Do Parisians Perspire?

By Amanda Ripley

Paris was not made for this kind of suffering. When it came, the heat choked this city like a wool scarf pulled tight over its pretty mouth. Starting on Aug. 4, the temperature, normally around 75-oF this time of year, began hitting 104-o. Paris, disdainful of air conditioning and never really comfortable with ice cubes, became a burned-out paradise, full of confused people roaming wide boulevards in search of air.

But that was later. This being France, everyone at first remained debonairly calm. The old men stayed at their posts in the cafes, stoically sipping espresso in the white, noon sun. Everything in me wanted to take action, hoard bottled water, build underground shelters. But only the slightest adjustments were made: wine and candles were taken outside to the Champ de Mars, and family dinners were held beneath the Eiffel Tower. Knowing how to live apparently means knowing that nothing will last and everything has happened before. But by the end of last week, as the old stone houses lost their ancient stores of cool and the night air grew as viscous as the afternoon's, even the Parisians began to twitch. Retired undertakers were called back to work to help handle the casualties. Like bloodhounds, we all darted about in search of cool.

I went to the movies, naively, only to find the theater humid and stale. On a Friday at 11 p.m., I found myself in a supermarket on the Champs Elysees. It was packed. We all browsed in slow motion, feigning interest in frozen chicken.

There were no fans left--anywhere. For a while, the big department store BHV was promising that more fans were on the way. But the last time I called, the man said, with that satisfied tone unique to French salespeople delivering bad news, "There are no fans. There will not be any more. Not ever."

As always, desperation breeds innovation. Everywhere, people exchanged tips on how to survive: some took showers with their clothes on and then went to bed--wet. A colleague recommended sleeping with a frozen towel over your face. Other people descended into the catacombs, where 6 million skeletons were pleasantly cool. Meteo France, the national weather service, posted hopelessly quaint tips: wet your draperies, and maybe even spritz a little perfume on them to sweeten the air!

Unable to let go of the fan idea, my husband and I seriously contemplated buying a hair dryer with a cool setting and rigging it into a fan. We opted for two bottles of glass cleaner instead; we filled them with cold water and madly doused each other. At night this strategy yielded a good 20 seconds of cool, during which we hoped to God to fall asleep.

Meanwhile, our apartment complex devolved into an embittered nudist colony. After three sleepless nights in a row, we kept the windows thrown open and sprawled naked on our bed on the ground floor. We awoke every so often to the muffled sounds of humanity: children crying, couples fighting and, at one low moment, a giant fart echoing across the courtyard.

Finally the weatherman gave us what we wanted: Sunday night was confirmed to be the hottest night in France ever, or at least since 1873, when statistics began to be collected. Any remaining stoicism crumpled in a heap. The Pope prayed for rain. A day later, so did the head of the Paris Mosque. Only then did the French government take action. A week after the heat wave began, the government set up a hotline offering advice on how to cope. I tried calling, but it was closed for the evening, like any good French bureaucracy. Senior officials, all of whom had vacated Paris for August, tried to downplay the drama. But by Thursday, the number of French people killed from heat-related causes was estimated at 3,000. And doctors were accusing politicians of being complicit in the deaths.

After 10 days of misery, I finally got a tip that fans had been sighted in Montmartre. At the tiny Bazar Electronic, a man named Nehmood told me he had two fans from Thailand left. He was evasive when I asked him how he had managed this feat. I handed over the EUR49 and didn't press for answers. Back home, we celebrated over wine and mousse au chocolat at a neighborhood restaurant. When the power went out, no one seemed to notice. The waitress brought out candles, and we all assumed this too would pass. On Thursday, just as the old men promised, the temperature fell to 80-o. But my Thai fan from Nehmood blows on, a precious talisman for a time when the French briefly lost their cool.