ASPIRATION: 19 Melissa

Düsseldorf, Germany

It`s so easy to love. The only hard thing is to be loved.

- Vincent Van Gogh

At the Poste Restante in Düsseldorf a letter awaited me from Melissa, to whom I had signalled my intention to visit that city in a postcard to her from Rome. She told me she was ‘very glad because you have received my letter at Rome, and you have answered it with your postcard. Thank you, Colin. I hope we will become very good friends. I want this, and I hope you want it.’

This letter to Rome must have arrived after I left, for I never received it.

As to her present letter, well, it was rather more than ‘friendship’ I had a fancy for, since I had been mad about her from the moment she first spoke to me when I entered the gate of the youth hostel at Marina di Massa. What exactly were her feelings? I wondered, for I could hardly hope that a beautiful girl like her could harbour tender feelings for someone so plain as me.

But apparently she had written to me first...

Next, she told me she was leaving home soon for a holiday in

Yugoslavia

with her parents, but that she would be back at the beginning of September.

‘Tell me if you can come to Lyon on September or October’, she went on, ‘Try to come, really I will be happy to see you again.’

Happy to see me again? Happy as a friend would be to see a friend? Or…

And then she writes: ‘I must excuse me for many things (when I diseappered (sic) at night at the hostel, for example, do you remember?’

Is there the faintest hint here of romantic chances missed? Or is it just French politesse? Or just clumsy English?

She goes on to write that if I can’t come to Lyon, she will ‘try to go to London on September (sic) with a friend because I think you will be there’.

Or if that’s not possible, she could go to London in the Christmas holidays with her brother.

‘He “loves”

England

, so I’.

Then she says that if we can’t meet soon we can write each other.

‘I will be pleased to know what you are doing, thinking – seeing in

England

, everywhere. I hope you will be able to write four or five lines every month. Is it possible Colin? Tell me it is possible.’

Again the question: Is there any suggestion of anything romantic here? Or is it all just French etiquette?

‘I have seen Winnipeg on the map!!’ she closes with, and sends me her ‘best wishes for a good and lucky life.’

No kisses, though.

Iserlohn, Germany

On the 22^nd of August, I hitched to a Canadian Army Base near Iserlohn, where I met Derek Larter, an old friend from Winnipeg, who had joined the army and was presently posted there. He invited me to his mess, I remember, where we spent the evening drinking beer. Afterwards he told me some of his fellow soldiers thought I was a ‘square head’ – a Canadian term of contempt for Germans – because of my uncut Beatles-style long hair. Then at Derek’s invitation, I bedded down in a little cubby-hole designated ‘the kit room’. The next day he told me the sergeant had found my rucksack in there and asked him: “Whose goodies are these?”

Soest, Germany

Finding myself persona non grata on army property for the third time in the last two years, I moved on to another Canadian Army Base at Soest, home to a former Winnipeger I knew called Iris, daughter of an English friend of my mother's, who had married a soldier called Mack. I found a Private Mack Green easily enough by enquiry, but unfortunately had not been able to give notice to Iris about my arrival. What is more, I had never ever met the fellow. Thus, when I asked Mack if his wife’s name was Iris, a shadow darkened his brow. I told him my name and explained that Iris and her mother had been friends of my family when I was a child and that I had come to pay her a visit, as I was in the area anyway.

Mack didn’t seem apt to believe me, but later when he finished his duty for the day and checked my story with Iris, all suspicion disappeared and when we reached their PMQ he got out the beer, Carlsberg, the genuine article, brewed in

Denmark!

We enjoyed a jolly evening together that featured a delicious meal and I passed the night with them.

Stamps in my old youth hostel book show that I was back in Iserlohn on August 25^th, 1965, and then dawdled south again, just idling away time until September and Melissa's return to Lyon. As my funds were now rapidly vanishing, I would sometimes sleep rough for the night, just to save money.

Early one morning on that southward journey, I was dozing on a bench at a railway station and dreaming that a girl was kissing my lips, when I opened my eyes to the bright morning and saw the face of a real girl just drawing back her lips from mine. She was kneeling on the concrete by the bench and a fellow was standing behind her.

“Have you got a cigarette?” she asked in English.

As a matter of fact I had. I had lots of cigarettes, for Derek had presented me with a full carton of Du Maurier cigarettes, my favourite Canadian brand, always available duty-free in Canadian Army camps. I raised myself to a sitting position, drew out a red packet from my rucksack, opened it and held it out to them. After lighting up, the girl said:

“Why are you sleeping here? Why don’t you come to our flat? You could sleep there in a bed.”

“No thanks,” I said. “I’m all right here.”

“But why don’t you come?” she said. “We won’t rob you.”

She must have been reading my mind. I didn’t have much to rob, that’s true, cigarettes and the equivalent of some five or six pounds sterling in deutschmarks and travellers’ cheques, but what little I had I sorely needed. It stood between me and destitution. At last she accepted that I would not take advantage of their hospitality. She thanked me then for the cigarettes and they went on their way.

Somewhere in

Switzerland

on the 1^st of September I got a lift with a British Army officer stationed in

Germany

. Fortunately for me, he was headed for Lyon, as the first destination of a camping holiday he’d embarked upon that very day. Just before dark he invited me to share his modest sleeping quarters and then stopped and pitched his tent somewhere in Eastern France. Unfortunately, he pitched it on a slight incline. During the night a storm blew up, I recall, and after a time I felt the touch of moisture on my toes. Lying on my side, I bent my knees to elude the damp patch at the back of my bag and sank into sleep once more. But several moments later, I was aggravated into wakefulness again by the sensation of soggy nylon cloth cleaving to my feet.

The sky was growing light by now, and I looked over at my sleeping companion. He seemed quite secure, reposing on his airbed. I wriggled away from the wet patch as much as possible in that confined space, drawing my knees up towards my chest and pressing my chin to my neck to withdraw my head away from the clammy canvas wall and the spatter of raindrops outside. Now I dozed between attempts to hunch my legs up tighter still, until my soldier friend finally stirred for the morning. By that time the rain had stopped and I was crammed into a corner of the tent, curled up in my bag like a foetus in a womb.

I arrived in Lyon on September 2^nd and located the block of flats where Melissa lived in the southeast quarter of the city, as I have a hazy memory of hanging about outside of it, lacking the will to go in. But eventually I ascended in the lift and knocked at her door. Her mother answered and informed me Melissa was not at home but at the École des Beaux Arts where she studied.

Lyon, France

I found her there in the afternoon, animated and beautiful, her long blonde tresses and fringe marking her out from the crowd, and chatting away at the entrance with a little knot of companions. When she caught sight of me, she came forward with a greeting and then drew me back to her circle, introducing me to a couple of her colleagues, one a certain Jean-Paul, I recall, a tall, thin fellow with curly black hair and a trim black beard. Then she carried on talking with her friends in French as before, so that I was obliged to linger idly by like some flunky waiting for orders. I felt a bit miffed, you may guess, for I had travelled so many miles to visit her, but now that I had arrived, she seemed unable to drag herself away from her mates.

At last, a session of shaking hands and kissing began the break-up of this bunch before Melissa and I toddled off together to see something of the town. Where to exactly, I don’t recall, but I sense now that this meeting served as model for subsequent ones. At times she wished to meet me at the École, where I was compelled to listen again to a ceaseless flow of gibberish before she could drag herself away. Or she might arrange our rendezvous in a little garden-court called the Jardin du Palais St Pierre adjacent to the Place des Terreaux, where I was obliged to abide, seated on a stone bench contemplating blossoms till she arrived, invariably very late. But she always burst upon me with a storm of apologies and she was unfailingly attentive when we were alone together.

Jardin du Palais St Pierre, Lyon

The Jardin du Palais St Pierre is pictured in the modern photo above. At least there are descent seats there now for the benefit of besotted innamoratos!

Place des Terreaux, Lyon

The Place des Terreaux itself was an impressive square distinguished by a large nineteenth-century bronze fountain consisting of a central block streaming with water and four snorting horses with plunging hoofs, representing the four great rivers of France, while above, a seated feminine figure, partially draped, is accompanied by a child crouching beside her. The artwork was designed by Bartholdi, sculptor of the Statue of Liberty in New York.

Fontaine Bartoldi, Lyon

As time went by, it grew clear that most of Melissa’s energy went into her studies at the École and mixing with her fellow confrères, so that precious little latitude was left for diverting wanderers from abroad. Yet, one day she did take time to usher me up to view the Basilique de Fourvière, which dominates the skyline of the town from its hill. She told me quite frankly beforehand that the church was in fact ugly, but that there were fine views of the city to be had from it's height. I was interested in neither. All I wanted to view was her.

Basilique de Fourvière, Lyon

Another day I found myself in her company inspecting a Roman Amphitheatre. The marble chunks and broken pillars served only as a setting in my imagination for her enchanting form.

Roman Amphitheatre, Lyon

On a visit to the École one day, she showed me the clay sculpture she was currently working on. I recall a rectilinear shape of some sort topped with some ridges and grooves. She told me what it was supposed to represent, but it meant little to me, and her attempt to amplify something of the glory of art, and its power to freeze the flux of things and make permanent what is transient, how it endures! 'even it is in the sea,' she said seriously, was just a bunch of pearls cast before an ignorant stripling.

It was maybe the same day when we ascended the steps of a decrepit edifice in the old part of town and emerged on the top floor, where she produced a gigantic key, inserted it into a colossal lock and opened a door. We stepped into a vacant room with bare floorboards and then passed through a second door to another room, bare too, except for a couple of wooden chairs. I was perplexed. What was this place?

It was her ‘studio’, she said, a retreat where she could ‘work’. There was no evidence of any work here that I could see, but she said it was suitable for a studio, since it had a 'northern aspect'. Her father paid the rent, she said. Was it not, I began to suspect, the artistic life – financed by her father – that was the true stuff of her daydreams?

Now she asked me to sit down while she returned to the first room ‘to change’. A couple of minutes later, she reappeared in a smock and jeans. The innocence of the girl! She seemed so little aware that I might try to make use of the opportunity of finding myself entirely alone with her in some derelict of a building to further my romantic intentions that she was moved to step into an adjoining room without even closing the door properly to change her clothes! If such innocence could be taken into one’s arms, it could only be to sing it a lullaby. A girl needs to be knowing, above all to know that she’s not a girl any more, to be open to romance. Friendly and affable as she was, my feelings could get no purchase on her.

Next she showed me a portrait she’d sketched of Jean-Paul. It appeared I had a rival, for his name had more than once come up in her talk. I took the sketch and examined it.

“Is that Jean-Paul?” I asked, for the sketch looked a little unlike the image I remembered of him.

“It is more than Jean-Paul,” she said airily.

Then she made a bit of an admission. Wherever she found herself, she said, Jean-Paul was sure to be there too. She told me that he often said to her: “I am waiting for you, Melissa.”

The way she said it sounded like I didn’t have much to fear from my rival. But my worst enemy was myself. Why didn’t I just take her hand in mine and say something like: “You are very much worth waiting for, Melissa.”? I didn’t know the language of love any more than did the eternally-waiting Jean-Paul!

Now she asked if I would sit for my portrait. I was somewhat surprised, as I had never considered my face to be a suitable subject for art, but I consented with pleasure. After placing me by the window, she busied herself with pad and pencil. As she sketched away at the page, glancing at me repeatedly, I hoped she was only sketching a portrait of me and not ‘more than me’. Afterwards, she showed me her work. I couldn’t say I recognised myself in it. Maybe it was more than me after all.

One day I found myself invited to dine at the parental dwelling, where I made the acquaintance of Melissa's father, mother and younger brother. Did this reception into the bosom of the family mean, I mused, that I was accepted as …uh… something more than just a friend? But why shouldn’t she invite friends to dinner? This was a culture so different from my own that I couldn’t really base any conclusions on peoples’ conduct. However, her parents were very friendly, I remember, her father making an effort several times to put me at ease by repeating the only sentence in English he knew.

“My tailleur is reesch,” he would state with a grin. I was puzzled by this allusion to his tailor until Melissa explained that the phrase was one everyone knew, something like ‘la plume de ma tante’ in the Anglo-Saxon world.

My residence at that time was the youth hostel, based in a country house eight kilometres to the north of the city on the east bank of the River Rhône. That meant I had to walk some sixteen kilometres return to meet Melissa, but to get provisions I had just to cross the river on a footbridge and visit the village of Caluire. Thus I had food and shelter, but for how long? I was now down to about five pounds sterling. That’s all I had in the world, and I was thousands of miles from home. I badly needed a job.