Epistolophilia: Writing the Life of Ona Simaite

20. Toulouse

135 chapter 20 Toulouse sean tells me that Roman cities like Toulouse are often red. The Romans produced bricks on site, then built with them. “Think of Bath,” he says. “Those red brick ruins in the lush hills of southwest England.” But beyond Toulouse the land is green and gold. The sunflowers have finished their blooms, and stand in the fields with heads hung. It’s been a long two months getting here. Sean has been working in archives with papyri while I’ve occupied myself with the baby and try to stay cheerful despite the cold and rainy summer of monumental floods. We got out of Oxford a day before water submerged the county, and Berlin wasn’t much better. But Toulouse welcomes us with its sun and golden landscapes, and now it’s my turn to work. We like Toulouse immediately. From the bridges you can look down on neighborhoods and see how the city has been pieced together like a jigsaw puzzle. All the red-tiled roofs are interconnected . It’s a wonderful chaotic jumble. Sean remarks how peaceful it is along the Garonne, the river that winds through the city. Perhaps it is the city’s traditional poverty that has kept it so. Underdeveloped, the river bank is for the people of the city, rather than for tourists or merchants. Spanning its waters is the Pont Neuf, the river’s oldest bridge constructed in a series of arches. Beside the bridge stand the École des beaux arts and a seafood restaurant, on whose terrace a young man wearing a chain-mail glove shucks oysters. 136 Toulouse Eventually we make it to Number 1 rue Théodore Ozenne. It is the only address I have associated with Šimaitė in this city. She didn’t live in the building, but received her mail at this address, care of the ujj, L’Union de la jeunesse juive (The Union of Jewish Youth), founded in 1943 by Jewish communists. Now there is a fine foods shop occupying the main floor. Number 1 rue Ozenne is narrow, with two lacy iron balconies and a half-story that houses servants’ quarters; it is the only kind of accommodation that people like Šimaitė could afford. The building itself is the last sliver in a long wall of edifices before the wall begins to curve around a shallow corner. The highest apartments around the vast intersection boast rooftop terraces and the trees that line the streets look to be about twenty years old. The neighborhood seems wealthy, though this was certainly not always the case. Toulouse’s churches, on the other hand, are wonderfully shabby. The cathedral is a vast and asymmetrical structure erected on the site of a Roman-era Christian church. Part of it is built in white stone, and the rest of it—most of it—is built in the red Toulouse brick. Inside we find more signs of the city’s poverty. The frescoes and paintings that cover the cathedral’s walls are now peeling. In some areas time has worn through paint and plaster, right back to the bricks. It’s beautiful. The wear and tear of this cathedral show how much it has been loved over the centuries, like a favorite book. As I make my way from chapel to chapel, I almost bump into a woman replacing flowers and who has the serene face of one who works in churches. People still pray here. This time I light a candle for my late father and one for Šimaitė as well. I imagine Šimaitė visited Toulouse’s churches. Their black Madonnas and plaques and notes of thanks for miracles and answered prayers must have reminded her of Vilnius, its churches, and the shrine at the Gates of Dawn. She loved architecture, history, biblical stories, and figures. And despite her professed atheism, I 137 Toulouse think she had a kind of affection for the Catholicism of both her native and adopted countries. She preferred simplicity, so I think that she too would have liked these peeling interiors, with altars made of nothing more than naked slabs of wood. In October of 1945 Šimaitė sits at a desk illuminated by candlelight writing letters destined for America, South Africa, and Israel to the friends and family of the Vilna dead. The letters tell the stories of how her friends lived in the ghetto: the cramped conditions, the disappearances, secret...