Sunday Tea

If you are ever in the neighborhood of 37 Rue de Bucherie, Paris on a sunday afternoon, stop at George Whitman's Shakespeare & Company.

If you are lucky, you will be invited to climb the stairs to the fourth floor and take tea with the owner. The table is large, the tea is served in baby food jars and the walls are papered in books. In one corner stands the world's most comfortable camp bed, piled high with thin old blankets and comfortably worn pillows. The primary color palette, from books to table, chairs to shelves, pillows to blankets is brown, splashed with yellow and faded red.

If you are lucky, Parisians and expatriates will crowd into the room, to practice their English or refresh a memory of home. One will argue that you cannot be American, because your accent sounds British (the side effect of too many Victorian novels maybe?), another will be kind enough to correct your bad French, recommended must-see's of French cinema, and share his hopes of graduate school.

If you are (un)lucky, four o'clock will come quickly and the owner himself, 91 year old George Whitman, will storm into the room, shut off all the lights and throw you out by sending you down the stairs through the black door.

If you were there, Sunday, 17 October 2004, thank you for being so kind to a muddled traveler.