Perfectly Ordinary People(14)

No. Homosexuality wasn’t illegal. It hadn’t been illegal since the French Revolution. So no, we weren’t hassled at all, not officially, at any rate.

And unofficially?

Well, there were people who hated homosexuals. That’s like hatred of Jews or blacks or gypsies – hatred of people who are different has always existed, and sadly will probably always exist. So there were Catholics who insisted it was a terrible sin, and the men in particular could get quite aggressive about it. I always thought that was probably because they were tempted themselves. But anyway, no, not officially. Because there were no laws outlawing any of it.

I’m surprised by that. I assumed that the police would be harassing you.

Alsace had been German in the late 1800s, as well. So lots of people had family in Germany and many people spoke German as well as Alsatian and French. All the older homosexuals had tales to tell of the nightlife in Berlin. So perhaps that made us feel a little more free about the whole thing too. Which is, of course, ironic.

I had no idea it was so free and easy back then.

<Laughs> I wouldn’t say it was free and easy. I wouldn’t want you to get the wrong idea. Pierre’s parents were Catholic, so they were horrified when they found out. My father did everything he could to keep Ethel and me apart once he began to suspect that this wasn’t just a normal friendship. So no, it wasn’t free and easy at all. But it wasn’t illegal either.

Right. So when did things get serious with Ethel?

Well she started to stay over at ours. My father liked her, and her parents didn’t seem to mind, because I was a girl. They’d been worried that she didn’t have many friends, so . . .

And when she stayed, did she stay in your bed?

Yes. Our flat didn’t have a spare room. So she had to stay in my bed. My single bed.

Nice! Did you jump on each other straight away?

Not really. We’d been friends for a few years, as I said. And then we started pecking each other on the cheek. And then on the lips. But I suppose I’d have to admit that once we started sharing a bed things did go a bit faster.

And Pierre? Did he have a boyfriend?

Pierre had a lot of encounters. I don’t know you could call them boyfriends.

Sexual encounters?

Yes. And from very early on. He was an ‘early bloomer’, as we used to say back then. I think he was only fourteen or fifteen when he started hanging out in the park.

But no boyfriend, as such.

No. And I don’t think any of his adventures made him very happy. Not until he met Johann much later, in ’38.

The year before the war.

Exactly.

When Pierre would have been what, sixteen?

Seventeen, I think.

That’s still quite early for a first relationship.

Is it? Perhaps. I just meant that he had a lot of five-minute partners before he met Johann. Tens and tens, at a guess. Perhaps even hundreds.

While you only ever had Ethel.

That’s right. So I was a bit shocked by all his shenanigans. Not in a bad way, but . . . Let’s say it was something we used to joke about. I used to pull his leg about it.

And you’d go to the teadance thing as a threesome, with Pierre.

Yes, like I said, Pierre was our alibi, albeit an unconvincing one. He’d come to the house and take me out and then we’d meet Ethel down by the canal and all go together.

You said he was unconvincing . . .

Well, Pierre wasn’t exactly butch, you know? He dressed in the Zazou style, so . . .

Zazou?

Yes. He wore huge oversized suits. They were fashionable back then, but more in Paris than in Mulhouse. They weren’t very mainstream. So he was a bit of a dandy. People used to stop and stare sometimes.

And you?

What did I wear?

I’m just trying to imagine you all.

Well, the style for women like us in Paris or Berlin was to wear men’s clothes. Suits and shirts and ties and things. But that was all a bit too risqué for Mulhouse. I loved that style, but my father would have had a nervous breakdown if I’d started dressing that way. So I was quite boring really. I wore skirts and blouses and a blue woollen coat I’d been given. The only piece of clothing I had that I really liked was a sailor dress – you know, like the one Shirley Temple used to wear? They were quite the thing back then – I did love my sailor dress. Ethel liked me wearing it too.

And what about Ethel? What was her style?

Ethel had no choice, really. She wore the long dresses her parents chose. For a Jewish family, they were quite relaxed, but her clothes were still pretty traditional. At first we used to try to pin the hem of her dress a bit higher to make it look less frumpy, but it never really hung properly. Later, she started taking her sister’s cast-offs and altering them at ours on my mother’s sewing machine. She’d take these creations in her handbag and change in the toilets so that none of her parents’ friends would spot her dressed that way on the street. It was my mother who taught her how to sew, actually. My own clothes weren’t very exciting, but even Mum felt sorry for Ethel. She had a horrible old fur coat she’d inherited from her aunt as well. When it rained it smelled like an old dog. Whenever she couldn’t find her coat we used to joke that it had probably died and gone to heaven.

You mentioned that Ethel’s father was quite – ‘political’ is the word I think you used. Does that mean you were more aware than other people around you of what was happening in Germany?