Saint Lazare

This is something I began writing in Paris, where I spent a month last summer researching my MA dissertation at the Bibliotheque Nationale. I only finished it today however, having goaded myself out of inaction by the impending deadline for an application for a job at the London Review of Books, and by my desire to not be a hideously lazy sod.

Most weekday mornings for the past month I have been catching the 0859 train from Garches-Marne la Coquette to Saint-Lazare, and from there the line 14 metro to the Bibliothèque Nationale. I’ve become a regular, of a sort, on the commuter train which runs from St Nom La Bretèche through Garches, Saint Cloud, La Défense and finally Paris Saint Lazare. This summer my life went up and down the line: there were mornings, and there were evenings, 30 days. I only went further out of Paris on the line on two occasions: once when my friend Mark and I fell asleep on the first train home from the clubs on a Saturday morning; and once when I went to stand at the Vaucreson sliproad to the autoroute, with a cardboard ‘Normandie SVP’ sign and an outstretched thumb.

Courbevoie is not so far from civilisation as Garches, nor so close to sin as Clichy: it is twinned with Enfield.

After a while one learns where to sit, who to ignore, and when to look out of the window. Around Saint Cloud the Eiffel Tower, Montparnasse and Sacré Coeur flash you through the trees. Each morning I look at Paris from a distance and wish I really lived there, probably with a beautiful French woman. I wish I was not in Garches. We circle Paris to the northwest, passing the houses around La Défense that abut the skyscrapers curiously, before sneaking in, using la butte for cover.

Clichy Levallois reminds me of Ardwick, south Manchester. Train sheds, sidings, dozens of lines, shipping containers, empty lots, construction. Double deck regional trains from far flung places remind you that while Garches represents the terminus of your imagination, others think along different lines. Some people come from Le Havre, and Euston station means trains to Manchester, not tubes to Higher Barnet. This is what the women standing on the facade of the Gare du Nord are trying to tell you; the tower blocks with Lake District-themed names on Hampstead Road have arrived in London via a worm hole, and in the Place de Roubaix the provinces have leaked into Paris. When Monet painted Saint Lazare, I know he was thinking about Le Havre.

How the train reaches Paris from Clichy is a trade secret. It is sucked into a deep cutting and spat out at Saint Lazare, an engineer’s conjuring trick. The walls are close, sometimes we are roofed over, we sneak under Europe – where Madrid meets Budapest, and I am thinking about Lille, Le Havre, and Manchester. Nik la police and nik ta mère, nique Sarko, nique the train, nique the ticket inspectors, nique you for reading this: Europe is graffitied.

As the train trickles to a halt we gather round the doors, waiting for the driver to unlock them so we can appuyez ici and get out. Sometimes the doors are released while the train is still moving, and I jump off onto the platform, and keep on going; jogging in to Paris.