Eleven Empty Chairs: A Ratatouille of Short Stories

By Frans Boerlage

A Ratatouille of stories: long, short, fi ction, nonfi ction,
dream visions and poetry.
These chairs will guide you through a ghost story, one
chair will show you the horrors of WW II, another chair will
involve you in the growing up of a young man and one chair
will make you part of an amazing cruise.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Dec 12, 2011
• ISBN: 9781462879557

Frans Boerlage

Dutch born opera stage director Frans Boerlage staged more than 180 productions: 23 years at University of Southern California, previously 19 years at Netherlands Opera, seven productions at the Liceu, Barcelona, nine productions in two years Seattle Opera, (American debut 1972, Lucia di Lammermoor with Beverly Sills), directed all over in the USA, Canada, South America, South Africa and many cities in Europe. These days is back to writing, after collaboration on plays and a musical. Recently author of two memoirs: Portrait Incomplete (Xlibris-2004) and Rápido to Endstation (Xlibris-2006) and the novel Changing Gears (soon to be published). In addition, his award winning poems published in 2005. His philosophy: growing old in style, fighting Parkinson’s with humor.

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Copyright © 2011 by Frans Boerlage.

Illustrations       © 2011 by Anthony De Soto

Photography     © 2011 by Joseph Harrington, Front Cover

© 2011 by Erika Fabian, Portrait of Frans Boerlage, Back Cover

Library of Congress Control Number:       2011908814

ISBN:         Hardcover                               978-1-4628-7954-0

                   Softcover                                 978-1-4628-7953-3

                   Ebook                                      978-1-4628-7955-7

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, known or unknown at publication, including by photostatic copies, microfilm, xerography, or any other means, or incorporated into electronic or mechanical information or retrieval system without the written permission of the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

Boerlage, Frans 1926—

Stories: Fiction, Non-Fiction, Poetry

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

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Amazon.com

Frans Boerlage

447 Mesa Road

Santa Monica, CA 90402

84293

FOREWORD

A ratatouille of stories: long, short, fiction, non-fiction, poems and some musings.

The cover photograph of this book was taken by my alter ego, Joseph Harrington. On a private tour through Turkey, we had asked our taxi driver to show us his favorite spots, places not frequented by busloads of tourists. He took us to the small village where he was born. We were received with the utmost hospitality by his family, and were invited to join them for their noon meal, laden with local dishes. The conversation, praising the excellent cuisine, was done mainly through vivid smiles and facial expressions, accompanied by gestures.

Afterwards, our gracious host/driver drove us to the shores of the Black Sea. Since it was out of season, the beaches were completely deserted. It made a deep impression on me. Joseph’s photograph conveys clearly the bleakness and forlornness of the vast expanse of sand with four tables and eleven empty chairs. I decided that this picture would make a gripping cover for my new book. I then invented my story about this scene, as a suitable start of this book.

But what can eleven chairs convey to you, the reader? The answer came like a flash of inspiration: the stories in my book are like those chairs.

Once you are comfortably settled in one of those chairs, these seemingly identical objects will take you, the reader, into completely diverse directions: into the world of fiction, non-fiction, a ghost story or telling about WW II. You will travel to foreign countries and learn of their vastly diverse customs, or gain insight into the hearts of some strange local characters.

Why chairs? Since sitting down on a chair means being lifted off of one’s feet, and thus being delivered from the strain of carrying one’s weight, it can free one from daily troubles and might lift one up to emotions of peace and quiet.

I have aimed for a diversity of subjects to lift you out of the burdens of daily life. I hope that I have reached my goal.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

When starting work on a big project, one needs the certainty of a solid and reliable foundation, supported by four pillars.

PILLAR I is Joseph Harrington, my partner of 34 years and since July 7th, 2008 my legal spouse. He stands by my various sickbeds of whatever Parkinson’s brings me. We never give up or give in. We accept life and enjoy it to the utmost. He allows me all the necessary space for my many hours of work.

PILLAR II is Erika Fabian, my editor and precise helper in cleaning up the Dutch-isms of my text, without destroying my own ‘voice’, essential for a personal writing style. She is also a professional photographer who took my picture for the book cover. She is a great inspiration to me. Our work together has been educational and fun!

PILLAR III is Anthony De Soto, my friend Friday who looks after my obstinate computer. Anthony solves all puzzles. He has an excellent artistic eye, which shows in the drawings he has made for this book. He is practical, inventive, solid, warm-hearted and possesses the elephant’s proverbial precise memory.

Pillar IV is I, the creator of this book. The people in the stories came to my mind and I wrote about them. Some of the tales are about my own life. All are for your enjoyment.

Then of course, I would like to thank a small but very faithful group of friends, who read my books, and like them: Jamie Lee Curtis (who wrote two wonderful reviews about my books), The Girls from Malibu, Mary and Karin, The Boys from Seattle, Roy and Randy, (who accompanied us on many trips, thus making their appearance often in these pages), and our dear friends in Holland, Han and Nino, plus Jan and Yvonne, (living on the Island of Elba). I could go on, but these friends are, for me, some of the most important sounding boards I have had for this book.

To All of You, my most heartfelt THANK YOU!

FROM JAMIE LEE CURTIS

Famous actress and author of children’s books wrote the following about my earlier book, Changing Tracks, and now this, about Eleven Empty Chairs:

ABOUT CHANGING TRACKS:

The book is sublime. A little sexy, very sexy but also moving and thought provoking. Bravo, bravo, bravo.

ABOUT 11 EMPTY CHAIRS:

Frans, the Ratatouille is delicious, each course a delight. I wish of course for a time where people, neighbors, family, friends might come together and live together in commune and harmony. I loved reading your stories and am so proud to count you as a friend and neighbor.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Foreword

Acknowledgements

Table Of Contents

Introduction The Twelfth Chair

Chair 1 Bertie’s Treasure

Chair 2 Gray

Chair 3 Famous Ancestry

Chair 4 The Enemy Moves In-

Chair 5 Chronicle Of A Hamlet

Chair 6 Alone And Happy

Chair 7 Keesie

Chair 8 My Private Tannhaeuser

Chair 9 War

Chair 10 Paul

Adieu Paul

Death, Thief Of Joint Memories

An Emergency Call

Amsterdam Paul

Days, When We Are Near The Dear Departed

Chair 11 Poems

River House

A Journey To Truth

Sharing Rain

Union With Nature

Green

Secret And Sacred

Sonnet

Tell Me, Have You Really Forgotten It?

Speed In Memory Of Roland

Let’s Be Friends Again

This Is The End

Cruising Means Choosing

Table Company

A Bonus

Excerpts From A Fantastic Cruise

Illustrations

Keesie’s House layout by Anthony De Soto

The Doll photo by Anthony de Soto

Layout of A Hamlet by Antony De Soto

Photos of Stage Crews and the Municipal Theater in Amsterdam

Photos of friends and their homes in Holland and France

Cruise photos

©. All photos and illustrations are in Author’s private collection

INTRODUCTION

The Twelfth Chair

Turkey, early spring. The hordes of buses with their loads of tired tourists, disenchanted with the foreign food, do not come to these shores. They say, The Black Sea is like any other murky place. Why sweat hours in a bus to see another beach? No glamour, no good shopping, no postcards. Better go to the fabulous market, the Kasbah, as they call it.

The beach is pristine, showing only old footprints of the last visitors leaving their deep signature in the coarse sand. The rain has, for several months, fossilized the evidence of their existence.

The chairs are happy to smell the salty air of the sea so near and dear. Their lives are amazing: for three months heavily in demand, giving young and old a rest in their endless search for pleasure. Girls in thin, bright, colorful outfits, young men in their hot uniforms rest after a wild dance, or make place for the old grandma, all in black, a smile on her bewhiskered face,

I often danced here, before I met Ivan and started my family in the village that I now seldom leave.

One of the tables lost its fourth chair, and it had never been replaced since the café needed all the seats they could lay their hands on for the customers inside. That fourth chair had been very proud to be at the table nearest to the sea and therefore always chosen for the bridal couple to cut the cake on, and following the age-old local tradition offer a small piece to the sea.

One drunken night, a very fat man with furry sideburns squeezed himself with difficulty into the desperately groaning seat. The man invited an equally fat girl to sit on his lap for a photo-op, her dog completing the family picture. But the chair gave up: Enough is enough, no more giving in to those heavy slobs! The chair collapsed, broke all its limbs and back, sending the two fat monsters in their Sunday best unto the moist sand. The chair did not survive and went as splintered pieces into the trash.

Her table companions heaved heavy sighs at their loss. They began to feel ostracized, for now people often ignored their table for three, preferring the others with room for four.

The beach, always sympathetic to all visitors, comforted the table for three, saying with his sonorous voice:

You have had your days of glory. Accept your destiny of being number one no longer. You still remain in the picture with us, your faithful guardians, Beach and Sea.

The eleven chairs love their interim of emptiness.

Sometimes, a fisherman grabs one of the metal seats and straddling it, fills his pipe and sings with a smoke-damaged voice about the colossal wisdom of the elements.

CHAIR 1

Bertie’s treasure

The days after Christmas and New Year are times for celebration, the High Holidays for Bertie, trashcan picker in Santa Monica. He does not look like the usual street people. He has a distinguished manner that makes him stand out among his colleagues of the group he frequents most of the week. He is of medium height with a muscular body, always dressed in the best selection from his found clothes. His face is mostly benign, smiling with a mysterious grin. No fool, he debates with the best speakers. Before his participation in the Vietnam War, he majored in English. After the war, he did not want to use his mind and chose to do manual labor instead.

Spring, when people decide to clean ship, discarding all those sentiment-laden objects to which they had clung for years, is also a good time for him. The season brings him a yearly assortment of unusual objects for his collection. Rich houses do not put anything of value into their bins. He has learned this by experience, and from Sean, the only one who had come from a wealthy background, and had explained why.

Rich people give their surplus to their poor relations, their personnel, or to the Goodwill store. Only when they receive something in God-awful taste will they throw it into the trash, your lap, so to speak. Thus declared the Oracle of Wisdom about the rich he had once been part of.

Last year, a not particularly wealthy house had got rid of their Christmas tree, complete with all the ornaments and lights. Their good riddance was Bertie’s great windfall! He was busy for long hours removing from the shedding tree all its costly glamour, starting with the glass and silver balls, snowflakes, a great collection of animals, (mostly bears), and those wonderful angels in all shapes and fancy dresses. The garlands and the strings of lights were the most tiresome and painful job, clinging to the tree’s sharp needles.

He had sorted them, displayed them on the street for the passersby but everybody seemed in a hurry. Two young boys stopped at his assortment, got off their bikes and teased him.

Hi, Buster, aren’t you a little late? The season is over, haven’t you noticed?

Bertie wrapped his precious loot in an old piece of soft fabric and put it at the bottom of his cart, waiting for next Christmas.

Countless were the amazing pieces of clothing that landed in Bertie’s cart, probably acquired in distress, when shopping was the only salvation to remain sane. The party dresses and male attires of gender confusion provided him with the most exciting color combinations. Apparently, people threw perfectly good items in their trash bins to get rid of nasty memories.

The households of medium income generally left much more stuff for him. Clearly, those people had no thought of Goodwill, and threw perfectly usable articles into their bins. People were often careless. How often has he found love letters, tossed out without tearing them up? They could be perfect for blackmailing some guilty party. He does not dwell on this thought, too complicated and dangerous, as that sort of nasty action might land him in jail.

He sleeps in a hostel when it is very cold, but prefers the park. He earns a meager income by cleaning the streets and selling his finds.

He is careful, never touches throwaway food––too dangerous––but oh, Lord, the wonderful furniture he could be amassing if he had a permanent roof over his head. He could have a wonderful mish-mash of styles.

He feels lonely these days for he moved away from his group. Once he had found out that one of his colleagues had robbed him, he left his companions. He knew for certain who had done it: Muriel, the only female of the small group.

They used to gather early in the morning at the tunnel of West Channel Road in Santa Monica that gave access to the beach. But those days of laughter are over now.

Those were happy days with Timmy, the fat-bellied gnome, Maupie, whose misshapen limbs from rickets had made him unfit for any labor, and Sean, the head of the small flock of wanderers, who could tell stories of his ritzy youth, when he used to throw out valuables like the ones they now collected. All had been fun, till Muriel joined and soured the wonderful comraderie the four had shared. Madam with her endless stories about her beauty salon had crossed their paths and hung on. The harmonious balance was gone. Instead, they started to form little cliques, suspicious of each other.

Memories come back to Bertie: the day Maupie had found four pairs of women’s shoes in the tunnel: sensible ones, and high stilettos with glitter, fit for any princess to wear, and some plain sandals. The trouble was that Muriel had fat, swollen feet and could not get into them. The men giggled and teased her:

Come on Mur, dear, try those high heels, they will look divine with your dress. Not so easy being a lady, eh? Your ankles are too fat, Darling, I suppose we should try them.

The men tried them and fought over the shoes that did not fit anyone but Bertie. Maupie taunted the angry woman who tried in vain, swearing:

Oh, shit, I’d wish I could get into these with those buckles. I used to have a pair like that.

We know, we know all your stories. Why don’t you try those ‘tennies’, they might fit. They could be handy.

Struggling, she sighs: I used to have such pretty, slim ankles. When I had my beauty shop, all clients––

Sean interrupts her: Oh, for Chris’ sake, woman, shut up just for once dreaming about your shop. We all know that it was not your shop, you were the desk girl.

Muriel, upset at being caught by Sean, fibbing, massages her tired, swollen feet: It is all that walking in the sun and pushing me cart all day. Now if you was real gentlemen, you’d help me out but that’s too much to ask.

Bertie prances around in the spiked heels.

They fit me perfectly. I can wear them at my next dance party!

Maupie: I found them. I can let you have them in exchange for something out of your cart. Let me see––eh––what about those Xmas balls, hidden at the bottom of your cart?

Bertie defends his property: "No, not on your life. I want the whole shebang together and sell them as one item, its good quality stuff. If you want money for these clog hoppers you can keep them, I don’t need them, they are cluttering up my cart.

Sean, seeing the growing animosity between them, speaks up.

Oh, for ‘Pete’s sake’, let Bertie have his fun with those for his dainty feet. They are useless to anybody else. Muriel, come along. I want a word with you.

As they leave, Bertie tries to make peace with his colleague.

I’ll give you an ornament for them shoes. He gives Maupie a fuzzy bear, which finds its place on Maupie’s hat. I must have a leak. Look after my stuff. I don’t trust Madam; she is sour about those shoes! Bertie leaves.

Timmy nudges Maupie for an intimate conversation. Hey, Maupie, do you like her?

Miss Mur? No, I hate her upper-class act. We know that she had some rich husband and mucked that up. Now, Sean, that’s class! He went to good schools and got an education. Sad, that he had troubles with his ritzy folks.

Why do we have to put up with that snotty female when she annoys the hell out of all of us with her boring stories about her happy days when I was loved and respected"? (He imitates Muriel grotesquely).

Because the Boss likes her. When he gets drunk and horny I’ve seen him kiss her and join her in some heavy monkey-business.

Sean and his unpleasant companion return. Muriel whines in a plaintive voice.

I still don’t see why Bertie got them shoes. He can get money for them, so can I, and so can Maupie. He found them, after all. But I, as a woman––

Here Sean interrupts her: Shut up, woman, oh, what a bore you are!

He turns to Maupie. Just take one of them balls, since he fancies them a lot. So you can feel you are quits. He won’t find out and we won’t tell

Maupie grabs one of the balls from the bottom of the cart.

Coming back, Bertie sees immediately that they messed with his cart.

What has been going on while I took a piss? Hey, someone has taken one of my colored balls. There were four and now only three are in here. Someone has messed with my balls. Hey, who’s been in my cart?

Maupie is dancing around Bertie, taunting him.

He has lost his balls, he’s lost his balls, at least one of his balls.

Bertie goes to the woman, looking threatening. She ignores him and whines.

"I used to have pretty ankles, but me footsies are weathered by the God-damn sun in this God-forsaken ‘Paradise’.

Bertie puts on the pair of sensible shoes and approaches her.

Leave me alone, don’t you dare come near me for Muriel is in a foul temper.

Bertie leaves her and goes to his cart, very depressed.

I can see someone has been through all my stuff.

Nobody speaks.

Sean, you tell them to keep their bloody hands off my things.

I was not here while you took a piss, sorry, old boy

Bertie takes his cart, looking at his groupies:

I thought there was a rule not to steal from each other. I don’t want to stay with you any longer. You are cheap thieves. It is the likes of you that give us a bad name. And you, Madam Muriel, you are the cheapest and smelliest slut in town. May your souls rot in hell! He picks up his cart and starts leaving.

Sean calls after him: Farewell, dear professor. I’ll miss your company.

Some midsummer days, when he takes his cart to the beach and swims in the ocean, just for his own pleasure he pulls his treasures from the bottom of his cart. How those ornaments shine in the bright sun! He unpacks them carefully, one by one, arranging them in the sand. Once, some pretty girls on bicycles stop to admire his objects reflecting the sunlight.

What lovely stuff you’ve got. Are they for sale? Can we buy some of these glass balls?

I am sorry, Miss. I want to sell the whole bunch as a one-packet deal. They make a complete set for a Christmas tree.

Why do you have them here now? Are you airing them out?

Yes, as a matter of fact, I am. They are my prize possessions and need a little bit of sunshine, just as we do.

The girls giggle and give Bertie a piece of the chocolate bar they were sharing.

Thanks a lot, ladies. Talking with you, and getting a piece of chocolate, has made my day.

Good luck, I am sure you’ll have a good break.

You have brought me luck, of that I am sure. Bye for now, and have a good day.

That is easy here in this climate. We come from St. Paul, stifling hot there, no air to breathe.

Bye and thanks for the chocolate.

Another bright day at this spot was less pleasant. Some people have gathered around the out-of-season exhibit. One middle-aged woman, with an enormous sunhat, calls out:

Hey! You there! How much do you want for your stuff?

This is all high quality material, Madam, flown here from overseas.

Come on, you don’t fool me. You found it most probably in the trash somewhere last Christmas. How much do you want?

I won’t sell them to you; you have insulted my quality goods.

Come on, don’t be a fool. You have some good stuff here. I must say, somehow, it looks amazingly familiar. Listen up, young man, you need to sell, and I want to buy some of it, if you name a decent price.

No Lady, you don’t know Bertie. I part from my treasures when the deal is good and the buyer pleasant. You insulted my honesty. But wait, I’ll forgive your rudeness and make an exception because it is such a great day. What do you say? I want $50 for the whole lot; the lights alone are worth that price.

You are clearly out of your mind. This is obviously secondhand or maybe stolen. Anyhow, how do I know that those lights work?

"Lady, will you kindly get off my