L'escalade
photo by the author
And now we’re halfway up the dingy metal steps, cross-stitch fencing running up both sides. There’s no fuss here, only function. I let a family pass. I marvel at how far we’ve come, but I know Nick’s thinking of how much is left to go. I fall a full flight of stairs behind him.
There is just the slightest sway to the tower, a bit of wind, and I’m grinning; he must be hating this. I remind myself that he often compromises more than I do, that my determination and unshaking optimism to let’s just see how it is often wins. And it’s been winning so far on this trip: we have taken rickety trains and delayed buses and packed subways and long ferries and even an electric scooter around new cities; we’ve had a nightcap at every hotel bar; we walked a mile on a chilly London late-night to find a restaurant still open. Now he’s climbing the Eiffel, afraid of heights.
I feel the worst of the climb is behind me, that I just need to endure now, keep the pace. The hangover accelerates everything; I feel every ache and every exhalation. We’re almost to the first floor deck. I catch up to Nick at the top. He’s hunched against a beam, catching his breath. I’m overjoyed. From up here, Paris looks like interlocking pieces of a blue and grey puzzle, streets curving and complementing each other, each arrondissement arranged as if it were moving to a current humming underneath the city.
The bar, covered in a plastic climate-controlled dome, looks intimate. Nick tells me he needs to get back down before he throws up. We compromise: a celebratory drink on the ground. I take my time exploring the first floor while looking for the exit. It’s crowded, and we have to walk in single file down the lanes, next to a tightly woven, thick fence around the handrail that Nick still doesn’t trust. I take my photos quickly as I can. At the opposite corner, I see another set of stairs.
It feels as if it takes twice as long to walk down; I hold on tightly to the handrail, my legs heavy. Every step down is an exhale. At the bottom, the concrete feels strange, like my body is still adjusting to being in two states at once on the tower, stable but shaky.