So we’re at Maud’s place on rue du Buisson St. Louis in the Tenth, and somehow there’s a durian in the kitchen, and suddenly I’m alone at the table singing Eric Carmen’s “All By Myself” and everyone else is on the other side of the room debating if it’s more like rotten leeks or onions or papaya or tuna salad left in the sun, and now India’s crying.

Okay, back up. So Maud and I are walking down the street, coming from our émission spéciale on Gab’s radio station, and we’re hungry, and there’re all these Chinese Vietnamese epicieries, and so clearly we need to buy a durian, ’cause Maud’s never tried one, and okay, sure, why not. Why not turns out to be because it costs twenty euros, but we hand over the cash anyway and lug the mutha home. I think Maud may have a sense of je regrette right after we plunge a big knife through the spiky armor and split the fruit open—“It looks like brains, it looks like aliens, it looks like snort” she moans through strokeface—but she tries it anyway, face scrunched up, and then quickly washes her mouth out. India takes more persuading, but eventually takes some of the yellow flesh in her mouth, and then quickly moves on to a bowl of mint tea. I forget to warn the girls about durian burp, but they discover the phenomenon on their own. Surprise!

I leave Paris tomorrow, c’est chiant, j’suis grincheuse, c’est pas du tout cool, tu vois? A week ago this time we were driving to Maud’s country house in Prades, and when we arrived there was hot soup on the table, and salad from the garden, and cheese, and the best rhubarb tart ever. The week of paradise, the drives at mad speed curving through the hills, les cows!, le swimming in the lake, singing into the wind, falling asleep in the sun, louche comme louche, the secret florentins, le WC dehors, les sorties grand-mères, Louis Prima and Bobby La Pointe and Supertramp and, always, les Strokes. Maud’s house, with its white iron gates and its driveway through the trees; the worn curving staircase right when you come in; the kitchen, always warm and smelling tasty—of chocolate cake or lamb couscous or steamed fish or gratin aux choufleurs or lemon tart—and dinners crowded around the long wooden table, cheeses always at the ready. In the mornings, the big room still smells of fire from the night before.



Like the dwarfs, we were seven. Clem—Timide—cute and sweet and the younger brother, master of the fire, master of the coffee, when we parted he said, “Putain, cette petite meuf.” Mais j’adore. After each meal, his clarion call: “Un petit café?” “Ouaaiis.” Maud, oh, but, Maud. C’est Prof, c’est clair. India—Grincheux—knitting by the fire. There was the night after dinner, in a chorus, we sang of her baking skillery. The next day, there was a lemon tart on the table, crowned with a ring of crushed pistachios. Schmio était Dormeur, who slept in later and later each day, and then went outside to sun. Part two of les amoureux, Mauro, l’espagnol, l’espaniard, lovely and smiling, c’est lui Simplet, who made a raw egg lemon-flavoured fake ice cream that could have killed us all, and one day at Shopi returned to the shopping cart, inexplicably, triumphant with a cauliflower. Gabriel, Atchoom, allergic to every bit of nature around us, the fat peonies, the sweet roses, the trees years old, the thick grass dotted with daisies and yellow dandelions. Gab with the langourous eyes, the messy curls, the smile like you share a secret. Le foot under a deep blue blanket, a Kinder egg broken into two at Shrek en français in Aurillac, chords on the grand piano before being called to dinner.

I think I have to go now, there is a couscous dinner in the plans. Good-bye France, ç’a été trop bon, mais trop too much. À toute. . .