In Paris, Politesse Open Doors
That July, in Paris, my short-term rental was an apartment on the sixth floor of a metal-roofed, Hausmann-esque building on a quiet street in the Sixth Arrondisement. It was love at first sight. From its arched windows in the dormers, I viewed a collage of grey rooftops, soaring seagulls, and pigeons settling briefly atop the chimneys. Bright and inviting, it had a lofty main room, well-appointed kitchen, and bedroom. A mélange of modern and vintage furnishings epitomized French style, while books, a few in English, were shelved in every corner including the WC. All of this told me that its owner and I had things in common.
The real icing on the cake—a rare find in Paris—was that there were both an elevator from the ground floor and air conditioning. Even the door to the apartment was beautiful, worthy of the French, its color a deep green, and with a substantial, round, fluted brass knob next to the lock.
In my fantasies, I would live there happily until the end of time.
In previous visits to the City of Light, I had learned some things about how to unlock the much-discussed French reserve: master even a few words in the language and be polite. Use your bonjours and bonsoirs. Those, along with s’il vous plait and merci would take you far.
This is true of the French people. It may not be true of inanimate objects that choose to conspire against you.
When I first arrived, Maria, the concierge, showed me how to work the apartment’s door—something about turning the key clockwise, pulling the door hard toward you, then pushing it in. Though brain-fogged with jet lag, I thought I understood the trick. But no.
Flying solo the next time, I stood in the sweltering hallway, inserted key in the lock, turned it, heard the tumblers engage. But the door would not open; the apartment would not let me in. Twenty minutes passed, and I was still trying to open the door, turning the key in the lock, pulling and pushing the knob with all my strength, the door still refusing.
As visions of the apartment’s cool, calming interior swam before my eyes, sweat trickled down my forehead, and I periodically waved my hand above my head to trigger the hallway’s motion-sensor light, which kept going out. I stripped off my jacket, and clad in the tank top beneath, piled my grocery bags next to the door, sighed deeply, and descended reluctantly to the concierge’s home on the ground floor.
When I knocked at Maria’s door, her daughter answered. Remembering my manners, and how a few words of politesse opens all doors with the French, I said bon jour. Caught in the midst of her ironing, she did not seem pleased. Oui, madame? she asked, and then Non. Maria was not at home. Then, speaking in her native tongue and clearly overestimating my linguistic ability, she said a few words, and casually waved me away to try harder.
Eventually, sweating profusely and nearly weeping, I succeeded in opening the door. But it was by accident: I had not decoded the lock’s secret. Something about pulling the door toward you, then pushing it in, the instruction still lost in my post-flight fog.
Sadly, the next day, I was humbled again to ask for the daughter’s help. Cette Americaine est une idiote—I’m sure she was thinking. Nonetheless, she assumed a pleasant visage, as though to save me embarrassment. We made some progress then, not just with the door, but in my learning her name, which was Elodie.
With this foray, Elodie became more cheerful, as though to say this was a trivial difficulty. Standing next to me at the recalcitrant door, she used the universal language of the head shake and the mime. She turned the key upside down then right side up, then inserted it into the lock: her shrug told me it would work either way. She turned it, pulled the knob toward her, and pushed. Et voila! The door opened.
A few minutes later, I exited nirvana once again, ran some errands, and returned. I did the thing with the door and — yes!— it glided open before me. I finally had its open sesame! Or did I?
The poor beleaguered concierge’s daughter. The third time I knocked and Elodie answered, I uttered the requisite bon jour, then held up the key and mustered, in the best French I could, Je suis vraimont desole! A look of profound pity flickered across her face. Un moment, she said. She donned her shoes and accompanied me upstairs. In the diminutive elevator, I asked her age: 19 ans, she said. Ah, I responded, I have a daughter. She is 30.
Another lesson, another opening of the door. Merci beaucoup, I exclaimed, and in my fractured French: Jevais diner avec des amis. We parted with smiles and my profuse mercis. Confident now, even a bit cocky, I raced out to dinner with my friends. At ten o’clock when I returned, the lights were still on in the concierge’s apartment.
Again, the lock, the key, the door. Ten minutes in the airless hallway, the trickles of sweat, the light going out: I considered sleeping right there in front of the door. But, noting the suffocating heat and the hardness of the floor, along with the hour and that the concierge’s light might not be on much longer, I ventured downstairs once again.
Elodie answered the door, of course. Ignoring all protocols, I stood before her key in upraised hand, my tilted head and forlorn face communicating more than words in either language could.
I am so embarrassed, I said in English.
Oh, Madame, she exclaimed, and then, in beautifully accented English, Come, I will show you.
At the door, she looked into my eyes to make sure I was paying attention, then slowly demonstrated again, turning the key from the horizontal to the vertical until the tumblers turned, then passing the vertical, turning the key further, to the diagonal, and an eighth of an inch past that, pulling the brass knob toward her and then pushing. Then, and only then, did the door glide open before us.
With that, I finally got it. Elated at escaping purgatory, Elodie and I laughed and hugged, and before the elevator doors closed, she turned to me and smiled.
© Gladys Montgomery 2023
Comments