1994. Paris. 11th Arrondissement. Hotel de Belfort.

I was working at the Hotel de Belfort after leaving San Francisco at the age of twenty-seven to see the world after mine crashed down. My dad had died, and I decided to buy a one-way ticket to Europe. I
sold everything I owned and left with a tiny bag and two thousand dollars.

After bouncing around a few countries, I landed at a small hotel near Pére Lachaise cemetery in Paris. Mohammed and a few other Algerian men ran the place, and I lived in a small back house with no
locks or heating behind the hotel. My job was to fill the hotel with tourists. So I set out for Gare du Nord to catch the arrival of the 6:30 a.m. train from Amsterdam. I handed out flyers advertising inexpensive rooms at a discounted rate when the dazed arrivals presented the yellow paper at check in. I was paid 2 francs per person, and my rent was free.

I acquired this position after being hustled to the hotel by Two Beer Steve whose job I would take over after he befriended me in the lobby and enlisted me as his apprentice. He was from Perth and was in
hiding after throwing large raves in Essex where he was both DJ and Ecstasy provider. His sidekick Dominic was from Northern Ireland and a heroin addict. Together they were WANTED. I once took a funny photo of them both sitting, smoking Gitanes on a rock at the park. That night my camera was taken away and the film destroyed. But I digress. The story I want you all to read is about Mimi. She deserves to not be a tangent.

To the outside world the hotel was just a simple place to stay. The rooms weren’t exactly special, but they were clean and had TVs. Guest showered in a shared douche the size of a closet. Wet and robed, they scampered quickly to their rooms. In the lobby I would stand with my espresso fresh from the vending machine and advise tan Brazilian girls how to get to Sacré-Coeur. A Canadian tourist would sit in the foyer brushing his long hair while extolling the benefits of Canada to the yawns of the Italian boys just looking for some hash. Mohammed answered the phone, “Bonjour. Hotel de Belfort,” while collecting keys tossed from the constant flux of travelers. Each room key rested in its numbered compartment.

Every once in awhile, I’d notice a scruffy man or worn woman carrying the Parisian street in their walk; they’d enter the hotel and not drop their key but only pocket it as they climbed the stairs to their sanctioned rooms. They did not have the bright eyes that travels bring but a certain dull hardness as if they most definitely had seen all of it before and certainly more.

That’s about the time I discovered, under the hotel, the dark room across from the laundry facility next to the cavernous breakfast chamber that smelled like turned milk. I put in a load of laundry late
in the day and walked down the corridor, pausing at the cracked open door to a place that buzzed. I don’t know how to explain it except that I felt something behind that door. I was afraid to open it. My
heart beat and I stepped inside. With the yellow glare from the bare bulb in the hall, I could see dusty suitcases toppled onto suitcases and cobwebs. I stepped closer and found one suitcase open. I hunched
down to examine the remains. I saw a passport of a North African man, his family photos, a dirty toothbrush, his clothing and a watch. The man’s address was in Ménilmontant, just over in the 20th. Feeling the slightly disturbed current of the stale basement air, I sensed someone behind me. Slamming shut the suitcase, I rushed back to the drab corridor and closed the door. I didn’t pass a soul on the way back up to the lobby.

The next day, Mohammed confessed the dark secret of The Hotel de Belfort. We sat at the corner bakery for a Café Crème, and he leaned in with his toothy smile as he nervously tore at a baguette. The
hotel subsidized five rooms for people with HIV/AIDS. He didn’t like these filthy people and asked me not to acknowledge their presence. They were drug addicts and ex-convicts and the cause for all trouble
that occurred at the hotel. It was important that the tourists not know of their existence. They were on holiday and shouldn’t have to think of such people. Mohammed apologized for the fact that my backhouse didn’t have a lock, and with a final warning, he advised me not to smile too much.

We said goodbye, and as I strolled up Rue Servan, I saw a 90-pound woman putting all her weight into opening the hotel’s glass door. I skipped fast to help and opened the door for her. Her fishnet stockings drooped, unable to hug the skinny legs that made her mini skirt seem proportionate and her steel-toed combat boots elephant-like. The violent music pumping from her Walkman screamed past her spiked bleached hair. I remember her black marker eyeliner and her penciled lips with no color filled in. I fixated, locked eyes and smiled at her from ear to ear. Mimi looked back with a blank stare without even a blink.

32 responses to “1994. Paris. 11th Arrondissement. Hotel de Belfort.”

  1. Scotty says:

    I’m so happy to hear your voice on the Whatsit.

    Did you last much longer at the hotel?

  2. Scotty says:

    Unrelated: Happy Birthday to our beloved west coast editor!

  3. LP says:

    Ahhh, what a perfect post for the day following “Whither TGW?”. I love this: You put us in such a specific time and place, I can almost smell the hotel. Thanks, Julie! Looking forward to more.

  4. swells says:

    Julie, Jeremy told me you were posting today and I have been anxiously awaiting it. All I expected and more–this is so evocative. Welcome to the Paris PPQ!

  5. Wow, yes: this is a fabulous evocation of your time in Paris. It leaves me anxious for a sequel — how much longer did you stay there? Did you befriend Mimi, and where did she go from there? Did Steve and Dominic evade the law and move on to more raves?…It has the seeds of a bildungsroman-type memoir, like the reader could follow you from whatever your 27-year-old scene in SF was like, to Paris and what happened there, to your subsequent life. I mean I’m picturing the time in Paris as sort of an interlude between your time in college and your time as an adult and also as a time of reconciling yourself to your father’s death. I don’t know how accurate that reading is though.

  6. trixie says:

    Julie, I so enjoyed this post!
    I also want to know what happened next.
    Welcome to TGW.

  7. Wonderful post! This is the kind of work that puts the ‘great’ into the ‘whatsit.’ Thanks so much Julie. I actually roomed a couple of nights at the Hotel de Belfort when I was doing the requisite backpacking through Europe thing back in ’95. It was cheap and close to Jim Morrison’s grave, which was what had brought me to Paris in the first place (Culture!). It is funny how persistent some of those characters are — the Aussie working for cash under the table is a European staple. What is next? More on Mimi?

  8. julie says:

    wow! thanks everybody. I have to admit being on this end of the TGW is pretty exciting. Look at me responding to comments…so here we go
    Scotty: I stayed at this hotel working til winter and end up returning 6 months later to work there again.
    LP. Thanks! There will be more…
    Steph:That is a real compliment coming from you. (why does that sound sarcastic?) I mean it.
    Modesto: Yes, You got it. So many things happened when I was in Paris It was my time to rebel. But this first leap created the need to go farther. I ended up living in 6 other countries including Japan.
    Rogan! No way! I was also working at The hotel for a bit in 95. I think you might enjoy what comes next…
    The hustle at Gare du Nord! Mimi’s mafia uncle! And more mystery and intrigue!

  9. julie says:

    happy bithday zitter!

  10. amy says:

    Julie I love it… It’ll be good to see in writing more of the stories I’ve heard you tell over the years…

  11. farrell fawcett says:

    Hey! Rogan and Julie (btw, great post and welcome!). I was working in Paris too in 94/95. Crazy! Maybe I unwittingly met the two of you before I even knew the scores of others here. Y’all ever go to those costumed swinger things over in pigalle? I was always the great white with the double blow holes. You couldn’t miss me. What were you?

  12. LP says:

    “I was always the great white with the double blow holes.” = my new favorite comment of 2008.

  13. Jane says:

    This is a wonderful post. I was so fascinated by your honest descriptions and character portrayals, that it made me want to visit Europe more than ever.

    And I’m with The Modesto Kid: What happened to Steve and Dominic?

  14. Jeremy says:

    Welcome to the Whatsit, Julie! And so appropriate to hear a wonderful “new voice” after all of yesterday’s commentary on that very topic… Thanks for shaking things up a bit…

  15. julie says:

    farrell I am curious where you were working?…I am sad to say I have no idea what you are talking about regarding comment #11…
    #5 and #13…One morning I woke up to Dominic quietly leaving his motorcycle jacket by my bedside. When i looked at him he said “See ya.” I hadn’t known that Dominc who once was part of the IRA & had been trying to kick his habit. He decided to return to his old lifestyle and I only hope he didn’t reach his goal. Steve left shortly after back to Essex and to his girlfriend who was pregnant with his child…something he had never mentioned once.

  16. Tim says:

    Wow! Great post! (He said clichedly.)

  17. clicheed needs two “e”s.

  18. Tim says:

    clicheed needs two “e”s.

    Really?

  19. Marleyfan says:

    Bravo! and Welcome.

    HappyBdayJeremy(cha-cha-cha)

  20. LP says:

    Jane fulfills her promise on Day 1! Excellent.

    And Tim continues to fulfill the role of elitist spelling mafioso. Also excellent.

  21. Really?

    Yeah — and ideally the first of them would have an accent acute over it, thusly: clichéed.

  22. Dave says:

    And wouldn’t the word form Tim used also have a diaeresis, or maybe a grave accent, on the second e to indicate that it’s also pronounced? Clichéëdly, clichéèdly.

  23. LP says:

    22: only when printed in the New Yorker.

  24. Kate the Great says:

    I love the images in this, Julie The Ping Pong Queen. I can see the hidden room with the suitcases and the back room with no locks. I can see the lobby area and the tourists sharing a bathroom. But most of all, I can see Mimi. I’ll join in with the chorus: your last image is well-lit. It’s burned into our short-term memories.

  25. Scotty says:

    Julie, I know that I’m past prime commenting time, but your post stuck with me all day. I’m thrilled that you’re on this side of the posting game.

  26. julie says:

    thanks scotty and everyone next installment hopefully next week…such a warm welcome!

  27. LP says:

    PS: To Modesto, because I suspect Tim is thinking this but won’t ever post it: Did you click through the link on his “Really”? He’s right; “cliched” is the primary spelling and “clicheed” is a rare alternative.

  28. Tim says:

    #27: Right you are.

    Also, I *did* struggle with how to spell the adverbial form: to represent or not to represent the extra pronounced syllable? (That is the question.) “Clicheedly” just looks wrong, but so does “clichedly,” though less so. The OED gives no adverbial form (and no form with the double “e”). The internets yield nothing in the way of authoritative word on the matter. Most of the instances I found, in fact, use hyphenation (“cliche-edly”), which solves the pronunciation problem but looks very sloppy to my eye.

    I like Dave’s suggestions, but outside of The New Yorker I’ve never seen the use of a diuretic, oops, diaeresis to signify the extra pronounced syllable in a doubled vowel (“coöperate”). It looks sort of pretentious to me. Also, I’m just not informed enough about the difference between an accent acute and an accent grave to decide if it’s kosher to put one right after the other. However, while the adverbial problem remains (at least for me), I do stand by “clichéd” as the preferred spelling.

    In reference to the missing accent in my original comment, normally, I would have switched to MS Word to type and copy the “é”, then paste it into the text here. I was in a hurry yesterday. My bad.

    Also, um, really great post, Julie!

  29. swells says:

    Tim, you are so damn enjoyable.

  30. 27/28 — damn, I dislike this site’s color scheme, in that I often fail to realize there is a link underneath the text I’m reading — it looks so similar to the non-linked text around it.

  31. Tim says:

    Tim, you are so damn enjoyable.

    Shucks and blushes.

  32. erica McIntire says:

    She sounds scary! Give us more!