Mara Kurtz

Word Count 1148

Marsha and I worked together at a film production company in New York in the late 1960s. We became friends instantly, always laughing, viewing life as a Woody Allen movie.

But Marsha’s early life was not amusing. She awakened every morning in a room she shared with her sister, thinking, “There has to be more than this.”

One of four children living in a drab Queens apartment, her depressed father spent his days sitting on the couch, staring into space. When she was twelve, her older brother touched her under the covers. Her sister cut herself with a razor. Their young brother became a heroin addict.

To escape the emotional chaos, Marsha invented an elaborate fantasy world. She envisioned passionate love affairs and travel to distant places with sophisticated jetsetters.

At twenty, Marsha married an artist named Saul. It turned out that she loved the idea of being his muse more than she loved him. They lived in a small apartment above a dry cleaner where he painted all day. On Saturdays, he played basketball with his friend Artie in a nearby schoolyard.

Although she had no ambition and hated any kind of routine, she and Saul ordered Chinese food every night and visited his parents in Westchester on Sundays. He was happy. She was not.

Hoping to enliven their relationship, Marsha convinced Saul to take her to Majorca, a romantic island off the coast of Spain. Enchanted by the beauty of the scenery and the sensual atmosphere, she savored every minute. Saul, who brought his basketball, was bored. When they returned, she asked to share my studio apartment in Manhattan.

After her divorce, Marsha felt restless, longing for adventure. Although terrified at the prospect of traveling alone, she flew to a resort in the Caribbean for a week at Christmas.

On the second day of her stay, she met an attractive Frenchman named Robert, who was there with his wife. They made eye contact across the table at lunch. By the end of the day, they were in love. Although there were only stolen moments together, Robert promised to bring her back to Paris.

I laughed when she told me the story, but a week after she arrived home, Robert appeared at her door with a plane ticket in her name. She quit her job and left with him two days later. Her last words to me were, “He is the love of my life.”

Marsha’s first three months in Paris were ecstatic. Robert, a psychologist who planned to open an “Academy of the Arts,” made everything easy and fun. In April, they left for a month-long vacation in Cadaques, a small Spanish fishing village renowned as the birthplace of Salvador Dali. The chic resort attracted artists and was frequented by what Marsha called “the wealthy European aristocracy.” Robert brought Marsha to extravagant parties held in grand houses overlooking the harbor.

She met stunning women and tanned men with chiseled profiles who welcomed her graciously. One evening, she attended a party celebrating Dali’s birthday. When they were introduced, he looked into her turquoise eyes, kissed her hand, and said, “You are the most beautiful woman ever to come to Cadaques.”

When Robert was called back to Paris on business, Marsha stayed in their luxurious suite, marveling at her new life. But when he returned with a woman journalist named Veronica, he said, “She will be staying with us for a while.” Then he mentioned that the three of them would be sharing the same bed.

Marsha was devastated. She left immediately and rented a cheap room at the edge of town. Determined to remain in Cadaques, she declared to her friends, “This is my destiny.”

Managing quite well on her own, she accepted invitations to lavish lunches and dinners, always paid for by others. Her closest women friends gave her their “slightly worn” designer clothes. Wealthy men offered a bit of money here and there. When she found lovers, they took care of everything.

After living in Cadaques for several years, Marsha met a visiting French film director. Seated side-by-side at a dinner party, Charles fell in love with Marsha at first glimpse and told her she looked like Ava Gardner. She declared him the most elegant man she’d ever seen and was impressed by his intelligence and “the light in his eyes.” They spent two inseparable weeks together at the end of which he brought her back to his exquisite Paris apartment overlooking the gardens of the Palais Royale.

Charles took her to the finest cafes and restaurants for dinner and then to dark, smoke-filled jazz clubs, where they joined his large circle of friends. After drinking many bottles of wine and dabbling in drugs, they went home to make love.

Marsha’s days were dreamlike. Every morning, after Charles left for work, she walked to the tree-lined square surrounding the Palace and chose a spot facing the Opera House across the river. Seated on a comfortable bench, she watched small boys dressed in navy blazers playing on the grass with little girls wearing white organdy dresses. The birds sang. The sun warmed her face.

At lunchtime, she walked to a nearby patisserie where she liked to sit on a little white wrought iron chair at the window table and dream. Lunch was a croissant and a café au lait.

One night, walking home after an excellent meal at Café de Flore on the Blvd. St- Germaine, Charles took her hand and asked, “What do you do all day?”

Marsha laughed and said, “I’d better not tell you.”

“No, really, what do you do? Do you shop, go to a museum, meet a friend?

She said, “I do nothing.”

“Nothing?” he said.

“That’s right. I just sit in the square, watching the children.

“All day? He asked.

“Yes, every day. I wait until sunset makes the square look like a Magritte painting. Then I come back to the apartment and wait for you to come home.

“I had no idea,” he said. How is this possible? You could be working on my film.”

She said, “I don’t want to work on your film.”

“Well, he said, you could at least be making me dinner.

Returning from work the following evening, Charles stopped to buy a bouquet of white roses. Looking forward to a relaxing meal at home, he wondered if Marsha would surprise him with an American dish like chicken pot pie or perhaps meatloaf.

But when he opened the door, there was no aroma from the kitchen, and the apartment seemed very still. Then he saw that all her belongings were gone.

Sitting at the window on the train back to Cadaques, Marsha thought about cooking dinner for Charles and started to laugh out loud. It reminded her of all the times in her life she’d said to herself, “There has to be more than this.”

Mara is a graphic designer, photographer and illustrator and founder of Mara Kurtz Studio. Her work has been published in numerous publications including Metropolis, New York Times Magazine, New York Magazine, Conde Nast Traveler, Travel and Leisure, and The Wall Street Journal. She has been a Professor at Parsons School of Design, The New School, NYU and School of Visual Arts since 1990. She is a graduate of New York University and Parsons School of Design. She received an MA from The New School in 1995. The Rock Hill Pictures, a book of Mara's documentary photographs, was published in 2012.