The Vintage Caper

buildings, the magnificent gardens, and the unexpected pocket parks. Then there was the Seine and the graceful swoops of its bridges, the abundance of trees and heroic monuments, the long and majestic vistas. All these combined to make Paris one of the great walking cities of the world. And it was, by big-city standards, clean. No piles of garbage bags, no gutters choked with food wrappers and Styrofoam and crushed cigarette packets; a welcome absence of urban squalor.
    Nearly two years had gone by since his last visit—a long and lovely weekend with Elena Morales—but Sam found the Montalembert to be its usual charming self. Tucked away off the Rue du Bac, the hotel is small, chic, and friendly. The younger, less grand ladies of the fashion world descend on it each year during the collections. Authors, their agents, and publishers haunt the bar, looking intense over their whisky as they brood about their royalties and the current state of French literature. Pretty girls flutter in and out. The antique dealers and gallery owners of the quartier drop by to celebrate a sale with a glass of champagne. People feel at home here.
    Much of this, of course, is due to the staff, but it is helped also by the informal way the ground-floor area of the hotel has been laid out. In a relatively small space, a bar, a small restaurant, and a tiny library with its own wood-burning fireplace are separated not by walls but by different levels of light: brighter in the restaurant, dimmer in the library. Business lunches in the front, romantic assignations in the back.
    Sam checked in, tantalized by the smell of coffee coming from the restaurant. After a quick shower and shave, he went down for café crème and a croissant, and went over his plans for the morning and afternoon. He was treating himself to a day off—a day of being a tourist—and it pleased him to think that his chosen destinations could be easily reached on foot: a visit to the Musée d’Orsay; a walk across the Pont Royal to the Louvre for a quick bite at the Café Marly; and a stroll through the Jardin des Tuileries on the way to the Place Vendôme and his appointment at Charvet.
    The weather in Paris was hesitating somewhere between the end of winter and the beginning of spring, and as Sam walked up the Boulevard Saint-Germain he saw that the girls were of two minds about what to wear. Some were still swathed in scarves and coats and gloves; others, in defiance of the chilly breeze coming off the Seine, wore cropped jackets and short skirts. But no matter how they were dressed, they all seemed to have adopted a particular style of walking. Sam had come to think of this as a mark of the true Parisian girl: a brisk strut, head held high, bag slung from one shoulder, and—the crucial touch—arms folded in such a way that the bosom was not merely supported but emphasized, a kind of soutien-gorge vivant , or living bra. Pleasantly distracted, Sam almost forgot to turn in to the street that led down to the river and the Musée d’Orsay.
    There was, as always, too much to take in. Sam had decided to confine himself to the upper level, where Impressionists rubbed shoulders with their Neo-Impressionist colleagues. Even so, even without paying his respects to the sculpture or the extraordinary Art Nouveau collection, more than two hours slipped by before he thought of looking at his watch. With a mental tip of his hat to Monet and Manet, to Degas and Renoir, he left the museum and headed across the river, toward the Louvre and lunch.
    The French have a talent for restaurants of all sizes, and a special genius for huge spaces. La Coupole, for instance, which opened in 1927 as “the largest dining room in Paris,” manages despite its vastness to retain a human scale. The Café Marly, although smaller, is still, by most restaurant standards, enormous. But it has been designed so that there are quiet corners and pockets of intimacy, and there is never a feeling that you are eating in a canteen as big as a ballroom. Best of all, there is the long, covered terrace with its view of the glass pyramid, and it was here that Sam settled himself at a small table.
    Returning to Paris after a long absence, there is always a temptation to plunge in and taste everything. Call it greed, or the result of deprivation, but food in Paris is so varied, so seductive, and so artfully presented that it seems a shame not to have a dozen of Brittany’s best oysters, some herb-flavored lamb from