Extraordinaire
I’d been hitchhiking across the UK and western Europe for some three months at this point, but the wanderlust was beginning to lose its luster, hastened by the onset of winter. This might be a good time to return to Paris, I thought, to reconnect with
mes amis américains.
Though time has dimmed the memory, I recall hopping on a Paris-bound train in Lyons, finding a seat in a 2nd class cabin and anticipating departure. Moments after settling in, an older woman — back then, anyone over 60 was “older”— entered the cabin and dropped into the seat next to me.
She was attractive in a 60-ish sort of way (little did I know she was at least a decade older!), well dressed, self-assured.
Being rather proud of my facility with French (high school and college courses to the rescue), we commenced to chatting.
En Français, of course.
How could I not be enchanted by Madame Chidlovsky!
****
It is now the late 80’s. I am in Salt Lake City in a photography class. Class theme this evening: how to see as a photographer…there is an image on the screen showing a smiling older woman in an oversized chair.
Photo by Ruth Bernhard. About whom I know absolutely nothing.
The photo strikes a nerve. Deeply. Class assignment: what do you see in this photograph?
I write:
We met in a stuffy second-class coach on the train from Lyons to Paris. I, on another leg of my grand tour; she, leaving relatives in the south of France. She was at once strong in experience, gentle in tone. Her aristocratic bearing was softened with age, but a certain firmness radiated from her body.
We spoke in French until it could have become embarrassing for our fellow travelers. So she continued in English.
She could have continued in Russian, though, because she had come from there. Come to think of it, a kind of peasant-y earthiness clung to her heavy-set wrapped-up body.
She was becoming my favorite grandmother, and in a moment of fantasy, my old lady lover.
In Paris, I offered to thank her for her company with dinner. “No,” she said, “but you may dine with me.”
We had peas and pork chops in her petite apartment, surrounded by fading family photographs that went back a hundred years. Or so it seemed.
She had endured revolutions and sat before me generating a peace that comes out of complete self-knowledge, out of resisting the terrible wear of loneliness.
We parted. I, well-fed, better in soul through her kindness and off on another leg of my grand tour. She, at home in her utter decency.
That was my Madame Chidlovsky.
She sat on a faded velvet sofa and I loved her.
Years after that class, I sent my story to Ruth Bernhard.
Not long afterward, she replied…
Here is the cover of the brochure that Ruth sent…
…and here is a portion of her bio from the back of the brochure.
