The Word
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The uproar was so quiet it was frightening. When Parisians start yelling for “For shame!” at workman who are proving they are descendents of vandals by replacing the rotten windows on an ancient building in their quartier, it is clear they know there is nothing their protest can do and thus are free to bellow at the top of their lungs. In neighborhood matters, loudness of protest is always inversely proportional to expected effect. The cynic may observe that this is one way to put a parapluie of indignation over the inner pleasure of seeing genuine improvements to the building and of course improved real-estate prices, the moral umbrella in this case covering one’s true colors as well as one’s derrière with the neighbors.
Quiet is very different—ominous, means business, pay attention. The sound of the tumulte was barely audible, but persistent. Where two streets came together to form a triangle there was a small empty store facing a small fountain and a few trees on a paved plaza of sorts with an ironwork clock—classic charming Paris, not the kind of place a tour bus would lumber around to show the amazed tourists, but pleasant to walk through. But the word had been spreading despite no evidence proving anything whatsoever was happening, and clearly the word was more important than the evidence.
The word was McDonald’s, meaning hamburgers and worse, was going to move into the vacant store. No matter that around the corner was a chain selling burgers, or hambeurguers for the more elegant, starting at 12€ (around $18 at the time). The word was there would be cardboard and paper wrappers knee-deep in the triangle and blowing down the narrow streets. The word was that the vile habit of eating burgers late into the evening—largely because the lines waiting to get in to any McDonald’s are long and the service slow—would create disturbances, une vraie pagaille, and general brouhaha when les voisins were getting ready for bed. The word was that young people, maybe foreigners, would be seen walking down the pretty streets actually eating hamburgers and fries—and who could bear to look at that? (The word said nothing about the young, even foreigners, walking down the street eating un sandwich jambon in a paper sleeve, but that is a French tradition of nobility: the word has always been that Alcuin introduced the ham sandwich to Charlemagne, that Joan of Arc’s last meal was a ham sandwich, and Napoleon never said “An army marches on its belly,” but “An army marches on le sandwich jambon.”)
The word required no evidence, the horror alone proving the case and disposing of it absolutely and with prejudice. The timid mention of un club échangiste right across from the triangular plaza was dismissed, also with prejudice. A swinger’s club? Sex with strangers? Wife swapping—while you watch? No, not here. We hear it’s a private club for successful people—in the arts, mostly—who keep late hours. We never hear a peep. The equally timid quotation from the club’s website was circulated. It read more or less like this:
“Libertines are neither a sect nor a religion nor a secret club nor a little group about whom one should be cautious. They are simply people who have chosen to live their lives in a slightly different way, without caring about the theoretical shackles of ‘good society’ and its rules.” As if anyone ever thought that libertines were any of these things: the statement, rather chilly for such a hot spot, did not convince anyone, or at least the timid one, that this was what the place was about. Nor did the rather tortured declaration that respect for women is preeminent in the minds of all libertines at all times. Nor did the requirement that women must wear a jupe ou robe sexy to be admitted—free. Nor did the exhortation to use condoms, provided as part of the entrance fee. Nor did the promise that here “you can realize as a couple your fantasies,” not saying anything about the couple arriving or departing together. Nor did the Monday-through-Wednesday threesome evenings.
What convinced the neighbors that this was nothing like the menace posed by McDonald’s was the word that the members of the club (which is any man with 80€ in his pockets, but not jeans pockets) were discreet and well bred, that “I didn’t even know the place was there,” and—the last word of the word—the place doesn’t open until late. Actually, the club opens at noon, except on Sundays, offering midi et après-midi coquines since naughty girls do not respond to the shackles of the clock and, anyway, some of them have night jobs or families who want dinner.
The word won as it always does. The club continues, a children’s toy and game store is open for business in the vacant shop front, no paper and cardboard blow in the wind, and the uproar grew quieter and quieter and then vanished altogether. Peace returned to the streets forming the triangle with its fountains and trees. Peace of one kind, the kind that comes when one’s heritage and beliefs have been protected, even have carried the day. McDonald’s never appeared, and though there are still occasional mentions that it really was a McDonald’s planned for the empty store, no one has ever seen the secret plans, the written outlines of the plot, or—for that matter—an offer sheet from a real-estate agent. N’importe.
But maybe it does matter, as a question of peace, that on the opposite side of the triangle from the sex club someone opened a very good pizza joint, open late and inexpensive enough to attract young people, most of whom seem to arrive on motorcycles which they park all over the paved plaza of the triangle—and which they start with a roar, a chorus of roars, an uproar of small-bore engines every night at closing. You can hear it three streets away. But there is no cardboard or paper blowing down the pretty streets. And so, you don’t hear a word.
© Joseph Lestrange