Lunch in Paris (31 page)

I nudged them closer to the rope, so there was as little distraction as possible between them and the painting. I leaned in
to speak quietly so only they could hear: “Vasari, an Italian historian who was writing in the generation after Leonardo’s
death, said that if you look carefully at her neck, you can see the beating of her pulse.” The boyfriend leaned so far forward,
he almost fell over. That was it. He abandoned me and his date, like so many before him, for the irresistible woman behind
the glass.

While he was taking pictures, I stood to one side with the French girlfriend. “So, do you like living in Germany?” I asked.
“
Ja,
” she said thoughtfully, not noticing her use of the German affirmative. “There was a time a few years ago when I thought
about coming home. I had this ideal vision of France. You know. Perfect and beautiful. But I’m not really French anymore.
I’m different now.”

“I know exactly what you mean.”

S
OMETIMES PEOPLE COME
to the Louvre with expectations that no oratorical gift will fulfill. Because the Louvre is a large and famous museum, visitors
sometimes assume that all the famous paintings in the world are here. One afternoon, I was taking around four college students
from California. After seeing the
Mona Lisa,
one young woman turned to me and said, “Is that painting of the people in the sky here?”

That painting of the people in the sky.
I waited for her to elaborate.

“You know, the one with the fingers touching?”

It took me a second. “Ah, um, well, no,” I said, with what I hope was infinite politeness.
That would be the Sistine Chapel. In the Vatican. In Rome.

M
Y FAVORITE PART
about going back to work is that now I have an excuse to go out for lunch. When I was working all day at the computer at
home, no one knew if I ate muesli out of the box. Lunch is my gift to myself, a pat on the back for rejoining the land of
the living. The visits are three hours of walking and talking, so by the time I head across the street from the Louvre toward
the Palais Royal, I’m ready to let someone else do the entertaining. The area around the Louvre is a
mélange
of chic boutiques,
government offices, and tourists, so it makes for some of the best street theater in Paris.

I never sat down for lunch alone in a restaurant in the United States. In fact, I barely sat for lunch at all. In New York,
lunch was essentially a chance to stretch my legs, all the way from the office to the salad bar, the noodle bar, or the sandwich
bar, where I’d grab something to take back to my desk. From the very first day, lunch alone in Paris became
dining
. It felt luxurious.

The French are beginning to work longer hours, but
le déjeuner
remains sacred. I know what you’re thinking: where in God’s name do they find the time to take an hour, maybe more, in the
middle of a workday for something as gracious, as old-fashioned, as a sit-down lunch?

Let me ask you something. Are you reading this on the way to your spin class? Are you late for your acupuncturist? Your life
coach? Your shrink? That’s four hours already out of
your
week, which the French replace with the relaxing and replenishing ritual of lunch. It’s not that lunch solves everything,
but it goes a long way.

If I am lucky, I will get a table outside at the Café Palais Royal. There, perched on my woven plastic chair, wedged behind
a small round table, I have an excellent view not only of the foot traffic coming and going along the rue Saint-Honoré, but
also of the Rollerbladers in the square in front of the Conseil d’Etat and the facade of the Louvre, with its exhibition banners
unfurled outside. But the main event usually turns out to be my fellow diners, particularly the women.

Certainly Nicole and Marie-Chantal taught me that French eating habits are about tiny acts of discipline, but these solitary
lunches are the meals that taught me that they are also about pleasure and above all, performance. You see, it’s not just
the lacy negligees and designer handbags that are on display along the rue Saint-Honoré—it’s the women themselves. Being a
French woman, especially a woman
dining alone, means being contemplated, lingered over, like the dark chocolate stiletto in the window of the famous chocolatier
Jean-Paul Hévin.

The French have always known what I’ve long suspected; there is nothing sexier than watching a woman eat. Men love this. I’m
positive that I owe many a second date in New York to a chocolate cannoli or a late-night coupe of rice pudding with whipped
cream. It’s simple: Women who pick at their food hate sex. Women who suck the meat off of lobster claws, order (and finish)
dessert—these are the women who are going to rip your clothes off and come back for seconds. I have a friend in the States
who never considered herself a very good flirt, but I never worried for her, because she is a fabulous cook and an adventurous
eater. I never doubted that when the right guy came along she would devour him like a hot fudge sundae, and I was right.

Maybe it’s the way the French hold the knife and fork. They never put them down, making it impossible to read a magazine or
talk on the phone while you eat. You must concentrate, smile to yourself, or you can cry. I’ve seen that too. Either way,
you are the spectacle.

Today I am sitting next to a regular Sarah Bernhardt: a petite brunette with shoulder-length hair clipped up into a careless
twist at the back of her neck. She is wearing a black and white flowered skirt, slightly flared at the bottom, showing just
a hint of knee. Her white blouse, of some sort of silky material, has three buttons and tiny pleats, like a tuxedo. The deep
V of her short black jacket sits smoothly over her waist and bust. The shoes have a low kitten heel and a T-strap that flatters
her slender ankles. Expensive sunglasses are perched on top of her head and a cell phone is resting beside her hand on the
small round table. I have no idea what she had for lunch, but for the moment she is sipping her
café
and smoking. She
holds the cigarette behind her, her wrist arched like the neck of a swan with a twig caught in its beak. There is a gold foil
wrapper crumpled on the table—all that remains of the single square of dark chocolate that came nestled in the saucer of her
espresso. It’s as postcoital a scene as I’ve ever witnessed in public.

I ordered a salad with smoked salmon. I know that doesn’t sound like a particularly decadent repast, but it is. That’s because
the French long ago mastered the art of serving salad so it doesn’t feel like a punishment for something. There are always
a few caramel-crusted potatoes on your
salade niçoise,
or a plump chicken liver or two bedded down in a nest of lamb’s lettuce. A lot of this has to do with what is called a
tartine
—a large thin slice of country bread (Poilâne if you’re lucky) topped with anything from melted goat cheese to shrimp and
avocado.

My lunch arrived, a well-worn wooden
planche
heaped with pillowy green lettuce, folded in a creamy, cloudy, mustardy vinaigrette. Balanced on top were three half slices
of pain Poilâne, spread with the merest millimeter of butter, topped with coral folds of salmon. I put away my phone, and
asked for the pepper mill and a Perrier. Lowering my sunglasses against the noontime glare, I felt, in the middle of a workday,
very much like a lady who lunches.

I
F I WANT
the Louvre to myself, I come on Wednesday in late afternoon. Walking past the windows of the Cour Napoléon, I can see the
sun setting over the Tuileries. The last light catches the golden tip of the obelisk in the Place de la Concorde, and the
cars twinkle like a strand of Christmas lights on the Champs-Elysées. The Louvre at night looks much more as it must have
when kings lived here. The low lights don’t quite reach the dark
corners of the soaring ceilings, and there are fewer people climbing the sweeping marble staircases.

Just as in every other museum I’ve ever been in, I’ve started visiting my favorite painting, the one I would take home with
me under my trench coat if I had the chance. I believe most art historians are just poor collectors, traveling the world making
a secret inventory. I’ll take that, and that, and
that
.

Raphael’s portrait of Castiglione is far enough down the Grande Galerie so as not to be surrounded by tourists. It’s next
to a pillar on the left and, famous as it is, I imagine a lot of people miss it on their way to other things. Castiglione
was a Renaissance diplomat and writer, known for his book
The Courtier,
a gentleman’s guide to leading a civilized and noble life. The portrait is painted entirely in a subdued palette of grays
and browns; it’s clear that Raphael tried to conserve some of the modesty and erudition dictated by the text. But pride and
luxury also have their place. I love the way his silk foulard puffs out just a bit more than necessary, and the quiet sheen
of the squirrel fur on his doublet. Like my old merchant friend at the National Gallery in London, he too has a touch of white
paint in the corner of his eye. I guess I have a thing for teary old men.

One evening in May, I walked out of the Louvre just as they switched on the exterior lights. The statues of scientists and
philosophers that line the balconies were lit from below like children telling a ghost story with a flashlight to their chin.
I. M. Pei’s glass pyramid glowed like a spaceship just touched down in the central courtyard. Tonight I noticed something
else—the little machine that washes the windows. It’s like a robotic poodle, with four rotating brushes for paws. It clings
to the side of the pyramid at a vertiginous angle, slowly crawling up and down, side to side, its rubber hose of a tail dangling
behind. I suddenly felt an immense rush of gratitude. What
luck to be standing where I am, when I am. How many people get to go to the Louvre often enough to catch them washing the
windows?

S
OMETHING ELSE HAPPENED
to me on the metro recently: I learned to read.

I know it didn’t happen all at once, but today it felt like someone flicked a switch. Suddenly the lights went on inside my
head and the words passed through, like one of those healings you read about at a tent revival, where blind men see and mute
children speak. I was midway through a novel I’d bought a few weeks ago, the one that won this year’s Prix Goncourt. It wasn’t
good, but for once that was entirely beside the point. I felt tears well up in my eyes. Reading, the pleasure I most took
for granted, finally restored. I looked around me, wondering if anyone had noticed. No one did. I was part of the urban wallpaper.