toward Trafalgar Square.
'All we need is some money to get to Majorca …'
She had been fixated on that idea from the moment I met her, when I saw the address on the envelope.
'In Majorca things will be easier for us. You'll be able to write your books …'
One day I had let slip that I hoped to write books someday, but we had never talked about it again. Maybe she mentioned it now as a way of reassuring me. She really was a much steadier person than I was.
All the same, I wondered how she was planning to find the money. She didn't flinch:
'It's only in big cities that you can find money … Imagine if we were stuck in some backwater out in the middle of nowhere …'
Yes, she was right. Suddenly Trafalgar Square looked much friendlier to me. I was watching the water flow from the fountains, and that helped calmed me. We were not condemned to stay in this city and drown in the crowds on Oxford Street. We had a very simple goal: to find some money and go to Majorca. It was like Van Bever's martingale. With all the streets and intersections around us our chances only increased, and we would surely bring about a happy coincidence in the end.
From then on we avoided Oxford Street and the center of town, and we always walked west toward Holland Park and the Kensington neighborhood.
One afternoon, at the Holland Park underground station, we had our pictures taken in a Photomat. We posed with our faces close together. I kept the pictures as a souvenir. Jacqueline's face is in the foreground, and mine, slightly set back, is cut off by the edge of the photo so that my left ear can't be seen. After the flash we couldn't stop laughing, and she wanted to stay on my knees in the booth. Then we followed the avenue alongside Holland Park, past the big white houses with their porticoes. The sun was shining for the first time since our arrival in London, and as I remember, the weather was always bright and warm from that day onward, as if summer had come early.
AT LUNCHTIME, in a café on Notting Hill Gate, we made the acquaintance of a woman named Linda Jacobsen. She spoke to us first. A dark-haired girl, our age, long hair, high cheekbones and slightly slanted blue eyes.
She asked what region of France we were from. She spoke slowly, as if she were hesitating over every word, so it was easy to have a conversation with her in English. She seemed surprised that we were living in one of those seedy Sussex Gardens Hotels. But we explained that we had no other choice because we were both underage.
The next day we found her in the same place again, and she came to sit down at our table. She asked if we would be staying long in London. To my great surprise, Jacqueline told her we planned to stay for several months and even to look for work here.
'But in that case you can't go on living in that hotel….'
Every night we longed to move out because of the smell that hung in the room, a sickly sweet smell that might have come from the drains, from a kitchen, or from the rotting carpet. In the morning we would go for a long walk in Hyde Park to get rid of the smell, which impregnated our clothes. It went away, but during the day it would come back, and I would ask Jacqueline:
'Do you smell it?'
It was depressing to think that it would be following us for the rest of our lives.
'The worst thing,' Jacqueline told her in French, 'is the smell in the hotel…'
I had to translate for her as best I could. Finally Linda understood. She asked if we had some money. Of the two small bundles in the suitcase, only one was left.
'Not much.' I said.
She looked at us both in turn. She smiled. I was always amazed when people were kind to us. Much later, I found the Photomat picture from Holland Park at the bottom of a shoebox full of old letters, and I was struck by the innocence of our faces. We inspired trust in people. And we had no real qualities, except the one that youth gives to everyone for a very brief time, like a vague promise that will
'All we need is some money to get to Majorca …'
She had been fixated on that idea from the moment I met her, when I saw the address on the envelope.
'In Majorca things will be easier for us. You'll be able to write your books …'
One day I had let slip that I hoped to write books someday, but we had never talked about it again. Maybe she mentioned it now as a way of reassuring me. She really was a much steadier person than I was.
All the same, I wondered how she was planning to find the money. She didn't flinch:
'It's only in big cities that you can find money … Imagine if we were stuck in some backwater out in the middle of nowhere …'
Yes, she was right. Suddenly Trafalgar Square looked much friendlier to me. I was watching the water flow from the fountains, and that helped calmed me. We were not condemned to stay in this city and drown in the crowds on Oxford Street. We had a very simple goal: to find some money and go to Majorca. It was like Van Bever's martingale. With all the streets and intersections around us our chances only increased, and we would surely bring about a happy coincidence in the end.
From then on we avoided Oxford Street and the center of town, and we always walked west toward Holland Park and the Kensington neighborhood.
One afternoon, at the Holland Park underground station, we had our pictures taken in a Photomat. We posed with our faces close together. I kept the pictures as a souvenir. Jacqueline's face is in the foreground, and mine, slightly set back, is cut off by the edge of the photo so that my left ear can't be seen. After the flash we couldn't stop laughing, and she wanted to stay on my knees in the booth. Then we followed the avenue alongside Holland Park, past the big white houses with their porticoes. The sun was shining for the first time since our arrival in London, and as I remember, the weather was always bright and warm from that day onward, as if summer had come early.
AT LUNCHTIME, in a café on Notting Hill Gate, we made the acquaintance of a woman named Linda Jacobsen. She spoke to us first. A dark-haired girl, our age, long hair, high cheekbones and slightly slanted blue eyes.
She asked what region of France we were from. She spoke slowly, as if she were hesitating over every word, so it was easy to have a conversation with her in English. She seemed surprised that we were living in one of those seedy Sussex Gardens Hotels. But we explained that we had no other choice because we were both underage.
The next day we found her in the same place again, and she came to sit down at our table. She asked if we would be staying long in London. To my great surprise, Jacqueline told her we planned to stay for several months and even to look for work here.
'But in that case you can't go on living in that hotel….'
Every night we longed to move out because of the smell that hung in the room, a sickly sweet smell that might have come from the drains, from a kitchen, or from the rotting carpet. In the morning we would go for a long walk in Hyde Park to get rid of the smell, which impregnated our clothes. It went away, but during the day it would come back, and I would ask Jacqueline:
'Do you smell it?'
It was depressing to think that it would be following us for the rest of our lives.
'The worst thing,' Jacqueline told her in French, 'is the smell in the hotel…'
I had to translate for her as best I could. Finally Linda understood. She asked if we had some money. Of the two small bundles in the suitcase, only one was left.
'Not much.' I said.
She looked at us both in turn. She smiled. I was always amazed when people were kind to us. Much later, I found the Photomat picture from Holland Park at the bottom of a shoebox full of old letters, and I was struck by the innocence of our faces. We inspired trust in people. And we had no real qualities, except the one that youth gives to everyone for a very brief time, like a vague promise that will