Paris à la Bohème
Alexandre Lagoya came to play a concert in Toronto in 1965. The renowned French classical guitarist, born in Egypt of Greek and Italian parentage, had formed a guitar duo in 1955 with his French wife, Ida Presti; together they toured the world to international acclaim. After their concert, Eli Kassner held a reception at which I was given an opportunity to play for the charming French duo, never suspecting what a major role the maestro would play in my yet unformulated career.
In 1967, a tragedy befell the guitar world when Ida Presti died suddenly of an aneurism in Rochester, New York. After several years had passed, Lagoya bravely resumed a solo career, which in October 1971 brought him back to Toronto. He remembered the girl with the long blond hair who had performed a Bach bourrée for him and his wife six years earlier. Lagoya agreed to hear me play again and offered a private lesson at the Park Plaza Hotel. I stayed up late the night before, polishing pieces to present to my guitar idol. During the lesson we conversed in Spanish, since Lagoya’s English was limited, as was my French at that time. With refined Parisian mannerisms, the forty-three-year-old maestro welcomed me to his suite, which was permeated with the smell of French cologne. Offering tips on phrasing and fingerings, he complimented me on my interpretations of a Torroba suite, and a Bach allegro that I had transcribed. Lagoya had developed a right-hand technique radically different from Segovia’s regarding wrist position and the angle at which the nails strike the strings. He carefully adjusted my wrist to the right and showed me how the tones produced by that side of the nail were stronger and more even than those of left-side pluckers like Segovia and Bream. It would take time to apply such a drastic technical change to my advanced pieces. Was I starting to imagine things? Weren’t Lagoya’s hands lingering a touch too long on mine in demonstrating the wrist position? Didn’t he lean over my shoulder a little too frequently? It gradually dawned on me that Lagoya was impressed by more than my prowess on the guitar. I cheerfully chatted on about nail shapes and string brands, trying to sound very matter-of-fact while my heart quickened. Before I left, he kissed me twice on the cheeks, as is the traditional French custom, and suggested I study with him at Mount Orford in Quebec the following summer. Thrilled that such an eminent guitarist had praised my playing, I resolved to practise harder than ever and apply his ideas to my pieces.
Two days later, my mother came breathlessly to tell me that Lagoya was calling long-distance from Montreal! He had just played concerts in Quebec and had two free days before continuing on to New York. Would I join him for dinner if he was to fly back to Toronto? He had photocopied some unpublished Bach transcriptions and would give me as many lessons as I could take in a day. What student could refuse such a tantalizing proposal? I felt flattered, intrigued, and a little nervous. To have the great Lagoya offering to teach me seemed a triumph. I was not so ingenuous as to think music was all the maestro had on his mind, but somehow even his romantic advances struck me as excitingly novel. He was infinitely more intriguing than the boys in my music classes, and at the back of my mind was the memory of his late wife, Ida, and their fantastic success as a duo. Could Lagoya be looking for another partner with whom to conquer the world? The irresistible fantasy flitted around my head like a skittish butterfly.
My sister and I had recently been lamenting the fact that, although now in our twenties, we were both still virgins! Surely by the age of twenty-two it was high time for some sexual adventures. In spite of all my teenage romances, physical contact had never progressed beyond necking sessions and passionate goodnight kisses in darkened doorways. Several boyfriends had “dropped” me after their amorous advances had been thwarted. Vivien and I agreed to set aside our self-imposed puritanism to find out what we were missing. After all, were we not children of the liberal sixties? In sisterly conspiracy, we promised each other that this would be the year to relinquish our chaste condition. But to whom? Lagoya had definitely arrived at the right moment.
The maestro offered a long lesson on Bach followed by a candlelight dinner the first evening. The second I spent at the Park Plaza Hotel with him. Sheepishly, I had asked my mother whether she would mind my not returning until the next morning. To my surprise, she was supportive and even agreed not to tell my father. At last I would “become a woman” and enter the mysterious world of adulthood. The long-anticipated experience, although exciting and pleasurable, seemed somewhat of a let-down emotionally. I remember walking along Bloor Street, thinking, Is that all there is to it? How could anyone have ever equalled my imaginary passionate encounters with Rudolf Nureyev or Doctor Zhivago? Lagoya, thrilled that I had allowed him to be my first lover, promised many more musical and romantic lessons if I would come to study with him in Quebec and Nice. Only later did I discover that he was one of the world’s indefatigable charmers, with countless conquests around the globe. Lagoya swore he had fallen madly in love with me, but having observed him over the years, I have to laugh at how naive I was. Vivien, most impressed by my sudden “loss of innocence” and not to be outdone by her sister, followed suit with a fellow student a week later!
In 1972, after the university examinations had been passed and my Bachelor of Music degree completed with honours, I packed my bags for the train ride to the Jeunesses Musicales du Canada Orford Arts Centre. My high-school French was proven pitifully inadequate when I found myself among a crowd of students speaking fast Québécois French. Wooded hills of maple and pine, warm shallow lakes, and the buzz of relentless mosquitoes defined those hot summer days at the camp, where classes were conducted in small wooden huts scattered around the rustic grounds. From the fifty guitar students, ten of us were selected for Lagoya’s group, where he taught each student individually, working on interpretation and style, tossing out interesting historical comments about the composer and the time period, and impressing on us the superiority of his right-hand wrist position. I was assimilating so much information, making notes on pieces I enjoyed hearing other students play, and listening diligently to Lagoya’s musical expostulations. What a great teacher he was!
During the afternoon siesta hour or after dinner, I was often summoned for a “private lesson.” Lagoya would help me with particularly difficult fingerings and phrasings while perched on his narrow camp bed, intermittently interrupting his instruction with declarations of amour. He amused me with stories from his days on the road with his late wife: their chaotic tours in Mexico, fights with dishonest impresarios, and meetings with famous composers. To me, Lagoya represented a wondrous world I thought I would never be part of. He confided secret thoughts about touring and recording, the agony of pre-concert nerves, and the ecstasy of a great performance. Lessons in music and lessons in love were combined by my skilled maître de musique.
A month later, I followed Lagoya to the Académie Internationale d’Eté de Nice in France, to spend two weeks in intense musical saturation. Students were housed in a circular building with small pie-shaped rooms. Young people from all over the world had come to study music, but the majority were guitarists wanting to work with Lagoya or flutists who had come to learn from Jean-Pierre Rampal. Occasionally I was invited to lunch with Lagoya and Rampal at their hotel, Le Petit Palais, where they were staying. The stories of Rampal’s escapades made Lagoya’s seem mild by comparison. The king of the flute had at his beck and call hundreds of sweet young things with stars in their eyes to whom he taught more than music, according to my flute-playing roommate. Never let it be said that classical musicians lead dull, celibate lives!
By then, I had met Monelle, Lagoya’s attractive Parisian live-in girlfriend, with whom I was often taken to dine in the enchanting restaurants in Nice or Saint-Paul de Vence, the quaint hillside town once inhabited by Picasso and Chagall. My maestro had to behave himself with the lovely Monelle in tow; besides, I was developing a fondness for his tall, tanned, and bearded young assistant, Yves Chatelain. Lagoya talked to both of us about forming a guitar ensemble, but with the passing of time, our lives and careers flowed in such different directions that it became impossible.
As lessons were conducted in French, my ability with the language improved daily. Every morning I used to get up at six o’clock, before the other students were awake, and scurry down into the rose gardens to play for a couple of hours. If the gardeners chased me away, I tucked a paper tissue under my strings, ensuring that nobody’s sleep would be disturbed. At eight, we scoffed crusty baguettes, unsalted butter, and blackcurrant jam, washed down with steaming bowls of café au lait. After breakfast, when the students rushed back to their rooms to practise, an ear-splitting cacophony of sound bombarded us from the windows of the residences — French horns, flutes, voice, and trumpets — each playing parts of different pieces or warm-up scales in various keys. At nine-thirty, we began the long climb toward the Franciscan Monastère de Cimiez, where Lagoya conducted his master classes. Why did I not think to buy a lighter case, rather than haul my leaden airline travelling case for forty-five minutes each way? No doubt it was purely a matter of economy as I was trying to save every franc. In those days, I had never heard of lower back pain, chiropractors, or strained shoulders, and I resigned myself to the arduous daily task, envying the flute players.
Lagoya sometimes singled me out to demonstrate his wrist position to the other students, and even asked me to contribute Albéniz’s “Zambra Granadina” to an outdoor music festival in the picturesque hillside town of Gilette: my first performance using his technique. The new angle was beginning to feel comfortable, but for delicate tones the left side of the nail still sounded sweeter. When one is playing classical guitar, it is amazing how the tiniest difference in nail length and shape alters the sound, and in contrast to the piano, where only one key corresponds to each pitch, many notes on the guitar can be found on three or four different positions, as well as several harmonic points. Before the right-hand fingers can pluck the note, the left-hand fingers have to determine the correct position on the fretboard; should they be a millimetre out of place the string will “buzz.” Although a guitar is one of the easiest instruments on which to learn to strum a few chords, it is one of the most difficult on which to perform classical music.
My teacher was scheduled to begin an American tour, but insisted I come to live in Paris to continue our lessons. Yves Chatelain, talented guitarist and madcap driver, offered to take me in his old beat-up Citroën “Deux Chevaux.” The French Alps provided a spectacular backdrop to the roadside stalls where we stopped to buy lavender honey and imbibe flower-fragrant air. On a whim, after a week in Paris, we decided to travel to London astride his powerful new motorbike. We whizzed along highways and country lanes, I in a leather jacket, clinging to his waist for dear life. Surprising my parents, who were vacationing in England, we zoomed into London after crossing the Channel by ferry. What a novel experience to have suddenly become a “biker”! On returning to Paris, Yves asked if I would like to live in an old château thirty miles outside the city. Friends of his parents knew the famous Dubonnet family, whose Château de Montgermont was vacant. An impecunious Canadian guitar student was welcome to stay there until more convenient lodgings could be found.
Through the verdant rolling hills of the French countryside, Yves drove me to a sight I could hardly believe. There, on top of a hill, circumscribed by wrought-iron gates, sat a magnificent château with copper turrets and curved stone stairways. On either side of this fantasy castle loomed mys-terious woods, while in front spread undulating lawns with a daisy-fringed lily pond. Was this splendid structure about to be mine? My spirit soared in a long glissando.
We crunched up the white gravel driveway and sounded the heavy iron knocker, which sent echoes from another age resonating from the interior. Tongue-tied with excitement, I followed the friendly Hungarian caretaker to my room. There was a velvet-canopied bed, a kitchen area, and a large bay window that looked into a courtyard where chickens were strutting around. I threw my arms around Yves and whispered that I would feel like Rapunzel living in this lovely dream château straight out of my childhood storybooks.
Yves made weekly visits to replenish my food supplies and speed me into Paris for concerts or dinner. Apart from his visitations, which had become increasingly intimate, I spent two idyllic months in bucolic isolation. In the afternoons, I spread a blanket beside the lily pond and serenaded the bullfrogs; late into the candlelit nights, I played my guitar to the hooting of owls in the shadowy pine forests. Camembert cheese, French bread, and farm vegetables bought at the local village provided sustenance, sometimes supplemented with succulent wild berries I picked from the bushes and marinated in sweet red wine. The old concierge must have wondered why this strange Canadian seemed content to live alone and play guitar for hours on end. One day I asked him if I could try to ride one of the horses I had befriended in a nearby field. He retorted that they were not for riding, but were there to be eaten! To my horror, my poor friends were destined for the chevaline shops, to be served up later with petits pois and pommes frites!
An unpleasant undercurrent seeped into those days of pastoral paradise. Having missed my period, I started to panic; Yves might have made me pregnant. Sure enough, my waist was expanding, but I never allowed myself to suspect that all that delicious French bread and cheese could be the cause. During sleepless nights, I cursed my carelessness. How could I have been so stupid? After another month, I wrote an embarrassed note to my mother asking if I should return home. “Darling, don’t worry. It’s probably just the change in environment,” she replied, sounding a lot more confident than Yves, who commiserated over my plight. His friend knew a doctor who would perform an abortion if I wished, but knowing it was illegal, I had nightmares of some back alley butcher hacking my insides to pieces. Preoccupied with this concern, I decided to visit a clinic in Paris for tests. The Tunisian doctor seemed more interested in conniving to get a date than solving my dilemma; in desperation, I sought out another clinic, where they X-rayed my lungs! These experiences forever diminished my faith in French doctors. I promised Yves, who shared my distress, that if the blessed “curse” ever arrived, I would take him out for a fantastic meal in a fine Paris restaurant. A week later, to my immense joy and relief, the problem resolved itself. I rushed off to find Yves, who was auditing a Conservatoire class given by Lagoya, who had just returned from his tour. I crept into the hushed classroom, where a student was struggling through a Villa-Lobos étude, and whispered to Yves that he would be treated to a gourmet dinner that night. Seeing the Cheshire cat grins on our faces, Lagoya must have wondered what could be making his two prize students so happy on that cold November morning. How regrettable that my second month in the beautiful château of my dreams had been overshadowed by this unfounded fear. I later found out that the penicillin I had taken for a sore throat was probably to blame, but from that time on I felt great empathy for any woman in a comparable situation.
As Lagoya had returned to Paris, I bade adieu to my storybook setting and moved to a small room up ten flights of stairs on Rue Gay-Lussac in the Latin Quarter. Later I was offered a chambre de bonne (maid’s room), up eight flights of circular backstairs in an elegant mansion located in the eighth arrondissement on Avenue Velasquez and overlooking Parc Monceau, in return for giving eleven-year-old Marie-Odile English, Spanish, and piano lessons. The room itself was as tiny as a closet, but as I was supporting myself on meagre student savings without any assistance from my parents, I was delighted to live rent free. I do not know how I managed to haul the heavy guitar case up and down those countless winding stairs or endure the sagging mattress, whose sharp springs poked through its cloth covering, but I was young and full of the spirit of adventure. A small gas stove, one tiny reading light with a frayed yellow lampshade, and a toilette à la turque down the hallway comprised my accommodation, à la bohème.
Adjacent to my hole in the wall lived a Guadeloupian woman from whose window drifted unfamiliar exotic spices and perfumes, while the apartment at the end of the corridor housed a noisy family of Spaniards who often invited me to strum a few chords in their garlicky kitchen. The room at the top of the staircase housed Camille, a young draftsman with long red hair and bloodshot eyes, who gave me generous bowls of hair-washing water because my tap ran icy cold. I persuaded Camille to take me by metro to the famous Parisian market, Les Halles, where at five in the morning we sipped steaming onion soup in the company of butchers and fishmongers in their traditional blue overalls. The market scene from Irma la Douce had come alive. Although Camille received occasional visits from a Moroccan girlfriend, he seemed a loner; much later it occurred to me that he was probably a drug addict. After losing his job, he sorrowfully predicted that he would end up joining those dishevelled souls sleeping in the metro or huddled around the outdoor heating vents. When Camille did not emerge from his room for several days, I tapped, then pounded, on the door until his unshaven, emaciated face blinked at me with vapid eyes and a voice that seemed to come from some faraway place whispered, “I am dying.” I wrapped a blanket around his shaking shoulders and ran for help. The police secours lifted his ravaged body onto a stretcher while our concierge with her grey hair bun and sour expression looked on with utter disdain. Twice I visited the hospital, where a heavily sedated Camille lay in a tangle of intravenous tubes, but one day, I learned he had checked out, leaving no forwarding address.
Every other week, I hauled my guitar case through the madness of the Paris metro to catch the train to Soisy-sous-Montmorency, where Lagoya and Monelle shared a country-style home. After my monastic meals of bread and cheese, dinner chez Lagoya was a feast. Refusing his steak tartare chevaline, raw horse meat with onions, I stuffed myself with his spaghetti flambé and Monelle’s homemade chocolate mousse, knowing two weeks would pass before the next gastronomic opportunity. He taught me in the living room, where his trophy from Canada, a huge polar bear pelt, lay on the floor. My lectures against hunting endangered species fell on deaf ears.
With assiduous determination to master the instrument, I thought nothing of practising seven or eight hours every day. Several times, the great Spanish guitarist Narcisco Yepes and the Venezuelan guitarist Alirio Díaz came to perform in Paris. After their concerts, since they knew me from the Guitar Society of Toronto, they offered me some impromptu coaching. Once, Yepes had to come puffing up my eight flights of stairs in order to tell me that a lesson he had promised had to be postponed. Studies by Aguado, Sor, and Carulli helped me focus on tone production, while the Rodrigo concertos, works by Maurice Ohana, several sonatas by Scarlatti, and “Guajira” by Emilio Pujol expanded my repertoire. Films playing on the Champs-Élysées occasionally seduced me away from my guitar, as did a poetry reading by the exiled Chilean poet Pablo Neruda. We conversed in Spanish while he signed my program, then he drew me a small flower — perhaps one of the yellow flowers of his poems — now a treasure in my library.
The maestro was a patient teacher who always gave generously of his time. Our romance had faded months before, and he had assumed an avuncular attitude toward his private student from Canada. Monelle, laden with food, struggled breathlessly up my stairway when I was bedridden with the flu, and sometimes handed me the keys to her apartment so I could luxuriate in a rose-oil-scented bath. With her Parisian perfumes and haute couture, she represented sartorial splendour and sophistication far beyond my aspirations. Content in my student outfits, I was more excited about a new fingering or guitar technique. How uncomplicated yet strangely focused my life was then.
There were plenty of lonely times when I longed for the company of a friend with whom to share this sensual city, but no romances interrupted my eighteen months at Avenue Velasquez. On cold, drafty evenings, the only thing that buoyed my spirits was the sheer joy of playing guitar and mastering new music. Where, I wondered, could all these hours of sedentary, solitary study lead me? But is not “alone” an anagram for the usual spelling of my name? The creative process necessitates periods of aloneness. I am forever grateful to my parents that they never resorted to the common practice of over-organizing their children’s leisure time. Rather than trying to “socialize” me as a youngster, they had taught me to enjoy my own company. Those solitary times of concentration, and even frustration, are essential in the development of creativity.
Some of my most poignant memories are of early morning walks around the city. As the pale winter sun began to light the mosaic of grey-slate roofs beneath my window, cooing pigeons pecked the dried bread I left for them on the eavestroughs. With a tatty map and a few francs in the pocket of my green woolly coat, I set off to explore the streets once trod by Dumas, de Maupassant, and Piaf, experiencing the wondrous light that streaked the streets in contrasting sun and shadow, illuminating the rooftops, washing the monuments, and in days past, inspiring the paintbrushes of the Impressionists. I watched the aproned merchants sweeping their little sections of the pavement or opening up their striped canvas awnings. I savoured the tantalizing baking smells wafting from the pâtisseries and the aroma of freshly brewed espressos drifting from neighbourhood bistros. On foot I explored the Latin Quarter, the Île de la Cité, the flower market, and the Jardin du Luxembourg as the paintings of Seurat and Monet came to life before my eyes. In Montmartre Cemetery, I laid a small bouquet of flowers on the grave of the composer Fernando Sor. Meandering around the marché aux puces, I was jostled by multicoloured crowds of students, North African street vendors, charlatans, and pickpockets. I was trying to survive on a pittance, and even the modest metro ticket became an extravagance, so I learned to pick up used tickets, cover the telltale hole with my thumb, and thrust it forward for repunching by the unsuspecting guard.
In late November, I was invited to share a concert tour of England with a young British guitarist, John Mills, for whom I had prepared duets by Manuel de Falla, Enrique Granados, Dowland, and Bach. At John’s parents’ cold, damp home in Long Ditton, near the Thames River, I resorted to morning, afternoon, and evening baths in an effort to keep warm, and bought a hot water bottle to thaw my fingers. We played together for several guitar societies around the country, and I gave a solo concert in Durham, where my parents had been students. One of their friends, Malcolm Brown, head of the university’s geology department, showed me the moon rocks he had been analyzing in his laboratory. Looking at the strange, dull rocks plundered from the heavens, I shared his awe. After trudging over the foggy moors, we nibbled scones and strawberry jam in a quaint little tea house as childhood memories surged through my mind.
The concerts were well received, but the hours before curtain time were pure agony. John worked himself into an uncontrollable nervous sweat, pacing up and down backstage, cursing the day that he had started to play guitar, with references to wrist slashing and suicide. Each time he swore would be his last. His histrionics kept me on edge, wondering if I might have to pull off the entire show alone. Eventually, I came to recognize this as his normal routine. As soon as we struck the first chords, all of his stage fright disappeared and he played exquisitely. After the concert, my partner was always so complacent about his exemplary performance, glowing and blushing like a bride as he accepted compliments, but I was ready to strangle him!
Taking chilly walks beneath cloudy skies past rows of identical houses, mangy alley cats, and the smell of coke fires, I knew I did not want to live in England, much as I appreciated the friendliness of her people compared with those defensive Parisians. By then, I must have become a Canadian.
In 1973, during a second summer course at the Académie Internationale d’Eté de Nice, Lagoya asked me to perform Henri Tomasi’s “Le Muletier des Andes” and a Bach fugue. One afternoon, commiserating about dwindling finances with Nadine, a Belgian guitarist, I suggested we try our hand at busking. Hastily we rehearsed some duets — “Spanish Romance,” two Scarlatti sonatas, and “La Paloma” — then positioned ourselves on a bench close to one of the outdoor cafés to begin our serenade. To our delight, people responded warmly, and as I plucked away, Nadine walked around with my floppy pink sun hat collecting francs and centimes. How easy it was! Our newfound confidence kept us moving from café to café, hauling in more cash than we could have imagined. Nadine, a beautiful dark-haired girl, had fallen prey to Lagoya’s charms, as had most of the other attractive female students. We giggled and wickedly compared notes on our dear maestro.
While glancing at a map in the academy office, I noticed that Venice was not far from Nice, so with the guitar classes behind us and our newly found riches in hand, we jumped on the overnight train to arrive just as an orange sun suffused with streaks of gold was rising over the shimmering city. My first glimpse of Venice was breathtaking. The passionate music of Mahler’s Fifth Symphony, used by Visconti in his movie Death in Venice, was playing its heart-wrenching harmonic progressions in my head as we heaved our guitars onto the vaporetto and began a magical early morning ride down the Grand Canal to Piazza San Marco. This was “such stuff / As dreams are made on.” Every change of vista revealed elegant palazzos, courtyards, and ornate bridges, giving the illusion of travelling through one of the paintings of Canaletto.
Strong Italian cappuccinos cleared our heads from the night’s jostly train ride as we searched for a pensióne to fit our budget. We walked streets remembered from Hemingway’s novel Across the River and into the Trees, peeked into museums and galleries, and persuaded two flirtatious gondoliers to take us to the Lido, where we strolled on the beach of the Grand Hôtel des Bains. Nadine and I said goodbye after five days in Venice; she boarded a bus for Belgium, while I, ever the romantic, chose a train whose peeling painted letters spelled out “Orient Express.” After practising guitar scales in the disinfectant-laden air of the ladies’ toilette, I wrote a bumpy letter home to my parents as the Italian countryside gave way to the mountainous terrain of the French Alps. Since it cost no more, I decided to get off for a day in Lausanne, Switzerland. It was 4:00 a.m. when the train pulled into the station, and I dragged my bags into the empty waiting room; the coffee shop was closed and the whole place appeared deserted. Perched on one of the wooden benches, I began to run through Lagoya’s studies. When people eventually started drifting in and out of the station, someone threw what appeared to be an old gum wrapper on the floor beside me. Absorbed in my music, I paid no attention until, after ten minutes, my eyes alighted on a crumpled-up bill of twenty Swiss francs lying on the ground. Some kind-hearted Swiss worker had thought I was playing to earn a little money. What a shame that I never had the chance to acknowledge my benefactor’s early morning donation. The windfall would tide me over for the entire day.
At 6:00 a.m., when the cafeteria opened, I devoured a bowl of hot chocolate and a bread roll, checked my bag and guitar into a locker, and set out to explore the town. My feet started to complain by mid-morning, so I accepted an invitation from a young art student to a boat ride on Lake Geneva. Later, I climbed to the tower of a cathedral with a bearded man who furtively showed me the bloodstained rag he carried in his satchel — evidence gathered from a man he was seeking who had stabbed his mother to death — or so he said! Then he generously loaded me up with three bars of Swiss white chocolate from his aunt’s store. Through my travels, I was learning just how bizarre the world’s inhabitants can be. After sipping frothy beer with two German boys hiking around Europe, I hoisted my case and guitar aboard the train, leaping on just as it started to shunt out of the station. By the next morning, it had deposited me in Paris, where I resumed my monastic life of six hours’ practice a day, frugal meals, long walks, and lessons with Lagoya.
In July, the month of my twenty-fourth birthday, I decided to fly to Mexico to vacation with my parents, who were spending the summer there. How wonderful to see them again and revisit old haunts in our beloved San Miguel de Allende. Tony Ponce, the boyfriend I had met in 1968, had been writing to me and even flew to Nice once, attempting to see me on his way to Egypt. He was thrilled to renew our acquaintance and promptly presented me with an enormous diamond ring. I accepted this dazzling gift, not fully aware of its significance, as we danced the evenings away at local discotecas. When his parents invited my family to a formal dinner, we began to realize that Tony intended to make me his wife! His solicitous mother had decorated one wing of their Celaya home in Louis XIV style for my arrival. It was pure Versailles. As fond as I was of Tony and his delightful family, I had never imagined him as my husband; all his jewels and riches could not persuade me. I was in pursuit of art, not wealth. I returned the ring and advised him to focus his efforts on one of the local señoritas rather than hanker after a classical guitarist with her heart set on a concert career.
Many years later, Seymour Heller, who became my U.S. manager, told me how he had met a wealthy Mexican couple holidaying in Las Vegas. It was only when Seymour opened his briefcase, inadvertently revealing one of my concert brochures, that Tony recognized his long-lost girlfriend and, much to Seymour’s amazement, explained how he had wanted to marry me! What a small world we inhabit.
That July I soaked up the curative Mexican sunshine, taking long walks around San Miguel, climbing up to the three crosses on the mountain top, and reacquainting myself with the familiar cobblestone streets. My parents, pleased that I had been savouring Paris, were impressed by the progress in my guitar playing. In August I flew back to France to resume the Spartan student life and pursue my musical mission — studies with the maestro.
A few months later, a fellow guitar student arranged a short concert tour in Belgium and the Netherlands, where an irate train conductor fined me ten francs for putting my guitar on an empty seat! I felt terribly apprehensive before playing the recitals in Haarlem, Maastricht, and Ijmuiden, but was pleased by my improving performance skills and the enthusiasm of those small, hushed audiences. I remember long bike rides along the canals, freezing cold recital halls, an outing to Amsterdam’s famous red-light district, and a few days in Antwerp, where I stayed at Nadine’s home, my busking partner from Nice. Her mother owned a Belgian truffle shop and invited me to fill a large box with as many chocolates as I wanted. A few days later, my satiated stomach could not bear the sight of another praline, fondant, or white chocolate bonbon; the entire box had passed my lips during the return train trip to Paris. Self-restraint was never my forte when it came to chocolate.
Aware that I needed more performing experience, I agreed to play for Musicroissants, a Sunday morning recital series at the Canadian Cultural Centre. After receiving compliments from the two dozen people comprising the audience, I gobbled up my remuneration — two plates of buttery croissants. On a couple of occasions, the director of the American Cathedral in Paris let me play while people were filing into pews prior to the service. Some inner spirit was guiding me to perform.
People sitting in my line of vision to the left often distracted my concentration, so I cut out random heads from magazines and glued them on my wall as if to simulate an audience. With this motley crew peering at me from the plaster, I trained myself to ignore their stares; over time they became my familiar roommates, assuming characters of their own.
During one of my lessons in November 1973, Lagoya casually mentioned that in exchange for recitals, certain cruise lines offered free passage. Given a chance to peer through another crack in the surface of the world, I was bitten at once by the travel bug. After unsuccessful phone calls from the local post office to the cruise line Croisières Paquet, I presented myself in person at their head office. Patient determination kept me and my trusty Ramírez glued to the reception area for two hours until Monsieur le Président, emerging from his smoke-filled office, agreed to see me. Fluent now in French, I brazenly explained my desire to play on one of his ships. The corpulent executive eased himself into an armchair, an amused expression flickering across his face. Offhandedly motioning for me to play, he lit a pungent Gitane. Grabbing the guitar from its case, I ripped through some flashy Albéniz piece. “Formidable — vraiment incroyable. Ma chérie, pick any cruise, it’s yours,” he declared magnanimously, loading me down with pamphlets on his ships and their exotic destinations. I spent the evening salivating over alabastrine Greek islands, Tunisian beaches, and Moorish castles. A two-week cruise to Málaga, Casablanca, the Canary Islands, and Senegal seemed an absolute smorgasbord of delights.
A month later, I set off from Gare Saint-Lazare to Marseille. Fantasies of moonlit deck encounters and ballroom romances with handsome European gentlemen floated through my head as I practised scales in the corridor of the crowded train that was clattering me south to adventure. There, anchored in the harbour, floated a gleaming white vessel with Massalia painted on her prow. The first setback was having to room with a chain-smoking bridge teacher, Brigitte — so much for the promised private cabin! Although I kept a sharp eye out for romantic prospects, there seemed a predominance of overweight Germans with stocky wives in tow — workers from a Frankfurt factory whose management had generously sent their employees on this North African junket — quite the antithesis of the cruise clientele I had expected.
Leaden skies let loose their driving rain, and winds whipped soggy deck streamers as a veiled Marseille faded into the distance. Groaning and pitching, we crossed the Golfe du Lion toward Casablanca, whose legendary name kept me bubbling with excitement and anticipation. The next morning, the Massalia heaved into port in the midst of a pelting hailstorm; once the gangway was lowered we were herded into groups, and I brandished our ship’s flagpole like a standard bearer heading into the fray. Huddled under plastic umbrellas, our sodden group listened to the tour guide’s undecipherable French. After a bus ride into town to visit the mosques and souks, I looked around expectantly for blue men and shady Arabs — my idea of Morocco — but not even one camel came into view as we sloshed through deep puddles, hearing the crunch of hailstones beneath our sandals. Where were Rick’s Café and Casablanca’s characters of international intrigue? The Canary Islands excursions were even more depressing, as torrential downpours dogged us for several days, causing some disgruntled passengers to fly home.
During my Christmas Eve concert in the ballroom, while I was serenading a few valiant souls with Antonio Lauro waltzes, a huge swell tilted the stage to starboard, causing the orchestral equipment to slide and topple behind me. Music stands capsized in a cadenza of crashes; curtains cascaded to the side in screeching cadences; trumpet cases keeled over and an electric organ slithered threateningly toward me — only great feats of balance prevented my chair and footstool from following suit. The queasy audience sat pinned to their seats as I detected the dreaded mal de mer fermenting in my stomach. Bracing my back against the chair, I tore into “El Abejorro,” hastily thanked my audience, who from the bright side of the stage lights I imagined to be a “whiter shade of pale,” and with guitar in hand, staggered along the swaying corridors toward my cabin. Dramamine tablets saved the night. But it was too late for Brigitte, who kept me awake till dawn as her six-course meal returned intermittently, with chilling sound effects.
On December 25, as we rounded the cape of Mauritania, the storm became so intense we dared not venture from our room let alone face the thought of Christmas dinner. Even our poor cabin boys did not appear. Reports of the violent weather, which had caused a ship to go down, were spotted in the Toronto papers by my parents. Petrified by the ferocity of the raging seas, I cursed the day I had ever heard of “luxury cruises.” After its Christmas lashing, Massalia sailed smoothly into quiescent waters, anchoring in the harbour of Dakar. By dugout canoe we snaked along steamy rivers to native villages, where I bargained for bright serapes, leather ottomans, and a turtle-shell stringed instrument for Eli Kassner. Back on board, I played a final concert accompanied by a Dominican priest reading medieval French poetry, then spent my last evening in Málaga dancing the night away with two Air France pilots. A decade would have to pass, however, before I was tempted to accept another cruise.
Back in Paris, Lagoya’s coaching continued for another month, but the time had come to draw the curtains on my student life. Finally, I felt ready to embark on a career in music. The day before leaving, I realized I had never visited the famous Eiffel Tower, the first checkpoint for most tourists. After one and a half years of residency, how embarrassing to admit I had not ascended the monument on which I had gazed at daily from my window. Sitting in the dizzy heights of the tower’s restaurant, I treated myself to a penurious last supper — a greasy plate of frites covered with ketchup, that plebeian North American delicacy. In the evening I packed up the little room, stuffing my few belongings into a suitcase, and bid fond adieus to Marie-Odile and her parents, in whose chambre de bonne I had been holed up like a chirping cricket. Yves Chatelain, whom I had not seen in months, drove me to Orly Airport the next morning. Warmly, we hugged farewell, “all passion spent.” My life in France had come to a close and I sensed a challenging new chapter about to begin, as Air Canada sped me home across the wintry, grey Atlantic.