| Here in Arizona my attention is mostly on
the world outside, so generous with sights and sounds of birds,
so active with lizards. But always my eyes are first drawn
to mountains visible from every window, before they focus
on a Gambel's quail or Harris's ground squirrel
near at hand, or a pair of phainopeplas at mistletoe on a
nearby condalia bush.
Occasionally, I look the other way and see the canal painting,
hanging on the wall beside a wide open door to the living
room and a picture window beyond, where the Santa Catalina
Mountains rear up behind prickly pears, Palo Verde bushes
and scattered saguaros. In the expanse of sky in summer turkey
vultures wheel and soar and purple martins swoop across like
small black planes at air shows.
The painting is a watercolor, of one of those cold spring
Amsterdam days with scattered ominous clouds, yet bright enough
to make highlights on the windy ripples of the water, and
make the red and brown brick buildings with their stepped
gables colorfully romantic. I don't remember Amsterdam
well enough to recognize the canal but it is unmistakably
Dutch, and provides a window to another world, another way
of living, and a history that couldn't be more of a
contrast to that of Arizona. Here in the Sonoran Desert with
my European pictures I am made to feel more conscious than
ever of space, big skies, high mountains, abundant wildlife,
and a vegetation unlike anywhere else in the world. Here,
where I have made my home and live with memories, I sit with
the pictures that are those openings into a dozen special
places around the world, places rich with the remembrance
of things past.
Louis and Jopie Schoonhoven visited me from Wageningen, a
Dutch town with an agricultural university, which I often
visited in my collaboration with entomologists there. Louis
was a tall thin quiet professor who shared my interest in
insect herbivores, and taught me some of his electrophysiological
techniques; Jopie was his blonde sweet-smiling wife, whose
father was a watercolor artist. They brought a present of
the painting that now faces a wall made of sliding glass doors
in my Arizona room, a 400 square foot space with red concrete
floors and exposed wooden beams. Outside the glass grows a
great mesquite tree and beyond it, an expanse of desert vegetation
extends as far as I can see. I watch gila woodpeckers pick
at the bark in the mesquite, make holes for nesting in a giant
saguaro cactus, and maneuver themselves into odd positions
to get sugar water out of the hummingbird feeders. Here in
summer I watch the storm clouds gather in the south over the
Santa Rita Mountains, and see the last rays of the setting
sun redden the Tucson Mountains in the west.
It is on winter nights that I am most likely to look with
seeing eyes at my pictures, and to let my memory run riot
over the past, gather in the nostalgia, and feel thankful
for all that my life has been. Then the canal painting puts
me back to 1964 when I first set foot in The Netherlands.
I had disembarked from my ship in Gibraltar after three weeks
at sea and a thrilling separation from Australia, and from
there I traveled through Spain, France, Switzerland and Belgium,
finally reaching Amsterdam and a youth hostel on a canal,
just such a canal as I see in my painting. And it was just
such a day; cold with gray clouds and an icy wind rippling
the water, which would momentarily light up with a few rays
of weak sunshine as I wandered alone along narrow streets
running beside canals. Where I visited the Anne Frank house
and experienced for the first time at close quarters, something
of the Nazi menace. I remember realizing that one has to visit
the scenes of historic events to feel the full impact of their
history. And at the Rijksmuseum with all its paintings, richly
representing Rembrandt, Vermeer, Hals and so many others,
I was impressed just as I had been so mysteriously at the
Prado and the Louvre, that none of the reproductions I had
seen in books could give me the emotional involvement that
the originals could give. I was learning that travel was not
just fun, it was enriching in unexpected ways.
Wandering streets by some of the one hundred kilometers of
canals in Amsterdam, or over one of the four hundred stone
bridges, I sampled roll mops, or French fries in paper cones,
and looked up at the buildings that I would later see copied
in certain parts of London and much later, in Las Vegas. I
saw a city with few churches nor palaces, but many grand old
houses. They were tall and very narrow, with varied gables—plain, step, or neck shapes. The windows were large
and numerous, and near the top of each building was a pulley.
I found out later that such pulleys were necessary to get
furniture in to the upper floors. Many houses leaned drunkenly
forward or to one side, each with slightly different colored
brickwork. Some had a stone inserts with carvings of animals
or instruments, that I read now were part of the identification
of the buildings' addresses before street numbers were
introduced. All these features I see in my canal painting
today.
I had no money for a canal cruise when I first visited Amsterdam,
but I was happy to walk and for the time to stop and stare,
to lean on railings and watch the rippling of water, to wander
on cobble stones and look in windows, for some of the houses
had their lower levels converted to small bookshops, antique
shops or cafes. And as I walked I mused on what I could remember
of Dutch history. It wasn't much though I knew something about
art. There was the period of Spanish Netherlands in the fifteen
hundreds, remembered because my sister in the Netherlands
wrote about the Christmas celebration of Saint Nicholas together
with Swart Piet who was Moorish. There were the Anglo-Dutch
wars for control of the seas in the sixteen hundreds from
which I assumed the derogatory terms derived—double
Dutch for nonsense, and Dutch treat when you pay for yourself.
And my thoughts turned to my sister who had married a Dutchman
and lived in Den Helder with two little girls. It was to be
my next destination.
I took a train from Amsterdam to Den Helder. I was ready
for a rest, for the welcome of family, for my first encounter
with my little Dutch nieces. Even the bitter cold of those
arctic winds and use of sleds to go grocery shopping would
be fun for a while. As the February blizzards blew, I played
on the ice with the children, pulled them on sleds, made snowmen,
then came inside to become red faced by the gas fire, and
eat the Dutch and Indonesian food my sister cooked. I hardly
saw the town except to note that it was clean and dull and
modern, and inhabited mainly by families of the Royal Netherlands
Navy where a rigorous class system reigned, based on the ranks
of the naval husbands.
By March I was ready for the next step—to get to
England where I planned to live and work for a couple of years
before returning home to Brisbane, Queensland. I purchased
an old Solex moped. There in the small town, fishing port,
and home of the Royal Netherlands Navy, winter was icy white
with a bitter wind blowing through scattered barren trees
and heaping up remnants of dry snow into corners. Sleds were
frozen to front paths, but it seemed that everyone rode bikes
or mopeds anyway.
Departure day. After a solid Dutch breakfast I put on my
baggy trousers filled out with a pair of long johns, several
sweaters, and a duffel coat. Wool hat, and leather boots I
had bought in Gibraltar completed my outfit. I fixed my pack
to the bike, touched my freezing lips to my sister Jennifer's,
and rode south on the flat Dutch bike path. I was glad the
north wind was behind me, with nearly two hundred kilometers
ahead to Hook of Holland and the ferry.
The Solex bike was a French invention from early in the twentieth
century—a bicycle with an emergency 49cc engine. After World
War II the first "VeloSolex cyclomoteurs" were
sold, and mine was one of these. It resembled an ordinary
heavy Dutch bicycle except there was a motor the size of a
lawn mower engine suspended from the front handlebars, which
could be lowered onto the front wheel.
I was devoted to my Solex from the moment I bought it for
the equivalent of six dollars just a few days earlier. The
brake was squeaky rusty but worked and the tires still had
some tread. The paint was gone and the one-gallon fuel tank
battered, but it was reckoned to get me to England on just
four liters of gas, and even last a couple of years.
I sped joyfully along the coastal flats, past dunes, dikes,
windmills, frosty fields that would later display tulips,
enormous glasshouses, little villages with tall Dutch women
on bicycles, a child behind and another up front. Those going
north bent over and struggled against the wintry blast; those
like me, going south, sat upright to get more push from the
wind. Oh, so carefree but numbed with cold.
Flying along below bare branches of elms and willows with
the sky bright white, I saw beauty, but looked forward to
summer as never before. I had my motor going full pelt and
I pedaled on and off for warmth. Long after the chocolate
was gone, I stopped on the North Sea side of medieval Harlem.
A vendor's steaming cart stood in front of a picture-book
brick building with stepped gables, leaded windows and blue
patterned tiles set in the walls. I was glad of coffee and
hot fried potato covered with mayonnaise.
Spinning along the bike paths I thought back over the last
few months. It had been such a whirlpool. Leaving my beloved
Queensland to sail for Europe; the boring Indian Ocean; the
exciting ports of Colombo, Aden, Port Said, Naples and Gibraltar;
traveling through Europe to end up with my sister and her
family in their little Dutch home. I had torn myself away
from dear Mama to have the adventure I craved, to see the
world, to try my independence. And here I was, actually doing
something I never expected to do.
The shed at Hook of Holland was welcome shelter, and I had
time to discover how to get a ticket for myself and my Solex
for the crossing, celebrated with a glass of Dutch gin, or
Geneva. I was soon on board where the heat of the lounge warmed
me into a contented dozy state and I was asleep in my chair
before we left port. I dreamed of flat brown land with intermittent,
light white under a weak winter sun. I dreamed of a town house
in Den Helder where the wild wind left heaps of sand along
the inside windowsill but the stove burned bright and a small
family chattered away in Dutch.
Dawn was breaking as we arrived in Harwich. It seemed to
stay dawn for a long time until I realized that this was as
bright as the day would be—a lowering sky and a cold drizzle.
The customs line was long and slow and I was anxious to make
a start and get to London, to the flat in West Hampstead my
friend Lucy had already found. My turn came:
"Where did ya get that contraption?"
"Cor, you got a beauty there, love."
"What on earth's she run on?"
"Cost a pretty penny eh? Ha ha, anyways, 'ow
much?"
I had to either pay import duty, or fill in the form promising
to take it out of the country again within a year. I signed
my name to the removal clause, but I still had to get number
plates and because there was no place to put them, I tied
them to my pack.
I unpacked my plastic rainwear, my map of southern England
and my A-Z Atlas of London—that wonderful work of Phyllis
Pearsall, FRGS. Mrs. Pearsall was the daughter of an Irish-Italian
and a Hungarian immigrant in London. Her principal interests
were painting and writing, at both of which she was quite
talented. She had been abandoned at fourteen but made her
way by teaching English in France, later sharing the same
boarding house as Nabakov in Paris. She wandered round Europe
with her painter husband until her divorce when she returned
to England, still in her twenties. Lost in London once in
1935, she decided to map and catalogue all the London streets.
She did this from her bedsitting room, walking from 5 a.m.
to 11 p.m. each day and clocking up over 3,000 miles. Phyllis
also chose the weight of the paper, the size of type, the
copy for the cover, compiled and proofread the index, and
decided on a name—the London A-Z. The book
proved an instant success. The A-Z Atlas of London is still
to be found in almost every home and car in London.
I refreshed myself at the "Wash and Brush-up,"
and braced for the long gloomy ride. In spite of cold rain
and a weary body I was tremendously excited to be in England
at last. After years of saving, dreaming, wondering, and reading
English literature, I had arrived at last. There were the
weeks at sea from Sydney to Gibraltar, bored with the blank
blue horizon, thrilled with all the new things to see at every
port—overwhelmingly colorful markets in Colombo, Queen of
Sheba's bath near Aden, the Suez Canal. There were weeks
hitchhiking through Spain, France and Switzerland, there was
the Amsterdam interval and time with the Dutch family. Amazing
though it all had been, it was behind me now, and I was in
some strange sense, home. I was in a culture that I knew,
among scenery I had visualized as I read English novels and
poetry, in a country I had so badly wanted to see and experience.
The arctic blast and dreary winter colors of Holland were
replaced by rain that was not quite so cold, and country that
was as green as anyone had ever described it. I rattled along,
on the left of the road now, singing at the top of my voice
with the water running down my face and gradually seeping
under the collar of my coat. My trousers became sodden and
water ran into my Spanish boots. My wet gloves slipped on
the metal handlebars, and the number plates clacked on the
back of my pack. Nothing mattered except that I was on my
way to, within reach of, my final destination.
At Witham I could take no more and stopped at a small cafe
for a cup of tea and beans-on-toast for only 9d. The windows
were misted over and the air smoky from the cigarettes of
truck drivers. I studied the map—continue down the A6 through
Chelmsford to Epping, North Circular, Finchley Road, somewhere
there switch to the A-Z. When I dragged myself outside, young
men surrounded the Solex.
"Whataya know."
"Never seen one a them before."
"Where you come from young lady?"
"Sounds like darn under ta me—wot's it like
being upside darn?"
"Not the wevver for it eh?"
It must have been three o'clock when I began to hit
the outskirts of London and I stopped at a grimy little teashop.
The map was relegated to the back and the A-Z opened and fitted
inside a plastic bag. I knew I had to hit the North Circular
and turn right. My heart was beating fast under all my other
exhausted muscles and damp clothes.
Some miles took me to Finchley Road and I turned onto the
sidewalk to get my bearings. Yes, left, then cross North End
Road, past Hendon Way and take the eighth street on the right—West End Lane. Miraculously, I found it without a hitch.
I stopped to check, yes, carry on down, over the railway line,
and then first right and I would be in SHERIFF Road. It was
nearly dark when I found the house, leant the moped against
the railings, wearily took my pack upstairs and knocked on
the door.
"Hello," Lucy said, "You made it."
After landing a job in Harrods department store, I traveled
to work on my moped. Down Kilburn High Road and Maida Vale
I raced, on into Edgeware Road to Marble Arch, and down Park
Lane to Hyde Park Corner. What a novelty to be working in
such a store, serving a clientele that continued to amaze
me with their pompous demands.
Weekends were for sightseeing. With Lucy on the back of
the moped we rattled down to the National Gallery, the British
Museum, the Victoria and Albert. It was a tricky business
with the two of us. A policeman stopped us on our first trip.
"Sorry miss, but you can't take a pillion rider
on a bicycle."
"But this is actually a motor bike—see the number
plates?"
"I never seen a motor bike like this miss."
"But that's what they called it in Harwich."
"OK, you win I guess."
On another day in Charing Cross Road another policeman stopped
us.
"Sorry ladies, no pillion rider on a motor bike without
footrests."
Remembering the rule about no pillion riders on bicycles
I knew it was a risk but nevertheless tried it: "But sir,
this is a bicycle—see how I have to use pedals?"
He grinned. He wasn't going to make a fuss if there
was a way out.
"Well, then, take care eh?"
After my first pay packet, we began the great cultural adventure—music
and theater in London—Royal Shakespeare Company at the
Aldwych, National Theatre at the Old Vic, and dozens more.
The moped was a boon. As a bicycle, we didn't need a meter,
just an odd corner where it could be chained to a post, and
being motorized it made distances easy. We saw the famous
"Othello" with Lawrence Olivier, when practically the whole
audience wept. We were lucky to catch the International Theatre
Festival at the Aldwych that spring—foreign plays with
simultaneous translation. Our weekly pay of about £7
each was enough—rent was £2. 10s each, theaters
and concerts about 1s 9d, opera and ballet 2s 6d, which still
left a couple of pounds.
The first problem was the lever. Rusted through and finally
broken I couldn't hold the motor away from the wheel.
A home-made pulley allowed me to use the thing, and it was
quite exciting to race round Hyde Park corner, not knowing
exactly when I might need to stop, or how I could do it. One
day coming home from work, I noticed something dripping near
my front wheel—the fuel tank had sprung a leak. I walked
the moped home and stopped up the tiny hole with a mass of
hard soap. Finally the brakes gave out and a tire burst on
one of my trips in the country, and none of the parts were
matched by anything in non-metric England. It would cost a
fortune to import new tires. A farmer kindly let me leave
the old Solex in his shed. Maybe I could fix it later. Maybe.
Forty years later I remember the farmer saying, "Not
for too long eh?"
My return visits to The Netherlands came later, when I went
as an entomologist to visit other entomologists. Several times
I flew from London to Amsterdam and again looked over the
historic city, which seemed to change little. I revisited
the Rijksmuseum, the Van Gogh museum, rented a bicycle, or
took a canal tour. I was taken to the Concertgebouw. Or I
simply took the train to Wageningen and at the train station
there rented a bicycle to ride around the town and University.
From time to time I saw someone with a Solex and I smiled
in recognition as I relived my first visit to the land of
canals, my long ride from Den Helder to London.
As I look at Arizona from my windows and take in the activities
of all the animals, in my mind's eye I see Amsterdam
canals much as I did in 1964, or perhaps it is that the painting
of the canal has become my memory now, that what I think I
remember is an amalgam of all the visits made and paintings
seen and books read. Memory is such. As Patricia Hampl writes
about obscured images and the language of symbol in Memory
and Imagination, "Memory impulsively reaches out
and embraces imagination. It isn't a lie but an act
of necessity, as the innate urge to locate truth always is."
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