TWENTY-THREE
Epilogue
It is June of 2004, and there’s so much to do at Mother’s grave! I must prune the rhododendrons I planted here more than a decade ago, give them a particularly good feeding after the arduous winter, perhaps put in some new evergreens on either side of the tombstone that surmounts her ashes and bears her name: Tatiana Yacovleff du Plessix Liberman, 1906–1991. She lies half a mile from my house as the bird flies, less than a mile on foot. In the proper weather, I can even walk a few hundred yards down my road and cut across a swath of fields, and there she is under a bed of myrtle, at the northwest end of my village cemetery; and how suited to her Confucian, deeply rooted nature to lie in this engaging site, overlooking a splendid view, close to the country home upon which she lavished such care, readily visitable by those she loved.
We chose this plot for our entire family a few decades ago, ever since my near breakdown at my father’s grave I have been easy, familiar with death—during our cemetery visits Cleve and I used to often sit and argue about what kinds of tombstones we wanted over our own remains. Mother had gone in first, waiting for us. Upon finding her a handsome stone, Alex had his name and the year of his birth engraved below hers, followed by a dash, and some years ago we filled that gap with the date of his own passing, 1999. After I’ve pruned and fed the rhodies, I must weed the myrtle—a hellish task to get at the lawn grass without breaking the plants’ delicate roots. I’m possessive, tidy, if not narcissistic, about her resting place, as she was about her own appearance in life: Beyond my frequent horticultural checks and birthdays and Christmases, I visit her upon most every one of my life’s important occasions—before taking a trip abroad, for instance, as if to get her blessing, and upon crises, to glean counsel, and when a new grandchild is born, to share the joy.
You may well ask, attentive reader, why I say “Her,” not “Them,” and refer to the site as “Mother’s grave.” Let me explain: Though I engraved the date of Alex’s death to commemorate his half-century’s presence at Mother’s side, he is here only symbolically, out of my respect for the sacredness of memory. His ashes are actually in the custody of his third wife, kept within her sight wherever she may be. When in New York, for instance, they repose on a chest of drawers facing her bed, surrounded by a shrine of votive candles and fresh flowers, as is the custom of her country. But she has been restless since his passing, and Alex is often on the road, wandering with her: Sealed up in a neat little traveling case, causing increasing consternation to airport security officials, he travels in and out of hotels and homes, to Miami, to the Philippines, to Atlantic City, to Las Vegas, to wherever her fancy may take her—what destiny could be more perfect for a nomad’s remains! Like the gypsy, the perennial exile he was at heart, he is perpetually on the road, rootless, uncommitted, with no fixed base, his whereabouts as fluid and elusive, as continually dictated by a woman’s caprices, as they were in real life—“Is he in heaven? Is he in hell? That damned elusive Pimpernel!”
But since graves commemorate the transit of immortal souls in temporal flesh, Alex is here, too, in the Warren, Connecticut, cemetery, for no two spirits so demonically bonded as his was to Mother’s could ever be sundered by anything as trivial as death. So I occasionally say “Their” grave; now and again I address the two of Them. What models you have been for me, I tell Them, despite your cowardice, your deceitfulness, your arrogance, what force and shrewdness and power of survival you passed on to me! I suppose that having you near me, visitable upon a moment’s notice, is a way of continuing to tame you, of keeping you in my control. Now that you are in my custody, fierce parents, you have become my own docile little children, sandstone soft, every recollection of you to be sculpted and honed according to my whims, I can erase the sites of darkness and retain only the very best of you—your wild largesse, your rage to succeed, your Homeric hospitality. Thank you, my loves, I tell Them, I’ll never cease to thank you.
In December of 2004 my closest friend, my tender comrade, my cherished husband of forty-seven years, Cleve Gray, joined my parents at the Warren, Connecticut, cemetery, in the plot he chose for us a quarter of a century ago. Come spring, when the ground thaws, he too will have his rhododendrons, his myrtle, his tombstone, and my fastidious domestic care in maintaining the beauty of his resting place. Through frequent visits to the graves of these treasured beings I’m gradually learning that healthy mourning has to do with relearning reality; that however immense our grief, we must cease to desire our loved ones’ return, must create a new psychic space in which we continue to love them in absence and separation. Above all I’ve come to know that we can only grasp the meaning of their existence, and therefore the meaning of ours, by some dynamic interaction with the story of their lives; that this information is our most valuable treasure; that we may have to learn their life narratives before we can truly begin to be ourselves. There’s nothing like a grave, particularly if one’s youth was nearly botched for lack of one. Now my Guardians are all gone, I reflect as I prune back the rhododendrons, they’re all gone and I’m the sole custodian of their memory, the weight of remembrance and information is all on me, to share or to withhold. How painful and bittersweet to be finally alone, in charge.
Acknowledgments
My first and foremost debt is to Ann Godoff, my publisher and editor, whose enthusiasm for this work has been a source of inspiration and encouragement, and who has given me precious guidance at every step of its composition. Equal gratitude to Liza Darnton of the Penguin Press, whose patient dedication to the art of fine editing is nothing short of miraculous.
For research assistance I am deeply grateful to my friend Vasili Rudich, whose encyclopedic knowledge of Russian history and culture has been a source of great personal enlightenment, and to my cherished multilingual aide Nadia Michoustina, who has come to my rescue at many critical moments of the past few years. Equally treasurable has been the help of my friend George Lechner of the University of Hartford, whose skills as a cultural historian have been invaluable, and of my neighbor Lillian Lovitt, whose expertise in handling photographs is terrific.
I’m deeply indebted to Dodie Kazanjian and Calvin Tomkins, whose biography of my stepfather, Alex, has corroborated many details of oral history and sheer memory that are at the core of this (or any) family memoir. Their careful documentation of pivotal events in Alex’s life has been of inestimable help in writing this book. Barbara Rose’s earlier study of Alex, Alexander Liberman, has also been of great value in my research.
Among the persons who have offered the benefit of their own memories of my parents, I’m particularly indebted to my stepmother, Melinda Liberman; to Gitta Sereny and Patricia Greene, cherished friends of my parents’ first years in the United States; to S. I. Newhouse Jr., who was a central figure in my stepfather’s last forty years; to Crosby Coughlin, Alex’s trusted aide-de-camp in his last decade; and to my dear friend Rosamond Bernier, whose memories of my parents go back to 1944, and who gave me precious insights into the dynamics of a shared milieu. For their valuable insights into the dynamic of my parents’ lives and career, gratitude also to Dr. Isadore Rosenfeld, Irving Penn, James Truman, Anna Wintour, Tina Brown, Charles Churchward, Daniel Salem, Pierre Bergé, Mary and Bernard d’Anglejan, Susan Train, Claude Nabokov, Edmonde Charles-Roux, Zozo de Ravenel, Lord Snowdon, Liuda Shtern, William Raynor, Linda Price, Anya Kaialoff, Mary Jane Poole, Elizabeth Sverbeyeva, Sarah Slavin, Susan Peters, Gray Foy, Thomas Guinzburg, Jean-Michel Montias, Grace Mirabella, Nadine Bertin Stearns, Bill and Elaine Layman, Betty and François Catroux, Kathleen Blumenfeld, Diane Von Furstenburg, Wayne Lawson, Oscar de la Renta, Alexis Gregory, Andre Emmerich, the late Despina Messinesi, Jean-Pierre Fourneau, who was Alex’s closest comrade during his boarding school days seventy-five years ago, and the late Richard Avedon, a treasured friend. Last but hardly least, I thank those of my editors at The New Yorker who have published excerpts from this book, Tina Brown and David Remnick, for their generous encouragement a
nd support.
To my beloved chum Gabrielle Van Zuylen, gratitude everlasting for offering me a second home in Paris, for the affectionate concern with which she helps me to keep body and soul together during my working stays abroad, and for the inspiration she has offered me at every stage of my career.
I could not have written this book without the assistance of Moscow’s Vladimir Mayakovsky Museum, whose director, Svetlana Strizhneva, had the wits to alert me to the existence of the museum’s Tatiana Yakovleva archive. Of the colleagues at that institution, whose thoughtfulness and hospitality were prodigal, I owe particular gratitude to Natasha Andreevna and Adolf Aksionchik, who offered me inestimable aid in helping me to access and translate their archive’s precious documents.
I could not have illustrated this work without the help of the Getty Research Institute, the Condé Nast Archives, the Irving Penn Studio, the Estate of Erwin Blumenfeld, and the Alexander Liberman Trust. The Getty generously allowed me to access the archives in which some 100,000 photographs of Alex’s are stored, and I’m particularly indebted to its curator of Special Collections, Wim de Witt. Anthony Petrillose offered me invaluable help in collecting precious images stored in the Condé Nast Archives. Dee Henle of the Irving Penn Studio cordially processed my requests to reproduce five of this great artist’s photographs of my family. Henry Blumenfeld provided the same kind of aid in accessing his father’s work. And the trustees of the Liberman Trust, Dodie Kazanjian and Melinda Liberman, were most gracious in granting me copyright permissions to use letters and photographs which are in the keeping of the trust.
Finally, to my first readers: my agents, Georges and Anne Borchardt, who’ve stood by me steadfastly for three decades; my cherished friend of more than half a century, Joanna Rose; my eagle-eyed pals Jennifer Phillips, Marguerite Whitney, and Karen Marta; and my own beloved male trinity—Thaddeus Gray, Luke Gray, and the late Cleve Gray—whose affection and wisdom have helped me not only to grow as a writer, but to survive every day of my life.
Notes
“the milliner’s milliner”: New York Times, July 23, 1963, p. 12.
“the feminine elegance”: Saks News, September 1959, p. 19
She was perhaps: Saks press release, spring 1962.
bretons of rose-printed silk: Saks press release, spring 1964.
The three women: Gennady Smakov interview with Tatiana Yakovleva, unpublished, archive of Francine du Plessix Gray, henceforth referred to as “FG Archive, Smakov.”
And upon the great famine: Ibid., p. 19.
His skills were noticed early: cited by Benois in “A.E. Iacovleff 1887–1938, V.I. Shakhaev 1887–1973, 100 Letiu so Dnya Rozhdenie,” exhibition catalogue, Leningrad, 1988.
“We entered a fantastic decor”: Grand Central Galleries, memorial exhibition catalogue, 1939.
“A body, a musculature”: Art et Decoration 49 (January–June 1926).
“Iacovleff, indefatigable”: Quoted in Caroline de la Baume, Le Peintre voyageur, Paris: Flammarion, 2000.
“I love traveling”: Iacovleff in L’Art et les Artistes, March 1926, unpaginated.
They were entranced: Ibid.
The very difficulties: Ibid.
It had to do with the veneration: Quoted in L’Illustration, June 3, 1933, unpaginated photocopy.
“[General Tchou] posed for me”: Ibid.
“Why is the joy?”: Ibid.
“It’s a sinister”: Ibid.
“To interpret, through successive images”: Alexandre Iacovleff, Dessins et peintures d’Asie, Paris: J. Meynial, 1934.
“Boston’s atmosphere”: Ibid., p. 154.
Upon this visit: Martin Birnbaum, Iacovleff and Other Artists, New York, Paul A. Struck, 1946, pp. 3–24.
“a handsome youth”: Boris Pasternak, I Remember: Sketch for an Autobiography, trans. David Magarshack, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1983, p. 91.
“sat in a chair”: Boris Pasternak, Safe Conduct, New York: New Directions, 1958, p. 102.
“young terrorist conspirator”: Pasternak, I Remember, p. 92.
“spit out the past”: Wiktor Worozylski, Life of Mayakovsky, translated from the Polish by Boleslaw Taborski, New York: Orion Press, 1971, p. 46.
“throw Pushkin, Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy”: Ibid., p. 47.
In “The Cloud in Trousers”: Vladimir Mayakovsky, “The Cloud in Trousers,” in The Bedbug and Selected Poetry, ed. and with an introduction by Patricia Blake, trans. Max Hayward and George Reavey (henceforth “Blake”), New York: Meridian Books, 1960, pp. 71–108.
“The line/Is a fuse”: Ibid., pp. 195, 201.
His patriotic odes: Pasternak, I Remember, p. 93.
“I am as lonely”: “Man” (1916–1917), cited in Blake, p. 26.
“The heart yearns”: Ibid.
Gorky is said to have been: Edward J. Brown, Mayakovsky, a Poet in the Revolution, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973, p. 112.
In fact, upon hearing: Quoted in Gonzague Saint Bris and Vladimir Fédorovski, Les Egéries russes, Paris: Lattès, 1994, p. 11.
“If I’m a complete rag”: Bengt Jangfeldt, ed., Love Is the Heart of Everything: Correspondence Between Vladimir Mayakovsky and Lili Brik, 1915–1930, Edinburgh: Polygon, 1986, p. 126 (henceforth Jangfeldt).
For years, with her tacit: “The Backbone Flute,” in Blake, pp. 111–29.
“It is my revolution”: Mayakovsky, ed. and trans. Herbert Marshall, New York: Hill and Wang, 1965, p. 88.
“But now’s no time”: Vladimir Mayakovsky, “Vladimir Ilyich Lenin,” in ibid., p. 266.
“Clothe the body”: Quoted in Ilya Ehrenburg, People and Life, vol. 2: 1918–1921, New York: Knopf, 1962.
“The best pacifiers”: Brown, Mayakovsky, p. 262.
“The genuine/wise”: Mayakovsky, “Vladimir Ilyich Lenin,” in Marshall, pp. 250, 256.
Increasingly, he realized: Blake, pp. 225, 221.
Jakobson looks on 1928: Cited in Benedikt Sarnov, ed., Stikhi, poemy, piesy i pisma Mayakovskogo, a takzhe otryvki iz stikhov, statei, pisem, vospominany i otklikov sovremennikov—druzei i vragov poeta, “Russky Parnas” series, Moscow: Knizhnaia Palata, 1997, p. 491.
“Babushka would have had”: FG Archive, Smakov.
“Picture this”: Blake, pp. 209–13. (Translation adjusted by FG.)
“Come to the crossroads”: Translated from Russian original in Sarnov, Stikhi, p. 464, by Nadezhda Michoustina and Francine Gray.
“Who is that woman”: Lili Brik–Elsa Triolet: Correspondance, 1921–1970, ed. Leon Robel, Paris: Gallimard, 2000, pp. 43–44 (henceforth Brik-Triolet Correspondence). Also cited in Sarnov, p. 487.
“He’s a remarkable man”: Yakovleva to Orlova, early December 1928, Yakovleva Archive, Mayakovsky Museum, Moscow, #19594. Photocopy in FG Archive, Mayakovsky Letters.
“However spoiled I am”: Ibid., December 24, 1928, #19596.
“Write more often”: Telegrams of V. V. Mayakovsky to Tatiana Yakovleva, 1929, FG Archive, Mayakovsky Letters.
“My own beloved Tanik”: Mayakovsky to Tatiana Yakovleva, December 24, 1928, FG Archive, Mayakovsky Letters.
“You’ve deceived me”: Quoted in Arkady Vaksberg, Zagadka I Magiia Lile Brik, Moscow: Ast Olimp Astrel, 2003, p. 212.
“Sweet Tanik, my beloved”: Mayakovsky to Yakovleva, December 31, 1928, FG Archive, Mayakovsky Letters.
“Letter to Comrade Kostrov”: See Roman Jakobson, “Unpublished Majakovskij,” in Harvard Literary Bulletin 9 (1955): 286. Jakobson quotes an eloquent but unidentified source that describes the role this poem played in increasing public hostility toward the poet.
“I’ve not at all decided”: Yakovleva to Orlova, January or early February [before February 10] 1929, Yakovleva Archive, Mayakovsky Museum, #19595.
“He did not criticize Russia”: Quoted in Sarnov, Stikhi, p. 481.
This impression coincides: Quoted in Jangfeldt, p. 272, footnote to letter #378.
“My dear, my sweet”: Mayakovsky to Yakovleva, May 1929, F
G Archive, Mayakovsky Letters.
“My dear, my own”: Mayakovsky to Yakovleva, July 29, 1929, in ibid.
“Write me and let me know”: Alexandra Yakovleva to Lyubov Orlova, May 14, 1929, with a postscript from Tatiana. Yakovleva Archive, Mayakovsky Museum, #19597.
“I was very sad”: Yakovleva to Orlova, July 13, 1929, in ibid., #19598.
On the rare occasions: FG journals, summer 1990, unpublished, FG Archive.
His “exquisite manners”: FG Archive, Smakov, pp. 16, 4A.
“Tanik, I’ve begun to miss you”: Mayakovsky to Yakovleva, July 1929, FG Archive, Mayakovsky Letters.
“My own beloved Tanik”: Ibid., summer 1929.
“My own beloved [rodnaia]”: Ibid., October 1929.
Her last October communication: Yakovleva to Orlova, Yakovleva Archive, Mayakovsky Museum, #22652 (9).
“We were quietly sitting”: Brik-Triolet Correspondence, pp. 1415–16.
“Do excuse me”: Ibid.
“We’re not French viscounts”: Ibid.
“I loved [Mayakovsky]”: FG Archive, Smakov, transcript in Russian version, also cited in Sarnov, pp. 481–82.
He was “enormously caring”: Yakovleva to Orlova, late December 1930, Yakovleva Archive, Mayakovsky Museum, #22652 (2).
His play The Bathhouse: Wiktor Woroszylski, The Life of Mayakovsky, trans. Boleslaw Taborski, New York: Orion Press, 1970, p. 483.
He paced the empty rooms: Polonskaya, in Imia etoi teme-liubov: sovremennitsy o Mayakovskova, Moscow, 1993, p. 291.
He felt increasingly isolated: Ibid., p. 294.
Friends noted that: Ann Charters and Samuel Charters, I Love: The Story of Vladimir Mayakovsky and Lili Brik, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1979, p. 334.
“Between eleven o’clock and twelve”: Pasternak, Safe Conduct, p. 127.
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