A hard place that goes soft in a certain light

My father spent most of his time at the Meurice, so I walked the streets of Paris alone. For a week I seemed to carry a stone in my stomach, or in my throat, but I was too enchanted by the place to feel homesick for long – yet not quite at home in that extraordinary city. How different the facade here from Baltimore’s scrubbed doorsteps, how different the anticipation of what will pass behind the facade.
It was a grey time, midwinter, and Paris is a grey city, the fortress color of metal and stone: a hard place that goes soft in a certain light. The light shifts, and with it the ambience. The sun may break through for no reason from a slit of unexpected heaven, a passing cloud will turn the gun-metal- grey to pearl. A sense of elation might lie at the end of an obscure cul-de-sac, or, exploring a new quarter, my heart could shrink at the sudden onset of dark.
That first winter was dark, admittedly. (How much darker were the winters during the war?) Nevertheless a peculiar light filters through the dark, early and late. Paris will show herself when she chooses. There is a dark curtain one afternoon or evening; the curtain becomes a veil, the veil is drawn for an instant (a bearded man lifts his hat to a homely woman on the omnibus – why?) when the dark comes down. Or the grey sky will close in, with clouds low enough to touch, then lift lightly as a pigeon wings its way across the Seine.

Disappearances
William Wiser
1980

uit: A place in the world called Paris - Steven Barclay (samenst.)