AN UNSUNG HEROINE: Rose Valland

 

Why does one of the most decorated WWII women lack celebrity status in France? Rose Valland (1898-1980) is still little known to her fellow citizens in spite of having been recently portrayed by Cate Blanchett in George Clooney’s film The Monuments Men (2014). Clooney produced this action movie to publicize the activities of a group of Allied men and women, known as the Monuments Men[1], who were enlisted to protect cultural landmarks and artifacts from destruction during combat in 1944 and 1945.

During the four year-long Nazi occupation of Paris, Valland recorded surreptitiously the occupiers’ extensive looting of private art works. After France was liberated, she was given a military rank and dispatched for 8 years to Allied-occupied Germany as part of a team of French Monuments Men. After spying on the Nazis in France, in Germany it seems she was peeping on the Soviets who were busy doing their own looting. Her goal remained always the same: tracking and recovering artworks looted from France. She returned to France in 1953 where she wrote a memoir recording her activities during the Nazi occupation. For some reason which is not clear, she decided against writing about her activities in Germany, a decision which makes this period puzzling, exciting one’s curiosity.

 

                  

One question is why Rose Valland was sidelined from the French Pantheon? This blogger sees many reasons for the oversight. First and foremost, she was a woman in a country where Illustriousness is seen as a male attribute. The French Panthéon of all-time greats is a male-only club[2]. To achieve celebrity status in France, women must be either queens or courtesans like Marie Antoinette and Madame de Pompadour. Few have heard of Olympe de Gouge who was an 18^th century playwright and political activist. She was guillotined during the revolution and famously said that if women have the right to be executed they should also have the right to speak. Indeed, French women had to wait until 1944 to get the right to vote. This was not a reward for wartime sacrifice and courage such as exemplified by Rose Valland. Rather, General de Gaulle bet on the more conservative female vote to keep the communists from winning the elections! His bet paid off.

 

                   

             Hermann Goering shopping at Jeu de Paume Museum

Rose’s second serious handicap was her modest and rural background. She was not born into a Parisian family and therefore lacked the right connections to get ahead. During the 20^th century, Paris was the center of the artistic and intellectual life, all creative energy was concentrated there. Even with an art degree, a provincial girl like Rose Valland could not succeed in the Parisian art world. During the Nazi occupation, she worked as a paid volunteer in the Jeu de Paume museum where the Nazis hoarded and processed their loot. In spite of her accomplishments, Valland did not become a full fledged museum curator until late in her life at 57 (1955).

Her other hurdle was her height and most especially her strong personality. She was very tall for a woman, 1.75 meter (5’8) when the average height of the French paterfamilias was 1.65 meters (5’5). In this period, men disliked women towering over them. During the war, a tall French women was certainly resented by her countrymen who felt both emasculated by their military defeat and belittled by the taller German occupiers. She was also a very determined professional, a no-nonsense operator, and headstrong in her search for looted art and its return to legitimate owners. She was an independent woman at a time when women depended on men for their welfare and place in society. When she was posted in Germany, her almost obsessional quest and operational independence were disliked by her male colleagues who expected women to be docile and dutiful. Not only did she receive little support from them but she made many powerful enemies who tried unsuccessfully to have her sacked.

Rose’s last handicap was the early recognition of her achievements by the Americans. After the liberation of Paris, she was very much sought after by the American Monuments Men. They valued her work both in Paris and in Germany. For the French often envious and leery of the American swagger, the American interest in Rose was suspicious and brought disapproval from her superiors. Rose developed a lasting friendship with Monuments Officer Lt James Rorimer, a museum curator who became the director of New York City Metropolitan Museum of Art.  After the war, the Americans awarded Rose the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

In 1964, the famous Hollywood director John Frankenheimer shot the black-and-white war film The Train based on Rose’s non-fiction 1962 book Le Front de l’art. He and his lead actor Burt Lancaster befriended Rose. The movie was a box office hit and a critic’s favorite. The story takes place in August 1944 outside Paris. Loaded with looted art, a train heading for Germany is stopped thanks to a mixture of bureaucratic hurdles and attacks by Free French forces. Incidentally, these forces were under the command of the son of a famous Jewish art dealer. Paris was liberated soon afterwards. Sadly, about the same time, a train carrying the last Jewish deportees left for Germany and was not stopped by the Resistance forces.

                      

             Commemorative plaque Jeu de Paume Museum (2005)

During the 90s, some best seller books particularly those written by Hector Feliciano and Lynn H. Nicholas ensured that Rose Valland’s deeds did not fall into total oblivion. Recently, Robert M. Edsel gave Rose recognition in his 2009 book The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History. This book was an instant best seller and was translated into 25 languages, French included.

Robert M. Edsel has also written an appreciative foreword to the book Resistance at the Museum, the 2013 English translation of a book written by Mrs. Corinne Bouchoux in 2006. He writes: “Rose Valland is one of the greatest and yet unknown heroines of World War II. After risking her life spying on the Nazis,…Rose lived to fulfill her destiny: locating and returning tens of thousands of works of art stolen by the Nazis during their occupation of France. Yet her remarkable story, like much of her personal life, has remained unknown to the broad public…until now.”

Indeed, it seems that many of Rose Valland’s activities remain unknown, particularly those which took place during her 8 year-long stay in Allied-occupied Germany. Bouchoux’s book provides limited information on this period. She writes that Valland was tightlipped about her activities in Germany. Were they too sensitive to disclose? Rose was an effective spy because she was driven and enigmatic, individualistic and secretive. She was seen as a lone operator by her French colleagues. In passing, Bouchoux mentions Rose’s quarrels with famous French art dealers who consistently vilified her; many of them were shady characters.

Rose travelled surreptitiously to Soviet-occupied Germany in her search for looted French art, but what did she achieve there?  Stalin’s army was busy loading into trucks bound for the USSR everything of value they could grab, German or not. It is estimated that some 100,000 works of art were looted by the Germans from France; an estimated 60,000 were located and returned; possibly half of the missing 40,000 were destroyed during combat.  Where are the remaining 20,000? Rose would certainly have known where many of these works were to be found. She died with such secrets in 1980.  Apparently, many boxes of Rose’s documents are kept by her heirs. These manuscripts and notes could shed light on this mysterious period, revealing the whereabouts of the missing art and activities of the key players in the art world during and after WWII.  But after reading Bouchoux’ book, the reader is left with more questions than answers on this post-war period.

Today, stolen art is still being found and returned to its rightful owners, making news headlines. The recent uncovering of Cornelius Gurlitt’s[3] treasure trove and the international exposure it received suggests that the subject is not exhausted, very much to the contrary.

In light of the continued fascination with the whereabouts and restitution of Nazi and Soviet looted art, an investigative biography of Rose Valland is timely.

What did she really do during 8 years in Germany and why did she not publish anything? What prevented C. Bouchoux from reviewing the hidden manuscripts?

Who really was Rose Valland?

                                          

                                              Source:

Bouchoux, Corinne. Rose Valland, La Résistance au musée. Geste Editions, 2006.

Edsel, Robert M., The Monument Men: Allied heroes, Nazi Thieves and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History. 2009.

Feliciano, Hector. The Lost Museum: The Nazi Conspiring to Steal the World’s Greatest Works of Art. 1996.

Nicholas, Lynn H., The Rape of Europa, 1994.

Monument Men, 2014 film by George Clooney loosely based on the book of the same name by Robert M. Edsel. Columbia Pictures, Fox 2000 Pictures.

The Train, 1962 directed by John Frankenheimer. Distributed by United Artists.

---

[1] “The Monuments Men were a group of men and women from thirteen nations, most of whom volunteered for service in the newly created Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives section, or MFAA. Most had expertise as museum directors, curators, art scholars and educators, artists, architects, and archivists. Their job description was simple: to save as much of the culture of Europe as they could during combat”.

[2] Originally a church, the Panthéon is the place where exceptional Frenchmen are buried. The only woman is Marie Curie who shared the Nobel Prize with her husband. Located in the 5^th district of Paris.

[3] Cornelius’ father, Hildebrand Gurlitt was a German art dealer who dealt in so called “degenerated art” at the request of the Nazi government.

Emerging in an Emerging Economy: Brazil’s Gone Shopping

 

The Brazilian upper crust regards itself as more socially conscious than race conscious. This statement carries a measure of hypocrisy: less affluent people usually have darker skin notably in the urban environment which is shared by both group.

Unlike other Latin American countries, Brazil was a slave-based economy and a monarchy after independence. In the 19^th century the two emperors, father and son produced a sizeable landed gentry by dishing out nobility titles like candy. The descendants of the royal family still live in Brazil, but titles are no longer paraded. Politicians and their offspring regard themselves as the new aristocracy. What these dynasties lack in polish, they make up in assets, too often illicitly acquired. In the posh suburbs of Rio de Janeiro, Brasilia and Sâo Paulo, class distinction continues to be nurtured, a tropical version of Jane Austin’s novel Pride and Prejudice.

Although several soya and cattle farmers live like absolute kings in their remote region, land has largely lost its status symbol. The entitlements of the urban elite, are shopping trips to the United States (895.000 Brazilians visited New York City in 2013; still counting in Florida!), condos in Miami, British SUVs and a new trend of electric bikes. SUVs are driven like Humvees and double parking in busy streets is a birthright of their drivers. Electric bikes are becoming a nuisance too as they increasingly invade sidewalks competing with hapless pedestrians.

In 2014, the over-the-top and unrestrained consumerism of the AAA class (notably the political class, often at tax payer expense!) is being outpaced by that of the emerging new middle class. This class now makes up over half the population of Brazil which is estimated at 200 million. The emerging group, known in Brazil by the popular name of clase C (the privileged class is referred by letters A & B) is urban, albeit suburban. Its monthly income is estimated below US$ 1,200.00. The A&B classes make more than US$ 4,000.00 monthly; this being an indicative figure, this blogger saves you the details.

                                   

                                              Connected

First and foremost, the C class is regarded as a market to be tapped. In 2013, it spent R$ 1 trillion! (US$ 0.5 trillion) Thanks to easy credit, installment payments, Internet shopping and promotional sales, 80 million Brazilians have become enthusiastic borrowers; sadly but predictably this shopping stampede led many to bankruptcy. These eager shoppers still do not carry passports, otherwise they would also travel to Miami to buy the same goods at 50% of the Brazilian prices.

Because goods are purchased in installments, retail stores double as financial houses by lending money with interest. Consumer financing is probably the most profitable operation for these stores. The emerging urban middle class does not yet travel abroad, but it flies within Brazil to visit relatives still living in the rural regions.

The C Class has leap frogged from talking in street corner phone booths to emailing on smart phones, many purchased from dubious sources. They are increasingly connected to the Internet. For the younger generation, flaunting IT gadgets has reached a cult dimension with Facebook the new gospel, and air-conditioned shopping malls the new churches. Everything goes on Facebook, which maximizes the herd behavior with often out-of-control outcomes.

The Facebook-shopping mall mix has created a unique Brazilian feature known as rolezinho. It is the gathering of tens, hundreds and even thousands of teenagers in upper class shopping malls. Invitations are sent through social networks. The invasion of AAA class playgrounds by suburban kids has irked many. Muggings and minor depredations have been reported but are exceptions. Finally these “flash mobs” are more entertainment than social protests. Youngsters are born shoppers and traders, and since the coveted fashionable items have a very short shelf life they are quickly sold to poorer less fashion-conscious acquaintances. The C class has its own underclass.

 

                   

                                     Rolezinho Selfie

Class divide is also evidenced in the movies. Many multiplexes have been built in the suburbs to exhibit American blockbusters and cartoons as well as domestic comedies. Foreign films are always dubbed; on the other hand they have subtitles in the upper class neighborhoods. The commercial push into the emerging class exacerbates class stereotypes and widens the existing cultural divide. Ditto television. The British television soap opera Downton Abbey is a case in point.

Downtown Abbey is a British “upstairs downstairs” period drama which depicts the lives of the aristocratic Crawley family and its servants. The show is hugely popular with the privileged class. To further increase its audience, the distributers wanted to promote it to the emerging middle class. Therefore to make it more accessible, they planned to release a dubbed version instead of the original subtitled one. The AAA class was so outraged that it threatened to switch it off. On cable TV, Downton Abbey has remained with subtitles, the staple entertainment of the well-heeled.  At the opposite of the spectrum, Fox News’ programs are all dubbed.

Rio Wild

 

News coming from Rio has been a little disheartening lately, particularly since the soccer World Cup kicks off in two months. The city is seething with discontent and in some under-privileged areas, social unrest is close to the boiling point. In its renewed efforts to flush out drug gangs from the slums (favelas), the heavy-handed police raids have caused civil casualties. Anger is growing among many of the favela’s inhabitants.

Collateral damage has occurred in spite of the police new modus operandi. To limit shootouts with the gangs, before moving in, the army and the police give them advance warning. By allowing the gangs to move out, bloody head-on confrontations are avoided. However, the weapon and drug issues remain. Drug gangs take temporary shelter in another favela and wait for the army to leave and then re-occupy their former territories. Lately, many gangs have crept back into the so-called pacified favelas overlooking the suburbs of Copacabana and Ipanema in Rio.  The gangs must stay close to their market.

Brazil has the privilege of ranking first in the world for crack-cocaine use and is the second-largest consumer of cocaine after the United States. The task of the police is daunting.  Removing the drug lords from the favelas is like shooting at a moving target. It is a lost cause.

To protest the violent tactics of the police forces, slum dwellers caught in the crossfire (often prodded by gangs) have taken to car and bus torching and road blocks. Daily confrontations are reported in peripheral areas. This new form of protest is rapidly spreading; the airport road is one of the favored target for blockade. Brazil is under intense scrutiny from the international media, an opportunity that the self-appointed protest leaders don’t want to miss. The misguided police offensive gives them plenty of visibility.

Last week among these bombastic news, some cheerful pieces of information went nearly unnoticed. We learned that Tarcisâo and Bela (not her real name) had been rescued from a brutal death. The first was going to be fried in a pan and the second barbecued. Rest assured, Brazil is not going back to its anthropophagic heydays, although the two are city residents they are not people. Tarcisâo is a guaiamum crab and Bela, a young female capybara, and both have settled around the Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas in the upmarket southern part of Rio.

                            

The wildlife living around the lagoa (lagoon) is diverse and plentiful and generally goes undisturbed in spite of the surrounding human activity.

Tarcisâo had been caught by hungry homeless people who also happen to live in the area, however illegally. The 60 centimeter-long crab carries a chip and lives with his long-term partner Gloria. They are both monitored by a wildlife NGO. The faithful couple is at the center of an environmental research project which seeks to establish the life expectancy of the breed. Tarcisâo is probably 5 year old and if it can escape another frying pan, could reach the venerable age of 15. It was freed when its identity was disclosed and an alternative meal was offered to its famished captors. Guaiamum crab is not an endangered species in Brazil, because they are a delicacy, few reach Tarcisâo’s respected old age.

                         

                                           Tarcisao with friend

 

                               

                                           Less lucky guaiamums

Bela’s fate was even more dramatic. It had been grabbed by drug dealers and taken to a near-by slum for barbecue. The scientists travelled to the dangerous favela of Rocinha to plea for Bela’s life. After some convincing, Bela was returned to the lagoa. Apparently ransom was not paid. For once, drug gangs received a little bit of positive publicity. Capybara is the world largest rodent and is commonly seen grazing in the wet lands around Rio de Janeiro. They are social, gregarious and gentle. Because they have a semi-aquatic lifestyle, the Portuguese colonizers had the habit of eating them like fish during Lent when other meats were forbidden. May be the drug gang was keeping this tradition alive.

                               

                                             Capybara and lagoa

Meanwhile across the Guanabara Bay, in Rio’s sister city of Niteroi, dramatic events were taking place. A one-month old, three kilograms baby capybara was spotted wandering alone near the busy bridge which links Rio to Niteroi. It was subsequently rescued by the environmental police. Too young to survive by itself, the officers spent part of the night walking around the near-by beaches looking for the baby’s family. Unable to find the family, the baby was taken to an animal shelter where it can be properly looked after.

At the same time, the local police were confronted by drug gangs. During the gun battle, one bystander was shot dead. The slum dwellers reacted by torching more cars and blocking more roads.

Rio is a city of wild contrasts.

Enjoying Rio de Janeiro at Half-Price!

 

This title may sound surreal in a city where an ice cream cone costs about $ 6.00 (R$ 14 at the current exchange rate) and a caipirinha, the national drink, $10[1]. For residents and tourists alike, Rio prices are over the top. People complain because the cost of living has far exceeded the 6% annual inflation. They also make jokes about it and the real, the Brazilian currency, has been fittingly renamed the surreal with Salvatore Dali portrait printed on the mock notes.

                          

This being said, some Cariocas, as the Rio residents are known, can still enjoy a perk undreamed of in many other parts of the world. This perk is called meia, short for meia entrada, or half-priced admission. In Rio, nearly 70% of the population pays half-price for admission to theatres, concerts, shows, museums, sport events, stadiums, landmarks like Sugar Loaf and Corcovado, and so forth. The half-price benefit is a state-wide law (lei da meia) dating from 1930. Brazilians take this half-price benefit very seriously, too seriously for the entertainment industry which regularly lobbies the government to have the law curbed or repealed. To compensate for lost income, organizers double admission prices. As a result, the 30% “demographic middle” has to pay outrageous prices for popular concerts. Rock bands and pop stars do not get out of bed for less than a million dollars a show. The full price admission can easily reach $ 400, a record price even by BRICS’s standard[2].

Who are the lucky beneficiaries? First and foremost, students, rich and poor. For decades students have abused the system. It is estimated that there are twice as many student cards out there than genuine students! This number exasperates the entertainment distributors. Students are avid consumers of rock concerts which are shockingly expensive to organize.

The second group of beneficiaries is made of senior citizens and disable people who are habitually law abiding. A reason might be that Brazilian ID cards are not easily forged. For seniors, the meia is one perk among many others. After 65, senior citizens travel free in public transports like buses and subways. They can also visit state-run museums for free. Supermarkets, banks, movie theaters, and so forth provide special counters for seniors.

Unable to compete with the fast moving photocopying and printing technology, the government has decided to limit to 40% the number of admissions for students to any show. The new regulation has not yet been implemented but it will raise all sorts of disputes. Seniors will not be affected by this decision, true they are not great fans of rock festivals.

During the organization of the 2014 Football World Cup in Brazil, the meia policy has led to a tug of war between the government and FIFA, the international football association. FIFA did not win on this front: half-price tickets will be available but only in the cheapest seating category. In addition to those mentioned above, two extra groups will benefit from the half price policy: people receiving low-income grants (Bolsa familia) and obese fans. The later will get extra pampering and enjoy extra-wide seats. This is the Brazilian way to fight obesity.

                    

             Extra-wide seat at half-price: Two seats for 1/4 of the price!

According to 2011 statistics, half of the Brazilian population is overweight and 16% is obese. If this trend continues it seems that 100% of the audience to any entertainment, including games, movies, theaters or concerts will be entitled to meia entrada!

The population of Rio is aging fast, the city will soon become the geriatric capital of Brazil. Copacabana is already the suburb with the oldest population in the whole country. As a result, standing in a senior line is rarely a good idea. The “demographic middle” line goes much faster.

Thanks to these perks, Rio seniors spend little time at home watching telenovelas. They are enthusiastic movie-goers. Afternoon shows attract mostly seniors; forged student-card holders go to night performance to avoid detection. This blogger has not researched the cultural habit of obese people, but one may suspect that they watch plenty of telenovelas.

In a country of surreal prices, the meia entrada is a bit of an illusion but it nonetheless stimulates people to seek entertainment. Last week, four senior ladies went about town and had a drink in a café in the hip Dias Ferreira Street in Leblon. In Rio, the chic suburbs of Leblon and Ipanema are the epicenters of price surreality! One lady ordered a $ 10 caipirinha, the standard price in Leblon. The other three requested red wine by the glass. The waiter poured so little of the liquid in the glass (at $12 a shot) that they complained. With aplomb, he rebutted them by saying this was the way wine was served in the best cafes of the world. He had picked the wrong customers, one was German, the second from Belgium, the third French and the forth a well-traveled Brazilian. The absurdity of the situation escaped him too. Finally the ladies settled for the cheapest (drinkable) Argentine wine bottle at a thrifty $50.

                       

The gregarious Cariocas are becoming “un-gregarious”, changing their ways. Now at the end of a lunch or dinner in a restaurant, the bill is no longer equally divided, many patrons “go Dutch” paying one’s own expenses. The locals complain about surreal prices and rising inflation but they still have meia to cheer themselves. Very few Cariocas will trade Rio for any other city by the sea.

---

[1] Taxes hit hard too: 83% on cachaça (the local rum) and another 76% on the caipirinha. Beer can: 55.6%, soft drinks 46.47%.

[2] An economic grouping of emerging economies: Brazil, Russia, India, South Africa and China.

WELCOME TO GRAND HOTEL FOFOCA

 

        Somewhere in a Posh Suburb of a Mythical Brazilian Metropolis

 

Grand Hotel Fofoca is as exotic as Grand Hotel Budapest but will never be as famous. Nor does it compare with Hotel des Bains in Venice which inspired Thomas Mann’s novel Death in Venice.  F. Scott Fitzgerald uses the Seelbach Hotel in Louisville, Kentucky, as a model for the venue of Daisy and Tom Buchanan’s wedding in his The Great Gatsby novel. The Savoy of London still serves its famous fluffy Omelet Arnold Bennett named after the novelist who wrote Imperial Palace in the hotel. Hotels have always motivated story telling by great and not so great novelists. I evidently place myself in a third category, that of amateur writers.

My source of inspiration is Anita Brookner’s novel Hotel du Lac, the 1984 Booker prize winner. Her heroine is a mild-mannered English spinster who observes the visitors and boarders of a hotel on the shore of Lake Geneva. Another spinster, neither English nor mild-mannered, surveyed the coming and going of the guests and staff of Grand Hotel Fofoca (GHF).

 

                

                 Archive picture of Grand Hotel Fofoca, circa 1980

Fofoca is gossip in Portuguese, and GHF is a gossip mill, more the setting of a telenovela as soap opera is known in Latin America than of a novel. Brazil is seen as a happy and hassle-free country and Grand Hotel Fofoca is a microcosm of Brazil. GHF offers both anonymity and friendliness. For infrastructure and services the hotel is worth three stars, but in matter of gossip it deserves five. Its mix of long-term residents and passing guests makes the hotel fascinating.

People tend to wrongly believe that hotels are only inhabited by short-term guests. Very much to the contrary, it is their long-term residents who make hotels legendary. Who would remember the decrepit Chelsea hotel in New York City, except for its colorful long-term residents? Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin, and Leonard Cohen to name a few. The Claridge hotel in London is best remembered for the many European kings who took refuge there during WWII and for Hollywood legend Spencer Tracy who claimed that he would rather go to the Claridge than to heaven when he dies.

There are many hotels named Claridge in Brazil, but I doubt that any of them match Grand Hotel Fofoca’s vibrancy and melodrama. Like many Brazilian telenovelas, GHF is effectively a miniature of the social mix of Brazil, a Carioca version of the British television dramas Upstairs Downstairs and Downton Abbey, guests and residents upstairs and staff downstairs. In spite of its apparent easygoingness and casualness, Brazil is still a notably unequal society very much like that of the 1920s and 1930s in England.

About thirty percent of the GHF apartments are occupied by long-term residents who have known each other for years and enjoy exchanging news and gossip. GHF also takes pride on its low staff turnover; thus, old timers are found on both sides of the social divide. Like Downton Abbey, this situation creates bonds. In GHF, some residents are more equal than others, and comparison between GHF and Downton Abbey stops here. The patriarch of Downton Abbey is benevolent and hands-off, on the contrary GHF is run like an absolute monarchy by a nouveau riche autocrat more Putin than Sun King. GHF is his Sochi, both his personal preserve and playground. No one dares questioning his decisions. Not only are the “downstairs”, i.e. the staff terrified but the “upstairs” are passively accepting his diktats.

Brazil is experiencing a fast upward social mobility and the GHF boss perfectly illustrates this change. This foul-mouthed and ill-mannered fellow moved from a suburban environment to the most expensive and elitist corner of the city. Now he lives and runs an elegant hotel, and success went to his head. A perfect case of social climbing syndrome. Literature has not been kind to this sort, epitomized by Gatsby. If they move up, they can fall back down again.  On the other hand, Brazilian telenovelas are quite tolerant towards the crass and power hungry, they are called cafajeste. A Brazilian parvenu rarely loses his money, unless his name is Eike Batista who happened to lose US$ 33 billion in 2013. His piggy bank is full enough to protect him from the disgrace of moving back to the suburbs.

In GHF, the “upstairs” are mostly single, female and past a certain age. These ladies know how to flatter the despot’s ego and machismo, an additional attribute to his personality. He dotes on them with small favors but they are no fools and giggle behind his back.

As expected, businessmen make a sizeable portion of the “upstairs”. Many of them are in the oil business. They live alone, leave early, come home late and go back to their families for the week-end. “Putin” never misses a chance to ingratiate himself with these alpha males. They are the oligarchs of the GHF. Not all male residents work; one is notoriously idle, supported by a wealthy woman. Gigolos are expected to have good manners and social skills but he is the exception to the profession. Well past his prime and known for his big mouth and constant complaining, rumor has it that his lady protector has parted with him.  His days in the hotel may be numbered.  Yet he refuses to leave the apartment she provided him with. Brazilian legislation is on his side, so he may stay longer than common sense would allow.

And then there is Sujismundo, an inoffensive looking fellow with an offensive body odor. Sujismundo is the cartoon character of a government campaign to motivate Rio inhabitants to literally clean their act. The hotel’s Sujismundo is a long-term resident, originally from a southern European country who in spite of many years spent in Brazil has still not grasped that personal hygiene deficit is a capital sin. His foul body odor precedes him on the treadmill and lingers for hours after he steps off. As soon as he arrives people clear off, one wonders if it is not a ploy to work out solo. Surprisingly, the boss has failed to put an end to this smelly matter.

As expected, the hotel fills up with tourists during holidays like Carnival, mostly from Sâo Paulo and the south of Brazil. They want to have a good time and take advantage of Rio’s attractions. For these revelers the fun starts in the GHF, and the resulting cohabitation with the long-term residents is, to put it mildly uneasy. The swimming pool area and work-out room are battle grounds. The residents would prefer their hotel without any guests. Many old-timers leave during the holidays to avoid the confusion and rowdiness of the holiday partygoers.

Tourists come and go and are usually faceless except for two young ladies who recently spent a week in GHF. Their physical attributes and their inexplicable presence were the talk of the hotel. Every morning they would climb on the stair master and take hundreds of selfies. Coincidently, the workout room would become very crowded with people who never lifted weights in their whole life! The girls became known as Valesca Popozuda’s clones. Ms Popozuda (pictured below) is famous or infamous depending on one’s view, she epitomizes Brazilian celebrity trash. She makes a living as a showgirl, samba and funk music dancer cum singer. She is a silicone doll, having implanted one liter of the stuff in her breast and the same amount in her buttocks to impressive results. Like Ms Popozuda, the two guests displayed enormous boobs, huge buttocks and strong thighs, the result of strenuous workout. A glass could easily balance on their hard buttocks.

              

                                          Valesca at work

Brazil is probably the world’s largest consumer of silicone, and it comes second to the United States for plastic surgery. Silicone implants have become epidemic to the point that in the samba business it is mission impossible to find silicon-free dancers. Recently one of the leading samba schools advertised dancing position for girls with “beautiful and natural breasts”. Twenty were needed for the 2014 carnival parade. Only sixteen showed up and were selected!

GHF’s staff are not as well groomed as those of Downton Abbey but they compensate their training deficit by good mood, dependability and eagerness to please. “Downstairs” turnover is limited and in-house promotion has continued under Putin’s imperious micro-management. Most of the staff live in favelas, the slums of Rio, not too distant from the hotel. It is somehow ironical that the “downstairs” spend less time in traffic than the wealthy “upstairs”. Traffic in Brazil is chaotic and hellish in the large cities.  Being able to avoid a long commute is a privilege, many favelas dwellers enjoy this perk from their vantage point.

The majority of Rio’s favelas are no longer the war zones showed on television, rival drug gangs have been flushed out and no longer keep the residents in terror. Before the “pacification” of favelas, to use the local term, GHF’s staff would claim that gang activity was preventing them coming to work on time. Now this excuse is no longer believable. Hillside favelas with spectacular views of Rio are getting gentrified and it is now fashionable to visit their local bars and restaurants. In some favelas hostels have opened for business. Too bad GHF’s boss is not interested in their management.

       

                                     In the process of gentrification

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

FAREWELL MY CONCUBINE.

 

Following the recent soap opera at the Elysée Palace in Paris, I dug from the Internet an article titled First Ladies: A Vanishing Species, which I wrote in 2007. At that time, I was hinting that president’s partners were using their first lady function as a launching pad for more prestigious pursuits.  The article needs only marginal updating.

Act one: During two weeks in January 2014, the world was entertained by revelations of the sexual escapades of the French president, François Hollande, and the fate of the cuckooed first lady, Valerie Trieweiler, the president‘s concubine.

Act two: In the ancien regime during the French monarchy, unwanted wives were repudiated and the lucky ones dispatched to a convent. This philandering president just followed the royal tradition and discarded his de facto first lady. Exit the first lady function. According to a recent poll, 54 percent of the French people appreciate the resulting budget savings. The president will remain, so he claims, celibate in the Elysée Palace.

Act three: Ms. Trierweiler seems to have nicely negotiated her departure from the president’s life. After her 17 month stint as the Elysée first dominatrix, Ms. Trieweiler certainly pocketed a first lady severance package. If Hollande had been president of Brazil, he would not have escaped so lightly and would have paid even more. In Brazil, when you dump your significant other, the price is steep. Recently enacted legislation provides the dumped one 50 percent of the joint asset as long as she or he can prove a stable relationship for over six months. When Dilma, the president of Brazil, was spotted cruising in Brasilia on the back of motorbike, she claimed that she needed fresh air. She will seek a second term at the end of this year. She may not afford a boyfriend!

Act four: Valerie is reincarnating herself as Mother Theresa in India.  Is she proving me right? Is the fiery tempered Rottweiler in the dog house?

Well, many first ladies did not make the leap. Cecilia ex-Sarkozy lives in New York City with her former lover and new husband.

Cristina is a widow and in her second term as president of Argentina. Her government has grossly mismanaged the economy. Inflation is reported at 26 percent and the currency continues to slide downwards; its black market value is twice the official bank rate.

There is a new president in Kenya, and Lucy Kibaki is no longer first lady.

Laura Bush is a housewife in Texas.

As far as Hillary Clinton is concerned, will she run in 2016? She keeps silent but charges $ 200,000 per speech.

FIRST LADIES: A VANISHING SPECIES

It is about time, too!  What do Cecilia Sarkozy of France and Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner of Argentina have in common? Both stylish women wear Prada!  Both are also former first ladies who discarded their first lady title for other pursuits. Cristina will certainly be elected president of the republic of Argentina to succeed her husband.  After a decade spent in grooming Nicolas for the top job, enigmatic Cecilia divorced him to go into private life.  The first lady is an American invention. Legend has it that the first “first lady” was James Madison’s wife Dolley. Actually, when living in the White House, she was unaware of the privilege; the prestigious title was posthumously bestowed on her in 1849 when resting in her coffin.  Nowadays, the wife of a male head of state, whether dictator or democratically elected qualifies as a first lady.  In all the countries which are nominal republics, first ladies are sitting on top of the prestige heap.  American first ladies are still a breed apart. Only in America has the position retained its ceremonial and full regalia as well as its somewhat obsolete sense of purpose.   With a few exceptions, 19 and 20th centuries American first ladies have been outstanding women in their own rights.  Many wives were unenthusiastic first ladies, resenting public exposure as well as their loss of freedom. They nonetheless established strong role models for American women.  First lady Jackie Kennedy even attained iconic status worldwide.  The president and his wife commonly worked as a team, with a caveat: the first lady is an unpaid position.  Lady Bird Johnson expressed her view on this matter: “The first lady is, and always has been, an unpaid public servant elected by one person her husband”.    Subsequently, the freshly elected Bill Clinton famously announced that the American people got two for the price of one! A dutiful first lady is someone exclusively dedicated to promote the fame and grandeur of her husband the president.  To meet their goals, first ladies commonly conscript the other dwellers of the presidential palace such as first daughter, first cat, or first dog.    It is worth pointing out that many US presidents owe their position to the relentless campaigning of their wives.  These women achieved first lady status by propping hubby to the top job! The first lady is de facto an elected official!  One usually acknowledges that there is always a strong woman behind a powerful man; this saying rings particularly true for American presidential couples. Florence Harding made this point very plain: “I know what’s best for the president. I put him in the White house. He does well when he listens to me and poorly when he doesn’t.”  She was more outspoken than most.  The current campaigning for the US presidential primaries shows that there are many potential svengalis among the candidates wives, most of whom had high-powered jobs before giving them up to boost up their husband’s presidential bid.  In the rest of the world, first ladies carry less visibility and prestige; they go quietly about their business.  Some have careers; others are home buddies; others stay in the shadow of their husbands.  A trade unionist by marriage, Marisa Leticia the first lady of Brazil is just happy to log miles on AeroLula the presidential jet.  She does not get her script from “Desperate Housewives”!  If loose cannons are the exception they have nonetheless made headlines.  Danielle Mitterrand of France was a noteworthy example.  She pushed her independence to the limit by publicly endorsing political causes contrary to her husband’s policies. Lucy Kibaki, the official wife of the current president of Kenya is the poster girl for dysfunctional first families.  She commonly berates diplomats, slaps the face of journalists, and consistently bullies her husband.  If Jackie Kennedy attained iconic status, Eva Peron of Argentina reached divine standing! Part Cinderella, part Cruella, her political legacy remains controversial at best.  She became the spiritual leader of the Peronist movement, the Mother Teresa of politics.  Her bid for vice president was nonetheless thwarted.  Several factors came into play, including the dithering of her envious husband, and the misogynous mindset of the military brass.  Her early death at 33 left her followers with an unfathomable grief.  Her funeral was a state affair, and her coffin was kissed by half a million people.  She became a saint and a legend.   Some 50 years later, the funeral of the “People’s Princess” produced a comparable emotional outpouring.   During her short life, Princess Diana another popular cultural icon, indulged in a celebrity cult.  Gossip has it that she fantasized about becoming an American first lady and to go about redecorating the White House.  She planned to achieve this status by marrying an American billionaire who would subsequently buy his way into the White House!  It is the Jackie Kennedy Onassis saga in reverse!  Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner strongly rejects the Evita parallel.  She does admit to a certain resemblance with the career path of Hillary Rodham Clinton.  Anointed by her husband, Cristina will succeed where Evita failed.  Hillary Clinton’s presidential quest is far thornier and success is still very uncertain.  Is the first lady sinecure losing its appeal?  Not really, the function is evolving.  Laura Bush claims “The role of first lady is whatever the first lady wants it to be.” Therefore ambitious first women increasingly regard the job as a launching pad for more hands-on and executive duties.  In this Eleanor Roosevelt showed the way.  President Truman called her the first lady of the world.  After the death of her husband she increased her civil rights advocacy and became a U.S. delegate at the recently created United Nations. She is known to have given some 350 press conferences!    Many first ladies are more popular that their husband.  Laura Bush who has been enjoying an approval rating twice as high as that of George should join the Republican candidate’s fray. This is a nightmarish proposal, America deserves better than George as first gentleman! To watch George adoringly gaze at Laura will be unbearable.   B. L., October 26, 2007.   .

New Year’s Eve Toast: Take Two in Riga

 

On New Year’s Eve in Riga, the capital of Latvia, my friends and I went to a renowned restaurant in the old town. The seven-course Réveillon dinner attracted revelers from many nationalities, with the largest group from neighboring Russia. The band was playing oldies and the waiters were busy refilling our champagne glasses, when at 11 pm all the Russian patrons boisterously stood up. After kissing and hugging one after another came over to us for a toast. Sensing my surprise, a young blond woman pointed to the time on her Rolex gold watch: 12 am. It was midnight in Moscow! We kissed (the Russians no longer kiss strangers on the mouth like the Soviets did) and hugged. Then everyone sat down and resumed dinner and conversation. At midnight Riga time, we all got up again for a second toast, just as jolly as the previous one.

At dinner, we were treated to French champagne, but the previous night at the opera we tasted the Latvian variety, Ŝampanietis Rīgas, or champagne Riga. If the wine is imported from France, Spain or Italy, the bubbles are Latvian. The result is a light sparkling wine of decent taste. I am sure that the prickly French will soon object to the fact that the Latvian call the stuff champagne!

Over the Christmas and New Year holidays, Riga was brimming with tourists, mainly from Russia. This Baltic nation, and Riga in particular has always attracted Russian interest. At the beginning of the 18th century, Peter the Great snatched Riga from the kingdom of Sweden. He even contemplated moving his capital to Riga. His second wife, the future Empress Catherine I, was possibly Latvian. During the Russian occupation thanks to its port and industrial activities, Riga was the third largest city of the Empire and was never a backwater place. Very much to the contrary, the Russians regarded Riga as their cultural playground, both by aristocrats during the Czars period or retired armed forces personnel during the Soviet regime. According to an American friend of mine who was studying in Moscow in the 1960s and travelled to Riga, the city “was a whiff of Europe in the grey lands of the USSR”.

                    

Russian immigration was encouraged during the Soviet occupation which in turn dispatched train loads of Latvian citizens to Siberian gulags. Now about 30% of Latvia’s two million inhabitants are ethnic Russians. The Baltic States were independent between WW I and WW II and they became independent again in 1991. Since the mid-2000, Latvia has once again become one of the most popular destinations for Russian tourists principally during the Christmas New Year period.

Riga has been designated 2014 European Capital of Culture (jointly with Umeå in Sweden). A tourist windfall is expected during the celebrations. January 17 has been earmarked as the official kick off. Tourists will discover the city’s well preserved historic center and its rich collection of Art Nouveau buildings which illustrates its pre-Soviet bourgeois past.

                   

Classical music is also high on the city’s agenda. Performances of Rienzi, Wagner’s first opera will start the musical festivities. In 1837, when Wagner was working in Riga, he began composing Rienzi but had no time to finish it. In three years he had accumulated huge debts and as no one wanted to bail him out, he decided to flee Latvia to avoid prison. During his entire life, Wagner lived beyond his means and was always on the move running away from either his creditors or his mistresses’ irate husbands or both.

On January first we lived an historic moment: Latvia switched to the euro to become the 18^th member of the much maligned currency club. At the stroke of midnight we could use euros and were given the first shiny coins featuring the Latvian maiden and the Latvian’s coat of arms. At first, the local population was not keen on the euro fearing price increases. The switch apparently went well and now the Latvians are warming up to the euro. A new prime minister has been elected, a lady who will have to make sure that Eastern European “financial tourists” don’t flush too much dirty money into Riga’s banks, otherwise Latvia risks becoming the Cyprus of the Baltic.

                   

Riga is branding itself as the stag party capital of northern Europe, possibly as a way to separate themselves from Eastern European tourism. Hordes of British men lured by cheap booze and friendly party girls visit the city, courtesy of low cost airlines. This is not lost on the zealous Russian mafia, which is welcoming them with its dedicated staff of blond beauties. Many stag party goers get caught in the girls’ nets and return home with an empty bank account.

The three Baltic States, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, are always lumped together by the ignorant rest of the world. They couldn’t be more distinct, culturally, linguistically and religiously. The Baltic Sea and the three-century long Russian and Soviet occupation are their only shared links. According to cognoscenti, Latvia is the most Baltic of the three countries, Estonia and Finland were separated at birth and Lithuania is Poland’s baby sister.

In 2010, I visited Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania which is smaller than Riga, less touristy, slightly provincial but with a more picturesque historic center. Riga’s so-call medieval old town is a bit of a letdown; however the Art Nouveau district compensates for the disappointment. I have read many positive comments about Tallinn, the capital of tiny Estonia; coincidentally stag parties are not yet the rage in this city. A 2015 New Year toast in Tallinn looks like a worthwhile option to consider.