the centre of the sofa, Mimi alongside her. Next to Mimi was her broken and squashed cardboard box of photographs held together with a selection of coloured rubber bands, and the leather envelope lying in her lap.
‘May I show you my chapel now, Ma’am?’ she asked.
‘Yes, now would be a perfect time, Mimi. And maybe you could give us a little talk with each picture.’
‘Oh, yes. I could do that,’ she answered with some enthusiasm.
Then very carefully she removed one rubber band at a time, and the lid. ‘I’ll hold those for you, Mimi,’ offered Jack and took them from her.
The next fifteen minutes had been both a revelation and a disappointment for the tea-party guests. The revelations were the claims that Mimi made on the commercial photographs that could be found in any tourist shop in Prague. Beautiful, coloured reproductions of one of the finest Rococo chapels in Czechoslovakia, complete withfrescos and ceiling-scenes of unimaginable beauty. The altars and niches displayed images of Christ on the cross, sunbursts of gold hung on the painted and gilt panelling, same encrusted with jewels. Cherubs flung themselves from the opulent deep carvings everywhere, or flew down from the celestial ceiling.
‘I will pass them to you first, ma’am, and then please will you pass them on around the circle? This is my favourite,’ she said, smiling, ‘but I like this one in our country house almost as much.’
There had been fewer than a dozen such photographs: a Baroque palace in Prague, another (or so Mimi claimed) family chapel in Hacha, worthy of a pilgrimage for the paintings of Christ on the cross in richly carved gilt frames alone. A palatial house on the edge of a lake, an aerial shot of an ancient wood with a herd of deer on the run. A large, rustic hunting lodge on the side of a mountain, a magnificent formal garden with a stone gazebo in the middle of it. Any identification once printed at the bottom of these photographs had been carefully cut away.
When, with a certain composure and childish pride, Mimi had shown the Prague chapel to her sovereign benefactor, she had said, ‘I know how much you like the little chapel here. Maybe some day you can come to our chapel. It’s very beautiful, don’t you think? You could pray there with my father and me, and perhaps you could come at Christmas. Then it’s all draped in gold and white flowers. All sorts of white flowers.’
Mimi’s openness, her enthusiasm about the chapel, a future, had been spontaneous, as any child’s would have been who wanted to say, ‘Look, I have something and I want to share it with you and to say thank you for your friendship, generosity, and hospitality. Maybe, even, I love you.’
The adults in the room were touched by her display, but not unaware that, after she had shown several of thephotographs, she seemed to lose her enthusiasm, to become less informative about them. She had been pleased to be sharing her box of treasures, but they could actually feel her receding from them, pulling back into herself before she was half-way through them.
The adults hardly knew what to say, because they were having to question Mimi’s claims. Were they true? Was this part of the life she had before she found her way to America? Or were they just post-cards and commercial photographs of her country that she had fantasized about in her need to create some kind of a life, a home, a background that could lift her out of the trauma and poverty of her life? And so what they did say was admiring but cautious, to their own ears banalities. But, to a nine year old desperate to have something to share with them, banalities were good enough.
If the Beechtrees adults had that problem, the children certainly did not. Privileged children, born and brought up in houses such as those Mimi chose to claim as hers, were innocents, with no reason not to believe what she told them. It had been their gullibility, the happiness they felt because Mimi was not
‘May I show you my chapel now, Ma’am?’ she asked.
‘Yes, now would be a perfect time, Mimi. And maybe you could give us a little talk with each picture.’
‘Oh, yes. I could do that,’ she answered with some enthusiasm.
Then very carefully she removed one rubber band at a time, and the lid. ‘I’ll hold those for you, Mimi,’ offered Jack and took them from her.
The next fifteen minutes had been both a revelation and a disappointment for the tea-party guests. The revelations were the claims that Mimi made on the commercial photographs that could be found in any tourist shop in Prague. Beautiful, coloured reproductions of one of the finest Rococo chapels in Czechoslovakia, complete withfrescos and ceiling-scenes of unimaginable beauty. The altars and niches displayed images of Christ on the cross, sunbursts of gold hung on the painted and gilt panelling, same encrusted with jewels. Cherubs flung themselves from the opulent deep carvings everywhere, or flew down from the celestial ceiling.
‘I will pass them to you first, ma’am, and then please will you pass them on around the circle? This is my favourite,’ she said, smiling, ‘but I like this one in our country house almost as much.’
There had been fewer than a dozen such photographs: a Baroque palace in Prague, another (or so Mimi claimed) family chapel in Hacha, worthy of a pilgrimage for the paintings of Christ on the cross in richly carved gilt frames alone. A palatial house on the edge of a lake, an aerial shot of an ancient wood with a herd of deer on the run. A large, rustic hunting lodge on the side of a mountain, a magnificent formal garden with a stone gazebo in the middle of it. Any identification once printed at the bottom of these photographs had been carefully cut away.
When, with a certain composure and childish pride, Mimi had shown the Prague chapel to her sovereign benefactor, she had said, ‘I know how much you like the little chapel here. Maybe some day you can come to our chapel. It’s very beautiful, don’t you think? You could pray there with my father and me, and perhaps you could come at Christmas. Then it’s all draped in gold and white flowers. All sorts of white flowers.’
Mimi’s openness, her enthusiasm about the chapel, a future, had been spontaneous, as any child’s would have been who wanted to say, ‘Look, I have something and I want to share it with you and to say thank you for your friendship, generosity, and hospitality. Maybe, even, I love you.’
The adults in the room were touched by her display, but not unaware that, after she had shown several of thephotographs, she seemed to lose her enthusiasm, to become less informative about them. She had been pleased to be sharing her box of treasures, but they could actually feel her receding from them, pulling back into herself before she was half-way through them.
The adults hardly knew what to say, because they were having to question Mimi’s claims. Were they true? Was this part of the life she had before she found her way to America? Or were they just post-cards and commercial photographs of her country that she had fantasized about in her need to create some kind of a life, a home, a background that could lift her out of the trauma and poverty of her life? And so what they did say was admiring but cautious, to their own ears banalities. But, to a nine year old desperate to have something to share with them, banalities were good enough.
If the Beechtrees adults had that problem, the children certainly did not. Privileged children, born and brought up in houses such as those Mimi chose to claim as hers, were innocents, with no reason not to believe what she told them. It had been their gullibility, the happiness they felt because Mimi was not
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