All Over the Map by Laura Fraser -- Excerpt

8/9/2019 All Over the Map by Laura Fraser -- Excerpt

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Copyright 2010 by Laura Fraser

All rights reserved.Published in the United States by Harmony Books, an imprint of the Crown

Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

www.crownpublishing.com

Harmony Books is a registered trademark and the Harmony Books colophon

is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

Portions of this book originally appeared inElle; More; O, The Oprah Magazine;theNew York Times; Marie Claire; Gourmet; Eating Well;and Salon.com.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Fraser, Laura.

All over the map / Laura Fraser.1st ed.

1. Fraser, Laura. 2. Fraser, LauraTravel. 3. Single womenUnited

StatesBiography. 4. Man-woman relationshipsUnited States.

5. Women authors, AmericanBiography. 6. Travel writersUnited

StatesBiography. 7. San Francisco (Calif. )Biography. 8. Americans

MexicoSan Miguel de AllendeBiography. 9. San Miguel de Allende

(Mexico)Biography. I. Title.

CT275.F6949A3 2010

810.99287dc22

[B]

2009045251

ISBN 978-0-307-45063-0

Printed in the United States of America

Design by Lynne Amft

Maps by Mapping Specialists Ltd.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1


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*

Chapter One

OAXACA, MEXICO

2001

The winter sun warms the cobblestones that pave the Plaza

de Armas in Oaxaca, Mexico. Heavy colonial archways

shade the caf tables where travelers and people watchers and

expatriates come to just sit. They sip their coffees and take in the

scene: small boys hawking huge bunches of colorful balloons,

musicians in worn suits and perfectly ironed shirts stopping off

for a shoe shine, ancient-faced Indians carrying baskets of greens

on their heads. Beyond the zcalo, the Sierra Madre mountain

range rings the town. There is no hurry here.

The atmosphere is relaxed, but inside Im buzzing like one of

the bees at the fruit vendors cart. I glance around the plaza, eyesbarely resting on the balconies, the bandstand, the laurel trees, the

women with dark braids and bright embroidered tops perched

on the edge of the fountain. I check my watch, and it isnt even

time yet.

Ive come to Oaxaca to mark my fortieth birthday, the pass-

ing of the decade during which I probably should have gottenmarried (again) and had children but did not. It didnt work out

*


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2 L a u r a F r a s e r

that I have the freedom to run off and be in Mexico for my birth-

day; celebrate with someonea friend? lover?for whom all oflife is a celebration if you just find the right spot in the sun to sit

and take it all in.

I close my eyes to calm myself and sense the faint whiffs of

chocolate, coffee, and chiles that perfume the thin air. When I

open my eyes, I catch sight of him across the plaza: his soft denim

jacket, thick silver bracelet, and chestnut curls that somehow,

still, are not gray. I jump up and wave wildly, and he sees me

everyone sees meand he drops his old leather suitcase and

opens his arms wide.

In a moment, I am pressing my face against his, breathing in

his familiar smell of cigars and sea, amazed, as always, to see him

again. I met this man, the Professor, by chance over breakfast in

apensioneon an Italian island four years ago, right after my hus-

band left me. Over the course of those years, meeting every so

often in a different city or island, he helped mend my heart. He

has his life and I have mine, but every time were together, the

scenery seems brighter and the flavors more intense.

Professore, I say, breaking our embrace to search his face.

Laura, he says, with the soft rolling Italian pronunciation,

which could also be Spanish. I like my name, and maybe myself,

better in a Latin country. Its softer.

The Professor sits at the caf, orders coffee, and moves his

chair close, positioning his face in the sun. He squeezes my hand.

Bel posto, he says. Beautiful place.

Incantado, I say, not sure, as often happens, if I am speakingItalian or Spanish. Enchanted.


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3A l l O v e r t h e M a p

He tells me that I look as good as ever, and I say he looks even

better, something has changed. He seems energetic and expansivefor his normally cool Parisian aesthetics professor self, less pale.

He is brimming with a secret joy.

By the time we walk several blocks back to our hotel, open-

ing the door onto a promiscuous jungle of a garden, he has spilled

the whole story. He finally split up with the wife who didnt love

him, who had been in love with someone else for years. And hes

found an exciting new relationship.

We sit at a colorful little tile table on the patio outside our

room, and he tells me everything. Ive known there have been

other women between our rendezvous, and there have been other

men for me, too. But Im not sure I want to hear all this. I dont

care to know, for instance, that she is Eastern European and a pro-

fessor herself and teaches comparative literature. Even less that she

probably spends more on her lingerie than her clothes. While he

tells his story I stare at a banana tree, counting the leaves from the

bottom, struggling to be able to say, by the time I reach the clear

sky above, that I am happy for him instead of sorry for myself. Its

not as if Id ever imagined that I would end up in Paris with the

Professor. Well, not very often. I did start taking French.

Im happy for you, I say finally, and Im glad, at least, to

see that adds to his joy. Im trying not to think about how ironic

it is that it is the Professorthe rogue, the adventurer, the Don

Juanwho is happy to be settling down, while I, the one who has

wanted a steady partner, a companion, a house and family, am

sharing a hotel room with yet another man who likes me a lot andis not in love with me. If he says we can always be friends, I will


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I turn the key to our whitewashed room, and he flops down

on the carved wooden bed. I lie next to him, fighting tears, and hecaresses my cheek. Then he strokes the small of my back.

I roll away and sit up. Professor, I finally say, its too hard

for me to be friends who tell each other everything about their

love lives and still be lovers.

Not for me, he says, sexy as ever.

I push his hand away and sigh. Lets go eat.

I chose Oaxacafor my birthday and convinced the Professor

to join me (before this new romance of his) because I happened

across a book by Italo Calvino, Under the Jaguar Sun, in which

each essay is devoted to one of the senses. Of all the cities in the

world where Calvino had dinedand he was Italian, mind

youfor him Oaxaca embodied the ultimate fulfillment of the

sense of taste. Oaxacan cuisine, he wrote, mixes a cornucopia

of native vegetables with spices and recipes brought over by

the Spanish. Over the centuries, those cuisines were mingled,

enhanced, and perfected by cloistered nuns (for whom cooking

was one of the few earthly indulgences). Calvino called Oaxacan

food an elaborate and bold cuisine with flavor notes that vibrate

against one another in harmonies and dissonances to a point of

no return, an absolute possession exercised on the receptivity of

all the senses.

Ah, yes. For now, in Oaxaca, with the Professor, the food will

have to do all the stirring of the senses.And so we eat. We venture to a modest place near the hotel


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where a stout woman does wonders in the tiny kitchen. We try

dishes that are familiar by name but taste unlike any Mexican foodIve ever eaten. The guacamole is fresher, the tortillas sweeter and

crisper. The dark sauce on the enchiladas and chiles rellenos seem

concocted from an ancient, mysterious alchemy. For the French

Professor, who has never set foot in this country before and has

tried Mexican food only secondhand in San Francisco when he

visited me there, every taste is new.

For the next few days, we explore Oaxacas cuisine, trying

moles in different colors each dayfrom Amarillo, with toma-

tillos and chiles, to a black, chocolaty mole negro. Each sauce

requires days to prepare, and each bite is a layered, earthy,

mouth-warming experience. The Professor sighs, watching me in

anticipation of the pleasure of my bite, and then I sigh with him,

adding the layers and spices of our history and passion to each

complicated mouthful.

Between meals, we visit Monte Alban, the Zapotec ruins,

climbing to the top of the pyramids to take in the wide sky and

view of the town below. You can see why Hernn Corts, who was

offered anywhere in Mexico for himself after his conquest, chose

the Oaxaca Valley. Then we walk all the way back to town to find

Aztec soup and chicken tamales wrapped in banana leaves. We

wander around the neat cobblestone streets another day, peeking

into brightly painted churches, admiring cactus gardens, brows-

ing in art galleriesand then we order Anaheim and poblano

chiles sauted with fresh cheese, onions, and crme fraiche. We

tour Oaxacas huge food market, pass stalls with hanging pigs,fresh chocolate, stacks of cactus, and basketfuls of corn, tomatoes,


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onions, exotic greens, and roasted grasshoppers. Tidy piles of chiles

stand as tall as I. We discover the chocolate factory and drinkcreamy hot chocolate, looking into each others eyes, bittersweet.

Qu rico, I say to the server as I finish my chocolate. How

delicious.

How do you know Spanish? the Professor asks.

I explain that my mother brought my three older sisters and

me to live in Mexico for a summer when I was ten years old. We

spent that time in San Miguel de Allende, a colonial town not

unlike Oaxaca, at an age when I was unafraid to roam around

and try to talk to everyone. It was when I got my first taste of the

wide world and felt a hunger for its endless sights and flavors. It

was also when I first understood that being able to speak another

language, even the few phrases one can manage at ten, isnt just a

matter of translating familiar words; its a way of expanding your

internal territory and venturing outside the borders of your cul-

ture and family. The fresh new sentences change the very nature

of your thoughts, your usual reactions, and your sense of who you

are. I learned, that summer, that I couldnt speak a little Spanish

without becoming a little Mexican. That exciting summer in San

Miguel de Allendediscovering the pleasures of discoverywas

when I first became a traveler.

Intelligent mother, says the Professor, pushing back from

the table, content.

Eventually it isour last evening, and we have finished dinnerdown to the mescal, satiated with the place, cheeks warmed, and


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Happy birthday, says the Professor, and he pulls out a neck-

lace he bought from an Indian vendor, a lovely string of turquoiseand amber. I try to remember if any man besides my father has

ever bought me a piece of jewelry. Aside from my first boyfriend

in college, who gave me an opal pendant as a parting gift, I cant

recall any. I was outraged once when my friend Giovanna told me

her husband had never bought her any jewelry during their en-

tire marriage, with all the toys he bought for himself, and maybe

I was so mad because mine didnt, either. So this gift, at forty, is

a delightful surprise. The Professor clasps it, hands warm, on my

neck. What do you wish for?

So many things. I wish we could stay in Oaxaca and be the

lovers we used to be. I wish I could still fall in love or even believe

I could. I wish for great food, adventure, and soul-scorching sex.

Maybe a child, still. I wish for it all.

Romance and adventure, I say. I do not say what else I wish

for, maybe what I wish for most, because it seems contrary to

everything else, which is to be with one man or in one place, to

have something settled in a life where nothing is settled.

Do you think you can have both? asks the Professor. Who

is the man who will let you roam around the world, meeting your

old lovers?

I shrug. Maybe hell travel with me.

Good luck, says the Professor, and he is sincere.

I twirl my glass between my fingers, sniff the smoky mescal,

and wonder, as I always wonder, whether we will see each other

again. I ask the Professor if he thinks we might travel togetheragain.


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hand. La vita bella e lunga, he says. Life is beautiful and long.

We clink glasses.After dinner, we go back to the hotel and snuggle together

like contented old friends.

Buenas noches, I tell him, and he is already snoozing.

I cant sleep. The moon is peeking through the wooden win-

dow frame, and I wonder about my wishes for romance and ad-

venture. This man I have loved, off and on, is leaving tomorrow,

and, as usual, I dont know when or whether Ill see him again.

The men in my life are always like the countries I visit: I fall in

love briefly and then move on. I visit, regard the wonders, delve

into the history, taste the cooking, peer into dark corners, feel

a few moments of excitement and maybe ecstasy and bliss, and

then, though I am often sad to leaveor stung that no one insists

that I stayI am on my way.

Here on a sultry night in a foreign country, with a man sleep-

ing next to me, casually throwing his skinny leg over my soft one,

I realize I dont have someone whom I can call home. I wonder if

its possible to have everything I wished for on my fortieth birth-

day: adventure and romance, wanderlust and just plain lust.

I turn in the bed. Actually, it isnt exactly romance and lust

that I wish for. Finding a fascinating and attractive man on the

road, going from being perfect strangers to holding hands, shar-

ing stories and bites of dessert, gazing into each others eyes over

dinner, and then stopping for a moment to stare at each other

again in bedthats romance, thats lust. Thats exciting and

wonderful, but its all too brief, like a vacation. Of course, you cantravel the world and find romance. Whats more elusive is real


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companionship, someone whos always making the same dent

on his side of the bed, who knows how you like your coffee inthe morning. Its much harder to find comfort and stability, to be

held, to be secure in the knowledge that someone is taking care of

you and evenold-fashioned as it soundsprotecting you.

You cant grow old with someone if youre always off search-

ing for new experiences. And Im not getting any younger.

I roll over again, facing the Professor, who echoes my distur-

bance with a few deep, skidding snores. Im restless and agitated.

I face the Professor and then turn toward the wall; I dont feel

comfortable anywhere. My desiresto be free and to belong, to

be independent and to be inextricably loved, to be in motion and

to be stillpull me back and forth. The Professor sleeps soundly

while I wrestle with the two sides of myself until I am worn out

and the moonlight dims, replaced by the cool light of dawn.


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All Over the Map by Laura Fraser -- Excerpt