[Excerpt from prior chapter “The Dinner Party”, p. 15] To reach the Villa Air-Bel, (…) one (…) passed through an entranceway framed by imposing red brick pillars topped with white stone capitals. (…)

[p. 243] Until they arrived in Marseille, Danny and Theo could not have imagined how glutted with refugees the city was. The first week they moved from hotel to hotel, never managing more than two days in the same one before they were told other clients had previously reserved the room.  Expecting to continue moving through pensions like musical chairs, they took Peterkin to stay with Danny’s mother, Eva, in nearby Juan-les-Pins.

One Sunday at the end of October, Mary Jayne and Theo decided to go house hunting in the suburbs east of Marseille. They were looking for a small house with a garden for Peterkin. 

Wanting to escape the city, Miriam Davenport and Jean Gemähling tagged along.

The four took the tram at the gare de Noailles on the Canebière.

About a half-hour into the countryside, as the tram passed the district of La Pomme, they noticed a small café where inquiries about rentals might be made.

They jumped off the tram and began to walk along a road bordered by a high embankment and the main Marseille-Toulon train line.

On the other side of the railway underpass, at 63 avenue Jean Lombard, they came upon two large gateposts carved with the name [p. 244] Air-Bel. Miriam shouted happily that this was the name of her fleabag hotel spelled backwards, clearly an omen. She insisted they inquire despite the sign saying: “Propriété Privée/ Défense d’entrer.”  

As they walked up the drive, they saw an immense three-story nineteenth-century manse. 

It was somewhat battered but still elegant, and it immediately conjured up the haute [sic] bourgeois worlds of Balzac and Flaubert. 

Around part of the house ran a stone terrace on which grew three ancient plane trees. 

There was even a greenhouse to one side.

The terrace overlooked a formal garden, with a fountain and pool as centerpiece, leading to an immense park with a dazzling view of the distant mountains. 

The house had clearly stood vacant for a number of years, for the gardens were overrun and the hedges untrimmed.

“It’s way too big for our purposes,” Mary Jayne said definitively.  “Much too big,” added Theo. 

But as a poor student at Smith College, Miriam had lived in cooperative housing and she wasn’t ready to dismiss the idea so easily.  “Look,” she said, “It would be cheap. We could share the rent and the food.  We could even afford to hire a cook.  It’s so large we could invite other members of the committee who could pay, and maybe even some of our clients could join us.  Think of the company.”[1]

On the other side of the gateway, they spotted a small man on his knees digging in the earth.

Jean approached to say that they were looking for a house to rent.

“Nothing to rent around here,” the old man replied abruptly. “This is private property.”

“We’re Americans,” Miriam piped in.[2]

When the old man heard, he was suddenly interested.

Americans had money.

He introduced himself as Dr. Thumin and, warning that the house would be expensive, he offered to show it to them anyway. He advised them to wait while he collected the keys.

When he returned, Dr. Thumin rushed inside to open the iron shutters that covered the large windows on the ground floor and invited them in.

The villa had eighteen rooms, and it was fully furnished.

[p. 245] On the main floor were three reception rooms and a dining room as well as a kitchen, breakfast room, pantry, wood storage room, and a bathroom.

A spacious entrance hall tiled in black and white marble led to the parlor at the center of which was a large stone fireplace ornamented with brass fittings.

Above the marble mantel was a huge gilt mirror spotted from age; the hands of the gilt clock that sat on the mantel had stopped permanently at a quarter to twelve.

The chairs and tables were mostly Louis Quinze and there was also an upright piano with elaborate brass candlesticks.

In the dining room the walls were covered with a heavy wallpaper embossed to simulate Cordova Leather, and the chairs and dining table had a pseudo-Spanish bulk and severity.

Beyond was a breakfast [p. 246] room containing a charming marble hand-washing fountain.

In the kitchen there was a twenty-foot-long wood burning stove and a large soapstone sink.

Beyond this room was the only bathroom containing a tub. It was zinc, with ornamental swan’s-neck faucets.

The story above contained three large bedrooms, each with a white marble fireplace, double bed, large armoire and washstand with a crockery jug and chamber pot discreetly hidden behind a door.

All these rooms opened onto a large central library.

The walls were covered with black and white wallpaper depicting classical scenes; in particular the flight of Aeneas, the first refugee, escaping the sacking of Troy carrying his aged father on his back.

Shelves were lined with many original editions, including leather-bound sets of Lamartine, Musset, and Victor Hugo. On the top story there were six more bedrooms.[3]

It was the furnishings, mostly Second Empire, which gave the house the feel of a stage set: its collection of lacquered paintings, somber tapestries, leather-bound books, and cushions. All were in remarkably good condition for a house that had not been occupied for quite some time.

The electricity functioned—clearly a later renovation since electric wires snaked across the surfaces of all the walls.

Although there was no gas or telephone or central heating, there were stoves and chimneys sufficient for the temperate Midi.

They asked Dr. Thumin how much the rent would be.  He gave them a crafty look: “I cannot ask you less than 1,300 francs a month.”  This was about thirteen dollars.

The group was shocked. The smallest hotel room in Marseille cost fifteen francs a night.  Clearly Dr. Thumin was living in another age.  Readily agreeing to his terms, they made arrangements to return with Danny to sign the lease.

When Danny was introduced, the old man got right down to business. “You want to rent my house,” he said. “I’ve never rented this house before. If I rent it, the people must be decent and proper, not vandals.”

“Yes, Doctor,” Danny replied.  “My friends who will share the house are respectable. Writers from Paris, and Americans.”[4]  Danny played the part of the gullible Parisian well. 

[p. 247] Feeling somewhat guilty at his shrewd swindle, the doctor offered to include the brushwood behind the house for burning in the fireplaces and free run of the villa’s grounds. Danny asked that this be written into the contract. He signed a six-month renewable lease and deposited the first month’s rent.

Danny returned to Marseille and immediately went to see Victor Serge to tell him that he and his family could quit their musty hotel and join them at the Villa the next day.  Serge accepted the invitation with relief.  When Danny told him how large the villa was, Serge suggested that André Breton and his family were also precariously housed. “He’s thought to be a difficult man,” Serge said, “but I can guarantee that he is charming and enriching company.”[5]  Danny replied that he had no objection but must consult the others. Breton was accepted unanimously.

Initially Mary Jayne, who was actually advancing the rent for the group, did not want Fry as a permanent member of the household.  She felt that, at least towards her, he remained diffident and unforthcoming. But Fry was invited to visit the first Sunday, and once Mary Jayne saw him running around from room to room, opening closets and drawers like a delighted child, and realized that the villa would provided a needed escape for him, she softened.[6]