1919

The Camera Eye (33)

11,000 registered harlots said the Red Cross Publicity Man infest the streets of Marseilles

the Ford stalled three times in the Rue de Rivoli in Fontainebleau we had our café au lait in bed the Forest was so achingly red yellow novemberbrown under the tiny lavender rain beyond the road climbed through dovecolored hills the air smelt of apples

Nevers (Dumas nom de dieu) Athos Porthos and d’Artagnan had ordered a bisque at the inn we wound down slowly into red Macon that smelt of wineless and the vintage fais ce que voudras saute Bourgignon in the Rhone valley the first straw-colored sunlight streaked the white road with shadows of skeleton poplars at every stop we drank wine strong as beefsteaks rich as the palace of François Premier bouquet of the last sleetlashed roses we didn’t cross the river to Lyon where Jean-Jacques suffered from greensickness as a youngster the landscapes of Provence were all out of the Gallic Wars the towns were dictionaries of latin roots Orange Tarascon Arles where Van Gogh cut off his ears the convoy became less of a conducted tour we stopped to play craps in the estaminets boys we’re going south to drink the red wine the popes loved best to eat fat meals in oliveoil and garlic bound south cêpes provençale the north wind was shrilling over the plains of the Camargue hustling us into Marseilles where the eleven thousand were dandling themselves in the fogged mirrors of the promenoir at the Apollo

oysters and vin de Cassis petite fille tellement brune tête de lune qui amait les veentair sports in the end they were all slot machines undressed as Phocean figurines posted with their legs apart around the scummy edges of the oldest port

the Riviera was a letdown but there was a candy-colored church with a pointed steeple on every hill beyond San Remo Porto Maurizio blue seltzerbottles standing in the cinzanocolored sunlight beside a glass of VERMOUTH TORINO Savona was set for the Merchant of Venice painted by Veronese Ponte Decimo in Ponte Decimo ambulances were parked in a moonlit square of bleak stone workingpeople’s houses hoarfrost covered everything in the little bar the Successful Story Writer taught us to drink cognac and maraschino half and half

havanuzzerone

it turned out he was not writing what he felt he wanted to be writing What can you tell them at home about the war? it turned out he was not wanting what he wrote he wanted to be feeling cognac and maraschino was no longer young (It made us damn sore we greedy for what we felt we wanted tell ’em all they lied see new towns go to Genoa) havanuzzerone? it turned out that he wished he was a naked brown shepherd boy sitting on a hillside playing a flute in the sunlight

going to Genoa was easy enough the streetcar went there Genoa the new town we’d never seen full of marble doges and breakneck stairs marble lions in the moonlight Genoa was the ancient ducal city burning? all the marble palaces and the square stone houses and the campaniles topping hills had one marble wall on fire

bonfire under the moon

the bars were full of Britishers overdressed civilians strolling under porticoes outside the harbor under the Genoa moon the sea was on fire the member of His Majesty’s Intelligence Service said it was a Yankee tanker had struck a mine? been torpedoed? why don’t they scuttle her?

Genoa eyes flared with the light of the burning tanker Genoa what are you looking for? the flare in the blood under the moon down the midnight streets in boys’ and girls’ face Genoa eyes the question in their eyes

through the crumbling stone courts under the Genoa moon up and down the breakneck stairs eyes on fire under the moon round the next corner full in your face the flare of the bonfire on the sea

11,000 registered harlots said the Red Cross Publicity Man infest the streets of Marseilles