I had the windows open Friday afternoon, and the new Strokes album playing, loud, into the springtime blue. There were pie crusts in the oven, mushrooms on the chopping board, and a row of oranges on the sill for a something-sweet-for-after. In time they came tumbling up and in, Nai, whom I’d wanted to come first, and who did; Seung Yun, whose housewarming present I’d killed earlier this month, and who I hoped wouldn’t notice; Bastien, whose arrival was heralded by me leaning out the window and yelling into the street that he’d found the right place. There was Kris whose wardrobe I covet and Olivier who will have to be Olivier bis; Dan with stories of giraffes and hippopotamuses and crocodiles, with tales of Hugh Laurie–style lords lording it about in Africa; Marc always taller than I remember him, and Emily in a big, floaty scarf that made all the girls say “Oooh.” And Emily, bless, Emily brought a bag hefty with brownies, and icing sugar, even, for dusting. She took the plastic baggie of powder out of her purse, and I said, “You brought me cocaine?” and I was surprised that my move to Europe sure has opened me up to that seamy underworld my mother warned me about some eleven years ago as I left behind the hamlet in which I’d spent my cloistered youth. “No sex, no booze, no drugs,” she’d said, as she’d packed me off at the airport—and I think she e-mailed me the same not too long after, just to have it in writing.

So, but. The windows Friday afternoon, and the Strokes, heralding the weekend of madness and wonder. There was the soup spilled, the wineglass shattered, the strong coffees in little cups. There was the call for whiskey, and the discovery of a bottle of Gammel Dansk Bitter Dram. “What is this?” we wondered, and I said, because it was true, “I don’t know.” “It came with the apartment,” I said, and then we Googled it, because this is what the Internet was created for. Twenty-nine herbs, spices and flowers is what it is, apparently, and the Gammel Dansk Web site adds: “The recipe remains a secret and is known only to three people on Earth. But the pleasure it gives is universal.”

“Get on the Jack Daniels Web site,” Marc said, “and see if they’re as poetic.” But then we were quickly distracted by how much twenty-nine herbs, spices and flowers taste like an ancient Chinese remedy for aching joints. We were slipping off the sofas soon after, and lounging about on the carpet, and then Marc and Nai both did their party tricks, and then Marc mimed me digging myself out of a hole and backpedalling at the same time—that old thing about my mouth speaking before my brain—and then it was time to call it a night.

Saturday there was no time for drawing packing lists, because there was a party to clean up after, plus, anyway, how do you pack for one night? I threw my toothbrush in a bag and walked across Waterloo Bridge to the Eurostar terminal carrying a bottle of Champagne for Maud and a bar of chocolate for Panda, because they have neither in France.



The sun set in London and the train pulled into Paris in time for dinner. Nine o’clock and the crêpe machine sat ready on the big table chez Hector et les collocs. “Non mais c’est la maison du bonheur,” I said, and then I went to the loo and found a copy of Glamour. “Et c’est les toilettes du bonheur,” Maud said. Rémi muttered something about there being better, and then magicked a copy of Us Weekly into my grasping hands. “Je bouge jamais,” I said, and I flipped the pages to see how the stars are just like us.

Twenty-four hours in Paris like a stash of strawberry Pop Rocks. Up the curving wood staircase at Panda’s, red lights curling round white cornices, and the sounds of Saturday night pouring into the street. There was a girl in a black top with white polka dots, and a girl in a white top with black polka dots. There was a girl with wild hair and many necklaces, and when she grinned, her eyes grinned too. It was very smoky, and very warm, and the deejays at their turntable were spinning, spinning. If you closed your eyes there was only the music and the beat you felt all over.

Later, in the quiet, there was rum, and sweet clementines. Later, there was Gonzales and Set Luna, and Sunday dawning. Later, still, there was an afternoon stroll, and a hand in a hand, and a small paper sack holding two croissants au beurre.