Just Me Page 22
Now the ghetto is the up-and-coming fashionable place to be in Budapest. All the magnificent courtyards that lie between the alleys are being converted into chic flats. Old Jewish markets are becoming fashionable boutiques, galleries and performance spaces. That is where I would want to live. If I could deal with the ghosts.
Not just the Jews died here but apparently there are the bones of German and Russian soldiers buried in a hurry in the courtyards when they were killed during the fighting at the end of the war. The Jewish community erected a plaque commemorating the Russian liberation, only to take it down when they suffered under Stalin. Later, in recognition of the fact that, whatever happened after, the Russians did free them from the evils of Nazism, and sacrificed their lives in the process, the plaque went back up again. So it still goes on, this swinging from lauding to vilifying, and taking out each switch of allegiance on their beleaguered statues and memorials, in the effort to update their history.
Whilst I was there, János Kádár's burial place was desecrated. His skull was stolen and Fascist slogans scrawled on his tomb. Kádár was the Communist leader of Hungary from 1956 to 1988. He did some good and a lot of bad things, including being involved in Imre Nagy's trial and death. Nagy too was a Communist but his statue is still intact, standing on his bridge over nothing, looking towards Parliament, with lots of giggly people having their photos taken alongside it, wondering who he is.
As in East Berlin, anyone associated with the Russians or Communism is being razed from Hungarian history. One memento of the Soviet era, an obelisk that, like the Jewish plaque, commemorates the Russians who died in the Liberation, has survived only because it is protected by a pact with Russia and lots of barbed wire. Typically, it in its turn was erected on top of a previous memorial, which was a mound created out of earth from the territories lost in the Treaty of Trianon in 1920.
I was told that all unwanted statues had been dumped in a field some distance outside Budapest. This I had to see. It seemed appropriate to make the trip to look at these socialist ex-heroes on May Day when I had some time off from filming. The hotel doorman was disapproving of my visit. As a small boy he was made to go to May Day rallies in Heroes' Square that took place in front of a statue of Stalin. I promised to take a photo of it, if it was there, abandoned and disgraced.
When I visited the park it was in the process of being turned into a proper outdoor museum, some people having decided that, whatever they represent, some of the sculptures were worth preserving. The first thing you see after a long drive from the city is a huge red brick wall, set into which, flanking a gate, are, on one side, an impressive statue of Lenin and, on the other, standing together looking studious, Marx and Engels.
Inside the wall the grandeur falls away for the ticket booth and shop are housed in a scruffy shed. However, I received the warmest welcome of anywhere in Budapest from the woman selling the tickets. She cheerily took my money as if it were a village fête, apologising that everything was in a bit of a mess but it would be very impressive when it was finished. I was rather sorry about this as I would have preferred the drama of seeing these icons of the past tipped into a field in a heap. Instead of which, they were now being placed round grass and flowerbeds in a pleasing pattern.
Some of the sculptures were phenomenally ugly. Vast, challenging, meant to intimidate. The socialist-realist monuments were worthy but on the whole rather nasty – all those healthy-looking idealised workers. Every now and then, though, something touched my heart: a depiction of grief in the martyrs' memorial; a group of children belonging to one of those twisted youth movements that dictatorships force on the innocent – a far cry from the twit-twooing Brownies. Even a lovely memorial to the people who fought in the Spanish Civil War had been jettisoned.
What was upsetting about these abandoned relics, hidden away from the city, was that, like Irina's father in Berlin, all these commemorated figures were of people dedicated to and often prepared to die for their beliefs, which they thought were for the good of the people. Statue Park is a lesson in misplaced loyalty; in the danger of putting your faith in groups with rigid ideologies. The causes are different now but we are still threatened by devotion to an ideal.
There are many stories of true heroism there that are now regarded as shameful. I asked the woman on the gate about one beautiful tablet and she showed me a booklet with a devastating picture of a group of handsome young men being killed in front of the Communist headquarters when they tried to defend it against what they saw as a Fascist uprising in 1956. The translation of the inscription read, 'These loyal to the people and the party will be forever remembered, who laid down their heroic lives on October 30th in 1956 in the defence of the power of the people.'
How wrong can you be on all counts? Yet they were young and passionate. Ready to die for what we now regard as a misguided vision. The irony is that I had already seen a memorial in the square by Parliament to some other equally brave young people who fought against them and also died in 1956 but who are remembered with honour. When I visited the marble tribute to them, some present-day youngsters were leaning on it, embracing, oblivious I am sure to what it was, as well as to the bullet holes still scarring the nearby walls. Just as I had sat unheeding on the walls that were all that remained of a once-great nation in Puglia. Sic transit gloria.
As well as the imposing one at the gate, there is another much smaller iron statue of Lenin inside. This one is more appealing and has a touching history. It was given by Khrushchev to the workers in the Csepel Iron and Metal Works in 1958. Ominously, it went rusty and began to disintegrate. The workers secretly recast and replaced it. When they heard it was going to be toppled in 1990 they hid it in some cellars. It is a strange Bridge over the River Kwai sort of story, where the pride in their work superseded their desire to be free of oppression. Recently they entrusted the statue to the park to be looked after.
I found the Russian soldier removed from the Liberation statue on Gellert Hill. Those Soviets certainly wanted everyone to know they were there – it is terrifyingly enormous. But I searched in vain for the doorman's statue of Stalin. I could find only a pair of sawn-off boots – Shelley's 'two vast and trunkless legs of stone' – that I believe were all that remained of his statue after it was mutilated by the crowd. There was another thing, firmly wrapped in sacking, perhaps too vile to be seen, that could have been Stalin, of which 'nothing beside remains'.
The Hungarian actors in the film solved a mystery for me. They told me where to find two other previous villains who, having left their country in disgust, were now restored to favour. The graves of Bartók and his student George Solti are very close to one another in Farkasréti cemetery. There was a nice little pussycat sitting on Bartók's grave, and on Solti's was a small bouquet with the message 'Little George has just been born'. Probably a grandchild. Which made their rather forbidding tombstones more endearing.
I was sitting in the hotel restaurant after my visit to Statue Park, congratulating myself on my progress since last visiting Budapest. I felt a bond with Budapest now. It is a city struggling to reinvent itself, which is, in a way, what I have been trying to do. We are both a bit weary and battle-scarred by the sad crazy march of time but we are making changes. Having met some of the people that live and work there I felt I understood the Hungarians better, just as meeting Irina and Ilona had overcome my racist attitudes to Germany. I was rather pleased with myself.
As I perused the menu, I noticed a Japanese couple near by. He was meticulously lining up his cutlery and snapping orders to the waiter, inscrutable and cold. Instinctively, I bristled. Then I caught my reaction. Oh God, do I have to visit Japan now?
If suddenly you do not exist,
if suddenly you no longer live,
I shall live on.
. . .
No, forgive me.
If you no longer live,
if you, beloved, my love,
if you
have died,
all the le
aves will fall in my breast,
it will rain on my soul night and day
the snow will burn my heart,
I shall walk with frost and fire and death and snow,
my feet will want to walk to where you are sleeping,
but
I shall stay alive,
because above all things you wanted me
indomitable,
and, my love, because you know that I am not only a man
but all mankind.
From 'The Dead Woman' by Pablo Neruda
15
Provence
SOMEONE WAS INTERESTED IN buying the house in France. When I went to meet the prospective buyer, my eldest daughter Ellie Jane, her partner Matthew, and their two children Lola and Jack, were holidaying there.
The house was bursting with life. All my daughters are brilliant homemakers. The Lacanche was banging away cooking delicious meals; a table-tennis table had been erected under the shade of the remaining lime tree, which was flourishing since the felling of its partner. The children were roaming in the cherry orchard, collecting flowers or playing boules or sitting quietly reading. It was a complete change to their highly organised London social activities. They seemed to be enjoying the primitive life. We went for a long walk, with Ellie Jane dictating the route, rather erratically, from a map, causing Matthew to be fairly tetchy. I was intrigued to see her taking over my bossy organising role and Matthew morphing into John being grumpy about it. I enjoyed taking a back seat. At one point, Ellie Jane made us all stop and take in a magnificent scene of purple lavender and indigo-blue mountains, shouting, 'I love it here. It's the most beautiful place on earth.' Doubt began to stir about my drastic decision to leave.
When we went to the local lido, I was aware that my appreciation of it had been enriched by my travels. I looked at it afresh. I had not realised it is a fabulous example of modernist social architecture. Built in concrete in 1964, it has all the smooth curves and ship-like decks and railings of the genre. The diving board is like a lightning strike. Even the benches are a study in simplicity and practicality, using concrete and blue and white tiles. As I swam in its massive competition-sized pool, I feasted my eyes on this newly realised delight.
The house took on a different mood with the family filling it with life and laughter. It was a joyous few days.
Then they left.
It was a mark of my adaptation to being alone that I was not bereft. It was the day of the farmers' market in Apt. Unlike the huge Saturday market, there are just a few stalls, with goat's cheese, lavender products, seasonal fruit and vegetables and local wine. I have become acquainted with the stallholders over the years and they greet me warmly, some with a handshake, some even with the standard three kisses on alternate cheeks. I am sure these tactile connections between everyone, parent and child, young and old, girl and boy, help the mutual respect that is a feature of their behaviour. It is very inclusive. It certainly cheers me up. As well as the old-world courtesy, mainly among the older inhabitants, of greeting one and all when you enter a shop. 'Bonjour, monsieur/madame.' Not so customary in Tesco.
Just as John was Monsieur Um Er in the pâtisserie, I am probably known as the Lady in the Blue Hat. I have a jaunty cotton number to shade my wrinkles from the sun, which is much commented on. Total strangers, mainly men, say, 'Quel joli chapeau.' It doesn't happen on Hammersmith Broadway.
In France I am a bit of a character. Nothing to do with the telly, for they do not know about that, but a lot to do with their friendliness. That I am noticed at all has to do with the regard paid to older women. We are not invisible there. The pace of life allows you to spend the time of day with people. No wonder they are rejecting the attempts to cut their holidays and lengthen their working hours. They do not want to relinquish their leisure and family time to pursue what they call the Anglo-Saxon obsession with work.
Pottering around Apt on my own, I was aware how much more acute my observation has become after my travels. That afternoon, after the family's departure, I sat for about an hour in a café, watching an old-fashioned barber in a tiny shop opposite, turning out every client with identical haircuts and moustaches, created by comb, scissors and a cut-throat razor, held in a triangle, with little finger delicately cocked. Maybe it was just nostalgia for time spent sitting on the bath, watching my dad shave, but the scene had a balletic grace that I found absorbing.
My favourite café has a few hard-drinking men sitting on stools at the bar, looking like characters from a school-book in the forties. Le Père de Toto, round and jolly in a beret and bleus, and the tall gaunt guy with a moustache that Toulouse-Lautrec often featured in his pictures are still there, their faces weather-beaten and cheerful, or doleful when they discuss politics. Butch men enjoying their pastis still greet each other with three kisses and lots of hugging, and I am welcome to join them but can't keep up the pace. Today, we have a few jokes, then I sit in a corner with my coffee and Guardian and La Provence.
The local paper is full of a new find, during demolition work, of three beautiful Roman statues. It seems Apt is an even more important Roman city than previously thought, with a huge amphitheatre seating 6,000 under the medieval cobblestones. It certainly feels as though it has been there a long time. The whole Vaucluse is steeped in history. It has been inhabited for a million years, from Neolithic discoveries through Celts, Greeks, Romans, and wars of religion. Probably the omnipresent Habsburgs have had their oar in, too, if I investigate. But I haven't time. For, of course, I am leaving.
To have a last look around, I went for a drive, trying to see it as if for the first time, as I did with Germany, Thailand, et al.
Following the Roman thread, I discovered a bridge has been built next to the Pont Julien, to divert cars from its ancient road. I have driven over the original bridge many times and never really looked at its wonders. It is a miracle of engineering, the top of the central span of three arches seeming so thin, yet it has withstood 2,000 years of to-ing and fro-ing. It was said that the Millennium Bridge in London went wrong because the crowds somehow marched in step, causing it to wobble. What price the legions crossing Pont Julien? They knew a thing or two about building, those Romans. I got out of my car, and sat by the dried-up riverbank, gazing at it for a long while, re-creating its story in my head. I had plenty of time. No one was expecting me.
Then I drove to a favourite haunt of John's and mine, the Abbaye de Sénanque. It was at its most beautiful, with lavender blooming purple against its austere simple white walls. I decided to sit in on one of the services. Quaker meetings for worship have no music, so every now and then I need a dose of choral singing. Nowhere is it more potent than at Sénanque. The Cistercian Order have lived there on and off since 1148. They lead a life of prayer and work on the land, with minimal use of words, so as 'to retain all day that atmosphere in which God can be found'. It seems to agree with them, for their tombstones show they live to a great old age. I once lost my way after a service, and came across the monks having a bit of a laugh together. I was glad it wasn't all prayer and silence.
The monks glide into the small chapel, bare of ornament but for a vase of flowers and the lit host. I covet their white gowns with black-lined hoods, that flow and drape as elegantly as any couture garment. The two-thirty prayers are sung, unaccompanied, in harmony of a minor key. They are the saddest sound in the world. I believe these afternoon prayers are a meditation on the death of Christ, so maybe other services are more jolly.
It suited my mood that day. I was overwhelmed with sorrow at the thought of leaving. The truth is, I love it in Provence. Not because of memories of John. The place itself, and the way of life. I have a sense of belonging. London is exciting and beautiful and I need it to stimulate and thrill me. My allegiance to my native country, warts and all, knows no bounds, but, as I have discovered, my roots are more complicated than I thought, and I do genuinely welcome the fact that I am a European. As I sat in the chapel, the chattering in my brain stilled by t
he calm, one thought emerged: this is madness.
How can I leave? Everything has changed since I made that first decision. Shifted. Even the hameau has moved on. The quince tree, for the first time, now that it can see the sun after the removal of the lime tree, is full of delicate blossom. At long last, work is being done on the dying cherry orchard, trees felled or pruned, the whole place being brought back to life.
Christiane and Roget have left. The vineyard has been bought by a wealthy Swedish businessman who, as a child, rode on a tractor and has dreamed of working on the land ever since. Everyone thought he would come a cropper when faced with the reality, but he is out, every day, all day, in the searing sun, happily tending his vines, and now produces a very good wine. A young single mother has moved into another of the houses and entertains us with her romances. She has a lovely child, and a soppy dog, both of whom visit me regularly. The dog, Banan, cannot believe I allow him indoors. The only original inhabitants left are André and Denis. I still can't understand a word they say, but we have known each other for eighteen years now, and the affection between us old-timers is real. I was worried for them when two young, gay Parisiens bought the remaining house. The contrast in their lifestyles could not have been greater, but they have managed an awkward friendship.
The Parisiens have perked us up no end. Their house has been revamped with designer style. They collect modern art and fine wines, and entertain smart people from Paris. Their terrace is a-twinkle with candles and fairy lights in the trees, and they cook delicious alfresco dinners, with discussions lasting long into the starlit night.
They suggested I improve my own shabby house. Not to alter its rustic character, but just to make it more comfortable. An electric heater for when I can't face lighting the wood stove, and a proper bathroom. One day over coffee Patrick asked me why I didn't I replace my tatty old sunshade for something more stylish. It is unwieldy and not very attractive but I demurred because John had persuaded the prop men to bring it all the way from Verona, where it was used in a scene in Morse. It felt disloyal to discard it. After Patrick left, I was sitting in its shade, finishing my coffee. It was a perfectly still, boiling-hot day. Suddenly a violent gust of wind came from nowhere, tossing the parasol out of its stand, and whirled it down the garden, where it ended up as a shattered heap of wood and canvas. No one else in the hameau had experienced any wind at all. As with Jo's wedding, I know there is a rational explanation, nature plays strange tricks, but I took it as a message. John always used to get irritated by my reluctance to spend money. Anyway, it decided me; I bought a new parasol and took the house off the market.