Diary of Anais Nin, Volume 4
Page 24
I should not have visited Miller. As soon as one ceases to know a person intimately, the knowledge of them is from the outside, as if you stood at a window looking in. From this day on I would see Henry from the outside, in that sense which I call not knowing. Through others' eyes, through his writing, or through his wife. Other Henrys. Knowing is intimacy. Intimacy takes trust and faith. That was over.
I was just in time to witness a great battle among the people of Monterey, outraged by Varda's creation of a restaurant on Fishermen's Wharf. The newspapers were filled with letters. They said: "Someone who has no sympathy for our traditions has moved in."
Merle Armitage took up his defense: "The matter of aesthetic beauty can hardly enter the argument. No intelligent person could possibly be impressed with the bastard-Spanish confection, topped with an imitation lighthouse astride its roof, known as 'Sonny Boy.' Nor is there anything particularly indigenous to Monterey in the collection of wooden shacks and corrugated iron roofs, plus the inevitable garish neon signs, homemade billboards, and Coca-Cola advertisements which make up Fishermen's Wharf. I was delighted to see Varda's building, and if the town is interested in attracting tourists you will need more, not less imagination, real charm and atmosphere."
Another native wrote of "hallowed traditions, nostalgic memories..."
Another answered: "All I see is a conglomeration of cracker-box affairs and corrugated iron shacks...."
And Varda's building for Angelo's restaurant remained.
To celebrate the opening of Angelo's café we were invited to come in disguise. It was difficult to find odds and ends to make costumes out of, in the empty castle, with a wardrobe out of a valise intended for minimum necessities. There were no curtains, no draperies, no paints, no textiles. We did the best we could. I dressed John's wife: from the waist up she was a nun, in brown chiffon, with a cross on her breast. Below was the same chiffon, trailing to the floor, but without a slip underneath, so her legs could be seen in silhouette.
When we arrived, there were some costumes done by Varda which were marvelous. He had dressed some of the young women as his collages. Colored paper cut-outs covered them: blue rhomboids, rose triangles, white squares, orange rectangles, purple parallelograms, green trapezoids, lavender pentagons, gold hexagons, yellow octagons.
The friendship with Varda was situated on such a level of invention, counter-invention, legend and counter-legend, poetry and counter-poetry, our talks were so far out in space, that it was like two magicians ceaselessly performing for each other. We could not rest to wipe off the perspiration, or appear for one moment as human beings, hungry, cold, or restless. Magic must predominate. Varda's attitude in life was that of a Merlin, the enchanter, who must constantly enchant and seduce, fascinate and create. Young women came constantly to him, to be metamorphosed, and it was a marvelous sight to see him create a myth: rename them, reshape them, redecorate them. The Varda touch. They were no longer ordinary women. They were myths. I was a myth, even before we met, because of Under a Glass Bell. I possessed one of his loveliest collages. Poetry was like this masquerade of beauty, and I loved it. We all danced and flirted and paired off, and in our disguises denied our everyday selves.
The trip to the West had delivered me of the toxics of New York. It had given me a taste for nature, for people who were natural and gracious, for bigger artists, unconcerned with ambition. I could have stayed on forever, but I had to attend to my immigration problem. I had to make my re-entry into America as a permanent resident by first leaving the United States and making a new entry. If I had not traveled West I might not have wanted to become a permanent resident. It was time to leave for Mexico.
Alice Paalen had told me about an artists' colony at Lake Chappala. It had been described by D. H. Lawrence. I sat on the plane on my way to Mexico City and opened a copy of Life magazine. There was a photograph of Lake Chappala, a description of how cold it was, and a reference to black snakes. Already I had decided that although I would find fellow artists there, I would not go. On the next page there was a panorama of Acapulco. The sea, the mountains, the rocks, lush verdure, and a tropical climate. I decided immediately I would go there instead.
When I reached Mexico City, I changed my ticket. There was a plane for Acapulco in half an hour. It was a small plane, seating about ten persons. It flew between high mountains, and bounced continuously. But the first sight of Acapulco, mountains, sea, forests, drenched in sunlight, moved me. We flew over the Pacific, then along the shore, and landed on the beach. As the door of the plane opened, I felt the warm caressing air which immediately turns one into silk. Near the plane, Mexicans were lying in hammocks, under a thatched roof. Some of them came over to help carry the baggage. The tropics took possession of me by softness, warmth, like a drug. It was also an experience to find—after so many years—eyes which really looked at you. They rested on you. They were black, liquid, bright, and intimate. They smiled at you. The smile lingered. The roar of the waves and the salt spray were a few yards away. I felt like taking off my clothes and going into the sea.
Three guitars had greeted us, three voices singing, a tender and soft song, a lulling, a caressing song.
I had been told there were only two hotels in Acapulco: the Las Americas, which was for tourists and had dancing, a jazz-band, a big pool; and the Mirador, which was a Mexican family hotel. I chose the Mirador to be with Mexicans, and fortunately so, because it was also the most beautiful. It was situated high on a rocky mountain, overlooking the boiling gorge into which young Mexican divers leaped, dangerously and dramatically. There was a central building, and private cottages spread all over the mountain between passion vines, hibiscus flowers, bougainvillaea bushes, palms. I walked through a labyrinth of steps and tiled passageways to my own cottage. It had a terrace, with a hammock swinging gently, as if awaiting me. It was a simple room. Through the windows I heard a concert of frogs and cicadas. A loud harmonious buzzing. And a whistle, a slightly mocking whistle, which at first I mistook for a mart's. It was a bird. Everything stirred and delighted me, the softness in which everything was bathed, the humid glistening leaves, the pungent earth smell as night fell, the sea changing colors like an opal. The sandalwood smell of the furniture. Far off, I could hear the guitars.
I changed clothes and walked to the dining room. The patron came to greet me with old-fashioned courtesy. He was patriarchal, domineering, and protective. I was in the mood to love family life, children, dogs, parrots, nurses, Mexican cooking, Mexican singing, Mexican guitars. Tenderness dissolved me. An emotion which was never allowed to flower in New York. An abandon to tenderness, to warmth of climate and of people, to trust and smiling. It was a mood the singing of the Mexicans created.
In a corner of the dining room, a Mexican woman in native dress made tortillas on a grill. The gestures of her hands as she moulded the paste were rhythmic and ritualistic.
The next morning, the sun seemed not only to cover everything with gold but to penetrate into my very body. The air I inhaled
was like a drug of forgetfulness. Every movement I made was pleasurable. The colors of the sea, the sailboats, the flowers, and the papaya on the table, the smooth skin of the Mexicans, everything was a delight to the senses. The communion of eyes and smiles was elating. The festivities of nature anesthetized all thought or sorrow.
Acapulco had once been a fishing village, and before that, Japanese pearl divers had found treasures there. When they were driven away, they destroyed the oyster beds. It remained a simple fishing village until the artists arrived. The train did not come all the way and donkeys provided the only transportation. The artists were followed by the real-estate men and the hotelkeepers, but Acapulco remained a village where the wind was like velvet, and the sea as warm as a mother's womb.
The first person I met was Doctor Hernandez. He had the broad face of Mayan sculptures, the aquiline nose, the full mouth slanting downward while the eyes slanted upward. His skin was light olive, from a mixture of Indian an
d Spanish blood. His smile was like that of the natives, open and total, but it came less often and faded quickly, leaving a shadow over his face.
I was seeking a new territory, the territory of pleasure, and I felt Doctor Hernandez was not the proper guide to it.
I felt like saying to him: "Give me a little carefree time before making me aware of the dark side of Acapulco's life."
Everything was novel to me. The green of the foliage was not like any other greens; it was deeper, lacquered and moist. The leaves were heavier, fuller, the flowers bigger. They seemed surcharged with sap, and more alive. Just as the people seemed more alive.
The bungalows, some of them with roofs of palm leaves, recalled African native huts.
Doctor Hernandez and I sat drinking coffee on the terrace, where everyone gathered to watch the sea and the stars, and the boys diving from the high rocks.
He said: "In the tropics, white men fall apart."
"I've heard that," I said, "but I never believed it. I have seen too many people fall apart in New York. People always blame external circumstances for their disintegration. The white man who falls apart in the tropics I am sure is the same one who will fall apart anywhere."
The sun was setting with all the pomp and splendor of an oriental ceremony. The palms had a naked elegance.
The eyes of the Mexicans were full of burning life.
Even twilight came without a change of temperature or alteration in the softness of the air.
There are so many kinds of drugs. Some for remembering and some for forgetting. Acapulco is for forgetting. Will Doctor Hernandez let me forget? There is no permanent forgetting. We may seem to forget a person, a place, a state of being, a past life, but meanwhile what we are doing is selecting a new cast for the reproduction of the same drama.
And one day will I open my eyes in this beautiful, overwhelming place and see that I am caught in the same pattern, repeating the same story?
Already I had met the Doctor, lucid and aware, saying: "Awareness, awareness. Come with me and see the illness and the poverty."
How could it be otherwise? The design comes from within. It is internal.
And yet, the next morning, swimming in the tropical sea, listening to the guitar playing and the singers on the beach, eating the freshly caught fish, drinking coconut milk from a shell, looking at the conch shells brought in by the beach boys, lying in the sun. I remembered that the definition of tropic was "turning," changing," and I felt a new woman would be born here.
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Index
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Books by Anaïs Nin available in
paperbound editions from
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc.
The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Volume One (1931-1934)
The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Volume Two (1934-1939)
The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Volume Three (1939-1944)
The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Volume Four (1944-1947)
The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Volume Five (1947-1955)
The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Volume Six (1955-1966)
The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Volume Seven (1966-1974)
The Early Diary of Anaïs Nin, Volume One (1914-1920)
The Early Diary of Anaïs Nin, Volume Two (1920-1923)
The Early Diary of Anaïs Nin, Volume Three (1923-1927)
Vie Early Diary of Anaïs Nin, Volume Four (1927-1931)
A Photographic Supplement to the Diary of Anaïs Nin
In Favor of the Sensitive Man and Other Essays
Delta of Venus
Little Birds
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* In The New Yorker, April 1, 1944—Ed.
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** First published in THE CRITERION, London, 1937—Ed.
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* Henry Miller's second wife—Ed.
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* Later included in Under a Glass Bell—Ed.
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* Later published as Children of the Albatross—Ed.
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* See Volume III—Ed.
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