Pilgrim Son: A Personal Odyssey (21 page)

Keith poured a drink behind the bar in the Toad & Throstle, his downstairs cellar room. Emily poked the cannel coal fire in the big grate. The low rafters rang to the marching songs of the International Brigade, blaring out from the phonograph. Smoke drifted up from our cigarettes. Keith said, 'You know about the tourist who drove up to this old Vermonter leaning over a gate,' and said, 'Hey my man, how do you get to Rutland?' And the Vermonter looked at him a long time without speaking, until finally he said, 'If I wanted to get to Rutland, I wouldn't start from here.' The accent was flat dead, very funny. Keith was a Vermonter.

'What about Steinbeck?' I said, 'What's he like? Can you understand Faulkner? Why does he make his sentences so labyrinthine? How do good do you think Thomas Wolfe is? Did you know Hemingway? Does J. P. Marquand ever write about anything but Boston?'

The guitar strummed, the bourbon drained, we sang. Six little maidens I've drownded here and you the seventh shall be. E. B. White? Thurber? On, the Eer-l-ee was arising, the gin was getting low. Barbara danced in her stockinged feet. The lights momentarily dimmed and Keith cried,

'Watt's the matter with Rockland Light and Power?'

Barbara said, 'They don't have ample energy.'

Keith said, 'That's revolting!'

Barbara said, 'Oh my!'

Emily doubled over in her chair, weeping with laughter.

I covered my head with my hands, groaning.

Sex. 'No, damn it, it's not a matter of taste or daintiness.

Women are only dainty, and only want to be treated daintily, until you get their clothes off.' Benny Goodman, louder. Masturbation. Polyandry. Louder, louder. 'Look, I don't think every queer is created by his mother, but I think most are.' Keith asleep on the floor by the phonograph, his head pillowed on a cushion by the speaker.

'You've got to accept sex as a part of you, like your hand, not a shameful or dirty impulse.' Yes. But. However. Sex. ln fact. Never. Always. Why. Then. Give me another drink.

Keith snored lightly.

The squire's sister, Miss Eleaner Deming, had a downstairs room too. We crouched decorously round the fire toasting scallops on fencing swords and getting our fingers burned. Miss Eleanor was over seventy, and about to set off round the world. The man beside me bit into a scallop and swore silently; he had burned his tongue. We talked. He said, 'You must be a disciple of Santayana's.' Who's he? I thought; but said, 'Why?'

'He said that the best things about America were football, kindness, and jazz.'

Yes, I thought. But we couldn't afford to watch any football at West Point this year. We would have gone up to see the pre-game parades, only we didn't have a car... until kindness enveloped us again: the Girls bought a new car and gave us their old one. It was a 1938 Dodge coupe that did about thirty-five miles to the gallon (of oil). The children travelled in the nimble seat or lying on the shelf under the rear window, jammed in like clams, and as happy.

The consulate in Montreal at last wrote that they had finished their preparations, and Barbara set off, having arranged to stay with ex-English friends who, she gathered, lived in the city. After an eight hour journey on the Delaware & Hudson, with both children sitting on her lap and crying most of the way (the tracks run close beside the Hudson or Lake Champlain for much of the way; not being able to see any land on that side, they were scared that the train was going to fall in), her friends met them and drove them home... thirty-five miles away in Ste Hyacinthe. Here they had gathered a large party to greet the visitors. The celebration went on most of the night.

As they did not have an extra car Barbara took the children into Montreal the next day by bus, bought them some rubber toys at a drug-store, and, soon after the doors opened, entered the U.S. Consulate. She was in there until 5 p.m., eight Sisyphean hours. She would join a long line, the children pushing their toys about on the floor, tugging her skirt, or demanding to go to the john; eventually reach the front of the line, and have one document stamped; rush off to get sandwiches and milk and pot the children; then into the next line; at the latter end, near hysteria from fear that they would close for the day before she could get everything done, and she'd have to face it all again the next day; finally the Immigrants' visas issued just before closing time.

Her immense relief that it had at last been done was for the moment buried under the strains of the moment... another long ride back to Ste Hyacinthe, in a crowded rush-hour bus, both children on her lap; to find her hosts had found some people who had not met her the first time, and invited them to do so now; to bed about 3 a.m., awakened at 5 to catch the bus back to Montreal; nine hours in the train this time, as it ran late, the children now whining and crying without cease. At Peekskill the train stopped just long enough for her to get herself, the children and the bags on to the platform. With a shriek and a clanging of its bell it disappeared. She stood alone beside the glistening tracks, snow falling heavily, looking for me. I was not there. No one was there.

The Dodge had shed a gasket, and then I had had to drive slowly through the snow. When I arrived, half an hour later, Barbara burst into tears. 'Why weren't you here?' she sobbed, 'Oh God, that's all you had to do and you weren't here!' It was the only time she broke down during all these long and, in truth, nerve-racking years of literary rejection, official harassment, and, except from our parents, universal pessimism about our prospects from England. She wept quietly most of the way back to South Mountain Road, a murderous drive through falling snow on very slippery roads over the Bear Mountain bridge and down 9 W. Marian Hill was at our house when we got there; and after one look at Barbara's face took our children off. As she left she muttered to me, 'Give her a poached egg in the living-room. Off a tray. With tea and whisky.' It was good advice.

Lippincott rejected
Nightrunners,
with a letter:
After a complete series of readings and a lot of discussions and in spite of my personal enthusiasm — it has been decided to return
(Nightrunners)
to John Masters. Frankly, I think we are making a mistake and practically lost my voice saying so... (Signed) Tay Hohoff.

Driving out alone from New York one evening I was flagged down on the George Washington bridge by a police car. I followed it through the tolls and stopped behind it in a dark spot under the mass of the bridge approach on the Jersey side. I got out and went to the cop's car (I had been told never to make a cop get out of his car and approach you; he doesn't know what your intentions are, or whether you have a gun trained on him, and it makes him jumpy and bad tempered). He said I was speeding. I said it was possible, I hadn't been looking at my speedometer. He asked to see my driving licence and the car registration. I showed them to him and waited for him to note down the particulars. It would be annoying to pay a fine, and perhaps have my licence endorsed: I must be more careful in future. The cop did nothing, except stare at me. I waited. He said 'Oh Christ!', threw the papers back at me, engaged gear, and shot off. I climbed back into the Dodge, puzzled. Was the poor fellow not well? Had he realized he had made a mistake? About ten miles up 9 W it struck me that he might have been expecting a bribe. When I got home Barbara said that the local Democratic boss had telephoned, repeating his previous offer — that if I paid $1,000 to party funds my immigration difficulties would be smoothed over; but this time he had said I need not pay until I had the money. I was to call back.

It was a bad night, for we were already sure we would be Democrats if we became citizens. Would we have to accept this debased political and 'official' morality as a counterweight to America's greater honesty in non-political life, for example, in giving an honest day's work for an honest day's wage? We didn't know. We could only play our part. I did not call back.

Random House rejected
Nightrunners;
no comment.

We saw more of the Jennisons. Their two boys were prime exhibits in our study of American education. They were now about twelve and ten, undisciplined but with a natural politeness and evident goodwill towards strangers, and somehow doing what was necessary about the house without a lot of fuss. William Sloane Associates had broken up, and Keith had gone to the Viking Press. Much against my will, I was now forced to think of him as a publisher rather than as a friend. I had never shown him one of my MSS, because I did not think it right to use a friendly intercourse to obtain a business concession, e.g. a reading. In the army, too many times, I had had to tell friends that they were poor officers, and I was going to remove them from their posts. It could never be made a pleasant experience for either of us, and it usually killed the friendship. But, just as friendship had to give way before the demands of the service, so now I was willing to sacrifice it for
Nightrunners of Bengal
and my writing career, which included our future in the United States. At a party at the Girls, to which the Jennison were also invited, I downed three martinis, backed Keith into a corner and said I would like him to read my book. He said, 'Sure. I've been waiting months for you to suggest it.'

I gave him the MS next day, with a letter:
As you know, I am trying to sell you not only this book but my writing career... Please try to keep me posted on progress, after a reasonable time for preliminary readings. With that proviso you can take your time over it because I want to work with you if it can be done. I need help and advice from someone who knows things I do not, and whom I trust. Let us therefore to our stations and bear ourselves well, for once we are over this hurdle I think there may be great and exciting days ahead.

Next day, still bearing myself well in my station over the hurdle, I read in a magazine articles that there were 3,700,986 people writing whole or part time in the U.S.A.

All these were my competitors in the market.

The weeks passed. We avoided the Jennisons, so that Keith should not think I was fussing round waiting for an answer. I felt again as though I were waiting, high up in one of those Manhattan office buildings, alone in the lobby, forty doors all around. On the frosted glass of each is the name of a publisher, a magazine, an editor; slowly I make the circle, carrying an ever heavier load of paper on my shoulder. I ring each bell, knock on each door. No one answers, though I hear whispering behind the glass...

Vyvyan Donner had an idea. She knew a man, Jack Luedekke, who worked at the Army Film Unit on Long Island. He thought there might be a job for me there. I met Jack a couple of days later at Vyvyan's apartment, and went out to the studios with him. He showed me round, and gave me some scripts to study. I had never heard of such a place — the Indian Army could not afford one — but saw at once that it was a necessity for producing a technical citizens' army, e.g. on mobilization for a major war. The unit made every kind of film. One taught how to embalm corpses for transportation to the U.S.A.

Obviously the army could not, in peacetime, maintain a large Embalmers' Corps; equally obviously such a corps would be needed in war. This film would train men quickly and cheaply. The cost of making it would be saved many times over. Embalming was hardly my line; nor was the film on the life-cycle of the rat (for the medical corps, to deal with rat-borne diseases); nor the one on security methods to be taught to soldiers going on active service; but there were tactical films which exactly paralleled the instruction I had been giving, by other methods, at Camberley.

The surprise to me was that films were made from a script. Although I had written scripts for Staff College demonstrations I had always thought that films just happened, the director telling everyone what to do as they went along. After studying the scripts Jack Luedekke lent me, I made a formal application to be allotted a subject, reminding the Signal Corps that I was a British national, and could not be given classified matter. In a little essay accompanying my application, I pointed out to the colonel in charge that he had twenty script writers who in effect knew nothing about soldiering; would he please give a chance to someone who had the reverse qualifications — a professional soldier totally ignorant of script writing?

The letter disappeared into the mail pouch of the U.S. Post Office's snail-paced horseman. I had rung another bell.

Whispering susurrated in the lobby. I was fed up with spaghetti, and the children's clothes were in rags. A local lady's New York lover offered Barbara a job as secretary in the garment district. She would earn $60 a week for being genteel and Gentile, and — as a matter of fact — a damned good secretary, too. If she accepted, it would slow down my writing, for I would have to cook for the children and wash and iron Susan's dresses; but there was no help for it.

We were down to $250, plus our tickets back to England. At my urgent request the law firm of Rosenman, Goldmark, Colin
&
Kaye sent me their bill for twenty months of legal services. It was $50. I suppose Jerry Plapinger had personally spent 100 hours on my case, not to count long distance telephone calls to Washington, and consultations with Sam Rosenman and other senior partners. This to help a stranger in need. It is hard to express gratitude at such times.

After paying the bill, and a few other items, we had $143.87 left. Barbara promised to give her prospective employer an answer on January 2, 1950.

Christmas came. It had been a bad year all round. In March East Germany had held elections on a single (Communist) list and in October formally proclaimed the Communist Republic. In March the Communists finished taking over the ruling Socialist party in Hungary. Our own troubles seemed a little less black in comparison.

It was a balmy season that year, the forest like a leafless summer. Our Christmas tree was barely three feet high, and in deference to the fire regulations, we had replaced the bare candles of Camberley with a single loop of red electric bulbs and a great deal of tinsel. For dinner we invited the Girls, since they had no families — at least, none that wanted to see them. I made jugs of Tom & Jerry and, long before the turkey came on, we were ready to weep on each other's shoulders. Shortly before dinner was cooked Barbara retired to bed, but not until the Girls told us they had rewritten their wills, to leave their worldly goods, first to each other, then to Susan and Martin. Then we really did weep on each other's shoulders. Barbara left. I carved and served up the turkey and all the trimmings. When they were gone I went into the kitchen to open the canned plum puddings. Some error must have occurred in the cooking, for when I rammed a can opener into the first pudding it exploded. Under a steady drip and thud of pudding from the ceiling I opened the other can more carefully and returned to the table. Martin clapped enthusiastically at seeing the pudding all over my face, hair, and clothes, but the Girls were polite enough to affect not to notice. I next poured the pre-heated brandy on to the pudding, which now stood on warmed plates, and with a flourish, set light to it in the proper manner (by using a match to light a toothpick and using the toothpick to light the brandy: this obviates the unpleasant sulphurous taste of the match). The plates were perhaps too hot (a common failing of mine, this), for now the brandy exploded in orange flame, blackening the beams overhead and burning off most of my moustache and part of my eyebrows. 'Pretty, pretty,' the Girls murmured, while Susan broke into unfeigned applause. Soon after we had finished eating Barbara came down, fresh and cheerful, and I took her place in bed, for a few hours.