AT THE GREEN MOUSE CAFE
Pull me a cup of je m'en fiche
Away from the tourist trails, French cafés cease to be a subject of wonder for visitors and revert to an amenity; somewhere to dawdle over a cafe creme, read, do business, meet friends, think existential thoughts, “deciding”, for example (to quote the wonderful Jack Gilbert), “what the woman is like according/to whether she truly was happy when it rained/all that day. If her dead father was/the ambassador and whether she really came/or just wanted to please.”
One of my favourites is Montmartre’s La Souris Verte -The Green Mouse. It’s situated on an unfashionable street in one of the city’s least branché districts – but, conveniently for me, directly opposite the place where I store my books and associated detritus.
The skylight over its high back room, its walls of unplastered brick, the bare-board floor, unscrubbed since the administration of Charles de Gaulle, and some rugged stools and tables, bolted together from baulks of squared-off timber and looking suspiciously like recycled work-benches, suggest the space’s one-time industrial use; possibly as a sweat shop, a suspicion supported by a few tables adapted from old sewing machine benches, complete with foot treadles incorporating the Singer logo in wrought iron.
Some nights there's a band, but mostly the sound system mumbles music chosen by whomever is behind the bar : thumping techno one day, the next some belle époque art songs by Reynaldo Hahn or the mournful contralto of Nina Simone.
To emphasise that this is no trendy boulevardier hangout, there used to be, in the corner next to the bar, a stringless guitar and an ancient weighing machine with a broken glass. They disappeared during the Covid shut-down but not the air of languid desuetude central to its charm. Lately, a large screen tv has appeared, but, at least when I’m there, it runs only moody animated images of doleful people in deserted urban spaces to music so discreet it barely deserves the name. Suits me, friend.
Once, I arrived in the afternoon to find the floor strewn with dead leaves. Had they blown in? Hardly. The door was closed, the sidewalk clear, with not a tree in sight.
I raised an eyebrow to the girl polishing glasses behind the bar. She shrugged.
"C'est pour le beaujolais nouveau."
Of course – the leaves were from grape vines. How better to advertise the arrival of the new wine while signifying that you don’t really give a shit?
You have to love Paris.
.