Background for Love
Helen Wolff’s exquisite autobiographical novella Background for Love captures a brief yet idyllic Côte d’Azur respite from the impending fascism of 1930s Germany.
A nameless German woman travels with her forty-year-old lover from Berlin to the south of France, escaping the Hitlerian “thunderclouds brewing back home.” Their trip begins with happy intimacy as the weather becomes warmer and the “background for love” more vibrant and sensual. But the woman is perturbed by her lover’s fondness for Monte Carlo gambling and nightclubs; after much reflection, she decides to venture out on her own. “I wanted a bit of sun and moon for us both, trees and fresh air,” she explains in her farewell letter. “I want to live, and you want amusement.”
Though she feels uncertain and alone, a serendipitous encounter leads the woman to Saint-Tropez. She rents a cottage and adopts a kitten that she calls Colette “in honor of the great writer.” While adjusting to the region’s more relaxed way of life, she makes new friends, including a fellow Berliner, Wolf. Wolf urges her to be less anxious and inhibited and to dress like a “Tropézienne” in espadrilles and bright capri pants.
The book balances a swift, present-tense flow with rich, entrancing descriptions of the “silver mountains of sardines” at a seaside market and fragrant lemon trees and tempestuous mistral winds. While the woman’s unexpected meeting with her older lover leads to an evolved reunion, his appearance brings a sense of foreboding. As summer ends and autumn rainstorms make Saint-Tropez lose “its color,” the couple prepares to return to Germany, where the “harsh law” of fascism will lead to a decade of wartime horrors.
In the compact, heady novel Background for Love, the troubled arc of history is eluded for one liberating season.
Reviewed by
Meg Nola
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