Perfectly Ordinary People(13)

No, it wasn’t like that at all. You make me sound like some sort of predator! I thought she was pretty. And I liked her company, and she mine. We were friends, school friends, for years, and just got closer and closer.

She developed a great sense of humour as she got older, which I often think is a bit of a Jewish trait. They have a certain sense of repartee, don’t you think? A special sort of quick-fire wit. So Ethel made me laugh a lot, and I do love to laugh. She enjoyed making me laugh, too. She was smaller than me – petite – which I liked. My nickname for her was petit oiseau – baby bird – and I called her that for decades. I sometimes still do. But for years, like I say, it was all perfectly platonic. She lived in Dornach, the Jewish quarter of Mulhouse, in a flat above the shoe-shop her parents owned. And because the walk to Dornach was nice – you could walk along the canal, you see – she’d come and meet me after rowing practice and I’d walk her home. Then one day when we were about fifteen she said something witty and made me laugh – it was about Hitler, as I recall – and I kissed her. It was just a peck on the cheek, but she didn’t flinch – in fact she didn’t even stop talking. We walked on for a bit and then she said another funny thing, and then turned and kissed me back. I don’t think either of us thought much about what was happening. We were just reacting to how we felt about each other.

Because you were falling in love.

Exactly. We were falling in love. And then a few days later, as we walked past the same spot, beneath a big overhanging tree, she grabbed my arm and kissed me again. That was the first time either of us had kissed someone properly.

You mean with tongues?

<Laughs> No, I mean on the lips. The other kisses had just been pecks on the cheek.

So still no tongues.

Gosh, OK! No – the tongues came later.

This was, what, 1935?

Our first kiss? I’d say ’35 or ’36. I seem to remember that Hitler had just banned Jews from the military – actually, that might have been what she joked about that day. Her father was very political, so we talked a lot about what was happening. I think she said something about being banned from the military being Hitler’s greatest gift to the Jewish people. We didn’t know what was coming at all then, so we thought we were being very amusing, as I recall.

So did you take things very slowly? Were you romantic?

Yes, we took things slowly. We were friends, and then we became inseparable friends. There were pecks on the cheeks, and then a few kisses on the lips. We didn’t much want to see – or talk to – anyone else. In fact I can honestly say I never met anyone I’d rather talk to. Until I met Ethel my best friend had always been Pierre, the boy who lived next door. I was attracted to women, but I preferred the company of boys, you see.

You were a bit of a tomboy, then?

Yes. And it was the same for Pierre. He didn’t much like boys’ games. He hated football and that kind of thing. I didn’t have brothers or sisters either, so most of my childhood had been spent hanging out with him. His nose was well and truly put out of joint when Ethel appeared on the scene.

Was he in love with you, do you think?

Gosh, no! It was a childhood friendship, that’s all. We rode our bikes together, and we threw stones in the canal. We smoked our first cigarettes in his father’s shed. But in the end, after sulking for a bit, he decided he liked Ethel as well. So from that point on, the three of us used to go around together. And then eventually, of course, Pierre admitted that he was of a similar persuasion.

Pierre turned out to be gay?

That’s right. It’s probably why we were friends in the first place. So we went around together as a trio after that. We used each other as a sort of alibi. My father assumed I was sweethearts with Pierre, and his parents hinted at marriage from time to time. And that suited us all.

Did you need to be discreet back then? What was it like being gay in Mulhouse in the thirties?

What was it like?

Yes. I mean, did you have places you could go? Were there gay bars and things?

Not as such. There was a park where the men used to do their wicked deeds. They were always far more direct about that kind of thing than the women. And occasionally, on a sunny day, you’d see couples of women there too, lying on the grass together. There was a café, as well, with a big upstairs room we used. Downstairs it was a regular bar, but on Sundays you could buy a drink and slip upstairs, and there you’d find men kissing men in the corners, and women lounging around on the sofas talking to each other and smoking. Everyone smoked in the thirties. The room was so smoky that it provided a certain level of cover for whatever people wanted to get up to.

But it was only open on Sundays?

Yes. It was called a tea dance, though I’m not sure why, as there was no tea to drink and no one danced much either. We’d go there together, the three of us. And then Pierre would inevitably meet some chap and slip discreetly off to the park.

But you’d just sit and chat?

Yes. We’d sip our drinks very slowly, because we could only ever afford one, and we’d talk to whoever was there. The women mostly kept to themselves, and the men with the men. But because we went around as a threesome, our sofa was often mixed, so I knew quite a few of the boys too. There was a piano in the corner so from time to time there’d be a singalong. Sometimes we’d even dance.

But you didn’t get hassled . . . by the police or the authorities or whatever?