This is the sequel to Rosalind’s Choice.
Dear Katrina
Rosalind here, hoping all is well with you and the gang at Café Bleu. I’ve taken to writing actual letters again as part of my attempt to wean myself from my phone, which is something I’ve wanted to do for a while now. So far the results are good. I’m less anxious, sleeping better, and I have much more energy during the day.
I miss you, but I don’t miss the daily grind, pun intended. Remember when we calculated I made 50,000 lattes a year during my four years there. I wonder how many tens of thousands of tables I cleared? Not that I think what I’m doing now is any more important than working at Café Bleu. I don’t. But I’m grateful for the respite and the change.
We’ve been living in Lausanne for exactly nine months. I still wake up many mornings thinking I’m in Seattle. Then my new reality dawns on me and I jump out of bed and wander through this lovely old house to the kitchen where most mornings I find Mama speaking her quickly improving French with Genevieve, our cook and housekeeper.
Yes, we have a housekeeper and a resident gardener and handyman. Genevieve is fifty-seven and her husband Henri is fifty-four. They live in a large cottage on the other side of our enormous vegetable garden. They have lived here for eleven years, cooking and cleaning and gardening for the writers who come to live here. They insist we are their favorites of the five writers they’ve served, and we believe them because we adore them.
If it were up to Genevieve, she would work for us seven days a week, coming and going throughout the day, cooking all our meals, and cleaning a room or two. However, Mama insists we fend for ourselves two days a week, so Genevieve allows this, though she often comes over on her supposed days off to see if we need anything, stays to chat, and the next thing we know she’s making us lunch or soaking beans for tomorrow’s stew or helping me improve the supper I’m making.
Henri has granted us a patch of ground in the vegetable garden because Mama loves to garden, but then he assumes dominion over what we plant, so now we mostly acquiesce to Henri being the gardener, we the lucky recipients of his bounty.
Both Henri and Genevieve speak very little English, which is a good thing because otherwise we would never learn French, which we are both learning pretty well due to blabbing with Genevieve who was a chef in a fine restaurant before becoming housekeeper and cook of The Writer’s House, which is what our house is called by the locals and our hosts at the university.
What do we do all day?
For the first few months we were zealous tourists exploring Lausanne, which is a beautiful old city. We’ve been to Geneva twice and Zurich for five days in May to visit Mama’s translator Dirk Rosenfeld and be feted by her publisher Werner Schaffen. Then in August we went to Germany for three weeks and Mama read at universities and in small theatres.
In America a few thousand people may know of Dez Peoples, but in Germany and Switzerland and France and Spain her poems are taught in schools and universities, and the German, French, and Spanish translations of her poetry sell thousands of copies every year.
And now that she’s here instead of on the other side of the world, she has visitors. Poets, novelists, philosophers, professors, playwrights, journalists, musicians, all wanting to talk to her and have her sign copies of her books and invite her to read with them or come to their universities. And I am her appointment secretary! Wednesday and Thursday afternoons are reserved for these visitors, and every week or two we have a dinner party. Mama’s sponsor at the university, Karl Fleury, a wonderful man who refers to Mama as my poet, comes to the parties with his Spanish wife Carmen, and we invite three or four other people, and Genevieve and I make a feast.
Et moi? I take long walks with Bianca who has no trouble communicating with Swiss dogs, and I go to market with Genevieve almost every day. I’m learning so much about food and cooking from her. When you come to visit, we’ll go to market every day and cook marvelous things together.
And I’ve started writing stories and poems and scenes for plays. I haven’t finished anything I like very much, but I’m enjoying the practice. I’m also taking lots of pictures, mostly of people who come to visit, and of Genevieve and Henri and Mama. Switzerland is so picturesque, but I’m most interested in taking pictures of people.
I can hear you wondering what about men? Well I am madly in love with living here in what Mama calls The Land Where You Don’t Need A Car Because Trains Go Everywhere, but I haven’t fallen in love with anyone. Yet. I’ve been on a few dates and had a thrilling kiss from a handsome guy who was eager to get married and have kids with me, but I am definitely not ready for that.
We have four years and three more months here. The guest room awaits you.
Love,
Roz
*
On a Thursday in early October, Dez gives an interview to Andrea, a young French journalist. They sit in the living room of The Writer’s House and Andrea records the interview on her phone.
Andrea: (her English quite good) How is it for you living here?
Dez: Unlike anything I’ve ever known or dreamed of.
Andrea: How so?
Dez: I’ve been publishing poems in America for twenty-five years, and by American standards I am a successful poet, though only one of my books sold more than a thousand copies in America. In those twenty-five years, I’ve gotten a handful of letters from American readers and a few other American writers. But here I am something of a literary celebrity because Dirk Rosenfeld translated my poems into German for the Werner Schaffen editions and their success inspired French and Spanish translations. But if not for Dirk’s translations, and his insisting Werner Schaffen publish me in the first place, I would not be here and you would have no interest in me. Furthermore, I might never have published another volume of poetry in America if not for the success of the German English edition of my first volume.
Andrea: You don’t think another publisher would have done for you what Werner Schaffen did?
Dez: They never would have heard of me. The fact is I am the beneficiary of incredibly good luck.
Andrea: Yet your poems are masterpieces. Surely you would have eventually been recognized.
Dez: I appreciate your praise, but I think you are naïve. A far as I’m concerned, culture results from nepotism and the occasional fluke. Many brilliant writers never succeed in publishing anything, and the same is true for musicians and artists.
Andrea: So how did Dirk come to read your first volume of poems? Before Rosalind, yes?
Dez: (nodding) Dirk tells the story better than I. You should ask him.
Andrea: I will. But for now would you mind giving me your version?
Dez: He was in Paris on business for Werner Schaffen. He and I are the same age, so he was thirty-nine. He went to a café for lunch and there were two American women having a difficult time with their waiter. Dirk offered his services as translator for the women, they asked him to join them, and during the meal, when they learned he was a translator of English books into German, one of the women handed him a copy of Before Rosalind and said, “You should translate these poems. They’re fantastic.” Dirk read the book on the train returning to Switzerland and became my champion.
Andrea: Did you ever get a chance to thank the woman who gave him your book?
Dez: I did. Her name is Elaine Cantrell. I sent her a copy of my second book Now She Is Two and thanked her for giving my first book to Dirk. She wrote back and we’ve corresponded ever since. In fact, she and her partner are coming to visit here in the spring. We’ve never met in-person, but we’re old friends now and I’m looking forward to spending time with her. She’s a psychotherapist in Boston.
Andrea: Your daughter Rosalind is here with you in Lausanne?
Dez: I would not have come without her.
Andrea: May I ask why?
Dez: She’s my best friend and I wouldn’t want to spend five years living so far from her. My residency here is for five years.
Andrea: And then you’ll return to America?
Dez: Barring another miracle.
Andrea: What do you mean?
Dez: I mean I would love to live here for the rest of my life. I have no desire to return to America. It’s a punitive society. If you don’t have lots of money, life is hard there. And even if you have lots of money, the culture is ageist and sexist and racist and painfully mediocre. Here you have free healthcare, fantastic public transportation, free education, hundreds of excellent small publishers, marvelous theatres and performance venues, and an ethos of sharing. Most of what people here assume are the basic rights of life don’t exist in America. So why would I want to go back?
Andrea: I’m sure the Swiss would love to make you a citizen of their country. And so would the French and the Germans.
Dez: From your lips to God’s ears.
fin