Book Review : Boy Comes of Age in ‘60s Paris

Mercedes and the House of Rainbows by Alan Jolis (Poseidon Press: $16.95; 311 pages)

“On the west side of Paris, by the 16th Arrondissement where live the elite of the haute bourgeoisie, there is a park of pine, fir, and chestnut trees, landscaped at the turn of the century by Baron Haussman. Lovers often go there to rent rowboats and lose themselves in the deep-green confines of the man-made lakes. Away from the main roads and bridal paths, the serene waterways of the Bois de Boulogne cannot fail to evoke feelings of romantic love, especially in one predisposed to have these sentiments.” Well! That sounds like Paris all right, but not the one most of us have been to.

No ill-tempered shopkeepers here, or waiters who sniff at your French, or sullen matrons who push past you in the Metro. No, this is the Paris of our dreams, the Paris we wish we might have seen when first we went there to find terrestrial paradise--whether it was in the ‘50s, the ‘60s, the ‘70s or last week.

Stars Off-Camera

This novel is set in the early ‘60s, in the fashionable and stately 16th Arrondissement, in a lovely mansion set next door to the Irish Embassy. The hero here is Timothy, a sweet 8-year-old boy, son of a movie producer and a lady opera singer.

Tim’s parents are away all the time, and they rent the ground floor of their mansion to American movie stars passing through: Victor Mature, Ava Gardner, Kim Novak--who Tim, as a kid, first spies in their enclosed garden: “Something large, perhaps a dragonfly, buzzed around Tim’s head. He again held his breath and, brushing aside the ivy that tickled his nose, peered through the keyhole. Kim was dressed like an Algerian: ripped T-shirt, cut-off jeans, wraparound sunglasses. Her hair was in a bun with a black knitting needle stuck through it. Tim felt an enormous sadness for this international star, blonde like his mother, who sat by herself in this jewel of a garden. She was walled off from the rest of the avenue, picking at something on her thigh.”

Yet amid all this skewed beauty, all this sensuality and elegance, an overriding loneliness reigns. Tim is, in a sense, an orphan prince, locked up there on the third floor. His two (blind and semi-blind) great-aunts look after the house in a well-intentioned if preternaturally vague way. There’s an unattractive but lovable Spanish couple, Manola and Pepe, who do the housekeeping.

But Tim loves--beyond words--only one person here: Mercedes, a Gypsy girl, only 17, who has run away from the region of Matamoros and is the epitome of au pair girls everywhere--nubile but innocent, lyrical and naive, obsessed with the prince of a man, who--at any moment--is bound to appear and transform her life, make her into a woman.

Mercedes--whom Tim lovingly nicknames Benz, of course--lives in a sweet, adolescent world of dreams: “She was not here, she was in the Triana section of Seville in javelin bolts of sunlight, on rooftops crowded with birds, going from tapas bar to tapas bar, singing for money. . . . She was on a table-top now, dancing a zapateado in a smoky little dive of wine-breathing men. . . .”

But the “here” she dreams away from is even more intense--those lakes in the Bois de Boulogne, with little Tim rowing, leaves falling dreamily to break the surface of the water, and men in boats rowing daringly close to catch a glimpse of Mercedes’ beautiful, freshly waxed legs. . . .

This is a coming-of-age novel, of course. You can imagine, as the years slide by, that Tim and Mercedes might, fleetingly, become an item. But all the way through this story, Tim is tormented by the Jesuits at his Jesuit school. Tim is half-Jewish and his only friend in this drab educational outfit is an outcast Algerian. The priests do their best to make the kids’ life a living hell.

But this is Paris, remember, and the values that Mercedes represents are bound to triumph in the end. So, no, Mercedes does not marry the darling Irishman from the embassy next door, and of course she can’t marry Tim--he’s way too young for her--but she does marry someone who’s been in the story all along.

By the end the great-aunts are decorated by the French government with the Order of the Grand Merit, the mansion is declared a historical monument, Tim gets to dance with Kim Novak under a blanket of man-made snow, and--what can I say? Everyone should buy this delicious book to finally discover the Paris of their dreams.