Born on Martyr’s Hill, 1935

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Odette and Roger had been running the Café Gourmand since the end of the Great War. Another was taking shape on the horizon, but folks here preferred not to think too much about it. Politics and apéro did not mix. People just wanted a glass of Suze or a good Côtes-du-Rhône. They might chase it with a jambon beurre or a croque monsieur, or a plate of hard-boiled eggs with home-made mayonnaise. No indeed, Mr. Bertrand, we do not serve steaks here. This is a café, not a brasserie. There was no cook here; Odette boiled the eggs and grilled the sandwiches herself. Yes, André, I shall serve you a coffee to wash away the taste of the anisette, but I must wonder why, if you do not like it, you ordered three of them? In fact it was his André’s wife who preferred that he drink aniseed liqueur, for she was sick of washing red wine stains from his clothes. No sooner said than done, Roger set a coffee on the counter. André downed it in one – “the Italian way,” he said. André had never left Montmartre. He loved this hill more than anywhere else in the world. Why ever would he venture beyond its cobblestones and charming cafés? François filled his pipe with a far-off expression; he would have liked to travel while his legs were still young enough for it.

                  “Where would you have gone, François?” Odette asked him.

                  “Anywhere, really. But I couldn’t leave the print shop to run on its own. It’s a strange thing, God help us, to work until you drop without ever seeing the country around you. I’ve heard that Auvergne is a pretty place. I was speaking to an Auvergnat on Rue de Lappe the other day. He said it’s all lush green pastures down there, empty as this here glass. Roger, you wouldn’t do something about that, would you?”

                  “Auvergne, Auvergne…” thought Odette. “They’re stingy folks, I’ve heard. They eat all their meals off big slabs of bread because they’re too lazy to wash plates.”

               “What would you know about Auvergnats?” demanded Roger. “I’ve heard the country folk are warm and friendly.”

                  “Or Brittany, perhaps,” François went on, holding out his glass.

                  “Brittany!” cried Odette. “Those are dirty people who can barely speak French!”

                  “They have the seaside, though.”

                  “Seaside, schmeeside. We have the Eiffel Tower, don’t we?”

                  “How is that the same? Can you go swimming in the Eiffel Tower?” joked François.

                  “Can you imagine me in a bathing suit?  Getting undressed outdoors – whatever will they think of next?”

                  “Getting undressed didn’t seem to bother you back when we were young,” Roger teased her.

Conversations were flowing at the Café Gourmand. Drink loosened tongues and bridged all disparities of class. Bosses drank with workers, artists with tradesmen, street singers with winemakers. They said all they had to say, venting and joking and swearing in full throat, then whispering and deliberating. Politics and apéro did not mix, but all other subjects were on the table. Women, rain and fair weather, the latest shows, how to poach an egg, horse racing. Do you take Picon in your beer? Sugar in your absinthe? A finger of Chablis, or two of Muscadet? Another coffee for André – “one for every three anisettes, that’s the rhythm of an Argentine tango,” said the man who had assuredly never left the hill of Montmartre.

                  “I was born here, and I’ll die on this hill.”

                  “You could at least go down far enough to see the Tuileries or the Luxembourg gardens, or the Louvre. A bit of culture wouldn’t kill you!” exclaimed François.

                “Culture? What culture? All the culture is up here. Dancing at the Moulin Rouge, painters in the square, the Sacré Coeur to remind us that God is with us, and the vineyards and the food we love. That’s my culture, God preserve us. The whole world comes to us for a reason – why would I bother going to them?”

Alan Alfredo Geday