Rosset: My Life in Publishing and How I Fought Censorship

by Barney Rosset

  In Shanghai, Hans became a drummer in one of the bedraggled little nightclub bands, but his mind never left Berlin. Tony started out as a salesgirl in a store, and then the jobs were gone. She had to join her friends in the bars, living off commissions on drinks, and whatever else one felt it necessary to do. Tony divorced Hans after a year in Shanghai, but she said he kept coming to her with every new problem this jungle of a city threw against him. She spoke unemotionally about her mother. It was almost certain that she had died in a gas chamber, but no letter ever came to clarify the past.

  At closing, it was pouring rain outside. The bearded Sikh was still standing on the walk. Tony and Trudy and I emerged into the night, the two women with their bicycles in tow. I asked if they wanted pedicabs, the rickshaws pulled by bicycles. Trudy said no and, wishing us a good night, rode off. Tony and I waited a moment for a soaked, bare-legged pedicab driver to pull up. Tony took the bike she had and put it on the pedicab and off we went.

  Back at the posh Cathay, Tony stood in the middle of the large bedroom, making no move to take off her dripping, shabby raincoat. I tried to comfort her but suddenly she was crying. She said she had to leave. It was too late for breakfast. She could not make a date. If I wanted to come to the Roxy, that was my business. She worked there. I took her back downstairs to her bicycle. It was still pouring, but she did not hesitate to go out. We stood in the rain while she unlocked the wheel of her bike. Then I asked her again: tonight at six in the lobby of the hotel. She said maybe and swiftly pulled away from the curb and winged down the Bund, past lines of sampans and steamers tied up at the docks. I saw her disappear over a bridge, standing up on the bike, peddling determinedly and naturally.

  The next afternoon the American brass was beginning to arrive. Several colonels were standing at the hotel desk waiting to be assigned rooms. They wore combat boots and carried carbines slung over their shoulders. I walked to a big chair near the street entrance and sat down. Probably Tony would not come, but I could not give up hope.

  Painted, pretty, white Russian girls sauntered in and out. Some had just said goodbye to their Japanese friends; all of them were picking out their American officers. Allied internees, fresh from the detention camps, pushed timidly in, as if they were still not quite sure that freedom was legal. I saw barbed-wire fences and years of enforced boredom stamped on their thin faces.

  At a quarter past six, Tony arrived. Her light cotton dress and flat-heeled shoes made her look strangely and pleasingly out of place in the luxurious lobby. She pulled the bicycle with her and there was a shy smile on her face. I put my arm around her waist as we walked out of the hotel into the dying August day. A badly spelled sign was going up between the Cathay and the hotel near it. WELCOME VICTORTUOUS SEVENTH FLEET.

  Our pedicab was like a hansom going through Central Park. Shirt-sleeved crowds flowed along beside us in rickshaws, bicycles, automobiles, and on foot. Nobody was in a hurry. The office workers were going home. The International Settlement was free, and the atmosphere vibrated with relief and indolence. As much as I had thought about Shanghai, through the eyes of Malraux, I was not prepared for the blocks of semimodern structures, the broad streets, the great enterprises. The Fiaker Restaurant to which we went was Viennese. Big photographic panels of Vienna lined two walls of the quiet, half-empty place. A waiter carefully drew the cork from a bottle of dry white wine.

  In my imagination I could see Tony in Vienna, lost in a fairy dream at the opera, and later holding her father’s hand in a café, sipping hot chocolate covered with a cloud of cream. Tony had no desire to revisit her bad memories of what had happened in Vienna, but she took a photograph from her worn wallet and put it down in front of me. A tall dark man held a little girl at his side. The paper was yellow and frayed, but the German script was still legible. The last words were “geliebte Ilse” (“I love Ilse”).

  Now it was good to leave the restaurant and go out into the city. With the whole night spread out before us, we walked along the boulevard in the warm, yellow-lighted evening, watching the twisting and rolling shadows cast out by the heavy old bicycle at our side.

  On the roof of the Cathay there was a cabaret with an open-air terrace. We sat up there leaning on the railing, flush with the top of the sky, Shanghai pancaked beneath us. The lights of Bubbling Well Road and the Bund intersected each other. Small lamps flickered from sampans on the river and the British racetrack etched out a black oval in front of the Park Hotel, nearby.

  Once in my room adolescent modesty disappeared. We undressed and embraced. Love was gentle in the humid half-dawn. There was a feeling of closeness and wakeful peace.

  At six or so she moved away from me and I watched her through half-dreaming eyes as she pulled the cotton dress down over her thin, lithe body. Then she came over to the bed and kissed me, in a soft rubbing way, across the mouth and cheek.

  She was gone before I could pull her back. But after that she would stay the night. We didn’t have to go to the Roxy, where she had had to urge drinks on me and colored-water cocktails on herself.

  Shanghai was made even stranger by the mute corps of stylish, surprisingly tall, white-uniformed Japanese soldiers, who drifted around zombie-like. One rainy night, cycling alone, downhill along the waterfront, my newly obtained bicycle spun out from under me and I landed hard on my back. I looked up from the wet brick road to see a large company of white uniforms surrounding me, faces regarding me with blank, inert hostility. I rose nervously and remounted my bicycle in this enemy throng, which slowly and uncertainly parted as I began to roll. I picked up speed and crossed the Waibaidu Bridge, on my way to meet Tony.

  One day the US Army G-2 colonel attached to the Chinese Combat Command gave me a welcome task—to help a US Navy lieutenant commander seize evidence of the collaboration of Chiang Kai-shek—Chancre Jack—with the Axis. Some Italian seamen who had fought on the Loyalist side in the Spanish Civil War, then been jailed in Shanghai after reaching there by ship from Spain and were now released, had occupied the Italian Embassy. I quickly collected my photographer’s case full of Signal Corps microfilming equipment, bedrolls, carbines, and a bottle of whiskey wrapped in a towel. My photographers and I joined the Italians in that embassy for three days and nights, reassembling and photographing the shreds of documents that Mussolini’s fleeing diplomats left behind. The Malraux environment still enveloped me.

  In late October the phone rang in my suite at around 4:00 a.m. and an American officer’s voice instructed me to be downstairs with all my possessions in one hour, for transport back to Kunming.

  I was ordered to return to New York via India. In shock, I woke Tony. One hour! I gathered everything I owned, including two Chinese bicycles, a treasure in and of themselves, and sacks of Japanese occupation currency. I then took Tony downstairs and got her a pedicab. I heaped clothes, all the money I had, and the bicycles on top of her. And only then told her I was leaving—now it was shades of Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman’s Casablanca. Tony and I parted, only this time the roles were reversed. I was stunned and confused.

  Auf Wiedersehen, Shanghai.

  This time there were no bombs dropping on the Kunming runway—the war was over and I felt like a postwar casualty. I had run into a wall higher than the Himalayas which lay just beyond. My Burma Road had reversed itself. I felt bruised and abandoned.

  At least the Chicago Cubs, my boys of summer, were in the World Series, a solace for me if I could only find a shortwave radio in our compound. Across from two low stonewalls at the end of a large parade ground stood a radio shack. I was starting alone across the field on that dark October night when machine guns opened at both ends, shooting at each other. Tracer bullets lit up the landscape. I was hunched in that exposed position when I saw an oh-so-welcome GI truck, with its four double wheels in the rear, sitting in the middle of the field. I crawled under it and lay there all night. As always, the Cubs lost.

  Kunming was under curfew due to the antics of Chiang Kai-shek’s henchm
en, but the next night I “liberated” someone’s jeep, an unusual act for me, and found the bar/brothel, Girls of All Nations, outside of Kunming. In a desperate mood, I got one of the Girls from one of the Nations and drove her around aimlessly, from large roads to small roads, then off-road, and across a field, finally making love to her on the cold ground at the bitter dead end of my China journey.

  Shanghai Dec 21, 1947

  Ilse Hammer

  674/59 Tongshan Rd.

  Shanghai 18/China

  Dear Barney, what a real surprise your X’mas card had given me. I was pretty sure that by now you completely had forgotten about me. It quite flatters me to know, that occasionally you remember me.

  It might interest you to hear, that by March of the next year I will enter USA for good. I think that San Francisco will be the first port I am going to be sent to. If I can find a job there in the first week, I may stay otherwise my community will send me to some smaller city.

  There are not much news to tell. Right now I am working at the 9 floor of the Cathay-Hotel (you remember?) the place is named the “Tower”. You must have certainly heard about the silly exchange we have here. For one American Dollar you get now Shanghai Dollar 160.000—CNC, soon we will have to count in millions again like the time you had been here, while we had still Japanese money.

  It has become very cold lately, and all I am dreaming about is a heated room in Frisco and a nice bathroom with hot water all day and night. But I am sure that those dreams will come true soon and that makes me a bit warmer already.

  It would be nice to hear a little more about you, what are your plans? Are you married already? If you don’t find time to write to Shanghai to me, you can always write to San Francisco “Hicem” that is an international organization.

  I wish you a very merry X’mas and happy New Year also for your family.

  Do sometimes remember, your Tony

  Yes, Tony, I do remember you! For the rest of my life, I will remember you, my Ilse, my Tony.

  The trip home from Karachi in December of 1945 took twenty-two days. Our ship, a converted luxury liner, was the sister ship of the Lurline, the small but elegant cruise ship that my parents and I had taken to Hawaii in the winter of 1937. It was quite pleasant compared to the miserable forty-two-day voyage out the year before, even though, after crossing the Indian Ocean, the Red Sea, the Suez Canal, and the Mediterranean, we ran into tremendous winter storms in the Atlantic. A Christmas we had anticipated spending at home was improvised at sea. Nevertheless, the atmosphere was light, almost gay. We were on our way home.

  When we ran into colder weather I stuck it out with my khaki uniforms. I would wear one suit for several days and then heave it overboard. I knew I would be leaving the military and by getting rid of them I lightened my baggage and my mood.

  We reached New York at dawn December 29, 1945. Many of the men got up early that morning and stood on the deck in the gray light as the ship turned toward the harbor. Still down in my cabin, standing at the porthole, I watched the Statue of Liberty loom up out of the dark. I stared at the old icon and cried.

  Soon a small boat drew up alongside ours. Peering at it down below in the fog, I saw a woman standing on the deck before a microphone. She began singing, accompanied by either a record or a small orchestra concealed from view. I do not know what she sang, but it made me cry again. For a second we were a boatload of conquering heroes, back from the war.

  The sky grew lighter and I went up on deck to look at Manhattan. The skyscrapers seemed isolated from their moorings, floating like ghost ships in the sky. The piers jutted out into the black, solid waters. Then I saw the signs painted on the ends of the piers, and on their sides, and splashed on buildings overlooking the water—WELCOME BACK, JOB WELL DONE.

  A speedboat approached our ship, its occupants waving at us. The light was still rather dim, but in a few moments I was certain that two of them were my parents. I waved, but they didn’t see me. As the other soldiers learned that my parents were aboard this little boat, they tried to point out where I was standing. To my acute embarrassment, this went on for several minutes, but finally they saw me, and we waved back and forth.

  The ship bumped to a stop against a pier, and we went back to our cabins and completed the odds and ends of packing. The feeling of excitement and release had returned. The porthole in my cabin was quite close to the gangplank. Looking out, I saw my mother. She looked so much older. For a moment, I felt sick, hurt. Orchids and a mink coat could not distract from the impression of how much her face had aged.

  Not expecting to leave the ship for some time, I was delighted to hear my name called out. I was to report to the gangplank. The officer there had orders to let me pass. He checked off my name as I shouldered my val-pak and disembarked.

  I was officially and completely back in the USA.

  After embracing my mother and dad, we started down the pier. It was the meeting of those who had been apart for a long time and yet it oddly seemed as if I had just come back from a two-week vacation. The way they met me was very special, but otherwise everything was the same. We hustled to the exit and into a waiting limousine. My father told the major, to whom we were giving a ride, what a great guy I was. I was happy, uncomfortable, and bored, in that order, after thirty minutes in New York. I learned it was the former fire chief of New York who had fixed things with the Transportation Corps people for my swift debarkation.

  Dad wanted me to go back with them to Chicago—that evening. I did not want to go. There was nothing for me in Chicago. I knew nobody there whom I wanted to see. Nancy had been taken from me long ago. The only girl who cared about me was in New York—Gale was a Southern girl I met in the spring of 1944 in New York. She was the first woman I knew who really enjoyed sex, without inhibition. We had had an affair, intervals of intimacy over a long period of time. She had come out to see me in California just before my long train ride and embarkation for duty overseas.

  My mother agreed with me: it was silly for me to go rushing back. I felt more relaxed with her than with my father, more able to talk about personal feelings. Yet whole areas were blocked out. In the end, it did not occur to me to tell them to leave without me. So I went with them, back to Chicago.

  On New Year’s Eve going into 1946, I had barely been in Chicago for a day. I didn’t know exactly what I would do that night, but I did want to be with somebody I could associate with my past.

  The only person available to fill that role was my old Parker school classmate Benjamin Roselle, who had been wounded numerous times and had been written about in the Saturday Evening Post. Ben had lost part of a leg while fighting with the Marines on one of the South Pacific islands. I learned that he had come home from the hospital shortly before I arrived, so I called to see if he wanted to go out on New Year’s Eve. He did. He suggested that we pick up Lucia Hathaway, whose brother, Bullock, had also been our classmate at Parker. Ben, Bullock, and Steve Van Buren had been inseparable friends since grammar school. As I said before, of the three, only Ben had survived the war.

  I didn’t know how to dress for the evening. By law I had to wear my uniform until I was discharged. I did not have many decorations. There were two overseas stripes on my sleeve and a few ribbons, one of which had two battle stars. Not wanting to present myself as a war hero to Ben, that New Year’s Eve I didn’t wear any. I was thankful that I did not because Ben wore none, either, not even his Purple Heart.

  There had not been any real closeness between us during our high school days, but an emotional finish to the baseball game played between the junior and senior boys on “Field Day” had sent us off to college with a feeling of warmth and friendship. The game had ended when Ben banged out a hit, bringing me home with the winning run.

  Now I was to meet Ben at his parents’ apartment. They received me very warmly. We talked about Ben, who was still getting dressed. His mother told me people were amazed at how well Ben was doing. They had expected to see their son buried. Their joy
at finding him alive, if barely, had not worn off. Then Ben came in. He looked very tall and heavy in his unadorned uniform. It was hard for me to relate him to the Ben of our high school days, but before long he had resumed much of his old, familiar identity. He was cheerful, and not overwhelmed by his injuries. My uncertainty about how to talk to him dissolved.

  Lucia Hathaway lived on the same street, one block farther from the lake. The streets were icy and it was not easy for Ben to navigate. I was pleased that Lucia was going out with us, but I dreaded seeing her family because I didn’t know what to say about Bullock. Mr. Hathaway opened the door and greeted us. We walked through the dining room into the living room, where the Christmas tree was still standing. Mrs. Hathaway was waiting for us there. She called to Lucia upstairs.

  Then suddenly I noticed something in the dining room. It was completely dark except for one light, which illuminated a life-size portrait of Bullock in his Marine Corps uniform. He seemed to jump right out of the wall at you. The Hathaways’ hopes for the future were enshrined and entombed on their dining room wall. It had the atmosphere of a chapel. Mr. Hathaway took me gently by the arm and led me up to the portrait. I mumbled things about the picture, about Bullock, anything that came to my mind. Mr. Hathaway started talking. I have no memory of what he said. I only knew that I should be quiet, graceful. I wanted to get out of that house. Its air was filled with death.