In a picture taken in 1954 in front of the Caf&eacute; Tournon in Paris's chic sixth arrondissement, the writers and editors of the recently founded Paris Review are arranged in a human pyramid, with a row of casually dressed women sitting in chairs at the bottom and George Plimpton, the editor and co-founder, standing at the top with a slightly bemused, self-satisfied smile and a cigarette and what looks to be a glass of wine in his hand. The photograph feels emblematic of what Parisian expatriate life must have been like in those heady postwar years: young, liberating and full of an intellectual vigor that was embodied in caf&eacute; life and the host of literary reviews that were springing up all across the Left Bank. Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir were holding their already famous philosophical debates at a table at the nearby Caf&eacute; de Flore. Richard Wright had arrived a few years earlier, as had Saul Bellow and a young, and relatively unknown and impoverished James Baldwin, who was living at the Hotel Verneuil, a cheap, slightly run-down hotel nearby.
For the past six months, I've been living roughly five minutes away from the Caf&eacute; Tournon, and the even more famous Caf&eacute; de Flore and Les Deux Magots -- the former epicenters of Parisian and American expatriate intellectual life. I went to the Tournon for lunch recently, with James Campbell's eloquent and aptly titled book 'Exiled in Paris' tucked under my arm, curious to see if there was anything left of the caf&eacute; as it must have looked more than 50 years earlier when that picture was taken: when it was still possible to buy drugs in the little nook near the restrooms or have a chance encounter with one of the dozens of African-American writers and artists that had made Paris home following the end of World War II. It seems to almost go without saying now that I was the only American around.
Things have changed drastically in the last 55 years; the Caf&eacute; Tournon, along with the rest of St. Germain, has cleaned up its act, with a proper, well-appointed fa&ccedil;ade, an elegant but casual hardwood d&eacute;cor and a roundtable of leather chairs in the back. The former bohemian quarters of the Left Bank that were once home to even the poorest of writers have become the center of Paris's starry-eyed tourist trade, and the dollar has plummeted so far against the euro that what once seemed to be a semipermanent settlement of Americans, particularly writers and artists, has all but vanished. Recently while sitting outside of a caf&eacute; just off the Boulevard St. Germain I overheard an American woman remark to her two friends, 'Eight dollars for a bottle of still water. Eight dollars,' her voice not so much angry as baffled.
It's hard if not inevitable now to think of that previous generation of writers and not romanticize them and their lives here a bit: to think of yourself sitting under a bright light at a table in the back of the elegant Caf&eacute; de Flore, in shouting distance of Sartre or Simone de Beauvoir, or to have been on the terrace at the neighboring Les Deux Magots when James Baldwin and Richard Wright reportedly had a heated argument about an essay Baldwin had written excoriating Wright's 'Native Son.' Such events and conversations seem to belong exclusively to another era, one that was measured in francs instead of euros, when there wasn't an American Apparel store to be found just on the other side of the Boulevard St. Germain.
What's really missing these days isn't just caf&eacute; literary life, but a palpable and vibrant American cultural life. As a friend who works for one of France's largest publishers pointed out to me, French writers, editors, publishers and journalists are still there at the major caf&eacute;s and brasseries that have now become famous, and they're still talking about books and philosophy, perhaps with even the same degree of heady, intellectual rigor that Sartre would have done. And as if to prove the point even further, the major caf&eacute;s of St. Germain -- Caf&eacute; de Flore, Les Deux Magots and Brasserie Lipp -- all have literary prizes, which come with money and their own individual perks ranging from complimentary Champagne to a large tab that can be used at the writer's discretion. In other words, books and literature in general are all still discussed and debated; there just happen to be no Americans around when they are.
The absence of Americans is not a matter of sheer numbers. There are still almost as many Americans passing through Paris these days as in previous years. With the exception of a brief dip following the start of the war in Iraq and the branding of 'freedom fries' in the nation's Capitol building, Americans have continued to arrive in droves. (The decline in fact was so notable that the French tourist industry launched a campaign targeted towards American tourists titled, 'Let's Fall in Love Again.') You can still hear and see them standing outside of the famous caf&eacute;s on the weekend, and for the average Parisian, the American tourist trade marches on unchecked. When I asked a group of friends over dinner whether they noticed that there were fewer Americans in Paris, the collective response from the table could be summed up as: Are you crazy? There are so many Americans here. And while they may have been right about the numbers, or the obvious presence which all tourists bring with them, it's hard not to believe that a certain type of long-standing love affair between Americans and the city hasn't in fact come to an end, that there's been a permanent departure that no advertisement campaign, however charming, can reverse.
Odile Hellier, the slightly petite, appropriately bespectacled, and at times effusively generous French owner of the English-language Village Voice bookstore in St. Germain des Pr&eacute;s remembers fondly her own version of the good old days in the early 1980s, when a strong American expatriate community created literary journals and reviews in Paris, the types of which hadn't really existed since the 1950s. In her cramped, white-walled and yet neatly ordered office at the back of the bookstore, whose selection can best be described as almost excessively literary in scope, she still keeps a bundle of notebooks with the names of writers and some of the journals they created in those days. The nostalgia in her voice, which is filled with a rarely heard type of passionate earnestness, almost goes without saying.
'So many,' she says once, and then again two more times for emphasis, referring to both the Americans and the writers who once flocked here. 'France still looked like a country where it was easy to live. The Village Voice took off because of that.' The bookstore, like the Americans that initially helped sustain it, has been on the decline ever since, with a notable dip in sales that has continued unabated.
'For me, the community has exploded,' and by exploded she means disintegrated.
Obviously a large part of that disintegration can be traced back to the dollar's rapid decline against the euro. If Baldwin and Wright were to sit down today to two cups of coffee on the terrace of Les Deux Magots to argue about an essay, their bill, without tip, would be almost $15. The decline in American life in Paris, however, can't be all about the dollar and its rise and fall. When Baldwin arrived in Paris in 1947, he arguably had less here in terms of financial and material support than he would have had he stayed in New York. He came regardless, following on the heels of Richard Wright. Both men, along with dozens of other African-American writers and artists, were fleeing America's divisive and often violent racism, and France, or Paris in particular, was in the midst of its long-running love affair with African-American culture, and jazz in particular, and seemed openly freer and more inviting than any place in America could ever be. A decade later, Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso and William S. Burroughs would arrive in Paris seeking a similar relief, or freedom, from 1950s American society and culture.
Since then America has grown up, both culturally and politically, expanding its civil-rights legislation to closer reflect its founding principles of equality, while at the same time shedding some of the cultural conservatism that in the late 1950s led to the prosecution of the poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti for the publication of Ginsberg's drug- and sex-laden 'Howl and Other Poems.' As it's done so, inevitably the egalitarian appeal of Paris has declined with it. It's not just the Americans that the French miss, as much for economic as sentimental reasons to be sure, but the idea that France, and Paris in particular, was somehow markedly distinct and different from the United States and the rest of the world. If there's a nostalgia for the American presence that was once here, it's a nostalgia directly tied to the idea that Paris was once more open, more politically and culturally liberal and therefore easier to live and create in than most other cities. As Odile pointed out to me, following the birth of the euro and the subsequent rise in the cost of living, 'France became more like the others,' the others being the rest of the Western world, and America in particular, where commerce and not culture is the dominant social factor.
A recent walk along Boulevard St. Germain with a French book editor and friend quickly became an exercise in nostalgia as he tried to recall the names of some of the smaller family-owned stores that had dominated the street before the explosion of French and foreign chain stores took over; 'None of this was here,' being the phrase he used most often to describe what's happened since. Perhaps even more emblematic is the decidedly pro-American business model of the current president, Nicolas Sarkozy (aka 'Sarko L'Americain' as he's sometimes mocked in the French media), whose attempts to adjust the retirement age of civil servants and squeeze more efficiency out of the government have been met with massive nationwide strikes that seem aimed more at holding on to the remnants of a vanishing culture than challenging the logic of the policy.
Today it's impossible for me to imagine the sense of refuge and sanctuary that other Americans once found here. Paris has its own complicated racial issues to settle; as the violent riots in the suburbs of Seine-Saint-Denis recently demonstrated, there is little fraternit&eacute; or &eacute;galit&eacute; when it comes to France's large and growing African and North African immigrant communities. As a writer of African origin, I'm aware that it's precisely my American identity that protects me not only from the casual discrimination that other Africans experience here, but from the harassment of the police, who are prone to stopping Paris's African immigrants, particularly those living in the northern sections of the city. The food market near my former apartment in the 18th arrondissement, which in almost every detail, from the languages spoken to the fabrics of the women's dresses and the haggling at the vegetable stalls, was a perfect replica of some of the markets I've known in Africa, could sometimes feel like a market under siege with a constant and heavily armed large police presence marking the entrance off the Boulevard Barb&egrave;s. The policeman's common cry for papiers, papiers -- documents proving legal residence -- is one that I know I can all but ignore thanks to my American accent first, and my passport second.
James Baldwin noted shortly after he first arrived in France, 'I didn't go to Paris. I left New York.' Inherent in that statement is the idea that it wasn't the destination but the departure that mattered most. I can't help but think that to some degree that sentiment still holds true, although for drastically different reasons than before. Paris has lost some of what once made it so special and unique, enough so that it's hard to imagine another outburst of American cultural creativity taking place in Paris again anytime soon. Why Paris when there's the rest of the world, much of which is cheaper and more unknown? It's a question I hear constantly, less so from Americans than Parisians who seem baffled by my decision to be here.
At the same time, perhaps that is the real, private joy and freedom of being in Paris these days -- the freedom not from politics or culture, but from an expatriate community in which to define yourself as part of or against. Shortly before I left America for Paris I had spoken with a friend about the possibility of moving to Buenos Aires. 'Buenos Aires could become the Paris for our generation,' she noted, and I could see why she said that. I had heard rumors of other people that we knew moving there, or if not there then to other cities around the world that were supposed to be indicative of a certain cultural vibrancy and easy, carefree life.
I can't say that there's much of either to be found in Paris these days, which is why I suppose there's a search for its newest incarnation, whether it's in Buenos Aires or Berlin or another destination that is supposedly rumored to be the next great spot, the place where we all really should be. The pressure of being fashionable has lifted from the city, and if possible by extension to the writers who live in it, leaving us free to wander and sit in complete anonymity with only our own thoughts for comfort in a way that would have been impossible 20 or 40 years earlier.
Unlike many of the writers and Americans who came here before, my reasons for being here are purely selfish and self-absorbed, with nothing and no one to run from. I used to say that I came to Paris because it was so quiet, in large part because at the time I could hardly speak the language. While today that may no longer be as completely true, the city still strikes me as quiet. There's no romantic ideal to be lived out here anymore -- no caf&eacute;s, readings or events that can't be missed. What remain today are largely ghosts that are easy if not even comforting to live amongst. They had their Paris -- garrulous and crowded with the politics and culture of America -- and now finally, with no one else around, I can have mine.
***分割符***
在一张1954年的老照片上，刚刚成立的《巴黎评论》(Paris Review)杂志的编辑和记者聚在巴黎时尚宝地第6区的托侬咖啡馆(Caf&eacute; Tournon)门前，他们前后高低错落着排成几排，第一排的椅子上坐着几位衣着休闲的女士；杂志创始人之一兼编辑──美国作家乔治&#149;普利姆顿(George Plimpton)则站在照片最高处，脸上带着自得的微笑，却又透着些许迷惘，手中拿着香烟和一杯貌似酒的东西。这张照片似乎也正是二战后美国人迷醉的巴黎旅居生活的写照：青春&#12289;自由&#12289;从咖啡馆迸发出的智慧激情&#12289;以及左岸地区(Left Bank)潮水般涌现的文学评论。当时，让-保罗&#149;萨特(Jean-Paul Sartre)和西蒙&#149;波伏娃(Simone de Beauvoir)也曾坐在附近的花神咖啡馆(Caf&eacute; de Flore)里，进行着他们著名的哲学辩论；理查德&#149;赖特(Richard Wright)几年以前就来到这里，同时到来的还有索尔&#149;贝娄(Saul Bellow)和年轻无名的詹姆斯&#149;鲍德温(James Baldwin)。贫困潦倒的鲍德温当年就住在附近一个廉价而又略显简陋的维尔纳伊旅店(Hotel Verneuil)。
在过去六个月中，我一直住在距离托侬咖啡馆&#12289;花神咖啡馆和双偶咖啡馆(Les Deux Magots)只有五分钟路程的地方。后两者比前者更有名。尤其双偶咖啡馆，更是巴黎人和美国旅法作家曾经的精神生活中心。我最近有一次到托侬咖啡馆吃午餐，胳膊底下夹着詹姆斯&#149;坎贝尔(James Campbell)一本著作，这本著作有一个很恰当的名字──《放逐巴黎》(Exiled in Paris)。我好奇地寻找照片诞生的那个时代留下的蛛丝马迹。在那个五十多年前的年代，人们可以在咖啡馆洗手间附近的小角落买到毒品，也有机会遇到在二战后以巴黎为家的众多非洲裔美国作家&#12289;艺术家中的一位。如今的我却发现自己显然是这里唯一的美国人。
在过去五十五年中，这里的一切发生了巨大的变化。包括托侬在内的圣杰曼大街(St. Germain)的咖啡馆都已经旧貌换新颜：门面变得规整得体，精巧而又随意的硬木装饰&#12289;屋里的圆桌和皮椅让一切都变得不一样。左岸这片曾经充满波希米亚气息的地段一度是文人墨客的家园，即使是最穷的作家也不例外。如今，它已经变成了繁荣的巴黎旅游业的游览中心。由于美元兑欧元下跌得实在太厉害，曾经被美国人&#12289;尤其是作家和艺术家当作临时居所的地方几乎不复存在。最近，我在圣杰曼大街咖啡馆的露天座位上听到这样的谈话，一位美国妇女对她的两个朋友感慨：“一杯纯净水就要八美元，八美元啊。”不过她的语气听上去更多的是困惑而不是愤怒。
现在当人们回忆起上一代美国作家以及他们在巴黎的旅居生活时，很难不加上浪漫主义色彩。想想吧：在一个阳光灿烂的日子，你坐在典雅的花神咖啡馆，不远处就是萨特和波伏娃；又或者，你坐在隔壁的双偶咖啡馆，临桌的鲍德温和赖特正在进行激烈的争论，原因是鲍德温写了一篇文章抨击赖特的《土生子》(Native Son)。但是这些场景和对话似乎只属于逝去的那个年代，那时流通货币仍然是法郎而不是欧元，人们也不会在圣杰曼大街的另一端找到一家American Apparel店。
随着那个年代逝去的不只是咖啡馆里的文学生活，更有那种触手可及&#12289;充满活力的美国文化生活。我的一位朋友在一家法国大型出版社工作。他告诉我，法国作家&#12289;编辑和记者仍会留连在那些如今已很有名的咖啡馆和啤酒屋里，继续讨论有关书籍或哲学的问题。他们讨论这些这些问题时的激情和严谨，可能并不逊于当年的萨特。似乎是为了进一步证明这一点，法国著名咖啡馆──花神&#12289;双偶和利普(Brasserie Lipp)都设立了文学奖。奖品除了金钱之外，还包括免费香槟和供获奖者任意使用的餐券等等。换句话说，在法国，总的来说书籍和文学仍然是谈话和辩论的主题，只不过“碰巧”没有美国人参与这种谈话罢了。
美国人缺席巴黎的文化生活，但是在巴黎的美国人数量却没有明显减少。最近到访巴黎的美国人几乎和当年一样多，他们仍成群结队地来到巴黎，只在“对伊战争”开始后和美国国会“修改菜单事件”(将法国薯条改为自由薯条，以抗议法国对伊政策)之后有过短暂的减少。(美国游客的减少引起了关注，法国旅游业立即开展了针对美国游客的广告宣传，主题是：‘让我们再次相爱吧。’)每逢周末，仍然可以看到美国人出现在那些著名的咖啡馆外。对于普通法国人来说，美国旅游者涌入法国的脚步从未停止过。当我在饭桌上问一群朋友“是否注意到巴黎的美国人少了”时，他们的回答概括起来就是：“你疯了吧？这里有那么多美国人！”从美国游客的数量上和美国游客留给他们的印象上看，他们也许是对的。但是不得不承认的是，美国人和巴黎之间持续多年的“某种特定类型的爱情”事实上已经结束，而且是永远地结束了。这种“爱情”是无论多么高明的广告宣传都无法挽回的。
英文书店“乡村之声”(Village Voice)坐落在圣日尔曼大街的德佩街区(Germain des Pr&eacute;s)。店主奥黛尔&#149;海利尔(Odile Hellier)是一位娇小的法国女士，带着眼镜，时常给人慷慨而热情的感觉。海利尔充满感情地谈起属于她的“美好过往”──上世纪80年代初。那时，大量流连于巴黎的美国作家群体创建了文学刊物和文学评论刊物，这些刊物的类型是50年代以来不曾在巴黎出现过的。海利尔女士的书店里几乎全是文学类书籍，她四白落地&#12289;狭窄而整洁的办公室则位于书店最里侧。在这间办公室里，海利尔仍然保留着当年的一些刊物和笔记本，笔记本上记载着那一代美国作家的名字。谈及那个年月，海利尔的怀旧之情溢于言表，她热切而执着的情感流露已很难在很多人身上看到。
回忆当年成群结队来到巴黎的美国人和美国作家时，海利尔感慨地重复着一个词：“太多了”，“当年的法国似乎仍然是一个生活很轻松的地方，我们的书店也正是因为这个原因开办的。”但是后来，这家书店与最初维持书店的美国顾客群体一起陷入了衰落，销售额大幅度下滑的局面一直持续到今天。
“对我来说，美国作家群体已经爆炸了。”海利尔女士说的爆炸是土崩瓦解的意思。
很明显，美国作家群体的瓦解可以追溯到美元对欧元的快速贬值上来。如果鲍德温和赖特在今天的双偶咖啡馆谈论创作，两杯咖啡就要花掉他们将近15美元，还不包括小费。其实旅居巴黎的美国人的减少绝不只是因为美元汇率的波动。当鲍德温在1947年抵达巴黎的时候，他在巴黎获得的金钱和物质资助比他在纽约的少。尽管如此，他还是追随着赖特的脚步而来。除了鲍德温和赖特之外，还有数十位非洲裔的美国作家和艺术家，为了逃避美国分裂性&#12289;常常带有暴力色彩的种族歧视而来到这里。法国(尤其是巴黎)长期以来对非洲裔美国人的文化十分推崇，尤其欣赏爵士乐。巴黎看上去也比美国的任何地方都更加自由&#12289;开放，也更吸引非洲裔美国人。十年之后，为了追求同一种解脱或自由，为了逃避50年代的美国社会和文化，艾伦&#149;金斯堡(Allen Ginsberg,)&#12289;格雷戈里&#149;柯索(Gregory Corso)和威廉&#149;巴洛斯(William S. Burroughs)也将来到巴黎。
不过美国从50年代起开始变得成熟了──无论在文化上还是在政治上。公民权立法不断完善，更好地体现出“平等”这一美国立法的基本原则；文化上的保守主义倾向也开始消退。50年代美国在文化上曾经相当保守，诗人劳伦斯&#149;佛灵盖蒂(Lawrence Ferlinghetti)由于出版了金斯堡的现代诗集《嚎叫》(Howl and Other Poems)而遭到起诉，原因是这本诗集充满了有关毒品和性的内容。一旦美国文化变得成熟起来，巴黎平等主义的吸引力也就削弱了。法国人不仅怀念美国人，法国人也同样怀念曾经属于法国的荣誉：法国(尤其巴黎)曾经被认为是显著区别于美国及其他国家的独特去处，法国人的这种怀念无疑是由于经济原因和情感原因。所以巴黎对于美国旅居者的怀旧，也是直接源于巴黎对于过去荣誉的怀旧：巴黎曾经被认为比其它城市更开放&#12289;更富于政治自由和文化自由，生活更轻松，也更适合创作。正如海利尔女士所说，随着欧元的诞生和生活成本的提高，“巴黎和其它地方变得越来越像。”所谓“其它地方”是指其它西方国家，尤其是美国。在这些地方，主导社会的力量是经济而不是文化。
我最近和法国的一位图书编辑朋友沿着圣日尔曼大街散步。我们的散步很快变成一次“怀旧之旅”。他试图回忆起曾经遍布日尔曼大街的一些家庭小店的名字，如今这些小店已经被法国品牌或世界品牌连锁店取代。谈到连锁店的爆炸式增长，他不断重复一句话：“过去可没有这些。” 更具象征意义的是法国现任总统萨科齐(Nicolas Sarkozy)明确主张的美国模式(他也被法国媒体戏称为“萨科美国齐”,Sarko L'Americain)。这位总统试图调整公务员的退休年龄并提高政府效率，他的改革计划引起大规模的全国性罢工，不过这场罢工看上去更像是为了维护正在消逝的文化，而不是质疑政府的政策原则。
如今，我很难想象美国前辈如何在这里找到“避难所”的感觉。巴黎现在也有自己的复杂种族问题需要解决。从塞纳圣德尼地区(Seine-Saint-Denis)最近发生的暴力冲突就可以看出，对不断壮大的北非及非洲移民群体来说，这里既没有博爱也没有平等。作为一名拥有非洲血统的美国人，我意识到我的美国身份保护了我。我不仅没有遇到其他非洲人在这里遇到的生活上的歧视，法国警察也没有找过我的麻烦。(法国警察经常盘查非洲移民，尤其是居住在巴黎北部的非洲移民)。我曾经住在巴黎第18区，住处附近的一个食品市场几乎在每一个细节上都与我在非洲见过的一些市场完全相同，无论是市场里人们的语言，妇女身上的衣料，还是蔬菜摊上的砍价方式。大批全副武装的警察经常包围这个市场，并在芭贝丝林荫大道(Boulevard Barb&egrave;s)的入口划出警戒线。盘查移民的警察总是叫着“文件！文件！”，所谓“文件”就是合法居留的凭证。不过我倒不用为这个“文件”而操心──首先感谢我的美国口音，还要感谢我的美国护照！
鲍德温第一次抵达巴黎不久曾说过这样的话：“我不是来到巴黎，而是离开纽约。”这句话暗示这样的意思：目的地并不重要，重要的是离开美国。我不禁想到，也许直到今天，这种情绪在某种程度上仍然没有改变，不过离开美国的原因已经与过去截然不同。巴黎已经失去了她的最特别之处，很难想象美国文化在不久的将来能在巴黎再来一次创造性爆发。如果巴黎与其它地方没什么不同，而且在其它地方还有一些更便宜&#12289;更不为人所知的去处，为什么非要去巴黎呢？这个问题是我经常被问及的问题。提问的人大多是巴黎人而非美国人，他们看上去对我来巴黎的决定感到困惑。
我对这个问题的答案如今可能要算是自己独享的乐趣和自由的感觉了，但这些乐趣和自由并非来自这里的政治或文化，而是来自旅居者群体。在这个群体里，人们可以找到归属感和依靠。在离开美国前往巴黎之前，我与一位朋友谈到移居布宜诺斯艾利斯的可能性。“布宜诺斯艾利斯可能是我们这一代人的巴黎。”我知道她这句话的由来，因为我听说一些熟人已经移居到那里。如果他们不是移居布宜诺斯艾利斯，就是移居到世界其它城市，追寻某种特定的文化活力，以及更轻松&#12289;更恣意的生活。
但是人们追寻的这些东西，我在巴黎并没有找到太多。因此我相信，人们一定在寻找新的归依地，那里才是我们都应该去的地方，也许是布宜诺斯艾利斯，也许是被称为“下一个伟大去处”的其它地方。巴黎已经不再强迫自己站在时尚前沿，这种气氛也影响到居住在巴黎的作家，因此我们可以完全自由地在这个巴黎闲逛，或者找一个角落，隐姓埋名地坐下来，让自己的思绪不受打扰，这种惬意在20年或40年之前是不可能找到的。
与来到巴黎的前辈们不同，我来这里出于纯粹的“自私”和“自我为中心”，而不是为了逃离什么事情或什么人。我过去总是说，是巴黎的安静把我吸引到这里。巴黎的“安静”在很大程度上是因为我当初不会说法语。如今这个理由已经不能完全成立，但是我还是感觉“巴黎”很安静。巴黎已经不再居住着浪漫的偶像，咖啡馆也不再有不可错过的朗读会或其他活动。只有文化巨子们的亡灵徘徊在这个城市，即使你不能欣然地与他们相处，但是至少你可以轻松地生活在他们周围。他们有他们的巴黎──那个充满喧嚣&#12289;与美国文化和美国政治紧密相连的巴黎。当他们的亡灵渐渐远去的时候，我也就拥有了属于我自己的巴黎。
