Conversations With Dead People
During the Covid-19 lockdowns, my mind often wandered; to places I’d visited and to places I still wished to venture. It was a strange and unsettling time, where there was nothing to do but wash your hands, stick swabs up your nose and test your fragile senses on homemade banana bread. If the cornonavirus didn’t get you then the cabin fever would, and at my most delirious I started daydreaming about somewhere completely unexpected: Paris.
Back then I’d been to Paris precisely three times before. The first to visit Disneyland as a child, where I’d taken ill during the parade and crouched queasily on the floor of an overcrowded train back to town; the second to deliver my unsuspecting mother to a surprise birthday party; and the third on a short layover mostly spent in gridlocked traffic. In fact, it took so long to journey from Orly into the centre and then back out to Charles de Gaulle that I would’ve missed my connection had it not been cancelled.
Don’t get me wrong, I adore France. Nice is a city I’ve revisited on no fewer than four occasions, first to meet friends from university and then to dog-sit for them while they were away on business. And I always look forward to hearing the French language wherever it’s spoken—whether that’s in the country itself or outside its borders in Monaco, Luxembourg or Switzerland. But Paris is different; Paris is the opposite. Paris is pretentious, polluted and overpopulated. Every time I’ve visited, the city’s been overcast, crowded and congested to the point that I couldn’t wait to leave.
But in lockdown—and especially after three lockdowns—desperation set in. As the third finally relented I would’ve happily gone anywhere. I’d walked just about every road in Dundee at that point, and as the restrictions had fluctuated nationally I’d exhausted several other Scottish cities as well. In my impatience, trips were conceived and then cancelled as circumstances changed, devastating dreams of Bucharest, Zermatt and Gibraltar. But it had always been worth the disappointment just to have something, somewhere to look forward to.
Into this deprivation and burgeoning despondency stepped Emily. Netflix had been a godsend in lockdown, one of those digital innovations—along with Twitter and Zoom—that made the isolation less intolerable. As much as I tried to fill my time with home-working, creative hobbies and walking long loops around my postcode, I also turned to streaming when tired or forced to rain-check. Although never exactly compelling, the series did cast a certain charm. And while Emily’s Paris bore absolutely no resemblance to mine, its propaganda was so persuasive I found myself asking if our two versions of the City of Love/Hate could possibly co-exist or perhaps cancel each other out. Was mine as unrealistically negative as hers was positive?
Even more influential during this time, however, was Instagram. It wasn’t so much the ubiquitous attic apartments, street cafes and Eiffel Towers that caught my eye but a specific account I’d started following a few months into lockdown—that of Benoît Gallot, curator of Père-Lachaise, a vast necropolis in Paris’ 20th arrondissement celebrated for its celebrity internments, grandiose mausoleums and—ever since Parisians locked down with the rest of us—a family of urban foxes who, post-pandemic, were thankfully granted leave to remain.
Keeping vigilant in the company of the contagious living, I’d found solace among the dead of Dundee, in graveyards I knew such as The Howff and Balgay as well as some I didn’t, from the forgotten Old Mains Churchyard in Caird Park to the previously out-of-bounds Old Burial Ground in Broughty Ferry. They also provided destinations to aim for when regulations allowed, starting with long walks to Vicarsford Cemetery in Fife and later Greyfriar’s Kirkyard in Perth, Old Calton Burial Ground in Edinburgh and Allenvale in Aberdeen. They were resting places—final or otherwise—and thanks to increasingly abundant wildlife a refreshing reminder of what it was to be free.
Still reluctant to dedicate an entire trip to a destination I didn’t honestly expect to enjoy, I waited until I had an opportunity to nip in from elsewhere. And so, when I found myself in Brussels with some time to spare and a storm to shelter from, it seemed like an obvious decision to make the €15, four-hour FlixBus journey. After all, I’d spent similar time and money last year travelling from Faro in Portugal to Seville in Spain and hadn’t grudged or regretted it for a second. In the event, however, four hours only took us as far as the ring road, with an additional 30 minutes spent inching from the suburbs to Bercy-Seine bus station.
Despite this unexpected delay, I still had all afternoon to explore my destination—having set off as early as I could stomach given this was effectively my summer holiday and I’d specifically timed it to avoid a week of 6am starts. First, however, I had to navigate the Métro. I tried the nearest station only to encounter not so much a queue as a scrum, as Parisians jostled to make reservations for the most important meal of the day: lunch. Naturally, I thought I knew better and tried Gare de Bercy instead, only to return ten minutes later, ticketless and with my tail between my legs—lest it got trampled on in the chaos. One hour in and it was clear the characteristic congestion and overcrowding hadn’t improved.
Once paid up and admitted through the Mètro barriers, I considered my options. I hadn’t eaten since leaving Brussels and so didn’t want to head straight for Père-Lachaise and risk disturbing the dead with a rumbling stomach. When weighing up whether to revisit Paris, another attraction that’d caught my eye was Musée d'Orsay, as famous for its eminently Instagrammable clock window as for any of its exhibited art. Sadly, it was closed on Mondays—the only day open to me before I travelled northeast to Antwerp—and therefore would have to wait until another pandemic planted another seed and prompted another surprise return. And so, after scanning the other stops on Line 6, I set off for Trocadéro.
I’d yet to see the Eiffel Tower under a brilliant blue sky—and still haven’t—but as the carriage trundled over the Seine there were discernible cracks in the cloud cover. Backlit from Trocadéro, I recrossed the river on foot, taking the multilevel road/rail bridge that featured so memorably in Christopher Nolan’s Inception, and circled the tower from the street. Any thought of paying for admission was put to bed when the rain arrived and drove me back inside—as I wished I too could bend the city to my will to hasten my escape. At Bir-Hakeim, one of the network’s many raised stations—a favourite—I set out for Gare du Nord. It was time for lunch.
Ever since my first trip to Nice and its own Gare du Nord, I’ve sought out the bakery chain Paul at every available opportunity—both inside and outside of France, with international branches in London, Luxembourg City, Faro and most recently Brussels. Here, as ever, I ordered my usual: tomato, mozzarella and pesto on olive bread, a slice of flan naturel and a large latte macchiato. I’m a creature of habit and, along with Coffee Fellows and Brezelkönig, it’s one of my favourite cafe chains on the continent. Visiting the station also gave me a chance to reconsider my route back.
I still had hours left in Paris until my bus back, but while I had no intention of rushing the cemetery I’d come so far to see I’d already exhausted the few other things I wanted to do. La Chapelle, the nearest Métro station, was on the same line as Père-Lachaise, and taking the train back to Brussels would not only cut my travel time by two thirds versus the bus but give me the option to stop along the way. Amiens and Lille stood between the two capitals, and over lunch I settled on an evening in the latter. It was also considerably cheaper to buy an immediate departure using the machines than it had been to book an advanced ticket on Trainline.
Certain I’d made the right decision, I finally set off for Père-Lachaise. The cemetery is Paris’ largest—covering 110 acres and comprising 97 divisions—and can also be reached via stations Phillip Auguste and Alexandre Dumas, all on Line 2. But y he eponymous station is iconic, and before I escaped the crowded streets I stopped outside the main entrance to photograph the signage over the top of the stairs. Hector Guimard designed all of the original entrances but these days only a fraction remain intact, with his distinctive lettering—since dubbed Style Métro—and organic, cast iron structures seeming to sprout from the street. Lamps on stalks illuminate the arching Métropolitain signs overhead. I can’t explain why but they’ve always brought to mind War Of The Worlds.
I found a bench just inside the nearest gate and stopped to finish my coffee, waiting for a tour group gathering around the information board to disembark before consulting it myself and choosing a path of my own. I had a list of graves and monuments I wanted to see, eschewing celebrities such as Édith Piaf, Oscar Wild and Gaspard Ulliel to instead focus on the statues that had achieved an infamy of their own. As the heavens ominously opened, I sought out George Rodenbach, who appears to be climbing out of his own headstone; Fernand Arbelot, who is holding his own severed head; and the Raspal family, whose mausoleum is stalked by Death himself.
I never did find Aberlot’s grave, or indeed the family of foxes teased on Instragram and showcased in a small but inspiring exhibition on Avenue Principale. It’s a wonder I found anything in the maze of mausoleums, more than once arriving abruptly and unexpectedly—but never impatiently—at roundabout Casimir Perier when I thought I was in a different quadrant altogether. Far from cursing my bad luck or sulking over the suboptimal weather conditions, as I might normally have done, I was in my element—the driving rain bringing the necropolis to life as the solemn statues appeared to weep real tears.
In the end, my favourite grave wasn’t even one I’d come looking for. Close to where Aberlot should’ve lain, I came across a pair of anonymous nudes slouched nonchalantly on an unmarked plinth. With anguish etched on so many stoney faces, their conversational air and relaxed body language felt worlds apart. I could completely relate to their ease in the midst of such overwhelming sadness. In addition to being places of mourning and remembrance for the dead, cemeteries are also tranquil and restorative spaces for the living—and I was relieved that this was as true of one of France’s most popular tourist attractions as it was of some of the more unsung kirkyards back home. I thought of how lucky I was to still be visiting different cemeteries and not to be a permanent resident of just one.
From Gare du Nord, a beautiful station in its own right, I took the train to Lille-Flanders, making the journey with OUIGO—which translates as “yes, go” and reads “we go”—a low cost subsidiary of SNCF Group which sadly lacks the parent company’s joyful jingle. Bone dry and with the cloud promising to clear, I liked Lille immediately. Free from the rush and crush of Paris, I felt able to stop and savour my surroundings. I found a branch of Paul just outside Grand Place, beside the Lille Opera, and watched the more manageable, more coherent hustle and bustle at close of play as people left work and thoughts turned to pleasure.
It was a beautiful evening and Lille proved a perfectly lovely place to spend it. After sourcing a third-storey view and a few minutes of phone charge from McDonald’s, I set about exploring on foot, starting at Theatre Place with the spectacular, polychrome chamber of commerce. Housed in the Neo-Flemish Nouvelle Bource building, it’s a highly decorative confection complete with towering belfry and gilded clock—as though a patissier had taken an expert hand to Aberdeen Town House and piped it with delicate creams and decadent fondants.
From there, I circled outwards, taking in Vieille Bource, the stock exchange’s previous, ever-so-slightly less ostentatious home; Palais des Beaux Arts, the city’s ornate art museum; and Porte de Paris, a monumental arch atop a roundabout. It was a far cry from the chaotic Arc de Triomphe, though this was probably because the road had been dug up and the traffic rerouted. Its thunder was also somewhat stolen by Beffroi de Lille, a bell tower that was as remarkably tall as it was slim. I longed to climb to the top and look out over the city, especially now that the sky had brightened just as sunset beckoned. Alas, at this hour McDonald’s would have to do.
And so I returned to Belgium. Somewhere in the multiverse, I caught the train and made it back within minutes of that original FlixBus. But as it happened, I missed it and had to entertain myself for 90 minutes in an incongruous Westfield shopping centre with only a carton of Carrefour chouquettes for company. I’m always sad to leave France but on this occasion knew I’d soon be back: my annual, now decade-old tradition of trying a new Christmas market would this year take me to Strasbourg, via Basel and Freiburg im Breigau. But while the same still couldn’t be said of Paris, Emily wasn’t finished with it yet and Père-Lachaise wouldn’t be going anywhere either—despite Monsieur Rodenbach‘s best efforts to escape.