Equal parts jet-lagged and hungover, I woke up the next morning with a face full of sunlight, and an ear full of snores—emanating from my blanket-monopolising companion sleeping beside me.
“Paris!” I exclaimed with a spasm, suddenly recalling the city where my body was lying.
I sat up and peered over at Elizabeth, who had orange earplugs sticking out of her ears to prevent her snores from waking her as they had her bedfellow.
“Paris!” I yelled again. “I’m lying in an uncomfortable bed in Paris!”
I could hear the cars out on the street and an occasional shouting voice, but for the most part it seemed as if the city had yet to come to life. Across the room, the digital clock on the antique bureau read: 7:29 a.m. “Do the French sleep in on Saturday mornings?” I wondered. “I don’t know anything about these people. They’re like aliens to me. And Paris is like another planet. All I’ve ever known is America. This is unbelievable—I woke up in the very same hotel room a 22-year-old Ernest Hemingway woke up in on his first morning in Paris. You really gotta hand it to me, when I do things, I don’t mind getting a little carried away. I wonder if Hem lied here, too, unable to sleep, wondering what his future holds, shaking with excitement to hit the streets of the city for the first time. His mind was probably full of thoughts of Notre Dame, and Napoleon’s tomb, and all the famous paintings at the Louvre—as he listened to the sounds of the honking horns outside his windows and the snores inside them. I wonder if Hadley was a snorer, too. I bet she was. The big-breasted women I’ve known always snore. Well, you take the good with the bad…”
“Paris!” I shouted, one more time, as I threw off the quilted blanket and headed for the clump of clothes spewing out of my open suitcase on the floor.
“Are you going somewhere?” Elizabeth asked, removing an earplug, and sitting up in bed—her hair flattened on one side and sprawling on the other.
“I’m going to work,” I said proudly, feeling the goosebumps tingling on my arms.
“Are you crazy? We just went to sleep.”
“It’s daylight and I’ve only got so many hours in this city.”
“But you’ve never been here before and you don’t speak French,” she said, reaching for the glass of water on the bedside table and guzzling it down.
“I have my phone for directions and tricky French words—I’ll be fine,” I said, buttoning my wrinkled and mustard-stained white linen shirt. “Besides, you told me everyone in this city speaks English.”
“Not willingly.”
“What are you gonna do today?” I asked, hooking an arm around a combat boot that had strayed underneath the bed.
“What do you think I’m gonna do?”
“Shop?”
“Shop. I’m gonna shop for a few hours at Le Carrousel du Louvre, and then I’m gonna take a break for charcuterie and too much wine at Café de la Paix, and then I’m gonna shop for a few hours at Le Carrousel du Louvre.”
I laughed. “Dinner at Brasserie Lipp at six?”
“No one eats dinner at six in this town, Mr. Hemingway. That’s what we call a late lunch.”
“We do, Hadley. I’ll be hungry after a long day of writing,” I said, pulling on my combat boots and rising to my full height of over six feet tall.
“Fine. Six o’clock at Lipp’s it is. You do realise it’s a tourist trap? Lots of amped up Americans wearing ‘I love Paris’ T-shirts.”
“Of course, I do. They go there because they want to experience one of Hemingway’s old haunts. A lot of people still go nuts over him, you know?”
“Some more than others.”
“Sleep well,” I said, grabbing the horse chestnut and rabbit’s foot off the bureau and slipping them into the right pocket of my pants.
“Write well,” Elizabeth said, screwing the earplug back into her ear and lowering her head onto the lumpy pillow.
*****
As I strolled across the crackling gravel pathway between the blooming elm and apple trees of the Luxembourg Gardens, I hungrily ate an entire baguette, as long and wide as an American baseball bat. For years, I’d heard people talk about the quality of the bread in France, and now I’d had the personal experience of tasting it for myself in the form of a walking breakfast. Obviously, there was a reason everyone in that city was armed with those long baguettes—other than in a pinch, they made a decent weapon against pickpockets. The bread was hard on the outside and soft on the inside, chewy and sugary sweet, and I don’t remember ever enjoying the taste of anything more than I did that baguette that morning, as I walked through those enchanted gardens with the sun coming up over Paris. While munching on the bread and sipping a café crème, I did a lap around the large, octagonal pond at the foot of the Luxembourg Palace, where children were navigating little wooden boats with the flags of their home countries serving as sails. Watching them steering the boats with long wooden sticks, I saw that they were consumed with a simple and primitive kind of joy. The Bill Gateses and Mark Zuckerbergs of the world, all traitors to the cause of such serene outdoor pleasure. I would learn soon enough that so much of Paris was little changed from what it was a century earlier, and that when something is built so majestically, it’s foolish to think it can be improved upon by any modern innovations. Not the buildings, not the streets, not the museums or public gardens, and not the collective feeling of nostalgia they inspire when you experience them for the first time under a cloudless morning sky with a stomach aching from too much bread.
Strapped to my shoulders was a brown leather backpack filled with the blue-backed notebooks and sharpened yellow pencils Hem and I liked to use when writing our first drafts. Attached to the backpack was the adjustable, lightweight easel I intended to utilise when writing on location. There were several exterior scenes in the screenplay that I wanted to attack right away with the intention of experiencing firsthand what it was like to stand on a particular street corner, or outside a particular apartment, restaurant, or bar, where the characters in the story had lived out the critical moments of the plot.
My first stop was 16 Rue Monttessuy, the address in the 7th arrondissement where the young, happily married Hemingway had first met the duplicitous and conniving, vivacious and filthy rich, Pauline Pfeiffer. A woman who in record time would cunningly supplant Hadley and become the second Mrs. Hemingway. As I turned and peered down the length of the street, I buckled at the sight of the Eiffel Tower, soaring above the apartment buildings at the end of the block. Clearly Hemingway’s sparring buddy, Harold Loeb, and Loeb’s mistress, Kitty Cannell, who shared the ritzy apartment, chose that address due to its surreal view of the most celebrated monument in the world. A fact I would have never known unless I had physically turned and looked down that street for myself. I could have literally thrown a ball and hit the Eiffel Tower from where I was standing…when I was little younger, and my shoulder wasn’t all screwed up from overdoing it on a baseball field. A nine iron certainly would have gotten me there.
Thrilled to have the Eiffel Tower as my writing companion for the day, I set up my easel on the sidewalk facing it, directly across the street from the red-painted door of building number 16. Hem preferred to stand while writing. He felt it was a more energetic position to gather his thoughts and exercise his creative impulses. He also believed it helped reduce the girth of his belly to stand instead of sit during the six hours every day while he worked:
“Writing and travel broaden your ass if not your mind and I like to write standing up.”
So, I set my notebook on the easel, as a painter would set a canvas, to paint pictures with words of the breathtaking view on the street in front of me.
This is how I described the scenery in standard screenplay format…
EXT. HAROLD AND KITTY’S APARTMENT BUILDING – ESTABLISHING
October 1925. Paris. Left Bank.
Piercing the sky at the end of Rue de Monttessuy, shockingly close to the rows of upscale apartment buildings, is the Eiffel Tower.
TWO WELL-BUILT YOUNG MEN, with boxing gloves slung over their shoulders, walk down the street towards the towering monument, chattering animatedly as they go.
They enter building number 16 through a large and inviting red door.
As I wrote and re-wrote the exterior description, several curious people in the neighbourhood approached me to examine the results of what they assumed was a sketch of the Eiffel Tower—poised like an exclamation mark at the end of their special little street. But when they saw that instead of producing a drawing, my pencil strokes had produced only sentences, they examined first the notebook, then my face…the notebook…and my face again, searching my eyes for the signs of madness I’m sure they were able to confirm.
After describing the landscape, I relied on my imagination to travel inside the apartment building through the open second-floor windows above the red door. I had tried my best to talk my way through the red door when I saw an elderly man heading inside the building, but as you will see from the following exchange, I was not successful…
“Excuse me! Bonjour! Bonjour! Hello. Hi. Could I trouble you for a moment?”
“No, no…”
“Just for a moment… Do you speak English?”
“No, no…”
“Yes, yes… You see, I’m writing a movie script about the great American writer Ernest Hemingway, and if it wouldn’t be too much trouble, I’d like to go inside your apartment and take a look around…”
“No, no…” he said, before squeezing through a crack in the red door and pulling it shut behind him.
Either the elderly Frenchman didn’t understand English, or he did understand it, and he didn’t want any part of me and whatever I was selling. Regardless of the reason for his anti-social behaviour, I would quickly learn that the French were not amenable to granting access to their private dwellings to friendly Americans. I would quickly learn that the French were not amenable to a lot of things. And so, without their assistance, I would be forced to create most of the interior apartment scenes from my imagination and from what I’d learned about them in the stack of books I’d read as high as the Eiffel Tower itself.
Frustrated, but not discouraged, I turned my attention to an afternoon soiree in the fall of 1925 when Ernest was first introduced to Pauline on the other side of the red door at 16 Rue Monttessuy…
INT. HAROLD AND KITTY’S APARTMENT – LIVING ROOM – DAY
YOUNG ERNEST HEMINGWAY, 26, is bouncing around the elegantly furnished living room.
He’s shirtless, with boxing gloves raised to his chin, and a killer look in his eyes. He shoots a right jab at…
HAROLD LOEB, 34, sporting a Herringbone jacket and striped tie. Loeb evades the punch, as Hemingway backs him around the room.
HAROLD
Uh…Hem, don’t forget you’re in my living room, okay?
Harold, ruggedly handsome, and prone to flights of levity, has high waves of thick dark hair and an equally prominent nose and chin.
HEMINGWAY
Come on, Harold, stop retreating and start attacking!
He stops moving and drops his gloves to his side. Smiling innocently, he awaits Harold’s advance. Harold eyes him skeptically, then slowly creeps forward with gloves raised.
A jab lands against Hemingway’s stomach. He responds instantly with a combination of two jabs to Harold’s chest and a vicious haymaker that somehow misses his chin.
Harold hops up onto a footrest in front of an armchair. Hemingway drops to his knees, wraps his arms around the footrest, and lifts it and Harold into the air.
Harold leaps off the footrest onto the couch. From a standing position, he reaches down and grabs his eyeglasses off the coffee table, slides them on his face.
HAROLD
Okay, glasses are on! No sparring when the glasses are on!
He drops down into a sitting position, throws his arms across the back of the couch, and smiles up at Hemingway.
Hemingway releases a big, cackling laugh and awkwardly grabs his highball glass off the coffee table between his boxing gloves. He swallows the contents and grins a cockeyed grin at Harold.
HEMINGWAY
You better hydrate between rounds.
He reaches for Harold’s cocktail.
HAROLD
Between rounds?! Oh no-no-no, sir! I’m announcing my retirement. Hemingway, highballs,
and haymakers, three ingredients you should never mix together.
Hemingway fakes a drink handoff to Harold, then gulps down the drink himself. He laughs another cackling laugh. His joy of life was apparent in every word and movement.
INT. HAROLD AND KITTY’S APARTMENT – KITCHEN – DAY
The men burst through the swinging kitchen door causing the women on the other side to leap out of the way.
The women are Hemingway’s wife, HADLEY, 34, red-haired and porcelain-skinned, wearing a frayed woollen sweater and khaki skirt, and KITTY CANNELL, 32, Harold’s mistress, regally dressed in pink and gold and showcasing a ballerina’s figure.
HADLEY
(light-hearted)
Tatie? Where are the rest of your clothes?
HEMINGWAY
Drying on the windowsill. (He kisses his wife). I was teaching Harold a few combinations.
He grabs a bottle of whiskey by the neck, fills his glass and Harold’s, and sprays in soda water.
KITTY
(annoyed, a dig)
Oh, Mr. Hemingway, I hate for you to have to serve yourself in someone else’s home.
HEMINGWAY
Oh, Miss Cannell, you know I hate being waited on. I much prefer to make myself at home.
KITTY
Apparently.
They exchange a look of dislike.
PAULINE (O.C.)
Hello, hello, hello!
PAULINE PFEIFFER, 30, wrapped in an exotic chipmunk-skin coat, enters the kitchen with her sister, JINNY, 23, in tow—the taller and prettier of the two women.
Pauline and Jinny resemble a vaudeville team. They have short dark hair and bangs, fiery red lipstick, ivory cigarette holders, and a devotion to Chanel. The sisters finish each other’s sentences and laugh at the same jokes.
PAULINE
We’re sorry to enter unannounced…
JINNY
…but your door was open…
PAULINE
…and there was no one to announce us. (Eyeing the shirtless Hemingway with repulsion/attraction). Oh my, Jinny, it appears we’ve overdressed for the occasion.
JINNY
It does indeed.
KITTY
Pauline and Jinny Pfeiffer, the nude is Ernest Hemingway, and this is his darling wife, Hadley.
HADLEY
(stiffly formal)
How do you do?
PAULINE
Hemingway? Such an unusual name. British in orientation?
HEMINGWAY
No. It comes from an old Chinese word meaning hunter of wolves.
Pauline studies him, unsure if she’s being teased or tested.
PAULINE
I read a story of yours. The prose and its author appear to be equally stripped down.
Everyone laughs, except Hemingway, who eyes Pauline coldly before exiting, highball in hand, out the swinging kitchen door.
HAROLD
Pauline, that coat is exquisite. May I inquire as to the unlucky animal?
PAULINE
It’s one hundred percent chipmunk.
HAROLD
(petting the coat)
Chipmunk?!
HEMINGWAY (O.C.)
(a hearty laugh)
There’s a first!
He re-enters, pulling a patched and threadbare sports coat on over a grey, perspiration-soaked sweatshirt.
HEMINGWAY
One fancy coat and you wiped out an entire species.
HADLEY
(stifling a laugh)
It’s beautiful, Pauline.
HEMINGWAY
Hey, are you ladies finished with your little tea party? Can I fix us some serious drinks now?
INT. KITTY AND HAROLD’S APARTMENT – LATER
The Hemingways are standing by the door ready to leave. Ernest is huddled up with Harold; Pauline and Jinny are chatting away with Hadley.
Kitty is passed out on the couch, her highball glass resting on her stomach, tilted at a dangerous angle.
ON PAULINE, JINNY, AND HADLEY:
HADLEY
He turns two next week.
JINNY
Two? How wonderful!
PAULINE
(to Jinny)
We must stop in and meet him.
JINNY
Yes. When can we meet Bumby?
PAULINE
And bring him a birthday gift.
JINNY
We give the most wonderful birthday gifts.
HADLEY
Oh, thank you, but that’s not necessary.
PAULINE
How about next Saturday afternoon? Say 3 o’clock?
HADLEY
Well…that would be fine.
ON ERNEST AND HAROLD:
HAROLD
So, whatdaya think of the Pfeiffer sisters?
HEMINGWAY
The taller one’s a beauty.
HAROLD
Jinny? Yeah. But I love her sister’s coat.
HEMINGWAY
I’d like to take Jinny out in her sister’s coat.
Harold laughs. Hemingway grins his cockeyed grin. He crosses to Hadley, and with a word or two, ushers her out the door.
*****
It was after 3 o’clock by the time I finished my work for the day, and although I was starving for another baguette, I decided that my digestive system might not be too keen on my consuming what equated to two fence posts in a single day. Instead, I would store up my hunger for an authentic French meal with Elizabeth at Brasserie Lipp. Hem was crazy about the sausages in mustard sauce there and I hoped I could still find it on the menu. As I made my way back to the hotel along the edge of the wide and sun-sparkling river Seine, there was one stop I’d been dreaming about making for years: SHAKESPEARE AND COMPANY.
Standing cattycornered across the river from Notre Dame Cathedral at 37 rue de la Bûcherie, the world-renowned bookshop also fell into the house of worship category—one devoted to God, the other to literary luminaries. For over a hundred years, this cultural treasure had catered to the plight of bohemian artists like me, struggling to spread their wings and take flight in the cawing and clawing world of storytelling. One such bohemian behemoth, who became close friends with the original proprietor, Sylvia Beach, was the fledgling writer to whom I give this story its name. Sylvia bore witness to Hemingway’s undeveloped talent and unwavering conviction that he was one of the chosen ones, and made sure he was acquainted with all the classic works of literature necessary to see his education through. And later, when fame and all its entrapments threatened to destroy him, she was there as a friend to lend an ear and a place to rest his weary head. Sylvia nurtured countless other writers as well, and the ripple effect of her wisdom and generosity has endured infectiously well beyond her years. Why else would I want to see Shakespeare and Company before I even saw the Mona Lisa?
Online, I discovered that the current proprietor is also named Sylvia Beach. Her father, George Winston, a great friend and admirer of the original Sylvia, had taken over operations of the company after her death and named his daughter in her honour. I’d seen photographs of the bookish, blonde, and beautiful updated version, and was just as eager to make her acquaintance as I was Shakespeare and Company’s.
Before walking through the hallowed entrance of the bookshop, I paused to knock three times on the wooden door frame for good luck. Hem was a big believer in mysticism and had made it a ritualistic practice there. If he believed “touching wood,” as he called it, could improve your literary fortunes, I was all too happy to buy into it. If he believed touching dogshit could improve your literary fortunes, I’d buy into that as well.
Once inside the bookshop, I saw that the interior of the two-story building had the same rustic, cave-like quality it had in the roaring 1920s. Stone and mortar jutted out of the walls in a cruel, haphazard fashion that made one wonder if the architect was tipping his cap to the Tower of London. Books were showcased not only from floor to ceiling on the green shelves against the stone walls, but in every space and crevice conceivable to the eye. It appeared that no book was ever turned away at Shakespeare and Company. “Give us your tired plots, your torn covers, your wrinkled pages, yearning to be read!” Ingenuity of book placement was in full force. There was even a row of books running diagonally up the staircase if you wanted to take a break from your climb to revisit Huckleberry Finn.
Written in capital letters above a doorway, illuminated by a chandelier, were the words:
BE NOT INHOSPITABLE TO STRANGERS LEST THEY BE ANGELS IN DISGUISE
