We finish our cones as we stroll past a café with a chalkboard menu and mint-green chairs placed on the sidewalk. Joy stops to take a photo, then she studies it on her phone. She lifts her eyes and tugs the fabric of my shirt.
“Look!” She points to the awning.
I study it briefly, finding nothing noteworthy. “It’s a red awning. Is this another pink door for you?”
“No, silly. Look higher. There’s an angel carved into the stone above the awning.”
I squint, finding it. A small little fellow with wings and a bugle, occupying no more than six or seven inches.
Once more, Joy takes a photo. “I saw an angel my first day here, but that was on a door knocker. It’s so random. I love how completely random this is.”
“I’ve never noticed it before. Nor have I seen any angel door knockers,” I say, scratching my jaw.
“Maybe there are angels watching over the city,” she muses.
I arch a skeptical brow. “You don’t seem like one of those angels-are-watching-over-us people,” I say as we resume our pace.
“I’m not really. As a scientist, I’d be more apt to think the planets were watching us. But some people do believe in angels, and I like knowing what people believe because it helps me understand the world better. And now I shall post that chubby little dude on Instagram,” she says with a flourish, raising her arm then stabbing her finger against the phone with panache. “Hashtag: their eyes are everywhere.” She adopts a spooky laugh.
“Beware of angels,” I intone, my voice going dark, too.
We make our way to the edge of the island, to the royal palace that became a court and a one-time prison. There, I show Joy one of my favorite gems, situated on an obscure side of the Conciergerie.
But I don’t even need to direct her to see it. She’s the rare person who looks up long enough and high enough to see what’s in front of her.
An ornate gilt medieval clock, lavishly decorated in gold and set against a royal-blue background, the twin statues of Law and Justice framing the timepiece.
I gesture to it. “This is the city’s first public clock and its oldest public clock, given by Charles V to the city of Paris in 1371. But it’s hardly included on tours, even though it mattered so much more to French people than a statue of a king.”
“Why did it matter so much?”
“Because before 1371, Parisians were pretty much wandering around wondering what the hell time it was,” I say with a chuckle.
She laughs, too. “See? I like those details. Tell me more. Why didn’t anyone know the time?”
“No one could afford their own clocks, and watches hadn’t been invented. A big public clock like this helped the citizens know when the baker, the butcher, or the tailor opened and closed.”
Joy shakes her head in amazement. “We take so much for granted.”
“And before then, there were only sundials.”
“But then you don’t know what time it is when it’s cloudy,” she adds.
“That’s the rub.”
Her brow knits, and then she snaps her fingers. “I swore I saw one the day we found my apartment. I’m not even sure it was working.”
“The city is full of sundials, too. Some are useless and don’t work. Some still tell time in the most ancient of ways. It is a little-known fact that Paris is the French city with the greatest number of sundials. There are about one hundred and twenty around the city.”
“Why so many?”
“I’m sure there’s a logical reason. Like scientific societies met here or were studying the stars, but I have my own theory.”
“Yes? Do tell.”
“We’re obsessed with time,” I say seriously, then I train my gaze on the golden arrow ticking its way around the seconds. “Not just Parisians. It’s part of being human. We waste time, and we want more of it simultaneously.”
“And yet, we rarely spend it wisely. We often simply squander it.”
Her thoughtful tone hooks into me. All these ideas I marinate on she already knows the answers to. “I think we’re searching for lost time. We don’t ever find it, but that doesn't stop us from hunting for all our lost hours.”
“Maybe that’s why there are so many sundials,” I speculate. “Maybe the French knew sooner than anyone else that we would always be seeking more time. There is literally never enough.” For a quiet moment, we stand in front of the clock as its hands tick forever forward. “What I love most about these little curiosities is picturing everyday life in this city—like when the baker is open.”
“Which reminds me how glad I am to be alive today. I love knowing the time, and I love knowing thoroughly modern details that Google tells me, like what’s the nearest boulangerie that’s still open?”
I smile at her, and translate her question into French. Then I point at her purse. “Now ask Google.”
She nibbles on the corner of her lip but does as told, taking out her phone and speaking the question into the search engine, as I repeat the words in a low voice for her. She’s stilted as she speaks, and her pronunciation is nothing to write home about, but it gets the job done, because the pleasantly robotic voice answers from her phone in French.
“The nearest boulangerie is on the corner of Rue de Lutèce and is open until six.”
Joy thrusts the phone in the air, victory-style.
“Très bien,” I tell her.
When she tucks her phone away, she says, “Whenever I hear the time, though, it reminds me that I still feel sort of lost in time. Like when I first came here.”
“How so?”
“From jet lag at first, but also there was this constantly hazy feeling of being neither here nor there. I’d left America, but I didn’t feel truly here, either, but caught someplace in-between. Was I seven hours ahead, or seven hours behind?
