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THIS WEEK
ARE WHITE TABLECLOTHS RETURNING
TO NEW YORK RESTAURANTS?
By John Mariani

NEW YORK CORNER
TAMARIND
By John Mariani


HÔTEL ALLEMAGNE
CHAPTER TWO
By John Mariani

NOTES FROM THE WINE CELLAR

By John Mariani

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NEW YORK CORNER

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HÔTEL ALLEMAGNE
 By  John Mariani

 

         There were no smoke or fire engine ladders being extended. But the emergency medical teams, known as SAMU, were scrambling with stretchers to get into a large Beaux Arts building with a blue canopy reading Hôtel de la Reine. A crowd had gathered that included a large  number of hotel staff in blue or black suits or maid’s light gray uniforms. A few people who appeared to be guests looking like they’d just been through a traumatic experience were being led out to the ambulances. So were some of the hotel staff members. All the emergency personnel were wearing medical masks.
         Katie went up to one of the policemen and in French asked what was going on. The man replied that apparently many people were very sick in the hotel and had to be removed to hospitals. She asked about the other sirens she had heard. The policeman said he believed they were going to other hotels for the same reason. Then he asked her to move behind a barrier his colleagues had set up on the street.
         “What’d he say?” asked David. Katie told him and said, “That’s very weird. How do all these people in three different hotels all of a sudden get so sick they had to call in all this assistance?”
         “I don’t know,” said David, “but I hope to hell it’s not some kind of bug that’s ripping through all the hotels in Paris. Maybe we’d better go back to ours and see what’s going on there.”
         The two Americans walked rapidly back to their hotel, the Juliana on the Rue Cognac Jay. There was no activity out front or in the lobby, so Katie went to the concierge and asked if he’d seen or heard anything about what was going on.
         The woman said, “I only hear just now on the TV, Madame, that three hotels are evacuating their guests because they have gotten very sick.”
         “So, everything in this hotel is fine?” asked David.
         “I hope so, Monsieur. None of our guests have said they are ill.”
         Katie and David went up to her room and turned on the TV to the France2 channel. There was already live video on a screen split three ways, showing the outside of the hotels—the de la Reine, the Prince de Carignon and the Anastasia, all fairly close to the Arch. Katie translated what she could, saying that police and ambulances had responded to calls at all three hotels as guests “en masse” were waking up in a very sick state, as if gripped by a debilitating virus. The announcer had no numbers to report but the patients seem to be in the dozens at each hotel. An interviewer at the Anastasia received no more detail than Katie had heard from the policeman at the de la Reine. The TV announcer said that the Health Minister said he had no reason to believe the incidents had occurred anywhere else in Paris but, given the quickness and severity of the disease’s spread, those at the three hotels seemed somehow related. He said there was no reason for panic among the populace but advised people to stay outside buildings if possible until they had more information.
         Katie turned to David and said, “You feel safe, or safer, going on with our walking tour?”
         “Probably better than staying inside a hotel for the time being.” Then he went to his own room to pick up a scarf,in case he had to use it as a protective mask.

         The two Americans left their hotel and headed down the Champs Élysées (right) towards Place de la Concorde, with Katie seeing again all she’d loved about Paris when she was a college student living in a drab dorm at the Sorbonne. She was delighted how affected David seemed by the beauty of the city, its broad boulevards, handsome buildings and unexpected gardens, although he was surprised how commercialized the Champs Élysées itself was, even to a newcomer.
         As they approached Place de la Concorde they saw another cluster of emergency vehicles, this time, as mentioned on TV, outside of the opulent Hôtel Anastasia. Katie couldn’t resist asking an ambulance driver what more he knew about the events of the morning. He told her only what the TV report had said, adding, “These people became very, very sick very very, fast. Whatever it is, it spread through the hotels like a fire.”
         “Anyone die?”
         “Not yet, but we will have to see as the day goes on.”
         Katie told David what the man had said and asked, “Do you think it’s safe we stay in Paris? This could be a virus that’s going to sweep through the whole city.”
         “It crossed my mind,” he said. “Thing is, I’m thinking it’s not such a good idea to go back to the hotel until we know something more later on.”
         With that degree of uncertainty, the elation the two Americans had been enjoying lessened considerably. They turned off the Rue Rivoli at Rue Castiglione, seeing in the distance the soaring marble column in the center of Place Vendôme, built by Napoleon to celebrate his victory at the Battle of Austerlitz. The Place itself was a square of townhouses called hôtels particuliers, dominated on one side by the Hôtel Ritz, founded in 1898 by César Ritz and made famous in the stories of American authors F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway.  During the war, half the rooms were occupied by German Luftwaffe officers, including Herman Goering, the other half left open to foreign visitors, because Ritz was Swiss and Switzerland was neutral during the war.
         “Isn’t that the hotel where Princess Diana was staying with her Arab boyfriend the day she was killed in the car crash?” asked David.
         “Uh-huh. The guy was Dodi Al-Fayed, son of the Ritz’s owner.”
         “Rotten thing to happen.”
         “Did you ever see the fifties movie named Love in the Afternoon, where Gary Cooper and Audrey Hepburn have an affair in the Ritz? She was like nineteen years old, and he was a lot older.”
         “Oh yeah,” said David, who was as much a fan of old movies as was Katie. “What I remember is he had a routine of inviting young girls up to his room and had a couple of guys playing violins during dinner, then they’d leave and come back the next time. I also remember Cooper’s character giving out these big French bills as tips to all the staff as he left the front door to get into his limo.”
         “It was pretty romantic when I saw it a few years ago,” said Katie, “though now it’s a little creepy to see this older guy seducing all these young women.” As soon as she said it, Katie realized David might take her remark the wrong way. David only said, “I dunno, that’s what rich old guys do. And I guess they got away with it in French hotels back then. Probably still do.”
         Katie shifted the subject, saying, “I’m surprised all the buildings in the square don’t look like they’ve ever cleaned the facades. They’re all dingy and gray.”
         “Hey, what you want for—what do they charge at The Ritz, like $300 a night?”
         “I suspect it’s a lot more than that. You want to go inside and look around?”