The Antibes Apartment

We’ve been in Antibes for nearly four months, and I haven’t written anything for my blog. We are lucky to have a penthouse apartment in this town; the rent is not high and here again we are fortunate. We overlook the water from the terrace, on the right is Cap d’Antibes where the rich billionaires live. The poor millionaires live where we do, along the water in modern buildings on Albert Premier or in Old Town. I can see Old Antibes from my kitchen window, and also the snow on the mountains beyond Nice which is across the water. I see before the Cap, on my right, the sands of Salis beach, and the two sailing clubs for dinghies and wind-surfers. On windy days, para-sailors take off, rising as high as thirty feet into the air.

For the last three days, we had cold winds of the Mistral that blows from Eastern Europe, picking up water on its way. The rain is heavy, it hails rarely, but thunder and lightning are frequent. The glass doors on the apartment shake. They are single pane, and the gaps between the windows and the walls allow eerie whistling to fill the home. The heating, chauffage, is included in the rent, and I cannot say we get good value. I can hear the water trickle through the radiator at low pressure. The pump was replaced recently with marginal improvement. These penthouse apartments are not all they are cracked up to be.

It is sunny today, so I won’t complain. I dare not say it is too sunny or warm, but I am glad to draw out frayed yellow awnings which now work after Moumou, the Algerian-born handyman, fixed them. Moumou has been on vacation in Algeria for the last month and won’t be back till the end of March. He reminds me of the Indian Everyman who goes to his native place for a month or longer, forfeiting salary to be with his family; he is in a way, freer and possibly richer than some millionaires.

Lest you think I have surrounded myself with the Moneyed, let me tell you that I am close to Power. Our neighbour downstairs is the President. Not Chirac, not Sarkozy, not Hollande, but M. Claude. He is the President of the Co-Property, and is the driving force behind the recent repairs to the building. The outside was repainted over November and December, when metal scaffolding obscured much of the view from the kitchen window. The lobby downstairs has had new mirrors, and  best of all, we have shiny new mailboxes. The elevator breaks down once every month, and we climb seven flights of stairs. When it works, it opens inside the apartment in the hall, and a voice says, “Septieme etage.” I say “a vous aussi,”  I wish for you also the seventh floor. It sounds gracious, the right thing to say.