A Few Days in Paris Chapter 12
Grissom woke in a confused state; the tickle against his chin did not have its normal feel and his feet did not find the usual warm toes and ankles. He opened his eyes to find a dark curly head belonging to Eli and wedged against his back was another head of hair belonging to Will. He grunted as he moved but got no response from either child; even as he pushed up and crawled over the two sleeping boys, neither came awake. Instead, as if they had been bound by his presence, both stretched and spread out to fill the space he had just vacated.
The apartment was quiet and dark as he walked around—he saw folded clothes and shoes drying by the sink so everyone had returned. He quietly opened the door of a bedroom and saw Ava and Sara sleeping in the same narrow bunk bed. He grinned and almost closed the door before he realized he had no room on his bed. He sat down on the empty bottom bunk, springs squeaking as he did so. He heard covers move and knew Sara was awake.
"It's me—pushed out of my own bed," he whispered.
He heard a quiet hum sound and thought she had gone back to sleep, but, as he pushed back covers, her feet touched the floor and her arm reached for him. "Move over."
He pushed against the wall and held the covers until she crawled beside him, the bed squeaking again.
"Who fell in first?" Sara asked as she spooned against him, her back against his chest as his arm wrapped around her, settling his hand on her belly.
Grissom chuckled. "Will. Eli jumped in to save him. It was quite a show. How was dessert?"
"Wonderful." She turned her head and kissed in his direction. "This is a great trip."
"It is," he whispered just before he kissed her neck and breathed in her scent, saying "I love you."
"Love you, too." Sara snuggled into the pillow, finding his hand. "Missed you tonight."
Grissom's hand on her belly had moved underneath her pajama pants. "What's this?" He fingered the lace waistband of her panties.
Sara silently chuckled. "The blue ones—the girls were so thrilled—you should have seen them," she whispered. "Catherine was doubled over laughing."
He moved enough to start the bed squeaking. "This damn bed!" he complained.
Sara reached for his hand and brought it to her waist. "Cool down, hot stuff," she giggled and pressed her butt against his groin. "You'll have to wait for another night."
His hand moved to her breast and closed around it. "I'll never get enough of you," he said as he kissed her again before nestling his face against her hair, sighing deeply, hugging her close, and, within minutes, was asleep.
~~Point Zero and Notre-Dame Cathedral sit as the bull's eye of most Paris tourist maps, yet the Grissom group had yet to walk across the brass marker or enter the front doors of the church—waiting for the early morning date stamped on tickets they had ordered for a tour of the two hundred foot tall bell towers. Even though Bizzy, Sara, and Gil had read the true, historical story of the building, Ava and Annie wanted to talk about beautiful Esmeralda and Will wanted to act like the bell ringer, Quasimodo—impressions based on a Disney movie made before they were born. Eli went along—much more interested in later history and churches held little interest for him—but thinking the gargoyles were worthy of a climb up the tower. For Bizzy, she loved churches, she knew the saints, their symbols, and their stories; here in Paris, Saint Denis had a particular great story. It wasn't the religion that fascinated her—it was the long process of faith of the people who perpetuated religion.
Catherine was the official photographer for the trip—her camera and one belonging to Sara held hundreds of photos—and this morning she continued with her pictorial diary of Paris. Notre Dame and its plaza was a setting for a thousand photographs and she took many. Sara handed her camera to each child with instructions to take ten photographs before passing the camera to the next one.
They were among the first in line for the tower tour—nearly four hundred tightly spiraled steps to the top. Everyone was panting as they neared the top and Catherine said one word for each of the last fifty steps which caused everyone to snicker and laugh.
"You're in a church, Aunt Catherine," Eli said as he laughed at her word.
"Yes, I am, and I am too old to be doing this!" She said after stopping for a few minutes on a small landing.
Eli and Bizzy moved behind her and kept one hand on her back, promising to catch her or push her as needed, but she kept repeating the same breathless word with every step. Seconds before dropping from exhaustion, the first person stepped onto the terrace seeing the view of Paris. "Wow!" seemed to be the only word to describe what they saw.
A glorious view of Paris lay below them sparkling in the sun, looking like a tiny miniature city with ant sized cars and comma sized people twenty stories below them. Finding landmarks, seeing flying buttresses from above, and examining gargoyles—skinny and hunched or fat and chomping on grapes and chicken—made the claustrophobic climb worth every step.
Will became Quasimodo as he jumped around the balcony and mocked ringing the huge bell above his head. When the adjacent tower bell began to ring, they felt the vibration to their toes covering ears as they tried to muffle sound.
Inside the cathedral, they joined hundreds of tourists, even as the first visitors of the day, in the interior of the cross-shaped church, saw Joan of Arc in her armor, and took time to search the rose shaped window for a tiny baby Jesus at its center. As the others moved through the spacious building, Grissom slowed with Bizzy as she opened the small gate of one of the chapels for the saints. He dropped coins into the collection box and picked up two candles, handing one to her. She smiled as they placed their lighted candles in a holder.
They ambled around the outside, finding the statue of a young architect among the apostles, before crossing the street to the Memorial de la Deportation. Here, everyone became quiet as they read the inscription on the floor, "They went into the earth and they did not return." Slowly, the group walked along the hallway lined with 200,000 lighted crystals, one for each French citizen who died in Nazi concentration camps. Sara pointed above the exit to the last message given to visitors, "Forgive, but never forget."
Once outside, sunlight brought smiles and the seemingly endless energy of children and food became the destination as a previous tour guide had mentioned the excellent ice cream found at a small place near Notre Dame, and it was. The variety of selections—lemon, pear, strawberry, chocolate, three or four different vanillas—meant decisions and changing of minds before everyone got served. They sat side by side above the Seine eating ice cream before lunch in the shadow of Paris' architectural centerpiece feeling very pleased and happy with life.
They eventually moved, walking along the river with no particular destination. They crossed the river to the area of twisting streets and narrow buildings of medieval times. Grissom asked for their tour book, flipping pages until he found an address.
"There's a pub near here—we need to find it," he said as he pointed to a few old building leaning every which way. He led the way, children lined up in single file behind him. Sara glanced at Catherine who managed to hide her laugh behind a cough and her hand.
At the front of a very old building, he stopped. A sign above the door advertised the place as La Guillotine Pub.
Eli was practically jumping with excitement. "I read about this place! Dad, it has a real guillotine! Can we see it?" Will joined him, making a slicing motion with his hand.
Grissom opened the door to find an almost empty bar, only a few customers this early in the day, and all of them turned toward the noise at the door. A man behind the counter, obviously accustomed to tourists, motioned for them to enter.
"Bonjour!" He called.
Grissom waved and extended the same greeting. "The guillotine," he said, "may we see it?"
The man's French disappeared. "Certainly, come in—girls, too!"
They got to see the guillotine, and with the barman as their guide, they saw the iron hand cuffs on the walls, the chains on the staircase, and the barred windows. The basement room was a small, rock walled area, set up for music now, but, as the man explained, it once held prisoners waiting for the—his hand moved across his own throat. The children watched in wide-eyed amazement of his story and what they saw.
When Grissom offered to pay for the tour, the man waved a hand, "No, no, it is always a pleasure to see children interested in history!" He shook hands with each one, saying "you return one day, yes, for our music," his hand waved to the bar, "and for a beer!"
After lunch at a sidewalk café, Sara brought out the tour book again. "We have one full day left—we need to decide what we want to see!" She unfolded a city map across the table.
"The catacombs!" Eli suggested.
Bizzy spoke up, "Pere-Lachaise and Sacre-Coeur."
"Shopping!" Ava added, "I promise not to walk away—there's so much to see! I don't even have to spend money!"
Annie agreed with her sister.
Sara looked at Will who said, "I do not want to shop."
Catherine said, "We'll do the shopping—I need to buy some things and if I have good help," she looked at Ava and Annie, "I can get it done in a day."
Grissom nodded at the two boys, "Catacombs it is, and maybe a side trip to the sewers." Grins broke across his sons faces.
Bizzy was smiling. Her mother said, "That means you and me for the church and cemetery."
The rest of the afternoon, they spent in the Musee d'Orsay with its art of bright colors, sun filled scenes of flowers, fields, and cafés from Manet, Monet, Renoir, Degas, van Gogh, Cezanne, and Gauguin. They browsed the large rooms finding paintings everyone liked, a few no one enjoyed, others the boys liked or the girls found interesting, and they learned to squint eyes for some, to stand away from others, and to study some very closely for tiny details. The most interesting exhibit for all of them was—not paintings or statues—the model of Paris underneath a glass floor. They spent over an hour finding buildings and parks they had visited, including the boat pond near their apartment.
In no hurry, they found their way back, stopping for food for dinner, buying a few souvenirs from street venders as street lights came on and Parisians began to fill the night streets.
A/N: Enjoy & review! Away for two days, back with the ending chapters in a couple of days...Reviews, always appreciated! So leave us a few words!
