Francoise Sagan’s bald question, “Are you in love? What are you reading?”, always strikes you as you whizz into the city of amorality and sensualism that made Paris so seductive once upon a time. It’s still beautiful, spoilt and narcissistic, and forces you to be balletic and stylish, not stuffy and prissy. It’s the two questions that define Paris for me, especially in our neighbourhood of St Germain, on the Left Bank, where the phantom of an intense, gripping and ethereal past of angst and existentialism still stalks the cafes and boulevards of this famed arrondissement. Today, for the hordes of clickbait humanoids swarming around, life is meaningless unless your Instagram pics have at least a 1,000 likes. Why am I here, is the panic cry. And then cease to exist!
It’s without existentialist dread that Christine Van N. has always opened her bon chic apartment and pit stop in Rue de Seine for us over the years. Typically, her drawing room magically turns into a salon (earlier, it used to be Fabrizio P. who had giddy parties in his giant drawing room where we just rolled in from his guest room); the friendly restaurateur, an art restorer girlfriend, the formidable madame plantology beauty therapist—keeper of all secrets of the building, sometimes a former ambassador, even a present one who’s just been recalled from his posting for aligning with his host country, the all-time favourite sound engineer from Lido, the photographer who’s just learnt flying to get aerial pics, a runaway wife whose boyfriend’s ex has put out a contract on him, an ex-aunt-in-law who runs the longest-running photography festival in Cambodia and her young crew. CVN has none of the Parisian angst as she nonchalantly orders Lebanese cuisine (her present favourite) for her soirees, or simply opens up jars of foie gras, fig compote and baguettes.