1 "Pee in this cup." The stern doctor sat behind the desk in her dim beige office, under-illuminated by a metal desk lamp fitted with a bulb that cast a dull glow over everything and seemed to have been last changed when De Gaulle was president. She handed me a paper receptacle that felt like it was made of newsprint and averted her eyes--somewhat. It had been eight exasperating months since I''d signed the first promesse de vente and finally, I was close to the day when I would sign the acte de vente, the deed to my apartment in Paris. Or as time-pressed Parisians shorten it: l''appart. And here I was. The last acte I had to do was . just .
relax . Which, considering the circumstances--being vaguely scrutinized by a doctor while standing in the middle of her cabinet, anxiously trying to fill a paper cup that threatened to crumple in my free hand--is not an easy task. Maybe if I''d had a grand café crème beforehand . or better yet, a big glass of rosé, I thought, while she--and I--waited for me to breathe a shudder of relief, so she could go home and I could get the final approval on my bank loan. We were in the same position (well, not literally), waiting for the same thing. She''d already taken a blood sample and rigorously checked my vital signs to make sure I was in the bonne santé required by the French bank to approve my mortgage. I''d applied for a few mortgages before, in the United States, but a medical screening had never been part of the approval process. I was puzzled, until a banker explained it to me: "Monsieur Lebovitz, we don''t want you to die.
" Which was something I couldn''t disagree with--they wanted confirmation that I would live long enough to pay for the place. (Later I learned that they had good reason to worry, because that almost didn''t happen.) I urgently needed to complete this final task before they''d release the funds for the loan and I could finally take possession of the apartment I''d spent years looking for. Ever since my arrival in Paris a decade earlier, I had been living in a charming chambre de bonne, one of the minuscule top-floor apartments tucked just under the curving roof of a blocky yet regal Haussmannian building in the Bastille quarter of Paris. Chambres de bonne are single rooms where the maids (les bonnes) once lived. Nowadays, they''re sought after by Parisians because they are often the cheapest places to buy, especially the ones in buildings without elevators. (Which is why you rarely see Parisians needing to engage in the unsightly spectacle of le jogging--although I''d recently spotted one woman running in the Tuileries, doing her laps in espadrilles.) Other advantages are the spectacular views, and best of all, there are no neighbors in heels clomping around above you.
In Paris, the more high-strung the woman, the higher the heels, which I know from firsthand experience. And not just from one of the many narrow misses I''ve had with them playing the Parisian version of "chicken" (not sure if they call it poulet .) on the sidewalks to see who will move first. (I''ve learned that holding a baguette and swinging it parallel to the ground, just below waist level, gets anyone you''re up against to move first.) But because there was one living below me who was so hyperactive that I could hear her racing around at all hours--most often between one and four thirty in the morning, when her heels resonated so loudly that the noise woke me up a full floor above her. Another thing that made it hard to sleep in that apartment was the weather, though I didn''t mind staying awake, listening to the pounding thunderstorms that lash down on Paris. The pelting rain in the fall and winter drowned out the traffic noises on the busy boulevard below and would eventually soothe me to sleep. But come summer, sleeping--or doing anything else--became impossible, as the temperatures soared under the zinc roof (which I lived directly beneath) to as high as 110ºF.
The only upside was that I had a lot of premelted chocolate always on hand. The chambres de bonne were built to house the help, so were intentionally Spartan. The apartments didn''t have kitchens and some had separate back staircases so the domestics could discreetly slip into the family''s apartment without having to pass through the front door. Bathrooms were shared Turkish toilets in the hallways. So next time you''re in Paris and lusting over a rooftop apartment listed in a real estate agency window, check to see if there is a bathroom . and an elevator, unless you don''t mind climbing up seven flights of stairs. More and more of the buildings do have elevators now, but many still share one bathroom with everyone else on the floor. (And speaking of floors, they''re often Turkish toilets, which consist of a hole in the floor with two places to stand your ground.
) Fortunately, my landlord had previously lived in the apartment, so I wasn''t sharing any bathrooms, which was good for my neighbors considering the length of time it was taking for me to finalize my real estate transaction. Sure, the chambres de bonne are charming, or "cozy," as they''d say in American real estate lingo, but most are just a single room, 200 to 300 square feet (18 to 28 square meters), or roughly the size of an American kitchen. I tried to buy the apartment I had been living in, because it was incredibly well situated. My place had been joined with another chambre next door, so I actually had two rooms, which made all my other friends who lived in a chambre de bonne (singular) jealous. It also had a phone booth-size elevator that I took for granted--until it broke. I was crammed in there when it malfunctioned, and barely managed to crook my elbow to lift the emergency phone to my ear to call the elevator company. Eventually, someone picked up, but the woman on the other end told me to call back in two hours because all the repair people were at lunch. Then she hung up.
I broke the door to get out, which I didn''t get punished for, but walking up seven flights of stairs for the next four months was definitely punishment enough. The apartment was in the Bastille, a lively neighborhood adjacent to the Marais and the Place des Vosges, and is a major métro hub with lots of connections so I could easily hop to anywhere in Paris. I was just steps from the largest outdoor market in the city. I could grab my market basket, which I kept next to my front door, and be perusing a spectacular selection of French cheeses, wines, p'tés, fruits, and vegetables within minutes. But best of all, it was the unbeatable view of Paris that I didn''t think I could ever leave. Each day I''d wake up and unlatch the wooden shutters, and after I adjusted to the barrage of light, I was presented with a spectacular view of the Eiffel Tower and a collage of small and grand buildings in the foreground, with Sacré-Coeur church off to the right and the Seine to the left; a spectacular mosaic of Paris that seemed like it was all mine. At night, just before closing the deteriorating shutters, which I was sure would one day blow off in one of the abrupt storms that whips through the city without notice (during one such storm, I almost lost an arm trying to close a shutter that wanted to play tug-of-war with me), I would take one final gaze at the twinkling lights before climbing into bed. If you''ve seen the movie Ratatouille, I shared the same view that Chef Linguini''s apartment had (people even say I resemble the movie''s main character--the cook, not the rat).
One night, I was lying in bed watching the film on my television, which was just next to that window, when I sat up in surprise--at that moment in the film, my doppelgänger''s Pixar-perfect view was an exact replica of my Paris panorama. How could I ever move? One of the few concessions to modernity in the apartment was the dishwasher (which, to a cookbook author, is the most important concession), but with a little polish, the apartment would have been the perfect home for me in Paris. All it needed were new floors, paint, an updated bathroom and kitchen, and air-conditioning (my French friends chided me for being très américain when I broke down and bought a portable air conditioner after searing my fingertips on my computer keyboard during one of the withering summer heat waves). Alas, it wasn''t to be: the landlord didn''t want to sell, and I couldn''t blame him. So after seven or eight years of living life at the top of the most beautiful city in the world, it was time to get back down to earth. Unfortunately when you''re at the top, there''s only one way to go. I''d moved to Paris from San Francisco, which, like Paris, is a collection of neighborhoods, or little villages, surrounded by water. Paris is a clearly defined area outlined by the périphérique, an always-clogged highway that circles the city where tempers flare as people seethe behind the wheel, heady from diesel fumes, lighting one cigarette off the stub of another as they inch forward, moving through the congested highway at the pace of an escargot.
Le périph separates the city from the inner banlieues (suburbs), which are not to be confused with American suburbs, with their lush lawns, kids running through sprinklers, and minivans parked in driveways. These banlieues are notorious for their grim housing projects, inhabited by many immigrants and disenfranchised people, known as les banlieusards. Parisians have never made it easy for outsiders to become part of their city, as all of us who have gone through the process of renewing our visas can attest. One year, the folder of documents that I''d spent six months meticulously compiling and organizing to meet the unpredictable demands was folded in half and slid into the garbage can by a poker-faced bureaucr.