Review: Vivien Horler

My Year of Fear and Freedom, by Marita van der Vyver (Tafelberg)

I have been a fan of Marita van der Vyver’s writing ever since I read the English translation of Griet Skryf ’n Sprokie. As I recall, on the very first page a depressed Griet decides to put her head in a gas oven.

But while she kneels on the floor, waiting for the gas to do its work (in SA our LPG gas is apparently not poisonous although it is potentially explosive) she looks around the oven and spots a dead cockroach. Appalled at the idea of sharing her death chamber with a cockroach, she decides to clean the oven first, by which time she’s feeling a little better.

I interviewed Van der Vyver once – she had her three-year-old French-born daughter Mia with her, and I was intrigued by the fact she spoke to Mia in Afrikaans and Mia answered in French.

Just before turning 40, Van der Vyver headed off to Europe on her second gap year with her pre-school son, fearing that once he started school she would be unable to travel for 12 years.

But once in France she met a Frenchman, Alain, with whom she fell in love, and to whom she has been married for decades. Alain is Mia’s father.

The couple lived in Provence, planted a garden, and Van der Vyver wrote more books, mostly fiction, some about food and gardens. It seemed like a fairy tale.

A few years ago, from about September 2022 when Covid was winding down, articles by Van der Vyver started to appear in SA publications like Daily Maverick which spotlit moments of an extended journey across Italy, Greece, the southern US states and South Africa.

My Year of Fear and Freedom is the book she has written about that journey. It turns out the time leading up to the pandemic was not a fairytale at all.

Alain was a “sober alcoholic”, and also suffered from addiction’s twin affliction, depression. This had led to his taking a year’s sick leave, during which French medical services pivoted – that pandemic word – to focusing on people’s physical rather than emotional health.

Eventually he took early retirement, which meant his final pension was much less than the couple had banked on. At the same time, the pandemic shrank Van der Vyver’s income, to the point where she could no longer pay the mortgage.

She writes: “In this perfect storm, our little boat began to sink.”

In the end, since the children had left home, they sold the beloved Provence house, put sentimental items into a shipping container, packed the car and set off on a 15-month journey.

They had always planned an extended trip one day, but had assumed they would have a home to return to. It dawned on them: “Our next home could be anywhere on earth. It was a terrifying yet deeply liberating thought.”

In the weeks of preparation and packing up, Alain began to shed his depression, and with something to look forward to, was ready to face life again.

As they set off, Marita says to Alain: “Let’s call it a geriatric gap year.” And she laughs, “a touch too loudly, to drown the sound of my pounding heart”.

Referring to the ubiquity of everyone’s cellphone pictures of their travels – me in front of the Eiffel Tower, me in Trafalgar Square, me with Table Mountain behind me – Van der Vyver wonders: “Are words even needed to describe a journey any more?”

She decides they are, and thank goodness for that, because I found this travelogue a delight.

But it’s more than that – it’s also the story of a couple who have previously faced some serious trials, now spending 15 unbroken months in each other’s company, being tolerant, fond and often funny.

Eventually they head home (but where is home? They didn’t have an address for 15 months). And once back in France they acknowledge their relationship (spoiler alert) is closer and stronger than before.

One thing when you’re embarking on an extended journey across three continents: it helps to have lots of friends in faraway places, welcoming friends with accommodation to offer. It’s a tribute to the couple how many wonderful friends they have.

I very much enjoyed the journey through the southern US, with Van der Vyver wryly noting the Stars and Stripes on flag poles in suburban gardens and other manifestations of Trumpism, but my favourite section was the three months the couple spent touring South Africa, a place Alain had visited before but because of work pressures had not spent much time in.

Alain’s French viewpoint often makes Marita stop and think about her assumptions of her own country, while his misunderstanding of South African ways can be hilarious. What is the difference, he wants to know, between a stoep, a terrace, a deck, a veranda and a balcony? Marita tries her best to explain, but falls lamentably short.

Lamely she eventually says: “A stoep is something you recognise when you see it.”

Throughout, the narrative is interspersed with references to great travel writing, and Van der Vyver helpfully provides a list of sources including the likes Albert Camus, Joan Didion, Gustave Flaubert, D H Lawrence, Marcel Proust, Beryl Markham, Olive Schreiner and John Steinbeck.  She’s clearly extremely well read.

This is a wonderful book.