I've posted this before. Nonetheless, this New Year's Eve it's what I want to share. "And I Love Them"--the piece that gave this blog its name--I altered the title from The Beatles (but the moment I finished that piece I knew it was about my parents). Here, however, is the first version of Panni's and Pepi's story: "Panni's and Pepi's Paris." And, of course, I love them--
PANNI’S AND PEPI’S
PARIS
BY GEORGINA MARRERO
For
me, Paris is synonymous with the two most important persons in my life: my parents.
Anna “Panni” Raab met Federico Efrain “Pepi” Marrero in a medical school
class at the University of Paris’ Faculty of Medicine sometime in the
mid-1930’s. At the time, people “group”
dated, or so my mother told me, so I’m not quite sure when they began to
formally date. By 1940, though, they knew
each other well enough that my father either sent for or went to pick my mother
up in the South of France, they traveled via Orleans to Lyon, and married in
the mayor’s office there on December 31, 1940.
My parents’
stories about their years in Paris shaped me.
Their stories about forty francs being the equivalent of one American
dollar; about a paper cone’s full of French fries costing four to five francs
(and that was dinner). About students
gathering in the Luxembourg Gardens: I
have pictures of them doing just so.
About Henri Bergson giving lectures that were so packed that the best my
mother could hope for was to strain to hear through the open door. About how he presented himself as a Jew
before the Nazis when they occupied Paris.
Those were very
difficult times. My mother defended her
thesis eight days before the Occupation.
And then she fled to Vichy France.
As for my father: well, with a
middle name like Efrain, his professor, Clovis Vincent, wanted to keep a close
eye on him. It just so happened Vincent
was a great French patriot, decorated during the First World War. So he ingeniously gathered all his residents
together to serve at the Pitie Hospital under the auspices of his
“Neurosurgical Wartime Service.”
One
of the residents, a man named Rabinowitz, escaped at least several times from
detention camps, and eventually made his way to Canada.
For the record,
when Princess Diana was rushed to the Pitie and Salpetriere Hospitals after her
fatal car crash, my mother’s comment was:
“That’s the best place to treat head injuries.” No two ways about it: my mother would have known.
My mother’s
strength may have ebbed and flowed, but her stories never wavered. After her death, I had the good fortune to
speak with one of her best friends, a fashion designer named Kati Cohn, who
filled in many gaps. According to Kati,
the Hungarians went to France to study, she said, because they were “freer”
there. They were not held back… just
because they were Jewish.
Young, carefree,
(perhaps?) in love – and she never studied, according to Kati. Panni joined Kati and her crowd at the cafes
every afternoon. When did she study, we
both mused out loud. She graduated,
though, producing a thesis on Nietzsche and Psychiatry. And, oh, yes:
she once cooked a veal steak on the back of an iron!
As for Pepi, he
studied very hard, yet found time to play ball with his fellow Cuban
classmates. He also cooked chicken and
rice: hard for me to believe, later
on. He had to wash his own clothes, and,
at one point, had to do with very little money, for someone had stolen his
stipend. I guess that’s when those
French fries came in handy.
My father’s
passion was neuropathology, so he hit pay dirt when a very eminent Spaniard
fled to Paris during the Spanish Civil War.
This man, Don Pio del Rio Hortega, guided my father’s thesis. My father dedicated it to him.
Did they have
fun? They all had fun, according to
Kati.
In
the midst of all the storm clouds brewing, yes, they did.
They were young,
carefree, and – perhaps – falling in love.
If the following
is not an example of young love, then I don’t know what is: According to my mother, she once stumbled
into Vincent’s operating room, tripping over wires, and whatnot. The Great Man – a big, hulking French peasant
– turned, glowered, and asked Panni:
“Mademoiselle, what are you doing here?”
“I’m searching for
Monsieur Marrero,” my mother responded.
She proudly continued, “He’s supposed to be operating.”
Monsieur Vincent
tersely replied, “Go to the sub-basement.
You’ll find Monsieur Marrero there.”
Sure enough, my father was operating…
on bedsores.
As a teenager, I
went to Paris, where I spent time with my mother’s cousin and his wife, who’d
been made to wear the Star of David during the Occupation. Their daughter’s married to a devout Roman
Catholic.
A little later on
that summer, my mother came to join me.
I’d wanted to go running off to Scotland to do who knows what after
finishing my language course in Tours.
In a panic, my father had sent her over.
Still highly
energetic, my mother marched me up and down the streets of Paris, pointing out
this, that, everything. She took me to
the oldest restaurant (Le Procope), and the cheapest (Le Bouillon Chartier),
where a waiter taught me how to eat an artichoke.
A
rebellious child of the times, all I did was fuss, fret, protest, and complain… all the way to the Folies Bergere. Even then, however, I sensed the enormous
bond my mother had with her lifelong best friend and her Cuban husband, a bon
vivant who’d married the peppy little Frenchwoman, never again giving a second
thought to the medical career that had brought him to Paris in the first place,
as it had my father.
After she passed
away, I braved a cold, damp Paris holiday season to visit with our
relatives. I also spent many wonderful
hours with her best friend’s now widowed husband. He’d known Efrain for even more years than
he’d known Anita. I returned once more,
four months before 9/11, when I got to see him for the last time.
I’m bound to
return to Paris, and to enjoy The City of Lights more and more in my own
right. However, for me, this beautiful,
carefree, romantic city will always be…
Panni’s and Pepi’s Paris.
Copyright, 2005 by Georgina
Marrero 992 words First-time worldwide serial rights
Para Panni y Pepi--Mami y Papi--siempre!
12/31/40
