Letters From Klara

  “Dear child,” Mama said, “he probably would have wanted to stay so he could get to know everyone. He never understood showmanship. Moreover, your father always used to spoil our travels with homesickness.” She added, “Sherry is a ghastly drink.”

  After their adventure in Barcelona, the trip continued to Juan les Pins, where the travellers took a taxi to Monsieur Bonel’s pension. The pension was very small, and it was not by the sea. Monsieur Bonel came towards them in his long green apron, glanced at the taxi meter, and said, “No tip. He has cheated you.” Then he took care of their luggage and treated his guests to a small glass of sherry in the lobby, a formal and rather dreary room kept in deep shade by several potted palms. He asked them about their journey and then fell silent. Finally, with great effort, he said, “Mesdames, I am devastated. Your double room has not dried. The paint must be inferior. I think it will never dry. And you have no view of the sea.”

  “That’s bad,” Mama said.

  “Yes, very bad. But we have no other guests at the moment, so could you take two single rooms? At a discount?”

  “No, we’re used to sharing a room.”

  “Another little glass of sherry?”

  “No, thank you. Absolutely not.”

  Le patron ran his hand over his head of stubby grey hair and sighed.

  “So what do we do now?” Mama asked.

  “We must think. Madame, one other possibility occurs to me, which is of course out of the question. I promised on the head of my dead wife never to rent out the house of the vanished Englishman.”

  “I understand,” Mama said. “That is to say, almost. When did he vanish, this Englishman?”

  “A year ago. But he sends the rent every month, quite correctly.”

  “And his address?”

  “He never gives his address,” le patron explained. “Perhaps he travels constantly. The stamps are from many countries.”

  “Irrational,” said Mama appreciatively. “Is he old?”

  “Not at all. Fifty or thereabouts.”

  “Lydia,” Mama said, “I think we should go have a look at his house.”

  It was not far. The path ended in a white gate, beyond which was the Englishman’s overgrown garden and, in its midst, a very small whitewashed cottage, covered with geraniums. Mama stopped abruptly and burst out, “The Secret Garden! Lydia, who wrote that?”

  “Compton Burnett,” said Lydia.

  Everything in the garden was lush and verdant, especially the weeds. Rusty tin cans were strewn everywhere. The well was covered by a thicket of wild roses.

  There was a look of dejection on Monsieur Bonel’s heavy face. “The house is too small,” he explained. “The water pipes don’t always work. And you can’t use the water from the well. Mesdames, I can only hope that the double room will dry as soon as possible.”

  “Cher monsieur,” Mama said, “I hope it never dries.” She sat down on the edge of the well and looked him straight in the eye. “Monsieur, this is precisely what I’d been hoping for, although I didn’t know it until now.

  “But this area is not without its dangers for two single ladies.”

  Mama watched him, and waited.

  Finally he said, rather curtly, “You shall have a protector, a small but unusually ill-tempered dog. I will borrow it from my neighbour Dubois. Its name is Mignon.” He unlocked the door, gave her the key and added, “And now, Mesdames, I must make arrangements for your comfort.”

  Mama hung her hat on a nail beside the door.

  Apart from a wide double bed, there wasn’t much in the room – a table, a chair, a bureau. The walls were white and the floor was covered with red tiles. The Englishman had his hotplate in one corner, along with several wooden boxes labelled “Gordon’s Gin” in which he kept his cooking utensils.

  “We won’t look in the bureau,” Mama said. “We’ll live out of our suitcases, we can be just as anonymous as he is! Now we’re going to do everything very differently, that is to say …”

  “Irrationally,” Lydia finished the sentence.

  “You don’t like the idea?”

  “Of course, Mama. That will be fine.”

  When they walked out into their garden the next morning, a little black-and-white dog rushed toward them barking like mad. He snapped at Mama’s skirts, quivering with agitation.

  “But he doesn’t like me!” Mama squealed, and Lydia replied that maybe the dog had never seen women in anything but jeans or shorts, maybe skirts struck him as threatening.

  “Good,” said her mother. “I’ll threaten him right back! And I will speak to le patron about this abhorrent little beast.”

  Monsieur Bonel had served breakfast for them in the special pergola reserved for the pension’s double room. Red roses had been tucked into their napkins.

  He hoped everything was satisfactory and that Mignon had behaved himself.

  Mama didn’t reply immediately, and when she finally spoke, to mention that her rose needed water, she sounded curt and not particularly pleasant.

  “Everything is fine,” said Lydia quickly. “And now we thought we’d go to the beach.”

  “Oh yes, the beach …”, le patron repeated and threw up his hands in a gesture of helplessness. The same old story that he knew so well – guests discovering that the beach was sealed off by the walls the luxury hotels had built to shield their guests. In the vicinity of Juan les Pins, there simply was no beach any longer.

  Mother and daughter made the long walk down towards the sea and then continued along the walls. It began to grow very hot. Cars whizzed by and sometimes stopped at a gate or a driveway. At last they came to a narrow opening between the walls, a corridor that led down to the place where the working fishermen had their boats. Two rowing boats were tied to a little dock made of planks.

  “Mama,” Lydia said, “what would you say to a sightseeing tour of Juan les Pins and Monaco?”

  “Wait a bit,” Mama said. “I’ve got an idea.”

  “Is it irrational?”

  “You’ll see. And stop being sarcastic.”

  That night, Mama woke her daughter and said, “There’s a full moon. We’re going to make an excursion out to sea. But before we leave, I want to ask you something. Have you ever been in a position where everyone worried about you?”

  “No. Why would anyone worry about me?”

  “Then I can assure you it’s a very unpleasant feeling, like being rejected. Let me tell you the sort of thing I’d hear: ‘We’ll let her rest and take it easy.’ In other words: ‘So that we’re left in peace and can do what we want!’ Do you understand? They were so worried about me, oh my, yes … ! Now don’t say a word. What about that time you rowed out in the moonlight, secretly? Do you remember?”

  “No, Mama.”

  “Oh yes, you do. You had a moonlight party at sea and later you said that I needed my rest and that was why I hadn’t been asked along. Now let’s go. I’ll find that little path and we’ll take a turn on the Mediterranean.”

  The rowing boats were still there.

  “We’ll take the little one,” Mama said. They climbed into the boat. Lydia rowed for a while and let the offshore breeze drive them onward, further and further out. From here they could see the bright facades of the big hotels along the coast and, very faintly, could hear their music. The sea was black, and the moon made a sparkling path on the water. It was quite cold.

  “Aren’t you freezing?” Lydia asked.

  “Of course I am. It’s always cold at sea.”

  “We didn’t know …” Lydia began, but her mother interrupted. “You knew perfectly well. Yes, yes, you were showing respect, but in the wrong way. Do I have to get rebellious all over again at this age just because you were too obtuse to understand? Well, that’s neither here nor there. You can row us back now.”

  Mignon met them at the gate, barking wildly. Mama leaned down and, with all her might, screamed at the dog, and it stopped barking. As far as Lydia knew, her mother had never befor
e done anything so vulgar. But it was impossible to say if it was a scream of frustration or of triumph.

  After that night, a peculiar, controlled animosity developed between the dog and Mama. Mignon no longer barked, he merely growled and bared his pointy little teeth. He never took his eyes off her. When she took a nap in the garden, Mignon slunk in under her chair and wouldn’t let Lydia come near. Every time Mama woke up, they showed each other their teeth, she and the dog.

  “Maybe it’s good for him,” she said. “Rather pleasant to hate someone now and then, don’t you think?”

  “Yes,” said Lydia, “you may be right.”

  Eventually, of course, they did find a beach. It was very far away and was rocky and littered, but at least it was a beach. A big sign stated that the area was private, a future building site.

  They went there every morning, spread out their beach towels across the rocks and watched boats with red sails pass by in the distance. Mama stuck her legs in the water and said, “There aren’t any seashells here.”

  “No,” Lydia said. “I’ve read that they’re imported only for the season. They spread them on the beach for the hotel guests to find.”

  “Why don’t you go swimming?” Mama said. “You came here to swim, didn’t you?”

  “I don’t feel like it.”

  Near the shore, a little sailing boat floated lazily by, carrying a group of young people clearly having a good time.

  “Swim out to them,” Mama said. “Take some initiative!” And she waved at the jolly group with her toreador hat.

  “Please, Mama, don’t. Don’t be so mischievous. In Barcelona …”

  “Yes, yes, yes, I know. Very strict and austere in Barcelona. But that was just one time!”

  “So, then, what are you playing at now?” Lydia wondered.

  Nothing further was said and the boat sailed on by.

  Le patron served dinner in the pergola, always with fresh roses for the ladies. He liked to hover nearby, sometimes leaning against his huge white refrigerator, which had a place of honour beside the trellis. He stood and listened to their foreign language and rushed forward at the least sign that there was something they required, some glass or serving dish he could refill – or to enquire in a whisper about the quality of the sauce or the wine. For their sake, he had brought forward the traditional dinner hour in France by several hours. And he worried constantly that they couldn’t afford to eat lunch. So now and then he appeared at their gate with a basket of some kind, covered with a white cloth, and told them it contained leftovers that would eventually be thrown out anyway. The basket was placed discreetly just inside the gate before he left.

  One day after dinner, le patron took Lydia aside and asked her to step into the lobby – it was nothing important. He gave her a little box full of seashells and explained hurriedly that some tourists had left them at the pension. They had been in Greece. “But Mademoiselle, you understand, not all of them at once.”

  “Of course not,” Lydia said. “Much better if she finds two or three at a time.”

  “And otherwise, all is well?”

  “Thank you, cher Monsieur, all is well.”

  Lydia put the box in her bag. Later she removed a shell stamped with the words “Souvenir of Mykonos”.

  They continued going to the beach. By now they had been on the Riviera for ten days. Each day followed the same recurring pattern – squabbling with the dog, Monsieur Bonel’s breakfast, the beach, a siesta in the Englishman’s garden, dinner, and a long evening.

  Then one morning came a telegram. Le patron had placed it beside Mama’s coffee cup. She read it and said, “Terrible. They want me home.”

  “A death?” he whispered.

  “Not at all. I’ve won a prize. I have to accept a prize.”

  “Money?” he asked hopefully.

  “No,” Lydia said. “Just an honour.” And then she translated from the telegram. “For artistic achievement that has brought renown to our country in nations far beyond our borders.”

  “I won’t go,” Mama said. “But we must send a beautifully worded telegram.”

  Le patron drove them to Juan les Pins in his pickup truck and stopped at the telegraph office.

  “Thank you, my friend,” Mama said. “Don’t wait for us. We’ll make our own way home.”

  They went in and found the blank forms.

  “Detained by ill health?” Lydia suggested.

  “Absolutely not. You don’t wire from the Riviera that you’re sick. You do that from home.”

  “Are you sure? There’s a short story by Somerset Maugham where someone gets sick and dies in a luxury hotel on Capri, and the coffin …”

  “Yes, yes, but that’s fiction. Take a new form. First, thank you. Proud and happy and surprised and so forth. But what’s my excuse? That someone else is more worthy of the prize?”

  “No, that’s impolite. And they might think it’s just false modesty.”

  “And they’d be right,” Mama said. “I can’t think of anyone worthier than I. A long cruise?”

  “No, no.”

  “But I can’t just say that I want to be left in peace!” Mama cried. “It’s too hot in here! I’m sick and tired of the whole business, and you’re no help at all.”

  Just then a very elegant, grey-haired man came over to them and asked in Swedish if he could be of help in any way. “You’re new here,” he said, “and as it happens I live in this little community all year round. I know everything there is to know about Juan les Pins, and it would be a pleasure for me to offer some small tips to newcomers. My name is Anderson.”

  “How kind of you,” Mama said. “Just give me a moment … Lydia, write all that, you know, pretty stuff, and tell them I’m hoping for a good party when I come home. That’s original.”

  “I’ll write,” said Lydia.

  Mr Anderson escorted them to a bar, which, he told them, was the most fashionable one in town at the moment. Here – during the season, of course – one could see the most interesting people, both film stars and millionaires. Not to mention those who saved for years for a week on the Riviera. They could also be interesting – and touching. “Might I offer you a small sherry?”

  “No,” Lydia exclaimed. “Mama detests sherry!”

  Mr Anderson gazed at her, astonished.

  “Good, Lydia,” Mama said. “You’re making progress.” It was too hot, and her hat pressed on her temples. Mama listened distractedly to their host, who wanted to show them the casino in Monaco, it would give him great pleasure. She didn’t feel well. Now and again people came by and said hello with cheerful nonchalance and then wandered on. A large woman in self-consciously slovenly clothes came up to them and said, “Hi, Toto darling, new protégées? Madame, such an original hat!”

  “Thank you,” said Mama, annoyed. “But it’s too hot. It’s impossible to breathe in here!”

  “Darling,” said the large woman, “what you need is a light, airy hat like a parasol. Pink would go beautifully with your white hair.”

  They went to an exclusive little boutique called Women’s Dreams, where Mama bought a hat she didn’t care for at all. It was so expensive that they had to promise to come back later with the rest of the money. Mr Anderson wanted to escort the ladies to their hotel, but Mama explained that they had decided to find some quiet place and write some postcards. They said au revoir and, when the coast was clear, Mama and Lydia took a taxi home.

  After a while, Lydia said, “Mama, you’re a snob.”

  “So are you, thank goodness, though you’re still in the early stages. Absolutely unnecessary to let them know we’re staying at a pension. I want to be anonymous, and keep people at a distance. Sometimes, I mean. And now don’t say anything about the hat.”

  Monsieur Bonel met them.

  “Madame,” he said, sorrowfully, “you have purchased a hat. I hope you haven’t encountered Mr Anderson. A new protector?”

  “That dog is a nuisance,” Mama said.

 
“It behaves that way because it finds you interesting,” he said sullenly. “He is a very lonely dog.”

  The next morning, the beach was occupied by a lot of boys, swimming and diving for all they were worth. The fun they were having increased substantially when they caught sight of Mama’s hat.

  “Pay no attention to them,” Lydia said. “We’ll go down a little further.”

  “But they’re laughing at me!” Mama cried. “They think the hat is ridiculous! Good. Excellent. It is ridiculous. Why didn’t you stop me from buying it? But I never know with you.” She walked on down the beach and sat down with her back to the water. After a while she said, “Why are you so quiet? Is there something wrong?”

  “No.”

  “Aren’t you having a good time? Is the money all gone?”

  “No, no. But of course we can’t stay forever.”

  “You mean because of your job?”

  “Oh, Mama, please,” Lydia said. “We don’t fit in here.”

  Mama took off her hat. “I fit in wherever I happen to be.”

  “Don’t take it off, you’ll get sunburned. Anyway they’ve already seen it. It seems to me we’ve had our fun and it’s time to go home.”

  “It seemed like a good idea,” Mama said.

  “I know. You’re always having ideas, it’s your little indulgence. How am I supposed to know when I’m supposed to help and when you want to be stopped?”

  “And now we’re fighting?!” Mama howled in dismay.

  Several of the boys ran by, laughing, throwing little rocks in Lydia’s direction. “Very pretty old girl!” they shouted.

  “Let’s go,” Mama said.

  Le patron met them at the pension. “The Englishman has telegraphed,” he informed them brusquely. “He’s coming back. I am in despair.”

  “When is he coming?”

  “Today. At any moment. I am in despair.”

  “Yes, you said that. However, we are ready to depart in any case.”

  “Mama, don’t say that!” Lydia cried. “We can stay as long as you like! If the double room has dried. Just tell me what you want to do!”

  “You decide,” Mama said. She really didn’t feel at all well.