He held up the ticket.
“We are going to drink it,” he said.
He sold the ticket. We invited friends. Our spirits were restored. “Let’s go to Greece,” I said.
At the beginning of August, with five other artists, we boarded old Andros in Marseille. We slept on deck, we lived on deck. The Mediterranean sky was sending down dozens of shooting stars that summer, and one night, sailing through the Straits of Messina, we saw Mount Etna sending back up big, fiery bunches of them.
In Athens, after our group dispersed, Abel and I decided to cross the Peloponnese on foot. For days we walked through a nearly treeless landscape, under a cloudless sky, at the pace our donkey dictated, led by a guide who spoke classical Greek and knew where the gods had concealed rare trickles of clear, cold water.
At the Dôme, Paris, ca. 1935
Night after night, we slept under a sumptuous, infinite sky. We dreamed of walking around the world together and came to believe we could. Eastward. We would go eastward, Marco Polo’s route.
Back in Athens, we made inquiries about visas at the Turkish consulate. A French passport and a German passport? Dark glares and shaking heads. We shrugged; ah, these ever-friendly Turks! Never mind, we needed more time anyway. We went on with our great voyage, sailing from one quiet, white island to another on shabby, romantic Greek vessels. We slept, sometimes on the sands of deserted beaches, close to blue waters as quiet as a lake’s, and sometimes under the broken marble columns and altars in the temples of long-abandoned gods. Travelers were sacred in ancient Greece. This did not seemed to have changed at all; we encountered only quiet courtesy everywhere. There were perhaps only half-a-dozen French painters visiting Greece in the summer of 1937. We did not meet any other foreigners.
During the trip back, the Andros—an ancient British passenger boat sailing under the Greek flag—got tossed badly in a sudden, violent squall that sent cooking pots and deck chairs flying overboard. We held on to the mast, scared, soaked, delighted like children by that moment of danger.
VI
We returned to a Paris where gloom had tarnished the gold of autumn leaves. Our cafés were nearly deserted; most foreign artists were absent, and many French artists, donning ties and coats, had wandered to bourgeois cafés. Policemen were unfriendly, people moody. Everybody blamed the Spaniards still at war, the new suave prime minister and the one who had just fallen, the dictators strutting at our borders, and, of course, “les Anglais.”
I went back to teaching and began cross-country running in the woods—a new addiction. Abel went back to painting and making advertising posters. We moved to a new artist’s studio we loved, which was within walking distance of the Dôme, our favorite café. We gave a party. Did our best to forget the world.
For Christmas, we would go skiing in Germany. It happened that one of Abel’s brothers-in-law had come upon a beautiful, unspoiled, easily accessible place. He would secure room and board for us.
On our way, we stayed overnight in stately Stuttgart, beautiful under the snow. Christmas trees, songs—well sung—delicious pastries, good German wines—a surprise—stylish traffic policemen surrounded by heaps of festive offerings from grateful citizens. I wanted Abel to share my enthusiasm. He shrugged.
Paris atelier, ca. 1937
A train filled with skiers took us up mountains that looked more accessible than the Alps. I liked that too.
We got off at a tiny railroad station. There was a one-hour walk along a pleasant, winding mountain road. Gentle slopes, evergreen trees, a few neat, solid houses. Everything clean, orderly, reassuring, as if the whole landscape had been rearranged to accommodate the people.
At a turn in the road, Abel suddenly threw his rucksack down into the snow and gestured angrily toward the valley that opened in front of us. At the bottom, a lone, elongated wooden structure crouched under a fluttering giant blood-red flag bearing the black swastika.
“I am not going to sleep under that rag,” Abel said, picking up his rucksack and starting to walk back. I followed grudgingly.
At the unattended railroad station, a poster indicated that there would be only one late train.
Winter 1937
I promised I would get very sick if the place turned out to be unpleasant, and we slowly retraced our steps.
“The place” was a military training camp equipped to take in guests who did not mind rustic accommodations.
We were out skiing the whole day long. In the evening, we sometimes saw clean-shaven, heel-clicking young soldiers. The officer in charge, young, clean-shaven, heel-clicking, graciously offered us his room, a low-ceilinged affair furnished with two narrow, hard bunks. We ate the evening meal—black bread, sausage, and beer—with him and two other skiers, teachers eager to practice their French. They taught me some German.
On the last evening, as we had a glass of wine, the young officer, keen on physiognomy, analyzed Abel’s features. His forehead, he said, was “sehr gut,” “sehr Deutsch.” I understood that. His eyes were “sehr gut,” “sehr Deutsch.” But the two lines on each side of his mouth indicated “Polnische grausamkeit,” he said.
Abel translated: “Polish cruelty.”
I giggled . . . .
The officer turned red.
“Why Polish?” we asked.
“The name.”
“It’s Slovak, not Polish,” Abel said.
The German officer was triumphant: “Ja. Ja. Slavische grausamkeit!”
We laughed about that exchange. Ah, we laughed about so many things.
VII
I came back from our vacation with good feelings toward orderly, clean, comfortable Germany. The Germans, I said, were perhaps a bit clumsy, but they were so polite.
Abel was not listening.
“My friend from Argentina was right,” he said. “We are heading for trouble.”
The next day, he visited South American consulates. I reluctantly went along. Lines were long at the Brazilian, Argentinean, and Chilean consulates.
I inquired about a teaching position at the French school of Montevideo in Paraguay. There was a two-year wait. Good. I did not want to leave Paris.
Abel wrote several letters to his friend in Argentina. No answer came.
In March 1938, Hitler conquered Austria without firing
