Have You Seen My Zebra?

It is past midday, as I make my way through the busy street vendors and clothes racks filled with fire engine red and cobalt blue and soft pink ball gowns and dusty and sandy shelves full of knick-knacks of all sorts and cafés and their outdoors wicker chair and table units, positioned so that every one of the chairs is facing towards the street, to take in the nonexistent view I guess, but this is how they always position their chairs here, whether there was a view to be taken in or not. As I make haste on the narrow street, a fleeting question hovers in the back of my mind, regarding the ball gowns, for there is a similar ball gown boutique district near where I am staying, and now this other one here, and by judging by a quick glance of the items themselves, and the worn-out t-shirt and corduroy jeans -ensemble that seems to be the basic uniform of the salesmen, not entirely high quality merchandise, either. But perhaps there is a growing market for run-of-the-mill ball gowns unbeknownst to me.

There is the bio foods market with the adorable pastel tote bags and the good nut selection, there is the kiosk where they are always out of stamps, sometimes I wonder if it isn’t a tourist thing, now what would be more Parisian than that, to claim a vague sort of shortage, stamp-wise, when there is someone inquiring them in their less than perfect intonation and enunciation, oh so obviously an outsider, pas de timbres madame, vraiment, monsieur, c’est impossible! Mais non, madame, pas de timbres.

I pass the fish restaurant with the washing spot just around the corner from where the wicker chairs and tables are posing elegantly in the sun in their turquoise painted setting and white starfish and shells hanging from the awning, an enormous place with lots of turnover, it is most days crowded with Parisians and tourists lunching then dining on the more expensive sunny terrace but also inside in the shade, and around the corner, where the sun doesn’t reach the delicate goods, a large man with his sleeves rolled up is pouring clams into the wash basin and showering the huge fish hardly visible but for the large, gleaming tails and iridescent scales shining on the table surface and giving his crabs a solid ice bath. The street has a faint odor of fish there, and a sudden rush of cold, since the washing spot needs to have ice handy all the time, and the large man is wearing, unwisely perhaps, white cotton slacks and a white-and-blue striped button-up shirt, now what could be more French than that, Coco Chanel would approve, I think, and I half wait for the man washing his haul to turn around to look at me passing him and turn out to be Pablo Picasso. But he isn’t Picasso, he has a full head of curly hair, and the dark hairs on his arms are soaked and look as if drawn on his arms, dark waves, like some exotic underwater plant.

There is the popular public toilet cubicle just in the next corner right there, for some reason there is always a line forming outside this one, and never anyone loitering outside the one adjacent to the small park a little further down the road, but perhaps the one on the outskirts of the park has an outskirts of the park -feel to it, and this one, situated right in the middle of busy streets and cafés, stays relatively clean. I wouldn’t know, since I have never been in a dire need to use one right at this spot, and let’s face it, the line formed outside is almost always uniquely made of men, so I’m thinking if a woman is not waiting in line to use it, it cannot be that clean anyway.

The street is ever so slightly uphill, but not enough to make one become out of breath, it isn’t until I reach my destination that the ground really starts to rise. The enormous park is far from any other attraction, and one has to go out of her way to come here, but it is well worth the two-hour walk. Covering a vast piece of hilly land, it is almost out of this world beautiful, and from the top of the steepest hill the view is simply breathtaking. I can see my own district from here, and it is miles and miles up north, but there is the giant basilica, glistening in the sun, white and majestic and eternal, and I think about how I just shy of two and a half hours ago descended the side stairs there, not the main steps that lead up to the complex holy grounds with the fountain, because the aggressive street salesmen are there with their hair-braiding instruments and mechanical flying birds and friendship bracelets and expensive water bottles and cans of beer, and if one is not careful, they will have braided one’s hair and tied the bracelet onto one’s wrist and it’s twenty euros, please, and when rejected, they start yelling and walk behind one, shouting insults. When the police come, and they usually come a few times a day, these hustlers flee, running downhill, all the way down to the hubbub of the swarming street just below with the dozens of souvenir shops that are never empty of tourists, it is the busiest street of all of Montmartre, Place du Tertre notwithstanding, where the artists and sketchers await with their coal and blank white canvas for tourists to have  their pictures drawn. Perhaps once a true center of artists selling their work, it is now a caricature of what it once was, with some of the art sold there truly despicable, other merely horrible, with one or two actually fine artists in the mix to make it interesting. So, to avoid having one’s wrist filled with unwanted paraphernalia, one is smart to take the stairs camouflaged by the bushes and trees, they are much steeper than the grand stairs on the grounds of the basilica, but one is left alone there, and the exercise is good for the heart. On the outskirts of the grounds one finds these same men taking a break, sitting on the forest green benches in groups of six or seven, drinking water or soda, not minding or harassing the passers-by in the least, because it isn’t shop time now, and the marks don’t take the side stairs anyway, they take the main steps.

The wind blows a little on top of the hill, but the day is hot and humid, and the gentle whisper offers no real refuge from the conditions. My light grey linen skirt sticks onto my thighs in an unpleasant way, and my sleeveless yellow-and-green collar shirt is soaked from the back, but that is how it is here, and I know I am partly to blame for my own unease, no one told me I had to walk all the way in the blazing sun. But somehow I believe the exquisite view would not be as amazing without the effort that it took me to get here. I come out from the gazebo and take a leisurely stroll across the park. I follow the brook in the shadows, I sit on one of the many benches and read for a while. I take the suspension bridge and watch the ducks in the pond below. A large Indian family comes across me on the bridge, mother and father and a string of children of all ages, and finally two sets of grandparents, with an ancient man who looks about a hundred holding the rear with a toddler bouncing around him, a tiny boy in dungarees, who keeps asking in a clear voice the same question over and over again, never getting any other response from the old man but a wide, approving smile and an offer to take his hand. I don’t know what the little boy keeps asking, I can easily tell they are speaking neither French nor English, but phonetically the words can be any words whatsoever, and I make some up from the way they sound, and amuse myself, imagining he keeps asking: Have you seen my Zebra? Have you seen my Zebra? And who knows? Maybe that is exactly what he is asking, and I am the only one in the whole world to understand his question.

The enormous lawn is speckled with people with quilts and packed lunches; even with a large portion of the city gone for the holidays there are enough left to want to spend a day like this relaxing on the lawn and taking in the spectacular view there, too, of the greenery all around, for the park expands in all directions, and because of its hilly formation, the feeling is of being in an enchanted, exotic fairytale kingdom. All sorts of trees and flowers and birdsong as far as the eye can see. There are fewer dog-walkers here, less joggers, fewer women and men doing yoga in the shade of a giant tree of their choosing, at least relatively so, compared to the more down-to-earth park that is close to where I am staying, where I go almost daily to have lunch there myself. They are to be found here, too, every park has their own neighborhood set of apartment buildings and their inhabitants, and some very lucky ones have this as their go-to park for running and stretching and walking their dogs, but there is such a huge number of people here like me, people who have come for the sole purpose of walking all the way up to the gazebo and admiring the view, of bathing in the sun of the most luxurious of all of the parks in the city, so the every day users almost vanish in the mix. They like to stay on the outmost circle on the bottom of the hill, where there is more shade and room to run, and only occasionally the more ambitious joggers take the steep pathways crisscrossing up and down the length of the park. I understand their desire to steer clear of the pique-niquers and other leisurely enjoyers of the beautiful day. Some are always busy, while others have all the time in the world in their hands.

I am in the mood for some book browsing and perhaps a little sparkling wine, not to mention gallons of water, for I have all but emptied my bottle, so I yank the skirt off my thighs and make for the exit. The way is somewhat long, but the day is long, too, and my feet aren’t even close to tired yet. I ask him if he is tired. He isn’t.

“If we take a wide left after the bio foods market, do you suppose we might have some change in getting there without getting too lost?”

“Oh, who knows. Let’s take it anyway, at least the riverbank will eventually stop us short from walking all the way to Montrouge uninterrupted. - What do you suppose that kid was asking his grandfather?”

“I would like to get a bite to eat, once we get to the bridges.”

“But it is so expensive there.”

“I know. Maybe we can stop by somewhere on the way.”

“So what do you think the kid was asking?”

“What do you think he was asking?”

“But what do you think?”

“I think he was asking if they were there yet.”

“I think he was asking where his zebra was.”

“What zebra?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps it was code. Like ‘The eagle has landed’.”

“Code for what?”

“Maybe he, too, was hungry. Maybe he was like hey grandpa, hand me my zebra right now and no one gets hurt.”

“Well I would like my zebra too, in the next hour or so.”

“Ok I get it. But after you get your zebra, I’d like to go find my own zebra in the bookstore.”

“And on our way home we need to remember to get some zebras for dinner.”

“Yes, we were a little short on the zebra, we only had garlic and avocados back at the apartment.”

“And later tonight, maybe we will find one more zebra of our own.”

“’Hello, Mr. Zebra.’ I don’t know, I’m going to be pretty beat from all this hiking, you are gonna to have to seduce me.”

“But now I know that you like your zebra delivered nice and warm and without rushing it.”

“Yes, rush-hour zebras are the worst. Well, if you play your cards right, maybe we will find that extra zebra along there somewhere during the evening.”

“I love it when you work blue.”

“I know. Want to hear some more?”

“Yes, please!”

“Ok. Tomatoes, clitoris, monkeys, olive oil, sidewalks, guitar, spaghetti, zebras, oysters, parmesan cheese, heatwave, mirror, silky, elbows, sweet plums, mirabelles, purple, paprikas.”

“What was that, our grocery shopping list?”

“Something like that.”

“I hate oysters, by the way.”

“I know, I do too. It was just, you know, what they represent. Like lotus, triangle, blooming violet, vagina, peonies.”

“So we are not having oysters for dinner?”

“No.”

“Oh thank the lord! I'm afraid to ask what sidewalks represent to you in this context.”

“Well, the Paris sidewalks are not like anything else, are they? They are unpredictable and exciting and beautiful and vibrate with life. I was thinking some basic tomato and basil pasta for dinner, with a little cucumber salad and some random lovemaking on the side. If we find that elusive extra zebra, that is.”

“Well okay then, that sounds wonderful. Women are a mystery.”

“Yes, we are very mysterious. Oh, we have contact! I see the river now.”

Thinking of Paris