I visited The Fourm at Les Halles today hoping to find some sport shoes to fulfill a New Year's resolution, but ended up in the same kind of panic that I feel at the Louvre. Trapped. It seemed like the labyrinth they challenge white mice also, but when I saw SORTIE rue Rambuteau I took it and found myself to safety. A neighborhood familiar when Les Halles was still a big hole in the ground. But I thought it would be a good occasion to visit Louis at his wine bar on rue Saint Denis - if he was still there. I met Louis twenty-five years ago when I stayed in an apartment across the street on a visit from New York. "Is it your clients that wake me up coming out of the bar at two in the morning?" He smiled and said, "Yes." I melted. He even came to the exhibition that I was having in the Latin Quarter. "I can't buy a painting now he whispered, but I will when things get better..."Five years later when I had converted to painting in the street, I thought of him. It was August and I was hard up for rent money.
I showed him my recent oeuvres and he prompted me to paint his Café. I spent a colorful week on rue Saint Denis which once was galore with les filles and then 1987 was spotted with sex shops and new wave ready-to-wear boutiques including black leather bras. Long hot summer days I worked hoping he would buy it. At the end he said.
"Perhaps after my vacation." In the meantime my wonderful nephew visited me and bought the painting and paid me in bits and pieces over a years time.
On my way to his bistro I reminisced about his very kind manors and gentle voice. Why didn't I tell him back then? He was divorced and free. I guess I lacked confidance.
I was happy to find Louis still there with his seductive smile, but less hair. He recognized me even with my white locks. Busy with a lunch crowd, he offered me a glass of the wine of the day. I peered over the counter and with much surprise saw my painting on his calling card.
"Ooooh and helped myself to two of them. A gentleman having a café at the bar said,
"C'est vous qui avez fait." He remembered me from twenty years ago. I read the back. "Did he give you a credit?" he asked.
I shook my head no.
He doesn't have a right.
I said, "I know." having had a number of copyright violation, I knew very well the law.
"Louis, if I didn't love you, I'd sue you." I said waving the card.
He smiled still quite busy with customers paying up for lunch.
I had an appointment at three o'clock back in Montmartre so was out the door thanking him for the glass of wine. Well, at least I told him I thought on the way back home.
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