John von Sothen - Paris Match: Falling in love with the French

PARIS MATCH

FALLING IN (LOVE) WITH THE FRENCH

FALLING IN (LOVE) WITH THE FRENCH

John von Sothen

First published in Great Britain in 2020 by

Profile Books

29 Cloth Fair, Barbican, London EC1A 7JQ.

www.profilebooks.com

An earlier version of this book was published as Monsieur Mediocre by Viking Penguin in the US (2019).

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Typeset in Sina to a design by Henry Iles.

Copyright John von Sothen 2020

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored 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 both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978-1788164597

e-ISBN 978-1782836582

Printed and bound in Great Britain by Clays Ltd, Elcograf S.p.A. on Forest Stewardship Council (mixed sources) certified paper.

To the Annes in my life

My mother, Annie-Lou, who brought me into this world

My wife, Anas, who helped me become a man

My editor, Anne Boulay, who let me write the way I am

THE MOMENT I REALISED I deeply wanted to marry Anas was the moment when she casually reminded me that we could always get divorced. She said it in that French nonchalant way, preceding it with the classic Bah... opener Ive heard millions of times from her since. Anything following bah is blatantly obvious to the person saying it; the tone contains a mounting exasperation with the one hearing it, who is usually me: Bah... the drawer over there. Where else would we keep the batteries? Bah... Gene Hackman, John. Who did you think I was talking about?

Ive always wanted to film Anas when she starts her bahs, then splice them together into one fluid bah, which I could then post online to show the world I married a woman whos part French lamb. In this case, Anass bah was followed by the revelation that marriage wasnt the be-all and end-all Id built it up in my head to be. She loved me, yes, and sure, we should try it, but if it didnt work out, Bah... we get divorced. What do you want me to say?

At the time, we were standing on the medieval Pont-Neuf, the oldest bridge in Paris, which crosses the Seine and links the Left Bank with the Samaritaine department store on the right. The Pont-Neuf is one of those places in Paris thats so picturesque, you not only feel youre on a movie set when youre there, youre tempted to act out the film you think is being shot. Its been the backdrop for countless films, including the 1990s cult classic starring Juliette Binoche titled (not too ironically) Les Amants du Pont-Neuf.

Perhaps those walking past us that night felt the cinematic magic of the moment in that same Paris is for lovers way. Anas and I were just another passionate couple caught up in the throes of romance. They expected us to embrace at any moment with a BacallBogart kiss, and then attach a stupid lock to a nearby railing.

If anyone had overheard Anas, it might have ruined their moment. But, for me, it was an epiphany. She was right. We could always just get divorced. There was a fallback plan. All of a sudden, the pressure was off, so what was I waiting for? I kissed her then, realising no American woman I knew would ever have said that. Paris was my kind of town, cold and cynical, and Anas is as Parisian as they get.

Before this moment, Id fallen in love with France through another woman, my mother, whod lived in Paris for a year, in 1953, learning to paint at Les Beaux-Arts after shed graduated from Vassar.

I know the date because I found among her belongings a dog-eared clipping taken from the Pittsburgh Presss society section, which detailed Moms scheduled trip to Paris, where cobblestone streets, art galleries and the picturesqueness of French life are luring this young Miss. The piece was accompanied by a photo of Mom painting on the front porch of her familys farmhouse outside Pittsburgh, and went on to announce she and my grandmother would be hosting a picnic later that week, and that both would be judging hats.

As a child Id listen to Moms stories of France, snuggled into the nook of her neck, as we lay in her bed, she either reading aloud from a diary shed kept during that year or staring at the ceiling and delivering the lines from memory, sometimes even in French. Often shed start at the very beginning of her adventure on a slow steamer bound for Le Havre, during which she attended lavish dinners and dances, had drinks with Princeton boys, met a swarthy count from Montenegro and visited a tiger in steerage. Other times, shed skip ahead and place us smack dab in the centre of Paris where she bunked with others in a tiny flat on the le Saint-Louis, soaking up the free-spirit life of post-war Paris.

I knew these Paris characters by heart: Mimi, Moms roommate, who convinced her to captain a canoe on the Seine with two bottles of wine, which led to their capsising and being fished out by the gendarmes. Or her starving artist friend, Hannah, who ate only onions because she wanted to save money, and eating a raw onion apparently cuts your appetite. Then there was the struggling writer who had the unfortunate curse of sharing the last name Hemingway. Je me suis dit, Mom declared in French, a famous writing career was not in the cards for Russell Hemingway.

While she spoke, my mother would take on an exotic glow, as if she was inhabited by the actress Simone Signoret, and because I was keen on following each of her stories and descriptions, Id latch on to certain words and phrases I knew as a way to cross the stream that was the rest of her vouloir courir comme a French. During these nights au lit, me drifting off to sleep under Frances fairytale spell, I imagined it as a land full of wonderment, taste and refinement, a place where Mom once shone, and where, one day, maybe I could, too.

Although the setting was perfect, Anass and my timing was ass backwards. Normal couples fret about whether or not they should get married before one of them is pregnant. Not us. For Anas, the decision to have a child with me far outweighed whether we got married. Her friends were already having children with people they werent married to and Id met some of them, the woman usually referring to the silent man standing next to her not as her boyfriend or husband, but