A Promise Broken
As long as you could count your money, you were deemed good in math at the convent school in Cairo. Now I found myself ridiculed by my brother, Eddy, who tried to teach me the rudiments of algebra and geometry while we summered in a rented house by the sea. My grandmother chose Biarritz, where she had once owned a house during the years after World War I. I have a photograph of my grandmother at seventeen, lunching in the courtyard of that summer house, radiant among a dozen well-fed women dressed in white.
The large garden of this rented house had a grapevine-covered pergola where we had our meals. Eddy also tried to improve my spelling by giving me complex dictation. At lunch, he’d complain, “I can’t teach her anything. She’s a nitwit!” My mother would answer with a coy, feigned confusion, “I wonder why. Colette, did you know that Eddy was always excellent in math and that he learned to read when he was barely five?” I’d heard this since I was five myself, and had refused at first to learn how to read. Why was my brother so much brighter than me, I thought to myself.
Lunch was my salvation, as it interrupted the torture of my math lessons. We sat under the shaded pergola, drinking sparkling water with raspberry syrup or ice-cold lemonade. We often started with a salad of tomatoes, warm from the sun and sprinkled with fresh, whole tarragon leaves. Or we’d dig our knives into slabs of the local pâté de campagne. Georgette made a friture, tiny freshwater fish fried until crisp and tender, served with a bowl of coarse salt and potatoes sautéed in lard and tossed with fresh parsley. Dessert was always fruit: a bowl of dark red cherries or fragrant, juicy white peaches that my mother expertly peeled with a knife and fork.
In the afternoon we went swimming at the beach. Used to the warm waters of Alexandria, it took me awhile to brave the cold Atlantic and to walk barefoot over the stony shore. My mother lay on a chaise longue under a blue-and-white umbrella, reading a book or gossiping. Occasionally she’d go on a long walk down the beach with my brother. I found myself anticipating Georgette’s consommé with marrow and the tender cold meats she served with Dijon mustard and a buttery green salad. Sometimes we drove to the local ice-cream shop or took in a film. I loved Gérard Philipe, the young actor who was the darling of all the young teenagers. My favorite movie was Le Diable au Corps (Devil in the Flesh), the story of a young man who falls in love with an older married woman and he has to give up their baby to her husband. It was a tragedy—the beautiful woman dying as she gave birth. I cried at the movie, which I must have seen at least four times.
While my mother was out dancing at the casinos, my grandmother and I chatted. Grandmaman did not approve of my dresses. They were too light, trop ordinaire, she said, shaking her head at my simple flower-print dress made by our local dressmaker in Cairo. “When we are back in Paris I will take you to my dressmaker. She will make you some dresses to wear on Sundays and when you go out; we can also buy some dresses to wear to school.” My school had no uniform as the convent had. I said yes to everything Grandmaman suggested. I desperately wanted to please her so she would like me as much as she liked my brother. We went shopping together at Les Grands Magasins Réunis. In France at that time, dresses for children were by age. My grandmother was dismayed when I tried on the first dress she chose—a child’s size 14. It was too small. “You must lose weight, Colette! You are too fat,” she said with irritation. I was crushed. In the next few days every time my hand went for the bread on the table my grandmother gave me a stern look. I started to eat less so that I would lose weight and gain her approval.
Grandmaman was both my idol and my nemesis, a tall, very elegant, youthful, and horribly conceited woman of sixty-five. As I walked down the street with her, men often turned around to stare at her small waist, copious breasts, and rounded hips. In the informal Biarritz streets, she donned large-brimmed hats decorated with flowers or birds. In Paris, her hats had veils that hid her face, so no one could see if she was old or young. Her hats amazed me. She never left the house without wearing one. “J’ai une tête àchapeaux” (I have a head for hats), she said proudly. I, too, have “une tête àchapeaux” and love to wear hats, but mine are a little more discreet. Her wavy hair was dyed a light chestnut and tied in the back in a loose chignon. A local Paris dressmaker made her dresses. She had been very rich before the war and had worn designer clothes. She could no longer afford them but had her entrée with many of the popular couturiers of the day. She would drag Mme Simone, her dressmaker, to the salons and have Mme S. copy the dresses she liked. I often lay on her bed on lazy mornings, watching Grandmaman dress. She asked me to help her lace up a corset with whalebone stays that made her stand majestically straight. She would slip a delicate blouse on and tuck it into a camel-hair skirt that fell to mid-calf. She took a long time with her makeup, and while she applied it, she talked to me. “You must never wash your face with soap,” she said, “very bad for your skin. Just use hot water, then a strong astringent to clean it. If you do that, you will never have wrinkles.” I hung on her every word of advice, and I still don’t use soap.
When she was ready, she walked purposefully to the kitchen to have a conference with Georgette about the day’s meals. On Saturday mornings, when I had a respite from the dreadful tutorial, I followed her to the market, lagging behind because she used a trot rather than a stroll, a wicker basket swinging furiously from her arm. In Cairo the market was an all-day affair. My Egyptian grandmother was a queen at the lavish outdoor market, greeted, saluted even, by name. In Biarritz we were the summer people, and were quite anonymous; still, by the third day Grandmaman had her favorite stands. Surrounding a large square, the stands displayed the best of French produce: white peaches piled high, perfumed melons, pears and yellow plums, pencil-thin haricots verts, Swiss chard, sorrel, and mounds of ruby red tomatoes, tiny onions, and at least five kinds of lettuce. I loved the smell of fresh sausages, pâtés, and boiled ham, the latter handed to me by the rotund charcutière, sliced paper-thin. Sometimes there was a whole roasted suckling pig. I begged Grandmaman to buy some for lunch and smiled at the saleslady, hoping she would add some of the crackling, roasted skin to my grandmother’s order. The meat stand looked like a jewelry store, each roast beautifully wrapped in white fat, the lamb chops decorated with frilly crowns of paper. In Cairo, cheese was virtually unheard of; here in Biarritz, I slathered creamy Camembert on bread and greedily dipped my spoon into mounds of fresh, tangy farmer’s cheese that Grandmaman bought from the crémerie at the market. Laden with all our purchases, we walked back to the car, stored the food, and Grandmaman turned to me and said gleefully, “Une petite crêpe?” Hand in hand, we walked to the crêpe stand and shared a crêpe Bretonne, a thin, crispy buckwheat crêpe, sprinkled with sugar, butter, and lemon. At that moment life seemed perfect to me.
The days passed very quickly but on our last night in Biarritz, my world collapsed. We were sitting in the garden. For once my mother stayed with us, and as we watched the evening sun light up the sky with fiery oranges and pinks before it disappeared, she said in a matter-of-fact voice, “I think I will go back to Egypt next week.” Just like that. I was dumbfounded. Nobody said a word, and I felt my own throat tighten. She had promised to stay … how could she leave me again? I looked first at my brother, who was stoically resting his chin on his fists, and then at my grandmother, who looked strangely pleased. They each caught the other’s eye, and they smiled. I understood. My mother had come between her and my brother. If she left, my grandmother would have Eddy and me to herself! I got up and walked away, rage overwhelming my young heart. “I hate her,” I muttered to myself. “She never keeps her promises. Why did I think she would? I wish she had left me in Cairo.” Suddenly my mother was beside me, murmuring soothing words like “I will come back, I promise … it’s only for a few months … don’t be angry … you get along with Rose … you’ll be happy.” I walked quickly out of her reach and to my bed to weep.
Back in Paris, the next weeks passed very quickly. My mother was never home, always shopping for her friends and for herself. A coat for Lola, my young godmother, presents for her friend Elie, things for herself. Nothing for me. I was jealous of the time she spent shopping for others. I went shopping with my grandmother. Dresses to go to school, navy blue with a white collar, and elegant dresses for Sunday dinners or to go out. “The child needs a coat,” my grandmother said to my mother. “Then buy her one,” she answered. There were long discussions about money. I eavesdropped and gradually began to understand what was going on. I learned that my father had left a will leaving my mother lots of money but also dividing the rest of his fortune between my brother and me. My uncle Clément, my father’s younger brother, was our guardian. My grandmother was being paid a monthly stipend to take care of us. I heard my mother say, “You will have enough money for both. If not let me know; I will talk to Clément.” I realized that all the things my grandmother was buying me as gifts were in fact paid for by me. I felt betrayed by all of them. No one had cared enough to explain things to me. The day my mother left, I cried myself to sleep. She had said goodbye, and again promised to come back in three months. She returned four years later.
Once my mother was gone, my grandmother decided that I should move to the front bedroom, which had been occupied by my mother. The room was very large with two French windows overlooking the avenue. If I opened the French doors and stood on the narrow balcony, I could get a glimpse of the Arc de Triomphe. The room had a fireplace with a coal stove, as the apartment was not yet centrally heated. (In the winter we had to go to the basement and carry up the coal, which was in the cellar. I always froze in that room. I used to put my clothes under the mattress so they would be warm when I got up.) Above the mantelpiece was a very large gilded mirror. Between the two windows stood a heavy, inlaid mahogany dresser. A double bed (called un lit matrimonial) was set in an alcove covered with a blue canopy. The wall behind the bed was draped with blue silk, and the bed board was upholstered in the same fabric. A blue silk comforter was spread across the bed. The room was lit with a crystal chandelier, very similar to the one in the living room. An Oriental rug with blue overtones covered half the parquet floor. This had been my grandmother’s room when my grandfather was alive, and it was beautiful. At fifteen, however, I felt totally estranged from it. It would never be mine even after five years. I hated the room as much as I hated my life.
I had an additional problem now. My grandmother’s attitude toward me had changed since my mother left us. She was abrupt with me and often quite sarcastic. Stories about the war were told to me at every turn. Did I know that my brother had to wear the yellow Jewish star while I was frolicking in Cairo? (I learned later that he only had to wear it the last few months of the war, as no one knew that my grandparents were Jewish. Furthermore, my brother had an Egyptian passport, which the Germans respected, since King Farouk was secretly their ally.) Had I heard about the six million Jews who had died in concentration camps? She pushed guilt on me as if it were her daily chore, and I was enraged by the injustice. I was six years old when’ the war broke out; how could I know anything? Could I have done something for the Jews? Was I a Jew myself? I no longer knew where I belonged, who or what I was. I tried to push the convent, with its peace and incense and civil rules, away from my psyche, and I tried to sound Jewish, to feel Jewish. I never quite succeeded. I often complained to Georgette, who would kiss me and soothe me with her wonderful pain perdu (French toast made with slices of stale baguette and sprinkled with sugar) while I was sitting down at the table in the kitchen doing my homework. One day, when my grandmother had refused to let me go to a friend’s house, I ran into the kitchen crying, “I hate her! She is so horrible; she dislikes me and only likes Eddy. He can go where he pleases and do what he pleases!” Georgette looked at me and said in a sad voice, “Let me explain to you what happened. A few weeks ago, we removed the sheets in the room you first slept in and turned over the mattress; she found your missal. She was very upset. Someone had told her that your mother converted to Catholicism, but she did not know about you. She is very angry” I was astonished; why had she not asked me? Why had she not said anything to me? I could not understand. I was furious at my mother for lying to me and to her mother. My Egyptian grandparents had known about my conversion but had acted kindly toward me. I decided not to say anything to my grandmother and tried to do exactly what she wanted. Georgette had told me that before and during the war, my grandparents never openly said they were Jewish. My grandfather had changed his name to Bernant, which was not a Jewish name. For this reason, during the occupation they had been left alone. But now my grandmother had decided to become more religious, but only for the High Holidays. She would take us to temple for Passover. At night I’d say a small prayer to the Virgin Mary asking for forgiveness for having abandoned what I thought was my religion.
Georgette’s Pain Perdu
Georgette made French toast with leftover brioche bread. It can be made with any day-old bread but tastes much better with brioche. Cut 6 slices of day-old brioche about 1 ½ inches thick. In a microwave heat 3 cups of milk with ¼ teaspoon vanilla. Pour the hot milk over the brioche. Allow the bread to soak up the milk. In a bowl beat 2 eggs with a fork. In a large skillet melt 2 tablespoons butter with 2 tablespoons oil. When the oil is hot, dip the slices in the egg and sauté until they are golden. Serve with powdered sugar. Serves 6.
To please my grandmother, I offered to help her in the kitchen. Ironically, this was the only place where we seemed to get along. In the kitchen my grandmother was pleasant and talkative. She wasn’t a great cook but there were a few dishes that she prepared very well. She was famous for her stuffed carp, and I dutifully sat in the kitchen, peeling carrots, onions, shallots, and garlic. She sliced the carp with a large butcher knife. Often she asked me to hold the fish while she banged on the knife with a hammer while I tightly closed my eyes. I did not like the slimy feeling the fish skin gave me. “The center bone is very tough,” she explained while she delicately removed the fish flesh with a sharp knife, careful not to cut the skin. I talked to her about my best friend, Claudine, the only one of my friends she liked and accepted. In the winter she made a stuffed goose that was superb. The best part of that dish was the neck; my job was to sew the neck skin with a long needle and black thread to end up with a long pocket. She stuffed the neck with the goose liver, onions, and sausage. The neck was roasted alongside the goose and eaten cold, sliced and dabbed with mustard. I loved that dish and make it at least once a year. Another one of her signature dishes was her meat loaf, a mixture of pork, veal, and beef. She placed a row of hard-boiled eggs inside the forcemeat, and when served, each slice had a sun in its center. At Christmastime, she and I would prepare four-meat pâtés to give to her non-Jewish friends and to my uncle Clément. I’ve kept up this tradition through all these years, and every December, my children and I make pâtés as gifts. These moments with my grandmother were rare, however; most of the time, we argued bitterly. She had developed a new technique to deal with me. Every time I wanted to go out with my friends on the weekend, she had une crise cardiaque (a heart attack) and I had to cancel my date. If I invited friends over, her heart attack reoccurred and she told my friends that I did not care if she died. My friends started to refuse to come to our house, except Claudine. But even Claudine did not come very often, needing to keep her mother company. My brother was no help, as he was busy with his studies and his girlfriend. I wrote my mother that I wanted to go home. My mother answered a month later, asking me to have patience; it could not be so terrible. I spoke to my uncle, whose favorite answer to anything was, “Here is two hundred francs; buy yourself a nice dress.” This time he added, “Une jeune fille de bonne famille reste à la maison avec sa famille” (A well-brought up girl stays at home.). “But it is my money,” I cried in anger, but my uncle patted my head and said, “Have patience; it is only for a few more years.” There was no one to help me or advise me on what to do except Georgette.
Roast Goose with Stuffed Neck
The day before, wipe the goose (about 8 to 10 pounds) inside and out with paper towels. Remove as much fat as possible. Set aside the heart and the liver. Stuff the goose with paper towels and refrigerate, uncovered, overnight. Meanwhile, spread the neck skin on the countertop, remove all veins, and sew the skin so as to have a large tube. Leave a small opening. In a bowl mix together the liver and the heart, each cut into bite-size pieces, the goose fat, cut into small pieces, 2 Italian sausages, casing removed, 1 egg, and 3 tablespoons flour. Add salt and pepper to taste and 1 tablespoon chopped sage. Mix all the ingredients together and stuff the neck. Close the opening and refrigerate until ready to bake. The next day, remove the paper towels from the goose’s cavity and prick the skin all over with a fork. Peel 2 garlic cloves, cut them into slivers, and insert them into the goose flesh. Rub the goose with coarse salt and sprinkle with freshly ground pepper. Place the goose on a rack in a pan and next to it the stuffed neck. Add 2 cups water to the pan and bake in a preheated 325-degree oven for 4 hours, basting from time to time. Halfway through the cooking, remove all the fat to a bowl. Add 2 more cups water to the pan and continue baking until the juice from the thigh runs clear when pierced with a fork. Remove the goose from the oven and allow to stand at room temperature for 15 minutes before carving. Wrap the cool neck in foil and refrigerate overnight. The next day thinly slice the neck and serve with Dijon mustard and a green salad for lunch. Serves 8.
Georgette’s kitchen was my haven. Back from school at four, I would sit at the enamel table, push away the toile ciré, and start my homework while Georgette made me a buttered tartine with thin slices of saucisson à l’ail (garlic sausage). Sometimes, she plied me with petits fours that she had bought just for me at the pâtisserie round the corner and hid behind some jam jars in the pantry. She did not want my grandmother—who commanded me to stay slim—to see them. While I worked she talked about her life with my grandparents. She had come to their house when she was barely seventeen as a femme de chambre (a personal maid) for my grandmother. Grandmaman trained her to serve at her fancy dinners, and later on pushed her to learn how to cook. She loved my grandfather, who had given her books to read and sent her to school to get her certificat d’études (high school equivalency) so that she could get a better job. She told me once that one of my grandfather’s friends, an older gentleman and a widower, had proposed to her. My grandfather had urged her to marry him, but my grandmother had put a stop to it, telling Georgette she would be miserable because her low social background would make it impossible for her to fit into her suitor’s world. As she was telling me the story, I saw in her eyes that to this day she regretted her decision. During the war, Georgette wanted to leave and join her family but she stayed with my grandparents because of my grandfather. Often when things got tough and food was scarce, she bicycled to her family farm to get some ham or potatoes or vegetables to bring back to my family. And then my grandfather became very ill. “He was dying, Colette,” she told me, tears in her eyes, “and Mme Rose, she wasn’t very nice to him. So I took care of him.” Georgette would wipe her eyes and start cooking. She sautéed cubes of smoked lard for a white bean soup or, knowing how much I loved chestnuts, made braised veal with chestnuts, or a gâteau de marrons (chestnut cake) for the weekend. People in the building often came to see her to discuss their problems, mainly of the heart. Mile Blanchard, the dressmaker on the third floor rear, was a frequent visitor. She had been engaged to the same man for the last ten years but he seemed never to want to marry her. “You know, Georgette,” she’d say, “I love him, but I am not getting younger. He is scared of marriage, and I don’t know what to do,” and she’d burst into tears. Each time Georgette would pat her back and try to convince her to leave him and go out with other men. Mile Blanchard would nod her head, say that Georgette was right, and then a few days later go back to her fiancé. Then there was the couple on the second floor with a small baby. The husband had lost his job, was drinking, and quite regularly beat his wife. The wife would come running to Georgette, hand her the baby, and say, “I am going to my mother; I will be back in a few hours to take him there.” She’d come back, take the baby, and say in a meek voice, “My mother thinks I should try to make peace with him. You see, he is very upset because he has no job.” “That is why, Colette,” Georgette would say, sighing, “I never married. Men are not to be trusted!” I would think of my Egyptian grandfather, who loved my grandmother so much. He was kind to everyone. I will, I thought, find a man like him! When I was very upset about something my grandmother had said or done, Georgette hugged me and said, “Don’t worry … when you are eighteen you can leave. You are strong and intelligent. Don’t fight back right now.” I took her advice and bided my time.
Meat Loaf
In a large bowl mix together 1 pound chopped veal and 1 pound chopped pork. Add 1 pound chopped beef. Add 1 egg and mix well. In a skillet heat 2 tablespoons butter, add 2 small onions, chopped, and sauté until transparent. Add the onion to the chopped meat along with salt and pepper to taste, 1 tablespoon thyme, and 1 tablespoon chopped sage. Mix well; if the meat is too loose add ½ cup breadcrumbs. Mix well. Form the meat into 2 long loaves. Open the center of each loaf and place in each 4 hard-boiled eggs end-to-end. Enclose the eggs with the meat. Peel 3 garlic cloves, cut them into slivers, and insert them into the meat. Place the loaves in a baking pan. Cover the top of each loaf with 2 slices of bacon. Add 1 ½ cups chicken stock to the pan. Bake in a preheated 350-degree oven for 1 hour. Remove from the oven and allow to cool. If the meat loaves are to be served cold, wrap in foil and refrigerate overnight. Refrigerate the pan juices. The next day, remove the layer of fat from the juices and slice the jelly. Thinly slice the meat, garnish with the jelly, and serve with Dijon mustard. If the loaves are to be served hot, slice the meat, cover with the pan juices, and serve. Serves 6.
From time to time on Sundays my grandmother invited her friends for lunch. There was a lawyer, Pierre, who came often to the house. He always paid me a compliment. Sometimes he’d bring me a present—a silver bracelet, a ribbon for my hair, tickets for the Comédie Française. He asked me where I went to school, what time I got out, did I enjoy my courses … One day I saw his car in front of my school. “Jump in, Colette. I was just passing by and I remember you went to school here. I will drive you home.” I had just been reading Claudine à l’Ecole, Colette’s first novel, and I thought, How great! I am having the same adventure! Driving me home, Pierre asked if I would like to have my own apartment and stay with him. I looked at him. He had hair coming out of his nose, and his hands, with their long, gnarled fingers, looked like eagle’s claws. Fear and disgust gripped me. I said, “No, thank you” in a tight, hoarse voice, and as he stopped in front of the house, he whispered in my ear, “Don’t tell Rose!”
I ran to Georgette and immediately told her what happened. Georgette sat down with me and said in a low voice, “You know, Colette, older men are like this…. You are very sexy; you have such lovely eyes, and often you laughed when he complimented you. And also remember, you accepted his gifts. He thought you understood. Don’t worry; it will never happen again.” I looked at Georgette’s big, expressive eyes. Everyone agreed that she was a beauty. For the first time I asked myself if she had had the same adventures. Did she have a boyfriend? I did not feel at that moment I could ask. “I want to have adventures, Georgette. I wanted someone to tell me I was beautiful, sexy, but not Pierre! I don’t like him. I want to meet someone but he has to be young and charming.” No young men had ever whistled as I passed by, no boys had ever waited for me at the corner. I suddenly felt sad. Did I appeal only to old men? I asked Georgette. She laughed and said, “Just wait … you’ll see.”
She made me a cup of hot chocolate and then went to find my grandmother to tell her. My grandmother came to the kitchen and said in an angry voice, “These are tales, lies … he would never do that. You read too many cheap novels. Pierre is an old friend.” She had not believed me. I was crushed but Pierre never came again to the house.
I got my answer about Georgette’s private life six months later and this event shattered my life. Georgette announced that she was leaving. She had found a job in a factory and was also getting married to the foreman. I cried and begged her not to leave me with that horrible woman. Georgette embraced me and said, “You will be my bridesmaid and will come to see me often.” The wedding was a small affair. They were married at City Hall in a simple, brief ceremony. There was a small lunch at the local restaurant paid for by my grandmother. I saw Georgette once or twice in the following six months.
The last time I saw her was in the hospital. Georgette was lying in a bed looking thin and tired. She was dying of cancer. I sat down next to her and started to cry. Georgette took my hand and squeezed it hard. “Don’t cry, Colette,” she said in a small, wispy voice. “You’ll be all right.” How could I be all right when there was no one left I could talk to? She was the only one, like Ahmet in Cairo, who had taken me in. She had opened her heart to a lonely girl. She also allowed me to help her in the kitchen. And because of her, I found out that I loved to cook. We would gossip together about my grandmother, the people in the courtyard, and what was happening to me in school. I realized, sitting there, that I had never asked her any personal questions, never asked her how she was or whether she was happy. My voice broke as my heart poured out to her. “Georgette, I am so sorry, I am so sorry … I love you so much and I miss you.” Georgette again squeezed my hand and said, “I love you too.” A nurse came in and said I had to leave right away. Georgette was tired and needed rest. I bent down and kissed her. “I will be back soon.” But she died only days later. Once again, I thought I must be cursed. All the people I love leave me or die!