The painful prose of Rostopchine

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You used to read Mme la Comtesse de Segur...

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...when you were 5 years old and in Paris alone with your mother.

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I saw a book in a shop in Golfe Juan by the Comtesse the last time I was there with granny, and thought of buying it for you. Granny and I had a lovely time sipping Pastis and chatting together that holiday - she was only 97, independent, enjoying Pastis with me and laughing.

When I told you about the book, you looked at me sharply and said:

- "That would have been very painful."

And I knew you would say that. I was provoking you. I thought:

- "Now you really do need to talk to me about Paris during the war, because time is running out." At least that's what I thought then.

And so I phoned Linda Grant as you got worse to ask her if she would help you get your memoirs published and Linda immediately phoned Gillian Slovo, (daughter of your old heroic friends, Ruth and Joe Slovo) and Linda phoned me back immediately and said:

- "Yes, of course, as much as we can." and so I phoned you to tell you and you listened and all you said was

- "I love you darling." With such an emphasis so strong that the sound still carries.

And for that, Linda may ask me any favour of any sort she likes and at any time. Go ahead.

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But then your health started to slide. And of course I asked you to please write something, and you did write one little piece called "La Petite Madeleine" which is on a computer that uncle Mike has and also on the old computer at Matumi - and I can't get down there because I have to teach here in the British boondocks for a while, in Kent, and it's driving me nuts.

The last time I went down to be with you both the house was full of tension. We were very happy to be together but you were preoccupied with getting your affairs in order and dad was frazzled by your repetitive questions seeking constant reassurance that this or that had been done. Of course not your fault at all and very prescient. But dad did have everything in order - absolute order.

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You were on strong doses of morphine but it didn't seem to effect your functioning all that much. I tell a lie. When you emerged from your room, on the occasions when we visited, you were fully present. You took one dose for the pain every 3 hours or so. I saw your dosages dad had carefully poured out and put into bottles in the fridge and accidentally drank the contents of one bottle of morphine down with a coke.

Dad was going too, and he was aware of it. You too. You were frightned he might go first. I found his notes. He had a heart murmer and he was pre-diabetic and had prostate cancer. The human condition. But we didn't know that dad was that ill. In retrospect, dad alluded to it, but we chose to deny, disavow and intellectualise.

We saw how you and dad helped each other to bear up and face each day quite joyfully. How felicitous that you decided to go a place near Cape Town and see the daisies month or so before with Ben and Mary.
You helped bear each other up in ways that we will never know, but sometimes there were storms of fear and sadness and anger that blew. Dad would just bellow with despair and rage and you would get extraordinarily tense and weep because perhaps you had too little energy to really get angry - which normally you would have been perfectly capable of. Your arguments must have carried across the valley to the Voights, perhaps even to the battery chicken farm in the distance.

And yet we didn't share that immediate pain and suffering for much of the time; living far away from you in London. It was dad alone who was your support. And Nomsa and Gazani and your marvellous friends from the struggle and all from your travels and work and the South African family and your kind friends in the valley.

So when you gave me that book. "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius" and asked me to read it I didn't. It was about a son who helped his mother through her cancer but I couldn't help, because we lived so far away. I shall remember that need to be close when Tere suggests going back to Mexico to be with her mom and sisters.

Your stomach was ballooning up with water and needed to be drained. It was "extremely uncomfortable" as you put it. Your stomach went down, but then it quickly came back up again. You hated that. It must have been truly vile.

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When you were in quite a serious condition - but putting far too brave a face on it as usual, you decided to come to the UK and see us and so you did. Wow! And you didn't come first class using Chris's flight concessions, but travelled economy and it was painful, but you bore it and you were with us for the precious goodbye visit.

And when we said goodbye that time it was the last time I ever saw you except for those moments on your king sized death bed, with Chris and Andy and Dad. But nobody thought that dad would go so soon after you, though I suspected it. That's why I gave you both that picture by Chagal where the couple is in the flat in Paris and it is the man who flies off and not the woman. You understood.

You read my blog where I wrote about you and dad and remarked:

- "You were a little rough on my father, but, well, yes that is what it was like."

You were about to sell Granny's flat in Golfe Juan and while while I was there, writing something in the study, I stepped into the lounge and heard a scuffle. So I woke you both up and we alerted the security guards and along came a large Afrikaaner and two assistants. We saw that whoever it had been had got through a kitchen window.

- "It was an inside job," the guard said stowing away his stubby little pistol, "They stole nothing they caused no damage and they knew the way in."

You and I seemed to think this made sense and told dad and dad exploded.

- "How can you think so badly of the people who work for us. "Why do you always see the worst in people. Always a sting in the tail, Phil." and he went of like a bomb. But some of his anger was directed at you.

Later you started crying, though I am sure you wouldn't want to be reminded of it, and said desperately:

- "I can't sell the house in France I would feel lost, I would feel lost and you said, I don't want to stay here anymore - in Matumi."

So in the end you both decided that you would divide up your time between Matumi and France for as long as the situation lasted and that was your plan, but I thought to myself.

"Mom, why would you feel lost without the flat in France. Why?

Why, when you were little at the age of 8, when you wrote such beautiful French poetry that the school promoted you into classes of 12 year olds, did you choose to forget your French? You only spoke it passably and used it in Geneva and the Francophonie.

What was your experience and understanding of what was happening in Paris? You were a precocious child who at age 4 told her German mother to stay quiet while you asked for things in the shops. You understood. Your aunt disappeared. Did you understand why? Your father left. Did you understand why? Your grandmother stopped writing letters and postcards. Did you understand why she stopped?

You sent me a text which the mobile phone comany deleted after a few months, saying that you was going into hospital, but that there was no need to worry. But there was a need to worry. I phoned you in hospital and you answered groggily, because of the morphine.

- "I feel so awful. Really, it's awful." Your incredulity at the pain and discomfort you were feeling and then, preoccupied by the pain you ended our conversation and your last words to me were: "Be kind to my father." which without context don't make sense, but in the context of Linda's response to my proposal, made perfect sense. Those were you last words to me: "Be kind to my father."

And before you returned to France to live you died. Not long before you died you repeated the old chestnut with a laugh:

- "I love everthing about France except the French."

My beautiful, intelligent, loving, big hearted, intelligent, erudite, high achieving, intense mother, I think you did understood. I think you did know. I think you meant what you said. But I don't think you wanted to return to France to actually live there.

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The truth is you didn't want to face up to that early childhood, where, as precocious and sensitive as you were, you understood what was happening at the most important level. 12 -13 year old school girls can be hateful creatures, especially when they are constricted and oppressed.

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Your actions spoke louder than a million words. They certainly speak louder than my words about you. A brave fight against racism and injustice and poverty was the perfect riposte to the racism injustice and poverty of a war time childhood in Paris. Your sense of humour, joy of life and good manners were a perfect answer to the brutal stupidity and banality of low brow Apartheid and fascism.

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As Marcelino said at your funeral - such well chosen words. Where are you know Eve. We don't know. But wherever you are one thing we do know, the struggle for justice and equality has not ended, we must continue to fight for what Eve fought for and for what we value and what must be done.

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In this sense of course there was no need for you to "face up" to an early childhood full of all that stuff: love achievement, war and trauma, anti-semitism and sadness, friendships and books. Where was the need? I agree. Your life was the fullest response imagineable to the crap you faced - your sun shone bright at midday, and for quite a while.

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So France is symbol - a burdensome one. It contains a load emptied of meaning by focused practical action. Paris and France hold a phantasmogorical and emotional charge, difficult to exorcise, and really not worth the effort of an exorcism. France, like the symbol of the moon in the Tarot pack. Perhaps directly recalling your experiences in Paris are merely an unproductive exercise in skating on the dark side. Perhaps they are something that can only be approached indirectly, glancing from side to side into windows, sidestreets, parks.

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I. Camille et Madeleine.

Mme de Fleurville était la mère de deux petites filles, bonnes, gentilles, aimables, et qui avaient l'une pour l'autre le plustendre attachement. On voit souvent des frères et des soeurs sequereller, se contredire et venir se plaindre à leurs parents après s'être disputés de manière qu'il soit impossible de dé mêlerde quel côté vient le premier tort.

Jamais on n'entendait une discussion entre Camille et Madeleine. Tantôt l'une, tantôt l'autre cédait au désir exprimé par sa soeur.Pourtant leurs goûts n'étaient pas exactement les mêmes. Camille, plus âgée d'un an que Madeleine, avait huit ans. Plus vive, plusé tourdie, préférant les jeux bruyants aux jeux tranquilles, elle aimait à courir, à faire et à entendre du tapage.

Jamais elle nes'amusait autant que lorsqu'il y avait une grande réunion d'enfants, qui lui permettait de se livrer sans réserve à ses jeux favoris. Madeleine préférait au contraire à tout ce joyeux tapage les soinsqu'elle donnait à sa poupée et à celle de Camille, qui, sans Madeleine, eût risqué souvent de passer la nuit sur une chaise et de ne changer de linge et de robe que tous les trois ou quatre jours.

Mais la différence de leurs goûts n'empêchait pas leur parfaite union. Madeleine abandonnait avec plaisir son livre ou sa poupéed ès que sa soeur exprimait le désir de se promener ou de courir; Camille, de son côté, sacrifiait son amour pour la promenade et pour la chasse aux papillons dès que Madeleine témoignait l'enviede se livrer à des amusements plus calmes.

Elles étaient parfaitement heureuses, ces bonnes petites soeurs, et leur maman les aimait tendrement; toutes les personnes qui les connaissaient les aimaient aussi et cherchaient à leur faire plaisir.

II. La promenade, l'accident.Un jour, Madeleine peignait sa poupée; Camille lui présentait lespeignes, rangeait les robes, les souliers, changeait de place leslits de poupée, transportait les armoires, les commodes, leschaises, les tables. Elle voulait, disait-elle, faire leurdéménagement: car ces dames (les poupées) avaient changé demaison.

MADELEINE.--Je t'assure, Camille, que les poupées étaient mieuxlogées dans leur ancienne maison; il y avait bien plus de placepour leurs meubles.

CAMILLE.--Oui, c'est vrai, Madeleine; mais elles étaientennuyées de leur vieille maison. Elles trouvent d'ailleursqu'ayant une plus petite chambre elles y auront plus chaud.

MADELEINE.--Oh! quant à cela, elles se trompent bien, car ellessont près de la porte, qui leur donnera du vent, et leurs litssont tout contre la fenêtre, qui ne leur donnera pas de chaleurnon plus.

CAMILLE.--Eh bien! quand elles auront demeuré quelque temps danscette nouvelle maison, nous tâcherons de leur en trouver une pluscommode. Du reste, cela ne te contrarie pas, Madeleine?

MADELEINE.--Oh! pas du tout, Camille, surtout si cela te faitplaisir.»Camille, ayant achevé le déménagement des poupées, proposa àMadeleine, qui avait fini de son côté de les coiffer et de leshabiller, d'aller chercher leur bonne pour faire une longuepromenade. Madeleine y consentit avec plaisir; elles appelèrentdonc Élisa.«Ma bonne, lui dit Camille, voulez-vous venir promener avec nous?

ÉLISA.--Je ne demande pas mieux, mes petites; de quel côtéirons-nous?

CAMILLE.--Du côté de la grande route, pour voir passer lesvoitures; veux-tu, Madeleine?

MADELEINE.--Certainement; et si nous voyons de pauvres femmes etde pauvres enfants, nous leur donnerons de l'argent. Je vaisemporter cinq sous.

CAMILLE.--Oh! oui, tu as raison, Madeleine; moi, j'emporteraidix sous.»Voilà les petites filles bien contentes; elles courent devant leurbonne, et arrivent à la barrière qui les séparait de la route; enattendant le passage des voitures, elles s'amusent à cueillir desfleurs pour en faire des couronnes à leurs poupées.

«Ah! j'entends une voiture, s'écrie Madeleine.

--Oui. Comme elle va vite! nous allons bientôt la voir

.--Écoute donc, Camille; n'entends-tu pas crier?

--Non, je n'entends que la voiture qui roule.»

Madeleine ne s'était pas trompée: car, au moment où Camille achevait de parler, on entendit bien distinctement des crisperçants, et, l'instant d'après, les petites filles et la bonne, qui étaient restées immobiles de frayeur, virent arriver une voiture attelée de trois chevaux de poste lancés ventre à terre,et que le postillon cherchait vainement à retenir.Une dame et une petite fille de quatre ans, qui étaient dans lavoiture, poussaient les cris qui avaient alarmé Camille et Madeleine.

Continues....

From LES PETITES FILLES MODÈLES (1857) by Mme la Comtesse de Ségur (née Rostopchine)