The Grand Surprise

by Leo Lerman

A small, dark-complected creature pushes aside a cretonne drapery, slithers into the room, raises a brilliantly manicured, crimson-nailed hand, points at Marlene Dietrich, and screeches, “Listen, Essie, you are no Marlene Dietrich! She is plump…. Maybe she is even fat…. Have you looked at those thighs?” She points histrionically at Marlene. “You better eat!” This scrawny Marlene Dietrich drops her feathers, looks up, and screeches, “Go play stoop tag in the asparagus patch!” All the other girls scream. Greta Garbo says, “Thaaat girl,” pointing at the little dark one, “Jersey Lily, will never get anywhere. She just won't go anywhere.” All the girls scream again.65

  This is not so much birds caged in an aviary, but a band of intensely vivacious ladies now having a high time at a very special sewing circle. A very tall one, bearing no movie-star or stage-star name, who sits quietly, her sewing rumpled in her lap, speaks up in a deep, hauntingly masculine voice, in which lurks a throaty woman's voice—mysterious, elusive, dark—more sensed than heard, another presence within the visible presence. I know “her.” She is, indeed, the only one I know in that room. I know both the visible him and the almost imperceptible “her.” When I first met him I thought that he was all he. This was John K. It was toward the end of the summer after we were sophomores that he took me first into the iridescent circle in which I now found myself sitting, rather primly.

  They moved sure-footed through the city along ways of their own devising, passing among people who did not suspect their secret business, or their stellar identities. They moved always on the verge of disaster, because what they were selling, or merely giving away, was illegal. To the eye of passersby, they were young men, sometimes noticeable because of their mincing ways, more frequently unnoticed because they bore themselves like anyone who served behind counters in the city's department stores or meat markets. They hoped for a grand passion, at least “a little something,” or any passion they could give. Some were out “to make a buck or two.” They had designated routes: on the west side of Fifth Avenue, starting north from the Public Library [at Forty-second Street] and trotting swiftly to the edge of the Plaza; on the west side of Riverside Drive starting at Seventy-second Street and venturing bravely as far as the Soldiers and Sailors Monument [at Eighty-ninth Street].

  The cruisers wafting along Fifth, along Riverside, on lucky nights found themselves in Fifth Avenue apartments, in West Side brownstones converted into one-room apartments, in Gramercy Park mansions, in Riverside Drive apartments whose former luxury had been subdivided into acne-walled cubicles, the putrid green of disintegration in color. The take that most of these “ladies of the evening” expected, could range from 50 cents to five or ten dollars. There was, after all, a depression.

  Sometimes, on a quiet summer evening, you would suddenly hear screaming from the upper deck of the Fifth Avenue bus, and looking up you would see Gloria Swanson, Greta Garbo, Jean Harlow, Mae West, and some of the girls screeching away. Tattered rags of talk would float down: “Essie, I covered myself with black lace, and I just lay down beside it and cried!” This was a sound of summer revelry. But of course, there was, inevitably, a deep sadness. For all of the giddiness, the empty-headedness, each “girl” knew that she was—unless oh so lucky—ill-fated.

  Each star shone most resplendently on Halloween, on Thanksgiving. All through the autumn months, they sewed and snipped. Then, on gala nights— autumn, winter, early spring—they trooped into what seemed to me at that time an immense ballroom, somewhere in the Harlem in which I had been born and been cherished by myriads of aunts, uncles, cousins, family friends (the Harlem in which I almost never could run away because someone who knew me would call out, “Label, Little Label, come in, have a piece of the cake I just baked!”). Now here I was in that Harlem, hidden away, obscure in a seething ballroom where in the dim light it was impossible to tell sex from sex, beauty from grotes-querie, but where, as the evening wore on and spotlights illuminated a runway, the stars and the would-be stars became effulgently clear. This was where the girls became—at least for the long walk on tottering heels along the shiny runway— stars. They swept in the elaborate costumes they had sewn night after night, some moving majestically, some fluttering aimlessly from side to side, some jumping with falsetto merriment. There were all kinds of girls in all kinds of gowns, and all of them were dazzling for that moment, and all of them were sad. The floor, the chairs around little tables, the boxes that surrounded the dance hall were jammed with onlookers, and some of these were also in the artful garments they had wrought or extravagantly bought. Rumors were always on the wing: “See over there? That's Bea Lillie! Over there? That's Tallulah Bankhead! And over there—know who that is? Well I won't tell you!” There was a lot of very saucy behavior.

  It was customary, after a drag, for some of the “girls” and some of the “johns” (girls always had johns who were their escorts) to hie themselves downtown, the destination being secret clubs on West Seventy-second Street. The one John K took me to was perhaps on the third floor of an old brownstone. Up a dimly lit stair covered with time-eaten, brown-stained linoleum, then another stair, then another, then an unexpectedly heavy-looking door. John knocked on the door. A voice within whispered, “Who is it?” John muttered something. The door opened a crack, an eye peered through the crack, then the door halfway opened, and John yanked me inside. Inside was very dim, soft light—not diffused, but soft, coming from darkly shaded electric bulbs. All about were men, most of them in ties and jackets, very businesslike, very proper. But two of them, enormous in size, roaring with laughter, hauled about in the tightest of down-to-the-ground glittering sequined dresses, stuck all over with what seemed to me rhinestone brooches, their heads topped with frantic wigs, one red, one blond, their faces brazenly painted in some caricature of “Oh, You Great Big Beautiful Doll,” their arms encased in long white gloves, upon their arms endless jeweled bracelets … “Who are they?” I asked John. John laughed his high tittering laugh, the one without any merriment in it. “You will not believe it,” he said, “the redhead drives a truck. The other one is his lover.” I think this was the first time I ever heard that one man was another man's lover. Lovers? That was Tristan and Isolde, Romeo and Juliet…. I was baffled.

  There was a lot of drinking—illegal drinking, for this was Prohibition, in an illegal room, where each man in the room was illegal. I knew this because all of the queens had told horrifying sagas of being picked up by good-looking men who turned out to be “bait,” and bait got you a harsh sentence on “that island in the river.” John looked at me and said, “The way out, if anything happens, is through that window.” “What do you mean, ‘The way out…'?” “Well,” he said, “If—you know—if we get raided …” “What's outside the window?” “A roof…” I pointed at a door at the far end of the room. “What's in there?” “That's the back room.” “What for?” “If you want to find out that's up to you, but if you find out I don't think I'll ever bring you here again.” It was later that year that I found out, after which I never went back again—at least to that place. (1993)

  NOVEMBER 26, 1970 When Mishima came to lunch, he was not the boy who would one day commit hara-kiri—or was he?66 I saw him several times—lunch, dinner. He came to 1453. He was always direct, collected, extremely soft-spoken, and coldly concerned with sex—his own homosexuality, mine, anyone's—and writing. He ate little. All of his movements were sparse—depths of impenetrability at all times. Going to bed with him would have been a concentrated hotness—almost ice because of its intense heat—the narcotic that extra pain manufactures. He was scornfully curious.

  I will have to leap out of this downy bed to do my Thanksgiving Day chores. The table is set beautifully by Gray. I think of my aunt Silly and uncle Maxl [Goldwasser], hand in hand at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.67 They went year after year, like two old children—marzipan children. He was full of gold-tooth smiles, a swart, shrewd man, sexy like all Goldwassers. She was said to be the family beauty. When Gray saw her photo, he was
amazed: “But she's a pudding!” She was—with beautiful skin, little, sharp, sapphire-blue eyes, a tightly wound swirl of hair—at one time blond, then silver. She was our Tante from Vienna, and she had obviously consumed tons of Schlagobers [cream puffs]. Her brother compulsively barked like a dog and was found dead in Central Park, clutching a cigar box filled with stock coupons…. Aunt Silly's formal dinners in the house on High Bridge Hill… Aunt Silly's parrot and poodle and the Long Branch [New Jersey] house, where we all gathered in the summer … Aunt Silly dictating loving postcards to a woman who really knew the English language. The cards began: “Dear Nice and Nempsies…” and ended “Lox, Tante Syril” … Aunt Silly and her children sliding down High Bridge Hill, part of which Uncle Maxl owned, on dustpans in the snow… Aunt Silly's cruelty to Cousin Sadie, her only daughter, born so hirsute that Aunt Silly never looked at her… Aunt Silly and her button shop … Aunt Silly and sacks of broken biscuits, bought in the Sunshine factory … Aunt Silly to Aunt Minnie: “Marium? I don't know any Marium. I know a Minnie.” That ended, at least in our family, any attempt by Minnie to lift herself up by changing her name…. Aunt Silly inevitably greeting a stranger with: “How much money do you make? My husband's a very rich man.”

  NOVEMBER 27, 1970 Garbo, in the late April day when I went up the Gun-thers' steps into their back parlor where, between an immense Chagall bouquet of violet-colored lilacs (which burst like LSD in the head) and great torrents of pewter-silver rain (a springtime downpour, through the trees, cascading down over the huge windowpanes), between these parallel luminosities—the lilacs, the rain—something moved: a wood-brown moth, a tremendous butterfly. From behind the lilacs, she came toward me, arms outstretched. For a moment her hands clutched mine, while she looked—her eyes as deeply lilac gazing through curtains of lilac, violet, black-purple, looking into my eyes and out through them. Her hands fluttered to her temples, beneath the symbolic, protective canopy of her hat. Silently she sped away—not a word, not a footfall sound … nothing. I was left with the lilacs, the rain.

  NOVEMBER 29, 1970 Maria says Onassis was sleeping with Mrs. Onassis's sister [Lee Radziwill]68 before Mrs. O grabbed him. All very Greek classical. Maria wants the world to know how Onassis wronged her, but she doesn't want this histoire to come from her. She wants vengeance, but protests that she is at peace and calm and at last has learned to live with herself—that Mr. O is in constant torment—that Mrs. O has nothing save the name, the fortune, and his wrath—that she, Maria, and he are bound by blood—in the very bloodstream.

  NOVEMBER 30, 1970 On the radio, “Für Elise.” Immediately I recall a piano teacher—German, smelly, poor, frustrated. He made me arch my wrists, insuring curvature by placing long pins, sharp end up, under my wrist. He slept. When the exhausted wrists fell—instant, awful pain. I played with my fingertips and wrists like gothic arches. “Für Elise” poured from my fingertips, but who could tell what poured, I played so badly, on that delicious-smelling upright piano, which I chewed on when I was a very small child. I can smell the delicious varnish, paint, and wood as I chewed. What an unnatural act—or was it?

  DECEMBER 5, 1970 The saga of William Haines and his self-knowledge:69 “I was just white trash from the South” that came to New York and showbiz, then to Hollywood, by way of fucking everything—into flicks, stardom, and the Prince of Wales (three feathers emblazoned on his underpants). And left his career when the studio head told him that he couldn't live that way (with the boy he loved [Jimmie Shields]), declining invitations that did not include the boy, entertaining as a married couple. “I wasn't any good anyway. I knew that we'd be accepted if I were an interior decorator.” Fanny Brice [comedian and singer] was his closest friend. All Hollywood vied for his decorating skills. He became rich, well known, and old, never losing his sense of self-humor nor his love. They have been together forty years.

  DECEMBER 9, 1970 Marlene on the blower—desperate-gay en route to Los Angeles and Rudi [Sieber].70 “I have no money, absolutely none. We will borrow from the bank…. I never have before … and I will, at last, use my credit cards. Everybody's dying. When De Gaulle died, not one woman in Paris—not one of the state wives, the diplomatic wives—had a black suit. So I went to Chanel and I said, “You must make me a black suit… everyone's dying…. Bill [Riva, son-in-law] and I are friends—a sudden friendship…. Maria [Riva] is thin and happy in Madrid…. I got a job, at last, in Miami… and I'll do that television with [producer Alexander] Cohen…. He'll send a car for me, to the theater…. Not one queen in town to go with me …” So, I knew that I would not have to spend the whole latter evening with her, and I didn't. We rode around and around. I dropped her at River House and rushed off to the Russian Tea Room to sup with Lorca Massine and Remi [Saunder] and Gray.71 Marlene in the car acting sickness, so she could leave me for Johnny Gielgud at the [Joshua] Logans, and both of us being pros at this. She looked thin, pinched, withered. She says her legs are all right—when she eats no salt.

  DECEMBER 11, 1970 Gray says most husbands are better away from their wives and vice versa. “Have you ever seen a couple who enhance one another?” I think about this. The same is true of homosexual couples.

  Gray: “I don't understand Emily Dickinson!” Me: “What's to understand?” She spurts truths—beautifully—like seeds popping from a sun-sprung pod—or suddenly bursting into pyrotechnical bloom.

  DECEMBER 12, 1970 Maria's Tosca was one of her greatest achievements— Violetta, Medea, Norma, Tosca. All during Toscas second act, the assassination was implicit: the contrived artlessness, the almost finicky way she sat at table—perched, not sat. The urgency—she had no time, and she knew this even before her entrance. When Maria picked up her glass, she was full of how she was going to do it—with what?—then seeing the knife—her hands knew— then her whole body knew. She was drawn from the scene of the assassination by a sort of self-hypnosis; a sort of euphoria propelled her away. Maria's vocal flaw worked dramatically when she sang-acted Tosca, Lady Macbeth, Medea. The ugliness leavened (wrong word) the texture. I mean roughened it, made it more awful… awesome, like a rough, full-bodied black-red wine, while the full-blown tunes flowed endlessly. The curvaceous line these melodies take— Puccini's writing is very Art Nouveau. Maria's curtain calls were so like Gypsy Rose Lee's—so naughty, so I've-done-it happy. Maria's way of ending a telephone conversation—glissades and diminuendos of ciao …

  The mortality of the fashion world is so similar to that indifference shown by the lions (Balzac) to fallen companions, and, as [novelist and playwright] Féli-cien Marceau notes, this indifference is identical to that shown by the military where a lost companion is forgotten almost immediately, save by his lover. Who thinks of Miss Peck at Mademoiselle, or Cyrilly [Abels], or Toddy [Sturgis] all so much a part of the race when they were part of it.72 Who knows of Stark [Young] today? And who will think of me? No one. This fashion magazine world, this world of reviewing … and the world of entertainment—television, LP—all even faster mortality. The Peppermint Lounge—gone—with its long lines, the furor, and the false, generated gaiety. But, of course, this mortality isn't only native to the fashion world. All business is permeated with it. The mighty for a moment.

  Gray said that I am becoming a dirty old man, that I am always poking, touching, etc., and that others have commented on this. I think that this (not others commenting but the accusation) must, in some measure, be true. I know that I have been affectionate. Yes, Gray is right. But he is wrong when he says, “If I don't satisfy you enough …” That really has nothing to do (in this case) with the behavior of a sexy, aging man. The behavior is not simply born of physical need: Emotional needs also induce it.

  DECEMBER 17, 1970 I walked through a sudden swirl of fine, glittery snow, feeling frumpy and non-Christmassy. Huge crocodiles of tagged and home-addressed children in Fifth Avenue all looked aimlessly, not at Christmas, but more impressed with being out on Fifth Avenue, part of the scene—the Bottom-headed, eighteenth-century automaton in Sa
ks's windows, the bells, lights, fine snow, smell of roasting chestnuts and aging pine. I turned from a long look at the Radio City tree (a pyramid of black-green and white-silver, boughs, and balls of light), and abruptly I saw two very old people, man and woman, dressed in provincial clothing, painstakingly neat—ear muffs, scarves, heavy cloth, no fur—and eyes enormously aglow and smiles radiant as they looked at Christmas, holding Christmas and one another by mittened hands. My eyes filled and I felt my Scrooginess slip away, so that when I unexpectedly found Edith [Bel Geddes], I was all pleasure. She had just been to get a visa: “I'm going to Colombia to see him there … to see if I really want to marry him….”Edith, born in Brussels, married her cousin [Archibald] Lutyens, then up and away, a sort of minor Colette figure, a direct line to Laci. And [her second husband Taylor] Moseley's death: He jumped from Edith's bedroom window. “Moseley, what are you doing down there?” Edith asked. The two ancient maiden ladies below in hysterics, not because a man had plummeted down onto their roof, but because he was naked. Edith visited Moseley in the hospital constantly and, so, terrified him to death…. Now she's a real estate agent.73

  NOTE: Leo and Gray took Maebelle to spend the Christmas holiday with Richard Hunter at his house in Maine.

  JOURNAL • DECEMBER 23, 1970 • augusta, maine When she grew old, congealed in her beauty, not the beauty of her greatest years, but that replica she had fixed as herself in the memories of those who saw her triumphal return upon return to the stages of the world … he [Leo] would still play her game— waiting upon her actressy whims, sitting in foyers, lurking before doors, running her needless errands, making believe that he was the adoring nobody she had known long ago. In keeping the proportion she had established in those earlier days, he kept her belief in herself, in her inviolability, sacrosanct. “I don't do it for myself… but for those who love me.” And since so many of those were gone, dead, scattered, she was doing it, as she had always done it, for herself. For her selfless life of painstaking devotion had always been one of self-devotion. The face, the body in the glass had indeed been marveled at by millions, but never so devotedly as by the girl, then the woman, who had looked into that glass. She had been in love all of her life—with herself. The intensity of this passion had created such a hot climate that everyone who came within it was energized in some measure. (Basically Marlene.)