Hi, welcome!
Every few months I post here a short personal essay about life in Europe, married to a Frenchman and bringing up six children in five different countries. This time it is a story about remembering, how a family remembers. I don't want to reveal the event. The story is in my book Footsteps, In Love with a Frenchman.
“Remember?”
Our children remember the little slope in our back courtyard as a big hill. They would pull their red wagon up to the top and push off to the grass below. Sometimes they'd take their stuffed animals along, telling them to hold on tight.
This was back in the early l960's, when we believed in peace and good will around the world. There was J.F. Kennedy and Pope John XXIII. In Brussels, we were living the early days of the European Community. There would be a united Europe. There would be European passports, there’d be no more borders, there’d be a common currency.
Our children were growing up contentedly. Before bedtime we read to them stories in French and English. We were learning how to bring together our two cultures. It was a time when everything seemed possible.
So it was that when a young American artist asked for a place to exhibit his paintings, we offered our apartment. It wasn't large but it was central. The day of the exhibit, friends helped us move out furniture, take off doors, clear the walls. We were expecting close to fifty people from all around the world.
The artist, hung his larger canvasses in the front hall – flamboyant circus figures in bright blues, greens and yellows. The largest canvas was of a clown with a lopsided smile, holding on to a big yellow balloon. The artist put it at the end of the ha ll where it could be seen from everywhere. The smaller canvasses he put in the living room.
The first guests arrived. We introduced them to the artist and to one another. More guests arrived. People liked the bold, brightly colored figures in the paintings. The circus came to life, full of expectancy and enthusiasm.
The phone rang. It was an American friend who worked at the Embassy, saying he wished to excuse himself. He wouldn’t be able to come to the exhibit. I asked why.
“I'd like to wait and tell you later,” he replied.
“Why?” I asked again. “What's happened?”
“President Ken¬nedy's been shot.”
I saw our guests caught up in the dream of bright blues and yellows. I hung up and looked for my husband. Together we went outside to the front steps. The
chauffeur of one of our African guests came to find us
“Is my boss at your place?” he asked. “Do you know what's happened?”
“You mean President Kennedy?” replied my husband.
“Yes, Sir. I heard it on the car radio. Please, don't tell my boss. He’ll burst out crying.” He looked at both of us. “Let me tell him when he's safe in the car.”
We went back into the apartment. The paintings and the people swirled in a bright merry-go-round. I stayed near the door, waiting for the African diplomat to leave.
Again the phone rang. It was another American call¬ing to excuse himself. The news was confirmed. President Kennedy had been assassinated, in a parade in Dallas. It was time to put our children to bed and tell our guests.
Minutes passed. We stood together, shocked into silence. We looked for something to hold on to, something to steady us. So many of us were far fr
om our home countries. We needed support. Slowly our guests gathered their coats and filed out into the black night.
Our apartment never felt the same. The children still pulled their wagon up the small slope. We still read them stories before bedtime. Friends and neighbors still dropped in. But the exuberance had disappeared. We looked at our children and felt vulnerable.
Years later, after we moved to Italy, the children would sometimes speak about the courtyard with the gentle slope behind our apartment. They remembered playing with their wagon on the hill.
“It was a wonderful big hill,” they would say. “Remember?”
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