The lady who lives on a bench

She was pretty once. You can tell. She has high cheekbones and clear blue eyes a lover might have once been lost  in. Her movements are graceful and feminine, when you can see her figure, though it is mostly covered by old sleeping bags and blankets. Once, when her foot protruded from her multiple wraps, I saw her toenails, which were long and needed trimming, but still retained the vestiges of pale green polish.
She is the lady who lives on a bench.

Her bench is in front of a tabac (small bar that is licensed to sell tobacco and other items) about a block away from us. When I first saw her, I was surprised, because I know France has a strong social safety net, and this is not a bad neighborhood. But I suppose, as in the U.S., if someone is mentally ill and deemed not to be a danger to others, they may be left to go their own way.  I have mixed feelings about that policy.

I have never lived near a homeless person before.  Of course, I have encountered beggars at home and abroad, but I never lived in close proximity to anyone who actually made a home of a bench. 

I saw her with a book one day, and I thought, "Well, at least she has something to take her out of herself," but Kevin said, "Oh, I don't think she read the books.  She just sits with them and slowly tears the pages into tiny pieces."  I observed her then, and saw it was true.

In other countries I have adopted stray cats or dogs while I was there.  (I know, there are people who disapprove, who think you will only set them up to starve later and to make the problem worse when they reproduce. But I hold with those who say that they survived until you arrived, and when you leave there may be others who will help them get through one more day.) And I do contribute to charities for people and animals, but when there is a lost soul in front of you, organized charity just seems too abstract.

I don't know what to do about the lady on the bench.  Kevin, like others, gives her the occasional euro, and I suspect the tabac somewhat looks out for her.  She doesn't seem to drink alcohol, but she does smoke cigarettes.  I think perhaps I should get her a quiche from the bakery, because then she would at least get something healthy. But with my limited French, I can't speak to her in any depth, and I've noticed loaves of bread and other food abandoned beneath her bench, while pigeons peck at the leavings. (I think one little one-legged pigeon may eat there.  They are two of a kind, she and the little lame pigeon.)

I have seen her with an umbrella when it rains. I don't know what she'll do when winter comes. So I struggle, a stranger here, not knowing what to do. Not quite knowing how I can help her make it through one more day.