Letter from Edward Renouf to Anny Schey von Koromla

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La Pekina

28 July

My dearest Annerl!

It’s not even six o’clock (in the morning), and yet here I am, standing at the desk, pleased as punch and wide awake – actually far more pleased and more awake than I might have been had I got up at ten o’clock instead of half past four. This time of the morning is so wonderful that my soul swings between sadness and gladness; sadness because you and I and so many other dear friends so often slept through the sunrise, gladness because of the patience and goodness of a world order that lets the same mighty sunrise, the same cool, fragrant hours of the early morning, keep coming time and time again. If only we could learn to see the sunrise as the sun itself intends it would be a far greater gift than that Rolls Royce or those yachts the old man from Chicago keeps giving away en passant. He can be as grandiloquent as he likes. The God of revenant days remains beyond compare! For God promises nothing and gives everything, whereas that old man . . . . . . .

But you, Annerl, you’re also beyond compare! Despite my false protestations that I wanted to stop drinking and smoking anyway, look what Josephine has brought me from your hands: ten boxes of DIPLOMATS (a whole world congress!), along with the promise that Bacchus-only-knows how many bottles of Vin de la Gaude will very soon be delivered to my little chateau, ‘La Pekina’! Didn’t I always say there’s justice in the world? It’s not for nothing that I give away motor cars with well disciplined, near expressionless Scottish chauffeurs in spotless whites and shining brass buttons! Last night, after a generous portion of vegetable soup, I stretched myself out on the long lounger on the balcony outside, lit up the first Diplomat and, with an endless sense of well-being, blew the smoke up into the stars. The bats swooped down to fly past me, the last late swifts whooshed and twittered in the twilight, a black-and-white cat lay down on the parapet of the balcony, peaked its shoulders and stared at me without blinking. I just sat there smoking, finding constellations in the stars – Goya’s flying men, geometric polygons, pots and pans, Beate’s witches – and thinking mainly of you. Meanwhile, saturn was rising and I was able to follow the eastward rotation of the earth by the westward movement of the heavens.

After the cigar I paid a starlight visit to the Antheils, where I found George in bed with a cold and Boeschke and the black girl Noel enjoying a cosy evening meal together. From their conversation I gather that Boeschke herself had invited Noel and that there was no question of them returning to the USA any time soon. Boeschke, who cut such an openly tragic figure before, seemed in the best of moods last night. I stayed with them for about a quarter of an hour, then joined Sandy and Tusnelda on Maria’s terrace for half an hour. The company assembled there was of course the most remarkable human zoo again. Tusnelda can’t wait to have your ping-pong for her children. Her and Sandy send you their warm regards too.

By the way, I found a few things in your room: the enclosed German marks, Isaac and Noorden’s dietary primer, a palette knife, two expensive-looking leather straps, possibly from a collapsible picture portfolio or similar. I also still have your earrings from when we went swimming. Should I wrap it all up and send it on as a registered parcel (not that I want you to have any trouble at the border!)? Or should I hold onto it all until we see each other again? I sent the keys to Cook the day you all departed and I’m sending the money to Collins today. Josephine says the electrician has fixed everything and wants twenty francs for it, which I’ll pay him because I imagine that’s what you’d do, out of generosity, even though he came so late.

You all left just in time. I think yesterday was the hottest day we’ve had yet. Right up until sunset you could do nothing but eat the occasional tomato or salad leaf, stand under the shower and lie sweltering on the floor in between. When I went to Sainte Anne to collect a load of potatoes, herbs, pumpkins, recliners and so on I found Josephine in a state much like that of a knob of butter on the point of turning to oil. At La Pekina it was so hot at night that I couldn’t stay within the four walls and spent the starlight hours on the lounger outside, sometimes dozing, sometimes watching the stars disappearing in the west and being replaced by new constellations in the east. By half four it was already light, and by that point it was cold, and I was fresh and hungry. And as the sun rose over the ridge of the mountains at half five it found me devouring bread, tomatoes and a whole tin of maquereau (far better than Argentinian mackerel). But even now, as I write, the last of the morning air is going, there’s a blue haze veiling the valley below me like smoke, and the mountains more heavily still. The sun glares with such sweltering white heat that even the internal double wall of my cottage here gets hot and the air starts to smell of dust and the steaming tar of the melting roads. You’d be forgiven for thinking that the roads might be about to turn into fly paper on which people and animals and motor cars will get stuck and gently roasted in the midday sun. I’m anxiously awaiting a little letter from the mountains!

Yours,

Etl

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