I went for an aimless stroll at the Pere Lachaise today, the monumental and oldest cemetery in Paris. It's very close to the place I am renting here for a month, I can actually see some tumbs in the distance from one of the windows.
It's May 1st, a holiday, in France and in most of Europe, and it was full of tourists. Everybody looking at their maps or at the plaque in front of the the door signalling all the famous tumbs in this huge and very old, very surreal park.
I wish I had a recorder: the talk, in all these different language, was so surreal. Few hundred years of stardom, from different places and times, were mixed in the absurd expressions of the crowd. "Let's go to Chopin first, then to Jim Morrison....et Apollinaire, il est la' aussi. Voila', ici c'est Edith Piaf et par la c'est Ingres. Puccini l'hanno portato via, ma c'e' la tomba'. It was very weird, somehow voyeuristic, all these people trying to find the tumb of a famous person that for some very personal reason had meant something special to them.
I strolled aimlessly, without a map, through this forest of tumbs, most of them very very old and totally abandoned or ruined, the names of their inhabitants completely erased from the stone, the newer ones (or those with newer deads) clearly marked by some reference to life in the form of a bunch of flowers or some newly bloomed blossoms. Many had lilac trees. God knows who put them there, those paying homage to the dead now as dead as their dear ones, only the tree left , white or lilac, in all its spring beauty, quite out of place within the grey of the aging limestones.
I thought while I was walking, that it's only when they die that stars or famous people become completely, I would say helplessly available to their fans and supporters, to those to whom they meant so much. Only as dead can they be reached, can people enjoy the fleeting glorious feeling of getting close to them, and fancy the idea of sharing the same space. It's only a big or small piece of stone, in some very old case there's probably not even one single DNA particle of the original celebrity in that particular space. But the idea is that the last trace of the human leftovers of these people 'had' been there. And that is enough for peopleto go, not so much to pay hommage to the one in the tumb, but for the usual, voyeuristic attraction that would have brought them closer to them when they were alive.
It's of course mostly done for the visitor than for the visited: it's a part of his or her identity, to be able to say 'I have been to the tumb of Yves Montand and Simone Signoret" or 'I went to see his tumb' when listening to a record by the Doors back home in a grey winter day.
I, personally, went to see the tumb of Amedeo Modigliani. It' close to the one of Edith Piaf, just across the little voie, but much less crowed than that of the great little singer.
It's strangely covered with a lot of trash: letters rotting away, plastic flowers, a lot of pens and a brush, various pieces of stones purposedly arranged on the surface. It's really messy in this combination of people mementos, but it also makes it incredibly alive.
The most touching thing is to see the date of his death, January 21st 1920 and that of the death of his great love, Jeanne Hebuterne, just 5 days later. She killed herself after he killed himself. It's the stuff of movies and novels, but to see their two names, quite simply carved , one on top of the other, on the stone, it's very touching. It makes you think of eternal love. Maybe that's the only way to have it.
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