(Some of) My Favorite Things- Part One

and what they mean to me, the stories behind them, how they fuel inspiration

I have loved flea markets from my very first visit to Rome in my early twenties, walking hand in hand with Fabio in the throngs at Porta Portese, which at that time was awash at one section with Soviet-era military uniforms (the Soviet Union had just broken up) that were in vogue with young, western clubbers, the hammer and sickle as fashion accessory, to my student self with friends in England, looking aghast at the vintage rabbit and fox fur stoles at Portobello market in Notting Hill, the pitiful claws making me shudder, and dodging suitcases at Petticoat Lane, which my fellow Africans were filling with hard-bargained-for clothes from the rails of things that might have fallen from the back of a lorry, and ‘designer’ perfumes, to the Mercado De Las Pulgas in southern Bogotá, the vendor hawking El pendulo, El pendulo, by Umberto Eco, which was all the rage back then, and another who would sidle next to you with a crunched-up piece of paper, open it furtively and whisper its contents to you, Esmeraldas, esmeraldas, buen precio, emeralds or green glass? - Fabio and I were regulars at one stall run by an indigenous family who made chunky traditional jumpers, we always left with a new one,

to the other end of Bogotá in the affluent north, Hacienda Santa Barbara, a former colonial homestead transformed into a mall, cobblestone squares, fountains, stone paths, a market on a bordering road where you could buy beautifully hand-made clothes and jewellery - I remember a black, embroidered, wool mid-length jacket which made me feel like a dashing matador whenever I put it on.

On Sundays, in the 1990s, in Harare, I would go to the flea market held in the parking lot in the suburb of Borrowdale. I captured the experience of it in An Act of Defiance.

Once, I dived into Mbare Musika market which is located in southern Harare with my then next door neighbor, one half of a Dutch expat couple who, like me, had a toddler son. She was excited about going out of the upper, middle-class suburb we lived in to the ‘authentic’ African experience that could be found at the market in the township. I was dubious of the enterprise (my experience of Mbare Musika till then had been as a university student: the sweaty tussling with touts at the bus terminal as I tried to board one of the Rusape bound buses, to visit Fabio) but I gamely got into her car and we made our way to the ‘real’ Africa. I loved the market, the rows and rows of piles of clothes on the dirt or sometimes, if lucky, on railings, most of them, actually, not even used yet, aid packages from the west, which had mysteriously found their way there. I left with what I called a ’beautiful-ugly, 1970s cocktail dress.

I tried to capture the atmosphere of Mbare Musika in An Act Defiance just as it is getting destroyed by a fleet of government bulldozers.

Flea markets revealed a city to me. Decades later, my love for them was tested.

In New York, they happen in parking lots or sweaty school gymnasiums. I had now been spoilt in Switzerland (and France) by the picturesque environs of marché aux puces which unfolded in medieval squares or along lake-fronts or riverbanks

or against the backdrop of snow-capped mountains, and sometimes in vineyards where you sipped wine, nibbled local cheeses, as you wandered in and out of the open sheds and barns full of surprises. I had even gone to one in a castle. I spent the first year in New York going up and down the ends of the boroughs of Manhattan, Brooklyn, The Bronx, but it was hard-going and a dispiriting exercise, I expected so much and there was little reward it seemed to me; a friend of mine finally sat me down and said, Irene, this is all New York has to offer, this is it; maybe upstate will be better, in the little towns there along the Hudson River - a project that the pandemic halted before it started. The flea markets in New York do have their charm, mostly in the characters of the vendors with whom it is often easy to strike conversation; I had an amiable one in a car park on Broadway/6th Avenue which was specializing in 1970s home furnishings: it was in the very early days of the vaccine roll out and I talked to the vendor about how good it was to see New York come alive again; we exchanged stories about having weathered the quarantine here; it was a beautiful moment of community and camaraderie - we had gone through something together, and here we were, still standing. Once I had got the hang of what flea markets in New York were like (more importantly, what they looked like), and I adjusted my expectations accordingly, I enjoyed this way of seeing and experiencing the city - from the school gymnasiums in Harlem and Fort Greene, or, a favorite, the sprawling food and vintage market going through the archway, under the Manhattan bridge in Dumbo, brimming with hipsters.

Another favorite, for the opposite reasons, the Annex market on a Hell’s Kitchen parking lot - just boxes of things chucked in from attics: fishing rods, bags, nothing curated about it at all… to the genteel Art and Flea indoor markets in Chelsea, Soho or Williamsburg, more craft than flea: it might not always have been pretty, so much of New York is not, but it felt part of what the city is, spending a Saturday or a Sunday in a parking lot somewhere, going through a box which could be just ‘junk’ or, ‘who knows’? And sometimes, just passing a brownstone in Brooklyn, a group sitting by the stairs chatting, chilling, drinking sodas, boxes of stuff on the pavement, a table, a railing full of clothes, odds and ends scattered on the stairs. You bend down to look. As if this was a Spike Lee Joint. I am a writer, after all. I am always looking for stories.

But my heart, when it comes to flea markets, lies in Switzerland.

Every last Sunday there is a marché aux puces in Nyon, in the canton of Vaud. I love the 25km drive along the lakeshore from Geneva, the crystalline water on one side, dotted with swans and yachts, and vineyards on the other, further back the Jura mountains, the familiar landmarks we drive past of our years here as a family… over there, where R learnt to sail, and over there where the boys used to jump off the pier into the water, and over there, behind the tall trees, is the mansion in The Lifesavers (unpublished), home of the teenage Simpson twins, Jack and Julian, entertaining their friends in the sprawling grounds until a tragedy rips them apart, and over there the pink Château de Coppet, the setting for the mystery of a stolen necklace that eleven-year-old Robert tries to solve in the sequel to Peace and Conflict, Growth and Change (unpublished), until finally we are in Nyon. If we come by train we leave the station and walk through the old town to the lake, down from the white, fairytale, twelfth-century castle with its majestic, sweeping views of the lake and the alps.

All along the bank of the lake, on the promenade, there are stalls, with any manner of objects - boxes full of spooky-looking dolls, or old black-and-white photographs of ordinary people looking somehow glamorous in the 1930s, vintage cameras, typewriters, jewelry, toiletry sets, silver-handled brushes and mirrors, which I find affecting, boxes of legos - there was a woman who specialized in legos who was our regular go to - it was how we’d bribe the boys - the lego lady will be there! And, later, the DS games guy will be there!

In this market there is no sense that some rare gem will be discovered. There are no antique dealers or experts (only on special antique Sundays); it is, I guess, more a vide-grenier, an attic emptier, like a car boot or garage sale. It is here, in a stall selling toy cars, rummaging deep into a card-box, I found exactly the car that Ben in An Act of Defiance, whizzes around Harare in, fresh from the States.

In Geneva, there is the flea market on Wednesdays and Saturdays on the large open space, Plainpalais, with the backdrop of the Salève mountains, which the monster of Frankenstein scaled to escape to France (there is an iron statue of the monster which looks eerily like the monster of my imaginings).

The Saturday market is huge.

There is vintage army gear, backpacks covered in cow hide, helmets which when I lift are heavy and make me think of the poor young men who wore them, medallions. As a birthday present my son brought me a vintage Swiss army knife which made its way into twelve-year-olds Robert’s, Growth and Change (unpublished), using it to escape from the monster who has kidnapped him-

I looked down at our hands. Inspecteur Huguenot had used a reef knot and I worked backwards to undo it with my teeth.

What are you doing?” asked Carlos.

“Shuuu. I need to concentrate.”

“If he comes and finds that you try to break free he will be angry. He will shoot.”

Carlos pushed me with his shoulder.

The rope was loose now. I slipped my hands through. I shook them. And then I grabbed the free rope and started to work on Carlo.

“No!” he shouted. He snatched his hands away.

“Carlos.”

“No,” he said. He was crying again.

“Okay, okay. Shhhh....”

I sat there with him. I didn’t know what to do. Should I tie back my hands?

But I knew I had to escape. I had to go and get help.

I took my backpack from behind me. I took everything out.

Raincoat

Swiss knife.

Torch .

Chocolate bar.

Compass.

Flask, half full of water.

I unzipped the front pocket, the two side pockets.

It wasn’t there. And then I remembered. I saw it there on my desk. I’d left my phone at home, recharging. The battery was dead. Mum was always telling me to keep that phone fully charged. You never know when you might really need it, Robert!

I bit my lips.

I mustn’t cry.

“Here,” I said to Carlos.

I held out the chocolate bar to him but he wouldn’t take it. So I left it on his lap.

I stood up.

“Carlos,” I said. “I’m going to get help. Come with me. I can untie your hands.”

But Carlos shook his head.

“I’ll be back soon,” I said.

I crept to the door.

I put my hand on the handle. I pushed it down. It wasn’t locked. I looked back at Carlos. And then I stepped outside. It was a full moon. It lit up the field. I closed my eyes. I ran. I opened them. There was the the forest. I didn’t want to go in there. I closed my eyes and ran into it. I ran and ran.

I was running from Monsieur Huguenot and Monsieur Jacques Cabillaud. They could be right behind me. With guns and muskets.

The flea market stall holders along the riverbank in the historic town of Aïgle, which we stopped by on our way to Zermatt, were wizened, weatherbeaten locals, and my eyes, at every turn, fell upon beautifully crafted objects. I left with an armful of stuff for a total of forty francs - a tiny silver deer which now rests on my rickety bamboo cabinet in the dining room (a modern, ironic take of my mother’s display cabinet, I like to think), a bronze nutcracker shaped like a pecan nut, an elegant brass flame snuffer (an object I had never seen before, or knew even existed), and the loveliest, haughtiest-looking pewter peacock who now strides on the console table, between a fish-eye magnifying glass and a crystal basket filled with hearts and 1970s glass candies in their wrappers.

I think as time goes on, real treasures will grow harder to find as, to put it bluntly, the older generation - when stuff was handmade and made to last - will be gone, and the skills to make and craft things will be lost. I have noticed that the flea markets now seem to be having a 1970s moment, furniture and crockery, because, I guess, the cellars being cleared now are of the generation whose adulthood was in the seventies and who are now dying.

In Annecy, the old town, a kind of miniature Venice without the gondolas, we dodged the anti-vaccine passport protesters as we made our way to the flea market where I scooped up a 1950s chain-link purse which now hangs on a handle of the drawer of my desk.

There are other finds scattered throughout the apartment, things that give me pleasure when my eyes alight on them.

From Nyon, a pair of opera glasses from the  nineteenth century, brass with mother-of-pearl. I had never been to an opera but the beauty and elegance of them called out to me and my imaginings, and Fabio went back to the vendor, an early birthday gift for me.

I took my nineteenth-century opera glasses to the opera! Guerre et Paix: Opera de Serguei Prokofiev at the Grand Théâtre de Genève. How surprised I am that I did not feel at all self-conscious using them! And how delightful it was to put them up to my eyes and be able to see the expressions on the singers! If I had never set eyes upon those particular opera glasses and desired them I would never have gone to the opera weeks later. It thrills me that in my middle age I can still discover new joys, new passions, new loves.