by Duke, Renee
“Look out for the piles of clothes, Randall. Hold the hamster cage.” Cleo arches her big poodle body over the cage and jumps out, prancing into the bushes.
“Help, I’m stuck!” shouts Randall.
I start to answer sharply, then wonder why. Evans isn’t on the trip. No need to be quiet, be good, no pressure. I can laugh and not be considered a foolish woman. Two seemingly blunt pieces of iron that I have felt lodged on my temples suddenly shake loose. They’ve been there ever since the first baby came home from the hospital and his crying disturbed Evans.
It’s easy to smile.
“Silly, I’ll help.” The fresh air beats at me as I step out of the car and the door swings violently wider. The lee of the car is protected. I lift up Randall’s long skinny legs and help him over the cage.
“The hamster looks funny. Let’s feed him and talk to him.”
Matthew has already run off. Better leave the door of the car ajar. The car heater stinks.
“No, later, let’s run.” We all break into an awkward race, ankles numb from sitting still. The side of the road stretches invitingly. Run! It’s so cold!
Matthew is stopping at last! His hair looks wild, fierce.
“Sean, come on, don’t be so sophisticated!” He’s trying to ignore our enthusiasm as if he were on a Paris street.
“Let’s see who can pee the farthest into those bushes!” shouts Matthew. One contest I can’t join. When I was little, I read that if you kissed your elbow, you would turn into a boy. I would try day after day to reach my elbow. Impossible.
The bushes look protected from the road, I can peacefully pee there. Not that anyone cares in France, in the country, on a deserted road. It’s good to touch the branches, hear field noises, rattlings and crackings, very very faint. There’s a wildness in the air, a smell of snow. I want my brood near me, to hold the side of a face in my hand, to nuzzle behind an ear.
“Let’s go, let’s go. It’s cold! Fix up the hamster, boys, I don’t care whose he is.” Cleo growls at him, he cowers in his cage. “Pad him carefully, it’s cold for him.”
“We’re off!” We suddenly seem too large for the car. We’ll have to get compacted again.
“Sean, take the map and get us to customs at Maubeuge. We’ll stop after the border. I think the autoroute will take us along the outskirts of Brussels and to the German border at Aix-la-Chapelle. It’s a bit long but safer to be where we know the roads are kept clean of snow. Here, take the thing.” I can never fold maps. The folds are logical to undo but there are too many opposites to fold up.
The country is subtly changing. Long-roofed sheds for bales of hay, poised like ships on the tops of the hills, have been replaced by simple hay ricks with a tarpaulin on the top. Towns are closer together and there is a grayness in the streets. We’re close to the mining fields of Belgium. A land of rain and cold and beer and the wildly pagan festival at Binche. It smells of coal.
Slippery cobblestone streets, border guards hiding in their warm huts, on we go.
“Do you realize what we look like, Mummy? English weirdoes or hippies. The tarpaulin has frozen into a wing at the back of the car!”
“And Cleo looks like she has a wig on. No wonder they ignore us at the border. I remember when they cared more. Let’s stop and get some coffee.”
One Belgium street is very much like another on a cold and windy day. Lowering sky, grey clouds nearly touching the houses. I feel an enormous oppression. The windows shine and the front door steps are washed every Friday. Blinding conservatism. The buttonholes are stitched by hand and the little white collars are starched on the young children’s clothes. In a country town in Belgium there are the rules of the community and the priest. The Church crouches near you. Everyone looks and looks at you in Belgium. You might break the rules and they wouldn’t survive.
Ugh, what memories.
“I need a cup of strong coffee quick! Here’s a cozy café. Don’t disgrace me now, you know how they are in Flemish territory.”
Pile in. The cold wind whips the door shut behind us. Smells of javel[37] from the scrubbed black and white tiled floor. Over there the regulars are huddled around a small stove, playing dice.
Click, click. Silence. We are observed. Are we French? Too unruly. Flemish? Walloon? German? Madame by the door has checked out our license plates. I’ll speak English quickly to Matthew. Ah!
“Yes, Madame, we are American.”
“Slide over those seats, children.” So cold. I thought this would be a cozy café. Pretty 1900 mirrors. Lousy atmosphere.
“Let’s be quick boys. Choose juice or hot chocolate. No, no lemon fizzy water. I don’t know why. Let’s have some raisin cakes too. Look, Matthew, you can find the toilets out there in the courtyard. Hold your nose, it’s the country.”
“What are you giggling about, Sean?”
“The accent, it’s so different from Paris. Remember when we used to hear it up in the mountains when we’d shoot the rapids?” They’re off again. I love the old fashioned accents. It’s like the people on the Delmarva peninsula in the States.
The sooner we finish here the better. Definitely not appreciated.
“Let’s go straight on tonight, what do you think boys? I think we’re headed into some big snow and I’m scared of it. Do you mind if we push on?”
“Why not?” Sean, Matthew and Randall sigh submissively. We are all deadened by travel. With any luck we should be in Denmark by tomorrow evening, or at least at the ferry on the border.
I wonder how my tires will manage on the snow. I think I won’t worry about that now. I need my courage.
“Sean, check the map names will you? The languages switch back and forth from Flemish to French. I’m getting confused.”
Great old names. I love the names of Belgium; Nivelles, Soignes, Waterloo, Braine-l'Alleud. Battlefields of Europe, we used to know them by heart. When the fog rolls over Waterloo, I can still hear the shots.
At last, the outskirts of Brussels.
“Let’s see our old house another time. I need some craquelin[38] bread!”
“You mean elephant ears! I’ll hit the bakery over there. Can we get sweet butter?”
“On top of brown sugar bread? Let’s not!”
“Let me do mannekin pis[39] beside the road, Mummy.” Matthew’s whole life seems to be one pee stop after another. I suppose no one cares at his age.
The lights outside are dim, as usual.
Another layer of crumbs in the car, it smells good in here. Let the boys squabble over the biggest piece, it’ll give them something to do while I drive on. The German border is near. Snow, great drifts of it. My God! Can’t see a thing through these windshield wipers.
“Sean, stick your hand out and get some of the snow off the wipers!” The wind whips in the window. The flakes whirl in the air. Might as well stop. Huge trucks roar by, splashing mud over the car. When they leave the sudden silence is deafening. Hansel and Gretel in the Rhine Valley. I’ll rub the snow into my face. It scratches, wakes me up. The boys think it’s hilarious. Now we’ll steam all the way to Denmark.
We’ve turned off the wrong road.
“Ausfahrt, ausfahrt!” Matthew giggles at Randall and I see the exit–ausfahrt–too late. Huge black pines surround us. This damn place gives me the creeps. Wolves and the brothers Grimm and shock-headed Peter with his hair and fingernails that grew and grew. Terrifying German fairy tales.
“There’s the Rasthaus at the top of the hill, mummy!” Matthew found it first. We all breathe a sigh of relief. I can finally let my legs tremble and feel exhausted. Here we are, half a day off schedule and this is no picnic.
Haphazard parking, who cares!
“Matthew, grab the hamster cage!” Cleo plunges with elegant distaste into a drift, her wig-like hair standing on end in the wind. I feel like a Rhine maiden about to take off, even in my layers and layers of clothes.
Through the heavy glass door, I can see Herr Innkeeper struggling into his jacket.
“Madame, we have only one large one room, so late you know. Yes, you may bring the dog. Our kitchens are closed. We have but the machines in the lobby.”
Junk and more junk. Garbage, that’s all we’ve eaten all day. Suppose we’ll go on a diet of fruit filled Danish pastry when we get to Denmark. Can’t risk a culture lag.
Ah, thank you Herr Innkeeper. Lovely hot room, two huge beds and down-filled comforters. Water for Cleo.
“Put Cleo’s dog food in the soap dish, Matthew.” Cleo rolls her eyes back at me. Two ladies in such inelegant surroundings, she seems to say, as she minces over to the soap dish.
The clothes are strewn all over the floor and the night air whistles through a small crack in the window. Far away is the hum of the autobahn. My tired eyes still register the flick of the headlights. Children asleep? A sad ache sweeps over me that I’m not sharing this adventure with anyone.
The trip is an adventure but the real point is here, sleeping. Can I make it alone with all these children? They are so charming and wise but I am forever coping and handling, no time to think. Can I ever become myself, see through my eyes only?
Through the night, the voices of all those others who seem to pretend concern for me but only want to control me. Turned and twisted concern.
“Andrée, you cannot go where you have no circle of friends.” Whispers from my lawyers.
“I shall take the children from you if they don’t get a good education ... I’ll send the big boys to boarding school ... I’ll get a nurse and a cook for the little ones ... I will get them. I can bring them up better than you ...”
Whispers, voices that come back in the night to remind me that the only person who has faith in me is me.
Who am I? A horoscope in the back of a fashion magazine? Other people’s ideas of me? Am I really a someone too and not an echo? What do I want from what’s left of my life? Do I care? To hell with it, end of the day glooms. I’m better off asleep.
***
Wonderful breakfast, hot coffee, crisp rolls, all of us clean and shining from a big hot bath and our underclothes washed and dried crisp on the radiator.
Remember skiing days?
“Remember when you had to sit on your skis to get over a patch of ice, mummy!”
“Remember when you fell over the cliff in your big overcoat?”
“Remember when I was learning to ski and the wind blew me off the slope?”
And so on.
Cleo rubs against my leg. “Pile up our money, Sean, let’s see how we’re doing. If we’re lucky we can afford a hot lunch at a cafeteria on the way.”
“Matthew, what are you doing without a shoe?”
“I lost it in the snow drift walking Cleo.”
“Let’s get it and move on!”
“Let’s get it and move on!” The wind is rising. The snow blows in eddies and the clouds are dark grey in the north. We’re going right into a Brueghel landscape. However good German snowplows are, they don’t blow the snow off the signs and clear my windshield.
Germany
The wind beats in a frenzy against the windshield. We have been inching along the autobahn all day. From time to time we’ve seen clumps of houses. Sometimes I’ve felt like jumping out of the car and running floundering through the drifts to the stream of kitchen smoke. Three American Hansels and a Gretel. Still, I’d like to make it to the border tonight. It looked different here in Northern Germany last summer; friendly and gold under an August sun.
“Let’s stop by the next batch of toilets and candy machines. The snow is caked on the windshield and the tires are wearing high heels!” I can try to make light of it all, starting to feel slap-happy. Me, so protected, driven around Europe by a chauffeur or my husband, like a basket case. Of course I can do it. Why not? At any rate, I have no choice. There really isn’t anything else I can do. I wouldn’t even be mentioned in the local papers–not like the New York Daily News–“Heiress and Children Found Frozen in the Black Forest.”… no, that would never sell. “Snowy Death in Black Forest” sounds better –turn to inside page for details.
Randall looks at me oddly. “Mummy, we’d better not miss the road to Lübeck, one goes by the villages and the other follows the autobahn to the Puttgarden ferry. Look, the road ahead is clearing, we must be getting close to some major turnoff.”
He looks intently ahead and we both see the snowed over sign at the same time.
“Sean, please see if you can clear the snow from the sign.”
He turns as I speak, lost in thought. The door opens slowly and he jumps out as I slide to a stop near the sign. Mountains of snow are piled up next to it, with every step he sinks into the drifts. Although Sean tries to brush the snow from the sign, the wind pushes him away and the snow is too tightly packed to blow away at a light touch.
“Back to the car, dear, we’ll just have to risk it. One way or the other we’ll end up at the port.”
As we slip into the warm car, the steam covers the windows of the Simca and it is difficult to see. It does seem that the more beaten track is to the left. As we drive slowly along, it is obvious that it’s a wrong turn when a series of hills come along. There is no turning back, with the drifts high on either side of the road. Randall looks with cool interest at the landscape, Sean’s black eyes are fixed on nothing at all as he retreats to a dream world. Matthew cuddles close, trusting, yet self-sufficient.
“Damn it! I can’t get up this hill at all, the car just slides up and down, like a toy!”
“Try second gear, mummy,” says practical Randall.
We are stuck, I can see that.
“I’m going to see if I can get help, we’re making a hole in the snow.”
I get out. The wind’s violence is less here by the sea. There’s a pearly light from the setting sun. Nearly three in the afternoon and the last ferry for Denmark is at six-thirty. We may have to stay in Germany for the night.
Now that I’m out of the steamed-up car, I can see a little village up ahead.
What’s that! A stream of men are coming from the bar! Looks like we have help, all beered up, but help. With enormous willingness, they see the situation and come over and push the Simca up and over the hill.
“Danke schoen, danke, danke! Thank you,” we shout joyfully. There, past the village, is the flat plain to the sea, with a line of poplars marking the road. How about that! This path isn’t particularly easy but at least we’re not marooned.
As I drive along, I think about this trip. We’ve had an interesting time of it, no two ways about that and it’s not difficult.
When does my generation get afraid? I have a feeling that boredom makes you unwilling to push out into new things and after a while, after a period of mopey grief we sink into apathy. Death by suicide, by a seeping away of the life force, by nasty diseases, solves the whole problem. At least pain is a feeling, not the great, grey blankness of doing nothing but the expected.
Well, my generation had a war, we grew up with blackouts and rationing and perhaps we were trained to wait and wait. Think of all our romantic songs from the forties ... the male mystique encouraged, to keep the boys killing and being killed, far from home. They came back from war and we medieval maidens considered ourselves spoils of battle.
Now, twenty years later, I’ve woken up, as if retarded, learning to live for myself and my children and our future, not the corporate future. I had become a photograph with no sound, the smiling jet setter, radiantly vacuous. Think of all the photographs of people smiling together, the arguments hidden, wounded souls hidden from posterity.
What a lot of baloney! I remember back expecting Evans to marry me after I went to bed with him. Whether we really wanted to marry or not, it was the expected thing. Oh the terror of sending out the wedding invitations back then, as my Mother and Grandmother addressed the envelopes.
“Mother, I’m terrified, I don’t think I should do this.”
“We all felt the same way, Andrée. You can always get a divorce.
”
“But, Mother, I’m promising to love and obey and I don’t want to be tied to him like that.”
“Ridiculous, Andrée. A woman must have a man to take care of her in our society.”
“Why, Mother? I make more money than he does, I could be president of R.H. Macy’s eventually, if I really tried.”
“That is unrealistic, Andrée. Look at Uncle’s friend, head of a fashion magazine. She never gets home, she never sees her children. They live in New Jersey and by the time she gets home, she’s exhausted and can’t enjoy her lovely home.”
“She manages her life poorly then, there is no reason to fit into a man’s corporate mold, you know. You brought us up with Nanny and we hardly ever saw you. We did fine.”
