Free Paris in Love by Eloisa James Page B

church is famous for being the first church built of metal in all Paris. I can’t see how this can be true: the walls are definitely made of stone. But one doesn’t squabble with a priest over architectural details, not when there are so many more interesting things, like causes for the recent rash of pedophilia, that one can argue about. Our priest is mortified, and doesn’t like to think about it.

    Every night Anna and I lie in the dark for “talking time.” I learned this from my friend Carrie, who defined talking time as a penalty-free half hour during which a child can confide secrets, such as whether she’s being offered illegal substances. Anna talks of one thing: Domitilla. Today Domitilla was worse at math than Anna (inconceivable, frankly).… Domitilla’s mother is nicer than I am, because Domitilla gets candy bars and chips for lunch.… Yesterday Domitilla wore a pink dress (withering scorn). No drugs, just pink dresses. Yawn.

    Our local covered market is a visual feast. Arrangements of feathers—presumably donated by previous occupants—nestle decoratively among the plucked pheasants. Grapes hang fromgnarled stands of grape wood, and fresh radishes are arranged in a shallow vertical box, greenery up the middle, red bulbs flashing like jewels along the sides. Today I ignored the pretty produce and, overcome by curiosity, brought home a black radish, a wrinkled and rather bendy phallic horror. Investigating it on the Internet, I discover that flaccidity is no better in a radish than it is (ahem) in a man.

    A huge Ferris wheel, the kind with glassed-in, heated compartments, has been erected at one end of the Champs-Élysées. The children have taken several rides, so now only one thing really interests them: the VIP car, which has smoked glass to protect its Very Important People. Anna is convinced that, if she’s lucky, one day she’ll see Malia and Sasha Obama spinning above Paris.

    As winter tightens its grip, it feels as though we emerge into a slightly darker street every morning. Peering into lighted windows of hotels on our walk to the Métro, we see fewer breakfast guests every week.

    My French friend Sylvie and I went to a wonderful little museum today, the Musée Nissim de Camondo. Moïse de Camondo was a fantastically wealthy Jewish banker and a collector of art and eighteenth-century furniture. In 1911 he had a mansion built to house his collections, basing its design on that of the Petit Trianon at Versailles. He snapped up furniture when great estates were dissolved, even buying paneling from the apartment of theCount de Menou, and then lived there for years in the midst of truly royal splendor. I find his obsession fascinating and sad; he could certainly decorate his rooms with Queen Marie Antoinette’s vases and re-create the atmosphere of eighteenth-century nobility—but as a Jew and a banker, he could never have been part of it.

    Today I passed an open-faced workshop, in the front of which a man was shaping metal with a saw. Bright orange sparks spun from his saw, flying in a high arc to land on the jeans of the man behind him, on two chairs, and on another workbench. They seemed like bright snow, unthreatening, disappearing on contact.

    Today Domitilla got a
“bravissima”
in Italian grammar and Anna got only a
“brava.”
So Anna promptly burst into tears. The poor teacher, who likely had no idea of the various tensions in the room, gave a speech about how wonderful Anna is, which my ungrateful daughter declared to be boring and embarrassing.

    We bought a Christmas tree yesterday. In Paris they are sold with trunks whittled to points and jammed into stands made from logs. I approve, as this obviates the annual blasphemy provoked by complicated tree stands. But I also disapprove, because without water, how long will this tree keep its needles? Still, it has very kindly given the living room its elusive smell of the deep forest.

    Anna suffered through two years of