The Swans of Fifth Avenue

by Melanie Benjamin

  And always, the wonder, the terror: Was the cancer truly gone? Or was it merely lying in wait, gathering forces, hungry to assault her again?

  The answer came a year later, this past January of 1975. Another tumor, in the other lung. And now her friends couldn’t hide their distress; they burst into tears every time they saw her. Bill wouldn’t leave her alone for a minute, and instead of being grateful or touched by his devotion—finally, after all these years!—she was irritated by it, saw it for what it was: Appreciation, too late, for all she’d done for him. Appreciation fueled by guilt. And fear. Selfish fear. For himself.

  And Truman. Her Truman. Spinning out of control.

  What would happen to Truman when she was gone? Because it might not be too long now. Babe had a secret. She had stashed some pills away, in a tiny Moroccan pillbox on her dresser. And if the pain ever got too bad, and there was really no relief left to her, she would take them. And spare herself, and those she loved, the ugliness of a drawn-out, protracted death.

  But for now, the doctors were still talking about a cure; they were still careful to couch her prognosis in optimistic euphemisms. “There’s every reason to believe you’ll be around for a long, long time.” “We’re getting closer to a cure every day, and you have a lot of days ahead of you, Mrs. Paley.” “I wouldn’t worry if I were you; the chances are greater of being hit by a truck than of dying of this.”

  Babe came out of the bathroom. Bill was gone, thank God. She locked her bedroom door so she could finally remove her makeup, take out her damned teeth, which were even more ill-fitting than usual due to her weight loss, and remove her wig, which felt like a leaden, furry animal on her head, suffocating her pores. It was hell on hot days, but she would not give in to a turban. Not yet.

  Babe stared at herself in her vanity mirror; without the makeup, her skin still looked surprisingly smooth and youthful, if a bit waxy, and she wondered if there was something in the treatments that made it so. She cackled. “Babe Paley discovers magic new treatment for skin!” She could just imagine the headlines, the hordes of women all lining up to have radiation treatments so that they could look just like her.

  Her scars were still there, those scars that only Truman had seen; she ran her fingers across the one on her left jaw, felt the rough skin there.

  Then she ran her fingers across her skull. Her bare skull, only a few wisps of hair at the base, wisps she couldn’t bring herself to cut or shave. They were fine, like a baby’s hair. Faded, though; thoroughly white.

  She stared at herself for a very long time; the skeletal face, sunken cheeks, startled brown eyes, hairless head. She didn’t even have eyebrows now. Strange, she mused, transfixed by the ghastly, yet oddly innocently compelling, visage gazing back. You come into this world alone, toothless, hairless. And that’s how you leave this world.

  Alone.

  But Babe Paley did not weep. She only wished, for one terrible, vindictive moment, that her mother could see her face now.

  CHAPTER 17

  …..

  Truman reclined on a daybed, a writing pad perched on his protruding belly, pen in hand. The pad was full of pages and pages of paragraphs, jotted notes, words crossed out, scribbles in the margin—A severe injury to the brain…Kate McCloud—Mona Williams?…And Audrey Wilder sang…Gloria…Carol…La Côte Basque.

  At the top of the page, underlined, Answered Prayers.

  Bennett Cerf once said that none of his authors was as good at stirring up publicity as Truman was; the publisher adored the way Truman started talking up a book long before it was finished. He had none of the usual guarded secrecy concerning his work in progress that most authors possessed. Talking about something made it real in his mind, even if he didn’t have a word on the page, and so he chattered away happily, dropping hints and tidbits.

  He’d been doing this, concerning Answered Prayers, for years now. And he’d almost convinced even himself he’d written the damn thing.

  Earlier in his career, he’d always started at the beginning and written in chronological order. But this time, he told himself he was crafting a quilt, a beautiful, terrible quilt composed of brilliant insight, scathing commentary, memorable characters. How he would stitch it all together remained to be seen, of course, but Truman had no fear; he knew he would make it work.

  Well, maybe. Perhaps.

  Truman reached for a glass, full of vodka even though it was ten in the morning. Life was so ugly lately; he felt his eyes well up in tears as he sipped the alcohol, knowing it would have no effect on him, not yet; that’s why he had to start so early, because it took too many drinks these days to make him feel happy, and the world was just so terrible, he couldn’t bear to look at it sober.

  But it had been so beautiful! Not that long ago, either, at his gorgeous, wonderful party, when everyone was perfect and magical and the air was filled with music and the smell of flowers and the heady mix of a thousand perfumes, and he was happy, loved, triumphant.

  Now the world stank, was a shithole, and he was a star, still, a celebrity, but he sometimes shuddered at his own ugliness, the way he looked on camera, so bloated, so stoned, and the stories he told that, while funny and outrageous, were revolting, too, and he knew it, but dear God, he loved the fame and the publicity that followed him like the tail end of one of his silk scarves; he needed it, because it sheltered him from the sleaziness that was there, always, whenever he let his guard down. Or forgot to take a drink.

  What had happened with the world?

  Vietnam, of course. God, what a mess. The breakdown of barriers, racial, sexual, social: these things in which he should have rejoiced, but he didn’t, he couldn’t find any beauty in it. When the barriers came down there was only chaos and excess and foul smells and tattered fabric, unraveling, uncared for.

  The ugliness had always been there, he knew; didn’t he know it better than anyone? The stories behind the stories; the bargains and sacrifices he had made, that his swans had made, all of them, throughout their lives. The sordidness they were so determined to hide from the world; he remembered that one holiday in Italy, when it was just him and Babe and Bill having a wonderful time; a bright, shiny Christmas star of a time, enveloped in their wealth and privilege, staying at the finest hotels, being feted and adored. Bill bought and bought and bought; they were furnishing the apartment on Fifth then, and Bill was in one of his hungry moods. There was a hole inside him that couldn’t be filled but he would die trying to, and so he threw money everywhere, bought gilded this and antique that, Renaissance draperies, Florentine carpets. They had the most magnificent meals and wines, and Truman gazed at Babe, and gazed at Bill, and felt life couldn’t get any better than this, especially after Babe took him shopping and outfitted him with the finest Italian loafers and silk scarves and straw hats….

  Then, one night, they were invited to some minor prince’s house, and Babe and the prince danced for hours; Truman was too tired, and Bill never did dance. Like so many successful men, he avoided anything that might make him look frivolous. When the trio returned to their hotel suite—for of course they always booked a suite, three bedrooms, so they could all be together, every single minute of every day—Bill, his divine Mr. Paley, turned grotesque. He threw things—first his shoes, then his belt, then anything he could find—and spat out horrible accusations about Babe and the prince, and even when Babe pointed out the prince was gay, and Truman backed her up, he didn’t care, he only yelled, “I know that type, I know the type who will say that, pretend to be a pansy and then mess around with your wife,” and continued to shout and rampage until Babe and Truman locked themselves in another room, their hearts racing, but still it was so ridiculous, so hilarious, that they giggled, trying to stifle the sound because a furious man does not want to be thought a fool; it’s like throwing kerosene on a flame. Finally they relaxed, lay together on the bed and waited him out; Truman had fallen asleep, in fact, waiting. When it was all over, when there was only ominous quiet outside, Babe awaken
ed him gently with a kiss, but even so, Truman woke up with a jolt of panic, sweat on his brow. The locked door reminded him of all the times that his mother had jailed him in a hotel room, any hotel room, and went out with her friends, leaving him alone. All alone.

  Except, of course, this time he had Babe. And when they all emerged from their adjoining rooms in the morning, washed and beautifully clothed, and went out again, the envy of all who saw them, this happy, shiny, privileged trio, only they knew the repulsiveness they had left behind in the hotel, for the chambermaids to clear away.

  It paid, he thought sourly, to tip big. That was one thing the Paleys taught him.

  But Babe was ill now, so ill she couldn’t make everything better through the sheer power of her beauty, her kindness, her understanding. She was frail and snappish and sick, sick, sick, and it tore his heart, made him want to vomit, just as he had the night poor Perry and Dick were hung, God, those boys, those poor boys with their imploring, accusing eyes—but there wasn’t anything he could do for them! He’d tried, he really had! And there really wasn’t anything he could do for Babe, was there? Other than call her, send her flowers, cards, and try to make her laugh.

  And Bennett was dead. God, he’d almost forgotten. Bennett Cerf was dead, and Random House was breathing down his neck for this fucking book that he’d promised years ago. They never would have done that, before; they never would have insisted on him meeting a deadline, given his genius. Bennett had protected him. Just like Babe had. But no one wanted to protect him now.

  And the world was repellent, the beauty was fading, and it wasn’t only the years advancing. Was it? The talent was receding from his fingertips; he could feel it seeping from him, and the panic it induced was like a sickness, a Saint Vitus’ dance, so that he had to go out there and talk and talk and sparkle and recount and sing, sing, sing for his supper in the only way that had never really let him down, not the writing, but the entertaining. Dance, monkey, dance in your caftan, your tight black Rolling Stones T-shirt tucked into your leather pants, tell the stories, tell all the stories, because that’s what they crave, isn’t it? To hear the tawdriness, to sniff the seediness that even Holly Golightly in her Meanest, Reddest state would find repulsive.

  And face it, Truman, baby doll. Telling all the stories—all those delicious, decadent secrets—is what you enjoy the most, anyway. It’s what you’re the best at.

  It’s who you are. The snake in the grass…why else do you collect snakes? That story about the cottonmouth biting him—God, he hadn’t told that story in years, but they’d all fallen for it, hadn’t they?

  What they didn’t know was that he had bit the cottonmouth first.

  Still, he had to write something, because that was who he was, too. He was a literary genius. Not a thieving shit like Mailer, who couldn’t write an original book if his sorry life depended on it—Truman poured himself more vodka, in the plain water glass. He didn’t even take time for the niceties anymore, the twist of lime, the chilled highball glass.

  He was just as bad as everyone. Worse.

  But he had been writing, some. Little sketches, picking away at this idea he’d had for more than a decade, his Proustian epic about society. Some of it was good; some of it was crap. Oh, maybe all of it was crap; Truman couldn’t really decide, anymore. Truth was, he was terrified of publishing again, because of the glorious success of In Cold Blood.

  The knives were out; the knives were always out. But Esquire had just made him a lavish offer to publish a story. One story, that was all. And if it did well, maybe others. He could do that; he’d begun his career publishing stories, not novels, epics, opuses. Rivals to Proust.

  Baby steps, baby. Baby steps.

  He picked up his pen, turned a page, and began to scribble some of the best stories he knew; stories that were not his, but that just made them even juicier. He could tell them better than their owners could, and why else had they been told to him, if not for him to use them? Oh, those swans of his might be coy and say, “Now, True Heart, don’t you dare repeat this!” before telling him something particularly divine, and he might cross his heart and hope to die if he ever did.

  But neither of them meant it. They couldn’t have. Or they wouldn’t have told the stories to him in the first place.

  They wouldn’t have let him in.

  —

  THE FIRST STORY APPEARED in Esquire in June of 1975. “Mojave” by Truman Capote—an excerpt took up the entire cover, followed by “continued on page 38.”

  Tennessee Williams declared it Truman’s best writing since the short story that had launched his career back in 1945, “Miriam.” All the critics loved it; it was received with rapture, cries of “He’s back!” and pleas of “More, more, more!”

  “Well,” Truman drawled to one and all. “So you liked this? Maybe next I’ll give you a taste of my novel! It’s going to be grand, you know, my best yet! Maybe I’ll give you a little taste.”

  Did anyone in Manhattan that summer of 1975 recognize the players in this work of fiction? Sarah Whitelaw, the devoted, almost geishalike wife of George, who narrates the bulk of the piece, the story within the story? Did anyone take note of the fact that Sarah massages George’s feet while he talks, that this outwardly perfect domestic scene is, in fact, completely loveless, just an arrangement? That Sarah looked an awful lot like Babe Paley, with her “tobacco-colored” hair?

  If anyone did take note of this, they didn’t say a word. The story itself was too good, perhaps; they were only dazzled with Truman’s writing. And nobody ever accused Bill Paley of being as introspective as the George Whitelaw of the story.

  Babe read the story, along with Slim and Marella and Gloria and C.Z. and Pam; they all sent Truman telegrams of congratulations and exhaled. Perhaps Truman wasn’t so far gone as they’d all feared. After all, he was writing again! And despite the explicitness of the story—the language! the sex!—the story was good. Or so the critics said.

  Still, Babe did fold the magazine in half when she was done, a small rumble of discomfort worrying her. But it was only a tremor, so easily obscured by the greater earthquake of her failing health, more surgeries, barbaric procedures that poked and probed and irradiated and otherwise treated her previously admired, couture-clad body like a science project; medicines that gave her headaches, medicines to relieve the headaches, medicines that took away her appetite. She conserved herself now; she remained in bed for long periods at a time so that she could emerge and carefully, oh, so painstakingly, apply her makeup—an entirely different prospect now, not just to conceal and enhance but to turn her into an entirely different person. She felt like Lon Chaney, rather: the man of a thousand faces. She was an expert at turning a sick old woman into a reasonably vibrant middle-aged one.

  She would emerge, makeup perfected, wig in place, wearing a superbly styled outfit, the accessories just right, the jewelry carefully chosen so as not to call attention to her emaciated wrists, neck, fingers—she wore a lot of whimsical brooches these days, like her favorite bumblebee brooch designed by Verdura with a fat coral body and glittering diamond wings—and go to lunch with her friends, and smile breezily at the cameras, and assure the world, her world, that Mrs. Paley was just fine, thank you so very much for asking.

  Because to let the world know otherwise simply wasn’t an option. It never had been. She had an image to uphold. She and Bill. Mr. and Mrs.

  So no, Babe didn’t trouble herself too much with “Mojave,” other than to be grateful that her friend—for he was still her friend, despite the distance, the distractions, her illness—was working again.

  But were she and Truman as close as before?

  Babe would have answered yes, unhesitatingly. Truman would have declared, “Of course we are, I love Babe more than anyone in the world, she’s my dearest, dearest friend!” But it was an affirmation based on the past, not the present. The present wasn’t recognizable or palatable to either of them; she was too ill, he was too self-destructive. Like s
o many, they chose not to recognize themselves in the mirror, but in old photographs, scrapbooks, shared memories.

  That summer of 1975 was one of relative peace. Saigon had fallen in April, so the war was over. Nixon had been gone almost a year. Already people were talking about the Bicentennial; the swans were on numerous committees charged with planning the upcoming galas.

  Slim had divorced her dull English lord, had absolutely no money, but still managed to enjoy life, peering at it through her ridiculous, outsized glasses, living in hotels and at friends’ country homes and yachts. All her friends were sympathetic, although one time Babe shocked Truman by saying, “Slim really never made it, did she?” And Truman knew exactly what she meant; Slim had wasted her assets, never really married well—or, rather, wasn’t quite able to stay married well—and now she was in her sixties, firmly in the “kooky aunt” category, sad to say.

  Marella and Gianni were still married; Marella had pulled away from Truman, ever so slightly, in recent years, cloaking herself in her princess robes, no longer inviting him to stay or dine. So, of course, he told anyone who would listen all about Gianni’s affairs with Italian starlets. He didn’t even bother to see if this was true or not; he just told everyone it was. And people simply lapped it up! Same way they lapped up what he’d started saying about Ann Woodward, that sow, who still hung around at the tattered edges of his world, popping up, soused to the gills, at parties now and then. He’d started telling people that she’d been married before Billy, poor dead Billy, and so she was a bigamist as well as a murderess.