They discovered they weren’t the only ones with this strategy.
After a panicky search down the train’s crowded, narrow corridor,
they found a compartment with two empty seats. The eyes of the current couchette
occupants shot darts at the boys as they slid open the compartment door, hefted
their backpacks onto the overhead luggage rack, and tried not to step on any
toes as they took their seats. Tom’s loud apologies (“Scuzi, scuzi!”) and his frequent
sitting-standing-sitting to retrieve a guidebook… then his journal…. then his
trusty map… didn’t help lighten anyone’s mood. Then again, Tom and Jim’s mood
was already somewhat depressed, as this was to be (they thought) the final
train they’d take together before Tom went to search for a job in Germany and
Jim went home to take on the role of starving artist.
As the train left the station, one of the other passengers started
talking to the young woman seated next to Tom. Tom perked up. As with Jim and
the Spanish Abogado, Tom saw an opportunity to put his high school French to
the test. Laughter ensued. And it continued for the next hour or so, when it
became clear that everyone in the compartment, except Tom, wanted to try to get
some shut-eye.
Thirteen hours later, the Puerta Del Sol arrived at
the Gare d’Orléans. The boys found a room on the Left Bank for thirty francs
(about $6) and, though exhausted, explored the nearby Sorbonne area. The rest
of that day and into the night, they wandered about with no particular
destination in mind. The lights of the sidewalk cafes, the cabarets and bars,
the boulangeries and boucheries and fromageries—all made for an excellent
introduction to Paris. But they were exhausted from the sleep-deprived train
ride, so they headed back to their pensione early.
The next morning, the sun shone brightly and the weather felt
unseasonably warm, which lifted their spirits as the boys set out to explore
Paris more strategically than they had the night before. Walking up Boulevard
Saint-Michel, they came upon an island in the middle of the Seine—Notre-Dame de
Paris, the iconic cathedral. The massive structure seemed to rise effortlessly
from its plaza, alive with pigeons. From the twin Gothic towers to the Rose
Windows, and finally to the small park behind the cathedral that revealed
countless architectural details, Notre-Dame unfolded slowly and beautifully. Jim made sure to wear his Notre Dame t-shirt—the
one honoring not the cathedral but their alma mater, just a few miles away in
Indiana.
Next came the Louvre. This was another of those sites that
backpackers had very different opinions—if not convictions—about:
You haven’t seen Paris if you haven’t seen the Louvre.
You need to spend at least one full day there.
Don’t go—not worth the crowds.
Tom and Jim never doubted it would be worth a visit. As
expected, it was both fascinating and completely overwhelming. Treasures from
the Orient, Egypt, Greece, and Rome flowed into sculpture and then painting. Thankfully,
it was off-season, so the boys were able to get up close but not personal with Leonardo
da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, encased in plastic after a recent vandalism attack.
Tom stared at her mysterious smile and wondered why it held such power. and
wondering why her smile has such power. Jim sat on a nearby bench for a while,
then approached his friend and suggested some fresh air.
They left the museum and walked through the calm of the
Tuileries Gardens—a world of fountains, flowers, and quiet tucked inside the
city—until they reached the Place de la Concorde. From there, they stepped onto
one of the most famous streets in the world: the Champs-Élysées. One of them
remarked how—not all that long ago—Third Reich soldiers marched down this same
avenue, followed years later by victorious Allied forces reclaiming it. At the
far end stood the Arc de Triomphe, a symbol of freedom and survival. But in
1977, Tom and Jim felt that the Champs was oddly ordinary: clothing stores you
might find in any American mall, pizza parlors—even a McDonald’s—lined the wide
sidewalks.
Continuing their touristy day, Jim and Tom followed the
Seine toward another powerful symbol. As they walked, Tom read aloud from his
Let’s Go guidebook that they were about to visit “the biggest oil well in the
world”—the Eiffel Tower. They walked around the structure and debated taking
the elevator to the top, but their funds were just about depleted. They
contented themselves with sitting on a nearby bench for a while to
people-watch.
That final night came quickly. With Jim ticketed to London
the next day, the boys decided on a night on the town one last time, budget be
damned. In the Sorbonne area, they found seats at the bar in a lively club and started
working their way through a forty-franc ($8) carafe of red wine. With each sip,
memories from the journey surfaced and spilled out. Their laughter and
good-natured arguing drew other patrons into the conversation. The boys’ new
drinking buddies were all French. They wanted to practice their English. Tom
wanted to practice his French. The result was a lot of laughter and more drinks
all around.
Bonus for the boys blowing their budgets: the French would
not allow Tom or Jim to pay!
Somewhere near 2 a.m., they stumbled back to the pension,
having been thoroughly overserved. Tom made it into the bathroom in time to do
what you do when your stomach rebels against heavy drinking, then collapsed
into bed and tried, unsuccessfully, to stop the room from spinning. Jim, also
terribly intoxicated, tried to set his alarm clock so he wouldn’t miss his
early morning train, but the numbers kept jumping around.
Four hours later, Tom woke to see Jim already dressed, his
backpack on. This was the moment both had been dreading—but both were too
hungover to make too big a deal of it. They shook hands, wished each other
luck, and told one another to take care.
And then Jim was gone.
When Tom woke a few broken hours of sleep later, the room
felt hollow. The quiet was heavy. For the first time in two months, Tom was
completely on his own. The fear was real, but so was a strange calm. This was
what he had chosen. There was no one to lean on now, no shared decisions, no
familiar voice to confirm the next step. Just Paris, and whatever came next.
Hours earlier, at the Gare de l'Est, Jim’s certainty about his decision began to unravel. What had felt so right only hours earlier—England, Christmas, the sensible next move—now felt rushed, even wrong. As the train pulled away from Paris, doubt flooded in. He questioned why he hadn’t stayed, why he hadn’t done what Tom was going to do: live and work in a foreign country. What could be a better experience to eventually write about? In a matter of minutes, confidence gave way to sharp and unexpected regret. As Paris faded into the distance, he wondered if the braver choice had been the one he didn’t take.
Neither he nor Tom knew it at the time, but this was not an ending. It only felt like one. This was a necessary pause. They would stay in touch and, before long, start making plans to meet up again—this time in Cairo, Egypt—packs on back, more experienced, ready, and eager to move past Europe and onto the Middle East and Asia.
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