Broooooooce (part one)

"Now laying here in the dark, you're like an angel on my chest, just another tramp of hearts crying tears of faithlessness."

Bruce Springsteen has so many lyrics loaded with symbolism and a romantic, poetic sensibility, but that one sentence from his masterpiece "Backstreets" has always been my favorite.  It encapsulates all the reasons I have adored Bruce since my high school years all those decades ago, and if anything, adore him ever more with each passing year.  It's easy for me to envision the scene he describes.  I've had those tramps of hearts who cried tears of faithlessness to me, just as I have been that tramp myself.  Bruce shows us all for what we are, angels and tramps, demons and angels, well-intentioned but fundamentally flawed humans.  He's not your average singer-songwriter singing about beautiful girls and guys who break your heart, he sings about all of us, he is all of us, an average guy trying to do the best with what he's been given.  "So you're scared and you're thinking that maybe we ain't that young anymore; show a little faith, there's magic in the night, you ain't a beauty, but hey you're alright, oh, and that's alright with me," as he put it so eloquently in yet another masterpiece, "Thunder Road."

At the moment when I was born, on February 15th, 1961, in Zagreb, Croatia, there was a complete eclipse of the sun.  My mother, although not exactly a great believer in zodiacs and such, thought that was a significant enough sign that she decided to consult an astrologer, who told her that this meant that I would be very lucky throughout my life, and in the thing that was most important to me, I would be extraordinarily lucky.  Now with the hindsight of 55 years, I am convinced that this one most important thing has been my saga with Springsteen.

I discovered Bruce's music at the tender age of 16 or 17.  I was a pretty young thing at Beverly Hills High School, and yet there was always an old soul inside of me, one who always viewed the glass as half empty.  When everyone else was sighing over the Bee Gees or Abba, as soon as I heard Bruce's breakthrough album, "Born to Run," and, a year or so later, "Darkness on the Edge of Town," I was spellbound.  The spell has never been broken to this day, and now I very smugly congratulate myself with how well I chose my musical hero, because when almost all the other stars of the day have faded  or disappeared entirely, Bruce still keeps putting out meaningful music which never fails to speak to me and lift me up.  And don't even get me started on Bruce's live shows.  Just this year, at the age of 68, he broke his own record and performed over 4 hours non-stop.  I was fortunate to see him 3 times this past year, and as always, his truly unbelievable energy and enthusiasm, love for the music and his audience, his exhilarating stage show, left me soaked to the skin with perspiration and euphoria.  I can safely say that his concerts have been the closest things to religious experiences I've ever experienced, and I am fervently thankful that they continue to this day to be the same level of perfection that they were when I was first fortunate to see him, in October of 1980.

Although I loved Bruce's music during high school, I never got lucky enough to see him live during that time.  Either I was away during summer vacation, when he had his legendary concert at the Roxy nightclub, or tickets sold out before I had a chance to buy them.  I remember one time a friend of mine, Steve Auerbach, drove to San Francisco to see Bruce perform at a small club.  I was pea-green with envy, and couldn't wait for him to get back.  When I asked, "how was it???"  He answered simply, "it was the best night of my life."  A couple of years later, I'd learn for myself that he wasn't exaggerating.

I was a sophomore in college at UC Berkeley in 1980 when finally the opportunity presented itself to see my idol live.  He was performing two nights at the Oakland Coliseum, and my boyfriend got us tickets for the second night.  I excitedly counted the days.  A week or two before the show, one of my housemates, Sean, told me he had tickets for the first night, and would I go with him.  I felt sorry for Sean because he was extremely socially inept, and always too shy to ask a girl on a date.  I told him this would be the perfect opportunity for him to get himself a date, since Bruce was the hottest ticket in town.  He said, "ok, but if I can't get anyone to go with me, will you go with me?"  I told him I would, though I was certain he wouldn't have any problem getting himself a cute chick to accompany him.  I'm sure he didn't even bother trying, because the afternoon of the concert, he presented himself in the doorway of my room, asking if I was ready to go.  Oh, Sean!  He will now forever have the distinction of having been my companion the first time I laid eyes on the greatest hero of my life, in the flesh.

To say that Bruce electrified the arena, would be like saying that Thomas Edison brought about a minor change in illumination.  This man was a live wire of kinetic energy that was completely unstoppable, a walking, running, talking, singing, whirling incarnation of megawatt passion for music that was telegraphed in every word he sang, every charming tale he told the audience, every drop of sweat that poured out of him as he gave everything he had, which was about as much as I think it's possible for anyone to have, to us, his audience.  Years before, a rock critic who later became his manager, Jon Landau, saw Bruce perform at a club in Boston.  In his review, he wrote, "I have seen rock n' roll future, and its name is Bruce Springsteen."  Those words, and the words of Steve Auerbach, rang in my ears together with Bruce's music that unforgettable night in Oakland.  As he sang the songs I'd loved for years, and new ones I'd just come to discover on his newest album, "The River," I felt a sense of magic I'd never felt before.  I was riveted, mesmerized, glued to the spot.  The songs I already loved so much came to life in a way I'd never have been able to imagine, they seeped into my soul and psyche, they became a part of my very DNA the way this genius of music, of life, interpreted them.  After nearly 4 hours of the most exhilarating performance I'd ever seen, I was not nearly ready to leave the arena, and the only way Sean was able to drag me out, is because I had the knowledge I'd be back again the next night.

But that was just the beginning.  Bruce was playing 3 shows the following weekend in LA, at the Sports Arena.  I immediately booked a flight, drafted a couple of friends, and trekked to the Sports Arena all 3 of those nights, looking for people selling tickets, since the shows were all sold out.  Back in the day of 1980, it was easy to get tickets for very reasonable prices, and we succeeded all of the nights.  By the end of my 5th Bruce concert in the space of 10 days or so, I was a full-fledged apostle, ready to follow my messiah to the ends of the earth...or at least all over California, New York, Connecticut,  or London, all places where I was fortunate enough in future decades to be able to attend these events, which were miracles to me.  There would be times over the years which were unthinkably difficult for me, times when I felt myself free falling into deep depression, when I'd stay in bed all day, for days, unable to find a reason to get out of bed.  I'd wonder then if perhaps I was clinically depressed, if I should perhaps take some medication.  But then I'd read that the sure sign of depression was that nothing brought you joy, and when I'd put that test to myself, I always failed, because there was always one thing that, no matter how awful everything else in my life was, never failed to bring me joy: the music of Bruce and, most especially, his concerts.

The Paris Necklace, Part Two

My Paris Necklace

My trip to Europe for the summer of 2016 had already been booked and paid for since the fall of 2015 (I can barely wait a month or two past the last vacation before booking the next one).  Already it was longer than the time I was allowed to officially take off from work; I couldn't tack on a trip to Paris, however much I would have loved to.  What I could do, thanks to the modern wonder of the Eurostar, was to take one of my already-scheduled 3 days in London, and make a mad dash across the Chunnel, to Paris and back in a day.  That would have to suffice for this time.  In any case, a taste was all I wanted for now, a preview of coming attractions which would unfold, hopefully, in years to come.  In my dream scenario, I would have lunch at Closerie des Lilas and walk around the Left Bank, and find myself a special souvenir before returning to London that evening.  So I purchased my Eurostar ticket and called it a day.

Of course, my thoughts immediately turned to Nevenka.  After much rooting around through dusty piles of papers, I found an old address book with the address where she, Norman and David had lived all those decades ago.  I had no idea whether she lived there still, but I was determined this time I would try to contact her, and this was my only portal.  In the letter I wrote to her, I asked if she remembered me, and told her I'd never forgotten her great kindness to me and the magical summer I had spent with her and her family; I told her I was coming to Paris for a day, and that nothing would make me happier than if she would allow me the privilege of treating her to lunch.  I enclosed my email address, something which had not even been conceived of the last time we'd corresponded, posted the letter and uttered a prayer.

Not long after, I was elated to find her name in my inbox.  It was a very brief epistle, she merely said that of course she remembered me, and if I had a few days coming or going, she would be happy to have me as a guest in her home.  Excited beyond words that something I'd longed for for so long was actually going to happen, I replied to say that sadly I was going to have a brief 7 hours in Paris, to which she said that she would meet me at the Gare du Nord if I'd send her my train information, and yes, we would go to lunch.  This time when I responded, I felt compelled to say something about David, since it felt too strange not to.  I didn't know if she remembered that I had sent her a letter at the time of his murder, and thus I didn't know if she even knew that I was aware of his tragic death.  So, I told her of my devastation upon hearing of it, about his photo which I always had prominently featured in every home I'd lived in.  Although she confirmed that she'd be at the Gare du Nord to meet my train, she mentioned nothing about David in her reply.

I arrived in London on a Monday morning in late July, and the following morning boarded the Eurostar for Paris.  Because it had been several decades since I'd seen so much as a photo of Nevenka, I worried that I wouldn't recognize her, but I did as soon as I stepped off the train.  Her hair was completely grey now, not the lustrous chestnut I remembered, and the decades had left their mark on her, of course, but she was immediately recognizable.  We fell into each other's arms as I fought back tears.  I couldn't help but think of our last sighting of each other, how different we had been, our lives, the world entire.

She indulged me by agreeing to lunch at Closerie.  As we sat in that lovely garden cafe steeped in history, mine and of course so many others', I looked across the table at her in awe.  I just simply could not believe I was in Paris, having lunch with Nevenka at Closerie.  Everything I'd hoped for from my day in Paris had come to pass, as if I'd written the script and it had miraculously manifested.

Although I was terrified to mention David, she eventually did bring up his name, and we spoke of him at length.  She told me of how he'd loved Israel, Jerusalem in particular, and had been proud of the Jewish roots he had through Norman, his father.  He had visited it often before deciding to spend a year there at university, but had only been there two weeks before the assassin stole his young life.  She told me of her trepidation when he'd told her of his plan, and how she'd pleaded with him to at least never eat in the cafeteria, but to just buy his food there if he needed to, then go elsewhere to eat it.  She told me how, on the fateful day, a friend of his who knew the campus had come to meet him and show him around; how they had just sat down to eat in the cafeteria when the bomb exploded; how the friend saw David fall but only thought he'd fainted; how the friend was gravely injured and spent two months in hospital; how he kept asking whether David was in a hospital room near him; how no one had the heart to tell him until he was stronger, of David's terrible death.

Nevenka said she and Norman had been in New York visiting friends when they saw news of the bombing on television.  When no word came from David, they feared the worst, knowing he would have called to reassure them had he been alright.  In Israel, she said, only the police have the right to tell parents these horrific news, so they waited all day in an agony of unknowing.  They sent a friend to all the hospitals in Jerusalem, to no avail.  Finally, at 5 p.m., the call came.  She and Norman and their friends embraced and supported each other as they sobbed.  Nevenka told me that the first words she spoke were, "David has been killed, but he is not dead!"  She said that according to the autopsy, a fragment of the bomb pierced the back of his head, and he died instantly, some small consolation.  Apparently he never even knew what happened.

Norman, she said, never spoke of this, and internalized it all, whereas she spoke of David and what happened constantly, and she is certain that it was this which led to the cancer which took Norman's life four years later.  I asked her whether the assassin had died that day as well, but she said that no, he was in prison in Israel.  When I said I hoped it was forever, she shrugged and said she didn't know nor care, and that she'd never for a moment felt any hatred towards this monster, had never wasted any thought or emotion on him.  She told me she still keeps in touch with David's friends, most of whom are married with children now, and never does she wonder why they get those blessings while David did not, why their parents still have their children and grandchildren, but she doesn't.  She told me that all she feels, is enormously fortunate, that she had David and Norman for the years that she did.  I could only stare at her, dumbfounded with awe, and ask, "where do you get this enormous strength?" to which she replied, "I get it form them.  They are always with me."

She told me she'd established a scholarship in David's name at the university where he'd died, for music students, since music had been his greatest love, and that she'd also willed her lovely flat to the university, so that they could sell it to keep the scholarship funded.  She told me of the time right after, and how for a long time in the mornings, she and Norman would look at each other, and she'd ask him whether they should even bother getting up; he'd replied that yes, we must, what else can we do.  And so they'd gotten up and gone through the motions of life, though the last thing they'd felt was alive.

Nevenka was leaving for Berlin the day after our Paris meeting.  I asked her why Berlin, and she told me she'd never been, but David had loved it, and that she was following his footsteps and going to places he'd been, which was why she often went to Israel, where she was going again later in the year.  When I said that I was glad I'd been on time to see her before she left, she assured me she would have changed her flight to another day in order to see me, which touched me.

Once our meal was concluded, I only had a couple of hours left before my Eurostar waited to take me back to London.  I'd wanted to to to the more familiar streets such as St. Germain des Prés or Blvd. St. Michel, to wander around the streets and explore the boutiques and patisseries, find myself something special as a souvenir of my only day in Paris in so long.  I hadn't thought that Nevenka would want to spend the entire time with me, so when she did, of course I deferred to her when she suggested a walk to her neighborhood, a short distance from Closerie.  She said there was a street called Rue Mouffetard around the corner from her flat which had some boutiques I could look at.  I regretted that I wouldn't be visiting the more familiar Left Bank streets, but of course I didn't protest, and in the end I was incalculably grateful that I'd held my tongue.

Rue Mouffetard was the quintessential old-world Parisian street, straight out of La Boheme.  it was paved with cobblestones, had a bustling, charming square with a farmers' market, and lots of unique boutiques, all filled with lovely, charming wares.  There was a chocolatier where I bought the best chocolates I'd eaten in years, and a delightful neighborhood patisserie.  Almost best of all, Nevenka took me around the corner and showed me the apartment where Hemingway and Hadley had lived during the "A Moveable Feast" years.  I'd written the address down back in LA, but had misplaced it, so I'd resigned myself to not seeing it, and in fact hadn't even mentioned it to Nevenka, thinking there was no point.  So when she took me right to it, and I immediately recognized the street name, Rue Cardinal Lemon, it was in keeping with what seemed to me a near-miraculous series of events that day.  As I gazed on the blue door to the building and the plaque commemorating Hemingway and Hadley's residency there, I honestly couldn't believe my eyes.

Walking along the charming Rue Mouffetard, Nevenka kept pointing out potential souvenirs for me to purchase, but nothing was exactly what I was looking for, and I wondered if that ideal souvenir even existed at all.  But then, we came upon a jewelry store (of course!) called Vade Retro.  In the window was an extraordinary bib-style enameled necklace in a riot of greens and reds and blues, with crystals and a silver chain.  My eyes lit up, and I murmured that this was something very interesting.  We stepped inside for a closer look and to inquire the price, and as the saleswoman took it out of the window, she told us that it was by a famous artist from....Israel, named Ayala Bar.  Nevenka and I exchanged a glance, I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand up, and I knew it had to be mine.  The necklace also came in a smaller version, which was just as lovely, but a lot more dainty and delicate.  I debated between the two for a moment, but was particularly enamored of the larger, so I spent all the Euros I'd exchanged, plus some credit card availability as well.  Nevenka then said, "what would you think if I got the smaller one for your mom?"  I was amazed, again, and could not believe her kindness, thoughtfulness, and generosity.  I exclaimed that my mom would faint away with joy to get something so precious and beautiful!  Nevenka bought her the stunning necklace, then asked what she should get for my aunt.  We picked out a gorgeous brooch shaped like a rose, then, all our priceless purchases in hand, stopped at the patisserie on her block before going up to her flat.

Although I hadn't seen it since 1982, the memories rushed at me as I walked in the door, and a sob caught in my throat.  I saw the candles she always kept during, and the photos of Norman and David. One photo of David in particular caught my eye.  I always remember him as the beautiful, charming little 6-or-7-year-old he was when I saw him last, but in this photo, taken a year or two before his death, he was a movie-star-handsome young man with a look of fierce intelligence, a son to make any mother proud.

Nevenka made us lemonade, and I ate my patisserie while we enjoyed our last moments together, then it was time to say goodbye to her and to this enchanted Paris summer day.  Nevenka said she was coming to the US in September, and I pleaded with her to visit us in LA, since there are also family members of Norman's who live there.  She was headed to the East Coast, but said she'd consider it.  I didn't have words enough to thank her, to express how very happy I was to see her again after all these decades of regret and thinking I'd never see her again; how appreciative and grateful I was for absolution, granted without words.  We embraced warmly and, wearing my beautiful necklace, I got in a cab bound for the Gard du Nord, where the Eurostar waited to take me back to London in a fog of wonder over the events of the day.

After a couple more days in London, my next and last destination was my homeland of Croatia.  First, in my hometown of Zagreb, I stayed with my family's dear friend Mario Bebek, and his ravishing (inside and out) girlfriend of many years, Dajana Misetić (pronounced Diana).  Dajana works in a position of influence at Zagreb airport, so we always enjoy special privileges there, this time having her and Mario meet my flight and making me feel instantly at home in the city of my birth.  Of course, they both commented on my stunning necklace, and of course I took great joy in telling them the story  behind it, which made it even more special in my eyes, and theirs too.

After a wonderful few days with them and my cousin Mirjam in Zagreb, I spent eight days on the magical island of Hvar, where my father was born and where we are lucky enough to have an apartment on the main square.  I wore my magic necklace every day, and every day I was showered with compliments on its beauty and specialness.  People would stop me as I walked along the streets just to say how lovely it was.

I left Hvar on August 8th, as always heartbroken to be leaving.  As I was going through the metal detectors at Split airport before boarding my London-bound flight, I was asked to remove the necklace at the last moment, necessitating another bin, since I'd already put all my things in several other bins, which had already gone through.  The night before had been a difficult one for me, my last night on Hvar, and I had barely slept at all.  My brain was so addled, that it wasn't until we had taken off for London that my hand flew to my throat, as I realized with horror that I'd forgotten to retrieve my beloved necklace!

I was seated at a window seat, and the two people next to me had just gotten their snacks from the flight crew, so their tables were down, but I could have cared less.  I barged my way out and tore to the front of the plane, to the first attendant I spotted.  I insisted they must contact the airport immediately, as I had left an extremely valuable necklace in a bin.  She plastered a phony smile on her face as she complacently told me that would be impossible, and that I'd have to wait the entire two hours until we landed in London, at which time I was to go to the lost and found for all the airlines and fill out some forms.  I was beside myself, and implored and begged and cajoled, all of which did nothing to wipe the smirk off her smug face.  Since I hadn't slept all night the night before, I'd hoped to spend those two hours asleep on the plane, but now instead I spent them screaming internally; it was a hellish nightmare of two hours' duration which felt like many more.

The wheels had not yet touched British soil before my phone was on and I was frantically dialing Mario's number, begging him to call Dajana immediately to see if she knew anyone at all at Split airport who might save me.  He promised to call her immediately, told me not to worry (easy for him to say!), and that he'd let me know as soon as he knew anything.  I sent him a photo of the necklace, but I felt pretty hopeless.  The necklace was so uniquely beautiful, I was convinced that anyone who laid eyes on it would want to snatch it.  After two hours when there was no word from Mario, I began to try to resign myself that my gorgeous magic necklace from Rue Mouffetard was gone forever.  I looked up Ayala Bar's site on the internet and scoured every item on there, but there was nothing as gorgeous as my lost treasure.

In despair and resignation, I texted Mario to ask if Dajana had been able to contact anyone in Split and at least set something in motion to try to locate it, but I added that I realized the odds were against me, and that I blamed my stupidity on my sleep deprivation.  My eyes nearly popped out of my head, and my heart out of my chest, when his reply came: "Don't worry.  It will be in Dajana's hands by tonight."  Even now as I write this, tears begin to flow.  Apparently my savior Dajana, who thankfully knew the story of the necklace and its incalculable value to me, had telephoned the director of Split airport, had told him how important this was, and he had apparently put the fear of God into everyone there, resulting in this miraculous and miraculously rapid discovery.  I told Mario and Dajana that they had quite literally saved my entire vacation, because had that necklace disappeared, the bitterness of the loss would have tainted all the happy memories I had.  But now, thanks to them, the story of my magic necklace will forever be even better and more special.  It told Mario he had better marry Dajana posthaste, or else I would, because I was certainly not risking her escaping from the family!

Later that night, as I walked near Sloane Square, my phone glowed with a text from Mario: my necklace in Dajana's hand.

The Paris Necklace, Part One

Been a long time, been a long time, been a long, lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely time....to quote the immortal Led Zeppelin.  It's been so long since I wrote here that I no longer even resemble the lady in the photo, though I'm too lazy to change it just now.  Suffice it to say the hair color is different and the wrinkles a tad more finely etched.  My dear friend Dajana reminded me of this long-neglected blog today, which prompted me to revisit, since I have a story to tell.

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away (Berkeley, 1982),  Hemingway's "A Moveable Feast" was given to me by a boy I'd met in my English Lit class and with whom I'd gone on a couple of dates as forgettable as he was.  However, he was to prove to be the opposite of forgettable in the long run, since that book impacted me greatly, by introducing me to 2 of my lifelong loves, Hemingway and Paris.  Hemingway being the ultimate misogynist carnivorous hunter bullfight-lover, I'm amazed that I am as fascinated by him as much as I am, not just his writing but his entire larger-than-life persona. Paris, however, is a much easier and simpler love affair which has endured since 1982, though not without its bumps.

After devouring "Feast," I was inspired to change my upcoming summer school program in London to include a week in Paris before school was supposed to start.  I booked my flight accordingly, since I longed to see the Left Bank, where Hemingway and Hadley (the first wife who shared his life during those starving 1920s days he writes about in "Feast") lived in a meager though charming upstairs flat, and, in particular, to visit La Closerie des Lilas, his favorite cafe, where he spent many hours in convivial bonhomie with the likes of F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ford Maddox Ford, John Dos Passos, and Ezra Pound, among many other literary legends.  Upon arrival, I fell head over heels in love with Paris, like many starry-eyed twenty-year-olds had done before me, and many since, and promptly extended my stay from one week to two.  Having visited London before, I decided orientation week at summer school was entirely unnecessary compared to the wonder that oozed out of every Parisian nook and cranny.

Having spent my first week at the very upscale home of friends on the Right Bank, I moved to the Left Bank for my second week.  My mother had asked her friend Nevenka Gritz if I might stay with her, her American professor husband Norman, and their 6-year-old son David.  They lived just around the corner from the apartment Hadley and Earnest had shared, and walking distance from the Closerie des Lilas, so of course I couldn't have been more entirely thrilled.  I'd never met the Gritz's before, and was enormously touched with how warmly they welcomed me into their charming home. I will never forget the atmosphere of love and caring that pervaded their apartment, the classical music always playing on the turntable, the intellectual discussions with writers and artists which were a daily feature of life chez Gritz, and the love I developed for David, their only son.  He was a precocious, solemn boy, whose great brown eyes would follow me around the apartment and melt me entirely.  He was so intelligent, so beautiful, and so endearing that I enjoyed spending time with him as much as I enjoyed wandering the Left Bank streets I'd traveled to Paris to discover.  Sharing la vie boheme with the Gritz's in the Paris of 1982 when I was 21, was an experience which seeped into my very DNA.

Although decades have passed since then, I have never forgotten the happiness of their home.  Now, all these decades later, I know what I didn't then: that that kind of happiness in a home is the rarest and most beautiful of things, and anyone fortunate enough to reap that gift, is truly blessed by all the gods.  The Gritz's were just simply happy, not living in any great style, but in an atmosphere of close and loving family life.  David was the glowing center of it all, a child so exceptionally bright and charming that he had all of us wrapped around his little finger.  To this day, I still have a photo of David, taken at my mother's home in Los Angeles a year or two later.  He's sitting on a bed looking at the camera with those enormous, wise eyes.  He's got his Asterix t-shirt on and some white shorts--it must have been summertime.  That photo, in its dated Laura Ashley frame, has followed me to every home in which I've ever lived, and always has had pride of place in my collection.  There have been very few children which have succeeded in winning my heart, but David was special, and left his mark there.

That summer of 1982, I returned to Paris while at my London summer school program, and Lisa Brackelmanns came with me.  She was also from L.A., we met at the program, and have remained great friends to this day.  We both stayed with the Gritz's, who never ceased to amaze me with their generosity in welcoming a total stranger into their charmed life and home.  I was lucky to be so welcomed, and to bring Lisa with me.  We had a marvelous time, except that I had misguidedly insisted on going for Bastille Day, which I though would be some marvelous party, but instead was a nadir of debauchery and bacchanalia which reminded me of what it must be like in Rio for Carnival, or New Orleans for Mardi Gras, the antithesis of anything I'd enjoy.  It was a miracle that we made it back to the Gritz's relatively unscathed, though not un-groped, and the next time I found myself in Paris on Bastille Day, I locked myself in my hotel room before 5 p.m. and didn't emerge until the next day.

I don't recall whether or not I kept in touch with the Gritz's independently of just through my mother after that charmed summer.  They did come to visit a year or 2 later, at which time I took my photo of David, but as far as I recall, that was the last time I saw them.

Enamored so of Paris, I prevailed on my mother and her husband to visit at the end of the summer, once my London studies were done.  Being reduced to my last farthings, I once again threw myself on the warm embrace of the Gritz's, who took me in as I waited for my mother and her husband to meet me there before we'd continue on to our native Croatia.  I recall the day that they arrived, I took my last centimes and visited a patisserie on the Gritz's block.  Once they arrived, we explored the city and they, too, never having seen it before, fell in love with glorious Paris.  Eventually they purchased a small apartment there, which I never had a chance to see.  Years later, when they divorced, my mother accused Nevenka Gritz of colluding with my stepfather to cheat her of her rightful part in the apartment.  Because it was decades ago, the particulars of the situation are lost to me, though I do remember being shocked and skeptical that Nevenka, one of the kindest women I'd known, would be capable of such perfidy.  On the other hand, my loyalty was to my mother, who was hurt and outraged, so, regrettably, I never spoke to Nevenka, Norman nor David again, even though I returned to Paris several times over the course of the subsequent decades, always remembering fondly that first, magical summer, when I was 21, heartbroken for the first time, and healed by the glory that was Paris and the warmth and sweetness of the Gritz home.

One day in 2002, I was living with my then-boyfriend, whom I always refer to obliquely as He Who (short for He Who Shall Not Be Named), and reading the Los Angeles Times.  An article on the front page caught my attention: a bomb had been planted at the Mount Scopus campus of Hebrew University in Jerusalem; 9 people dead, 100 injured.  As I scanned the names of the dead,  a name leaped out at me which felt like it was searing my retina: David Gritz.  My heart stopped and my throat was suddenly bone-dry.  "It cannot be him.  It's another David Gritz.  It can't be him.  IT CANNOT BE HIM!!!!"  But....the age was about what his would be (24), he had lived in Paris....his father was American....I still refused to believe it.  I dropped the paper and, sobbing, phoned my mother to ask her to reach out to mutual friends and find out whether it could possibly be him.  She did, and, of course, it was.  Devastated and overwhelmed with guilt that I'd made no effort to contact them through the years, I somehow forced myself to go to work, where, after continuously breaking down in tears, I was pitied and sent home.

My mother and I immediately wrote to Nevenka and Norman, sympathy letters filled with emotion, and of course, we never heard anything from them.  During the ensuing years, I frequently thought of them, especially when my eye would fall on that photo of little David, looking at me with those big, dark eyes.  I never forgave myself for not contacting them.  When I did go to Paris again, in 2007, I was too ashamed and afraid to contact them even then.

David

Once I learned about the internet and got a computer, a long time after everyone else on earth had, I would occasionally look up Norman and Nevenka to see what, if anything, I could discover about them.  I read of the beautiful memorial service for David in Jerusalem; that he had been a violinist, like me, that he had loved music and had been cultured and intellectual like his parents.  I read that in 2006, 4 years after David's terrible murder, Norman had succumbed to cancer, and I couldn't help but think that it had to have been David's death that allowed the cancer to claim his father.  It was just unbearable to think that, of that beautiful, happy family, in that charming, cozy Left Bank flat, living a life as close to perfect as most humans could aspire to, everyone but Nevenka was now gone.  When something so all-consumingly terrible happens, I wondered, how in the world does one go on? I didn't believe that I could; it would take so much more strength than what I have.

Last year (2015), I once again looked up Nevenka on the internet, and was amazed to find the names of Norman and Nevenka Gritz among the plaintiffs in a massive case brought by victims of terrorism against the Palestinian Liberation Organization (Sokolow vs. PLO).  Plainly this case had been brought years ago, while Norman had still been alive, but, surprisingly, I had never heard of it.  Even then, in 2015 when it had been adjudicated and a judgement rendered, I had still not heard of it, though I was grimly thrilled that the decision was against the murdering monsters of the PLO, to the tune of about $655 million.  Reading further about the case, I was happy to find that this decision was so damaging to the PLO, regardless of whether or not they ever paid a penny of that blood money, because it damaged any chance they might have had to be allowed into a respectable world body such as the U.N. or NATO.  Now that they had been judged in the eyes of the world to be the murderous thugs that they were, I fervently hoped that Nevenka would find at least some small modicum of comfort and closure.

Like so often before, I longed to reach out to Nevenka.  As always, I couldn't think of what I could possibly say to her, how or where to begin.  I also thought it would be indecorous to reach out when she had been granted a large sum of money.  So, as always, I did nothing.  But what I did do, shortly after, was to start reading books about Hemingway.  I read biographies of his wives, I read about the Spanish Civil War about which he had been so passionate, and, for the first time since 1982, I re-read "A Moveable Feast."

In 1999, at the beginning of my relationship with He Who, we had gone to Paris together.  We were passionately in love, in the most beautiful and romantic city in the world.  It was a heady time, pre-9/11 when the world changed, and our week there played out like a stereotypical romance novel, or one of my favorite ABBA songs, "Our Last Summer:" "We made our way along the river and we sat down in the grass, by the Eiffel Tower.  I was so happy we had met, it was the age of no regrets...I can still recall our last summer, I still see it all: walks along the Seine, laughing in the rain, our last summer, memories that we made."

I'd returned to Paris only once since that summer, in 2007, when my relationship with He Who was dying an agonizing death.  I'd been alone, and the contrast with the summer of 1999 had been excruciating.  Ever since then, I'd avoided any mention of Paris.  It had come to represent a romantic ideal I'd once been fortunate enough to live, but was now lost to me forever.  I'd even refused to watch Woody Allen's "Midnight in Paris," even though my friends all assured me I'd love it.

Now, however, many years had passed, and after re-reading "Feast" and all the other Hemingway-related books I'd devoured, and watching "Hemingway and Gellhorn" about his marriage to the brilliant and brave war correspondent and journalist Martha Gellhorn, I once again developed the same itch to see Paris that I'd had in 1982.  My strength had returned, and I believed that I'd be able to relish it with clear eyes; I was even able to watch "Midnight in Paris, " and enjoyed it.