2/16/2005. Valise de rêve

Denis and I were wandering a narrow street in Bologna last Saturday. The brick and stucco walls of ancient houses on either side stained the gentle winter sunlight with peachy warmth. Suddenly their confines gave way to a spacious square, where the sun streamed in full force through a glittering fountain. People swarmed like bees around tables were laden with ancient treasures. A flea market of antiques was in full swing.

We trailed from table to table in a leisurely fashion, marveling at everything from delicate Murano glass sconces to a collection of miniature pocket knives. We were admiring a group of old food tins when I raised my eyes to the next table, and caught my breath. Captured in a beam of sunlight was the suitcase of my dreams.







It was covered with an intricate design of flowers and figures in a rainbow of colors. I approached it as if compelled, only vaguely aware of the woman standing behind it, smiling at me from within a cloud of black, curly hair.



Closer inspection revealed the suitcase to be the most extraordinary piece of collage I'd ever seen. It was covered with hundreds of perfect cutouts--mostly of flowers, but also faces, scraps of old postcards, ribbons, birds, and even butterflies. Nothing like the in-your-face sort of collage with which some of us decorated our college dorm rooms, this suitcase was a work of art. Each small element had been placed with inspiration to compose a mega-picture that resolved, under my wondering eye, into so many smaller scenarios, each one more tender and nostalgic than the last. Fallen through the looking glass, I teetered on the edge of vertigo.



The lady who was offering this time capsule for sale was watching me bemusedly. I caught Denis' eye as he inquired the price. She answered in Italian, and I looked questioningly at Denis. I was too befuddled to have been able to decipher what she answered. "I think she said 550 euros," he told me. Expensive. We thanked her and reluctantly, with me casting glances over my shoulder, we moved off.

I went through the motions of exploring the rest of the flea market, which sprawled in a giant oval around the square. But I was looking without seeing. My eyes still swam in the kaleidoscope of the suitcase. I felt pulled to it as by a giant rubber band, whose force increased with my radius of distance. Just as it reached the breaking point, at the moment we were about to leave the perimeter of the market, my reason snapped.

"Je veux la valise," I said. I want the suitcase. What I meant was, I had to have it. I felt gripped by the folly of my obsession, and giddy with the inevitability of going through with it. This suitcase was going to cost more than both our round-trip tickets to Bologna. Recognizing my desperation, Denis took my arm and steered me back toward the object of my desire. The valise beamed like a beacon in the center of my vision, while everything in the periphery faded into a blur.

We pooled all the cash we had on us. I smiled foolishly at the lady behind the stand, handing her my wad of bills, my eyes full of the suitcase. The urgency of her words drew my gaze back up to her face. She was handing back more than half the money, shaking her head. "Too much!" She was smiling, telling me I'd handed her too much money! Then we were all smiling, Denis in relief, I in euphoria. He had misunderstood her price. Well, his Italian may not be much good, but the generosity of his heart knows no bounds.

"...Parigi?" the lady was asking me. Was I taking the suitcase to Paris? I nodded. This obviously made her extraordinarily happy. Perhaps she knew something of the suitcase's story. Had it already been to Paris? Under what circumstances? I searched her face for the answer, vowing to learn Italian.








She proceeded to show me the suitcase's inner life. Heureuse année! proclaimed a fragment of an old postcard. Perhaps my imagination wasn't running away with me after all. The suitcase's story, like my own, was somehow entwined with France.






Delicate, spidery writing--in Italian--flowed across another bit of postcard, announcing the date--August 7, 1903--and place of writing--Milano. The message--in Italian--appears only as a tantalizing fragment, whose meaning is obscured by time and the torrent of blossoms superposed around it by the hand of my suitcase's mysterious and anonymous creator.






The suitcase is quite large, and very deep. It has two canvas straps which encircle it when closed, buckled for security. Inside, its halves are divided by a paperboard, each side of which is decorated with a postcard showing the face of a beautiful woman, framed into an oval by garlands of blossoms, each one carefully cut and glued in place. The interior is lined with robin-egg blue paper, and even the inside corners are ornamented with compositions of flowers, as if secrets were bursting from the suitcase's seams. Silky ties, designed to keep garments neat, are still intact, inviting me to pack the suitcase once more and renew its adventures.



The first adventure was going to be getting the suitcase back to Paris. Made of thin aluminum (apparently, judging from its light weight), with its delicate collage unprotected except by a taped up plastic bag, it was far too fragile (not to mention precious) to check into the cargo hold of the airplane. Instead, I checked my carry-on bag holding my clothes. But my suitcase of dreams was quite a bit bigger than maximum carry-on size. I was going to have to throw myself on the mercy of the notoriously unmerciful Air France ground personnel.

The young, very military-looking Italian Air France agent behind the counter stiffened at the sight of my "carry-on." "Impossible!" he snapped. Fortunately, Denis' negotiating powers are second only to his generosity. Before long, he had our agent talking on the phone to the pilot of the plane, who, given that the flight wasn't full, granted special permission for me to carry the suitcase with me. The agent grudgingly relented and gave me a cabine tag to put on it.

We had made it over the first hurdle, but at the security check, another was in store. The suitcase was of course too large to pass through the mouth of the X-ray machine. I started to panic, and Denis looked grim. But a friendly policeman took my treasure over to a special supersize scanner and passed it through. I was starting to heave a sigh of relief when he beckoned me over. Disjointed thoughts raced through my brain. Was there a razor blade hidden in a seam somewhere?

"What's in there?" he asked me.

"Well, nothing..." "Niente?"

"No, nothing!"

"Ah! Niente!" He shrugged, smiled, handed me the suitcase and waved me on my way. We boarded the small plane and found ourselves in the next to the last seat at the back. Just behind us, with the very last seat all to itself, was the suitcase.

I look at my suitcase several times a day, and it is sitting here beside me as I write. The colors of its intricate surface glow warmly through a patina of age. Near one corner, its creator placed a cutout of a clockface, its hands at 10:10. Maybe it's just meant as part of a nostalgic theme, but I prefer to think--or I'll even say, I sense that--the clock is there as a reminder of the fleeting passage of time that is a life.

I look at the complex, interwoven design of the suitcase. At a casual glance, it seems to be no more than a collage of extraordinary beauty and finesse, its elements discernable as individual cut and pasted fragments only upon minute inspection. But I know the suitcase represents so much more than that. It is the tapestry of a life, of individual experiences--pain, joy, disappointment, delight--all woven together in complex images, relived and immortalized in the construction of the collage.

I look at the twin curves of the brown leather handles, their darkened patina witness to long hours of human touch, stained with hope, anxiety, anticipation, or simply the long, grueling hours of travel on a hot summer train. These homely handles touch me perhaps more than any other detail of the suitcase. They tell me of the life of another woman, a life whose trajectory I can only imagine, but a life whose story is symbolized in this lovely, touching relic. The sturdy arcs of the leather handles invite me to grasp them, to fit them into my own palm, and to add my own chapter to their life.



The suitcase and I crossed paths on February 12, my birthday.

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