L'Humiliation

A week after I got to Paris I was riding on the metro in the evening I think with Roz and Roger when a woman walked on and fell onto the floor and embarrassed herself and embarrassed all of us. She was drunk, rosy cheeks and that particular kind of swaying that drunks have. She stared down at her unbuttoned shirt which was too small for her large body anyway.

Roz wanted to take a picture - I guess it was one of those experiences you have abroad and want to remember - but there was a man in the way.

I told Roz that we all have moments of weakness; we all have moments where we can't figure out how shirt buttons work and fumble with them in our fingers while the train rocks gently and then suddenly beneath us. We all have moments where we resign ourselves to sitting on the floor because we cannot manage to stand.

I told her you shouldn't capture such a moment, since then that person would exist to you only as a pitiful jester and not as a person.

I told her she shouldn't take a picture, but I would have looked at it and laughed if the man hadn't been in the way and Roz had taken a picture. And I took my own sort of picture, in my notebook. And now I'm showing it to anyone who cares to look at it.

And I don't know the woman's name, I don't know why she was so drunk, whether she had reason to be, as if one needs a reason to be. I knew only that she was embarrassing to me and that is the content of the picture I have taken. And so, she does exist only as a jester.

We went to dinner, the three of us, I imagine. And when, again, we boarded the metro, we sat across from a man and a woman who were speaking French. I could tell that they were talking about a trip he had been on because I spoke a fair amount of French. Roz and I could tell that he was talking about a trip to Los Angeles because he did that thing that people do where they'll break their tone as they switch into a different language, as if they're speaking in italics:

Bien sûr, ç'etait bien, le voyage...

And then they switch out of italics to say some foreign word:

Oui, j'y suis allé, à Los Angeles, l'année passée et...

So we could both clearly hear when he said "Los Angeles." And he was disparaging the city (which I myself do) and I could tell because I could somewhat understand and Roz could tell because of the tone.

What the man, the man who kept speaking and kept saying "Los Angeles", what he couldn't tell was that I spoke French and Roz was from Los Angeles. The two of us looked at each other, unsure what to do.

Eventually he realized what was going on and he spoke to us in English. He asked Roz if she was from California and she said yes and then he asked if she was from LA and she said yes even though she was from Long Beach. He nodded with pursed lips and the rest of the metro ride was distinctly awkward.

We got out to transfer to a different line, and as we waited for the new train on the platform, a man sitting on the chairs near us began to speak. It is entirely common for homeless people to sit in the metro. Every night of the week there is a summit of wanderers, a subway salon. Beards and raggedy hats. Fighting cold with wine and rhythm. "Yes" the guru would say to the curious student on the floor. "Yes" he would repeat, and then he would drink in more wisdom from the bottle. Meanwhile, the beat would continue.

But this man, this homeless man was alone. He had no followers. Of course, he thought differently. He talked to a point a few feet in front of him. He argued and cajoled with this point. He gesticulated with his hands and his eyes. And he was stunned when he received no reply. Why did his friend, his friend who wasn't there, why didn't he understand him? The man, the real man, although who's to say, but the man we thought, at least, was real, turned to us in disbelief. He gestured to the point where there was only air and yelled, to us and to others, his epiphany:

"Il n' parle pas français! Il parle pas français!" He does not speak French. He doesn't speak French.