French girl (From my doll collection)

In 1970, I spent 4 days in Paris on the return way from Yugoslavia (in those days).  I was captivated by charms of Paris during my stay rambling about the town from early morning till midnight.  I wandered around in the town by walk and the Metro (subway) not only in the sightseeing spots such as the Louvre, Champs Elysees, the Arc de Triomphe (the Arch of Triumph), the Eiffel Tower, Opera House but also in the markets, parks and back streets in the poorer quarters where Parisians are leading everyday life.  The security was better than now and I did not feel any fear of being attacked by someone. 

After that, for more than ten years, I stopped over in Paris as opportunity permits on the return way from the business trips to the eastern countries such as Yugoslavia (in those days), Romania, Poland, East Germany (in those days), Czech-Slovakia (in those days) and so on.  Although the Seine and bridges, streets and squares were always the same appearance, they gave me different impressions according to the seasons. 

Paris where Stendhal, Balzac, Alexandre Dumas, Victor Hugo, George Sand, Baudelaire, Flaubert, Jules Verne, Mallarme, Verlaine, Maupassant, Romain Rolland, Andre Gide were active in creating their literally works.  I realized quite recently that many of the literary works I loved reading in my boyhood are written by French writers and I have been greatly influenced by them. 

Paris where Poussin, Ingres, Corot, Delacroix, moreover Degas, Cezanne, Sisley, Manet, Monet, Renoir, Gauguin, Gogh, Matisse, Seurat, Lautrec, Utrillo, Modigliani, Chagall, Fujita and many other great artists grew up and produced a lot of creative works.  It is Paris by which artists in all over the world have been fascinated and attracted. 

Paris where Saint-Saens, Debussy, Edith Piaf were borne and Mozart, Chopin, Berlioz, Liszt, Wagner and Ravel were lived.  It would not be strange if they were still living in somewhere in Paris and would appear at the café in the town. 

Lido's program

There are world-class cabarets like Moulin Rouge famous for the poster painted by Lautrec in the 19th century, Paradis Latin built by Eiffel who designed the Eiffel tower, Lido and Crazy Horse established after World War II.  Talking of cabaret, it does not give a good impression as a vulgar entertainment in Japan.  But originally, it is a society to enjoy shows as performing arts and good meal.  When I visited there, the clientele were mainly senior couples and their friends and guest of business corporations. 

On the last day of my holidays in Paris, I booked a ticket in Lido conveniently located at Champs Elysees for going by Metro from my hotel.  Incidentally, it was referred to as the best one in Paris at that time.  I went out in black suit with a red tie putting on a Tyrolean hat with a long plume bought in Vienna.  I am embarrassed now what I thought that it must be looked good at that time. 

The front row-seats were occupied by ladies and gentlemen who seemed to be frequenters and my seat was 3 or 4 rows behind them.  The performance was started from Lido’s original traditional dances and continued to pantomime by a clown, acrobatics and magic.  A magician appeared and said to the audience, “Would someone help me please?” As the total number of seats was around one thousand, I think there were several hundreds of customers.  Several peoples raised their hands including me.  “The gentleman with black suit came from the Orient.  Please help me!” I was designated. 

I was received with applause on the stage.  The magician asked me, “Are you a Japanese?”  “Yes, I am.”  “You are samurai?”  “My ancestors were maybe yes.”  “Did they hara-kiri?”  “No, they didn’t, otherwise I wouldn’t be here.”  “No doubt about it.”  He asked me several questions with jokes in English and French by turns.  “At first, a card magic.”  He took out a pack of cards from his pocket and spread it backside top, “Draw a card and memorize it!”  “Sure.”  Show it to everybody!  Don’t show it to me!”  When I drew a card, I felt for a moment that I will be drawn a card arranged previously by the magician. 

There was a book published in 1951 named “Magic Tricks” in my home.  It was written by an amateur magician, a friend of my father and presented by him.  The book gave readers detailed instructions how to train the basic handling technique of the cards to trick audience.  It was quite unusual as a book of magic tricks as those matters must be know-how of the magician.  As I had trained the basic of the card handling since my boy food with this book, I had become an amateur magician in playing some card magic.  Not everybody can play magic even the trick is revealed.  In order to perform an amazing magic, card-handling technique must be acquired by training.  As I knew the technique how to make one drawn an intended card, I felt that I will be drawn the card intended by the magician. 

I could have drawn the other card instead of it but I did not do it because I knew that the magician would only change the trick into the other trick prepared for the case the intended card would not be drawn.  I also knew that the trick originally planned by a magician is expected to be the better performance than the second option and it must be appeal to the audience in addition.  So I decided to cooperate with the magician and drew the card expected by the magician deliberately. 

He gave me a bright smile when I drew the card.  It was the jack of clubs as expected.  The king of clubs or spades for a gentleman, the jack of clubs or spades for a young man and queen of hearts for a lady is the best.  Generally, normal number cards 2 through 9 never used with the exception in case of putting a special meaning on the card such as a birthday and so on.  I mustn’t be looking like a 32 years old married gentleman but a wandering bachelor. 

After showing the card to the audience, the magician told me, “Please shuffle the cards well!”  “OK, OK that’s enough!”  Then he stood several meters back from me and said, “Throw the pack to me!  I will catch only a card you drew!”  “Come on!  One two three!”  I threw the cards at his hand with my underhand so that the cards can spread throughout the stage.  The magician caught a card saying, “This is the one!” and asked me, “What was your card?”  I said to the audience in a loud voice, “Jack of clubs.”  The magician showed a card he caught to the audience.  It was the jack of clubs, of course.  I stepped down from the stage with applause. 

French cancan

Finale

The last program was of course the French cancan “Heaven and hell” by Offenbach.  The performance of the topless dancers with all their might seemed to be unchanged since the age of Lautrec. 

When I hear the name of “Paris”, the whole scene of the stores and houses on a street, people living there, a breeze, leaves rustling in the wind, warm sunshine across in my mind and new impressive scenes have been painted on the canvas of “Paris in my mind”.  It was not a mere sweet memory but it seemed to be a similar case that my mind has been occupied by a love.  My longing for Paris like this lasted until a happening in 1979. 

On the return way of a business trip to Yugoslavia (in those days), I took a fright Air France AF274 from Paris to Narita (Tokyo) in the afternoon on January 1979.  After around 8 hours of flight, our plane landed at Anchorage airport in Alaska.  As there was no direct flight from Japan to Europe in those days, it was the main route to Europe.  Waiting for about one hour at the transit room, there was no sign of boarding at all and all crewmembers were withdrew from the plane. 

“The airplane is under inspection because of an engine trouble.  The departure will be delayed.”  It is the only announcement.  We had to spend one night at the airport lobby without any information about the schedule.  In spite that there were babies and elderly in the passengers (I was a youngster at that time), this airline never had any attention to them. 

Around at 10 o’clock in the next morning, the same flight AF274 arrived on schedule and left one hour later after refueling.  This was the first and the last experience for me that the same flight next day got ahead of me.  After a short time, we hear an announcement, “The engine could not have been repaired.  A substitute plane will be coming from Paris.  It will take about 10 hours until the plane will be arrived.” 

The airline company provided us several numbers of school busses with small sized seats for children, which might be borrowed from a public primary school somewhere for a few hours sightseeing tour in the city of Anchorage but no hotel accommodation for taking a nap had been provided.  Although there might be an exception for the first class passengers, most of all passengers spent for 33 hours lied down on the floor in the lobby. 

There was full of heavy atmosphere in the cabin of the plane after taking off delayed 33 hours.  Around 80 percent of passengers were Japanese.  One Japanese borrowed a microphone from the stewardess (cabin attendant) and spoke to the all passengers in Japanese and English.  “We had been left in the lobby in the Anchorage airport without any information about the situation of the repairing of the aircraft and the schedule for leaving until it was decided that the plane had to be exchanged finally.  For more than 24 hours, Air France left the passengers including babies and elderly lied down on the floor in the lobby without any attention to them.  The treatment of us by Air France as one of the first class airlines in the world is unforgivable for humanitarian reasons.  If 80 percent of the passengers were not Japanese but French, we would not believe that Air France would deal with them in the same way.  Everybody!  I would like to propose you that we should send a note of protest demanding apology from the president of Air France.  I will prepare a letter and sign it as the representative of the passengers and ask a stewardess to hand it over to the president.  Do you agree with my proposal?”  All the passengers applauded.  “How about the passengers other than Japanese?”  All foreigners including French applauded too. 

About 10 days after coming back to Japan, I received a written apology from Air France with a proxy signature of the president saying that there were only a few staffs of the company at Anchorage airport and all hotels in the city were fully occupied. 

I often used Air France before this happening charmed with the one night free staying service in Paris as well as with the good taste of meals and French wine but after that, I became to use other air lines as well such as Lufthansa, Swissair, KLM, BA, SAS and so on.  It does not mean that I came to dislike France and Paris but my strong feeling of attachment to Paris had cooled compared before. 

When I hear the name of “Paris”, the whole scene of the stores and houses on a street, people living there, a breeze, leaves rustling in the wind, warm sunshine across in my mind and new impressive scenes have been painted on the canvas of “Paris in my mind” and it still remains in my heart without losing its luster.