Paris in Love (47 page)

I am very fond of the larger-than-life sculpture of Winston Churchill found on the avenue bearing his name and inscribed with
WE SHALL NEVER SURRENDER
on its plinth. The sculptor, Jean Cardot, deliberately didn’t smooth his clay (now translated
into bronze), leaving it rough and choppy. It’s as if Cardot took Churchill’s voice, that obstinate, gruff intelligence of his, and created a body from it. I like to walk by and give the prime minister an imaginary salute.

I’ve arrived in Bochum, Germany, to give a talk about Renaissance London at the German Shakespeare Society conference. Alessandro will join me in a few days. The train from Paris to Cologne took me through farmland where clusters of delicate white windmills stood like storks, chattering together on a hilltop.

Before I got on the train, Alessandro assured me that everyone—but
everyone
—in Germany speaks English. This may be true in Berlin or Hamburg, but it is definitely not true in Bochum, a not-large city in North Rhine–Westphalia. In the first restaurant I wandered into with my friend Steven, another American professor, there was a panic when neither of us knew any German, nor did the staff in front speak English. At length the cook emerged from the kitchen in his apron and translated the menu for us. The next day, the same thing happened in a different restaurant: only the cook spoke English. Perhaps cooks are particularly adept at languages, or perhaps they are more nomadic than the average Bochum resident.

On Saturday I had a free morning, so I wandered around Bochum. The city was having a cultural festival, with stands lining the main streets. I was fascinated to see three stout and
highly respectable German ladies of a certain age at a beer stand, gripping large steins. Mind you, it was only ten o’clock. My German colleagues later told me that the ladies were enjoying
Frühschoppen
, or an “early glass”—reserved for special occasions.

My hotel backs onto a park with a lovely lake. Yesterday I saw a cormorant at the very top of a tree, poised against the sky with his wings spread. I watched him for at least five minutes as he stayed there, motionless, drying his wings after a swoop into the water. He held his head high, as if he were meditating on something far more serious than the fish population of a lake in Bochum, Germany.

Alessandro arrived last night, and crossing the park near our hotel on the way to dinner, we walked straight into a bunny party. There must have been at least twenty of them fooling around, far too busy having fun to pay attention to us. I could not help thinking about the utter joy at the end of
The Velveteen Rabbit
, when the toy rabbit is made real because the Boy loved him so much, and he finds himself in the woods, in the moonlight, playing with real rabbits.

Our hotel here in Bochum has a little stand in the lobby called Struppi’s Buffet, with food and drink for visiting dogs. Other things I love about this hotel: the bathroom lights turn on only if you put your room card in a slot. Electricity is saved, and I haven’t misplaced my card once. What’s more, in the shower you
choose, via computer, the precise degree of warm water you’d like: no edging the knobs infinitesimally to the right or left, trying to achieve a tolerable temperature.

I have been hearing fascinating stories about the reunification of East and West Germany from the point of view of German Shakespeareans. Before the fall of the Berlin Wall, in 1989, there were two Shakespeare societies in the two Germanys, with two presidents, two boards of directors, two essay collections, and two conferences. We academics care ferociously about our hierarchies—yet when the Wall fell, the two separate fiefdoms had to become one. These days, the reunited Shakespeareans have a cautiously sanguine air, like a couple who remarried after years of estrangement.

While I was listening to studious, thoughtful papers addressing Shakespeare’s work, Alessandro tried out a swimming pool recommended by the hotel. On arrival he discovered that it was, in fact, a “textile-free” spa, a rather prudish description for a place designed for frolicking without clothing. The spa contained a dazzling number of saunas, over fifteen, each offering a different experience—the “Himalayan sauna,” for example, followed by the “TV sauna.” To my mind, the sheer number of saunas suggested erotic activity, but Alessandro strayed into the “Sahara” and found it already occupied by a respectable (if naked) middle-aged couple, who were merely sitting about and sweating together. The swimming pool was kidney-shaped and clearly meant for lounging rather than laps. He wandered about intrepidly, clutching his towel, but said later that it would have been
more fun if I’d been there. Apparently everyone else was in pairs. In case you’re wondering, I refused to make a visit.

On the train back to Paris, we found ourselves behind an American couple fighting viciously because, it emerged, he had made fun of her gait. (I would like to add in my defense that it was impossible not to eavesdrop, given the energetic way they conducted this conversation.) She was plump and miserable, and I felt for her, although her reliance on the F-word as noun, verb, and adjective was grating. They had been married three years, it seemed. Finally, she hissed, “You are not so important in my life,” and left. And then I truly felt sorry for her, since she felt that way about the man she’d married. Alessandro
is
that important in my life. (Though, for the record, he wouldn’t dream of making fun of the way I walk. He has a strong survival instinct.)