Photo © Liat Levita 2024 with permission
We'll always have Paris.
-Rick to Ilsa in Casablanca
Screenplay credits: Julius J. Epstein, Philip G. Epstein, Howard Koch.
Based on Everybody Comes to Rick's by Joan Allison and Murray Burnett
My friend Liat, who lives in England, texted me from the Eurostar to say she was on her way to Paris to celebrate her birthday. Her husband surprised her. What a gift! Memories of my trips to Paris surged, and I wanted to be there, and stay there. It was because of the election and the decade I spent overseas away from America. I asked myself: What are you doing here? Why did you come back?
I was alone with this rhetorical question. My husband feels more American than European—he's a third generation American, whereas I am a first generation American raised in a European household. But feeling American, whatever that means, it was not the only reason we returned. We had a young child and we wanted her to have grandparents. I never had grandparents. So we returned to America, relinquishing our jobs and flat, many of our accumulated possessions, our friends, and our colleagues. But we were pleased that our daughter would have dual citizenship and grandparents. She is now married to a man with dual citizenship and she crosses borders with ease. "I'm relieved we live in New York State," I said to her during our first post-election conversation, hoping this would provide some comfort to both of us. But then I channeled John Lennon and thought: Imagine if there were no countries and no religions and no terrorists and no soldiers and no bombs and no drones.
"We're worried about the tariffs," Jessica, another UK friend, wrote when I asked her about the British reaction to the election. "And also our new Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, once compared Trump to Hitler." Surprisingly, therefore, Starmer was one of the first leaders to congratulate Trump on his win: "I know that the UK-US special relationship will continue to prosper on both sides of the Atlantic for years to come," he said.
Blah blah, blah blah blah.
Well, we'll always have Paris, I thought to myself, or the image of Paris, or the metaphor of Paris, the city of light and the birthplace of the enlightenment. If the enlightenment returns to America, will she be a 18th century lady stripping her petticoats in public, or will she be a woman in a burgundy pant suit taking the oath of office? And does this choice spanning the centuries make any sense?
Sometimes my memories of Paris are tethered to my dreams. I am in a café wearing a black trench coat writing in my journal as the tourists stream by. I speak French fluently, of course, and know my way around the city without a map. I sit on a bench in the Luxembourg gardens and read. As an expat, I vote absentee, but hardly pay attention to American politics in between Presidential elections. I have nothing to kill, argue, or die for, and I live my life in peace.