7. GEORGE IN PARIS

 

George wrote out the following ‘Impressions of Paris’ from his notes of the several months he spent in the city in the early sixties. He had gone on holiday there, probably with a client, and decided to just stay on. He got himself a room near the Bastille, and lived there as a Parisian. During this time he learnt to speak French very well, though he later lost some of his confidence through not regularly using the language. He earned a living in Paris as he had in London and Glasgow, short periods of employment interspersed with times he was ‘on the game’.

 

Here are George’s memories from his notes, some of which he typed out just six months to the day before he fell terminally ill on the boat to Jersey in 1991. From the Prolog, it is obvious he intended these notes to one day form the basis of an autobiographical book about his relationship with his favorite city.

 

‘Impressions of Paris

 

‘So much has been said and written about Paris already. Nevertheless, I have always wanted to convey the emotions and experiences which envelop me each time I visit this favorite city, so I write these autobiographical notes purely on a personal level and for no other reason than a need for self-expression.

 

‘I would like to describe this book as a love story - the difference being that the object of the author’s affection is a city.

 

‘When I first came to Paris in 1964 I rented a room a stone’s throw from the Place de la Bastille. The old concierge would often invite me down to her basement room for coffee in order to practise her English.

 

‘Amidst huge potted plants and photographs, Madame Artaud would reminisce about her youth, when among other things, she attended the Paris Exhibition, witnessed the sensation and riot caused by the premiere of Stravinsky’s “Rites of Spring” and the scandalous sexuality of Nijinsky.

 

‘When she felt sad, she spoke of her only son, Emite, who had worked in the French Resistance. Holding back her emotions bravely, she would show me his photographs, and the last letter she received from him postmarked Marseilles 24 January 1943 in which he wrote of hoping to embark on a ship going to the United States, using false documents. She was convinced he never went to the New World, but was killed before escaping.

 

‘During more cheerful conversations, she would speak about her career as a cellist in the music hall. Sometimes in the evening the tenants would hear her play a phonograph - always the same, scratched 78 rpm records - the Cafe Mozart Waltz from “The Third Man”, a plaintive song called “La Maison du Reve” and Musetta’s waltz song from “La Boheme”. If ever I hear these tunes, the image of Madame Artaud floats into my mind, just as the music floated up the staircase of the house in the Rue du la Fayette.

 

‘During those days, I frequented a cafe in the Rue Navarone. The proprietress had henna hair, sharp screwed-up eyes, an even sharper nose, and thin tight lips which seemed not to belong to the flabby face. Her profile looked like a portrait by an amateur artist that had gone wrong. Madame S. was between 40 and 55, it was difficult to determine. Always, she was polite to the clientele, but distant, seldom smiling. So it was with surprise I entered her establishment one early afternoon to hear her singing.

 

‘The drudge who cleared the tables confided that Madame had become infatuated by a certain Africain - a refugee from  the Congo’ (formerly the Belgian Congo, later Zaire and the Democratic Republic of Congo) ‘who frequented the cafe with one or two fellow exiles. It soon became common knowledge among the regular customers that an affair had developed between Madame S. and the Congolese man. One evening a hooker who worked on the Rue Pigalle flirted with the Africain, at which Madame S. flew into a rage and threw her out. We could hear the sounds of her lover soothing the proprietress behind the flimsy curtain which separated the counter from the kitchen.

 

‘About a month after this incident, as I ascended the steps of the Metro, the ancient vegetable-seller who dispensed local gossip with the cabbages and carrots, called me over to her stall and informed me that Madame S. had been taken to a hospital for the insane in an hysterical condition. Apparently her lover had been apprehended by the authorities and since it was discovered his passport was forged, deportation was inevitable. On discovering this, Madame S. pleaded with the police, offered a large bribe, and when this was refused, she became irrational, screaming and scratching the gendarmes and swearing obscenities.

 

‘The cafe closed, and two months later opened as a Tunisian restaurant. No one knew if Madame S. was still screaming or sane, not even the ancient vegetable-seller outside the Metro station.’

 

That is where George’s typewritten manuscript ends, but he also left some scribbled notes which seem to describe various visits and stays in Paris. Before the Bastille room, he seems to have lived on the Left Bank and then moved to Montmartre. This could have been a previous stay, since he writes of renting a room in Paris at the age of 18, which would have been about 1961 rather than the 1964 residence described above, when George would have been in his early 20s. From George’s notes, vivid impressions are built up of the people he met in Paris, and of events which he fondly remembered for the rest of his life.

 

‘The first friend I found in Paris was a classical guitarist from Santiago who, for political and artistic reasons, preferred Paris to Chile. He was 25 with no passport, so he was reduced to playing background music in night clubs owned by exiles who did not insist on work permits or papers of identification.

 

‘I quickly discovered that Manuel loved music and me, and for a few weeks we lived together and he found work for me. In the mornings we slept, in the afternoons we explored Paris, and at night he worked. Since I had no musical talents, my work consisted of cleaning cutlery, glasses and floors, which I soon tired of. Furthermore, Manuel’s sense of frustration became apparent, as did his anger at not having his interpretation of Bach, Vivaldi, Scarlatti and De Falla treated with the respect it deserved (for he was a professional player whose lack of papers prevented him finding legitimate work.)  The patrons of the club ceaselessly chattered and frequently drowned his sonatas, which drove him to loud gipsy rhythms whose sound contained his fury and frustration throughout the fandango.

 

‘Needless to say his Latin American temperament was difficult to live with, especially since he also became possessive and jealous about me, accusing me (quite wrongly) of a liaison with a handsome waiter. So after three weeks of Manuel I fled from the Left Bank and took up residence in a room in Montmartre.

 

‘An acquaintance introduced me to someone who specialized in lewd and crude photography and I shamelessly survived by selling my body and youth to the highest bidder. In no time I became a part of the demi-monde of Paris, where an assortment of acquaintances and experiences awaited me. Like Piaf, I regretted nothing, and learned much about life, love, authority, power, politics and the police.’

 

‘When I was 18 I stayed for some time in a rented room a stone’s throw from Sacre Coeur. In the adjacent room lived and worked a woman in her 30s. The creaking of the stairs (not to mention her bed and the bones of some of her clients) reverberated through the walls accompanied by those subdued but sexual sound effects which left me in no doubt that my neighbour was either a prostitute, a nymphomaniac or both. The clinking of coins and rustling of Franc notes which preceded the farewells led me to conclude the former, which the concierge soon confirmed.

 

‘I soon struck up an acquaintance with Marie, who, on hearing me praising Paris, said: “Mon Cher, I have been heard to say that I hate Paris and I hate men. The truth is, I cannot live without either. I have tried, but I need both like an addict needs a shot.” Although we subsequently spoke several times upon a diversity of subjects, it was the only occasion she betrayed real emotion.

 

‘To her clientele, she bared her breasts, but to me she bared her soul, and I have never forgotten her face, although admittedly I cannot remember her full name.’

 

‘Whenever I enter the Church of the Sacre Coeur, a certain image resurfaces from the vaults of my memories. I was playing local guide to two rich American matrons with limited French and unlimited finances. I sat patiently in a pew whilst they wandered around the aisles, their exaggerated exclamations echoing Heavenwards as they rushed around, clicking their cameras at every window of stained glass and statue, before descending on the souvenir shop.

 

‘Suddenly the sounds of stiletto heels clicking on the stone floor announced the arrival of a whore who I recognised from the Rue Lepic. She wore a tight fitting skirt, and she walked exactly as she did on the streets around Rue Lepic, as if the cheeks of her buttocks (derriere) were chewing caramels. Shamelessly, she bought a candle, which she lit and offered to God as she knelt in an attitude of prayer for several minutes. Then she departed as quickly as she had arrived, passing two shocked spinsters who were obviously horrified by her bold make-up and manner as her stiletto heels clicked back on to the streets to ply her trade.

 

‘I wondered to whom or for what she prayed. Perhaps she gave prayers to God for a good night’s business, or for protection from the police and pimps. Nevertheless, her image always confronts me whenever I enter the Sacre Coeur, more vividly than any plaster Madonna, and I cannot help wondering whether her prayers were answered, or thinking of her sister in sin - Mary Magdalene.’

 

‘Notre Dame

 

‘One evening I entered this church to escape from the five o’clock onslaught of workers and traffic. My head ached with the noise and bustle, and the black butterflies of depression flapped their wings against my brain. Suddenly the sound of choral music echoed Heavenwards, accompanied by an organ, and for the first time I heard Monteverdi’s Vespers, which the singers and musicians were rehearsing.

 

‘My headache and depression disappeared and only the music of Monteverdi mattered. It spoke of God, or worship, of peace, of love, and for an hour the material world ceased to exist. Since I am not especially fond of church or choral music in general, the effect was all the more magical and mystical. It is the kind of music one ought to die to, if ever euthanasia becomes fashionable, for it quenches all fears and pain and offers something spiritual to one’s soul. Surely this is what the deaf Beethoven heard in Heaven.’

 

‘A girl of my acquaintance who was studying English Literature at the Sorbonne, introduced me to a fellow student who, during university lectures, scribbled out the scenario for a television murder-detective film which he believed would be bought by the CBS network in the USA. His English was bad, but his American was even worse. For an agreed fee, I typed and corrected the grammar and spelling of his screenplay, whilst amusing myself over the inconsistencies of the plot, which contained more red herrings than a Russian trawler could catch from the Baltic Sea.

 

‘However, the Francs with which our aspiring TV scriptwriter paid me allowed me to buy a radio, which provided many hours of tuning into the BBC broadcasts and orchestral concerts. It made me feel less lonely when in my room, especially when heavy rain prevented me from walking the streets. (During this period I possessed no overcoat.)

 

‘Some time later I left my door unlatched one morning to go for milk and croissants. On my return my radio and clock had been stolen by a pimp who had spent the night with Arlette (Rose la Grosse). He also had made off with her wrist watch and her last evening’s earnings, which was not much for Rose was lazy. We ranted and raved about thieves and villains and Rose apologised, promising to get me another radio, which she never did. Her whole life was a series of good intentions and negative happenings, with sometimes positive results. I learned to always lock my door, even when going down to collect mail or visiting the bathroom, however briefly.’

 

‘One night I was taken by a companion to a basement cellar, or rather cavern, where Benzedrine could be bought. The habitués of the establishment struck me as more devious, dangerous and depraved than any I was accustomed to. There is even class distinction in the demi-monde. There are criminals and criminals.

 

‘My companion told me that the man at the table opposite us flanked by a Negro and a young man wearing false eyelashes and a false smile, was the writer Jean Genet. The name meant nothing to me then for I had not read nor heard of his books.

 

‘Later, after discovering “Notre Dame des Fleurs” and “Journal de Valuer”, I wished I could have talked to Jean Genet about his books. His prose is a curious combination of poetry and pornography. The continuity is elliptical. His philosophy and cult of crime fascinating. His characters are real. Much of his writing in prison is fantasied Pen = Phallus.

 

‘But, like Baudelure and Villon, he plucks flowers out of the filth, enriches and ennobles the poor with a poetic quality or image.’

 

George was to encounter Jean Genet again towards the end of both their lives. It was March 1986, and we were visiting Paris with our English friend, Rose. Looking for somewhere to eat in the Les Halles area, we ended up in a large but rather cheap and down-at-heel establishment, and there sitting at a table a few feet away from ours was Jean Genet , talking to another man. George kept staring at him, then he whispered to me: “That’s Jean Genet”.

 

George told me afterwards he was watching Jean Genet studying our friend Rose, who was then in his fifties and still had dyed blond hair, was of ample proportions, very camp, loud and extrovert. It may well be that Rose would have become the basis for a character in one of Genet’s books or plays, but sadly he died a few months after we saw him in the restaurant.

 

Again, George was denied the opportunity to go over and talk to Genet about his writings. Had Rose not been with us he may well have done so, but he did not wish to risk Rose becoming impatient and maybe making insulting remarks in his loud voice which Genet would overhear.

 

Continuing with George’s notes on his time in Paris:

 

‘One afternoon as I lay on the grass in the Luxembourg Gardens reading Hemingway’s “Moveable Feast”, I heard an American accent ask:

 

‘”Hi, good to see someone reading Hemingway. Are you American?”

‘“No,” I answered him, because at that time I was afflicted with an aversion to Americans, or rather the type of American one encountered in Europe.

 

‘“English, huh?” he deduced from my accent’ (Wrongly, for George was of course Scots.)

 

 

‘“Mind if I join you?” he asked, stretching on the grass beside me, and in no time we were both diagnosing Hemingway in general and “A Moveable Feast” in particular.

 

‘He was rather amiable, handsome, intelligent. We then discussed other writers, then theatre, modern art and films. I mentioned a desire to see a certain new film, and he suggested we go together. Embarrassed, I confided that I was financially impoverished, whereupon he told me not to worry about money.

 

‘“I’ll be glad of someone to talk to”, he said.

 

‘After the film, he invited me to a meal. I thanked him for his hospitality, but said I could not accept.

 

‘“Come on, I’ve got more money than I know what to do with.”

 

‘After the meal, and due to the carafes of wine, we both exchanged autobiographical details. It transpired that he had plenty of money but no accommodation, whilst I had accommodation but little money. As the room I rented had a sofa as well as a bed, I invited him back in return for his generosity. He accepted.

 

‘Later I learnt that he was an adventurer who supplemented his income by burglaries. Although I found him attractive, he spoke of a wife and child in Maine, and our relationship remained intellectual and never physical.

 

‘He stayed with me for a week, and then went missing for two days. He returned laden with money. He explained he had committed his biggest crime yet and was going back to the States before the police caught up with him. Before leaving me he gave me 50 Francs, which I tried to refuse, but he was insistent. We bade adieu.

 

‘He wrote to me from the USA, confessing our relationship had made him aware of his bisexuality. I never heard from him again. He was the kind of hero one plucks from the pages of a Tennessee Williams play. I wish we could have kept in touch.’

 

‘When times were tough I would live on baked beans, boiled eggs, bread and milk, which I purchased (or pilfered) from the local supermarket (this was pre closed-circuit TV systems) and took back to my room. On these occasions I compared myself with Henri Murger’s life-style as described in “Scenes de la Vie de Boheme”, but no-one need go hungry in Paris because it offers so many opportunities.’

 

George wrote a note here about making soup from vegetables and bones either scavenged, stolen or purchased from Les Halles market. He has scribbled the comment:

 

‘Since I had no work-permit, I lived precariously, no visible means of support.’

 

George’s most treasured possession was a Picasso reproduction which still hangs on my wall. It had been in every home he had lived in since he bought it in Paris, and he told me never to get rid of it. This is the story of how he bought it:

 

‘I could not resist browsing through the books and prints on the libraries of the Left Bank. On the first occasion I did so, I procured for a few Francs a reproduction of one of Picasso’s paintings from his blue period. It depicted two adults - one male, one female - and a boy by the sea.

 

‘It has become one of my most treasured possessions, and when I returned to England I had it framed. It has hung on walls in Islington, Bayswater, Victoria, Camden Town and Battersea.

 

‘During my nomadic existence when circumstances necessitated a change of abode, I would pack my belongings in one suitcase and the Picasso picture frame under my arm. It has become part of me and I cannot anticipate life without it being on the wall.’

 

‘I have already remarked that Paris is conducive to creation, but I was also to realise it can equally evoke self-destruction in others. In particular, I befriended a sad and suicidal young man, whose parents, religious upbringing and homosexuality contributed to a sense of guilt and despair which led him into taking large quantities of drugs and alcohol. I believed his only redemption lay in love, but since he himself believed that homosexual love was doomed/non-existent he continued on his course and one night he disappeared from our usual haunts. His belongings remained in his room and the concierge knew nothing of his whereabouts.

 

‘Later, I wrote a poem around him. Someone suggested I was a little in love with him, but he was already in love with death when we met, and he was too sensitive to face the fear and guilt which would fuse any future held out to him.’

 

The poem George apparently wrote on a much later visit to Paris is reproduced here:

‘Towards the Unknown Region

A slim, anaemic boy, who cannot face life’s pain

Whose eyes have seen Christ crucified in vain

The young man broods along the Rue du Madeleine

His thoughts transparent as cellophane.

 

Terrified of tomorrow, tired of today.

Once, long ago, he knew how to pray

But in his eighteenth year his faith flew away

On wings of guilt, because he was gay.

 

Like a fugitive bird, the boy’s body takes flight,

Dark glasses imprison his sight

As he wanders alone through this city of night,

His sensitive soul stabbed by cruel neon light.

 

Montmartre adorned in the colours of a whore

Beckons the boy with its raucous roar

Mad music blares from each discotheque door

Unlike the silence in the Cafe d’Or.

 

It is here the youth comes to contemplate

Those erotic emotions which provoke love and hate:

For in his confusion he cannot relate

Or accept his condition, or laugh at his fate.

 

The Cafe d’Or provide pills to kill pain,

Which deaden the senses and numb the brain

So when he could face his future again

He drifted through darkness towards the Seine.

 

Next day, two boys who were rowing a boat

Found a pair of dark glasses on the river afloat.

(George Miller, May 1973, Paris).’

 

In one of his short notes, George sums up my own impressions of Paris. I first went there in 1969 with two friends. We had very little money and lived, like George, largely on tins of baked beans and French bread. I had always imagined Paris to be very chic, and was initially horrified by the squalor and the smells. Later, as George says of others, I learned to love Paris.

 

‘Like a lover, Paris either attracts or repels. You will either love or hate it at first sight, and those who are initially and promptly appalled by the poverty, decay, dirt and noise it presents, often learn later to love it despite these defects.

 

‘Travellers and tourists have a pre-conceived image of Paris as a metropolis where romance and beauty blossom, accompanied by accordionists, as they waltz through the boulevards towards the Eiffel Tower, Champs Elysees, Arc de Triomphe, Sacre Coeur and Notre Dame. They do not expect to see squalor and slums en route. Like all those who believe in a wonderland of illusions, they must inevitably be disappointed by reality.’

 

‘Those who read works like “Les Miserables”, “Senage Paris”, “Nania”, “L’Oeuvre”, “Le Chemin de la Liberte” after knowing Paris will live through the pages more poignantly.’

 

Some of George’s notes are very incomplete, and we can only guess at the stories that lay behind them: ‘L’Opera. “Traviata”. “Boheme”. Found Henri Murger’s “Scenes de la Vie du Boheme”‘. ‘Sodomised in a cemetery.’ He also wrote brief impressions and observations of his favorite city:

 

‘The mushrooming of sex shops in Montmartre, replacing the old cafes, patisseries and epicier. Why anyone wishes to purchase inflatable dolls and vagina cushions, when the real thing (flesh) can be obtained from the girls who line the length of Rue Pigalle any night waiting to sell their wares, seems senseless to me. The sex shop deals in existential auto-eroticism and sexploitation.’

 

‘Paris retains one of its basic functions - an ability to shock.’

 

‘Its atmosphere, its ambience is unique.’

 

‘It is especially attractive to lovers, by which I do not refer exclusively to those whose love is sexual and physical, but also lovers of literature, art, history, poetry, music, architecture and gastronomy, and above all those who love life.’

 

‘Perhaps the sense of de ja vu which I have always felt in Paris contributes to my adoration of the city, and, like a lover, makes me biased about its imperfections.’

.

George was convinced he knew Paris in a previous life, which would explain why the French language came so naturally and easily to him. On his first visit to Paris, he said he knew what was round the next corner in the Montmartre area before he reached it, and not famous places depicted in paintings. (Such places always look different from how you imagine them when you actually see them anyway.) He always said that on his first visit to Paris he knew his way around as if it was his hometown.

 

‘Paris is pervaded with ghosts from its past. It evokes those personalities with whom one inevitably associates the city. Once upon a time, in these streets and houses, penniless poets, exiled writers and anonymous artists struggled for recognition. Balzac, Hugo, de Maupassant, Zola, Verlaine, Villon, Rimbaud, Lautrec, the Impressionists found inspiration to create their masterpieces.

 

‘Exiles from Russia, Europe, the USA and England sought sanctuary in Paris. Chopin and George Sand, Stravinsky, Diagalev and Nijinsky, Oscar Wilde created scandals here. Henry Miller, Hemingway, Henri Murger, Saitre and de Savoir, Picasso, Renoir, Bunuel, Lautrec, Proust, Collette, Gide, Piaf, Cocteau, Genet, Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas. One has only to visit Pere Lachaise cemetery to realise how many famous people made this their final resting place: Isadora, Wilde, Piaf, Visconti, Proust, Chopin and many more.

 

‘Existentialism, Impressionism, Surrealism were born here. It was the scene for all sorts of scandals - strange couples like Chopin and George Sand, Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, Verlaine and Rimbaud, Solse and de Banoir. Henry Miller’s prose, considered too pornographic for publication in USA/UK, was published here. Oscar Wilde escaped the wrath of UK here and died. Cocteau smoked opium, Jean Genet transferred crime into a cult. Stravinsky gave us “Rites of Spring”. Proust, Cocteau, Genet, Collette could write about homosexuality without being excommunicated or imprisoned. As Diagalev and Nijinsky found, Paris is conducive to creation.’

 

‘One feels that after six months in Paris one must create either a masterpiece or a scandal.’

 

After George and I met, we frequently visited Paris, and I too learned to love the city. George wrote about one time when he took me to visit Pere Lachaise cemetery:

 

‘Sunday 15th April. We took the Metro to Pere Lachaise, which must be the most famous graveyard in the world. Certainly it does not have any of the conventional characteristics associated with cemeteries - the trimmings of doom, decay, depression and neglect are absent here. It has streets and sections, like a miniature Pompeii of the dead. Family tombs and monuments stand like small houses or shops as we pass by - each one having its own characteristic as to construction, dedication and design. It was much larger and less depressing than I had anticipated.

 

‘At the entrance the genial gate-keepers were on hand, and obligingly offered information and a photocopy of a plan of the cemetery (gratis, but of course the plan was well worth the expected tip, as one would spend the whole day seeking out one or two of the famous who found peace here.) The whole place is so picturesque, do not be surprised to see tourists taking pictures.

 

‘Our original plan was to visit the grave of Edith Piaf, whose life, loves and deaths (for she died so many deaths during the course of her life) I had written into a poem. Whilst writing it I automatically assumed she would be buried in Pere Lachaise solely because it rhymed with the previous line of my poem. To my relief and amazement I later discovered that this was the truth. Hence the desire to see her last resting place.

 

‘It is a beautiful grave, small and simple. (Others are skyscrapers in comparison). Buried with her are her father, Louis Gassion, and Theo, her last love. A photograph of them on the gravestone reminds us of their beautiful, brief and tragic idyll together. A border of living, growing, flowering plants surrounds the stone. There were no cut flowers withering there, except Theo, who was cut in the full bloom of his youth. I shed a silent tear, but before I could be overcome with the sadness which her legend always fills me with, the whole scene was invaded by a group of grave-hungry vampires, disguised as tourists, who jostled and shouted excitedly, as they clicked their cameras, capturing the celebrated dead who, fortunately for them had the good sense and forethought to be buried with such close proximity to each other.

 

‘Among those others whose last remains lie here are Chopin, Gertrude Stein, Musset and Wilde (for whom Epstein sculptured an Egyptian Sphinx-like tomb at the bequest of a lady who wished to remain anonymous, for in those days it was not yet fashionable to admire anyone who was gay.)

 

‘Isadora Duncan’s ashes lie in the crematorium, which stands in the centre of Pere Lachaise, but there were so many little boxes it would have taken all day to find hers. The latest acquisition must be Visconti (Director), but by then our poor feet were tired of trudging the cobblestones. One section has a distinct left-wing slant, containing the graves of.....’.

 

Here the page ends and the rest of George’s notes about Pere Lachaise are lost.  I recall there were some very impressive sculptured graves in this section dedicated to various French Communist Party members and other leftwing personalities.