by Ida Cook
Something of the glory and the relief lingered with us during the following weeks and months. The tension slowly relaxed, the walls of our tight little island were expanding once more, so that we could allow our thoughts and our hopes to reach out. It was like stretching after a long, nightmarish sleep. And, if we woke up gradually to some rather dismaying realities, at least we were among the lucky ones who did wake. Too many, in those terrible years, had fallen asleep, never to wake again.
Louise’s and my determination to visit America no longer looked like a vague dream. There were going to be difficulties, of course, in getting abroad for some while after the end of the war. But when in August peace finally came, we began to plan in detail.
There was a certain nostalgic familiarity about calculating our finances, tackling official difficulties, working out a programme. And there was very real pleasure in writing to our many refugee friends in the States, telling them that we hoped to see them in something over a year’s time.
We wrote also to the operatic stars whom we numbered among our friends, and as Christmas drew near, I decided I would not let the first peacetime Christmas go past without trying to make contact with the greatest figure of our happiest opera days, Rosa Ponselle.
I had no address to write to. But I knew that two or three years before the war, she had married the son of the mayor of Baltimore. So I simply addressed my letter, “Rosa Ponselle, Baltimore, USA,” and sent it off.
In that letter, I tried to tell her something of what she had been to us all during those three great seasons at the Covent Garden, and how she had remained in the memories of so many of us when we had nothing but memories to sustain our courage and our hopes. I added that Louise and I intended to come to the States in about a year’s time and that, if we got near Baltimore, we would perhaps pluck up courage and ask if we might see her.
I am not sure that we even expected a reply. It was simply the first attempt toward doing something practical when we did arrive on the other side of the Atlantic. I thought the letter would probably, though by no means certainly, be delivered. But prima donnas are notoriously bad correspondents—Geraldine Farrar being the only exception I have known personally—and while of course I hoped for a reply, I felt no more confident than the rawest fan sending a first artless request for an autograph.
But I need not have doubted. The reply came. And, with it, the first return of that sense of continuity the refugee years and the war had so cruelly torn away. Ponselle wrote as though we had parted yesterday.
No words, she said, could describe how happy and touched she was to be remembered thus in London, where she had spent some of the happiest days of her whole career. It was true that much water had passed under the bridge since last we met, but we were moving on to the brighter future now, and at least we were alive and able to make the contact that meant so much. If Louise and I really came to the States, she and her husband absolutely insisted that we come to stay with them for a while, so that we could see her and hear her and feel that she was real once more. She ended by asking me to remember her to all the Covent Garden admirers who had remembered her so faithfully.
“There’s always Rosa,” Louise and I had told each other, half-laughing, half-crying, during those dreadful years. And there was! For years now, we had wondered if it had really become just a meaningless catchword. But we were to see her, know her, hear her sing again. It was a sort of private vindication of our belief in the ultimate rightness of things.
I lived on the telephone that day, ringing up all the old admirers I could reach. We nearly burnt up the telephone wires. All the conversations began carelessly with, “Who do you think wrote to me today?”
When I had answered Rosa’s letter and settled down to a normal routine again, Louise and I decided that, on the anniversary of Ponselle’s London debut—the never-to-be-forgotten May 28—we would give a party for as many of the old fans as we could cram into the flat, and we would have a ten-minute Atlantic call with her.
Everyone received the idea with enthusiasm, for Atlantic phone calls were pretty unusual things in those days. Our only difficulty was that the flat had not elastic walls.
I wrote explaining the idea to Ponselle and asked if she would like it. She simply wired back, “Will be waiting for your call—Rosa.”
The flat had seen many sad, glad, crazy, serious—even tragic—gatherings since the day I first went into it. But it never saw a more excited, moved or strangely enough, nervous gathering than on that evening of May 28. I was the last to have spoken to her, but that was thirteen years ago in Florence. None of us had ever spoken on the Atlantic telephone before, and this attempt to bridge both time and distance was strangely unnerving.
Promptly at eight o’clock, the telephone rang, and dead silence fell upon the room. I don’t mind admitting I was trembling a bit as I picked up the receiver and the operator stolidly checked over the details of names and time.
Then he said, “Go ahead.” Out of the past, Ponselle’s unmistakable “dark” Italian-American voice spoke, almost in my ear, “Hello, Ida! Is that you?”
Shades of all the great days of our youth. Of the times we crouched on an uncomfortable seat in the gallery to cheer her Norma and Gioconda and Traviata! Of those days I tracked her through London, not daring to ask if I might snap her.
“Hello, Ida!” said Ponselle, over three thousand miles and thirteen years. “Is that you?”
It was like raising the dead.
I forgot to call her Madame Ponselle. I called her Rosa, as we always had amongst ourselves. Incredibly enough, everyone who spoke to her over the telephone that evening called her Rosa.—Except Douglas, who then and ever afterwards, addressed her as “Casta diva.”—She asked me how many were there. When I told her, adding that they were all as silent as they had been when they waited for her “Casta diva” years ago, she laughed and asked, almost diffidently, “Would you like me to sing for you now?”
“Will you?” I gasped.
“Yes,” she said. “Call them all around and hold up the receiver. I’ll see if I can get it over to you all.”
I called them around. We sat, knelt or stood as near to the telephone as we could, and held up the receiver.
There was a moment’s silence. And then—in miniature, but clear, matchless—her tremendous, characteristic entry in the “Pace, pace,” from the fourth act of the Forza del Destino crossed the years and the ocean. The pianissimo, growing to an incredible fortissimo and back to the golden thread of her unrivalled pianissimo once more. We would have known it anywhere, any time, as Ponselle—at the North Pole or on the banks of the Styx. We nearly went crazy.
After that, she sang almost continuously for the remaining minutes, while we passed the receiver around so that each of us at least heard a few notes at full volume.
For many, many years afterwards, we repeated the party and the call, later attaching a loudspeaker to the telephone so that everyone could hear both ends of the conversation. Even today, Louise and I still phone her on the anniversary of her London debut, and it is always an enchanting experience. But nothing will ever surpass the drama of that first call.
If we had never loved her before, we should love her for that alone.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
As will be imagined, the preparations for our American visit took on a very special urgency and significance after that first phone call. Not even in the days when we had saved strenuously for our first trip had we felt happier or more excited. Much of the old magic existed for us again, and with it, a new and, I suppose, more mature sense of enjoyment.
We have always retained something of the enthusiasm and the rather naïve enjoyment of the gallery girls we once were, and this new visit catered to those feelings as lavishly as ever. But in addition, there was the moving and heart-warming anticipation of meeting again so many of the friends we had known only in the shadow of great da
nger and tragedy. We had waved them away from the shores of Europe as refugees. Now they would be there to welcome us, in their new character of citizens of the country that had always enthralled us.
It was during these final months of preparation for our return to the States that we added our first post-war operatic friendship to our experiences. Marjorie Lawrence, that brave and splendid Wagnerian singer, with her husband, Dr. King, visited England on a concert tour. It will be remembered that the height of her triumphant career—indeed, actually at a rehearsal of Walküre—she was stricken with polio and never walked again. But she had built another career for herself, singing in concert from a wheelchair.
It goes without saying that the radiance and brilliance of that heroic voice captivated us all from the outset. But what entranced us just as much was the beauty and courage of a very remarkable personality. We attended every concert she gave within reasonable—even slightly unreasonable—reach of London, and then it seemed to me that here was the ideal moment to try to revive the almost forgotten glories of the “star” parties, beloved of ourselves and our operatic associates before the war.
A little diffidently, we invited Marjorie Lawrence and her husband to the famous flat to meet about two dozen of her most earnest admirers. And, to the joy of us all, the invitation was accepted.
Practical difficulties existed, of course, for we were still on strict rations, and catering on even a modest scale was not yet easy. But everyone wanted to help, and never was a party prepared with more eagerness and goodwill. No restrictions, no difficulties were to stand in the way of showing how greatly we loved and admired Marjorie Lawrence, and how much we appreciated this little touch of glamour in a grey post-war world.
We scoured London for good things to eat. I even wrote to my old school friend in Northumberland—the one to whom we had sent Dad and Mother during the period of the flying bombs—explained the circumstances, and implored her to rustle up a chicken, or something of the sort.
Back came Rettie Douglas’s reply by return post. “I’ll do better than that! I’ll bring you a Coquet salmon personally. As the party is on Saturday, Elsie”—another Northumbrian enthusiast—“and I will catch the first train down in the morning. We should be in London by four in the afternoon. And we’ll travel back on Sunday.”
My anxieties ended there. But not so Rettie’s!
On that Friday, of all days, the salmon turned coy. Or, in the local phrase, “the salmon wouldn’t swim.” And, according to Rettie’s subsequent dramatic account, she spent most of Friday afternoon standing on the shore—rather like Sister Anne in Bluebeard—scanning the horizon in hopes of a salmon. Occasionally, a fisherman brought one in, but never one big enough for our purpose. Then, at the last possible moment, in came a fisherman with a perfect prince of a fish. Rettie was not the only one after that salmon, but surrounded by an interested group, she told the tale of the Marjorie Lawrence party, and everyone immediately waived their claims in her favour. The salmon was hers!
No wonder she arrived late in the day, more or less clasping the noble creature to her bosom. For, next to Marjorie Lawrence and Dr. King, it was undoubtedly the most important guest at the party. At this point, let me digress to say that if anyone who has never tasted Coquet salmon imagines that he knows what salmon can be, I must respectfully insist that he is wrong.
I don’t know quite how to describe that party. It was cheerful and lovely and amusing beyond description. And yet, very deep feelings ran only just below the surface. Here was a glorious British star among fellow Britons. We could guess how much she had suffered in the past years. She guessed how much some of us suffered too, and there was an undercurrent of sympathy and tenderness that was very moving. I think the moment that remained with all of us was when, at the end of the party, Marjorie exchanged a glance with her husband and then addressed us all quite seriously.
“There is something we should like to tell you,” she said rather gently. “You will understand that, in our position, we receive literally hundreds of invitations as we go about the world, and that, as things are, we have to refuse almost all of them. But when your invitation came, we talked it over together and decided it came from sincere and genuine people with a deep love of music and that is why we accepted. We know how difficult things are here. We know quite well how much trouble and thought you must all have taken to give us such an evening. And now, we want you to know that very seldom in our lives have we enjoyed a party so much.”
We almost gulped with emotion and delight at this unexpected tribute, and only the hasty presentation of a bouquet—subscribed for by us all but somehow forgotten until this most auspicious moment—adequately expressed our feelings.
It was on a much later occasion that I ventured to ask her the question that must often have been in people’s minds when they contemplated her wonderful victory over circumstances that would have crushed almost anyone else.
“What was it, Marjorie,” I asked at last, “that keeps you so bright and courageous in spite of everything? You must have some very clear and remarkable philosophy to support you.”
She smiled a little mischievously, but replied without hesitation, “Well, you see, many people believe in God and make themselves miserable. We believe in God and have lots of fun. That’s all.”
The charming and characteristic utterance of a woman who would have been great in her own right, even without the gift of a divine voice.
It was only a few months after this that Louise and I prepared to say a temporary goodbye to England for the first time in seven years.
Lisa Basch, whom we had last seen in England in 1940, just before she and her family emigrated to the States, had made all the New York arrangements for us. Her parents waited to welcome us to Philadelphia. Mrs. Stiefel, to whom I had said goodbye at Euston so many years ago could hardly wait to introduce us to the daughter we had never seen. Half of Mitia’s family were looking forward to our coming. In Washington, in New York, in Virginia, we would be equally welcome. Friedl’s mother, whom we had left in Frankfurt two weeks before war broke out, and who had escaped finally, via the Soviet Union and later China, was counting the days until we should arrive with first-hand news of Friedl and her husband and baby. Her uncle, whom we had last seen when he came from the concentration camp in 1938, and his wife and family were ready to welcome us in Los Angeles. Oh, and countless others. There was not a city where we had to set foot, but someone or someone’s parents or children or uncles or cousins wanted to see us.
It was like the old days, when we went to Europe with messages to and from everyone. Only this time, we were to meet for rejoicing. It was a happy ending on an enormous scale.
But, if it was to be a tour of refugee friends, it was also to be a tour of prima donnas. In New York, we were to see Elisabeth Rethberg again; we had said goodbye to her in Salzburg just before war broke out. We were to visit Marjorie Lawrence and her husband at their ranch in Arkansas. In California, Lita and Homer awaited us with an affectionate delight undimmed by twelve or thirteen years’ separation.—To them we would always be “The Girls” however many years had rolled between.—In Connecticut, we were to meet Geraldine Farrar, for all those years pen-friend with one of our oldest friends from the opera queue. And in Maryland, we were to find Rosa again.
No wonder the horrors of the last eleven years were beginning to seem unreal. What seemed increasingly near and real were the good old days, which linked up so perfectly with the joys that stretched in front of us. And, most strangely and satisfying and reassuring of all, was the realization that, at last, the two mainstreams of our lives were merging into one. If the refugee work had once taken us away from operatic joys, now it was returning us to them.
Those months in which we prepared for our return to the States were very happy ones. On January 4, 1947—twenty years to the day since Louise and I had first set foot in New York, had first walked along Fifth Avenue
and turned along Thirty-Ninth Street to the Met—we left Europe once more, this time by air.
Bad weather delayed our journey a good deal, but nothing could dampen our spirits this time. The only trouble was that the hour of our arrival had become so uncertain that, in the end, no one was able to be at the airport. Indeed, we arrived at our hotel almost casually.
And there, sitting in the hotel lounge, waiting for us as she had once waited in a hotel in Frankfurt, was Lisa Basch.
We fell upon her with cries of joy that must have forever dissipated any idea of “the stolid Britisher” entertained by anyone around us. We hardly knew what questions to ask each other. We could only embrace, exclaim and laugh.
Three minutes later, Mrs. Stiefel arrived with her daughter. And, wafted on the wings of another joyous reunion, we all went up to our room.
I shall never forget how it looked. It was like a film star’s room. There were flowers and telegrams and candy and cakes and letters and phone-call slips. Somehow, we had not expected anything like that. I took one look around and began to cry.
But dear Mrs. Stiefel said, no, I must not cry, that the time for crying was long past, and now was the time to rejoice that we were all happy and safe. So I cheered up and began eating candy, which had always had the power to raise my spirits in every phase of my existence, and soon felt much better.
Rosi Lismann came, her daughter called up from Washington, and every five minutes the phone rang to say there was either someone else to see us or to speak to us by telephone. Our particular section of the world seemed to have been hit by a hurricane—but a hurricane of affection and good wishes.
How sweet it is to be remembered. And to be remembered with love and gratitude. One doesn’t do one’s few good deeds with that thought in mind, but nothing is lovelier than to have it happen. It was a mad and wonderful day. And that night, though Louise and I had had about four hours’ sleep per night for the last three nights, we rushed off to the Metropolitan where Pinza was singing Boris Godunov.
