No Regrets - Carolyn Burke [76]
Edith could not accept that others might not share her passion for self-improvement. Marcel’s soul was “superior to the circumstances of his birth,” she told a friend. He loved all that she was able to give him in this realm; his “inferiority complex was disappearing little by little.” Tino Rossi recalled an evening at Piaf’s apartment when she urged a reluctant Cerdan to show the guests what she had taught him: “Cerdan got up, thought for a moment, then, to our great surprise, like a good schoolboy, recited a long sequence of Racine’s Britannicus.” When they applauded his rendition of this French classic, Edith said admiringly, “He learns well, doesn’t he!” Her love blinded her to the cost of learning on demand and at the expense of one’s former associates.
For the next nine months, Edith was happy and productive. During this time she wrote a number of songs, including “Hymne à l’amour”—the hymn to love that conveys her adoration of Cerdan. To the music of Marguerite Monnot, whose soulfulness complemented her own, she set a lyric that is as brave as it is poignant: “Le ciel bleu sur nous peut s’effondrer / Et la terre peut bien s’écrouler. / Peu m’importe si tu m’aimes. / Je me fous du monde entier.” (“The blue sky can tumble down / And the earth can fall apart. / It won’t matter, if you love me. / I just don’t give a damn.”) The woman lists all that she would do for her lover: go to the ends of the earth, unhook the moon from the sky, renounce her country, even dye her hair blond—a humorous note in an otherwise heartrending lyric.
By the end, the song’s resemblance to a hymn is striking: “Si un jour la vie t’arrache à moi, / Si tu meurs, que tu sois loin de moi, / Peu m’importe, si tu m’aimes / Car moi je mourrai aussi. / Nous aurons pour nous l’éternité.” (“If one day life takes you from me, / If you die when far away from me, / If you love me, it won’t matter, / We’ll have all eternity.”) In the final line, “Dieu réunit ceux qui s’aiment” (“God reunites those who love each other”), Piaf’s earthly and spiritual faiths match up like hands in prayer. Her credo—love conquers all—had never been stronger.
Edith and Marcel were often apart in 1949 because of professional commitments. She flew to Egypt for a series of concerts at the end of February, including four at the Ewart Memorial Hall in Cairo—where the Egyptian diva Oum Kalthoum often performed. The French-speaking elite filled the hall: “Words are too poor to express the range of emotions that this grand little woman, this admirable tragedienne … made us experience,” one of them wrote. When she took a day off to visit the Pyramids with her entourage, Marc Bonel filmed her astride the camel that she renamed Mistinguett because of the resemblance she saw between her mount’s teeth and those of the French entertainer. Piaf sang next in Beirut, at that time an outpost of French culture known as “the pearl of the Orient.”
Between engagements, she flew to London in March to bring Cerdan luck at his next match, with Dick Turpin—who collapsed under his assault in the seventh round. In April, while Edith was singing at the A.B.C. with Les Compagnons, Marcel spent time in Casablanca with his family, a separation that made her miserable until she began paying for Ginou to fly there to deliver her letters and return with his replies.
In her spare time, Edith shopped for Marcel. She chose piles of shirts made to order, ties, scarves, and sweaters, often in the hue she preferred for him, pale blue—perhaps reasoning that, if he could not be with her, his wardrobe could. His scent filled their bed, she told him in one of the letters that Ginou took