Nielsen - Buying a piece of Paris: finding a key to the city of love

BUYING A PIECE OF PARIS

Ellie Nielsen studied acting at the Victorian College of the Arts, where she played a tap-dancing Sir John Kerr in the musical The Golden Years of Gough , and Olive in Ray Lawlers Summer of the Seventeenth Doll , before graduating to a very small role in the television series Prisoner . In the 1990s she worked at the Playbox Theatre Company as a publicist, curator, and script assessor. After the birth of her son she started writing and dreaming. Buying a Piece of Paris is the result.

In memory of Bebe

Scribe Publications
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2 John St, Clerkenwell, London, WC1N 2ES, United Kingdom

First published by Scribe 2007

Copyright Ellie Nielsen 2007

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher of this book.

Cover designed by Miriam Rosenbloom

National Library of Australia
Cataloguing-in-Publication data
Nielsen, Ellie.
Buying a piece of Paris.

9781921215513 (paperback)
9781925548631 (e-book)

1. Nielsen, Ellie. 2. Real property - France - Paris - Anecdotes. 3. Aliens - France - Paris. 4. Paris (France) - Social life and customs.
I. Title.
944.084

scribepublications.com.au
scribepublications.co.uk

One

I blame the butchers shop the one across the street from the first apartment we rented in Paris. Every morning I stood in the window of the apartment, mesmerised by that shop. It was so elegant, so classical, so unlike a place that just sold flesh. I was dazzled by the graceful, tangled curves of art nouveau writing on the windows, by the doors fine framed-glass panels, and even by Monsieur who slowly polished his white-marble bench as though he was caressing a thigh. But this butchers shop flaunted its insensible beauty only to mock me. In this shop there were no pre-packaged, take-home, pop-straight-in-the-microwave meat solutions. Here there were real animals with fur and heads and eyes meat that looked dead rather than not living. This was meat that demanded experience. French experience. It was experience that excluded me.

Its true. I didnt understand French meat. And what I wanted, more than anything else in the world, was to walk into that butchers shop and buy a piece of paradise. I wanted to say, Bonjour, monsieur and have Monsieur say, Bonjour, madame. And I wanted to be able to tell him, calmly and with some authority, that I would like half a rabbit (no, I dont need the head) and a few pieces of canette (female ducks legs) and some andouille. Whilst thanking Monsieur I would purse my lips, shrug a shoulder, and outline my weekend cooking-plans in flawless French.

Of course, this could never happen. For a start, I am not in the habit of eating rabbits, headless or otherwise. When I purse my lips I look comical or intoxicated (depending on the time of day), and I cannot speak French. I am, however, greatly in the habit of imagining myself in all manner of situations that are outside my real, everyday life. So that day, almost four years ago, as I stood at my window, willing the street beyond to leap up two floors and embrace me, a plan popped into my head. It was a perfect plan, one that involved daring, danger, and a ridiculous amount of money. It was a plan that would show that butchers shop who was who. I decided to buy Paris. Well, just a tiny bit of it. Im not totally irrational.

My husband, Jack, doesnt always see things the way I do. He would, for instance, prefer to listen to the cricket than to one of my brilliant ideas. We were back home in Melbourne driving to a friends house for Sunday lunch when Waugh hit a six, and Jack hit the steering wheel and turned the radio up even louder.

Thats it, I said. You never listen to a word I say.

Yes I do. But his attention remained fixed on the cricket. You were talking about Paris.

I sighed rather than answered. It was mystifying the way Jack always knew what I was talking about even when he wasnt listening. He turned the radio down a bit and raised an eyebrow at me.

Well, he said, I think youre right. I think we should look at buying an apartment in Paris.

What? What do you mean look at? I squinted at him. The sun was criss-crossing the car.

Alright. Buy one. I think that maybe we could buy one. A very small one.

Really? I let the sun embrace me. Very small was perfect. More than perfect. We could buy a very small apartment in Paris. There was magic in that sentence.

Its not as crackpot as some of your ideas, said Jack grinning, pleased with his surprise. But, he continued as he lent to turn the radio up again itll be up to you. Youll have to do all the work. See the agents. Work out the system. Well be there in six weeks. You can have a go at it then.

I took my sunglasses off and smiled across at him. He beamed back at me. Even our accountant thinks its a good idea.

Wow.

See, he added I was listening. He turned the cricket up to screaming point.

I sat staring straight ahead thinking, this is it. This is one of those moments Ill remember for the rest of my life.

Two

It doesnt feel like a Monday. When youre in a foreign country the days of the week are not yours. But I know it is Monday because I have earmarked a Monday to begin my foray into the French real estate market. So thats why Im sitting here now, staring across at the pretty girl in the apartment opposite, the one who wears a sort of bright pyjama-type outfit while squeezing lemons with a metal lemon-squeezer, and debating what to wear to the real estate office. I dont know whether to opt for a French or Australian look. I cant imagine how Im going to do it what Im going to say. A sudden attack of nerves and Ill forget both English and French. I run a diffident eye over De Particulier Particulier , the French real estate guide where property is sold privately without an agent. Although this guide has an excellent reputation and provides a less expensive way to buy an apartment, I dont have enough confidence in my ability with the French language to use it. The thought of making a rendezvous, noting an address, or exchanging those polite, formal pleasantries fills me with dread. Maybe I had better go in disguise. If you go down to the woods today. This is not a good time for the Teddy Bears Picnic song to distract me. I choose a pale pink skirt, white cotton shirt, and flat-healed shoes. Its not exactly haute couture, but Ive no real idea what the dress code for this sort of endeavour is.

I step outside our rented apartment on rue Vieille du Temple, straight into the noise and clamour of a big demo, a grande manifestation. I suppose its the actors again. I take that to be a good omen. For some reason, I feel encouraged by the sight of actors demonstrating. The street is blocked off at the rue de Rivoli end, so I turn heel and bounce down rue Rambuteau towards the Centre Pompidou. I stop bouncing outside the first real estate office I come across.

Immobilier Marais. This looks like a good place to start. Okay, lets see what theyve got. The window is papered with ten or twelve bad photographs of beautiful apartment interiors. These photographs are accompanied by brief descriptions of the apartments, the buildings theyre in, and the prices. Some are singled out as beautiful buildings des beaux btiments. How wonderful that sounds. Good morning. I would like to buy a beau btiment, sil vous plat. Certainly, madame. I press my face closer to the window and try to decipher the rest of the text, but all I can see are the prices. They seem a lot more expensive than my study of De Particulier Particulier led me to believe. Maybe Parisian agents fees are exorbitant. Well, theres only one way to find out. I take in a big gulp of Paris summer sky and push open the real estate office door. After all, you cant tell by looking at me that Ive never done this before. Can you?