I’m reading a book called Runaway Romances: Hollywood’s Postwar Tour of Europe, a book about the popularity of Hollywood films in the 50’s and early 60’s which revolve around young women traveling to Europe; these movies include Roman Holiday, September Affair, Indiscretion of an American Wife, Summertime, and Interlude.

The author of Runaway Romances, Robert Shandley, has made a list of traits that are typical in these movies, so I was curious to see to what extent our four travelers fit into this fictional model.  Here’s what I’ve come up with, based on Shandley’s list. 

Shandley’s points are in bold.  And in my responses to Shandley, I’ve moved from  his term “Americans,” to the more all-encompassing “travelers.”

1.  The Credit Sequence: A nondiegetic travelogue alerts the viewers that the film is set in contemporary times in Europe.

I wonder what the travelers saw from the boat or airplane as they were arriving—what their first visual impressions of Europe were.  Note: If any of you has details on this, let me know.

 

2.  The Arrival Scene: The main character, usually an American, frequently female, is seen arriving in the European city.

What our four travelers seem to remember is not so much the arrival per se, as the encounter of all of them at the Rembrandt Hotel in London.  Note to self:  must find out what I can about this hotel.

 

3. The Travelogue: The film uses her arrival to offer another travel sequence, this time more diegetically bound, as the traveler makes her way to her lodgings….  The travelogue highlights the sorts of monuments and landscapes one would see in a travel guide.

Again, all I heard about is arriving at the Rembrandt Hotel.  My guess is that the trip from the boat or train to the hotel did not pass significant landmarks, or that the travelers were too jet-lagged to notice.  The one comment I did get is that my mother found the English countryside disappointing.

 

4.  The Rationale: The film will need to offer the American’s presence in Europe….  A wish for self-discovery, reinvention, or renewal is explicitly mentioned.

Ok, so what struck me is the need to have a rationale to go to Europe.  Now a days, it seems that going to Europe is the automatic thing to do if you’ve gone to a decent college, although such ideas are changing–with a more global (non-Western) emphasis in the post-college trip.  In terms of our travelers, it seems that the European tour was also “the thing to do” if one went to Vassar.  I’m guessing that the Western culture oriented curriculum, along with the opening up of tourism after the war led to this; however, I find our four protagonists to be particularly plucky here–going to Europe when pretty much the majority of tourists were military men or business men.

 

5.  Local Rituals: The American partakes in some sort of local ritual, … that allows her to mix with the local people … and highlights her difference from home.

Again–must find out more about this.  I seem to hear mainly about food–about only being able to eat sausage and kartoffel in Austria and Germany.   Although I guess the fancy lunch at Madame de la Noue’s in Paris comes the closest to a local tradition.  But I think that, essentially, they didn’t need this experience per se, as they already had friends and contacts in Europe.

 

6.  Class Mobility: The American moves freely and sometimes obliviously among the old and fixed European families, mixing with aristocratic families and street urchins with equal ease.

I would give this a qualified “yes.”  Definitely true about the aristocracy, given tea with the Queen of Iraq and lunch with the de la Noues’; however, I did not hear anything about street urchins.

 

7.  The Locals: Regardless of socioeconomic status, the local population is deferent to the Americans.  The locals are often presented as children, regardless of their age.

Ok, so not true of our travelers in terms of thinking of the Europeans as childlike.  However, there were moments of deference.  Maria saw this more with the Germans and Austrian border officials and similar people, who had been brought low at the end of the war and so were a bit wary and shy about how tourists would respond to them.

 

8.  The Romantic Relationship:  A romantic relationship is quickly established between characters of the Old World and those of the New World.

Well, haven’t heard much about this, but it’s likely that some were created eventually, although not “quickly”.  I did hear that Carmen had at least one proposal of marriage during this trip, and that there was an “adventure” with her and another man in Europe after the trip (details remain vague), as there was, after the trip with Maria.  So, perhaps “toujours l’amour”.  And it is now time for me to confess that my first romantic kiss was in Anzere Switzerland from a very cute Swiss guy named Gilbert in 1972, when I was 16.  The de la Noues’ (my hosts) were not happy, since he was the son of their cleaning woman.  My mother sent me to Europe to learn to be more sophisticated and cultivated–maybe that worked, but I also came back with my first experiences with whiskey, cigarettes, and kisses experiences.

 

9. The Declaration of Difference:  The American character realizes, and often says or has said to her, that what is happening now could not have happened at home…  that the folks back home would not longer recognize her.  This moment may be celebratory, or alienating, or both in turn.

Well, I would definitely like to know if our travelers had this experience!

 

10.  The Decision: The American is forced to choose between romantic relationships or not, or to choose between lovers.  The decision is almost always framed, at least in part, as a decision between returning home or staying in Europe, or between American values and European values.  The main character chooses the path associated with American.

Factoring out the romantic part, and, of course, the fact that three of them were not Americans, it’s interesting that these women essentially chose both or neither.  Carmen went back to Cuba, but kept returning to Europe, Maria Teresa stayed in Europe for a while to run a refugee camp, but eventually married an American; Anisa continued her education in America, but went back to Iraq; however, more recently she settled in London.  Only Joan–the only American–seems to have unequivocally chosen to return to the States.  It does make me think about my mother’s one articulated concern about my one-year trip to France in 1979-80 to study at the Institut Catholique de Paris—the concern that I might fall in love, marry, and end up living a continent away.  But no runaway romance for me that year–just some great friendships.

 

11. The Transformation: The American has been transformed by these events, almost invariably becoming stronger, wiser, and more independent.

 I’d love to hear about this as well.  What I can say is that these women were already pretty strong and independent before they went to Europe, and smart as well; whether that constitutes “wise,” I don’t know, and whether they became wiser in Europe, I don’t know as well.

 

12.  The Departure: The film almost always ends with a departure scene or a scene in which departure is decided upon.  The tour of the Old World will come to an end, and the American will return home.

Well, it’s true, but only sort of, of this group, given the spotty and liesurely way that they went back to their old homes.  Ironically, the only one who fits, at least for a while, is the least American (the Cubans at least lived 90 miles from the United States), Anisa, who left the trip first to get her Master’s in Political Science at Columbia University.  Then, Joan returned, while Carmen and Maria stayed on and one with clearly no immediate interest in returning to the American continent.

Overall: with a bit more romance, this would make a great movie!

 

 

 

 

The Ocean Liner De Grasse

 

This is what I know so far about the trip taken by Carmen, Maria, and Joan; Anisa traveled separately by air, and I’ll discuss that in the next post.

I had an earlier post about how Carmen’s brothers had sent my mother and grandmother to Europe.  I’m not sure who told me this story, but about this story, my mother said, “This is baloney!”  So I’ve updated the post to reflect my mother’s version.  My mother’s comments are in green; Anissa’s are in blue.

The trip to Europe was something that Joan and I came up with together.  The conversations took place over a period time between the two dorms.  Joan was in Davison dorm.  Joan had already been to Europe.  In fact, Carlos Meyer just did some spelunking on Ancestry.com and found Joan Farwell on an earlier passenger list–on, I believe, the Queen Mary, in 1946, when she had accompanied her father, who was going on a business trip.  Conversations about the trip had been going on pretty much all of the young women’s Senior year.

Maria adds–echoing Carmen: The dollar was king y podíamos vivir más facilmente en Europa que en los Estados Unidos–pero that wasn’t the main motive. (we could live more easily in Europe than in the States).  The main motive, I assume, was culture, pleasure, exploration, and, simply, the delights of going on a trip in that wonderful period between college and marriage when, given a certain income and a willing chaperone, one had the freedom to just take off and travel.

Interestingly, Carmen and Maria went straight to Europe, no pasé por Cuba.

Here is how Anissa puts the origins of the trip:

Well, in 1949 Joan, Maria and your grandmother were planning to go to Europe to spend the whole year there.  We were graduating in 1949, and they had the plans all set up and the bookings; they were going to London then to Paris, then to Salzburg, afterwards in the autumn to Italy or in the winter, before later on to go skiing, and then to Spain.  It was all planned.

Maria altered this statement slightly be noting, “we didn’t plan, plan.”  In other words, they hadn’t planned out the exact dates, every location, and all the hotels at which they would stop.  But I think that Anissa and Maria actually agree here.  Planning simply signifies that they had the main itinerary of the trip figured out and the order of moving from England to France to Germany and Austria.

Now, of course, they had planned everything through a travel agency called Bristed Manning, I think. (Note from Terry: help on spelling from someone would be great here.)  It was on 6^th ave. 

This must have been a quite good, and well-run, travel agency, because it’s still in business, on Madison and 53rd in Manhattan.

Here is what my mother has to say about the trip:

We crossed on the ocean liner De Grasse, making its first transatlantic trip since the war.  Up until recently the ship had been used for troops and things.  The spirit of the crew was absolutely wonderful, and we sat at the Captain’s table.  Of course, the Maitre d’ comes and says ‘Madame, vous savez, nous sommes a votre service, le souffle….’  This only led to Joan saying that she was on a diet.  Later, in France, Cecile de la Noue said to Joan, ‘Vy do you vant to be so sinn? but zen you will be cold in the winter time.’  It was quite a thing–Joan with her insistence on dieting. In German the first thing she learned was “keine kartoffel.”

More recently, in early July 2012, she re-thought the scene.  I don’t think we were at the captain’s table; we were very close to the captain’s table.”

My frequent source, Christopher Endy has an interesting comment on eating on board ocean liners after the war: “One tourist, cruising to Europe in 1947 on a French liner, recalled the ominous sight of British voyagers eating ‘singularly in large portions’ aboard the ship. Hearty meals, he soon realized, would be more difficult for European residents to acquire once the ship landed in Europe.  Pan American World Airways tried to make light of stark conditions in one 1946 press release by joking that food rations allowed the average traveler to reduce ‘that executive bulge at the waistline'” (25).

The De Grasse was a French liner that operated as a luxury transatlantic ship until from 1924 until it was seized by the Germans in 1940.  It could take up to 664 passengers.  Although it was sunk by gunfire near Bordeaux in 1944, it was raised and refitted as a tourist liner in 1947.  The liner ended her days as part of an Italy-West Indies-Venezuela service until it was lost at sea in the vicinty of Cannes.  (See http://www.simplonpc.co.uk/DeGrasse_1_PCs.html)

The website  of the Compagnie General Transatlantique (http://www.luxurylinerrow.com/frenchline.html) adds that it was the only French ocean liner operating before 1950.  (For even more information, go to http://www.frenchlines.com/ship_en_119.php.)

The story of the De Grasse line is symptomatic of much of transatlantic ship voyages after the war.  As Endy notes, “While ninety-one ships carried passengers across the Atlantic in 1937, only fourteen were available for civilian use ten years later.”  As we will see, this is the reason that Anisa Saadoun was stranded in England, waiting to get to Vassar.  With priory given to the military, humanitarian workers, and diplomats, there were just no ships available to get her across the Atlantic.  The United States had, essentially, placed sever restrictions on transatlantic travel until 1947–a bit late for Anisa.

It was exciting to find a plan of the ship right after it had been transformed from wartime to tourist ship–just at the time that the three women traveled on the ship.  It’s at the top of the blog.

Return to my mother’s comments.  Thinking of the Captain’s Table and of Joan’s diet, she then commented: “I gained a lot of weight.  Joan commented: ‘Maria, you won’t be able to fit into your clothes.'”  Perhaps she gained weight because “I wasn’t seasick; no one was seasick that I knew.”  The rest of the time seems to have been spent socializing and relaxing.  Joan met a woman and her daughter that she knew from Chicago.  Maria adds that The lady and her daughter were absolutely delightful.  It was very nice for mother … mother was the daughter’s age.

Clearly a good memory overall, leading Maria to add, “I was so thankful for the times that we were able to cross on a boat.”

Interestingly, Mahaut de la Noue also traveled from the States to France on the De Grasse.  In her words: “When the term [at Vassar] was ended, I got back to Paris with my mother on the first trip of the “de Grasse,” the only ship of the Transatlantic left after the war.  As we will see, the group of travelers made sure that they saw Mahaut and her family when they came to Paris.”

Lovely as the sea voyage was, the arrival in England was a come down.  An avid fan of Jane Austen, Maria added that I’d heard so much about the English countryside, but when we landed in Portsmouth it all looked so dull, and I said to mamá and Joan: “I don’t see anything very fantastic about this.”

Warning: You are about to read a cerebral, somewhat dry, blog.

There is nothing like starting a new project to become aware of one’s profound ignorance on the subject.  Difficult as I knew conditions were in Europe after the war, I had not thought about how tourism was all but impossible in the first years after the war.   Not only was most transportation and lodging dedicated to soldiers, diplomats, and other non-tourists, but hotels were often in dilapidated shape and food was often substandard or scarce. And, of course, many of the buildings, exhibits and festivals normally attended by tourists were bombed, closed, under repair, or suspended.

I’ve learned these facts from my conversations this summer, from a book called Cold War Holidays by Christopher Endy, and from reading a number of New York Times articles from 1949.  In his book, Endy details the complex and often fraught process of re-introducing tourism into Europe after World War II. Endy highlights two contrasting aspects of postwar tourism.  He notes, on the one hand, how difficult and unwieldy it was to encourage tourism after the war–particularly given the lack of amenities for tourists and the lack of funds for investing in tourist hotels, restaurants, etc…  On the other hand, many American and European officials felt that  the encouragement of tourism was consistent with–even part of–the Marshall Plan, which had begun in 1948, hence there was a willingness to invest many American dollars into the European tourism industry, given a belief that the influx of American tourists, with their dollars, would help jump start the European economy. While different European countries responded differently to this idea, Endy stresses how “U.S. and French government officials subsidized transatlantic air and shipping lines, funded hotel construction and maintenance, negotiated airport landing rights, organized publicity campaigns, controlled passport and visa requirements, and, in the first years after the war, provided tourists and the travel industry in France with special access to scarce food and gasoline” (4).

To put it in Endy’s words, “State support … was indispensable in tourism’s rise.” (4).  In other words–“dollar diplomacy.”  Interestingly, the need to support Europe financially via tourism was not because Europe’s infrastructure and industries were totally destroyed; in fact, Endy notes that, by the end of 1946, European industrial production had returned to its pre-war levels.  However, trade and currency imbalances were so strong as to threaten this remarkable recovery (56).  Europe, in other words, needed dollars, and it needed Americans who would buy European goods with these dollars and bring the goods back to America.

Those in the tourist industry were certainly enthusiastic about using the Marshall Plan in this manner.  In a 1949 article for the New York Times, Heather Bradley notes how one prominent member gave a speech in which he “told delegates that 1950 is expected to break all former American records for overseas travel, even topping the volume of 1930, which at present holds the record for United States travel abroad.” While in a January 4, 1949 article, Jonathan Frayman adds that the tourist industry was “rivaled only by cotton textiles” as the source of income for Great Britain, ahead of “automobiles, Scotch whisky”

The leitmotif of 1949 in newspaper articles about tourism to England is the way that Britain relaxed its austerity measures to accommodate tourists.  Joseph Frayman notes how, in England–where gasoline was still rationed–“tourists immediately get enough gasoline coupons to cover their rental car itineraries, hotels have received extra sheets, and eggs are not rationed in hotels”  (NYT May 6, 1949).  However, not all was easily available and Frayman goes on to suggest that tourists from the States should bring with them “reasonable quantities of food, as well as candies and cigarettes,” particularly given the high tax on cigarettes in Britain.

Yet, as Endy goes on to note, this well-intentioned perspective on tourism-as-economic-incentive led to some controversy; once some European countries gave special services to tourists (subsidies to hotels to improve their rooms, or better rations for American tourists), many citizens resented the fact that Americans tourists–who were already far better off economically than they were–were getting special services and economic subsidies, subsidies that took money and rations away from the many still-impoverished  European citizens.  Not to mention that many saw the influx of American tourists as creating “a metaphorical colonization by the United States” (8).

And, not surprisingly, Communist and Socialist groups in Europe looked askance at subsidizing the leisure time and the consumption of commodity fetish items by a bunch of American bourgeois capitalists (67).

If many Europeans felt this way, it appears that none of the four travelers seems to have experienced this resentment.  The response of those whom they met seems more to have been interest, gratitude, and curiosity.

What I’ve also learned from Endy’s book is that these four women reflected the slow growth of tourism after the war.  Travel to Europe for the first year after the war was restricted to servicemen, refugee organizations, and business executives who traveled under the approval of the State Department.  Before the war a typical year saw 359,000 trips from America to Europe.  In 1946 it was down to 101,000 trips; in 1947 it increased to 147,000–most of them visitors to France.  And, according to the New York Times in 1948 alone 500,000 tourists (world-wide) visited Britain (NYT Feb 19, 1949), of which 75,000 were Americans–and this was just Britain.  The writer adds that this was “the biggest influx of overseas visitors for twenty-eight years.”  He adds that “Of these, …. the largest proportion came on pleasure trips.”

But 1949 seems to have been the first year in which enough tourists returned that governments and townships returned to the festivals so characteristic of major cities and to beautiful rural areas, particularly during tourist season.  Indeed, by 1950 the visits were up to 264,700.  One article in the New York Times notes the return of festivals by dwelling on “The Shakespeare festival at Stratford-upon-Avon, … the National Drama Festival at Harrogate, … and the Edinburgh Festival,” along with a number of exhibitions throughout England (Joseph Frayman Mar 6, 1949).  Indeed, my mother reminded me that, by 1949, the small German town of Oberamergau was once more ready for its Passion Play, put on by the village every ten years starting in 1634, and to which the village dedicated a full year of preparation.  While this production would not be presented until 1950, by the time that my mother, Joan, Anissa, and grandmother came to Oberamergau, most of its male population was under an edict not to cut their hair or beards.  My mother remembers beautiful young men with long blond hair coming to take their bags, men who were also, she added “very, very dirty.” 1949 indeed seems to have been the first year in which European countries felt they were able to roll out the red carpet for tourists, while 1950 seems to be the year that American tourists really decided to start pouring back in.  I wonder if the mere fact that 1950 symbolized the end of the grim 1940’s meant that Americans felt comfortable traveling transatlantically again.

American newspapers certainly picked up on this re-emergence of tourism.  The New York Times has headlines from 1949 that include “Britain Relaxes Austerity for the Tourist,” “Tourists to Britain at 500,000 in 1948,” and “Tourists Shower Dollars in Britain.”

As we will see, the four travelers encountered both Europes–the Europe of deprivation, difficulties, rations, and the Europe of festivals, growing prosperity, and increasing tourism.  Despite all the difficulties with overheated Citroens, visa issues, and challenging eating options, nonetheless, there remains my grandmother’s anthem: “That was when the dollar was king!”

Alas–the travelers arrived a bit early, and so did not experience the great devaluation of the pound in September.  Just as Londoners saw an upswing in productivity and a radical lessening on all rations, they were hit by a 30% devaluation of the pound.  A boon for Americans, and a bit of a boon for England, as tourists–most of them Americans showered $49,000,000 on London in 1948 and even more in 1949.  Small wonder that one New York Times headline of September, 1949  is “American Buying Spree Hits London.” There are of course drawbacks to this advantage.  As Joseph Frayman notes, hotel staff members “still think that every visiting American is rich. There is no need to encourage that erroneous impression: 10 per cent [tip] is ample.”  The author of a New York Times article from September 1949 added that, according to Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney, Under-Secretary of Commerce, “A good many who visited Europe this year (1949) returned with the unhappy feeling that they had been overcharged on the Continent and with disappointment at the drabness and troublesome restrictions in Britain.”

Our travelers do not seem to have been “taken for a ride,” and they don’t report an experience of drabness per se–except for meals.  Instead, they had to deal with some European eccentricities–magnified by the remaining traces of the war–focused mainly on plumbing, heating, and mattresses.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Note: I’ve made additions to this blog post, based on a recent conversation with my mother.  I’ve put her comments in red.  There’s also one comment about Joan by Anisa; it’s in blue below.

I’m trying to get ideas of what the personalities were of the four travelers in 1949, and I’m getting hints from the accounts of different people.  Here’s what I have so far, let me know if you have anything to add.

What is clear is that all four were adventurous, independent women, who enjoyed a challenge.

It is also clear that they were at once typical and atypical tourists of the time.  Not surprisingly, they shared the dominant profile of tourists of the time as being upper class or wealthy middle class.  As Christopher Endy succinctly puts it, “the wealthiest 33 percent of the United States, those with family incomes over $5,000 a year, accounted for almost two-thirds of France’s American guests” in the late 1940’s.  And American tourists do seem to have dominated the tourist scene, particularly starting around 1950.  But the four women clearly did not fit typical expectations.  As my mother mentioned, several Europeans were surprised (in a positive way) to find four travelers from three different continents traveling together before 1950 (there is an anecdote about this in a post that I will add later).  And simply having four women traveling alone together was unusual.  Most tourists were either men, women with husbands, or people in tour groups.  This lively, attractive, heterogeneous group of women must have attracted a lot of attention–most of it, I gather, positive.

Carmen de Zaldo:  the most charming one of the group.  Even though she was the oldest one by far–in her early 40’s, it was to her that men paid attention, including marriage proposals.  A great conversationalist, she also had the marvelous talent of appearing to understand, and even respond to, her interlocuters, even when she had no idea what they were saying.  In Germany, she told me, she kept her own by simply responding “schön” to everything, although Mami says that she knew other German words as well, namely “rechts,” “links,” and “geradeaus”  (left, right, straight ahead).  I probably don’t need to add that she was the driver of the group.  Quite intrepid given that my grandfather Charlie had only allowed her to start driving late (she married him when she was, I think, 16), and then she was only allowed to drive to the Havana Country Club and back.  Carmen also loved doing sneaking past rules–sneaking items for which she should pay duty past customs.

Two of my favorite stories about her have to do with contraband.  At one point, Daddy came to visit Mami in Europe, and as he was departing Carmen stuck some brussels lace into Robbie’s (as she called him) pockets to sneak past Customs.  My father was perhaps the most law-abiding citizen I have ever met, but this was, after all his future mother-in-law, so he had to stay in her good graces.  With a slight blush, he accepted the task and probably squirmed through the whole transatlantic flight until he got safely past Customs in the States.  The other was about a trip she took with Abuelito (her second husband–Mario) to Spain.  She loved their sausages and was wondering how to sneak one into the United States.  Fortunately they travelled with Mario’s golf bag, so she simply put the enormous and long sausage in the golf bag and pretended it was a golf club by covering it with a gold club cover.

And Carmen adored Anisa: “Tengo que escribirle al papá de esta niña ye decirle que encatadora es su hija.”  (I have to write to this young woman’s Dad and tell him how wonderful and enchanting his daughter is.)

Always nervous about the possibility that one of the travelers might get typhoid from drinking the water.  She had lost a sister–who died before she was born–to typhoid.

 

Anisa Saadoun: the one who always made the best of a problematic situation. La risa de Anisa–una risa que nunca he vuelto a oír.  (Anisa’s laugh–I’ve never heard a laugh quite like it.)  Once she laughed, we all started laughing too.

And Anissa always had the best memory.

She maintained, with difficulty, the dietary restrictions of her religion, despite going through Germany, whose main food seems to have been, besides potatoes, pork sausage.

 

Maria Teresa de Zaldo: Always interested in the personalities, quirks, and backgrounds of the different people she met.  The linguist. Maintained her religious observance throughout.

 

Joan Farwell: The mischievous one.  The assertive one.  Always watching her waist. She was very complexed about having to wear those very large glasses.  She was very near-sighted, but even so, she never missed anything.

Joan was one of the most popular girls at Vassar because she was so funny and had such a way of telling stories. She had such a sense of humor and an ability to imitate any accent.  En Vassar College imitaba a todo el mundo.  (At Vassar College she imitated everyone.)

Joan could never understand Anisa’s decision not to drink alcohol; she always felt that Anisa should make an exception on special occasions, like her birthday.  Mamá (Carmen) and I were never able to help Joan understand that Anisa’s decision was a religious one. Cambiarle una idea a Joan era dificilisimo.  (Getting Joan to change her mind was a very difficult task.)

Although she loved to make fun of other people, Joan was a very, very sensitive person.

Joan hated cheese, especially the smell of strong cheese; cheese, of course, was omnipresent in Europe, especially in France and Germany.

It was quite a thing Joan with her insistence on dieting.

Anisa’s added comment: Joan was always on a diet; at lunch she would just order clear soup.

 

 

 

Important piece of information #1: This entry really is about my summer in Europe and the Omari family–it just takes a while to get there.

Another piece of information that will be relevant later.  Today is December 21, 2011 and we have been asked to pick up the Buche de Noel again this year from Patisserie Poupon on December 24.

Flashback #1: University of Virgina 1980s; Miami 1990s:

My Wimbledonphilia began sometime in the early 1980’s, when Tom introduced–and converted–me to his T.V. tennis-watching addiction.  This addiction was difficult to maintain in those days before the Tennis Channel and before ESPN started continuous coverage of the Grand Slams.  Generally, tennis coverage began in the quarter-finals (if you were lucky), was often live–a problem, because, young as we were, we didn’t want to watch the Australian Tennis Open at 3:30 a.m., and was often pre-empted. So watching tennis on T.V. was itself a bit of a sport, involving checking the T.V. guide continually for when tennis might actually appear on T.V. and feeling a peculiar sense of triumph at the mere sight of man (or woman), ball, and racket, appearing simultaneously on the T.V. screen.

I’m still angry about one particular tennis final.  Tom and I were all set to watch the final of the U.S. Open on Sunday with Willander and probably Lendl (it was pretty much always Willander and Lendl in those days).  This was the days of the slow, long rallys, in which one could blissfully spend the day on the sofa being lulled by the regular back-and-forth hitting of the tennis protagonists.  If it was a Lendl-Villander match, it would be expected to last three hours and a bit.  And, indeed, that’s what we got, until the finals suddenly disappeared to be replaced by the Jerry Lewis telethon, or equivalent–something that seemed only to be happening on this particular channel in Charlottesville, Va., since our Washington D.C. newspaper had the tennis finals listed on the TV Guide.

Sometimes I get very very angry very very quickly.  I bounced out of the sofa, grabbed the red phone (it really was red), dialed the number on the T.V. screen and yelled at a poor volunteer who thought I had called to pledge money.  She clearly didn’t even know what a tennis final was.  But I felt a bit better for having done something with my frustration.

[August 6, 2012, Just read this to Tom; his response: “That was so awful; I felt like I was personally insulted”  (Not about my being angry, but about having the finals cut off.)]

The 80’s were also the years of Stefan Edberg, probably the most graceful tennis player I’ve ever seen.  In the 90’s Tom and I watched him play doubles at the Lipton Tennis tournament in Key Biscayne, and he did an actual pirouette (ok, well, at least a very quick and graceful spin) to get at a ball and win the point.  I was in bliss.

Edberg was always the most fun to watch when he was playing on Wimbledon.  His game and body were clearly meant for a grass surface, and it is in watching Edberg that I learned to love, appreciate, and look forward to the now-almost-defunct serve and volley (or, as Edberg would say “serv and wollee”); a beautifully set-up structure that would use up pretty much the whole court.

Back to Day Two:

I’m going on an on here to those who have zero interest in tennis, because I had never actually been to Wimbledon, and that is exactly where Tala and Anisa took me on the afternoon of my first full day in Wimbledon.  The drive itself was a treat for an Anglophile like myself.  An Anglophile is, of course, is a person (usually an English or History major) who falls in love with an England that only exists in the pages of a Jane Austen novel, in BBC Masterpiece Theater, or in Merchant-Ivory films.  This England is always quaint, sunny, strikingly lovely; its citizens are romantic and witty and have very nice furniture.  Well, this day was an Anglophile’s dream.  Not only was I with great company, but it was a sunny, warm, cloudless day, as we drove through streets that led us past those English Elizabethan-inspired homes made of white plaster and timber, then past the gorgeously brick and pastoral green King’s College, where Tala’s son went to high school, then climaxed at Wimbledon itself, a brick-filled, flower-woven village of curved, hilly, mildly labyrinthine streets.

A small family moment here.  Like Mami, Anisa tends to walk slowly, but Tala doesn’t, so I wasn’t sure whom I was supposed to walk with.  Tala later told me, “I can’t walk slowly, so I just walk my normal pace, and, when I get to an intersection, my mother catches up.”  We caught up in front of Le Pain Quotidien.

Flashback #2: Christmas Eve, Washington, D.C. (Dupont Circle area), 2009 and the Pain Quotidien; plus early 1980s in Potomac:

This is about a Buche de Noel in the early 1980’s.  I just asked Tom if he had witnessed the event. Tom’s said yes and added: “If I remember correctly, things did not go well.”

2010: Christmas Eve; last minute shopping, and a day of running around, getting ready for the chaos of a family Christmas.  Tom and I are driving back from whatever shopping we were doing downtown, when Katharine calls.  “The Buche de Noel (somebody tell me how to do accent marks on this blog) is ready for us at Patisserie Poupon in Georgetown, can you pick it up?  “Sure,” I answered (later to my regret); “we’ll just swing by Georgetown on the way home.”

The Buche de Noel is an allegory for the Meyer family.  The important thing to know is that the Meyer women (including me: note to self) think they have more energy than they have; so we take on too many projects, then have a meltdown. I think all our husbands, current or ex, including Daddy up in heaven, are firmly nodding at this moment, examples multiplying in their heads like babies in spring.  I can’t remember who started this particular manifestation of Meyer Buche-de-Noel mania, but I think my mother did.  For two or three Christmases, the somewhat sleepless Mami (from Christmas shopping, wrapping presents, and going to Christmas Open Houses) would do her usual Christmas dinner ritual.  It involved the hair-raising combination of starting things last minute and being a perfectionist.  Such episodes often ended with Mami turning into a stereotype of the Latin woman–screaming because the cute little meringue mushrooms hadn’t turned out in just the right shape.  All of us would then go into a version of the drill students do in California in case of  earthquakes.  And then, of course, the buche would be perfectly lovely and meltingly delicious, while we would still be feel slightly traumatized, until we ate a slice of the lovely buche.  After about two years of these episodes Ani took over.  Ani has the Meyer mania and she is a perfectionist with the buche, but she had one advantage over her mother: she starts projects early, and the end result of the Ani buches was so stunningly beautiful that, for a second (until one tasted it), one felt bad about having dug a fork into it.

2010: It became clear, after a few years, that even with Ani making the Buche, the Buche-making was draining enormous amounts of energy from the Meyer family, what with the shopping, the cathedral-like hush in the kitchen at key moments of complex cooking, and the Cat-in-the-Hat-like mess that was the kitchen at the end of the buche-making.  By the 1990’s the Meyers were happily engaged in ordering buches from places that enjoyed making buches because they got lots of money for making them.  And in 2011 this place was Patisserie Poupon.

It is important to note that I have nothing against Patisserie Poupon, except that it is in upper Georgetown, and any trip through that area around Christmas is about as dangerous as that maze in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, in which most people seem to disappear or get swallowed up by nasty hedges.  Briefly (since I’m already on something like paragraph 10), Katharine called on Christmas Eve, as Tom and I were in downtown Washington, asking us to pick up the Buche de Noel from Patisserie Poupon.  To do this we had to navigate through the Scylla and Charybdis of Dupont Circle.  In the snarl of traffic coming at us from at least three directions, I suddenly yelled out “P street! It’s P street!  Turn right Tom! Turn right!”  I did not give Tom enough forewarning, so to turn the sharp right, he ended up going over a curb, and there went the tire.

Christmas Eve, 5:00 p.m., very cold.  Most shops are closed; Dupont Circle.  Flat tire.  While waiting for AAA, I shivered over to–yes–Pain Quotidien.  My heart melts when I think of it.  They were closing, had already shut down the register, but the very nice young man behind the counter made me a free hot chocolate.

So, I thought of this very nice young man in downtown Washington, D.C. when we went over lunch at Le Pain Quotidien in Wimbledon, because this nice young man and the very helpful AAA man helped restore me to my Christmas spirit and helped us get to the buche before Patisserie Poupon closed, hence ensuring another traditional Christmas eve meal chez Meyer.

This particular Pain Quotidien was the nicest I’d been to–large, light, and airy, with an array of tempting dishes.  Tala and I both went for the Italian board of olive paste, artichoke paste, parmesan, ricotta, prosciutto, and lovely crunchy warm bread.  Anisa had the bab ganoosh plate.

Now I was ready to hear what Anisa had to say.

Day Two:

I had at first been apprehensive about sleeping, as I discovered that my room was essentially over the kitchen, which meant that I would be sleeping to the sound of dancing pans as the kitchen crew cleaned up.  Normally I would be up and complaining to the management, asking for a new room.  But this was not normally–I was traveling alone in Europe for the first time since 1981, and I admit I felt a bit lonely.  The kitchen crew had clearly been asked to keep the noise level down, and soon the muffled voices, laughter, and lingering but faraway chimes of metal lulled me and I fell asleep well before the kitchen crew called it a day.

The always patient and helpful  Tala let me sleep in a bit before she picked me up to go to her place in the London-meets-Surrey area.  There I encountered my “den” for the next few days–a living room in surprisingly welcoming hues of white and black with so many photographs everywhere that I could have been at the home of a Cuban relative, but, I admit, with much better taste.  There I encountered the welcoming black sofa which took me in its arms and made it difficult to get up.  Not that I would want to, given the way Tala kept me well laden with turkish–I guess, really Iraqi coffee (I really miss the coffee) and cookies and turkish delight.  I’m surprised the sugar high didn’t bolt me through the room and into the wall, but with that sugar intake there was no way I would fall into a jet-lagged stupor.

We decided that the main day would be informal, but, just as Joan always seemed to bubble up into stories, so today was Bedia day.  I mentioned to Anissa that I really knew nothing about Bedia–all I knew is that she would call occasionally and my grandmother would answer the phone and be on the phone and on the phone and on the phone, then would eventually say to Mami, “Maria Teresa, es Bedia,” and my mother, from the kitchen would say something like, “Ay no, Bedia?  But I’m making dinner!”  So the only thing I learned about Bedia as I was growing up was that Bedia lived in Los Angeles and that there was no such thing as a short conversation when she called.

Maybe because that’s all I knew about her, I always wanted to know more, so, as I settled more deeply into the welcoming black sofa, I realized with pleasure (that came from the sugar-saturated coffee as well), that this would be Bedia day, and I soon realized that Bedia was all and more than I had hoped.

I learned that Bedia is not a central character of this narrative–she did not go on the trip to Europe; but, of course, that never stopped Bedia.  She is one of the protagonists of this narrative nonetheless.

The Europe trip, it turned out, would not have been possible without Bedia, for it was Bedia who convinced Anissa to come to Vassar, and, hence, meet my mother and Joan.  After I’d heard all the Bedia stories (a book project in itself), I was not surprised–Bedia was the idea person, the initiator, the person who never took “no” for an answer; above all, Bedia was the rebel, and, as the day’s worth of stories continued, and my admiration of Bedia increased, I also began to feel a bit sorry for Bedia’s parents.

After all, once Bedia arrived in the States, she announced to her family that she was not returning, and when they would not accept her decision she found one way after another to prolong her stay, until her family gave up.

How Bedia Stayed in America

Once upon a time a young Iraqi woman decided that she would go to college in the United States.  The fact that a good chunk of the world was at war or getting over a war did not seem to dissuade her.  She was a young woman of strong imagination and determination; to get to Ameria she told her father that she was bothered by the fact that she had something of a moustache, and that she could only get rid of it if she went to a specialist in New York City–the hub of medical specialists.  She had dreamed of New York–a place of wonderful foods, strange noises, and above all a place where she could do what she wanted to do.  Her father accompanied her on the trip to protect her from its strange and unusual inhabitants.  But this young woman had already decided that she was not going back to Iraq, and she found reasons to stay.

When her moustache disappeared, she firmly bid her father adieu, bid New York adieu, and left for Vassar College–then one of the most prestigious colleges for women in the United States, one which–with great foresight–encouraged international students to apply. Less exciting than New York, Vassar nonetheless held strong appeal for Bedia, who found there a group of intelligent, attractive, lively women like herself from all over the world, although especially from the United States.

At Vassar, first year students were not supposed to have cars, so  at Vassar, Bedia bought a car.  Having encouraged her probably more hesitant and prudent friend Anissa to drive to California with her, she and Anissa promptly drove West, stopping occasionally to absorb key moments of the American landscape.  Anissa showed me a photograph of herself with Bedia at the foot of the famous redwood tree in Yosemite (the one you can drive through).  I remember the two young energetic women with beaming smiles in the photograph (note to self: see if you can get a copy of the photograph), but I don’t remember the car.  I don’t think it was a convertible, yet when Anissa told me of the trip, I could only see two young women driving fast, very fast in a convertible, dark, lush hair streaming behind them.

Anissa added that she and Bedia made that trip twice.

*  *   *

It is amazing–given the many places Anissa had traveled in her life–that it is Anissa who had so many photographs of her time in Vassar.  I was taken by lovely, faded photographs–so faded that it was hard to distinguish facial features–of Anissa with Mahaut de Perthuit (then Mahaut de la Noue) at Jones Beach in 1947.  I remembered Jones Beach–Daddy had taken us there a few times when we were kids.  Once, when there was a warning up about the strong current, I was taken up by the waves and for awhile I lost all control.  The feeling wasn’t even panic; it was an awareness that I had been grabbed by the surge and that I might get swept up never to return; then the wave finished its surge and I was swept back with force to the beach with nothing but a scraped knee as a souvenir.  The photograph at Jones Beach I saw were of college women on their days off.  Bleached with age as the photographs were, they still reflected the happy, carefree looks of young women on vacation.  I saw a few photographs of Mahaut with Anissa and Bedia and I was struck by how Mahaut looked like Katharine’s friend, Anne Barrand.  I had never seen Mahaut look so carefree; I’d only seen her as a mother.  My earliest memory was of her in her wonderful flat in Paris near the Bois de Boulogne, in that lovely dining room with the orangeish cloth on the walls.  She seemed very serious to me and formal, so that, actually the one I remember best is her Moroccan cook–who, simply by serving me seemed so friendly and welcoming and whose cooking introduced me to the wonder of chicken cooked with grapes.  You have to remember that I was raised in Potomac Md., at the time when its only restaurants were the lunch counter at the drug store and Normandy Farm, which (despite its wonderful popovers), even in its heydays, never tasted like the kind of food you can actually eat in Normandy.

* * *

But Bedia, it turns out, had a rival–Mme de la Noue, Mahaut’s mother.  The many references to Madame de la Noue at first made my head spin.  When I thought of Mme de la Noue, I thought of the striking red-headed mother of my friend Christine de la Noue  (Mahaut’s goddaughter), or of her mother-in-law, the white-haired Mme. de la Noue in Maganosc, in the South of France, who enjoyed life’s small things, especially the act of feeding the cheese crusts to her dogs as dinner came to a close.  But I did remember meeting Anissa’s Mme. de la Noue once, in about 1981 I would guess.  I was having lunch with Mahaut and Christine in the Paris apartment, and Mahaut called out “Maman, c’est Terry, la fille de Maria Teresa.”  At that point a wiry woman who had been mowing the lawn came in and covered me with hugs and kisses as I tried to remember who she was.

Someone at some point had tried to tell me that she was no longer in her full, vivid, mind–but this woman who was hugging was definitely all there.  I was to hear even more about Mme. de la Noue when I reached France.

***

But let us not forget Joan, who definitely does not want to be overlooked.  If I heard a lot about Mme. de la Noue, and even more about Bedia, remarks about Bedia seemed always to be accompanied with comments on Joan.  When Mami came up, it was almost as if she was an appendage to the peppy, ironic, vivacious, never quiet Joan.

One of the early stories I heard about Joan was that she was always embarrassing Mami on the trip to Europe.  The Europeans, after all, were just getting over the post-war shortages, rations, and even near-starvation.  They simply couldn’t understand Joan, whose main response to most questions seemed to be, “No thank you; I’m on a diet.”  Anissa’s response was, “Joan was always on a diet.  At lunch she would just order clear soup.”

Joan will be continued; it’s time to post.

I meant keep myself out of the project.  This, I announced to myself, would not be a series of scenes about Europe, 1949 interspersed with, example, parallel or significant scenes from my life.  Nor did (and do) I want to expend space meditating on my emotional responses to my experiences.  But, on my first day in London, I realized that some of my experiences may well fit into this project, because they would be events in themselves.  I arrived, after all, during the London riots, and one of the first things I heard was the predictions that the riots would be coming in the center of Putney, a short jog from the hotel where I was staying.

So this first post will be about me.

Actually, the prospect of the riots didn’t bother me at all.  I’m accustomed to riots occuring in pockets of deep poverty in and around cities, and Putney appeared to be a fairly prosperous area.  Only later that day did I find out that these riots were an exception–specifically targeting more affluent and well-trafficked areas of London and its near suburbs.  Apparently it’s all the fault of Blackberry with its anonymous instant messaging service.  During my stay, there were a few newscasts and newspaper articles suggesting that all would be well without Blackberrys.

So, on my first night in London, still in that hazy, foggy, jet-lagged brain, and with the news that most of Putney would be closed off, I went in search of a restaurant.

I was supposed to dine with Tita Sandoval-Eisler–our one chance to get together in my infrequent stops in London.  This was, after all, August, and it was a dazzling exception to find one of my friends in London. (I eventually found two–the rest were scattered in Switzerland and more exotic locales).  Tita lives in Kensington–an easy drive or underground trip from Putney.  But, again, the riots.  Tita had noticed that the Hugo Boss store in Sloane square had had its glass windows destroyed by a gang of hooligans (the rioters had clearly not targeted areas of poverty), and Tita was worried that I might put myself in danger by coming into London.  People, Tita added, are getting tired of the rather passive response of the police, who have been ordered to cordon off riot areas, but not to take aggressive action against rioters whose only destructive acts are pillaging and looting stores.  So, tonight there is a rumor that the police are getting out their rubber bullets.

It occurred to me much later that Tita and I missed a parallel to the 1949 trip.  That trip was about the encounter of four women–two from Cuba, one American and one Iraqi.  And here I would have had one day in which I, an American would have spent the day with two Iraqi women–one of whom had been on the trip with my mother, and one Cuban friend.

So, on my first night in the London area, I go off in search of a restaurant.  And now I’m feeling a bit stressed because the only restaurants I find are a block from the area where they are predicting riots, and the fact that a number of restaurants near the area are closed adds to the stress–not to mention the fact that I’m jet-lagged.  But I find a nice-looking Italian restaurant that is open called, quite uninventively,  La Strada (I don’t recall any Fellini posters in the restaurant, but they must have been there).  I deal with stress and jet lag by eating, and I’m delighted to find that the staff at La Strada prepares a fine spinach, avocado, bacon, and parmesan salad.  It’s the kind of bacon that Charles and I both love–not slightly rare and glistening with fat, but crisp and cooked–with a nice homogenous toasty color and a statisfying  crackle with each bite.  That, with a glass of wine, bread, and a dark, glossy look means that this is the familiar kind of restaurant that I am drawn to when I dine alone–a culinary home away from home.

And I’m discovering a bit about Putney in the process.  I have to say that the name didn’t promise much.  I’m not sure what it resonates with, but it sounded like some sort of dull backwater place making a semi-desperate attempt to get itself out of its dull existence.  But, in fact, the tables around me suggest that it’s the living space for a number of young, energetic, and diverse young professionals and their like.  The three women in the next table–obviously close friends, given the amount of eager interruptions and additions to each other’s conversations–are discussing mothers, food, healthy eating, and clothing.  I am in a scene from Bridget Jones’s diary, only these women seem to be well in control of any weight issues.

I relax further when I realize that the waitress, who is recently here from Spain, didn’t even know there were supposed to be riots in the area.

*   *   *

 The arrival was perhaps the most routine, unproblematic arrival I’ve ever had in Europe–Heathrow, at least, didn’t seem terribly concerned about riots.  The extensive walk from the airplane to customs felt like a brisk mini-aerobics, with slight pauses to get my luggage and to have a quick chat with the Customs person, who clearly found me to be of no interest, then practically a sprint (as the people behind me seemed to press forward in eagerness) through the “Nothing to Declare” passageway.  About 30 seconds of minor concern passed through me as I scanned the crowd, which appeared as a faceless, multi-colored blob, then one more glance around, and there was Anissa.  I was a bit anxious I might not recognize her, but there she was–exactly the same person I had met at my mother’s a few years back–the same beautifully and perfectly swept-back hair, pulled-together look, but with a slightly worried expression, since she was still looking for me.    It had been a long time since I had had anyone greet me at an airport in Europe, and I had not wanted Anisa and Tala to put themselves out by coming to see me, but, I have to say it was great.  A moment later we found Tala (who had been looking for me at the other end of the exit line).  I had only met Tala once–back in 1972 in the south of France (I’m still trying to find the photos), but I recognized her immediately, with her radiant smile and long black hair.

***

The three young women have brought the conversation back to food: I feel such a strong kinship with them, even though I seem to be invisible to them.  One–the most attractive, vivacious, clearly the “leader” of the three, is catching her friends up on her recent trip to see family in India.  The subtext is that she is too British, and probably too thin, to return to India.  “All they did was try to force food down me; and, honestly, it’s all deep fried, just chunks of deep fried food being pressed on me.  And my father saying I have to be polite; I have to eat everything they put in front of me.  Look at me, honestly, can I eat that much food?” She is very slim.  “I couldn’t take it any more.  I finally said to Dad, ‘Dad, I can’t take it any more; I’m getting ill.’ So Dad announced to the group”That’s it; she is not eating any more.  They were all right after that but after that I mainly go together with relatives for non-meals.”

***

Anissa and Tala took me straight to the Costa in the airport, bustling and full of clattering sounds of cups and plates, but it was nice to sit down in a chair with leg room and chat and begin to wake up.  The generous amounts of coffee (really not bad) in the airplane had not quite had their effect, and my body still seemed to think that it was sleeping in Wooster, OH.   But right away I was able to hear fragments of stories from Anisa–fragments that she turned the next day into longer narratives.  She began with her own tale of the opposite journey–the long trip from Iraq to the United States, with an extended stay in England as she was trying to find a boat to get her to the States.  She mentioned, too, the Rembrandt Hotel–one that my mother also talked about a lot.  This, I remembered, was the scene of the famous chamberpot incident, and I momentarily pictured Joan–slight, pixiesh, and mischievous–handing a clean white porcelain chamberpot filled with cherries to Abuelita, and Abuelita’s look of horror and her exclamation, “But Joan, this is a chamberpot!”

And I remember a comment David Wiebe (a Wooster friend) made when I bumped into him in the drug store, right after he had returned from a year in Berlin.  When I told him about the summer in Europe he exclaimed, “Wow, that was when Europe was just getting out of the postwar crisis; they must have been among the first American tourists to come to Europe after the war.”

Joan is rapidly becoming the Puck figure of the story–the one with the mischievous take on things, the one who tramps through European customs but whose positive and energetic presence keep people from feeling insulted by her naive Americanisms.  She is the one who tried to go through Germany without eating potatoes and through Austria without having a pastry.

***

The women in the next table are their own energetic international community.  The one from an Indian background is very attractive, chic, thin, in a sleek black outfit.  One friend is Afro-British in boho chic–red sneakers, leggings, a little crocheted top, thick black glasses, a thin blue headband, and gold hoop earrings.  Somehow it all comes together into an elegant, sassy look. The other friend is a sweet white–very pale–woman.  She speaks like Juliet Stevenson in the film Truly, Madly, Deeply.  She is the quieter one, who never seems to initiate a conversation, but always eagerly follows the patter between the two other women and jumps in when she starts getting very excited. She seems to be simply basking in the delight of having these friends. Hers is the drabbest look–basic greenish pants and a good old white top and a plain pony tail.  The Anglo-Indian woman dominates, vivaciously, to the end, her intonations reminding me, oddly, of Stephanie Trigg, the Australian professor who is writing a book on medievalism with Tom.

I walk back to the hotel, turn on the TV to watch news of the riots.  Nothing has happened–no riots in Putney.  Time for bed.