HUNGER
Mammad
Aidani
It
was late 1979. No one was there in the world to represent me. It
was then that I further realized that it was me who had to go on
to shape myself and find deeper meaning to my experience. I needed
a better understanding of the confusing world I was in. I did not
have any choice; the only choice that was left for me was that,
I had to work harder to learn to make sense of my ordeal. I was
hungry and homeless I needed food and a place. I was on the road
with two books in my pocket.
*
They
were talking about hope, I could hear them, and I wondered if it
was possible to keep thinking of it in the absence of truth and
with hunger taking me away? You see I had experienced hunger before
arriving in Paris, but I deeply felt that this one was going to
be very different. My previous experience was with others who were
like me and shared the same retched place to endure it as I did.
That place we called home and the people in it were my family. But
this one was different. Simply, I was on the road and I could not
afford to drift in it. So I had to be mobile and always so, otherwise
I was certain that I would collapse. I was experiencing this by
myself, all alone, and in the far more alien places. I was on the
road for sometime then and had just arrived in Paris. Throughout
my journey I felt the pressure of this hunger, but I had only realised
its power when I arrived in Montmartre. Yes it was there, in this
high place on the peak where the entire city could be seen, its
narrow streets stretching as far as my weak eyes could see. I felt
hunger deeper in my body and fear with it. They both arrived at
the core of my being.
I
looked deep into that space as I was dragging my body further up
to find out where I was. I vividly recall how I reacted when I saw
the whiteness of the Sacre-Coeur. For a strange reason I always
wanted to see this place. I don't know why?
In
that northern arrondissement of this city I did not know anyone.
As usual I was alone with my few belongings and small amount of
money, looking for a resting-place.
What
was I doing, going here and there all alone inviting myself to my
death? Perhaps in my imagination I thought the Cupola of the Scare-Coeur
was going to cure me of my loneliness. I did entertain this thought
as I was wondering throughout the streets of this old part of town.
It was in Paris that for the first time I learnt how tragic it is
when no one knows you in a place. I had always lived my life as
a loner, but this loneliness was going to be very different. I could
not even hear the sound of my own mother tongue in this predicament
I was in. It was early morning when I arrived in Paris. It did not
take that long for me to realise the differences there. When I look
at my notes in my old dilapidated journal from those days I feel
the fear on my skin, asking myself how I had survived all those
things? The answer to this question is that I absolutely do not
know.
I
was there a stranger in that amazing city by myself without any
trace of familiar things in sight. I had recently left a place I
used to call home which was stuck in my imagination and nothing
else. I remember how Paris, with its immediate beauty and richness
mixed with the sudden feeling of fear grabbed me. I had landed on
a very different planet and I did not know how to come to terms
with it.
Even
though I had experienced hunger and loneliness, but I went through
them in familiar places. Therefore what took hold of me as soon
as I arrived was the absence of this familiarity. Where was I going
to live? And where was I going to belong? These thoughts pierced
themselves into my mind so deeply that I somehow wanted to run away
from this eternal city only a few hours after I arrived in it. What
was I doing in this place? I wanted to know. What for? Living and
curiosity. But at what cost? I was in deep pain about my ignorance
of the world and I wanted to overcome it. Was this a right path
to take with ongoing fear and uncertainties and the disease of hunger?
I don't know. I did not have time to answer these questions. My
body and mind were together on a strange mission.
I was
on the road. I was fearfully thin and could not even see it. I reflect
on it now. I was not particularly handsome and nothing was really
striking about me. Was that why I wanted to explore the beautiful
things? Who knows? I loved the commanding presence of the world
in which I was born so poor. My tiny physical frame provided me
with a kind of agility or as I thought about it a kind of invisibility
to move anywhere I wished to, as long as I had the will to soothe
two things, the pain and my mad imagination.
I
was on the same wavelength as those who never fitted in the world.
The tumultuous life I had experienced did not leave me room to rest.
I needed to move on without a direction, but strangely enough I
knew that deep down I wanted to know this mysterious world in which
many fortunate people were living. Why I was suffering and hungry?
Was I born to be a loner and a drifter in this roaring world? In
my early years no one taught me how not to drift. Yes, this is true,
no one. From the moment that I found myself on the street with other
children like myself I had to learn all by myself how to stand on
my feet and I was sick of it. I don't know what I had to believe,
so that the only consolations I had were my inner desire to live
and reading. But it was hard, especially, when I was in the darkest
moments of my loneliness. I remember once when I was in one of those
moments I read Charles Baudelaire saying that
'It
is not given to everyone to take a bath in the multitude; to enjoy
the crowd is an art; and only the man can gorge himself with vitality,
at the expense of the human race, whom, in his cradle, a fairly
has inspired with love of disguise and of the mask, with hatred
of the home and a passion for voyaging.
Multitude,
solitude: terms that, to the active and fruitful poet, are synonymous
and interchangeable…'
I had
come, in my youthful way, to attach myself in the poetry of poets
who simply knew as many other great loners do, what a lonely person
could search in the crowd.
I agreed
with poet who sad that 'The solitary and pensive pedestrian derives
a singular exhilaration from this universal communion.'
*
Yes
in my mind I was in communion with that kind of solitariness out
there in the world and the crowds were my imaginary protectors.
Were they really? I don't know, however I had to create something
to live in that world, as a pedestrian in it. That was what I was
looking for in the world, to drift but not to collapse. I was eager
to hear and understand what was moving in me and I wanted to have
peace in my life to share it. Except I was not ready and I knew
that the road and my thoughts were my only companions and I did
not have any desire to share them with anybody, no matter what.
That
was the thing I was looking for in those intense hunger years. To
tune into the music of survival in myself by knowing more. That's
what my thoughts were focused on. I wanted to be the sole owner
of what was moving inside me in that overcrowded world of Paris.
I
recognised that there were others who felt more or less the same
as I did. And in the depth of my solitude I dreamt to connect with
them, even though I was struggling to survive my battle with loneliness.
From time to time I met someone who gave me the impression that
they felt the same in the world, but tragically it took only a short
time for me to realise how much they were working to gloss over
their feelings in order to create this pretentious space to deceive
themselves and me that they were the one. I did not pay too much
attention and left to follow my path on the road.
I knew
that Paris was a haven to escape to. How come the child of an illiterate
and poor family learnt this? I don't have any answer. A simple person
with a simple life and a simple background, which was all shredded
in poverty and hunger. That's what I could claim.
Short
of money I was flirting with my fragile mind to drag my malnourished
body on the road from my city to another. They had already seen
enough tragedies and my intention to take them to Paris was to provide
them with a rest. It may sound laughable thing to say but I did.
One of the reasons why I suffered so much was that I trusted the
world and anyone I met whom gave me the impression that they were
interested to listen. I told them all about my life, everything
that I felt and experienced and I told them with the spirit of sharing
as lucidly as possible. My aim was to keep struggling for my survival
and this did not leave me enough time to learn to hold back sometimes.
I did not know that to be so open was going to further damage my
poor state of being. I did not care I needed to talk to feel alive.
I was
not aware of all these things. But I thought it was because of the
absence of my loved ones and my youth that I had deep emotions of
sadness and intensity, those of an alien storyteller. It took me
a while to make my mind up about others and finally one day I gave
up on the idea of meeting others. From then on I took the road as
my anchor and reading as the nourishment for my mind. My path then
turned into a long series of scavenging here and there to cling
to my life. I was not able to look after myself. And that was the
beginning of endless years as my odyssey led me into deeper loneliness
and ongoing disappointments about anything. I did not have friends
to go to and a family to stay with. I was there all by myself. A
full-time young alien pedestrian in the world so unknown. This was
the beginning of my many dark and small falls and ups.
The
only thing I learnt was how to manage them by myself by moving from
one place to another. I knew they were coming and the best place
to go and see their arrivals was Paris. I knew what that city had
done to so many lonely and imaginative people in the past, especially
artists, and strangely I thought this was the place to start. I
was too young and I was already hitting bottom, I was not aware
of what I was doing in this world and what meaning this accumulation
of my suffering had to others. I wanted, if I had a chance, to transform
all this experience into something useful and not live and perish
like an unwanted piece of vegetable. That's what I mean by clinging
to life. I was clinging to life and I wanted to do this in Paris
and nowhere else.
*
I
vaguely knew the legend of St Denis (not for any religious reason)
who was the first Bishop of Paris when Romans arrived to the city
in AD287. I did not know what he did, other than that the Romans
decapitated him and left him there on the top of the hill. And I
was aware of the story, how he through their horror, got up and
picked up his head and started to walk to the peak of the hill to
collapse and die.
I was
so fascinated by people's reactions and their decision to build
the great basilica of St Denis as it is there now. Myth or not I
wanted to see the peak and the place. I also vaguely knew about
that part of Paris's role in the French Revolution, and how important
this part was for the start of Paris Commune in 1871.
Things
were not clear in my head but I knew or heard of this place in my
youth as I heard about other parts of this magical city. I was also
aware of the futility of all these details for an empty stomach.
But for some strange reason these basic and fragmentary knowledge
had shaped a strong feeling in me for this place, which filled me
with joy and helped my mind to get distracted from all the negative
things in it. This feeling of joy, which was real, had magically
helped tame my restless existence in that foreign place. I don't
know why, but it gave me a faint sense of belonging and I could
feel this, even though everything in the world looked rough and
unforgiving.
I had
heard that Montmartre was still seen as a village, and that it had
kept that feeling, so this was another attraction that appealed
to me to go there and visit it when I arrived in Paris. How did
I find out? I don't know. Simply the word 'village' attracted and
provided me with an inner feeling of a safe place in the unsympathetic
world in which I was dwelling. I had the feeling that it was that
place where the inhabitants still had the collective generosity
to connect and share with the needy ones in their village, as they
were earthy. I cherished a dream that I was going to this village
to be looked after.
*
My
heart was beating faster as the day was getting older. I arrived
in Paris in the early morning and after a few hours of wandering
in wonderful Montparnasse and vaguely observing things, I decided
to catch the Metro to Montmartre, as I was keen to start this uncertain
trip from there. The moment I arrived at the Pigalle Metro station
I decided to walk up towards the peak. But to my surprise the first
thing that alerted me was its charm and beauty, and how cosmopolitan
this place looked. I could not see any evidence of a village. As
I walked up towards Rue des Abbesses I began to notice the old windmills,
which had beautifully, preserved themselves there. They were there,
and I felt that they were telling me that once this place had a
big heart. It was then that I began to wonder why it had for so
long fascinated so many artists and great thinkers who came from
all over the world to live there. And how it then became a rival
to the Montparnasse district down below in the Qartier Latin, once
the centre of the rebellion for students and now the Mecca for the
bohemians, artists and intellectuals.
My
fascination did take that long, it was at the bottom of the hill
on the Boulevard de Clichy that I sensed and met the hostility of
this place. It was on Place Pigalle. The train station was full
of beggars and strange-looking people who looked more like pick-pocketers
than passengers. Other than that, what frightened me the most was
the people who looked worse than I did. Were they the last remaining
of the 1968 student revolution pushed to this part from Montparnasse
by tourists agents to clean it for rich tourists to have their last
glimpse of Sartre (Jean-Paul Sartre died in April 1980 and was buried
in the Montparnasse cemetery), looking like vagabonds? In an ironic
fashion I wondered. I was aware that only ten years ago there was
a student rebellion there in that magic city.
Except
I have to admit that my head was full of restless energy, thinking
of my urgent and immediate survival, so there was not much room
to grasp all of this. My head was still bouncy from a revolution,
which I had experienced in my country of birth. I decided to leave
that behind me in order to learn more about the world and its mysteries,
which had fascinated me for many years. I was looking for a chance
to have some time and space to think of all the undigested things
I observed in my short life, and the place I knew was a long and
obscured road a head of me.
*
The
night was approaching fast and beyond that, I had finished the food
I had in my little bag earlier on. I had to look for a loaf of bread
and a place to rest. My hope was that I could find a place in the
old Montmartre near the old vineyard. My digestive system was screaming
for food and my head for a place to rest - I was hungry.
There
I began to look around and then I smelt the works, words, stories,
fights, and struggles of impressionists, fauvists, cubists, surrealists
and many others in that place. In my head I allowed myself to imagine
that I could hear the voices of Appolinare and Picasso and so many
other creative minds. I was also strangely looking for the footsteps
of Modigliani there, I knew he lived and died so young in Montparnasse.
Perhaps I did have this feeling, because he read Dante in Italian
when he was animated amongst his non-Italian speaker's friends in
Paris. I was struggling reading Dante in my basic Italian myself
and remember the echoes running into my ears now of my voice reading:
Cosi
la mente mia, tutta sospesa, Mirava fissa, immobile e attenta, E
sempre di mirar faceasi accesa.
So
my mind, held in complete suspense, Gazed fixedly, motionless and
intent, And always as if on fire with the gazing.
Paradiso
XXXIII canto 97
The
Divine Comedy and Omar Khayyam's poems were in my old bag. They
were my only companions. The first one spoke to me in Italian, which
I was going to learn, and the second in Persian, which was my mother
tongue. Two different poets, with two different outlooks in life
and about the world, representing two different histories and parts
of the world the east and the west. I felt comfortable with these
companions and thought that both of them were thoughtful, challenging
and rewarding.
*
Moulin
Rouge was standing there for those who were seeking pleasure and
could afford to have it. I could not even fantasise about these
things let alone pay for them. The hunger was so deep that the only
room my mind had to smell was the taste of food, any kind of food.
The colours were dazzling there and I was so overwhelmed by that
place that I nearly fainted. I don't know why Toulouse-Lautrec went
there. I'm sure if it wasn't for creating those wonderful sketches,
he wouldn't go there at all. It is of course where the famous Boulevard
de Clichy and where Pigalle is, all confusing and mysterious. I
heard that it was the best place to go for finding a place to sleep
near the basilicas or near the Cemeteries de Montmartre as many
homeless, poor and young tourists stayed there. I knew that I needed
to get out from the Place Pigalle station and walk to the Rue Houdon
and enter to the hill-like roads that looked so ancient and full
of people.
I knew
of the Rue d Lepic where Van Gogh had lived as a poor and miserable
young artist, where he painted some of his masterpieces and befriended
some very important people, when he lived there in the early years
of the century. I could not afford to dream of renting a room anywhere,
so I had to find a place and live at the mercy of my chances and
local people. When I look back and reflect I have to admit that
it was 1979 and not 2003. The world was a very different place for
a poor young man from the orient with great dreams. That's why I
first went to my favourite Saint Germain des Pre in Montparnasse
when I arrived in Paris. On that cold morning I arrived from Italy
to Gare De Lyon on Boulevard Diderot with the hope to stay and befriend
Paris forever. Such a dream the hungry young man had.
Here
I'm reflecting and also thinking of the image of Le Bateau-Lavoir,
this was another magic place, which was stuck in my mind those days,
and this was another strong reason that attracted me to Montmartre
after wondering in Monparnasse for a few hours. I recall reading
about it on a piece of paper that I found in an Iranian arts magazine
in my town years ago. I knew that it was here, in a rather strange
room shaped like a laundry, where lived Picasso, the great poet
Max Jacob, as well as the egocentric Aopplinire who coined the tag
of surrealism used to meet. I was vague and worn-out but I had this
kind of strange pleasure and security, which had covered me by knowing
such little and chaotic details of this city and places in it. I
went to the Au Virage lepic and thought about how Le Bateau looked
before it was burnt down in 1970. Thus, it did not matter, there;
I felt the spirit of Georges Baroque and Van Dngen and the students
who had changed the world with their ideas and determination in
the May 1968 uprising. This was where Picasso, I found out, painted
the famous Les Demoiselles d' Avignon in 1907. But I have to admit
that as far as I was concerned the Rue Lepic was a shrine I had
to visit because it was where Van Gogh once lived and I have always
loved his works and his attitudes to creativity.
And
the local cemetery of course was the last resting-place for great
writers whom I admired in my youth, especially Emil Zola. I was
overjoyed when I found out that the great Stendhal, Alexander Dumas,
and particularly one of my favorite filmmakers François Truffaut
whose Jules and Jim I will never get tired to watch were resting
there too. Knowing these filled my simple and naïve world up with
joy and made my mind happy to have all these things in it to prevent
fear and collapse.
I
recall on my way up I came across this old bookstall that attracted
my attention, simply because it was free to kill time watching people
and the magnificent books on the shelves provided me a deep feeling
of forgetting my loneliness for a while. Paris was full of things
to see beyond my comprehension. Now I wonder why so many people
like to live there and look so eager to find out and learn about
the world of mysteries there. I have to admit; despite of all other
things, Montmartre was a good place to start to soothe the hunger
for me in that hopeless journey.
*
I
looked at the Au Virage Lepic and then at the cheap Le Restaurant
on Rue Ve'ron near Rue Lepic. Hungry and destitute, I kept gazing
at the ancient surroundings as I struggled to drag myself toward
the hill. I was focused to reach my destination when I suddenly
realised that I was in front of La Goutte d'or, a famous place for
poor workers and many ethnic residences in that part of Paris. I
was delighted to see the place full of African vendors selling their
well-arranged veggies and groceries. All these things surrounding
me in the Paris of 1979, diverse and god knows what. I was amazed
and happy to see all these different people from all over the world
next to each other selling their things and talking to each other.
I recall saying to myself " what a treat so many things to see and
learn".
*
I was
in Paris and I was hungry and had just arrived in that magic city
and I was going to do my best to survive it. I did not know much
about Paris and French except the life of Albert Camus and the fight
he had with Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir on the existence
of Gulags in Russia, a very vague understanding of existentialism,
a magazine called Les Temps Modernes which I had never seen and
a few other things, that's all. When in mid-July 1979 I arrived
in Paris, Sartre was still alive. But, so what, I was a loner without
a community or any connection with the people who inhabited that
eternal city. I was in hell, lost in my youth and was restless to
cling onto something that would carry my life on and the fresh emotions
about the country, city, family and friends I had just left behind.
Feeling
lost and overwhelmed in that sophisticated city, I wanted to know
as much as I could, but I have to admit I did not know much about
anything really. I was in my early 20s, hungry, boring, uneducated,
inadequate even in my own language. I was pursuing a life of a vagrant
and was aimlessly observing a world, which I could not make any
sense of.
In
those times my greatest fear was to mentally collapse. I was all
unknown in that mighty metropolis; however, deep down I was determined
to keep things in perspective. I was sure that I wanted to keep
my mind as sane as possible. Therefore, I began to imagine that
I was part of that city and belonged to some parts of it. It was
then that I adopted the obsessive walks. In order to fulfill my
aim to remain sane I began to walk indiscriminately as if I knew
all of the secrets of the city. I can't say that Paris was generous
to me on those days at all.
Anyhow,
when I think abut it I have to say that my life has always been
a life between hope and despair. But reflecting on Paris now I have
to say that I'm thankful that it kept me company in those extremely
anxious months of chaos, loss and hunger. I'm grateful that in those
intense times Paris allowed me to live there, it nurtured my thoughts,
deepened my senses, and made me even more determine to remember
things, which were housed in my memory box. What can I say except
that that was the only inheritance I had with me in the world.
But
I have to admit that the experience in Paris in that cold winter
of 1979 had greatly further prepared and helped me to learn and
reflect deeper on my loneliness, fragility and the obscure future
that was awaiting me. And therefore, because of all these I promise
that when next time I see Paris I will share with her all these
things and even more.
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