A Chilean Summer
Interlude
by Jilliana
Ranicar-Breese
Walking down
Ermou Street, Monistiraki in downtown Athens last
night, having nothing else better to do after my
Greek 'sister', Georgia from Chania, Crete had
left, I ventured into a fashion shop as the
clothes I did not need beckoned me. The assistant
was ultra friendly and we chatted in Greek about
this and that. Eventually I succumbed and
bought two items, one as a gift for my beloved
best friend Pauline, back in Brighton and the
other because the saleswoman was good at her job
persuading me the black and white tunic looked
fabulous on me. She was right. I was actually
wearing black and white that day, the new very Me
combo. She spoke reasonable English and, having
nothing else to do, I settled down in a chair to
talk, as women do, about Life. I corrected her
English as she was keen to learn confessing she
had no one to practice with. Me, I suggested so I
decided to buy a gourmet sandwich from the local
patisserie, and come back for an Intercambio. We
got on so well that I heard about her personal
family life, her own fashion shop and it's demise,
and I gave her some techniques on how to speak to
customers. She was all ears because she told me
she loved her job selling clothes.
At that point
a Danish woman came in to buy a couple of tops. I
speak to everyone as if I know them. Within
seconds I had discovered that this nutter was in
transit returning from a dancing holiday
worshipping Mother Earth in Skyros. However, she
knew nothing about the established Personal
Development Centre on the island which I had
visited on two consecutive summers, first
studying Reiki level 2 with the American Master
Practitioner, Mari Hall and the following summer
taking an advanced writing course with the
renowned English novelist Sue Townsend of Adrian
Mole fame. At least she had seen the statue in
memory of Rupert Brooks, the English poet who had
died on the island during World War One returning
from The Dardanelles and who was buried on the
island.
After the
woman left, the assistant commented how amazed
she was at how easily I could speak to strangers.
I explained that I had 30 years experience
selling tangibles and intangibles in 6 languages
and I always spoke to strangers as if I already
knew them.
A 30ish man
wandered in carrying a rucksack. Browsing, he too
had nothing better to do with his evening. It was
by now about 21.30 and I was ready to leave and
go back to my rented studio around the corner off
Athinas Street, Monistiraki, the nerve centre of
bustling scruffy downtown Athens. The young man
continued browsing but for what? I wanted to know.
I, in my usual way and perhaps wanting to show
off my selling 'technique', took over.
'What are you
looking for?' Seemed to be a conventional
question that most shop assistants ask or the
inevitable 'Can I help you? Boring! The
best I ever heard was a jewellery dealer in
Istanbul asking me how could he help me spend my
money!!!! So I asked the young man, 'Do you know
what you are looking for?' I asked him in English
as I instinctively knew he was not a Greek.
'You mean in
Life?' Was his creative intelligent reply.
It turned out
he was a bilingual Franco Chilean from Santiago.
We switched from French to Spanish and then
English. The Spanish Inquisition began. I
demanded to know why he was living in Athens
without speaking much Greek. He confessed to
being 32, working for a French IT company and
surprisingly that he wanted to get married and
have a family. Joking I asked what he had to
offer the bride, a vineyard maybe? Astonished by
the question, he replied yes, his family, were
established wine producers revealing the name of
the well known family - Irarrazaval from
the wine province of the same name!
The delightful
intelligent Greek shop assistant was immediately
forgotten. I, the Queen, invited my new subject
to sit in the other chair and continue our
stimulating Life interview. 'Come into my office!'
said I and he unwittingly did!
Confused in
Life, he had run away from an obviously wealthy
family to join a sect in Brazil before heading
off to Barcelona for a couple of years to find
himself and finally London. His English was
perfect. He was also a musician and a selective
international Creative like myself. We knew were
in tune with each other. I told him my story
later in a cafe in the bustling Cafe Metro where
I discovered they offered Cretan Mountain Tea in
Monistiraki Square!
I explained I
had no connection with Chile except a
relationship with a past admirer Fernando, an
architect who I had met by chance in Paris in the
summer of 1972 at the pivotal time when Allende
fell leaving Chile in turmoil. Santiago was all
ears. This was his history. I told him that I had
had a ticket to go to Santiago from Buenos Aires
in 1970 but had been advised not to by the
banking family who had 'adopted' me in there. It
was explained that I could be in danger as
Americans were being attacked in Santiago and
that I could have been accidentally taken for an
American. No way Jose! I threw my Aerolineas
Argentinos ticket away and that was that. Out of
sight they say. Adios Bernardo O'Higgins!
I had fallen
out of love and was disenchanted with my bohemian
suffering artist French fiancé Philippe. We were
to travel around the South of France that summer
but he was desperate to return to his beloved
Greek Islands instead and I was left abandoned.
Not to be without a summer holiday, I travelled
to Marseille, Aix, The Luberon (pre Peter Mayle)
ending up in Paris on someone's couch.
I was an
impoverished TEFL teacher at St Giles school of
languages in Oxford Street, London in those days
earning £27 after tax had been deducted from the
miserable £32 weekly salary.
Being a
typical tourist and only having one friend in
Paris, Nina Sutton, the political journalist, I
wandered the streets admiring the architecture,
always looking up, lost in the reverie of a past
era.
I was walking
past the Louvre one afternoon daydreaming when
suddenly I was aware of an interesting looking 40ish
man walking towards me. He was attractive but
then so are lots of men should you be looking. I
was not. I had enough problems on my plate like,
how to get rid of Philippe who was a parasite
living with me. When a relationship is past it's
sell by date, it's time to remove it from the
shelf.
We passed
intensely looking at each other, our eyes locking.
We spoke without speaking. In a flash I knew
something had happened. Slowly I continued
walking, then stopped and looked back. He had
done the same thing. We walked back to meet each
other just like in a movie. We spoke in French I
think or was it Spanish or English? Who
cares? Words were not important. He
introduced himself as Fernando, a Chilean
architect working in Delft on a project. He
was stressed because he was married and the
telephone lines were down to Santiago because of
the crisis. He had had no news whether his wife
and son were safe. He was a tourist like me lost
in the wonders of Paris. We walked and talked. He,
too, was sleeping on a couch somewhere in he city.
We were attracted to each other in all senses but
neither of us had any money to go to a hotel to
express our feelings. But then there are other
important things in Life than the desires of the
flesh and so we agreed to meet the next day at
the Musee Carnavalet, the most romantic museum in
Paris, in the Marais district.
Excitedly we
met at the museum entrance and then sauntered
around kissing passionately under the watchful
eye of the attendant who followed us around the
rooms and display cabinets just to make sure we
were not doing anything improper! We were like a
couple of lambs frolicking around and must have
spent a couple of delightful hours there imbibing
the culture and more! The rest of the day I
don't recall but I do remember the next day going
to Versailles and after visiting the Palace,
lying necking and kissing on the grass in the
vast grounds with tourists tut tutting at our 'disgraceful'
public behaviour. Well, Paris is the city of
romance, isn't it? And romance we had even if it
only lasted for three days without the lust of
the nights.
We promised to
write and keep in touch. He invited me to Delft.
I promised I would go when I was disentangled.
Back In London, Philippe returned dressed
in a Greek blue and white bernouse. He had aged
because he had grown a grey beard. I wanted him
out but he refused to go. I went to the Citizens
Advice Bureau who told me I would have to issue a
Writ outside the flat at the bottom of the stairs.
Philippe told me I could not be thrown out in the
winter months! The CAB told me as I had invited
him to live with me, he was therefore my Common
Law Husband. I was so innocent of these matters.
I could only think of Fernando, my Chilean. Then
a letter arrived from Holland. My heart leapt. He
wrote in French how much he missed me and when
was I coming to visit? I was working full time as
an TEFL teacher so I plotted and planned to go
for a long weekend because Fernando was working
too. our previous time would be very limited to a
long weekend.
Then Philippe
accused me of being unfaithful. He became
insanely jealous. Yes, true I had been
mentally unfaithful but how did he know? My
behaviour towards him had changed. I was cold and
distant. He saw the letter from Delft with
attractive stamps and foreign neat handwriting.
Suspicious, he later confessed, he had
steamed it open with a kettle, read it and
resealed it. The letter had haunted and tortured
him for weeks.
Later I did go
to Delft for a long weekend. How I got there I
have no clue. Plane, train or boat? It was a
disaster. Fernando lived in fear of his landlady
finding out he had a guest. He lived like a
student with a bunk not bonk bed! This was not
liberated Amsterdam but provincial religious
Delft. On top of that he was impotent with guilt,
no doubt, as he was probably a faithful Catholic
husband back in Chile with emotional baggage in
Holland. I bought some blue and white Delft
Pottery as gifts and hastened back to London
disillusioned.
The magical
moment was lost forever. Gone Into oblivion.
Delft was not Paris. All we had to savour was the
memory of three wonderful romantic days in Paris
that passionate summer of 1972.
Written
in Athens, September 2015.
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