Peer's Only Honeymoon - Downs and Ups

 

Gisela and I had the quintessential perfect honeymoon a few months after we were married.  We took the '56 Oldsmobile and drove to Paris.  We stopped on the way and visited with relatives in Saarbrucken.  I had been to Paris half a dozen times, but always for short, planned stays with budgeted money.  We had no money, just love.  We went straight to the Montmartre district figuring that was the cheapest.  We found a second-floor room, shared bathroom down the hall.  We couldn't afford to eat in restaurants, so I’d go out and get a loaf of bread, several cheeses, and a bottle of wine, about ten cents a litre if you were refilling your own bottle.

A truck would pull up in front of the wine store and uncoil huge hoses, just like gasoline trucks do deliveries these days.  The driver would connect them to giant barrels, storage tanks underground.  It wouldn't be worth it to deliver less than a few thousand litres this way.  When they unhooked the hose and reeled it back onto the truck, red wine poured through the street's gutters.

I've only ever been on this one true honeymoon.  We would stay in bed for what seemed like days at a time, ravishing each other's bodies.  Always before in my life, I had snuck in sex at an opportunistic time and place that was always bounded.  There were no limits on us here.  We took a week's leave.  No one knew where we were, and no one could interrupt us or pass judgment.  I didn't know human beings could have that much sex.  I'd heard women complain of sore private parts from too much sex, but I never thought it could happen to me.  At times mine felt like raw hamburger and would never rise again.  Then Gisela would start in with a sort of magic, she would drive me wild with passion.  Through the soreness and pain, I would become awake again, and the cycle would begin anew.

After three or four days of just bread and wine, we searched the area for someplace to eat hot food.  We checked out a café where we noticed that they set the table with a basket of bread.  We figured we could afford one bowl of soup, shared, and as much bread as they would allow us.  When we ordered, though, the waitress took away the bread saying, "You get no bread with one bowl of soup."  This quote reminded me of the Andrews Sisters.

On our last night we discovered the Restaurant Le Basilic on the Rue Lepic.  The February night was cold, and we were the only ones in the restaurant.  A man and his wife ran the place.  He cooked, she served.  We studied the menu trying to arrange maximum bang for our buck.  We told them our tale of woe, someone burgled the car and stole all our wedding presents here in Paris.  We were newlyweds and had enjoyed a lovely honeymoon but had to go back tomorrow.  The woman took pity on us and told us that day's special was not on the menu, but it would fit our budget.  She then proceeded to bring out a feast fit for royalty.  We ate ravenously, enjoying the excellent food and wine.  The meal should have cost three times what she charged us.  This became "our" restaurant and I have returned to it repeatedly over the years, as has Gisela, and surprisingly, my daughter Patricia, with her daughter, Stephanie, this past Christmas.  It's become a family tradition.