Now if you are wondering what my mother's story has to do with M. Duras, the answer is - EVERYTHING.This excerpt from an early draft of my book (the one I am trying to escape from by writing this blog) may just explain it. It's just a day or two after I've arrived in Hanoi and have been walking the streets trying to find the 'house by the small lake' Duras mentions in The Lover.
Excerpt from My Mother Duras by Jan Cornall, P 16 in current draft, begins...
"On the way back, in front of a huge marble bank edifice I come across a tiny old lady selling guavas. There’s no one else around and all she has is a small straw mat, a basket of fruit and some very antiquated scales She is as old and skinny as Marj was (not more than 35 kilos at the end of her life), but gives me a grin as alive as the pink flesh of the guava she cuts open for me to taste. I buy a kilo. It’s my next favourite fruit after mangosteen which I haven’t spotted yet. I want to stay and chat but we don’t have much beyond hand gestures and grins between us. She must have been selling fruit all her life, longer possibly than the life of this grand monolith. It’s reassuring to witness her tiny strength in contrast to the lifeless stone façade behind her.
I sensed the same strength in my mother as she got older - that old lady determination to do what ever she wanted and bugger you all. She lived on alone in the family house for quite a few years after my father died. While her medication never gave her proper relief from her depression in her good periods she could rush to the kitchen window, sketch the hills as the sun cast a particular light across them, writing in the colours and moods in her characteristic scrawl. She would spend hours dragging the hose around the garden, watering the grapefruit and lemon trees, making sure the violet patch had a constant trickle, bringing in armfuls of camellias and arranging them in vases and bowls all around the house. When I came for a visit with my kids there would be notes and streamers pinned to walls and doors, welcoming us, declaring her love for us, telling us how talented we are. Marj was my original creative coach, she’d done this all my life, so I didn’t find it strange. In her eyes we were all geniuses and luckily we believed it too. In return we would write poems, make pictures and dedicate all our creative offerings to her.
But Marj could not sustain her ‘up’ mood for our whole stay and more often than not she would plead exhaustion and take to her bed; that same bed where it seems she spent half her life, tucked under the doona, facing the wall. Was it her escape, was she warm and secure in there or was it the dark dank hell she so often asked to be released from? I don’t know, I never asked, but I wonder could I write that story now? Could I put myself in her shoes and lie down in that bed for days on end just to see what turns up. Part of me wants to but the other part is terrified that like her, I would never get out. For as long as I can remember the opposites within me have always competed for attention - success/ failure, striving/giving up, hope/hopelessness, and in different parts of my life, at different times, the balance has tipped either way. Never as far as it did for Marj, but the fear is close enough to keep me on the creative run, to take trips like this one to prove if only to myself, that I can fashion something useful from my life in a way that ultimately Marj was not able to.
I walk back to the hotel and think about Duras again. When I look at photos of her taken in her later years with her dark rimmed glasses and intelligent gaze, I could almost swear it is a photo of my mother. Born only four years after Duras, Marj had the same petit body, same thick glasses, same thoughtful look. She never came across Duras, but she read De Beauvoir years before anyone else did, and we both shared a love of Collette. I think Duras may have been too close for comfort for my mother and yet I know as Marj wove the thread of melancholy into my skin, stitching it deep and tight, it was Marj who led me straight to her. ‘Duras is my mother, my mother is Duras’ I mutter as I climb the hotel steps. I pass the desk and bid the staff ‘bon nuit’ and head to my room for a guava feast."
Excerpt from My Mother Duras by Jan Cornall, P 16 in current draft, begins...
"On the way back, in front of a huge marble bank edifice I come across a tiny old lady selling guavas. There’s no one else around and all she has is a small straw mat, a basket of fruit and some very antiquated scales She is as old and skinny as Marj was (not more than 35 kilos at the end of her life), but gives me a grin as alive as the pink flesh of the guava she cuts open for me to taste. I buy a kilo. It’s my next favourite fruit after mangosteen which I haven’t spotted yet. I want to stay and chat but we don’t have much beyond hand gestures and grins between us. She must have been selling fruit all her life, longer possibly than the life of this grand monolith. It’s reassuring to witness her tiny strength in contrast to the lifeless stone façade behind her.
I sensed the same strength in my mother as she got older - that old lady determination to do what ever she wanted and bugger you all. She lived on alone in the family house for quite a few years after my father died. While her medication never gave her proper relief from her depression in her good periods she could rush to the kitchen window, sketch the hills as the sun cast a particular light across them, writing in the colours and moods in her characteristic scrawl. She would spend hours dragging the hose around the garden, watering the grapefruit and lemon trees, making sure the violet patch had a constant trickle, bringing in armfuls of camellias and arranging them in vases and bowls all around the house. When I came for a visit with my kids there would be notes and streamers pinned to walls and doors, welcoming us, declaring her love for us, telling us how talented we are. Marj was my original creative coach, she’d done this all my life, so I didn’t find it strange. In her eyes we were all geniuses and luckily we believed it too. In return we would write poems, make pictures and dedicate all our creative offerings to her.
But Marj could not sustain her ‘up’ mood for our whole stay and more often than not she would plead exhaustion and take to her bed; that same bed where it seems she spent half her life, tucked under the doona, facing the wall. Was it her escape, was she warm and secure in there or was it the dark dank hell she so often asked to be released from? I don’t know, I never asked, but I wonder could I write that story now? Could I put myself in her shoes and lie down in that bed for days on end just to see what turns up. Part of me wants to but the other part is terrified that like her, I would never get out. For as long as I can remember the opposites within me have always competed for attention - success/ failure, striving/giving up, hope/hopelessness, and in different parts of my life, at different times, the balance has tipped either way. Never as far as it did for Marj, but the fear is close enough to keep me on the creative run, to take trips like this one to prove if only to myself, that I can fashion something useful from my life in a way that ultimately Marj was not able to.
I walk back to the hotel and think about Duras again. When I look at photos of her taken in her later years with her dark rimmed glasses and intelligent gaze, I could almost swear it is a photo of my mother. Born only four years after Duras, Marj had the same petit body, same thick glasses, same thoughtful look. She never came across Duras, but she read De Beauvoir years before anyone else did, and we both shared a love of Collette. I think Duras may have been too close for comfort for my mother and yet I know as Marj wove the thread of melancholy into my skin, stitching it deep and tight, it was Marj who led me straight to her. ‘Duras is my mother, my mother is Duras’ I mutter as I climb the hotel steps. I pass the desk and bid the staff ‘bon nuit’ and head to my room for a guava feast."
Jan Cornall began
writing in the 70s. She has written plays, musicals, screenplays, a
novel, short stories, and three CDs of songs. Since 2004 she has led
writer's retreats in inspirational international locations including
Bali, Laos, Burma, Cambodia, Morocco and Fiji. In 2014 she is planning a
Vietnam trip following the footsteps of M.Duras in Vietnam. More info here.
(c) Jan Cornall 2013
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