magic

Thursday came and with it the end of the summer.  

It suddenly seemed like all the magic disappeared from Paris.  The sun hid behind thick layers of clouds, the wind blew dry leaves and old newspapers in circles, the cafe got hooded with plastic awnings, the metro stations were bursting with rushing Parisians who just returned from vacation.  Lines were everywhere, for lunch, for the market, for a ride in the park.

Adam was feeling very anxious before the first day of school.  All his questions found me in a loss of words or at least a loss of the enthusiasm I had for the last couple of weeks; "why do I have to go to this school, why French, why uniform, why now, can we go home? I miss Yoko" 

His first day, a two hour introduction was about to start.  Pete, Adam and I arrived only to find that all the other confused parents were dismissed leaving their dearest ones with 14 other kids some of who spoke french, some english and some neither.

We were the third parents to arrive.  Each kid chose a seat and without much explanation from the teacher, started to draw the flag of the country they came from.  I could see over the shoulder of the girl, sitting on the other row from Adam, the beginning of the Israeli flag -- she is probably one of the kids that speak neither languages.

We were soon encouraged with a short directive from Madam Knight the principal, accompanied with a warm yet professional smile to leave the premises and return at the end of the two hours to pick up our child.  Sitting at the cafe across the street we reread the thin School regulations booklet again, trying to fish for more information, to no avail.

We arrived early, waiting outside with a few other confused parents exchanging unanswered questions "Is that where we always pick them up?" "Will light gray pants pass for the uniform?" "Where are they going to eat lunch tomorrow?" "What was the name of their teacher?"

 

The kids arrived in a row (as Madaline's books came to mind) each shaking the hand of madam Gros the teacher, saying: "a demain" -- see you tomorrow -- as if they did it many times before.

Adam was still worried, missing his old friends and his old school -- although acknowledged that his teacher is very nice and that it was not as bad as he thought.

"How about we rent Tom and Jerry tonight in French tonight and get some chocolate on the way home?" I tried desperately.  Adam's smile spread and covered his whole face -- It was as if the present moment was pushing the past and the future off the edges making as much room possible for the chocolate.

At the store after a quick chat about Obama and Sarkozy and which one is the "real" best coffee in France, we got our chocolate for free and continued to the video store. There the owner, a very french looking man, showed us a picture of himself as a young man performing at the Olympia theater in Paris.  

"What did you do there?" Adam asked.  "Ohhhhhh" he said half sighing to an old memory half inviting us to ask more.  We did, and he did not answer, only asked Adam to blow on his hand and started to pull feathers out of his palm.  The feathers kept on changing colors then turned into coins that came off his ears while he was spitting black balls. Stuff disappeared and returned, was lost and found in the least possible places.  Adam pulled his dropped jaws back only managing to ask... "but... how do you do that?"

"I don know.  Zis just happan to me" he said with a big laugh.  He seemed like a completely different man than the one who managed this video shop.  Customers were waiting in line for their movie but he was back at the Olympia theater.  We almost forgot the video we came for.

 Adam blew for the last time on his hand and the video appeared in front of us.

The magic returned to Paris -- at least for now.