The Sweet Old Art of Getting Lost
Hunting for Coffee, Music and Cigs
Paris, Abandoned to the Natives in January
The streets are quiet, even on Saturday afternoon. When I stop into the marché italienne, I’m practically received like royalty. No else about. Of course I’m in a little place on Faubourg Poisonnière, not at Eataly in the Marais. So why don’t I speak Italian, the two men behind the counter want to know. I should but that would mean I’m living in Italy, no ? That was the idea a long time ago … Well, I try and we go back and forth in an Italian/French hybrid. I’m hunting for Italian coffee, the real thing. Maybe you can get it where you are but in Paris you have to hunt. The French inexplicably prefer their own version of the thing, it’s their country, it can’t be helped.
(I remember waking up in Switzerland when the bus came to a crashing halt somewhere in the Alps. Pit stop. On our way to Bologna on the overnight. Get out and stretch, head to the café across from the pumps. I wonder what it’s like to live in such a desolate nowhere with imposing mountains on every side, the snow glittering in first light. I order expresso at the bar. All the workers speaking Italian, the Swiss version. The aroma hits first, before you’ve even lifted the small cup out of the saucer.