Letter from Edward Renouf to Anny Schey von Koromla

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5 September

Dear Annerl!

We’re close to Gibraltar now, close to leaving Europe, but I still can’t seem to think ahead, like a schoolboy crossing off the days on a calendar, waiting for the holidays – when I’ll see you again. I wish I could find the words to say how I feel – they would be short, concise words, too precise and true for colourful descriptions and circumlocutions. In Hinterbrühl little Sonja Weiss would often look at Clemens and mutter away to herself in wonder, ‘Oh my, oh my!’, as though she’d never met anyone quite like him before. I could mutter away to myself just like that, and you’d know – you’d have to know – what I meant!

Early this morning we saw two African mountains in the distance, barely visible through the bright ocean haze. We followed the Spanish coast all afternoon. I wonder when we’ll do that again? With more clarity, more privacy, exploring everything! The coastline was made up of rusty red mountains behind steep cliffs, steely blue and fissured with shadows. The valleys were strips of desert yellow and on the sunlit ridges the rusty red of the mountains became the most luminous purple. There may have been some heather on the hills, but nothing more. Still, the climate, the stone and the light here produced a palette you would have appreciated.

Naples was the most marvellous rubbish heap I ever saw. The route into the bay was wonderful, with the long strip of the city on the left, resplendent in the evening sun, and Vesuvius to the right, puffing plumes of blue-and-white smoke from the shadows. But the overall aspect of the city for me came not from one impression, from broad strokes and gestures, but from the gritty details: from cocks crowing in the barber shops, from trouserless children playing with horse manure in the streets, from carved and painted carts with donkeys in harnesses of engraved, finely wrought pewter, from tatty grandpas crouching behind baskets of fish that shimmered in every colour of the rainbow. Naples is no place for Cezanne. Rackham would have relished it, Brueghel even more so.

Here on board I’ve met one really nice fellow: a young American who already has a doctorate in physics but is now retaking a few courses at Harvard and then plans to move to Munich to study there for a couple of years. Though there are plenty of people on board who call themselves ‘real Americans’, this chap is the only one who can actually speak English. Having removed a noisy old hag who was scoffing her food at my table, I invited him to join me. It’s shabby down here, but somehow quite charming. It turns out the hardened criminal is nothing more than a harmless builder, unfortunately, and when the men all start dancing and canoodling with each other, as they always do, there’s a charming innocence even to that.

I’m afraid I must stop right away because this is my last chance to catch the post for Gibraltar.

I’ll send your regards to Ellen and hope that Clifford won’t be forgotten so soon either!

Give the children a big hug from me. Goodbye for now. . . . . . . . . .

Etl

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