Under the Sun: The Letters of Bruce Chatwin

by Nicholas Shakespeare

  Lots of love to B[eatrice] and G[regori Von Rezzori] – and I hope all goes well with the party. And to you, always B

  PS I wonder what you’d think of Gadda 720, That Awful Mess on the Via Merulana. My pal Calasso says Gadda is wonderful. Murray lent it to me. I love it.

  To Charles and Margharita Chatwin

  c/o Manvendra Singh | The Fort | Rohet | Jodhpur | India | 1 February 1986

  Dear Charles and Margharita,

  Well, all we can say is some little fly must have buzzed in your ear a warning, ‘Don’t go to Kathmandu!’ I don’t know if you’ve heard what happened. The house we were promised: an Englishman’s house with servants and sofas, in the country etc fell through and E. was then offered a cottage orné, in a garden admittedly right in the heart of the city, not far from the Royal palace. She had to furnish it etc, which all cost money; and when I arrived from Hong Kong, I had, I have to say, misgivings. Almost immediately the offer came up of a trek in the mountains to prospect a new route for Shirley Williams,721 so I went off walking for six days, came back feeling wonderful, only to find a message at the airport that E. had bronchitis, which for her, is very unusual. Within a couple of days, I then had a lung collapse on the scale of my Christmas performance last year.722 The house, it turned out, was sitting in a pool of pollution, plus the fact that over the wall was the city shit-house, plus the fact that they burned the shit and other refuse at night so that the fumes would settle in our throats. All I can say is that it brought back a kind of bronchial misery I associate with Stirling Road winter ’47.723

  Kasmin, who misbehaved dreadfully, then came up trumps and suggested flight, at once, to India: not next week, now. The first flight we could get on was to Benares, and to Benares we went. I’ve become completely neurotic about overweight, seeing that I’m forty kilos over, in books: but we sailed through that, arrived; went to watch the Burning Ghat (which is not at all sinister, but calming. You literally stand within, say 15 feet, of half a dozen burning corpses: and after you get used to the smell – though I with my cold, could hardly smell a thing – it all seems perfectly natural and harmonious). We then drove to Delhi along the Grand Trunk Road (all planes and trains booked) in a taxi. I hoped to show Kas the Martinière which is an enormous ‘French’ 18th century chateau, now a boy’s school, but since the fog was such that we couldn’t see the bonnet of the car, there seemed little point.724 On to Delhi where we stayed with my pal, Sunil Sethi, a journalist whom I first met while ‘doing Mrs G[andhi]’, now the editor of a new newspaper The Indian Mail. He has a new and beautiful wife: all very soignée. Then our Australian friends, Murray and Margaret Bail, he a novelist, she seems to run the welfare department of Sydney, and we went off to Jodhpur, where they had already arranged to go and I know the maharajah. The palace in Jodhpur is the last great ruler’s palace to be built anywhere: at least as large as Buckingham Palace and completed, finally, in 1949. My friend H.H. (or Babji), a totally wonderful character, replied to my note at once, saying he was overcome with his 40th birthday celebrations. Would we come for a drink now? This minute? Which we did: to find him also entertaining a real lunatic, the Belgian ambassador to Iran. The question then was how to get rid of the Belgian, and keep us back for dinner – which I might say then developed into a farce, with the ambassador hoping he’d been invited, we knowing he hadn’t but too polite to say so, etc. It passed off. I said I was looking for somewhere to write, and Babji immediately proposed a cottage in a mango orchard laid out by his grandparents at a place called Ranakpur, about 75 miles away (we went there, later, with the Bails; but it wasn’t really very satisfactory. Every day, tourists staying in one of Babji’s hotels would descend for lunch, and there was nowhere really for me to spread my books). The next night, however, was the birthday; the maharanee choked solid with diamonds and emeralds;725 all the courtiers in whirligig Rajasthani turbans and real white jodhpurs; the musicians playing ghazals; polo playing colonels; the British Ambassador – Wade-Gery,726 distinguished for a change! And then we met a real charmer! Manvendra Singh.

  He comes from a line of Rajput zamindars,727 which is to say, a little bit more than squire: courtier and landowner to be more exact. I did my usual babble about finding a place to write in, and he said, ‘I think I have the place’. He had, too. Although he lives four days a week in town, he has his family fort, a building going back to the 16th century, around a courtyard with neem trees and a lawn, its outer walls lapped by a lake with little islands, temples on them etc. The rooms we occupy are a self-contained flat, bluewashed, with 19th century Anglo-Indian furniture, photos of maharajahs, and a never ending procession of birds. The country is flattish, and almost semi-desert; and since there was no monsoon last year, the situation is quite grim. But the lake, which is filled from a canal, is one of the only tanks in the region, and the stopping off place for all the migrants on their way to or from Siberia. Almost within arms reach are ducks, spoonbills, egrets, storks, cranes, herons, bee-eaters, a dazzling kingfisher which sits in the nearest tree. Each morning brings something new. Tea arrives with the sun. Siesta. Buckets of hot water. Breakfast. Morning coffee (real). Lunch. Siesta. Walk. More work. Then in the evening you hear the muezzin being called from the Mosque, and incredible bangings and trumpetings from the Krishna Temple, then silence.

  I have the most charming study to work in, and work I do. I have learned long ago not to make any prognostications about when this book will be finished. All I will say is that I’ve enlarged it considerably since I’ve been here. There’s a tricky passage to come, and after that . . . Well, who knows?

  But I’m afraid this gypsyish life cannot go on. I shall have, whether I like it or not, to get a proper bolt-hole to work in. Otherwise I find I can fritter away six months at a time without achieving anything, and that only makes me very bad-tempered. In a way, I like being in Italy, but the climate’s quite tough in winter, and the villages (because I’m sure it must be in a village) are usually quite depressing. Our old stamping ground in the Basses-Alpes is not half bad. Uzès is another possibility. What it’ll mean, I’m afraid, is that the London flat will have to go. I’m after 3 rooms: one to sleep and work in; one to live in, and a spare room. It’ll have to have a terrace, somewhere to sit out at least; and walks in neighbourhood. Greece, I think, is too remote; especially when one sees the problems Paddy and Joan [Leigh Fermor] have to face.728 I know nothing about it: but I’m told the mountain villages of Majorca are still extremely attractive. It’s no use thinking I could have something like Les Chênes Lièges:729 because I do need at least the minimum of a working library, and that will take up space. The point is that it must be available for me to descend on, as and whenever, I, not anyone else, wants. It must not be let out – as I’ve had to do with the flat, because it’s my experience now that the moment you let anyone in to your surroundings, they are suddenly no longer yours.730 Anyway, the conclusion of this little moan is that, as and when the book is delivered to the publishers, I am taking off some months a. to try and teach myself some Russian b. to find the bolt-hole and set it up properly.

  I’m sending a post-card to College Street, in case by any chance, you’ve left by the time this arrives. Our contacts are c/o the above: and there is an emergency phone no. 21161 Jodhpur for messages. Manvendra Singh speaks perfect English, as does his wife, who is usually there. There are times, though, when only the servants are in the house. A cable, in a garbled form, gets through, because we’ve tried it . . . I don’t intend to budge until I see my way through towards the downhill slopes. If it gets too hot here, I’ll take, as they always did, to the hills . . .

  The peacocks are honking and the cymbals sounding in the Krishna Temple . . .

  Much love XXXX

  B

  PS E. tried calling you from Delhi but was told the number was unavailable.

  To Deborah Rogers

  c/o Manvendra Singh | The Fort | Rohet | Jodhpur | India | 1 February 1986

  Dearest Deb,

/>   Who was it made the witticism ‘Any letter answers itself after six weeks’? . . . I’m completely out of touch, which is, as you know, the way I like to be.

  I wouldn’t mind going to Prague for my next effort (something quite small).

  To Murray and Margaret Bail

  c/o Manvendra Singh | The Fort | Rohet | Jodhpur | India | 9 February 1986

  Dearest Murray and Margaret,

  Well, I have to say the Fort is a real piece of luck. We couldn’t be happier here. There is just enough going on, either in the courtyard or by the lake, to arouse one’s interest, and not too much to distract me. I have had the devil of a time, though, shaking off that cold – but it does now appear to be on the wane. E. is off to Bombay to see her friends for a week: but I refuse to budge. It is ironic that this book of mine, which is a passionate defence of wandering, as opposed to sedentary habits, should involve its author in a more or less limpet-like existence. The squirrels have got so tame that they crawl up on our chairs.

  I feel so juvenile compared to these Indians. Manvendra Singh is one year older than me, almost to the day, yet he represents the male world of my father: in his absolute fairness and tireless, unostentatious work for others. It would also be ironic if India were the last refuge of ‘the gentleman’.

  I have to say I did enjoy the Gadda. I’m not sure if it’ll reach you with or without this letter. E. is posting a lot of things back to England by sea-mail, and she’s going to see, whether it’s not too exorbitant, whether she’ll send it by air.

  I don’t know what it was about The Awful Mess . . . that made me like it so: even the sawn off ending I felt was right. If it had been written by, say, Nabokov, I wouldn’t have endured the literary facetiousness for two seconds. But this one I felt comes off.

  As for my own ‘Awful Mess’ I’ve now got to the critical stage in which there is a sudden shift from Australia, in order to answer Pascal’s assertion about the man sitting quietly in a room.731 If it comes off, then I’m on the downward stretch. If not, then there’s a real crisis.

  And as for plans, my aim is to get the whole book checked and edited, and then make a flying visit to Oz to check the language. It is strange how elusive ‘it’ is as a written language, and how very different, in the subtlest ways, it is from English spoken in England.

  I must stop, I’m afraid, because we have to go to the post-master for a tea-party: a 20-year old bachelor desperately in search of a fair foreign wife who is perpetually badgering us to swap our clothes for his, our watch for his, our pen, our radio . . . etc then she’s off to spend the night in town before taking the plane tomorrow morning.

  I wasn’t really on best form on our little jaunt a. because of my cold b. the uncertainty of what I was doing. E. and I have the idea of moving here for 3 months every year. She sends all her love, and mine.

  Bruce

  To Diana Melly

  c/o Manvendra Singh | Rohet House | Jodhpur | India | February 15 [1986]

  Dearest Diana,

  . . . I have been working like an express-train: I wouldn’t say it is over yet: but what I have done is to compress all my material out of the files, notebooks, card-indexes (where it has been accumulating for 20 years) and have got it – nearly all – in the folder. Almost all the ‘Australian’ part of the book is done: so it remains – and this is the hardest part – to weave in the outside stuff. More and more, I’ve been making the discovery that I can only concentrate if completely taken out of my surroundings. But this wandering uncertainty can’t go on: it wastes so much time for one thing: so when I come back, I’m to sell the flat and look for a bolt-hole, somewhere in the Mediterranean, to work in: a place where I can lock the door and go in at any time of year. Easier said than done! I have a feeling that the fatal thing is to go for somewhere ‘unspoiled ’ – as if one isn’t a spoiler oneself – because it takes so much money and emotional effort keeping it unspoiled. I wonder whether those mountain villages in Majorca might not be bad . . . Not that I’ve ever been there! but I might go and have a look.

  I’ve never felt more out of touch: not the least because Elizabeth insisted on having 3 months’ worth of our post sent air mail to Nepal – despite the fact I told her not to – including cheques from American publishers, magazines and God know what else, and the whole lot’s gone missing: apparently all foreign businesses there send all their mail by courier. So that may be that! A letter from my mother got through with a very good review of Emma [Tennant]’s book,732 plus a profile [in the Times] by Nick Shakespeare: otherwise zero. I am reading, properly for the first time, Proust.733 Just shows you where things have got to! E. goes visiting the village ladies, learns Hindi from the Brahmin school-teacher, and I’ve not seen her happier or more cheerful in 20 years (the time we’ve been married!) I think even she is coming round to the fact that those houses, and that particular way of life, are as bad for her as for me.

  A post card takes about 5 days to reach here – and a trickle has already started. E has gone to Bombay to see friends for a week. Tomorrow begins the big push forward (with the book) – I hope! – so the evening I’ve taken off to write letters.

  Love to Francis, George, Tom and Candy –

  and, of course you xxx B

  To John Kasmin

  c/o Manvendra Singh | Rohet House | Jodhpur | India | 17 February 1986

  Dear KAZ,

  (Kaz – Turkic verbal root meaning ‘to nomadise ’ or ‘travel’: hence – Kazakh Cossack etc).

  But what terrible news of G.734 I’ll write to them next, but Lord knows it’s difficult enough when you can’t assess the situation. My own view – and you should pass it on if – and only if – you think it would be helpful, is that they should give up going to New York. Whenever I’ve seen Grisha in America, he always looks fraught, fractious and ill. The whole business of getting into a plane, followed by that particular city, can, if you have a heart condition and a tendency to cancer, only be BAD. I was horrified by that whole ridiculous business of trooping round Middle America in search of Nabokov.735 He should be in his study in Tuscany doing his own work: not playing to the American gallery, because ultimately his reputation in America is less important than anywhere. When the winter at Donnini gets too bad, then they should move into a hotel. There must be perfectly adequate doctors in Italy; or if not in Switzerland, to which he can go by car – but to be at the mercy of American medicine, however good it may seem to be, is a terrifying prospect.

  Enough of that! I adore it here. Lunch yesterday, for example, consisted of a light little bustard curry, a puree of peas, another of aubergine and coriander, yoghurt, and a kind of wholemeal bread the size of a potato and baked in ashes. A sadhu with a knotted beard down to his kneecaps has occupied the shrine a stone’s throw from my balcony; and after a few puffs of his ganja I found myself reciting, in Sanskrit,736 some stanzas of the Bhagavad Gita.737 I work away for eight hours at a stretch, go for cycle rides in the cool of the evening, and come back to Proust.

  I envy you your talent for rug-dealing:738 there’s something in me that stops me doing likewise. I cannot explain what it is. But you will, I am sure, make far more money than you imagine with Kaputt.739 I will, if you want, write a foreword.

  But this peripatetic existence of mine must stop. I must have mon bureau, mes fauteuils, mon jardin (pas des bêtes!) (as Flaubert writes in a letter) – somewhere in a relatively good climate, which means the Mediterranean, and I must have it soon. God knows how I’ll raise the cash, if it means the sale of my London flat + my art then tant pis pour eux! I have fallen, happily, on my feet here: but to be in the situation of Kathmandu just isn’t on. I only like doing my work: not reviews, not articles, not commissions – and however eccentric or unsaleable it may get, I intend to go my own way. The latest development to ‘Australia’ in which I take a world tour – and more! – is quite something! I’ve even squeezed in Luderitz!740 XXX B