a little bit of Paris...

I was coming out of La Grande Epicerie, loaded down with Christmas shopping when a little bit of Paris got in my eye.

It must have been a speck, tiny as the Snow Queen's sliver of ice, and it hurt just as much, cutting right accross my eyeball.

I blinked a bit. It would go away. Specks always did.

But it didn't. So I held my hand over my closed eye, pressing against my eyeball. That felt better, but it probably wasn't doing anything useful.

I tried pulling my eyelid down over my eye, as a certain man had done in a similar situation. He stood very close to me, stretching my eyelid uncomfortably over my bottom lashes and holding it there so that, after a while, I began to wonder whether the discomfort was worth the erotic charge.

After he'd finished, I could see again. But I hadn't seen him for some time.

The trick had worked before but now - nothing. I tipped my head to one side and shook it so that whatever it was could fall into that little red resevoir in the inner corner of the eye which I sometimes use to check how hungover I am (the redder the more so).

I needed advice. I needed one of those know-all people who come up to you and say, It's easy. All you have to do is... And then everything's OK.

I was still standing on the pavement on the corner of the rue de Sèvres. People were milling past me. Then I realised that, in the Christmas shopping rush, NO-ONE was going to help. NO-ONE had EVEN NOTICED ME.

My eye still hurt. But I was going to have to start moving.

* (Snow? What snow?)

(click on the picture to enlarge, then click on the bottom right hand corner to enlarge further)

Maybe if I looked more pitiable? I walked slowly and unsteadily with one hand over my eye. No effect. But, wait a minute, this really did hurt. What if something really was wrong? I'm an illustrator. Illustrators don't like strange things happening to their eyes. Particularly when they have no insurance.

I went from pretending to be worried to really starting to worry; from pretending not to be able to see exactly where I was going to realising that, actually, I really couldn't. Where does hypochondria stop and real pain begin? I did a quick mental and physical check. It definitely hurt, but the one state didn't seem to inhibit the other. I could do both simultaneously.

So I sat down on the pavement for maximum effect.

I was despairing of humankind when a solidly built mamie stopped in front of me. She looked just like the sort of person who'd know all about everything.

You have hurt your eye? Let me look (gratifying ocular examination). But you are touching it. You shouldn't touch it. If you want the truc to come out, you should leave it alone!

Then she was gone, leaving her conflicting advice. So much for mamie knows best.

I got to the bus stop on the Boulevard Raspail with tears rolling out of one eye and down my face. I tried to take the mamie's advice. I got on, composted my ticket and stood swaying down towards Alesia, trying to make out my stop through a blur. I staggered out at the crossroads with the late-night chemist. Maybe they would be able to fix it. The pharmacie was bright with yellow lights reflecting off glass and white surfaces and big fake jars of coloured medicine. There was a blonde woman in a dazzling white coat. She didn't look in my eye. But we have something that will help.

She went into the back room for about 5 minutes or so and came back with a largeish cardboard box about the size of a Persona machine. It was full of little plastic vials.

For contact lenses, she said. 35 Euros.

I may be a hypochondriac, but I'm also spectacularly mean.

I just want you to have a look at it and tell me what's wrong! Don't you have some cotton wool or something?

A French shrug.

I decide to go to see my friend Sarah who lives round the corner. I'm almost certain she wears contacts. She's married to a French man and has a 2-year-old son, so I'm pretty sure she has cotton wool too.

When I get there, she's putting Albert to bed. She looks into my eye as he streaks naked around the apartment (Albert is her son, not her husband). 

I'm a maman, so I'm used to this kind of thing. And I can tell you that if there was something still in your eye, it would be all red and puffed up by now. Whatever it is has come out and left a cut. Yes, I do have some saline solution. Try it.

The saline solution stings and doesn't seem to improve things much. But I feel better. Finally the reassurance I really needed. If Sarah says it's ok, it must be...

Her husband arrives and, after an Franglish apero of kirs and salt-and-vinegar Hula Hoops, Sarah and I go out to dinner. I wonder about French men and French women.

I don't see French women going out together for dinner like this, without men. More often I see French men alone together. Do you think French women have close female friendships like British women?.

No.

Then late at night, with my eye still weeping, I'm catching the last metro when another mamie on the platform catches me by the arm. What does she want? I don't know whether I can stand any more advice.

Pleure pas! Ce salopard! Il ne vaut pas la peine!

Sarah is wrong! Here is an example of French female solidarity.

(Don't cry - the bastard's not worth it!)

But maybe he is.

So I call his mobile number. The man who'd taught me the eyelid trick.

What is it?  I'm asleep. Who is it?

It's me. It's nothing. It's just my eye hurts. I'd just got out of La Grande-

-Did you try pulling your eyelid down over-

-Yes, but it didn't do any good... Wait a minute. Oh Sorry. You're in Japan. I'd forgotten... It must be 4am there.

Something like that.

That night, I go to sleep lying on my back with a bag of ice balanced on my face.

The next day, as Sarah predicted, I'm fine. It was a cut, not a blockage. It hadn't been an actual problem. Just the residue of one.

And he called me back.

So has it gone? What was it?

Oh, nothing, I said. Just a little bit of Paris.

* It was actually rain/sleet, but snow just looked better. I have an artistic licence and I'm going to use it.

TAGS: Le Bon Marché, La Grande Epicerie, Mince Pies, Christmas, Bûche de Noël, Late-night Opening, Marmite, Petits Fours, Bonbons.

Comments

[delphine]

You had my hanging off the edge of my seat! And yes, protect those eyes, hands etc....we cannot loose you and your charming stories.
delphine

[badaude]

So nice to know you're concerned. I've seen your varied and helpful comments on many other Pariscentric blogs. You have so much to say, I can't believe you don't have a blog yourself. Maybe you could be nominated for some kind of award for services to comment boxes...

[Alice]

So glad your eye is doing better, Badaude! I was a bit worried there as well... My boyfriend has had bits in his eyes like that in the past, and he always ends up rubbing away until they turn terribly red. But then after a few hours it usually passes. But it worries me something awful, especially when it gets that red. And I know about frustrating eye issues -- I've worn contacts for years, and about two years ago I was basically told I had reached my "capital lentilles" -- my tolerance threshold! I can still put on hard lenses on occasion, when going out or spending time with friends, but during the week at work, 99% of the time now I wear my glasses. I don't much like it, but I don't have a whole lot of choice.

Oh, and I agree on your comment to Delphine: she should try to start a blog as well! I was told the same after leaving lots of comments around the expat blogosphere, and I finally broke down and started my own. It's an ordinary journal-like blog where I basically write when I feel really inspired, which means that I don't write as often as I should. But I'm glad to have it as an outlet from time to time. And I'm so happy to have met some wonderful people around the blogging world!

[delphine]

Oh thanks "Badaude" and Alice...I am blushing now. And I love Paris (but I live in a "3rd removed cousin" version: Montréal). And as for now, there are enough cool and interesting people with blogs...I am more than happy just to comment. Ca me fait plaisir!! And before I make my leap to live in Paris..
;) Delphine

[La Belette Rouge]

Baudade,
You are a double threat--artist and great writer. If I didn't like you so much I wouldn't like you ;-) I love your illustrations in colour. I also love them in black and white. Hmmm....

As, I was looking at this one I realized that your illustrations often make me think of Wim Wender's "Wings of Desire." You as the omniscient narrator--knowing what all of the people in your illustrations are thinking and craving. Delightful.

How did anything get through your fabulous glasses? It is a mystery.
I love how the little something in your eye sent you into a reverie about a man from the past who had once showed tenderness. Really lovely and also a little sad. (I could be projecting--I am in a melancholy holiday mood which makes me a little prone towards projection :)

I also love the intentional or unintentional poetry of "Franglish apero of kirs and salt-and-vinegar Hula Hoops." What a mouthful of sweet and sour.

I wish the title would have been "A little bit of Paris in my eye." I love all that idea conjures. But, you're the writer of this blog not me ;) Forgive my intolerable bossiness.
All over, a lovely-lovely-lovely post:)

[badaude]

Je suis bouleversée! Certainly the first time I've been called omniscient.
The glasses are actually sunglasses. I started my blog in the Summer and just went on wearing them (at least virtually). A girl has to retain a little bit of mystery...

[Miranda]

as always your writings and drawings are utterly delightful, but a quick note to say how especially so I found this post. absolutely brilliant.

when I was a little girl, I scratched my cornea after a little bit of Orange County, CA got into my eye, and had to wear an eyepatch for a week. the worst bit was that they said I couldn't read because I would strain the eye that wasn't injured...so am very grateful your eye-experience turned out alright! (though a self-portrait-with-eyepatch would presumably be amusing)

xx

[badaude]

I think an eye-patch would look quite cool - though presumably the attendant worry about your eyesight wouldn't. I'm probably so neurotic because I seem to be surrounded by people who've somehow damaged their eyesight, including a poet who was blinded in one eye by a cricket ball, and a barrister who made me lean into his face (necessitating full-body contact) to observe the missing top of his iris, sliced off at school when a fellow-pupil flicked a rubber band at him...

[lievre sauvage]

The mystery of what's written on your carrier bags is now solved, having read the latest blog. Am glad Marmite has a place in your cupboard. On my first visit to Africa, travelling on a shoestring (and with that traveller's bible in my pack) I remember shelling out fistfuls of money to lay my hands on a jar. Unlike France, you don't generally go to Africa for the food. But then I don't suppose you really go to France for the big game, though there is that rather fine rhino outside the Musee D'Orsay...

Suspect I will become a regular visitor to your Paris.

[badaude]

The d'Orsay Rhino always reminds me of the sculpture of a group of animals in the middle of the urban freeway that is Park Lane, London, dedicated to "Animals in War" except I used to think the Paris sculpture must be a memorial to "Animals Eaten during the 1870 Siege of Paris". I looked it up, however, and turns out not: just one of a group of four animals (a bull, a horse, an elephant and a rhinoceros) created to stand in front of the Trocadero Palace during the 1878 exhibition.

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[badaude]

As a sign that my site is getting more noticed, I welcome spam comments, though I hoped I might get something a little more naughty than a link to a central heating company...