by Anne Edwards
Somerset Maugham?
Well, of course, he died sadly five years earlier. But the villa was quite a noted historic site. Oh yes, and I had to agree to retain the couple and their young son who lived in the cottage. The wife took care of the house, the husband the grounds. And she wanted to be paid in dollars.
The rent was . . . ?
Four hundred dollars a month on a year’s lease, as is—and an extra one hundred dollars for the services of the couple. She expressed a photograph of the exterior and grounds of the house—the Villa Roquefille. I could not believe my luck. It looked to be sheer heaven.
• 17 •
On the Riviera
I was on my way to Beaulieu-sur-Mer, all my portable belongings crammed into Dale’s spacious American station wagon, leaving just enough room for her to see out the rear window when we were on the road. The vehicle, with its wood sides, drew long glances from cars passing from the opposite direction, as most were much smaller (and more practical) European models. Dale had bought the car at the US Army PX in Frankfort where she purchased most of her supplies at cut-rate prices as her husband had been a major in the reserves. She also had a small Fiat but used “Gertie” (her name for the station wagon) for hauling her purchases from Germany to Gstaad. Gertie was not easy to manipulate around some of the narrow roads in the Alps, and things had a way of shifting when one had to navigate the steep inclines and downhill reverse action. But Dale was an excellent driver and was blissfully happy at the wheel. Jay would follow us in three days in the silver Beetle with his possessions, the typewriter, boxes of my scripts, supplies, and our poodle family.
April is a spectacular time in the Alps, rivulets of melted snow streaming down the lower mountains, flowers of a brilliant mix of colors only nature could create carpeting ground level, the glacier shimmering in the glare of the spring sun. Dale seemed as excited about my move as I was. Mme Jeanette de Boussieu, my new landlady (who lived in Paris) had sent me a portfolio of photographs, interior and exterior, of Villa Roquefille that had truly overwhelmed us. My new home was not quite a chateau, but the pale pink, handsomely constructed, art deco stucco facade was as stunning as any movie-star estate in Hollywood. The grounds were magnificent: sloping lawns, an orange grove, several well-located, exterior terraces, and a concealed underground staircase below the grove with thirty-nine steps (just like the Hitchcock film!) that led to the coastline of the Mediterranean.
The foyer as you entered was impressive with a many-faceted crystal chandelier, terrazzo floors, and a wide, sweeping staircase that led to the second floor. The master suite was situated across the entire front of the house. Dale translated the dimensions of the bedroom into American figures. To my astonishment, my bedroom had a ceiling eleven feet high, twenty-six feet wide, and thirty feet long. There was a comfortable sitting area in front of the fireplace and a chaise lounge near the bed (when one wanted to greet visitors in one’s boudoir, I assumed). A door connected the bedroom with a gentleman’s dressing room that included a single bed, a sink for shaving, and a very impressive built-in wardrobe for his attire (one knew this was for the man of the house, as a horizontal bar divided the hanging space for shirts and trousers). Go through another door and voila! You had entered a lady’s toilette (very Jean Harlow—mirrored dressing table and a painting on the wall of a coyly concealed lady holding a sheer blue scarf). Another door opened into a Roman-style marble bathroom, with a recessed tub that would have pleased Cleopatra. Five more bedrooms, three additional bathrooms, a walk-in linen closet, and a back staircase completed the second floor.
The salon and dining room on the ground floor were separated by a unique two-way stone fireplace. Behind the dining room was a “morning room” (I could not help thinking about the “morning room” in Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca where the new Mrs. de Winter hid a broken piece of china in a desk drawer). That room would be perfect for Jay to use as an office. My landlady enclosed no photograph of the kitchen but proudly noted that there was an American refrigerator and a six-burner range. This photo gallery that I was sent went a long way in raising my spirits at a time when my second marriage was crashing and I had no idea what my immediate future held for me. At least I now knew I would be living well—and at a price that was less of an outlay than my apartment in Beverly Hills had been. Having never previously visited the Cote d’Azur, I was struck by its resemblance in many ways to Southern California—the palm trees that stretched their narrow trunks into the sky, the deep blue of the Mediterranean waters that rimmed the coastline for miles and miles; the cliff-hanging houses painted in pastels, their red-tiled roofs fiery beneath the sun. It was as if all the Impressionist paintings I had always loved had suddenly come alive. It came to me that the scenic beauty of the Pacific Coast Highway that curved with the sea in Southern California shared so much with this part of France that it felt familiar and, for this time in my life—familiar was good.
We had a marvelous journey. The drive should have taken about six to seven hours. But, considering the weight of our baggage, Dale went at a rather slow speed, concerned that if, by some ghastly misfortune we had an accident, the car—as weighted as it was—could well flip over. On the narrower roads, no one was able to pass us and, at times there was a parade of cars lined up patiently behind Gertie as we lollygagged up and down the mountain roads. Incredibly, no one honked at us (as drivers certainly would have done in the States). Although, when two motorcycles whizzed past, the leather-clad drivers each lifted one hand in a rather impolite (and familiar) gesture. We stopped for lunch en route at a charming roadside restaurant. Outside there was a large water tank filled with live blue trout which, after we selected the ones we wished to have, were cooked (just barely) over an open fire, then deboned and served with a delicious lemon-and-caper sauce. We sat at a table near a window, the midday sun sharply reflecting through it massaging our road-tired shoulders and backs. We lingered. No hurry. Mme de Boussieu had expressed the house keys to me along with a signed contract and a list of local merchants. Genevieve and Gerard (the domestic staff) and their seven-year-old son, petit Gerard, were in residence in the house behind the main house and had been notified of my imminent arrival.
I had the new Michelin Guide and, once again on the road, read off all the restaurants in the near vicinity of Villa Roquefille. Rather than unload the car and dress for dinner, we decided we would pick something up from another roadside restaurant and bring it with us. We approached our destination about seven that evening. Never had I seen such a spectacular view as met our gaze when we started down from the Grand Corniche, the night-fallen Mediterranean awash with ripples of white foam, a full moon, and a sky crowded with luminescent stars reflecting upon it. We drove along the coast, the city of Nice now behind us, until we came to a sign announcing that we were entering Beaulieu-sur-Mer. Dale pulled into a restaurant called the African Queen (I mean, who could resist that!). She insisted on my staying in the car with all my belongings while she ran in to get something to bring to the villa for our dinner. She reappeared less than five minutes later. “How could anything be cooked in such a short time?” I asked.
“They’re not cooked. I got two lobsters and a bottle of chilled champagne!”
So off we drove again—my new home now only a half mile ahead of us. Creeping up the steep incline that was the start of the lower Corniche until we came to the first hard turn in the road. There it was, lighted as though for a gala party. The property was gated. I opened it with a key marked “exterieur.” The scent of orange blossoms perfumed our way up the path to the front door. To our right was a large patio with tall french doors that obviously led into the living room, but as the shutters had been drawn we could not see inside.
Another key opened the front door. “Hello!” I called out as we entered the foyer. Facing us was that grand staircase. Brightly lit as the house was, I could see clearly into the living room, which was on my right. We both stopped short and stared. Boxes were everywhere, papers piled high. Ash
trays were filled with dead cigarette butts. Empty beer cans were littered about. “Maybe the former occupants haven’t moved yet,” Dale reasoned.
“There were no former occupants. Just the film crew who, I was told, did not stay here, but used the premises for location shots.”
“Did you ask what else they used them for?” Dale said as she walked into the room and held her nose as she pushed aside the piles of debris.
It came to me now—as is! The place was filthy.
“Hello!” I shouted again. No reply.
We made our way into the kitchen—a vast room, much like a huge farm kitchen—a stove that made my old stove when I arrived in London resemble a child’s plaything. Indeed, there was an American refrigerator, and in the center of the room a large wood table literally stacked high with more empty beer cans and refuse. The double sink was filled with food-encrusted dishes and when I opened the refrigerator, the remains of food left there at least four weeks earlier were covered in a disgusting gray mold. I quickly slammed the door shut.
“Genevieve!” I cried. No reply. I told Dale to sit down. “I’m not sure I want to,” she said with distaste.
“Well I’m going to find Genevieve!” I started for the door from the kitchen that looked likely to lead to the cottage she and her family occupied (as shown on the map of the premises that had been enclosed with the keys and was quite a nice abode).
Genevieve was a huge woman (today we would call her obese and think we were being polite). Her husband came to her armpits and could have been lost in the folds of her skirt. Neither of them spoke a word of English. I have no idea why I had not asked whether they did in my letters to Mme de Boussieu, mainly because my landlady had written to me in English, and the one time I spoke to her on the phone, she was English literate (with a charming French accent). This had caused me to assume that her staff spoke at least some English. From the tone of Genevieve’s voice, I could not help but know that she was raging mad and that she would have nothing to do with the condition of the house. “Obscenite!” she shouted over and over, and then ranted on. What I got was that she would have nothing to do with cleaning up after the cochons! (pigs). (These would be the film crew who had used the premises as a location.)
Dale suddenly appeared by my side with the bag containing the two lobsters and making some gestures (as though in a game of charades) that they needed to be boiled, handed the sack to her. Genevieve’s thick, dark brows nettled, she opened the bag gingerly, squinted into it, and then with a shriek, threw it away from her and shut the door in our face.
Welcome to my new home!
I suggested to Dale that we go back into town and see if we could book a room at La Reserve, in the downtown section of the town, which I knew was one of the finest hotels on the Cote d’Azur (only foreigners refer to the southern coastal towns of France as “the Riviera,” I had learned years before). It also had a three-star restaurant. Dale would not hear of it. “I’m starved. First we boil these lobsters and open the champagne. We’ll eat out on the terrace.” We found a pot that looked relatively clean, filled it with water, and when it came to a rolling boil threw them in (or rather, Dale did. I was squeamish about it). We also located a champagne opener. In the dining room there was a handsome breakfront filled with fine crystal and china. Plenty of champagne glasses there and it looked like the cochons had never removed anything from it—drinking beer from a can had been more their style.
We opened the shutters and turned off most of the lights in the house (the rest of the place was just as filthy but the grandeur that lay beneath it could not be concealed). Then we sat out on the patio under a deep blue, silken sky, lighted by diamond-like stars and a moon that hung in the dark sky like a magnificent, perfectly rounded pearl. We decided that for tonight we would only clean the areas where we would sleep. I had brought my linens, which was helpful. Dale said she would tackle the master bathroom. We had found cleaning equipment and products under the sink in the kitchen—and in the closet off the kitchen there was a substantial-looking vacuum cleaner. It was nearing eleven p.m. For a moment I stepped out on the bedroom terrace. The view was the superlative of spectacular. Across the waters, a light beamed, casting a shimmering line straight to the shoreline beneath our villa. It was most likely a lighthouse. Still, in my research on the area, I had discovered that Somerset Maugham had done his writing in such a tower room—often at night. Of course, Mr. Maugham had been dead for many years, but the idea that this light could be from the room in which he wrote some of his greatest novels regenerated my energy. (I don’t believe in ghosts. Still, there is something to be said about signs. I liked to think this was a welcoming one from Mr. Maugham himself.)
Suddenly Dale let out a piercing scream. I ran into the bathroom. There was this most elegant lady, on her knees, her hair pinned back neatly into an upsweep to keep it from falling down on her forehead and her neck. To my puzzlement, one of her arms was up to the elbow in the toilet.
“Whatever you do, don’t flush it!” she ordered. The rubber glove she was wearing had twisted and caught in the turn of the toilet pipe.
“Are you in pain?” I asked stupidly.
“On a scale from one to ten, give me a twelve,” she replied.
“Oh my God! What shall we do?”
“He won’t help. Call a plumber. We have to take the toilet apart.” She was calm now. “First pour me a glass of scotch—you’ll find the bottle in my hand luggage.”
It was obvious that she was right. But the toilet was bolted to the marble floor and probably had been for at least forty-five years. Then what would we do about the flood of water that would then flow forth? “Maybe I can loosen those bolts,” I offered weakly.
“We need plumbing tools. Please, the scotch first, then call a plumber.”
After I had poured her a full tumbler of scotch, I opened the phone directory. Midnight was almost upon us and it seemed my chances to find a willing plumber to come out at such an hour were slim. Also, my French was extremely limited and certainly not equipped to make much sense as to why I was asking for plumbing help at this hour, considering we did not have a flood. And even if the man (I could not conceive France having lady plumbers) spoke English, how did one sound sane when explaining that a woman had her arm caught in a toilet pipe?
There were numerous plumbers listed in Beaulieu-sur-Mer. I started to dial the first one. “Crying is good,” I thought, recalling the time in Beverly Hills when we needed a veterinarian on Christmas Eve. More likely he would not speak English. Before leaving Gstaad, Jay had come up with the helpful information that over three hundred English words that ended in either tion or sion, although accented à la français, had identical meanings. I had the list in my pocketbook along with a small English/French dictionary. After glancing at the list, I made a quick vow to begin French lessons as soon as we were settled. My eye went down the page:
“Accusation, accumulation, admiration, affliction, application, attention, celebration, collection, continuation, collaboration, classification, fornication . . .” Forget it! I would just have to wing it. The phone rang and rang. I was about to hang up when, on the other end, a man’s sleepy voice said, rather angrily, “Hallo?”
I shouted into the phone, “Attention! Boom! Boom! Boom! Explosion! Villa Roquefille! Tout de suite!” (A tourist phrase meaning right away or immediately.)
He said, “Oui! Oui!” and hung up.
I thought I had successfully communicated with him. But then I realized I had not given him the address. I called back. No answer. I dialed several other plumbiers. No answers.
What I did not know at this time was that Villa Roquefille was the most famous house in Beaulieu-sur-Mer. No, not a whorehouse. It had belonged to Mme de Boussieu’s lover, who was the town’s greatest hero and martyr during World War II. Remember those thirty-nine steps leading underground to the sea? On the seaward side there were three locks, presumably to hold back the sea. But the middle one (constructed during World War I,
I believe) was actually a dupe, with an amazing hidden door that—when approached by sea—could not be discerned—no cracks or openings visible to the eye. It had to be unlocked from the inside, meaning a cohort had to be waiting. During the occupation, Jewish refugees had been secreted from Italy up the coast on the darkest of nights (a blackout in effect during wartime) and had made it through that magical door, climbing the steps in pitch-black darkness (the door to the sea locked, the entrance concealed by thick brush) then guided through the orange grove, veering right to a path on the edge of the rose garden. Beyond that point, the terrain was nettled in overgrown shrubbery and brambles that had to be traversed to reach the back of the property, which was a steep, almost perpendicular cliff leading to the upper Corniche. In that rocky escarpment, small caves had been carved out, their openings covered over as had the steps. The refugees had to climb up that precarious edifice in darkness and silence. Three or four poor souls were held in each cave for days, sometimes weeks, until the Resistance felt it was safe for them to move up and over the top of the Corniche to continue on to Switzerland and safety. Some made it—some did not. Mme de Boussieu brought them whatever meager food she could from her own small rations, the Germans having stripped the orange grove for their own use. Her lover was eventually arrested by the Vichy government and hanged in the center of the town as a warning to all “foolish patriots.”
Villa Roquefille was sacred to loyal Frenchmen from the area who had survived the war. It had been a call to arms that brought my plumbier so quickly to my door that night. It was also why Genevieve was so furious that the film crew—the cochons—had so desecrated the premises.