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whole being and demands our attention as human beings Paul. It was given to us by God as a means of enhancing our lives. This is what our soul desires the most and we must always respond to that...”
    My soul only desired to see Camille and hear her voice. I conceived a plan to meet her after the performance. I would wait at the stage door and ask for her autograph.
    The next morning I began thinking of how I should dress for the evening ahead. I had to impress her. I wanted to look like an artist so I created a costume consisting of a dark green single-breasted velvet jacket, a white shirt with a purple cravat, dark grey trousers, black laced boots and a navy beret.
    After walking my father to the synagogue I continued to the shop and set up my easel and canvas in the back room. I wished to paint Camille but was acutely aware I would be doing so from my recollection of the photographs at the theatre. I began by outlining her face roughly in pencil before progressing to draw her left eye in detail. I remembered that eye being most prominent in the photograph. Her right eye was only partially visible because of the angle the photographer had used to capture her portrait. I worked on the eyes for almost an hour before moving to create her mouth although by now I was straining to recall her face. By lunchtime I had finished. I pushed the chair back and studied my work. It looked nothing like her.
    I returned home. The day was now pleasantly warm so I decided to sit in the square for a while. I took my sketching pad in case I saw something that might interest me and went to sit on a bench under one of the large beech trees. It was early afternoon and the square was almost deserted. A few people were about; a woman pushed a pram and stopped regularly to check her baby, Mme Guillard moved in and out of her flower shop, a man wearing a straw hat cycled by on a very red bicycle and appeared to be in a hurry somewhere, maybe to visit his lover.
    I began to dose and was awakened sometime later by the giggling of two young lovers sitting on the bench next to me. I became self conscious of their canoodling and began to sketch the fountain at the centre of the square. However, my attention kept being drawn back to them so I decided to walk to the shop across the road and buy something. I had no idea what I wanted so when I entered the shop I just stood there and looked around. Then I left. I stood outside the shop for a moment contemplating whether or not to return to my bench but a man dressed in a business suit came and sat on it so I returned to the apartment.
    I shaved twice that day once in the morning and again in the evening after dinner. I applied some cologne, put the ticket in my breast pocket and checked I had money for a programme. My father had just returned from the synagogue after Kiddush and I asked him how I looked. He merely said, “Do I really have to tell you?” I didn’t understand what he meant by that and left the apartment. I was half-way down the stairs when I remembered I had forgotten to take a pen. I rushed back upstairs and rummaged through my bedroom, failed to find one and checked the living room. My father was listening to a Friday evening programme on the radio that was discussing events in Germany and how threatening Adolf Hitler’s speeches were becoming regarding Jews. He sat shaking his head and rapping the floor with his walking stick.
    “Why are the German people listening to this idiot? What he says is absolute nonsense. Have you forgotten something?”
    “I need a pen.”
    “A pen?”
    “Yes, I might want to take notes during the performance.”
    “Now that is a very good idea! I would be interested in hearing your opinion. Carmen isn’t it? It is a wonderful opera! I remember once…”
    He stared into space. His eyes filled with tears. His hands gripped the handle of stick. I coughed loudly!
    “The pen?”
    “Oh, yes, of course.” He laughed. “Sorry, I noticed something in the