Alma and Samuel Mendel met up in Paris in spring 1967. For Alma it was the penultimate stage in a two-month journey to Kyoto, where she studied sumi-e painting, using obsidian ink on white paper, under the strict supervision of a master calligrapher who made her repeat the same line a thousand times over until she achieved the perfect combination of lightness and strength. Only then could she move on to the next stroke. She had been to Japan a number of times. The country fascinated her, above all Kyoto and some of the local mountain villages, where she found traces of Ichimei everywhere. The free, fluid lines of sumi-e, painted with the brush held vertically, allowed her to express herself with great economy and originality, omitting detail, focusing purely on the essential, a style Vera Neumann had already developed into birds, butterflies, flowers, and abstract drawings. By this time Vera had an international business, selling millions and employing hundreds of artists. Art galleries bore her name, and twenty thousand shops all around the world offered her clothing, as well as decorative and domestic objects. Such mass production was not Alma’s intention; she remained faithful to her choice of exclusivity. After two months of black brushstrokes, she was preparing to return to San Francisco to experiment in color.
It was the first time her brother, Samuel, had returned to Paris since the war. In her voluminous baggage, Alma carried a trunk containing her scrolled drawings and hundreds of slides of calligraphy and painting to act as inspiration. Samuel’s luggage was minimal. He arrived from Israel wearing camouflage pants, a leather jacket, and army boots, together with a small knapsack containing two changes of clothes. Even at the age of forty-five he went on living like a soldier, with his shaven head and a complexion so toughened by the sun it was as hard as leather. For both brother and sister this was an excursion into the past. They had cultivated their friendship over a period of time thanks to the frequent exchange of letters they found themselves inspired to write. Alma had practice from childhood, when she used to completely confide her thoughts to her diary. Samuel, however taciturn and suspicious in person, was often voluble and friendly on the page.
In Paris they rented a car and Samuel drove to the village where he had died for the first time, guided by Alma, who had never forgotten the route she had taken with her aunt and uncle in the 1950s. Since then Europe had risen from the ashes, and it was hard to recognize the place, once a mass of ruins and rubble, now completely rebuilt and surrounded by vineyards and lavender fields, glorious in this most beautifully radiant season of the year. Even the cemetery was enjoying a new prosperity, with marble angels and headstones, wrought-iron crucifixes and railings, shady trees and sparrows, doves, and silence. The caretaker, a friendly young woman, led them along narrow paths between the graves searching for the memorial plaque placed there by the Belascos many years before. It was still intact: Samuel Mendel, 1922–1944, pilot in the Royal Air Force. Below it was a smaller plaque, also made of bronze: Died in combat for France and freedom. Samuel removed his beret and scratched his head with amusement.
“The metal looks newly polished.”
“My grandfather cleans and maintains the soldiers’ graves,” the caretaker said. “He put the second plaque there. You know, my grandfather was in the Resistance.”
“I don’t believe it! What’s his name?”
“Clotaire Martineaux.”
“I’m afraid I didn’t know him,” Samuel replied.
“Were you in the Resistance too?”
“Yes, for a time.”
“Then you should come to our house and have a drink, my grandfather will be pleased to meet you, Mr. . . .”
“Samuel Mendel.”