How did you meet your life partner? I’m always curious to ask the question because of the fascinating interplay of chance and chemistry in how two individuals come to choose each other. Admittedly, there was more promise of intrigue in the days when people met offline, but even now there’s always a story.
The two main protagonists in my novel, X in Provence, first cast eyes on each other in some pretty unusual circumstances although how they reconnect is perhaps the bigger surprise.
For pure zany ness and “are you serious?” moments, I look no further than the story of my parents and how they ended up together.
My parents should have met in Paris. It was 1950 and my father, Albert, was into his second year of graduate studies in cinematography in the French capital. Esther, my mother, was in Paris at that same time, studying French at the Sorbonne for a semester as part of her undergraduate degree.
Esther had been given Albert’s name and address in Paris through a distant relative of his, who happened to be a friend of Esther’s mum. When Esther went to pay a friendly call on Albert, the cantankerous concierge of his building – true to the Parisian archetype – told her he’d moved out that very same day but refused to give her his new address.
Opportunity missed.
On his way back to California after his Master’s, Albert stopped off in New York, home town of Esther, who’d recently arrived back from her Sorbonne stint. A relative of Albert’s asked if he wanted to meet the young, beautiful, beguiling woman who’d also been in Paris. You see, this relative and Esther’s mum lived in the same apartment building in Washington Heights.
Albert, naturally, said yes, and when my black-haired, dark-eyed stunner of a mother casually walked into the apartment he was immediately smitten. Esther, so I’m told, played it cool, though looking at photos of my father from that era he seems pretty irresistible: a devilishly handsome man combined with the humour and humanity that were his hallmarks.
They started chatting about Paris, whence my father found out she’d attempted to look him up (he was so mad at that concierge!) and also that they’d danced in the same square in the Latin Quarter on Bastille Day.
They squeezed in time together before he had to fly back to Los Angeles, where he was planning to make a new life for himself, re-joining his parents and siblings. He’d duly completed his graduate studies and survived World War II in the trenches and now a career called. But he hadn’t foreseen falling in love with an East Coaster.
He landed a coveted job as a writer for a TV show starring Groucho Marx – that legendary comedian and most famous of the Marx brothers – and things were going swimmingly in LA.
Except that he couldn’t stop thinking about Esther. Many letters and phone calls later, he invited her over to visit him for two weeks in the summer. She said yes, a rather risqué response for a young women in the context of that straightjacketed era but then she was strong-willed, independent-minded and rebellious. Esher jumped on a plane despite the heated pleas of her mother.
“I love you and want to marry you,” Albert said to Esther after a week spent together. My mother was surprised but, true to her spontaneous spirit, agreed to his proposition. So off they headed to City Hall in Los Angeles intending to get a marriage license. However, the place was closed as it was a holiday weekend. Undeterred, they drove across the border to Tijuana in Mexico, where it wasn’t a holiday. On the way to the registry office, to quench their thirst they bought some watermelon slices and sat on some steps in the street, eating and talking. Then Esther said: “You know what, I think we should get to know each other better – let’s wait before making any decisions.” She was 21 (he was 29).
Albert acknowledged he’d acted in haste but was broken-hearted when he saw her off at the airport for her flight back to New York. Distance was his enemy, determination his strength – or folly.
“I’m in love with a woman who lives in New York and I have to move there,” he said in a phone call to a friend of his in New York who worked for a talent agency. “I need a job, any chance you can you help”?
“You know what?” his friend replied. “We just got an opening for a producer of a kid’s show at WOR-TV in New York City. The job is yours if you want it.”
Talk about timing. He certainly did want it, and right there on the phone it was agreed. Albert gave up his apartment in LA and said goodbye to Groucho Marx. He found some new digs in Manhattan. He mentioned nothing to Esther about the move, eager for it be a surprise.
Once in New York, he made his dramatic announcement to her on the phone. However, rather than exult at the fait accompli – the reaction he’d expected – she was mightily upset. Typical male macho thinking: he’d never even asked for her opinion. A week or so later she dropped her own bombshell over dinner.
“I’ve got a job offer in Mexico City and I’ve accepted it. I’m going to live there for a year.”
And so, off she disappeared to Mexico. Albert was devastated. He’d moved the width and breath of America for the woman he was madly in love with and she’d upped and left, never once contacting him so he had to assume the relationship was over.
Time, though, was a healer. Gradually, Albert got over her and started to thrive in New York. He had a great job in television and money in his pocket. He was a very eligible bachelor who never lacked for dates.
It was about a year after Esther’s departure. One evening Albert and his girlfriend – an accomplished singer – went to see a performance of Flamenco by José Greco, one of the great dancers of that era. During the intermission they went into the foyer and lo and behold, who does Albert bump into? Yes, Esther. They greeted each other awkwardly, their conversation brief.
“You’re back from Mexico.” Albert said, rhetorically, his arm around his girlfriend a concrete statement.
The next day my gutsy mother called him.
“I was happy to see you last night,” she said. How about we have dinner, just to bring each other up to date.”
“I’m busy with work and I’m seeing someone,” he said. As if she hadn’t seen.
“Just one dinner, for old time’s sake.”
He caved in to her request despite himself, but really because of the flicker he’d felt. During dinner, she told him all about Mexico, including her tempestuous affair with a bullfighter and other escapades she’d had in that country.
“Whether it was because of her difficulties in Mexico, her whole attitude towards me had changed. She was exceptionally warm and loving,” my father told me (I never got the chance to hear my mother’s side of the tale).
“Can we see each other again?” Esther asked after that first re-encounter. Now it was she who doggedly pursued him, intent on wooing and winning back the man she had effectively dumped, whom she realized was a rarity.
My father was slowly pulled in. He double dated for a while but began seeing less and less of his girlfriend and more and more of my mother.
They were married two years later and went onto have four children and an adventurous, outsized life together until death stole Esther away when she was just 47.