Pilgrim Son: A Personal Odyssey

by John Masters

  Soon we met Ray and Marion Hill, and gradually the circle of our acquaintance grew. People mentioned names of neighbours as though we should know them, but we did not, except Maxwell Anderson, who, I knew, had written What Price Glory? It seemed that we were surrounded by artists, writers, actors, and musicians. We thought it an odd stroke of fate, considering that I had no idea of the fact when I took the house; but also rather unfortunate. We had never lived among 'artists', and doubted whether they would understand us or we them. We met the colony for the first time when our landlady, Eleanor Hope, got us an invitation to one of Walter Fleisher's garden parties on Saw Mill Road. Maple-shaded lawns swept down from the old stone farmhouse to a pond, where ducks swam and willows trailed their fingers in the water. Fifty or sixty people had gathered by the time we arrived, and they were drinking. Barbara caught my eye and muttered, 'At four in the afternoon!' By British and Indian custom, six is the correct time to begin communal boozing, not a moment earlier. I kept my mouth shut, being afraid to admit that in the Sodom down the Hudson I had attended functions where people had started downing the sauce at three, or even earlier, carrying straight on from a good lunch. Now 'It's the custom,' I said, as we accepted drinks and moved out among the crowd.

  They were strange and wonderful people, flaunting stranger and more wonderful clothes. Two ladies wore raffia work, with huge beaded necklaces swinging to their waists. There were a couple of prophetesses, with nails painted green and hair dyed blue. At least half the men had not bothered to put on a tie, and several were wearing not shoes but moccasins. We crept into concealment under a tree. Voices floated past. Someone was talking about Edna St Vincent Millay. Ah, I knew her: her candle burned at both ends. But it appeared that the speaker, a woman, was her sister... The P.T.A.... What on earth was a P.T.A? The Wildenstein Gallery... Has Lotte arrived yet?......Helen isn't going to accept the part. It's too like Victoria Regina... Helen Hayes? And the speaker knew her? They need a hundred and sixty thousand dollars before they can even get it to New Haven... September Song... The P.T.A.

  'Let's get another drink,' I muttered We returned home in a subdued frame of mind. People had shown us a pleasant offhand courtesy, which is the best kind, for there is no pressure in it; but we hoped no one would call, for we would have nothing to talk about. Their world was different from ours, and they were not only isolated in it, but from what we could gather, mostly high up. I was only a writing apprentice, nor could I afford to give anyone drinks at 4 p.m., and not many at other times.

  We settled into the routines of country living. I cleared a small extra bedroom at the back of the house, set up my office, and began to write the autobiography in pencil, in longhand. Then I worked all day, nearly every day, at my desk. Barbara shopped in the mornings and in the afternoons dug, mowed, and weeded. The children played alone and with Jim and little Kathy Hill, and developed dual accents, not a mixture of English and American but one or the other, at will. Together Barbara and I systematically explored the forested hill behind South Mountain Road, of which High Tor is the highest point, and often walked the long ridge path with its wide views over the Hudson, here four miles wide, and north towards West Point. We saw several more copperheads and a black snake. Hudson Valley thunderstorms burst over us with shattering intensity, the mountain quaked, the rain rammed down like iron bars, and we told the children of Rip van Winkle. Twice we heard the click of the lightning actually striking a few feet away, a fraction of a second before the flash and the thunder broke. In the aftermath of one storm, the children asleep and the night full of a cool balm, Barbara and I walked five miles into New City and back at midnight. She insisted on going barefoot, dancing now and then in the lonely road... and danced on to another copperhead, this one fortunately squashed dead.

  The Russian occupying forces postponed the elections which were to decide the government of East Germany. I had little sympathy with Germans, as Germans; but any last hope that my children were going to grow up in a world full of good will faded. Like us, they were going to have to walk alert and heavily armed, or they were going to have to accept the new imperialism, which walked like a bear.

  When I had roughed out the whole autobiography, so that I thought the events I had chosen to include would produce the effect I wanted, I began to rough out the chapters, one page for each. When that was done it took about two weeks — I calculated that the book would be 125,000 words long — 500 pages of typescript, double spaced. I was appalled. How could I write that much on a single continuous theme? My longest previous effort was about 10,000 words on Rasselas as a school essay project.

  I pulled myself together. The first chapter was only going to be twenty-five pages, and I could manage that. Then the next... then the next... One chapter at a time, I could do it. The book as a whole, and each chapter, had been shaped by the master plan. Now I must concentrate on each page, each line.

  The work went fast, and I found it so absorbing (I was, after all, writing about everyone's favourite subject) that I didn't realize I was working at all. Then sometimes, late in the afternoon, when I had been at it since 8 a.m., and had written perhaps 6,000 words in longhand, I would stand up to stretch, and suddenly feel faint, my head spinning. I would have to grab the chairback or the desk to prevent myself falling. A few times I ignored this warning, then decided to follow Churchill's example and make it a rule to have a nap after lunch every day, regardless of the state of the writing, the world, or anything else. The fact was that though I had worked at great pressure before, it had always been mixed mental and physical, both often intense at the same time, but each helping to erase the strain of the other. Now there was nothing but the sheet of paper there under the light, hour after hour, day after day.

  I finished the first draft in less than a month and gave it a title: Brutal and Licentious, a quote from a well-known summation of the soldiery.

  I read it through and tried to estimate it. It did not seem so good now as when I had been writing it. That must be a kindly provision of nature, for if it had stunk in my nostrils then, I could not have gone on. So, it was not right; but what, precisely, was not right, and why? First, it did not grip one's attention from the beginning, as, for example, Steinbeck's work always did. Then, this section was diffuse, and did not lead to the dragged-in conclusion. These twenty pages had no bearing on my object; I had thought they would in planning, but actually on paper they didn't. So there was a difference between planning and execution. It might be possible, to have a good plan for a book and for the book, written exactly from the plan, to be bad. How come? The writing, the style, whatever one liked to call it, could be responsible; or perhaps a dissonance between the particular merits of the plan and the particular talents of the writer.

  A more experienced author might have been able to avoid these errors, but for me there was no way but to re-plan in the light of what was there on paper. I had meant to build a fine house. Now that it was done anyone could see that the roof wasn't on straight, and a couple of gables seemed to have no artistic or other purpose. Find out how it happened, first, and then remedy it.

  I divided several sheets of paper into lines and columns and went carefully through the MS, grading each sequence in three ways: by length, by type, and by merit of its type. It soon developed that almost every sequence could be classified as Action, Explanation, Colour, Characterization, or Thought. When the job was done, and it took several days' hard work, my new charts revealed a very lumpy texture in the book. Page followed page of action, with no explanation and little colour. Colour was not used as a background to action, nor as a perimeter to characterization, but haphazardly, as the pictures had come to me. Although I could grade some sequences A, too many were Bs and Cs: not good enough for a professional.

  Desmond was asking when he could see an outline and some finished work to show Hoffman and Joel at Dial, as we should then get an advance against the whole work. An advance was, of course, not a gift, being only a subtraction from one's eventual ear
nings, but it would prove that the publishers had confidence in the book, and it would much encourage me to feel that I had already earned something.

  Using my charts to correct the early faults, I rewrote the first two chapters. By this time the MS was illegible to anyone but me — and not easily to me — so I got it into typescript by a method familiar to both Barbara and me through our work in the army (she had served as a sergeant in the W.A.C.(I)). I dictated, while she typed direct on to the paper. I had used the method for the rapid production of operation orders in the field, often to confirm verbal orders. It was the fastest system possible, the disadvantage being that it tied up two people for hours on end: but that was unavoidable, in view of the condition of my MS. Barbara was soon hitting 3,000 words an hour, including changing of paper and carbons.

  When the two chapters were done I dictated an outline of the rest of the book, and sent it all to Desmond. A few days later I was summoned to New York. Travel to the city was an expedition, for we had no car. I caught an early bus to Haverstraw, the decaying Hudson Valley Gothic riverside town, once the brick capital of the state, which was our main shopping centre, four miles away on the other side of High Tor. There I took a train, and finally reached the Dial Press offices via Weehawken, a ferry boat, and two more buses. The West Shore Railroad, still using steam engines and passenger cars left over from the Railway Race in Georgia, was a trial indeed on a hot day. Sparks flew in through the rattling windows, cinders littered the seats and ground in one's teeth, the cars humped and swayed and one's head shook like a marionette's. There was a famous story about the man who, surrounded by bags and boxes, took this 38-mile trip from Haverstraw to Weehawken. At the terminal he staggered out crying 'Thank God, the worst part of my journey is over!'

  'Where are you going?' the conductor asked him. 'Tibet.'

  At the Dial Press George Joel told me they had read the two chapters and the outline and were very favourably impressed. Money was mentioned. Desmond thought an advance of $1,500 would be acceptable to us. Joel did not commit himself, but said they wanted to have another reading first and we would settle matters early the following week. I returned to Rockland with great hopes, in spite of Desmond's warning that he thought that actually we would not get more than $1,000.

  I settled down to re-writing the rest of the book. At the end of the week Desmond wrote to tell me that Dial were no longer interested. I went into New York at once, and asked Desmond what the hell was going on. Joel had been enthusiastic on Friday; there was no one senior to him and Hoffman in the firm to override them. What had happened?

  Desmond said, 'I'm afraid they allowed themselves to be talked out of it by Victor Gollancz.' He explained that Gollancz, a famous British left-wing publisher, was in New York and had dined with Joel and Hoffman over the week-end. They mentioned my book and Gollancz advised them not to touch me with a bargepole. Retired curry colonels writing their reminiscences of India, he said, were two a penny, and no one wanted to read about the sahibs' world, etc. etc. Hoffman and Joel bowed to Gollancz's superior wisdom or, as one might say, they ratted.

  I returned again to Rockland County, and again read my book. It was nothing like other reminiscences of India, and, on the whole, it was a great deal better than most. What kind of a success it would have none could tell — almost certainly not the same kind as Bengal Lancer's because that had sprung from the phony mysticism in it. Brutal was direct, not mystical — but it was real. Sometimes I could almost feel the reality of my own words, like rocks.

  Barbara and I talked over the rebuff, and I decided to take Desmond's advice, finish the book, and then hawk it around the publishers in the usual way.

  In the way of Exurbia, acquaintances were made. A. J. and Carrie Balaban, who lived opposite, heard we were indigent and sent over remains of food from their kitchen. We met Fernand and Laura Auberjonois (he ex-Swiss, and head of the French language programmes of the Voice of America, she an ex-Princess Murat of France); and Bill and Julie Sloane — he a publisher, who smoked us like kippers with his pipe, and gave me several informative lectures on infantry tactics: and Mr and Mrs Squillini, who had fourteen children already and another on the way (Mr Squillini was caretaker of the huge, now empty, mansion on the hill behind us. The mansion had been built high by Mr Katz of early nickelodeon fame so that he could look down on his ex-partners and rivals A. J. Balaban and Adolf Zukor, who had built the other side of the valley); and Gus Weltie, just retired from working on High Tor Farm, who had come from Germany some sixty-five years ago and seen the whole birth and growth of the artists' colony here; and Marion Hargrove, author of the wartime best-seller See here Private Hargrove, who lent us his car for Barbara to take her driving test (I had taken mine in Manhattan), and the homosexual Young Boys, who lived up on the hill; and the Old Boys who lived in the forest; and the Girls who lived up the road behind a wall of forsythia; and an old English lady whose sculptor husband had run away with his model one sunny day of long ago, leaving a note on the mantel of their house: suspecting what the note contained the lady called all the neighbours to a champagne party before opening it; and Henry Varnum Poor and Bessie Breuer, Lotte Lenya and Kurt Weill, Burgess Meredith and Maxwell Anderson, and all these were amazingly kind, without pressure or condescension, to the foreigners in their midst.

  Rockland County used to be a part of Orange County, but in 1798 it was cut off and its capital set at the geographical centre of the county, the already-existing New City. (In Maine they would certainly have called it Rockland Center.) It is a triangle of roughly twenty-mile sides, the eastern boundary being the Hudson, and the southern the New Jersey border. Around us there were still a few farms and orchards, but most of the people lived by working in Haverstraw, Nyack, New City, or by commuting to New York. Until recently the crack Squadron A of the New York National Guard had kept their horses here and come out here to play polo. The Squadron lands were a rolling oasis of grass in the middle of the universal forest. During prohibition the area had also been a favourite breakdown point for liquor smuggled down from Canada and destined for the speakeasies of Manhattan; but the only relics of this when we arrived were a few taverns, bars, and restaurants whose owners maintained an astonishing affluence in the face of an almost total lack of clients.

  On South Mountain Road a certain bohemianism, a relic from the past, hung in the air as cigar smoke from last night's party lingers in the curtains. A character universally known as Om the Omnipotent had only recently closed down his yogic-tantric resort in Nyack, an establishment which provided health foods, blah, and sex to the local ladies and eager devotees from New York. At a party we would be introduced to some middle-aged and slightly deaf lady, far from bacchanalian in appearance, and learn that she was a painter. An hour later someone would mutter, 'See her? On Christmas Day, 1925, she stripped herself and her husband naked and rode him down South Mountain Road, on all fours, in a snowstorm.' At the A & P the lady in front of us, buying groceries, would seem to be a portly countrywoman, red of face and simple of mien, and nothing more; but the friend behind us would hiss, 'See her? She was a farmer's daughter, and the first girl any artist here asked to take her clothes off to model. Her father came out with a shotgun the same night.'

  In a different category was Mrs Mahoney, who was aged ninety plus and lived alone in a wooden shack among the trees, which at first the mind simply refused to accept as real: it was incredibly ramshackle, half roofless, holed, leaning, rotting — but that was her house, and she knew classical Greek, and had once been a grande dame, and spoke sweetly to Susan when we met her one evening, a grey wraith in a long ragged dress, gliding painfully through the dusk of South Mountain Road.

  The Hills's home life was always in some confusion, because Ray's chief 24-hour-a-day avocation was drinking extra dry martinis. Martinis were as popular in Rockland as in Manhattan and, feeling that I needed some distinctively American parlour trick to counteract my accent and general foreignness I learned to make good ones. I used House
of Lords gin, which I considered (and still do) the best gin, Martini & Rossi dry vermouth (it is not over-herbal, like most of the French-made ones), mixed 12 to 1, never shook, and kept the gin, vermouth, pitcher, glasses, stirring spoon, and lemons in the refrigerator. I returned to sanity when we heard about the lady (of South Mountain Road) who, confronted by another martiniac, said, 'Oh yes, my husband and I do all that... but we get into the icebox to drink them, too.'

  One day Barbara came to me, perplexed, and said, 'Eleanor Hope's invited us to a weeny roast on Sunday. What's it mean? Dwarfs and midgets only? Or do they roast only very small things, miniature chickens, legs of baby lambs?'

  I said, 'Ask Marion,' who explained that wienie was short for wiener sausages, which did not exactly mean the same as frankfurters, or hot dogs, but near enough.

  Sunday was a still day in high summer, when the heavy dark green trees met in a tall arch over the road, and only a few spots of still, hot light dappled the grass outside the little cabin on our grounds (we called it the Chicken Coop), where Eleanor and Chester spent occasional weekends. Blue smoke drifted up towards the dense leaf ceiling, and we drifted like the smoke, mixing, blending, bourbon on the rocks in hand while Chester turned the franks on the grill. Here was Phil Morse, nodding to us. He was sweating, black under the arms, but not because of the weather; he was always sweating. He told us of a minor domestic mishap, but to him it was a disaster, a personal affront. 'That's what you get for marrying a goy,' he ended, between set teeth. But what was a goy? Phyllis Kauffmann was speculatively eyeing a lone man near the grill. She poured herself another drink, took a large gulp, and moved in purposefully on the man, her hips swinging.

  Ralph Barker caught my arm, 'Hey, Jack, remember what I said about the Chicago & Northwestern last time we met?' I remembered; it was another week-end and Ralph was practically unintelligible, but nothing could diminish, though it blurred, his infectious enthusiasm for the carloading figures through Milwaukee. Now he was unintelligible again, or soon to be, but we were off on the pulp tonnage shipped out of Great Lake ports for the fiscal year 1947; and I was enthralled. Around us Doris Clark and Joe Wright danced a formal minuet we were already coming to recognize as being like the music of the spheres, in that it had no beginning and would have no end. She revealed, smiled, beckoned — but would never give. She needed only the reassurance of her youth (which was passing) and her beauty (which was fading). Joe was the favourite target of her performance because he had recently divorced his wife and was on the loose. He knew well that there would be no climax to the show, but was good-naturedly happy to play a gambolling suitor to her coy non-virgin. In any case, several other ladies here and in the big city kept in trim a phallic limb rumoured to be the most shapely in the county.