A Third Culture Kid is a child raised outside of their parents culture but not totally a part of neither their parents' nor the culture they are living in.
Annie is sitting on my patio in Argelès and we're sharing a pot of tea. We've been working on two new novels...Murder in Schwyz which is in final proofing and Murder in Edinburgh which is about 10,000 words. As much as I love working with her, she often takes control of my computer and does what she darn well pleases. On the other hand, sometimes she gets upset when I boss her around.
DL: Some people say you are me. What do you say?
ANNIE: (She gives me a you've got to be kidding look) We both have red hair, but mine's natural and curly. I'm about 40 years younger and I'm totally multi-lingual in four languages. I don't want to hurt your feelings, but you've a terrible French accent.
DL: It doesn't hurt my feelings. You don't have a normal job...
ANNIE: No thank goodness. I'm a tech writer and translator all on short term assignments anyplace in Europe. I find the work fun because I get to meet all kinds of people.
DL: Tell me about some of the projects you've enjoyed.
ANNIE: You've really put me in some strange situations, but most of them I've liked. My favourite was doing that historical DVD when I visited my folks in the house my Dad inherited in Caleb's Landing MA. Anyway, one of my Dad's boyhood chums wanted a realistic depiction of the Pilgrims for school kids. At the same time we found a skeleton in the basement of my Dad' house when we cleaned it out. At first, when we found it we thought it was a former slave who was being transported on the Underground Railroad.
DL: Why?
ANNIE: The skeleton had pre-Civil War clothes, or really rags, and we found a fascinating diary she'd written.
DL: And what about the priest that was murdered in Argelès?
ANNIE: That was really hard on me when you wrote that. I wish you'd chosen another victim, but no...you had to wipe him out. He was such a good friend. I still cry sometimes when I think about him. There were so many mistaken notions about a hidden treasure, that it was a wonder we ever found out who killed him. I've never known anyone else but him who loves history as much as I do. In that sense he was a real soul mate.
DL: Are you still mad at me for that?
ANNIE: Not really. I understand why you have to write some of the things that you write. It's just I wish you were a little more considerate of my feelings. I know, I know. You say you want my character to develop and mature, but...
DL: And then I made you lose another friend in Paris?
ANNIE: Poor Luca. I broke my engagement with Roger over him, but not because Luca and I were still an item. Luca had invited me to a dig in the Latin Quarter. No one, but no one forbids me to do something I want--even you--and Roger tried to forbid me to go. At least you were right on with my reaction to Roger's ultimatum.
DL: Was it jealousy with Roger? I've never quite decided why he's so stuffy sometimes.
ANNIE: On that one, probably a little jealousy. We both agree that Roger gets frustrated that I go off for weeks at a time to interesting places around Europe. His job as Police Chief in Argelès and his responsibilities as a single father kept him from doing anything but joining me for weekends. It's also worry that I'm going to get myself killed and I've had a couple of narrow escapes. And the fact that I keep as he says "Sticking my nose where it doesn't belong" infuriates him.
DL: You mean like the bodies you found in Insel Poel?
ANNIE: It was truly an accident that I found two poor Asian girls bodies. All I did was walk on the beach where they'd washed up. Of course, if you hadn't sent me to the beach on that cold day, I'd never have found them.
DL: And if you hadn't found them there would have been no mystery to solve.
ANNIE: True. Insel Poel, was a wonderful Island in the North of Germany to send me to. It should have been such an easy assignment, doing translations for a museum. I thought you were giving me a break. As for Roger, he kept saying, don't get involved, don't get involved like a broken record when I found out that the daughter of a woman at the museum was being sexual abused by her step-father.
DL: Well you remember at one point I wanted to kill him off and give you a chance at other relationships.
ANNIE: Yes and all your readers said, don't or they would stop reading the series. Now, I'm kinda glad you didn't.
DL: It wasn't the first time you got caught up in helping someone in an abusive relationship.
ANNIE: I discovered in Caleb's Landing that this lovely young woman was being hit by her husband. I had to do something. Also my Mom's friend who ran an underground railroad for abused women...now she was a character, larger than life. You should bring her back into another book.
DL: That was the novel where we both were wrong about the murderer.
ANNIE: I know. I was surprised as you were on that one. But when we back over the novel, we knew all the foreshadowing had been there. We had a good laugh about that.
DL: I know we're jumping around but it was in Insel Poel was where you found out about Hilke Fülmer?
ANNIE: The woman whose daughter was being abused was so grateful for my help that she gave me Hilke's diary. She was a survivor of a WWII concentration camp, and I turned it into a book. Amazingly enough it was published.
DL: Was it a best seller?
ANNIE: (Laughs) No, but it was good enough for me to get a contract to write about a 7th century saint. Boy, did I dislike that woman. Can you imagine anyone married twice and a virgin? That book will be out next April. At the same time one of the men I used to work with in Zurich was killed in Ely. It gets very complicated. He and another friend were involved in the banking system or rather against the international banking system. Roger had lots of medical problems and it was a very stressful time. You might have given me a little more breathing space there.
DL: (Deliberately changing the subject so Annie doesn't go off on a tangent.) Your parents live in Geneva still.
ANNIE: And they summer in Caleb's Landing. They, my parents, were a great help when a former professor of mine was murdered. I was working on a mutli-lingual translation of a catalog for an auction house. At the same time I was also trying to trace down information about a painter who lived during the time of Calvin. The poor girl was an orphan and her uncle was stealing all her money. She just didn't belong in that time period.
DL: You are close to your parents?
ANNIE: Very. I think it was all those international movies--Holland, Germany, Switzerland--that brought us closer. We had to rely on each other as we tried to adapt. At first I felt I had no roots. Once I found Argelès in the South of France, I realised I had to put down my own roots. May I have another cup of tea?
DL: Of course. How do you describe your life now?
ANNIE: As the French say, Je suis bien dans ma peau, I'm good in my own skin. I need to continue to juggle doing the things I love and the people I love. If we've finished the tea, don't you think it's time to get back to your computer. I've a lot to do to find out who killed Robbie without pissing Roger off.
For more about Annie www.donnalanenelson.com
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