Twenty-One Nights in Paris: Chapter 26

‘Oh, my God, what the fuck? Qu’est-ce que c’est ça?’

For most of the day, the kids’ vocabulary had been limited to, ‘Can you repeat, please?’ or ‘You comprend?’ and she’d been told numerous times that she was ‘gentle’ and ‘too jolly for Prof’, which sounded about right, even though she was fairly certain it didn’t mean what she thought it did.

But show them a cabinet full of mediaeval phalluses and some colourful English phrases emerged.

‘Prof! C’est une bite!’

Sacha stood calmly at the back of the group, his arms crossed, and let them get through their gleeful exclamations and sniggers. When they grew too rowdy for a museum – even one with a collection of objects shaped like penises – Sacha lifted his chin and spoke, his voice sharp, but not loud. The class guffawed, but the chatter died down.

‘What did you say to them?’

‘I just asked if they thought people didn’t have penises in the Middle Ages. This is why historical context is so important. You see the artefacts on display in the Louvre and you think you see history, but what you really see is your own suppositions – and the curation of history by a small group of people in our time, as well as a process of selection through centuries of conservation.’ Ren wondered if he knew how much he gesticulated when he talked about this stuff. It was gorgeous.

‘I’ve seen a bazillion depictions of saints in my life, but I’ve never seen a mediaeval pin in the shape of a cock until today.’

He raised his eyebrows at her choice of words, but agreed. ‘C’est ça. Exactly.’

‘Do you really think that’s the lesson they’ll learn from today?’

‘No, they’ll go home and tell their parents they went to the Museum of Cocks, but it’s better than repeating the dates of the Troisième République and the events of the revolution. This, at least, makes them think.’

‘Maybe historians through the centuries have been missing a trick.’

‘You haven’t read the Greek and Roman historians.’

‘No, but it sounds like I should.’

The kids fidgeted from room to room and Sacha mostly let them explore according to their own interests. Occasionally, he’d point out an object or two: a jewelled box that integrated carvings from ancient Egypt; an engraved Italian sword, for which his enthusiasm was obvious; and a fragment of fabric, one thousand years old, woven in Muslim Spain. He shared jokes with the kids as he spoke and kept order, while sometimes tolerating interruptions. And he listened as much as he spoke, meaning Ren couldn’t linger at the back and keep him to herself as she was tempted to.

She’d admired the Impressionist masterpieces in the Musée d’Orsay countless times, but she’d never had any idea that mediaeval art could be so fascinating – a glimpse into another world. In the room dedicated to stained glass, artificial light shone through the displays, bringing out colours more vivid than the textiles or the polychrome sculptures. Up close, she could see the detail of the faces, the sorrow and pain, or awe and adoration.

‘We have something like this in our current auction,’ she said, when Sacha came up beside her. ‘It’s so beautiful, with the light shining through it.’

‘You have vitraux? Stained glass like this?’ She nodded. ‘Provenance?’ he asked.

‘We don’t know exactly. It’s been in private hands for a long time.’

He frowned at her answer, making her stomach drop. It felt awkward, contemplating historical artefacts that would be hidden away in private collections, rather than in museums for the public good.

‘These are more beautiful,’ she added, hearing her own defensiveness and wishing that distance didn’t exist between them.

‘Prof?’ One of the girls called him into the next room. Ren heard the word ‘amour’ – love – and leaned over the display case to see what they were looking at.

‘C’est latin, pas de français,’ Sacha was explaining. She caught that much: it was Latin, not French. She saw the enamelled rectangle they were referring to, part of a fourteenth-century belt. It bore the word ‘amor’ in wobbly ancient script.

‘Mais ça veut dire amour?’ the student – Ren thought her name was Alicia – asked, a smile forming on her face.

‘Oui, oui,’ Sacha confirmed earnestly. Alicia glanced with a smile between her teacher and Ren, and her friend giggled as they hurried after the other kids.

‘They think we’re going to sneak back to the naughty section on our own later,’ Ren whispered.

Sacha choked on a laugh. ‘They’re fifteen. They still have simple notions about human relationships.’

‘I don’t know that my notions are any better developed.’ And if the kids thought she and Sacha were attracted to each other, they weren’t wrong – at least not on her part.

‘You have a point, là.’

The final room of the museum was dedicated to the incredibly well-preserved mille-fleurs tapestries, known as

. Although there were one or two sniggers at the symbolism of the horn, the works themselves, the intricate weaving in dyed wool and silk, more than 500 years old, were enough to maintain a hush among the students.

When they left the museum, too quickly for Ren’s liking, the streets were slick and shiny with drizzle. Sacha led the group past the imposing stone buildings of the Sorbonne and pointed out the glimpses of the façade and the dome of the Pantheon, columns flanked by vibrant green Christmas trees.

He painted a picture, first for the students in French, and then translated afterwards for Ren, of the Quartier Latin as it had been centuries ago, when it received its nickname because of the dominance of Latin at the universities. He described long-destroyed abbeys and colleges, bringing them to life while pointing out the few vestiges of the time, like a trail of clues: a bell tower now built into a school, the late Gothic-Renaissance façade of the church of St-Étienne-du-Mont, with its rose window, and a fragment of the mediaeval city wall, now attached to a grand apartment building from the nineteenth century.

‘So, why history?’ she asked, as they headed towards the deli where they would stop for lunch. ‘Because of Joseph and his antiques?’

‘Partly. When my father died, I felt… disconnected.’ She held her breath, waiting for the rest of the story. ‘And powerless. Restoring antiques with Joseph… there was meaning in it. I started reading, to find the stories of the objects. The stories… There is a power in understanding where you come from and how societies change. People use these stories, bits of history, to make decisions that form the future. If you don’t understand what happened in the past, you can’t be part of that. That’s what some teachers wanted – in earlier generations. Especially in France, in , you know what can happen when the students have power.’

She didn’t, not really, but she could guess from his tone. ‘You were their age when you lost your father,’ she realised with a stab of sympathy.

He nodded. ‘I want them to place themselves in the story – in history.’

‘You make it mean something to them,’ she murmured.

‘Yes. Just think about their families and what they have seen and done, in comparison to family. They have just as much history – their families’ stories and the city, their home. It’s just more difficult to find – like mediaeval Paris is lost among the grandeur of the nineteenth century.’

His words struck a chord inside her. She was the same as everyone else, deep down. Grandmama couldn’t allow that to be true, or the principle on which their business rested would be exposed as a lie. But for Ren, it was a revelation.

A flicker of unease rippled through her at the realisation that she couldn’t return to her previous complicity. Something would have to change, as difficult as that was to contemplate.

There was barely room in the little Lebanese deli for all of the students, but they found perches and spoke loudly to each other as they ate. Ren was watching Sacha closely enough to see him slip some money to the man behind the counter for a couple of students who didn’t have their own.

Sacha leaned on the counter and spoke to the owner as the man prepared flatbreads stuffed with shawarma, kofta, or falafel, hummus and vegetables. It took a moment for Ren to realise he wasn’t speaking French.

‘Arabe, miss,’ Felix, one of the boys at the table with her explained.

‘Very bad!’ said another boy, who’d introduced himself as Hamoud.

Sacha eyed them. ‘Not very bad. You need to improve your arabe standard moderne.’

‘Why? No one on the street speaks that!’ Hamoud insisted. ‘You must learn arabe maghrébin!’

‘Hadi lmekla bnina!’ Sacha responded with a wink, making Hamoud laugh.

‘Stop! Very bad! Felix speaks better! You keep the arabe standard and the arabe du Liban!’

‘What did you say?’ Ren asked Sacha.

‘I said the food is delicious. But he’s right. My spoken Arabic isn’t good.’

‘How many of these kids speak it?’

‘About ten, most of them maghrébin, the dialect from North Africa. If they don’t want me to understand, then I don’t understand. It’s different to what I learned. But it’s useful to shock them sometimes and I do better with the Syrian dialect.’ He flashed his teeth in a quick smile. He looked relaxed, leaning on the counter, his legs crossed at the ankles.

He passed her a rolled-up flatbread with a flourish, just when she’d been about to say something heartfelt and approving and probably very embarrassing. It was for the best. ‘Your first shawarma sandwich, non?’

The aromas of the marinated meat, fresh herb sauce, olive oil and green peppers filled her palate and she took an eager bite. ‘Mmm, what did you say? Hadi mekla something? The food delicious,’ she said, wiping a drip of sauce off her hand with a serviette.

‘It’s not swordfish with salsa au citron.’

‘Ha. Do you know every Lebanese restaurant in Paris, then?’

‘No. Do you know how many there are?’ he said with a huff. ‘But I’ve been here a few times. The Syriac Catholic church is not far. I was baptised there.’

‘Your history,’ she commented lightly. ‘And the history of the city, your home.’

‘You are my best student, today,’ he said with another wink. He had to stop doing that. With the teacher voice, the meaningful tattoos and his habit of spouting poetry and history, her insides were already mush.

After their late lunch, Sacha led the march further along the boulevards of the Latin Quarter in the direction of the Seine, pausing briefly to point out the Grand Mosque of Paris. Ren trailed at the back with Felix and Hamoud, letting them laugh at her ignorance of Stormzy and Paris Saint-Germain and computer games.

They finally stopped in a paved courtyard in front of a contemporary building of glass and steel. Ren was eager to hear what Sacha’s next surprise would be while the kids rolled their eyes and took the brilliance of their teacher completely for granted, calling her ‘fayot’ behind their hands, which she guessed meant she was the teacher’s pet and she didn’t mind a bit.

His introduction in French was surprisingly short, punctuated by his crisp hand gestures and clear sentences that she was frustrated she still couldn’t understand. He finished with, ‘On y va,’ and gestured to the doors of the building.

‘This is the Institut du monde arabe, but we’re not going into the exhibition,’ he explained as they passed through the building, peering out of the metal apertures that decorated the façade in geometric shapes, and took the lift up to a rooftop terrace.

Ren grinned. ‘Am I finally going to get a glimpse of the Eiffel Tower?’

‘No,’ Sacha said with a laugh. ‘The Seine bends and you can’t see it from here.’ He strode to the railing and gestured expansively. ‘But you can see…’ He paused for effect. ‘Notre-Dame-de-Paris.’

She stepped up next to him, gazing along the pale blue-green river, to the two islands, the Île-Saint-Louis and the Île-de-la-Cité, the ancient heart of Paris. The towers of the formidable cathedral stood, almost forlorn next to a crane and metal scaffolding, the roof covered with white canvas. The elegant buttresses looked fragile and vulnerable from above.

‘It took them more than two years after the fire just to make sure the vault didn’t cave in and that the towers were secure,’ Sacha explained quietly. ‘For 800 years, the vaults and buttresses supported the structure. And after less than two hours of burning, the spire came down. Over 500 people fought the fire. And now the cathedral makes more history.’

He caught the students’ attention and repeated himself in French – with more drama, Ren suspected, if his gestures were anything to go by. Ren’s mind was full – as full as her heart – as she gazed over the rooftops of Paris under the slate sky. It was a unique view – a view for history, with the poor cathedral dressed for surgery, while the fairy lights in the bare trees across the Seine blinked on.

She felt the gift that Sacha was giving his students – their own history, as well as his. She remembered that morning, seeing his ex-girlfriend. He gave so much to his family, his students. She could understand why he’d felt as though he had nothing more to give. Remembering how they’d met and everything that had happened since, Ren couldn’t help worrying that she was yet another burden he was bearing.

What would it take to give him some of the lightness of spirit that she’d found with him? He’d turned his own history into something that gave his life meaning. But did he ever share the dark bits?