although I'm sure she didn't realize it, she would leave very little room for the rest of us to talk.

After dinner A and I would head to our room and open a bottle of cheap wine and a pack of dark chocolate we’d buy at a store near the office and proceed to talk the night away. Not only were we getting to know this new city and new culture… we were also getting to know each other. We talked about our families back home, our studies, A’s boyfriend, what we wanted to do after we finished the internship and most of all we talked about where we wanted to travel. We had figured out that combining our free days and the French mandatory holidays we could have a four-day weekend per month to travel somewhere.

So we drew up a plan and pasted it to the wall in our room: It went something like this:

- End of February we’d go to Barcelona where I had friends from school staying and we would bunk with them.
- In March I would be going to Ireland to visit my dear friend Lisa while A would be going to Venice with her boyfriend who would be coming to visit her in Europe.
- April we decided we’d go to Belgium because we’d found that it wasn’t so far and we could easily get there by bus.
- End of March we’d be going to Greece because I HAD to see the Parthenon.
- June would be the time to go to either Amsterdam or London

The Consejero had also let us in on a secret. If we did well during our internship our contract allowed us to renew our six-month stay and thus remain in France until the end of the year. This kept us awake night after night hoping and dreaming that this would indeed be our case and so we dared to plan trips for the six remaining months: Italy, Czech Republic, Germany, Austria and Turkey were to be visited.

That’s how we spent our first and second week at M’s house in Barbès. A and I became quite close and we would have done all that we said and much more had Love not gotten in the way… that is to say… in MY way......

A & M (2002)

Fned.

Read Part IV.