Re: “What Is Proper Way to Treat a Modern Beggar?”
As I said last week, wherever I travel, I pay attention to the beggars in the streets. They show the mood of the city and the situation in the country.
Besides the unusual, presumably destitute, girl I noticed this past summer when I visited Paris, as mentioned last time, three other girls were sitting in the same manner in three different locations, one closer to Etoile, the next one facing Avenue George V, and the third one closer to Ronde Point Champs Elysees. All three were in the same position as the first girl, gazing down at a cup for donations without ever stirring.
But it seemed that the original girl was promoted to lie face down on the sidewalk, sleeping completely flat from the waist up on her face, and a very difficult position even for an accomplished yogi.
I was leaving for Belgium early one morning. I took the Metro to the Gare du Nord, the station for the train going to northern cities and countries. I had two hours before the train left. I came out of the Metro to walk around. Suddenly I saw a large group of men, women and children who had just emerged from the Metro.
Who Are These People?
By their outfits, I guessed they were gypsies. A man in the middle was issuing orders. Like an army commander, he was making small regiments to his right, to his left, north and south.
I could not hear all that he was telling them but I understood that each group had to go in the direction it was facing. Instantly, I recognized one of the girls from the Champs Elysees. So this was an organized beggar regiment. Like any business, if it is successful, they add franchised locations.
On the way back to Los Angeles, I stopped a few days in Chicago to visit my daughter who is a cardiothoracic surgeon, working day and night to help people. She does not have enough time to take care of herself, nor does she visit us often. She leaves for the hospital at 6 o’clock in the morning. When she returns, it is sometimes after 7 in the evening.
When I am with my children I know that they have missed the taste of my foods, so I cook their favorites.
Although I am there to see her, she sometimes she has emergencies, and has to operate at night and does not come home at all.
Touring the Town
So I visit the museums of Chicago. I know some rooms and the location of certain paintings by heart. Chicago is a beautiful city. Its museums are gorgeous. I walk in the streets and watch the architecture and the people.
I have become familiar with some of the same faces. A man sits near Intercontinental Hotel in North Michigan Avenue, the fancy street of Chicago. He always is present at the same spot, day and night, under the sun or in the snow with the ferocious cold weather of Chicago.
Some blocks down from him near the radio station facing the Trump building, near the river, a young man, bald and pale, is sitting. He has written on a cardboard that he has cancer. He is going under chemotherapy, and he is asking for help. He is the only one who got me. His face is so drawn. His failing health so obvious.
When I mentioned him to my daughter, she said yes, he has been there for three years. There are treatment centers for poor people. I cannot understand why he is not being taken care of.
Maybe I sinned, as I asked myself, Could he be a drug addict? Does he really have cancer? What is the difference? He looks really ill. I was reassured because at least I know that he has been alive for three years in his existing condition!
(To be continued)
Dr. Rosemary Hartounian Cohen, who lives in the Fairfax District, received her Ph.D in sociology from the Sorbonne in Paris. She lived in two other countries before moving, with her husband and four children, to Los Angeles in 1984. She has published four books in America. Since 1985, she has operated Atelier de Paris, an international art business, on Robertson Boulevard. Her email address is Rosemary@atelierdeparis.com.
