by Duke, Renee
“I can’t tolerate it, what if he can’t ever throw a ball,” Evans blurts out.
“You astonish me, Evans. If he can’t throw a ball, he will do something else. Throwing a ball is not all there is to life.” The linen napkin lies smooth and soft in my lap as I look down. Whatever words of wisdom she gives to Evans, I don’t want to interfere. She has survived by being intensely practical, never wasting time on vain regrets.
“How is the baby? Do you have any time for him?”
“Not much. I feed him and give him to the nurse. He’s very good. How are you? I mean, really how are you? Mother will want all the details.”
“Ah, your Mother, she is such a saint, she took good care of me when I was sick in New York. I’m doing as well as can be expected. The chauffeur takes me to the woods every day and I can smell the good air. I must write her, now that I have a new secretary. Fortunately she can type in French, Spanish and English and she likes to read the financial section of the paper to me. If I didn’t have her, I would find it difficult to manage the plantations from so far away.”
“I wish we could have seen the plantations when we were in Venezuela.” Too busy making fools of ourselves to have the sense to see that hardworking part of the family.
“We had a tremendous storm a few months ago, the banana trees fell on the coffee plants underneath them and we lost a fortune. I’m now looking into cultivating peanuts. There is also some talk of dairy herds. There is very little milk in Colombia, and it might be a wise move. What do you think, Eric?”
That’s good. She will prove to him, as we in the family all know, that she is an astute business woman. If he can see that she survives with all her physical problems, survives and is really capable, he may have more hope for Eric. What fun to be here, good food and wine. Quite different from lunch at home with the babies.
I’ve lost track of the conversation. Business can be dull.
“How is your hip now?”
“Darling child, they put an iron bar in it but that doesn’t make it work like it used to. You will see, when you get old, there are so few parts of the body that work well. I know that if I don’t force myself to get up each morning, I will never get up again. I have made a strict schedule so that I will keep on as I used to but it is not the same.”
“I think you are very brave. How can I be as brave with my life?”
“No need to be brave. Do it as it comes. You will know what to do if you are true to yourself.” She takes small mouthfuls, beckons Madeline to cut her chicken.
“The chicken is delicious,” I say. “Aunt Hélène, were you always so independent? What was it like, to live in Paris when you were young?” Evans is in love with old Paris.
“We were very sheltered, you know. I would watch my Mother dressing for balls. Do you know, her maid told me that the old Duchess de X never washed below her neck in all the years her mother was with her as a maid? She wore black velvet neck bands to hide the line between clean neck and dirty neck!” She laughs joyfully. We all know the family to be very proper. A curtain has slipped.
“Go on!” We both say at once.
“I’d watch the great courtesans going into the house next door when I was young. They were magnificent. We children were supposed to never look at them. I suppose it’s from one of them that my husband caught syphilis.”
“What!”
“Ah, yes, that was the socialite’s disease in those days. He died of it, just after our son was born with syphilitic brain fever.”
“Didn’t anyone know, didn’t anyone treat him? What about you?”
“After he died, his doctor called me in and told me he was going to give me special medicine. What could he have given me then? He says I never got the disease but look at my breaking bones and my eyes. At least, I don’t have it now.”
“What did you do after he died?”
“It was before the war, in 1912. He’d given all his money to the courtesans but there was 50,000 acres in Columbia. I had nothing to do but take the two babies and sail over there. On my way, I talked to a gentleman from the United Fruit Company. We talked about the best crops for my land and so I planted banana trees. I planted coffee under the trees.”
I idly remember a coffee planter’s bag my cousin gave me, black patent leather banded in red and yellow with a flap of Jaguar fur. Each of the tiny pockets held a sample of coffee beans from different fields. The smell of roasting coffee beans drifts in from the kitchen. Aunt Hélène always has a cup of very strong, freshly roasted coffee after each meal. From Colombia, of course.
“Why didn’t you stay? You have so much there and there are all your children and grandchildren.” I don’t think I’d ever leave a life that I could totally control but it may not be so terrific. It’s like running a nation.
“For me, the only civilization is in France. That’s why I bought this apartment, long ago. I knew I wanted to end up here. The children come and see me, and they manage the land fairly well. The overseer and I write to each other. The children do their best.”
She smiles, a bit regretfully. For her, old age has ended her ability to participate. Still, she is one of the few women I know who have done anything at all with their lives. Evans and Hélène continue to talk about the Paris theater, politics, a wide range of subjects.
I have let myself go, again. It’s so simple, I get wrapped up in the boys and their lives and forget to keep myself informed. Evans can be very patient with me but I’d better not try my luck.
A visit with Aunt Hélène gives me a feeling of urbanity. I belong here for a minute. Avenue Victor Hugo, with its shops and fashionable life is around the corner and I could be French instead of a visitor. A continuity drops back in, I am not alone.
I hope she hangs on longer. It feels so good here ...
***
“Cara!” Angelica is on the phone.
“Angelica, how are you?”
“Bored, bored. What are you doing now?”
“I’m trying to bring a touch of the country to my window boxes; petunias and geraniums. I’ve also put up a bamboo fence all around the balcony. I can see over the roof tops and no one can see in.”
“Come and distract me, bring one of the darlings and we can talk. Roberto is away in Italy and I’m tired of the maid and the baby.”
“Eric and I will come over in the car and take you for a drive. It’s about time the new nurse took the children to the park and sat there with the other nursemaids. We’ll be there in about half an hour.”
“Wonderful, I’ll be waiting downstairs.”
Eric proudly puts on his coat. The others protest but I have learned not to take more than one child with me wherever I go. As it is, I am always accompanied by a child and it makes me happy. I can listen to them with my attention divided only between the cars, my problems with Evans and them. Three levels, going all at once.
Neither Angelica nor I have perfect apartments. Mine is near a park, the Parc Monceau. I thought, in the beginning, that I would meet more French ladies if I took the boys to the park but they never go. The lawns are long and green but no one is allowed to walk on the grass. After the dryness of Venezuela, we longed to run barefoot in the grass but the policeman blew his whistle.
So stuffy and dull over here, suffocating middle class life. I feel the women, closed in by children and family. The husband comes home for lunch and it must have four courses. The mother–in–law usually lives with her son.
Angelica lives in a dirty, huge apartment on the Left Bank. It’s cheap; the landlord has hung big tapestries, like rugs on the walls instead of paintings. It has sun and the Left Bank, although neither one of us know much out it, it’s good to know it’s there. I love to drive over there.
What a drive! The Eiffel Tower squats in green lawn, the trees are deep green, the clouds in mounting piles. I can see how an artist’s palette would change here. We pass by the big black buildings of the Conciergerie, the old prison. Marie Antoinette, the romances of Alexa
nder Dumas. The water of the Seine as it was then. I feel surrounded by history ... there’s Angelica, standing like a poor wan peasant by her apartment. Who would ever know she could be so beautiful.
“Let’s drive along the quai[15] and see the boats. Eric would like that.” Eric seems very happy to be sitting between the two of us, his damaged hand resting palm up on my lap. He can use it but he’s very careful. The day is beautiful.
A sudden sharp sound.
“Plastiques[16]!” Both of us look at each other, not quite knowing what to do. There have been Algerian bombings all over the city this fall.
“Let’s go see!” I want excitement.
“We’re in the diplomatic corps, I don’t think we should. It’s alright for you to do that sort of thing but the Italians are frightfully stuffy.”
“Oh, come on, Angelica. It would be exciting to see a revolution. I just saw one start in Venezuela and Cuba. I should see one here. It’ll be part of my collection. Give me something to talk to Evans about other than disasters at home!”
We don’t seem to have much choice. Long black police vans pass us on the quai. They are filled with policemen and guns. They stand out starkly against the pale stone of the newly built road.
What was I thinking of? Eric is here and I have a responsibility to the boys to stay alive. Where did my brains go?
“Damn it, Angelica, we have no choice but to sit here. The police are wedging in the traffic, like a roadblock. I’m sorry. I was an ass.”
“Don’t worry, my dear. The bombing is going on above us. We won’t be attacked here. I’m afraid we will just have to sit. Look at the boats, Eric!”
“Bang, bang!” Eric shouts, his usually sad green eyes lit up with pleasure. I think I better send him to school with Jock. He needs action!
A policeman comes over, salutes and asks for our papers. I’m very vague about this war. Algeria wants to be free of the French. To me, it looks like part of the same trouble as South America but Evans says I see a Red in every Bed. The police are running after someone on the street above the quai. We all crane our necks to see what is going on.
Directly above us I see the tense face of a man, looking over the wall. His hair is brown, his hair dark and curly. He doesn’t look Algerian.
I know him. I have gone dancing with him. He’s the grandson of the “Duchess of the dirty neck”.
I think of Edgie. Are we the children of war? A bit too young to be in World War II, unable to sit quietly at home with the women and children?
The young man vanishes.
More whistles blowing. Machine guns. For a while we stalled automobile drivers were getting friendly but none of us want to be hit by a stray bullet and we duck back into our cars. There’s fun in danger when there’s nothing to do but be in the middle of it. Once I crashed in an airplane. I had the same feeling of extended time.
Angelica and I talk, faintly hysterical. We can talk about nothing because we each know the other could talk about something else.
Whistles blow and gendarmes angrily move us on, as if we stayed stalled in traffic on purpose. We see the bombed out floor of a building as we pass.
“Two hours! Take me home, my dear. I must feed the baby and get dressed for an embassy thing tonight. It’s been a change!”
“I promise that I’ll go in the opposite direction whenever I hear shooting!”
“Yes, please! We don’t want any diplomatic incidents with us!” We laugh, relieved.
‘We’ll go to the American Commissary tomorrow, okay?” Our chief form of amusement is going up to the tiny warehouse that has a small collection of American goods. We browse among Jello and Skippy peanut butter and new inventions from the commercial paradise. It’s the only time we really want to go home to the United States.
“I’ll check where there are bombings first.” She jumps out at her building, the light is beginning to turn grey, twilight is coming early. As I drive back, I hear horns blaring Al–ge–rie–Fran–çaise in rhythm. At least I’m told that’s what it is. We are forbidden to blow our horns in Paris and this is a delicious treat–if we all do it at once, no one can be arrested.
Enough looking for trouble. I drive home, Eric fast asleep on the seat beside me. I park the heavy Peugeot and carry Eric up in the elevator.
“Evans, we got stuck for two hours on the quai, the Algerians were bombing ...” I trail off as a familiar face looks at me from the window. He smiles in a pixie grin.
“I brought Henri home with me. We met at lunch today and I found out that you knew him when you were eighteen. I thought you might like to see each other again.” Evans smile widens innocently as he notices my surprise. I remember Henri very well, a big brotherly friend who was always getting into trouble and shocking the matrons of Park Avenue. He spent the war in New York as a refugee. It’s a wonderful surprise to see him, particularly as he’s the man I saw on the quai today.
“Hello, hello. Ça va?”
“Hello, dear friend.” We embrace in the French style, kissing the air beside each ear. “Henri, are you working for the Algerians?” I whisper into his ear and this time he starts another round of ear kissing, smacking me firmly on the cheeks.
“Yes and Evans knows.”
He’s wearing a brown tweed jacket and Brooks Brothers shoes, and could be any American college graduate. His body has become more elastic, I feel antennae in all directions, an automatic checking of escape routes wherever he is. Evans and Henri smile at each other. What are they doing together? I will never know my mystery husband completely.
“Henri, I wanted you to see each other after so long but I realize you must go. It would be dangerous for our children–very compromising for you to be found here or even seen coming into the building. I don’t like to be rude after such a delightful lunch.”
They look again, in complicity.
“Goodbye, Andrée.”
Henri bends over to kiss my hand. As he looks into my eyes, I am afraid for him.
“Take care, Henri. Don’t lose touch with us. We’ll see you again.” Goodbye to revolutions.
I know now I have plenty of courage when I need it. I don’t want to be foolhardy. Looking at these last months, I wonder if I’ve boxed myself in. Does it mean that I’ll stick it out with Evans? I guess so. There’s something I haven’t learned about myself. I won’t go off chasing rainbows, not until the boys can take care of themselves. Then let all hell break loose. I’ll be the only one to suffer.
Chapter 6: Conspicuous Consumption
Belgium, 1958
“The ownership of women begins in the lower barbarian stages of culture, apparently with the seizure of female captives. The original reason for the seizure and appropriation of women seems to have been their usefulness as trophies ...”
Veblen[17]. Today I think I’ll discuss with myself his thoughts on this whole strange subject. Prepare for departure.
“Goodnight, children. Jock, Lulu is a very … very ...” What can I say that tactfully tells him he takes better care of his younger brothers than the baby sitter. She looks like a Hals painting. I wonder what influence baby sitters have on children. I’ll have to move from the country soon or resign myself to never going out unless the children are with me.
I don’t know which is worse, Lulu or the Spanish coal miner I had last week. He thought there was lye in the detergent and ran screaming from the house, “cáustica, cáustica[18]!” All he had were dishpan hands.
What a domestic scene. The house is warm and the sun shines geometrically through the French windows on to the black and white tiled floor. Out the window, the rolling hills of Waterloo, soon to be taken over by tract houses. My landlord built an old Flemish beamed ceiling; big wooden beams from an old house and strips of pink, blue, red and white in between. He says that’s the way they do ceilings in Flanders.
I live in a modernized Flemish painting: beautiful, comfortable, totally different from anything I have ever seen before. There are peacocks screaming and
parading in the next–door garden, the fresh wind sweeps around our house and we all look healthy after a year of Paris.
I love it. I miss the city, any city, so much that I have hay fever from the grass and asthma from the roses. I planted petunias and geraniums and sweet smelling carnations in the garden. They never made it. This city girl doesn’t know much about any gardening. Window boxes, maybe.
What to do. They look good. Yes, the boys look good. But they won’t stay outside unless I stay with them, they cry for a city park with swings and slides. I put a big log in the bottom of the garden and planted moss and wildflowers near it. I thought of Christopher Robin, elves and fairies. Evans and I dreamed of our rosy babies climbing around the log. I’m not so sure they look at it that way. I’ve taken some wonderful photographs. The light is pellucid, a shining pearl grey. The storms are exciting and we sled on our hill with some children from the Embassy when it snows.
