A reminder that this is Marseille, “The French Connection.” You begin to feel secure…but you’re not quite.
It was about 1:30 a.m. I was just getting to sleep when I heard several great thumps at the locked door to the hotel 5 floors below. The management locks the massive door in the evening, but guests have keys.
Finally someone opened the door. I heard words. Then someone climbed the stairs to this floor. I heard a sharp knock on my door.
I didn’t answer. Usually, I don’t answer the door after about 11, and I don’t answer the telephone after midnight. Nothing, I feel, is that important. But this was especially sinister.
The man wen to several of the other doors on this floor, then back to mine, and knocked once more.
“C’est qui?” I shouted.
No response.
“C’est qui?” I shouted, walking toward the door. I hear the doorknob turn—he was trying to get into the room! Luckily, I never leave room doors open in apartments or hotel rooms, ever.
“Someone wants to talk to you downstairs,” he said.
“It’s not possible,” I said. “I know no one in Marseille. It’s not possible,” I repeated.
I heard no more…but after a while the person left.
Clearly I was being mistaken for someone else. But the episode sounded like a scene from a spy novel…very mysterious…. Now what if I had opened the door? Foolish? Or what if I’d forgotten to lock it? There’s just no room for sloppiness or trusting souls in a major city, Marseille, or any other, no matter where you’re staying. When I walk alone in a major city on the streets, I walk fast, don’t make eye contact with anyone, and put on my most grim, scary expression. I don’t get many admirers. But so far, it’s kept me from any major confrontation, either.
There is much to be said for the safety for Midwestern America, although, frankly , you’re probably just as unsafe in a city like Minneapolis as in Marseille. They shoot poeple in Minneapolis, for instance.
— Marseille, France, Oct. 16, 1988
OtD 