Goes Soft

A song that feels like a poem. From band SALES with their song 'Rainy Day Loop' (2018). Song: here.

Me Before You

She was 15 years old and I was 16. She was my first love and I was hers. Two days ago T. was suddenly on my mind again - I have no idea what triggered this. I felt the need to talk to her. What went "wrong" 40 years ago? We were so in love and at the same time we were not able to communicate. How was our us for her?

We were classmates in highschool. After graduation I saw her twice on a class reunion. The last time more than 20 years ago. We talked a little but only skin-deep. If I remember well she has one boy and one girl and married to the boyfriend that came right after me. 

I knew she was interested in me after I came back from a holiday in Spain. Suddenly she looked differently at me. Eyes. Small talk. Teasing. After a few weeks I gathered all the courage and called her from a pay phone (not from home). I got her on the phone and not her older sister or one of her parents. I invited her to meet at the marketplace in G. And there we met for the first time. Just the two of us. We held each other's bikes and talked for hours. That day I knew I was in love and I knew she was in love too. At a schoolparty we kissed for the first time. For "hours". Months flew by. We went out together a few times with her group of friends, she came over for coffee to my house, we wrote letters to each other that we handed over at school ... but in a way we didn't communicate. She broke up. Clumsy. And it hurt me a lot.

How was our us for me? In retrospect I think we were too insecure and inexperienced. We were not able to talk about our insecurities and feelings. Neither of us were able to let each other cross that threshold. What I learned from T. is how beautiful it is to be in love. To talk endlessly and kiss. To have your significant other close. To smell her. To look in her eyes.

I would like to thank her for the love and confidence she gave me. In retrospect we were green as grass and not ready for a serious relationship yet. The strange thing, after T. I always was able to share all of me. I knew - without realizing it at the time and having words for it - that in a perfect relation I had to share all of me: sweet and sour, and everything in between. Even if it doesn't make sense.

All Again and Be Different

Who was Denise Menasce? According to Fenwick in ‘Joan. The remarkable life of Joan Leigh Fermor’ (2017) page 125-130: “her family were upper-middle-class Sephardic Jewish bankers and businessmen, who had been made barons in the Austro-Hungarian Empire.” I can’t find any proof for this claim on the internet. There is a Denise de Menasce whose father is a baron but this Denise is born in 1909 and married in 1931 (source).

Our Denise is 24 years old in 1944, so she must be born around 1920. She has a sister called Laure: “Laure my sister” 

 

And has a Turkish nationality (letter 24-2-[19]45): “In the midst of my transports, and rereadings / of the cable, I suddenly heard the wireless, / ‘Turkey has declared war on Germany and / Japan’ _ i.e. Miss Menache becomes an / ally and provided she is not sent / to Turkey as a landgirl, she may be / able to travel in allied countries much more”

Denise has her own flat and her mother is not poor (22-11-[1944]): “I will miss you too! Mummy is giving me some / lovely long diamond earrings in which I hope / to look rather fetching – anyway Hispano Mauresque.”

Was she a student? She wrote (“Sundaynight”; reconstructed around Christmas 1944): “My life at the university is still full of charm, / for the first time in my life I feel the most intelligent / pupil in the room, which is always gratifying.”

She has chosen for France and not Greece. On 15-11-[19]44 she wrote: “(...) I’ve been given the choice between / France o[r] Greece, but I’ve chosen France, as somehow / Athens will be exactly like Cairo in many ways, and I / shall only find the things I am trying to get away / from. It might be fun for three months, but afterwards / it will become a v[ery] beautiful, but v[ery] uncomfortable Cairo. I / am longing for something new, prestine, which I can discover, not what I know already. Don’t you think I / am right darling?”

At the end of January 1945 Paddy went back to England. The day after he wrote a letter to Denise, which she received two months later. On 26-4-1945 she wrote: “(…) [A] million thanks for / the sweetest letter I’ve ever had in my / life, which you wrote the day after you left. / I don’t know whether you still mean all / you wrote over two months ago, but it does / make me happy that you ever did / think such adorable things about a silly little / fool like me. When I look back on it all / I feel thoroughly ashamed of myself. O that / I could have it all again, and be different.” 

P.S. I wrote about Denise before: 01-2022 and 11-2021. And about Balasa: 7-2021, 6-2021, 5-2021, 3-2021, 3-2021, 10-2020 and 9-2020.

P.P.S. Denise is familiar with Balasa. On 31-10-[1944] she wrote: "I've packed your things. / Have found the letter for / Balasa & kept it myself so that / it is there when you want it."

Betrayed-Seconds

Those ten seconds when you realize that your lover has betrayed you. For lack of a good word, hereby baptized: betrayed-seconds. This is valid for ordinary people - like you and me - but also for superstars. Under the veneer of fame, superstars are of course also lovers too with all the ups and downs, sweet and sour of love.

Superstar Kate Bush wrote the song 'The Man with the Child in His Eyes' when she was 13 for her first boyfriend: 19 year old Steve Blacknell. (The song was recorded when Kate was 16.). A picture of Kate and Steve together:

Kate spoke about the song's background in a 1978 promo interview (source): "The inspiration for was really just a particular thing that happened when I went to the piano. The piano just started speaking to me. It was a theory that I had had for a while that I just observed in most of the men that I know: the fact that they just are little boys inside and how wonderful it is that they manage to retain this magic. I, myself, am attracted to older men, I guess, but I think that's the same with every female. I think it's a very natural, basic instinct that you look continually for your father for the rest of your life, as do men continually look for their mother in the women that they meet. I don't think we're all aware of it, but I think it is basically true. You look for that security that the opposite sex in your parenthood gave you as a child."

In 2010, Steve offered the original handwritten lyrics for 'The Man With the Child in His Eyes' for sale. Claiming that Kate was his first true love and that she wrote it for him. To this day Kate has never publicly commented on her first boyfriend's action.

Those betrayed-seconds that Kate realized that Steve had betrayed her and made public what was meant for her-and-him (say: us) only. Those betrayed-seconds when she realized that money has become more important than love for Steve too. What happened to the child in his eyes? Those betrayed-seconds when she realized that his words of "you're my true love, I am yours and I'll never hurt you" were a lie in retrospect. It must have hurt her a lot. 

P.S. Source picture: here. Source lyrics: here. 

P.P.S. I know that I am an uber-Romantic. I believe in being courteous in love. Some things are 'not done', no matter how angry or disappointed you are. Some things are private and can't be bought. Some things are for us and us only.

But Now That You Are Gone

I read all 36 (love)letters Denise Menasce wrote to Paddy Leigh Fermor, that are stored at the N.L.S. (here), and reconstructed their sequence:

Denise is 24 years old in October 1944. A picture from her the year before:

 26/10 [1944] / (18 hrs after you left)

"Mon chou cheri – my first letter to / you; it is funny, but I feel rather / shy. I would like it to be, amusing, / intelligent, and affectionate, so as to / make you miss me a little, but I / am afraid it will be neither for / I am in bed, with a cold, a / Temperature, a – , and an awful / “handra”. Paddy darling, my / first day without you has been / “renchonnage” you have been an / absolute sweetie to me, and given / me all the affection, the warmth, / the friendship, and the intellectual / stimulus I needed so badly. / Bless you Paddy darling, for / that, I shall always be grateful.”

28/10 [1944]

“(…) My sweet / darling Paddy, this month has been absolute heaven for me, and / all I hope is that I gave you / half as much happiness as you gave me.”

29/10 [1944]

Pregnant (“that baby”) and yet tomorrow morning I am going to see a doctor for an abortion (this exact word is not mentioned; “and quite realize that this is normal and necessary”).

Halfway December 1944

Paddy came back from Crete and met Denise but at the same time kept distance. It hurted her. Shortly after Christmas 1944 Paddy met Joan Rainer [read: Rayner]. Both were immediately attracted to one another. They could not keep their hands off one another. When Denise found out she sent him a typed letter (no date): “Paddy, you little double-crosser, trying to kill two birds with one stone!”

At the end of January 1945 Paddy went back to England and Denise waved him off in Port Said. A few days later she wrote the next letter:

 6/2/[19]45

“My beloved darling Paddy. It feels rather odd / writing a letter I won’t be able to hand over, a letter / which is not full of bitter reproaches, or intense love making. / This, darling, is meant to bring to you all the warmth, affection and longing, I feel [for] you and to say thank [you] / and bless you for being your adorable self. I shan’t repeat / myself and tell you how sorry I am for having been so very / often, a petty boring posessive little bitch, all I can say is / I wish I were’nt, but that is the sort of thing one cannot / help. But now that you are gone, I realize how unfair / it is to ask you to be anything but yourself – you do / radiate so much happiness, and sweetness, that nobody will / ever be able to resist your charm – I certainly never will / As for your ever being a pig, you made up / for it in such a complete overwhelming way, and when / you did hold me, very tight in your arms, I shut my / eyes and felt a current of warmth and utter happiness, which / is worth a million times any sadness or gloom I might have felt. / Darlingest, when this will reach you, you will be surrounded / by a new atmoshere, masses of old friends, Xan, Billy etc. / but, as you read it. Try, for a moment to think of your imp[lishly], with a bit of tenderness and affection, and if ever / you feel lonely, depressed, or, as you always think – wasting – / remember there is one person anyway who loves you, / as you are, and with all her heart.”

P.S. 'Renchonnage' is French for 'refitting'.

P.P.S. Source picture: Cooper, 'Patrick Leigh Fermor. An Adventure' (2012), pictures between page 112-113.

P.P.P.S. I showed a letter from Denise before in post 'Always Seem To Be' (11-2021).