Leaving Home

by Anne Edwards

  “You want to accompany me to the States?” I asked, stalling for time to digest this.

  “Yes, and allow me to work for you there.”

  “As a cook?”

  “Well,” he grinned, showing a mouthful of perfect white teeth. “I can type and file. Mr. Bogarde is also writing now. I helped him copy his pages. And I am a good organizer.”

  We were sitting in the kitchen and I was munching away at a flavorsome cocktail-sized egg roll filled with shrimp. “What is it you want to do in America?” I asked.

  His broad smile returned. There was pride and intelligence in his face. “I plan to start the first gourmet Asian fast-food chain,” he said.

  Seated across from me was a potential émigré with a dream, a throwback to earlier men and women bound for America because they believed their dreams could be fulfilled there; men like my grandfather, Big Charlie. Dreams were often changed by circumstance, but everyone has the right to go in search of his or hers.

  Of course I hired him. He moved in the next day to occupy the rooms that Vera had always used when she was with me. I simply could not give him Jay’s former suite.

  • 19 •

  Last Call!

  “Just try it, Genevieve,” Alex would say as he presented her with a beautifully plated dish of tiny seafood dumplings.

  “Poison!” she would spit back and turn away.

  Alex had arrived at Villa Roquefille the morning after our interview, bringing with him a battery of woks, steamers, bamboo accoutrements, and a shopping bag filled with special spices, jars of Asian preserves, and a five-pound bag of rice. There was, from that day forward, a pot of steamed rice kept on the back burner of the stove, ready to eat or use in a recipe, memorized or created on the spot, as he owned no cookbook (at least not one that I had seen). The kitchen was immediately his domain, to Genevieve’s furious rumblings. She refused to wash the dirty dishes and pots from his cooking or to eat anything that he had made, no matter how hard he tried to tempt her to do so. Alex was, in fact, of an easygoing nature and added a needed light touch to the atmosphere of the house, still feeling the absence of Jay. He was also a superb cook—a chef, really—and happiest when he was in the kitchen whipping up a meal.

  He had overrated his typing skills (which put me back to work on the typewriter when necessary), but more than made up for it in his organizational abilities. He also drove a car, which I rented for our use during the remaining time we would spend at the villa. He went through all my papers with me, boxed and numbered them, and then entered what was in them into a ledger. Catherine finished classes a week before I had set the date of our departure on the Italian liner Michelangelo, departing from Nice at noon on May 27, a Saturday, and arriving in New York the morning of May 31. A car had been booked to take us to Stockbridge (a three-hour ride) and reservations made at the highly rated Red Lion Inn (substantiated by the reviews from magazines enclosed in the agent’s correspondence to me) until the house on Christian Hill was available. She also had found a “doggie hotel” nearby the inn where our poodle family could board until we took possession of the house.

  Before Catherine joined me, I wanted to have a good part of my packing done so that we could enjoy a few days seeing the parts of the Cote d’Azur that I had missed or wished to visit once again. Dale was also coming down for a weekend before the house was too filled with boxes, crates, and suitcases. The one great thing about our traveling by ship was that each passenger was allowed a very large baggage weight, and as there would be three of us going first class (Catherine and I sharing a large outside cabin, and Alex a smaller inside one), I would not have to ship anything separate.

  Deciding what to take and what to dispose of during a major move is not an easy task. I had carted everything I had in Gstaad to Beaulieu and still had furniture and other household goods in storage in California which I planned to transport once we were settled. I tried to be sensible in my choices and ruthless in my disposal (Genevieve worked as a willing taker by my side, which I suppose made things easier). I thought about Paul Jarrico and his car heaped with personal papers. I would hold on to only those that I felt needed to be kept as a record—my final drafts of books, unpublished stories, things related to my family history, and a few large envelopes of letters and photographs. Sorting through my relatively small library was more difficult. I packed several boxes of the books I could bear to part with and Alex took them into Nice to donate to the American Library there. I gave all things electrical to Genevieve, as I did not want to have to deal with converters. Still, the numbered boxes now occupying a good portion of the living room grew.

  I was almost euphoric when Dale arrived and I had reason to put aside the cleaving, chaos, and disorder for a few days. We had decided to just tootle around the area, stopping wherever we felt drawn to do so. She had the small car—perfect for two women with only a couple of changes of clothes and for investigating some of the small villages on the High Corniches. There were only short stretches between them and each had its own special appeal. It was on this short tour that I came to appreciate why the Cote d’Azur, putting aside the sister palm trees of Southern California, had felt familiar to me from the start. Whatever vista I looked to, seaward, the mountains, down the small roads of ancient villages, past flower gardens and flower stalls, I had seen before in the great paintings of the French artists of the last decades of the nineteenth century and the early ones of the twentieth—Cezanne, Manet, Matisse, Monet, Utrillo, Dufy, Pissarro—their canvasses glowing with the images we now drove past, painted in the uniquely fierce light of the South of France. The azure skies, red-tiled roofs, and silvery olive trees swathed in luminous sunshine and dramatic shadows.

  We started out early in the morning. With Dale at the wheel, we headed up the Moyenne Corniche to the fortified medieval village of Eze and perused its ancient streets with their high stone walls and roads made of red brick, worn to a pale rusty color through the centuries. The town was perched precariously on narrow rocky cliffs. We had a morning coffee in a restaurant that hung over the side of a great cliff, seemingly without support, and sat at a window that looked down to the coastal towns below as the sea rolled in soft waves out to and over the horizon. We left before the onslaught of tourists arrived and drove westward to Saint Paul with the sun lighting the whole countryside and the glare on the sea so strong that it was best not to look sideways or down.

  Saint Paul was also an ancient fortified village, perhaps the most intact example in the South of France. We were not stopping there to see the thousands-year-old ramparts, but to walk around the village and have lunch in the glorious courtyard at La Colombe d’Or, which was famous for their amazing collection of art obtained at the end of the nineteenth century when artists like Monet, Cezanne, and others of that era, not yet making a fair living from their work, lived in the area and traded paintings for food. The spectacular private collection now hung on the walls of the warren-like rooms of the main building. It was there that I had a simple salad with the most succulent, sun-toasted tomato I had ever eaten and for dessert, rich red strawberries served with ground black pepper. We had chosen an outside table on the tree-shaded terrace because we were aware that if you ate inside, you would have gapers leaning over you to look at the incredible art display.

  Our next stop was Vallauris, a town famous for some five thousand years for its clay works and where Picasso, who lived for ten years in the Villa Galloise, then on the outskirts, had begun his love affair with ceramics—and with the town itself. In the ancient chapel he painted his enormous fresco, War and Peace, not at all, with its grotesque and bloodied figures, what the townsfolk expected. Once seen (and we stood there a long time studying it), it is difficult to erase from your memory. We walked the narrow streets, lined with galleries and shops where dozens of potters plied their trade and sold their work. Finally, we entered the Madoura pottery works where many of Picasso’s pieces were on display—the originals at a high cost. I was enamored of a glazed
white pitcher, its unique design in black, signed by the artist; and I deliberated its purchase. The high price, and the fact that I had vowed not to bring back anything more for us to pack, stopped me. At this time, Picasso was ninety-two (he died one year later) and it was doubtful that he had any more works forthcoming. Still, it was enough for me to enjoy his unusual pottery on display—especially after that walk in and out of so many shops showcasing other potters’ art pieces—for one understood why there was only one Picasso and what a genius he was.

  After a light supper at an outdoor café we spent the night at a quaint inn (six or seven rooms at the most) in a nearby village. When I awoke the next morning it was to a great deal of sound and commotion. I ran to the window (small, like one to be found in an attic room). Below, on the cobbled courtyard, a farmers market had been set up and was, even at this early hour, enjoying a heavy business. Dale and I dressed quickly and went down to join the market crowd. I was used to the huge open markets in Monaco and Nice. This one was minisized compared to them. But it was one of the finest I had ever shopped at. One had the feeling that everything had been picked only hours before, for the displays of fruits and vegetables were still touched with the fresh early-morning dew. We bought more than enough to eat as a picnic lunch somewhere on a side road on our return to Beaulieu.

  My parting with Dale was difficult. We were both choked with emotion. She promised to come see me in Stockbridge as soon as it was possible for her to make a trip to the States. Right now she had a massive new project that involved a hotel, spa, and condominiums on an island in the Turks and Caicos that still did not have boat or air service to the mainland.

  A friend drove Catherine down at the end of school, the car jam-packed with her possessions. The living room now looked like a loading dock. Our plan was to travel east along the coast with Alex the following day to Monte Carlo (Monaco), Menton (France), and over the Italian border (less than a three-hour drive), staying one night someplace on the Italian coast before returning. We talked like two young girls way into the night. I woke up a little later than planned. I was not yet dressed to go down for breakfast when I heard Genevieve screaming. Catherine raced down the stairs and into the kitchen, me following on her heels. Genevieve was sobbing, the excess flesh on her arms flapping as she heaved with each new outburst. Alex was attempting to find out the cause.

  It was Sandy. Gerard had found him on the grounds lying on his side, apparently unable to move, the two other dogs yipping and barking. Out we went as fast as we could. Sandy was whimpering—the other dogs barking as they ran around us. I got down on my knees and stroked his head. He looked up at me with his large brown velvet eyes. He trusted me and the whimpering stopped. I could see no blood anywhere on his underside or on his light apricot fur that always made people turn to look at him, so handsome did he wear it. I thought hopefully at first that he might have only broken a bone. Alex helped me raise him up. He could not move or stand, and we gently laid him back down again. Catherine went in and called the vet while Alex carefully lifted him and held him in his arms. He was a hefty dog—weighing over fifty pounds. We got him into the rear seat of the car. Catherine, having reached the vet, returned with a blanket, covered him with it, and then sat in the back next to him while I sat in front with Alex.

  Together, Alex and I carried Sandy into the vet’s office and placed him on the steel examining table, Catherine fast by our side. After the long, trying minutes while he was being examined, the vet informed us that Sandy had suffered a heart attack and stroke. Most of his body was paralyzed. Catherine was crying, and I had a hard time holding back my own tears. Sandy had always more or less been Catherine’s dog. He had been with us for nearly eleven years, had stood at the window in Klosters waiting for her to come home from school when she was a youngster. The vet was moved by our sadness, but he had to tell us the truth. There was no other recourse but to put Sandy down. Catherine let out a sobbing, “No!” and held on to me. I asked the vet to leave us alone for a few moments. When he returned, both of us having regained our composure, we each stood on one side of the table on which Sandy lay and stroked his head as he was put to rest. Never before had either of us experienced death. In Sandy’s case it came most peacefully.

  The trip down the coast was canceled by mutual assent, and Catherine and I kept ourselves busy with the work of preparing for the longer journey.

  Sidney came to see us off. The previous day, a service had picked up the baggage that was to be stored in the ship’s cargo. The last box was marked 42! We each also had two smaller suitcases to be delivered to our cabins. We arrived early just to make sure all of this went smoothly. Biba and Chrissy were to travel in the kennel on the top deck, but we were able to keep them with us until the ship was at sea. “You’re doing the right thing,” Sidney assured me as the ship’s bell rang and the shout of “Last call! All ashore who’s going ashore!” repeated in Italian, French, and English, echoed throughout the massive ship. I watched him descend the gangplank. We exchanged an enthusiastic wave (not royal at all!). He saluted—which rather amused me. There was fruit and a bottle of champagne in our cabin from the ship’s captain, and two beautiful floral bouquets, one from Sidney and one from Dale. The three of us went back up on deck to watch as the ship churned the waters and we were finally at sea. The day was magnificent: warm breeze, the waters calm. I could only hope that Sidney had spoken the truth.

  I had sailed on Dutch, English, and French ships. This was the first time on one flying the flag of Italy. There was constant confusion. The first safety drill was utter chaos. And the dining captain never knew what table we were supposed to sit at for our meals. I finally asked for a private table for the three of us. It was never really private because the maître d’—a slender, slightly balding, dark-haired man—was constantly at our table making sure . . . well, I was not exactly sure of his purpose, until Catherine said, “Mom, he has his eye on you.”

  After a meal, when I went up on deck and had settled comfortably into a lounge chair with a book—he would suddenly appear at my side to lean over to ask in a manner (in Italy anyway) obviously meant to be seductive, “Is there anything I can get for you, madam?” The morning of our third day out, I answered a knock on my cabin door and there he stood, a sweater I had left in the dining lounge just outside the restaurant folded like a napkin over his arm. “I believe this is yours, no?” he smiled.

  “Yes, thank you,” I said, took it from him, and went to close the door. He took a step inside. I assumed that this was not a first for him. He most probably thought I was a rich divorcée (first-class passage and an Asian assistant) or widow and had the idea that as such I (and others before me) might be glad to be “entertained.”

  I planted my feet more securely on the rug, put my hands on my hips, and glared at him. “You know the large Russian gentleman with the mustache who looks a lot like Stalin and is traveling alone and sits at the next table to mine?” I asked in a strong, declarative voice.

  “Si . . . si?”

  “He is a friend of my husband’s.” I took a deep breath. “Mafia.”

  “Mafia!”

  “You come one step further into this cabin, and if I were you I would . . .”

  The door was open and as fate would have it, that same Russian gentleman was passing by in the corridor. “Dos vadanya!” I called out to him. Actually, it means “good-bye” in Russian, but they were the only words of Russian that I knew. The man turned, smiled, and paused a moment, while the maître d’ made a quick exit down to the opposite end of the corridor.

  For the rest of the voyage, the maître d’ avoided speaking to me, even in the restaurant.

  The sea was smooth, the days filled with sunshine and gentle breezes. I cannot swim and have a fear of water. Yet, I have always loved boats (big ones only!) and the feeling of being so cut off from the rest of the world. I was exceptionally weary when I boarded the Michelangelo, but with each day at sea, the weariness waned. Catherine was having a pleasant
time, as there were many young people and activities for them on the boat. We both visited the kennels three or four times a day. Alex managed to get us a private tour through the ship’s kitchens—a fascinating experience. The nighttime entertainment was better missed than attended, but I did meet some nice people, and the Russian gentleman and I became almost pally as he turned out to speak English well and was on his way to a Midwest university to teach Russian literature—which just happened to have been my major in my last year at university.

  Suddenly, it was the night before we were to dock in New York. Shortly after midnight, Catherine sound asleep, I went up on deck. My head was filled with thoughts about returning to the States, this time with no strings attached to pull me back to Europe. The ship had put on speed. I could hear the engines rev up. There was a chill in the air, and I held myself tightly in my own arms. It was like I was holding my whole life to my breast. It was the one thing that was wholly mine. I thought I might have abused it from time to time, maybe not treated it with enough respect or held on to the best moments long enough. But I had never given up hope for better times, appreciated what I had been given—my two beautiful children, my love of the written word—or slacked in my attention to them. That had to count for something.

  And now—was I really going home? One of the last things I had packed was my favorite dictionary, the cover worn badly, the last pages loose. It had been close at hand for me to use for over twenty years. It went where I went. My constant companion holding the entire English language between its covers. I had looked up home and transposed the most meaningful definitions (there had been eighteen) into my journal.

  “Home—4.a. An environment offering security and happiness. b. A valued place regarded as a refuge or place of origin. 5. The place, such as a town, where one was born or has lived for a long period. 7. The place where something is founded or developed; a source.”