‘My good friend Cole!’ Ditschmann cried as he hurried across the room and grasped my hand. ‘I’m her father,’ Cole said stiffly.
Ditschmann stopped, studied us, and said to me, ‘I’d have thought you were Cole. You look more European. Gretchen’s very continental, you know. Wonderful with languages.’ Without embarrassment he turned and shook Cole’s hand. ‘You have a most superior daughter.’
‘A delightful girl,’ Mrs. Ditschmann agreed.
‘Then she’s not in trouble?’ I asked.
‘Gretchen? Heavens, no. I wish all our young people …’
‘Could we see her?’ Cole asked abruptly.
Dr. Ditschmann turned to him in some surprise. ‘See her? Hasn’t she told your
‘She tells us nothing,’ Cole said quietly.
‘My dear man!’ Ditschmann said. ‘Sit down. Please.’
Mrs. Ditschmann pulled up a chair and took Mr. Cole by his two hands. ‘You mean … she hasn’t written to you about her plans?’
‘No,’ Cole said, withdrawing his hands. ‘She has not.’
The Ditschmanns looked at each other, and he cocked his head in an Alsatian mannerism as if to say, ‘She must have had a damned good reason.’ Aloud he said, ‘Then you aren’t aware that Gretchen is no longer with us? Hasn’t been for two weeks?’
‘Where is she?’
‘I don’t really know,’ Ditschmann said. Turning to his wife, he asked, ‘Did she leave any clue with you as to where she might be on’—he consulted his Swiss watch for the date—‘on May 5?’
‘No,’ Mrs. Ditschmann said without visible concern. ‘I think the group was going to look at the Loire Valley … then maybe the Cote D’Azur.’
‘No need to get excited,’ Ditschmann said reassuringly. Again turning to his wife, he asked, ‘Who was in the group?’
She reflected for a moment, then ticked them off: ‘Wasn’t there the boy from Denmark? How about the German girl? The American girl, yes. And some other boy. He wasn’t associated with the institute.’
‘You mean you don’t even know …’
‘Mr. Cole,’ Ditschmann explained patiently, ‘we have many young people here. From all parts of the world. They come, they go, some of the finest human beings on this earth. Your daughter is with three or four of them right now. Where, I don’t know. Somewhere in Europe. In due course she’ll let us know.’
‘I’m perplexed,’ Cole said. ‘Our daughter enrolls here … and you don’t even know where she is. Somewhere in Europe. With three or four other young people equally irresponsible.’
‘Mr. Cole,’ Mrs. Ditschmann corrected, ‘Gretchen is not irresponsible. She is, if anything, one of the stablest students we’ve had. She has absorbed all we have to offer and is intelligent enough to know it. Where is she now? She’s looking.’
‘For what?’ Cole asked.
‘Ideas,’ Dr. Ditschmann said. ‘She came here with a plan … to write something about the Hundred Years’ War. Upon inspecting it in situ, she found it wasn’t her thing, as they say. She had the guts to drop it. Just drop it. And now she’s looking for something else.’
‘What?’ Cole repeated.
‘I told you. An idea. She’s looking through France for an idea big enough to absorb her interest and her talent for the next dozen years. Such ideas are very difficult to find. We must all wish her luck.’
‘This is most distressing,’ Cole mumbled. ‘An educational institution which doesn’t even know where its children …’
Dr. Ditschmann smiled. ‘We don’t think of twenty-one-year-old girls with IQs of 170 as children. As a matter of fact, your daughter was probably never a child. At this moment I’d say she’s right where she ought to be.’
‘Where?’ Cole insisted.
‘In a yellow pop-top … knocking around Europe … with a bunch of bright-eyed young people.’
‘What is a yellow pop-top?’ Cole asked, trying to control his temper.
Dr. Ditschmann deferred to his wife, and she explained, ‘Volkswagen of Germany has produced this new idea in station wagons. Very popular with young people. Provides an ingenious arrangement of sleeping bunks plus a roof that can be swung up to give extra space and a view of the scenery.’
‘Sleeping bunks?’ Cole repeated as if a chasm separated him from the Ditschmanns.
‘When Gretchen decided to quit the institute,’ Dr. Ditschmann explained—‘With our full blessing,’ his wife interpolated—‘she had just received a rather large check from Boston. From you, no doubt. So she had this happy idea of buying a pop-top. My wife helped her pick it out.’
‘We encouraged her,’ Mrs. Ditschmann corrected. ‘You see, from the first day when pop-tops became available, Karl and I have wanted one. It would be great for taking students camping, so I guess you could say that in abetting Gretchen we were sublimating our own desires. Anyway, she had her heart set on a yellow pop-top. No other color would do. The dealer had this groovy red one …’
At her use of the word groovy Mr. Cole winced, and I was afraid that the interview would end in disaster, but Mrs. Ditschmann ignored him: ‘So our dealer here in Besançon telephoned Belfort, where they had a bright yellow one, and we drove up to inspect it, and when Gretchen saw it shining in the sun, she ran up and kissed it and said, “I’ve been with dark things too long.” She bought it on the spot, paid cash, and next day drove south.’ She hesitated, then added, ‘With our blessing, Mr. Cole. With our complete blessing.’
‘Where is she now?’ Mr. Cole asked quietly.
‘We haven’t a clue,’ Dr. Ditschmann said.
‘Knocking about Europe?’ Cole asked sardonically. ‘With boys you don’t even know?’
Dr. Ditschmann sighed, leaned back in his chair, and said, ‘Your generation has got to face facts, Mr. Cole. From what I saw of Gretchen, there was only one thing wrong with her. Something very harsh had happened to her. I don’t know what, but it probably had something to do with sex. Her overwhelming responsibility right now must be to bring that experience, whatever it was, back into balance. My wife and I were powerless to help. I suppose you were powerless too. Only people her own age can do her any good. As a matter of fact, only boys her own age. You better pray to God she meets them.’
I expected Cole to bristle at this. But to my surprise he relaxed and listened, almost with approval, as Mrs. Ditschmann said, ‘You have a marvelous daughter, Mr. Cole. Sensitive, totally lovely. Karl and I would be proud if we had such a girl. But if we did, we’re certain she wouldn’t behave as we would want her to … as I behaved at Smith a generation ago. It’s all changed … in most ways for the better. Look at him.’ Students were now moving through the room on their way to the dining hall, and she pointed to a roundish young man with a fantastic head of hair and a bedraggled mustache that looked like a kitten’s toy at the end of day. ‘He’ll probably be conductor of the Boston Symphony before you die. And that one. He would be shocked if I told him he was going to be a banker in Denver. And that girl with the awful trousers … she could be a senator … not a state senator … United States. Whether you and I like it or not, Mr. Cole, these young people who are searching … exploring … rejecting … they’re going to run this world.’
‘These amiable drifters?’ Cole asked with an unexpected warmth.
‘What alternative is there?’ Dr. Ditschmann asked. ‘Take that fellow over there,’ and he indicated a Negro boy with a ferocious African hairdo. ‘You’d better be prepared for the day when your daughter brings him home as her husband. He’s a brilliant boy … and very likable.’
Cole looked at the Negro, smiled, and asked quietly, ‘You’re speaking allegorically, of course?’
‘Not necessarily,’ Ditschmann parried.
Then Cole did a most surprising thing. He left us, went over to the Negro, and said, ‘Could you have dinner with us tonight? Excuse me, I’m Gretchen Cole’s father.’
‘Sure. What do you hear from Gret?’
‘I was hoping you’d te
ll me.’
‘She had this big thing about the Loire Valley. I wanted to go along, but I have to pass third-year French or lose my scholarship at Stanford.’
Cole put his arm around the boy’s shoulders and brought him back to us. ‘Dr. Ditschmann, can you and your wife dine with us tonight?’ When the educators nodded, Cole said, ‘There must be a country-style restaurant in the area. Let’s make a night of it.’
We found a cab and drove out to the edge of Besançon, where an Alsatian-type restaurant served red cabbage, seven varieties of knackwurst and a dark, sour bread. As we sat down to our pitchers of beer, Cole said, ‘In Boston I serve as chairman of St. Peter’s School. It’s rather proper. I’m fascinated, Dr. Ditschmann, by your approach to education. Students coming and going on their own, you not giving a damn, young men like this prospering under the system. You’d be a breath of fresh air at St. Peter’s … if you’d ever care to try.’
He then turned to the Negro and asked, ‘How did Gretchen get along in Besançon?’
‘A winner … all the way.’
‘Was she happy?’
‘No. Very uptight.’ The young man hesitated, then added, ‘I was about the eighth boy in line who tried to kiss her. She was very tense. We expected her to bust loose sooner than she did.’
‘You approved her going?’
‘We all did,’ the young man said. ‘It was time for her to move on.’
Later, after we had deposited the Ditschmanns and their Arkansas scholar at the institute. Cole and I were driving back to our hotel when he broke into a robust laugh. ‘I hope I’m alive on the day that boy with the fantastic hair takes over the Boston Symphony. Can you imagine our Friday audience?’ He then dropped his face into his hands and asked quietly, ‘And can you imagine flying to Europe to help your daughter and not even being able to determine where she is?’
By the time the yellow pop-top pulled into Avignon, Gretchen had only one passenger. The Danish boy had dropped off when they left the Loire Valley; Elsa and Fleurette had stayed as far as Bergerac and had then doubled back to the institute. That left only Anton, a tall, somber Czechoslovakian expatriate whose pressing problem was whether or not he should return to Prague to help combat the Russian occupiers. He was indebted to Gretchen for the understanding manner in which she helped him analyze his alternatives, and he agreed with her that what he ought to do was stay in western Europe for two more years, complete his education, then trust his luck in Prague.
‘But if the amnesty is withdrawn by then? Suppose I can’t get back?’
‘Second best would be to come to Canada,’ she said. ‘I think there’s a great future there.’
He asked if she would drive to the bridge at Avignon; as a child he had sung about it with his sisters, so they drove along the Rhône till they came to the humpbacked bridge which lived in the affection of so many children, and he hummed the old nursery song and tears came into his eyes and he told Gretchen that his sisters were fine girls, that missing them would be the most difficult burden of exile. He asked if he could kiss her goodbye, and she stood like a pillar of ice as he touched her cheek. He said he would never forget her generosity.
‘I hadn’t a penny,’ he said, ‘and you were so generous. If I come to Canada, I will repay you. That’s a solemn promise.’ He clicked his heels on the bridge at Avignon, bowed and started hitchhiking back to Besançon.
Now she was alone, an attractive girl of twenty-one with a yellow pop-top of her own, on her way across southern France to the great cities of Italy. She had bought a Muirhead for Italy and on its front map had designed her trip to Milan, Florence, Siena, Orvieto and Rome. She looked forward to the cathedrals with their frescoed chapels and to the public squares with their Michelangelos and Verrocchios. She felt reasonably sure that somewhere within the Italian culture she would find a subject capable of absorbing her interest and replacing the Hundred Years’ War, which had proved abortive. She rather hoped that it might be something in the history of Siena, perhaps the emergence of the city-state, so in her bleak hotel room at Avignon she spread out the map of Siena and tried to imagine what it had been like in the middle 1300s.
That night she took the Muirhead with her to dinner, and all during her meal she kept her attention on Siena, ignoring the admiring attention of various Frenchmen who openly speculated on why she was dining alone. One stopped at the table to ask if he might buy her some champagne, and when she smiled at him and said no, she involuntarily thought: How attractive he is! When she left the dining room and passed the airlines office in the corner of the lobby, she happened to see a brightly colored poster advertising Torremolinos in Spain, and said, half-aloud, ‘Who was it who mentioned that place? Maybe I don’t need cathedrals and chapels right now.’ The office was closed, but in the morning it was staffed by a pert young girl with whom Gretchen talked in French.
‘Torremolinos!’ the girl cried. ‘Ah, if you have the time … the money … my God, don’t miss it.’
‘I was heading for Italy,’ Gretchen said hesitantly.
‘Italy can wait,’ the girl cried with infectious enthusiasm. On the spur of the moment she shut down her office and made Gretchen join her at the café for a glass of wine, even though most of the hotel guests were still having their breakfast. ‘Torremolinos is an obligation,’ the girl told her as they sat in the bright spring air that filled the sidewalk. ‘Once a year my company flies us somewhere … so we’ll be able to talk intelligently. They made a big mistake when they took me to Torremolinos. It’s the only place I recommend, and since it’s a short trip, we don’t make much money on it. The boss asked me, “Can’t you bring yourself to like Crete?” and I told him, “I’ll like Crete when I’m as old as you are and need the relaxation.” ’
‘I’m afraid I’m wasting your time on me,’ Gretchen said. ‘I’m not flying. I have my own car.’
‘Who gives a damn?’ the girl asked. ‘You say the word, I’ll drive down with you. To hell with this job if I can get back to Torremolinos.’
‘Is it that much fun?’ Gretchen asked.
‘In Torremolinos there are few disappointments,’ the girl said, ‘because there’s music and the beach and young people who have lost the calendar. For God’s sake, don’t go to Italy. Not if you have a car of your own and a figure like yours.’
Gretchen insisted upon paying for the drinks, but the girl would not allow her, saying, ‘This is my charity for the day.’ But Gretchen left the hotel firmly determined to plow ahead to Italy, and when the porter had finished stowing her luggage in the pop-top, she stopped by the travel office to thank the girl again. ‘I’m afraid it’s got to be Italy.’
The French girl shrugged her shoulders and said, ‘When we’re both sixty and have married millionaries and meet at some restaurant in Paris, you’ll confess, “What a horse’s ass I was that morning in Avignon!” ’ and they both laughed.
Gretchen drove out of town, but when she came to the fork in the road where the highway to Aix and Nice swings left toward Italy and the road to Nimes and Perpignan turns right toward Spain, she found herself inexpicably bringing her car hard right, crying aloud as she did, ‘Italy can wait. They’re singing in Torremolinos and they need me!’
At four o’clock in the afternoon of May 3, 1969, the habitués lounging at the tables of the café that faced the central kiosk in Torremolinos stopped staring at the passing tourists long enough to watch as a dusty yellow pop-top with a French license pulled into the center of town, driven by an attractive young woman traveling alone. Everyone asked. ‘Wonder what a kid like that’s doing by herself?’ and most of the men followed with the reflection, ‘Some lucky guy is gonna latch onto a good thing with that one.’ They watched as the girl parked the station wagon, descended, idly looked about the town, gave no sign of having seen the bar or wanting to enter it if she did, bought an armful of French and German newspapers, climbed back into the pop-top, and drove away.
‘She’ll be back,’ one American colleg
e student observed to another, ‘and she’ll be worth knowing.’ Then, seeing that her car was halted at a traffic light, he ran to it and asked congenially, ‘Anything I can do to help?’
‘Yes. Where’s the camping?’
‘There is none. You look along the beach. Find your own place.’
‘Is the beach in that direction?’
‘Yep.’
‘Thanks.’
When he got back to the bar he told everyone, ‘American. Expensive clothes. No other luggage in the pop-top. She must be traveling alone. She’s going to park along the beach. Her newspapers were French and German, so she must be a college kid … maybe from somewhere in Europe.’ The listeners took note of the fact that she had no boyfriend and would be parking along the beach. Everyone intended looking into the matter.
Gretchen followed the road to the beach, and when she saw that broad sweep of sand reaching all the way to Málaga, she understood why the tourist-agency girl in Avignon had been so enthusiastic. She drove slowly eastward until she came to the big German hotel, the Brandenburger, and the inviting shore that fronted it. ‘This is where I dig in,’ she said to herself. She searched the beach until she found a small, flat area into which she could back her pop-top so that through the big rear window she could look out upon the Mediterranean and through the windshield at the German hotel and the mountains behind. It was a clever choice, and by the time she had the car and its contents arranged, the sun had begun to set, and as darkness crept swiftly across the sea and the mountains, she experienced a sensation of pervasive well-being.
In the days that followed, the German residents of the hotel proved an amiable lot. At first they seemed merely curious as to why a girl like her was camping alone. When they found she spoke German they took a personal interest in her, invited her to the hotel bierstube, talked with her hour after hour about German and American politics. They were particularly interested in what had happened at the Chicago convention, and Gretchen caught the idea that with their background of Hitler, they saw portents which Americans missed. They urged her to take meals with them and persuaded the manager to let her use the hotel toilet.