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PARIS; MONTMARTRE. It must have been that special quality in the light which beguiled me into attentiveness. Paris! How it hurts me now to think of it... I’m a simple man; made alert to the present by a nostalgia for places; the smells, tastes, sounds and emotions dredged up by my enraptured senses. I loved my business trips to Montmartre; its bustle, the thrill of being in a place with so many synchronous levels of history; its sunlit squares and the fragrance of its hillside stores; the feeling of being simultaneously in a village and in the middle of the city. But most of all, I loved its women. Or, more accurately, particular aspects of them and these were to be my downfall — as the exit of a humid summer morning at the entrance to Abbesses Metro station in Montmartre was to demonstrate. I heard them whispering silkily as I ascended the steps from the platforms and they overtook me with a pendulous swinging of hips. “Hello Sam,” they said. “Follow us at your peril.” They were luscious and willowy; clad in pleated cotton; stockinged in sheer black; as long as a summer Sunday. And they were talking to me. The sole of one of my boots lost its footing, slid back down a step and I floundered; crashing gracelessly to my knees. I swivelled around, fumbling for the brass banister and dropped my bag before slithering down the entire remaining flight on my backside. I heard their chuckling subside into the noonday sun as I inspected my bruises. I can hear women’s legs talking to me, God help me. *
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