His Paris Nostalgia Is Part Rock, Part Hard Place

A criminal, it is said, often returns to the scene of his crime. I can attest to that, at least in my case. I don’t even have to return, actually; the evidence of my mischief greets me every day, sitting snugly in a corner near my computer, haunting me even as I type these words.

I’m looking at a dull gray block of stone, perhaps 6 inches, chiseled into a rounded shape and weighing about 8 pounds. The side on which it rests is flat, rising like a pyramid that seems to nestle into a pair of curved horns. From one perspective, it looks like a pedestal bearing a ram’s head or perhaps seashells.

It wasn’t meant to rest on the floor. No, this piece of carved stone originally adorned the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris.

You may well ask how this priceless part of French history, hewn from rock centuries ago by some anonymous artisan toiling to please his exalted God, came to reside in my study in Kailua on the windward side of Oahu.

I stole it.

In my defense--and, as a judge, I know something about this--I might argue that I was young, that I was under duress, that I meant no real harm. But judgment is yet to be rendered, and if brought to the bar I would likely plead no contest.

My first visit to Paris was in 1964, when I was a callow youth of 19 from Wisconsin. It was an ill-fated trip from the beginning. It was my first trip abroad, and I immediately experienced an aching combination of culture shock and homesickness that colored every experience.

Even London, my first stop, seemed sinister and hostile. Crossing the channel to France weaned me from the meager linguistic comfort of understanding--for the most part--what people were saying.

This was the France of Charles de Gaulle, then in the process of withdrawing from NATO and kicking American air bases off sovereign French soil. Never mind that we had saved his cookies during World War II. Never mind that we were lining up to spend millions of dollars in tourist revenues.

The official line was that Americans were Coca-Cola-swilling bumpkins with too much power and money, and the French weren’t about to like us.

By this time I had linked up with a traveling companion, my old school pal Doug, and acquired a car, a Hillman Imp. Once in Paris, however, there wasn’t much to do other than park it and find a cheap hotel, the cheaper the better. (My collection of parking tickets might well have broken the bank had I paid them, but I managed to avoid “le Denver boot.”)

We found a hotel on the Left Bank, on the Rue St. Jacques near the Pantheon. “Dingy” would be too bright an adjective for the place, but it seemed OK to a couple of college boys. The bare lightbulbs illuminating the stairwells and hallways were on timer switches so finely tuned as to force a sprint to the next switch to avoid a blackout. The beds bowed like hammocks. The facilities were down the hall, and in those days the French had a long way to go to catch up to America in the plumbing and toilet-paper department. Fortunately, our room had a little sink that allowed for the occasional full-body sponge bath.

We spent most of our days walking around the town, stopping in museums, marveling at landmarks and attractions, and grousing about the girlfriends we’d left at home.

Doug’s French was pretty good, certainly much better than mine. Yet it seemed that everyone we ran into, from hotel clerks to waiters to folks from whom we asked directions, had difficulty understanding us. And when they did understand, they mocked our accents and usage.

It didn’t help that 1964 was the summer the civil rights movement kicked into high gear. I remember a fleeting image on French TV of officials dragging the car of three slain civil rights workers out of a Mississippi swamp.

The French, it seemed, were critical of America’s record on race relations, and we endured more than one lecture. We felt passionately about civil rights, so the lectures rang hollow, especially because we could see that Africans (and Arabs) in Paris seemed to fare no better than minorities did in the American South.

And then there was the food.

It was in this area that the cultural divide between France and my adolescent America most clearly manifested itself. In 1964 most of America was strictly meat and potatoes. France was definitely undiscovered culinary country for these two Midwestern boys.

Almost everything on the menus seemed strange, unfathomable and foreign in all senses of the word. We usually went for the conservative, finding solace in the few familiar items we could make out. Omelets and steak frites made up a substantial part of our diet.

Perhaps we should have been more adventurous, but our situation had deteriorated to the point where we were prepared to do cultural battle with the Gallic philistines. Waiters preferred to sneer at our food quandary rather than guide us through the gateway to gustatory revelation. Well, if we wanted Coca-Cola with our dinners, that might be cause for derision in their eyes, but we came to feel that we were defending our national identity with such gestures. The lines were drawn.

It also didn’t help that we were cheap.

One evening it all came to a head when we were dining in a Chinese restaurant. We had eaten there before, mainly because it was inexpensive. After we ordered our usual--egg rolls and rice--we noticed that the waiter, a Chinese man who also mocked our French, was engaged in a heated discussion with the manager. He then came over to our table and said, in French, “You don’t order enough. You have to leave.”

It took a while to figure out what he was saying, but when we realized they were kicking us out, we were dumbfounded. I admit we were cheap, but the place wasn’t full, and we were otherwise presentable. I actually wore a corduroy sport coat, didn’t have long hair and had recently bathed.

The injustice was not lost on us, and we were quick to see this humiliation as part of a broader cultural conspiracy. We were innocent Americans set upon by Old World bullies unappreciative of our selfless touristic gesture, not to mention our saving their bacon in the war.

We walked the streets of the Left Bank in despair, reminding each other how much we disliked this heartless city, when we found ourselves behind Notre Dame. A gate was open, and spread out on the ground were numerous stone objects, apparently part of a renovation project. There were gargoyles and other stone pieces that had obviously fallen off or been removed from the cathedral walls. Doug joked that we ought to take one of the gargoyles just to spite them. They were far too big, weighing hundreds of pounds. But I noticed a smaller piece in a corner and, without thinking, snatched it up and carried it all the way to the hotel.

Back in our room it dawned on us that we had probably broken numerous laws and might end up spending the rest of our youthful years in a French jail, an unattractive idea. Returning the piece seemed risky, and we weren’t about to turn ourselves in. We couldn’t mail the thing home. It was too heavy for our luggage.

Because I was planning to ship the car home, I simply put the piece in the trunk. If it disappeared on the way, as I fully expected, that would be that.

Leapfrogging to the end of that chapter, when I got my car back a few months later, I found my chunk of Notre Dame in the trunk, just where I had left it. Nearly 38 years later I still have it.

Attitudes change. People change. Ironies abound.

After those dark days as a cultural refugee, I vowed never to venture past the U.S. border again. How quickly a few years and a little experience can change one’s perspective. In time I came to appreciate French history, culture and, of course, cuisine. Over the years I have returned to France at least 20 times, exploring virtually every corner of that beautiful country. My French still isn’t very good, but I can get by. Contrary to my earlier experience and to contemporary mythology, most French folks have been friendly and helpful. There is much to love about the place.

Mind you, I wouldn’t call myself a Francophile. The French are as weird as any people, and every culture has its darker corners, but these days I don’t trip over myself trying to find them.

Improvements in French plumbing and a strong dollar haven’t hurt either.

My French malaise was mostly of my own making. I was the victim of my own bad attitude, as are many tourists who travel to a foreign destination in hopes of finding what they already have at home.

Which brings me back to the evidence of my ancient transgression. So now that I’ve come clean, exactly what am I to do with my little piece of historical plunder?

These days folks seem sensitive about the removal of national treasures, and for good reason. Whether it’s the theft of icons from Angkor Wat in Cambodia or the poaching of threatened animal species for body parts, there is little to debate about this seamy traffic.

But is there some sort of statute of limitations at work here? The British Museum has no intention of returning the Elgin Marbles to Greece, nor has the Louvre offered to repatriate its ancient Egyptian collection. On the other hand, museums in the U.S. and elsewhere are still confronting the problem of art stolen during World War II.

I admit to having grown fond of my piece of history, but in the end I suppose I will return it if I can figure out a reasonable way to do so.

Though I’m no longer worried about confronting the gendarmes, I think it’s safe to say that I have rehabilitated myself. I appreciate the wrongfulness of my juvenile acts and have come to respect the culture toward which I showed such immature disdain.

And I hardly ever order Coca-Cola with dinner anymore.

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James Dannenberg is a writer and judge living in Kailua, Hawaii.