Locked out
by Jilliana
Ranicar-Breese
Have you ever
been locked out with nowhere to go? I have but
because of Rene Alis, the Mexican artist being a
bastard, indirectly led me to live in Paris.
I was in Mexico City staying in the studio of the
fibreglass artist David Lach at the artists’
hub in the Edificio Condessa. I was welcomed for
a month but then he moved me to a neighbour in
the building because he imagined his English wife
Jill could get jealous of my presence. David
suggested the artist Rene Alis’s house. So I
moved in.
I remember being in bed some days later and Rene
hovering at the open door. He was quite
aggressive to me and made it a rule that I had to
back by 10 o’clock at night or he would lock
me out!
One night there was a lot of traffic on the road
and I arrived by taxi five minutes late. I didn’t
have a key and so rang the bell. He didn’t
come to open the door and instead switched off
the light.
There I was somewhere in Mexico City without a
bed.
Fortunately I had the card and personal number of
a nice Mexican accountant who I had met while
teaching English in London. He had said that I
should ring in an emergency. I recall going to a
phone box (we didn’t have mobile phones in
1976) and dialling his number as an emergency.
Ten minutes later he came and picked me up in his
car. I spent the night at his sister’s flat.
I was invited to his office and found he worked
for FMVJ a French language organisation with
headquarters in Paris. He asked me if I would
teach the staff English which I did gladly until
I set off again with the aim of getting to
Antigua, Guatemala where there were the best
Spanish language schools and beautiful textiles.
I never got there because there was an earthquake.
I wrote about in my experience in my vignette
‘elephant and avocados’.
I overspent and was only eating avocados until I
got back to the polluted capital and back to FMVJ
earlier than expected. Because of this timing I
met the French director from Paris. My six months
time was up in Mexico. I had nowhere to live and
no job other than the job that the kind
accountant had created for me. It was time to
leave.
‘Any jobs going in your Paris office?’
I asked spontaneously.
‘If you can be in Paris by Monday, you’ve
got a job’.
It was Thursday in Mexico City and so without
hesitation I flew like a phoenix to Paris to
begin a new life.
Written
1/12/24 at Nightingale.
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