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American in Paris |
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 The rural landscape of Cruchy, where the author spent a leisurely month |
After a month in Cruchy,
the ferment seems good
By KENNETH DREYFACK
of TheColumnists.com
What a contrast: from the country place in Cruchy,
a sleepy medieval village (population 22) in the Burgundy hills,
back home to Boulevard de Strasbourg, near the Gare
de l’Est in central Paris.
Cruchy has one paved road, which carries roughly one vehicle
per half-hour (evenly balanced between cars, small vans and tractors);
no stop sign, no phone booth, no bus stop, not even a mailbox.
Boulevard de Strasbourg carries an incessant flow of urban
traffic--screaming fire engines and ambulances, buses, trucks,
taxis, motorcycles, police cars, bicycles, roller bladers. Its
broad sidewalks teem with people eating, drinking, arguing, teasing,
flirting, browsing, discussing, hanging out.
Returning home after a month in Cruchy, I scanned the neighborhood to see what, if anything, had changed. The Pakistani (or is he Sri Lankan?) was still peddling his corn on the cob, roasted on the fire in his converted shopping cart. Up the street, the two huge African women, regally attired in colorful cloth headdresses and flowing blue and gold robes, were still selling recuperated plastic water bottles filled with an exotic white beverage, stocked in huge plastic shopping bags, from the sidewalk bench daily transformed into a refreshment stand.
Down the boulevard, the
girls were still at work. The teenaged prostitutes from eastern
Europe whom the locals describe as Kosovars (though they
seem to speak a multitude of Slavic tongues) were variously gabbing
excitedly among themselves and entreating potential customers.
Further up the boulevard, the more demure Oriental prostitutes
were strolling back and forth between their usual stations around
the movie house, whispering to one another as they awaited prospective
clients. The police will undoubtedly launch another of their
periodic round-ups one of these days, corralling the girls into
the white police vans with the grated windows, and the hustling
will slow down momentarily.
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year round. At right, a homeless man's makeshift shelter. |
Around the corner, the
refugees vacated from a government transit facility in Sangatte,
on the English Channel, last spring were still crowded onto the
doorsteps. Kurds and Iranians for the most part, they left their
homes months or years ago, hoping to resettle in England, only
to learn that the UK authorities would not admit them.
The refugees, men in their twenties or thirties for the most
part, are in limbo as French authorities try to figure out what
to do with them. When the French government shut down the Sangatte
shelter last spring, in response to outcries from human rights
groups over the scandalous conditions there, many of the refugees
made their way here, apparently to be close to the local Kurdish
population. As the authorities try to find a solution, the men
live in doorways or in the small park up the street.
At the Metro station just in front of the house, the hawkers from the various beauty parlors were still jockeying for position at the top of the stairs as they entreated African women to have their hair done. Every two or three minutes, as a new load of passengers emerges, the young African men converge on prospective clients. African beauty salons, open from morning until late into the night, account for a large proportion of the storefronts on this portion of Boulevard de Strasbourg and on the side streets. They are so numerous that, at the end of the day, clouds of cut hair drift up and down the sidewalks and into the gutter. Blacks from all over the Paris area come to have their hair done and to buy hair care products, wigs and hairpieces at Homeboys, Salon de la Tresse or Afro King.
For the energetic young hawkers, position is everything. They pay no attention to those who are not prospective clients--the neighborhood residents who have gone shopping or to the movies, the white teenagers who have come to check out the local phone shops. But for those who might be here for the right reason, the closer the hawker can approach the top of the Metro stairway, the better the access. As each trainload emerges, two or three smiling, fast-talking hawkers immediately surround each prospective client. Each hawker is armed with a stack of discount cards from a particular salon, inscribed with his name. For each client lured into the salon, the hawker gets a commission. The amounts are small, but since many of the young men have no other work, and are unable to apply for regular jobs since they are not legal French residents, the competition is ferocious.
One thing has changed since we left. The homeless man who erects his fabulous portable enclosure across the boulevard every evening at around 10 has added a second contraption to his gear. The original unit is still there, parked as usual in front of the nail care products shop during the day. He built it by combining a shopping cart with a high, square cart of the kind used to transport grocery cartons from delivery trucks to supermarkets. When closed, the contraption forms a neat, compact though bulky unit about as tall as the man to whom it belongs. It is loaded with suitcases, shopping bags and various containers. A pair of ski boots hangs from one side, while a basketball hoop, a red and white Kronenbourg beach umbrella and untold other paraphernalia hang from the three other sides.
Every evening, once most of the shops have closed, he pushes it slowly across the boulevard and painstakingly erects his nighttime shelter. Stringing a web of translucent plastic ground cloths between a utility pole, street signs and parking barriers, he assembles his enclosure, using the two carts for structural support at the center. Once inside, he chants religiously to himself before turning in for the night. Each morning between seven and eight, while the street cleaners sweep and hose down the considerable detritus which accumulates daily on Boulevard de Strasbourg, the man meticulously disassembles his gear and packs it all neatly back into the combined carts.
Last winter, during a cold spell when temperatures dropped well below freezing, several homeless people froze to death in Paris. Passing him one evening out on the then desolate sidewalk as I walked the dog, I asked if he might not be in danger and offered to phone the homeless person’s brigade to find a shelter for the night. He quietly refused, noting that his own homemade shelter was above a vent that sent warm air up from the Metro and that he would be fine.
The big news is that he has now added a subsidiary vehicle, using a second grocery supplies cart, to the original one. This new addition seems to consist entirely of old suitcases, though I cannot tell you anything about their contents. In my view, it does not match the first one.
You could say that many
of France’s worst social problems are on 24-hour public
display along Boulevard de Strasbourg--prostitution, homelessness,
refugees and I haven’t even mentioned the dealers in stolen
cell phones and drugs.
But as you wend your way along the crowded sidewalks, among the
cacophony of languages and patchwork of peoples from around the
world, (including, by the way, a good number of French men and
women, young and old), you cannot help but absorb some of the
energy of this exuberant, electric environment.
There’s nothing wrong
or missing from the quiet world of Cruchy. But there’s something
more on Boulevard de Strasbourg.
©2003 by Kenneth Dreyfack. The photographs are by the author,
all rights reserved.
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