Safe Passage

by Ida Cook

  “Will you?” I gasped.

  “Yes,” she said. “Call them all around and hold up the receiver. I’ll see if I can get it over to you all.”

  I called them around. We sat, knelt or stood as near to the telephone as we could, and held up the receiver.

  There was a moment’s silence. And then—in miniature, but clear, matchless—her tremendous, characteristic entry in the “Pace, pace,” from the fourth act of the Forza del Destino crossed the years and the ocean. The pianissimo, growing to an incredible fortissimo and back to the golden thread of her unrivalled pianissimo once more. We would have known it anywhere, any time, as Ponselle—at the North Pole or on the banks of the Styx. We nearly went crazy.

  After that, she sang almost continuously for the remaining minutes, while we passed the receiver around so that each of us at least heard a few notes at full volume.

  For many, many years afterwards, we repeated the party and the call, later attaching a loudspeaker to the telephone so that everyone could hear both ends of the conversation. Even today, Louise and I still phone her on the anniversary of her London debut, and it is always an enchanting experience. But nothing will ever surpass the drama of that first call.

  If we had never loved her before, we should love her for that alone.

  14

  As will be imagined, the preparations for our American visit took on a very special urgency and significance after that first phone call. Not even in the days when we had saved strenuously for our first trip had we felt happier or more excited. Much of the old magic existed for us again, and with it, a new and, I suppose, more mature sense of enjoyment.

  We have always retained something of the enthusiasm and the rather naïve enjoyment of the gallery girls we once were, and this new visit catered to those feelings as lavishly as ever. But in addition, there was the moving and heart-warming anticipation of meeting again so many of the friends we had known only in the shadow of great danger and tragedy. We had waved them away from the shores of Europe as refugees. Now they would be there to welcome us, in their new character of citizens of the country that had always enthralled us.

  It was during these final months of preparation for our return to the States that we added our first post-war operatic friendship to our experiences. Marjorie Lawrence, that brave and splendid Wagnerian singer, with her husband, Dr. King, visited England on a concert tour. It will be remembered that the height of her triumphant career—indeed, actually at a rehearsal of Walküre—she was stricken with polio and never walked again. But she had built another career for herself, singing in concert from a wheelchair.

  It goes without saying that the radiance and brilliance of that heroic voice captivated us all from the outset. But what entranced us just as much was the beauty and courage of a very remarkable personality. We attended every concert she gave within reasonable—even slightly unreasonable—reach of London, and then it seemed to me that here was the ideal moment to try to revive the almost forgotten glories of the “star” parties, beloved of ourselves and our operatic associates before the war.

  A little diffidently, we invited Marjorie Lawrence and her husband to the famous flat to meet about two dozen of her most earnest admirers. And, to the joy of us all, the invitation was accepted.

  Practical difficulties existed, of course, for we were still on strict rations, and catering on even a modest scale was not yet easy. But everyone wanted to help, and never was a party prepared with more eagerness and goodwill. No restrictions, no difficulties were to stand in the way of showing how greatly we loved and admired Marjorie Lawrence, and how much we appreciated this little touch of glamour in a grey post-war world.

  We scoured London for good things to eat. I even wrote to my old school friend in Northumberland—the one to whom we had sent Dad and Mother during the period of the flying bombs—explained the circumstances, and implored her to rustle up a chicken, or something of the sort.

  Back came Rettie Douglas’s reply by return post. “I’ll do better than that! I’ll bring you a Coquet salmon personally. As the party is on Saturday, Elsie”—another Northumbrian enthusiast—“and I will catch the first train down in the morning. We should be in London by four in the afternoon. And we’ll travel back on Sunday.”

  My anxieties ended there. But not so Rettie’s!

  On that Friday, of all days, the salmon turned coy. Or, in the local phrase, “the salmon wouldn’t swim.” And, according to Rettie’s subsequent dramatic account, she spent most of Friday afternoon standing on the shore—rather like Sister Anne in Bluebeard—scanning the horizon in hopes of a salmon. Occasionally, a fisherman brought one in, but never one big enough for our purpose. Then, at the last possible moment, in came a fisherman with a perfect prince of a fish. Rettie was not the only one after that salmon, but surrounded by an interested group, she told the tale of the Marjorie Lawrence party, and everyone immediately waived their claims in her favour. The salmon was hers!

  No wonder she arrived late in the day, more or less clasping the noble creature to her bosom. For, next to Marjorie Lawrence and Dr. King, it was undoubtedly the most important guest at the party. At this point, let me digress to say that if anyone who has never tasted Coquet salmon imagines that he knows what salmon can be, I must respectfully insist that he is wrong.

  I don’t know quite how to describe that party. It was cheerful and lovely and amusing beyond description. And yet, very deep feelings ran only just below the surface. Here was a glorious British star among fellow Britons. We could guess how much she had suffered in the past years. She guessed how much some of us suffered too, and there was an undercurrent of sympathy and tenderness that was very moving. I think the moment that remained with all of us was when, at the end of the party, Marjorie exchanged a glance with her husband and then addressed us all quite seriously.

  “There is something we should like to tell you,” she said rather gently. “You will understand that, in our position, we receive literally hundreds of invitations as we go about the world, and that, as things are, we have to refuse almost all of them. But when your invitation came, we talked it over together and decided it came from sincere and genuine people with a deep love of music and that is why we accepted. We know how difficult things are here. We know quite well how much trouble and thought you must all have taken to give us such an evening. And now, we want you to know that very seldom in our lives have we enjoyed a party so much.”

  We almost gulped with emotion and delight at this unexpected tribute, and only the hasty presentation of a bouquet—subscribed for by us all but somehow forgotten until this most auspicious moment—adequately expressed our feelings.

  It was on a much later occasion that I ventured to ask her the question that must often have been in people’s minds when they contemplated her wonderful victory over circumstances that would have crushed almost anyone else.

  “What was it, Marjorie,” I asked at last, “that keeps you so bright and courageous in spite of everything? You must have some very clear and remarkable philosophy to support you.”

  She smiled a little mischievously, but replied without hesitation, “Well, you see, many people believe in God and make themselves miserable. We believe in God and have lots of fun. That’s all.”

  The charming and characteristic utterance of a woman who would have been great in her own right, even without the gift of a divine voice.

  It was only a few months after this that Louise and I prepared to say a temporary goodbye to England for the first time in seven years.

  Lisa Basch, whom we had last seen in England in 1940, just before she and her family emigrated to the States, had made all the New York arrangements for us. Her parents waited to welcome us to Philadelphia. Mrs. Stiefel, to whom I had said goodbye at Euston so many years ago could hardly wait to introduce us to the daughter we had never seen. Half of Mitia’s family were looking forward to our coming. In Washington, in New York, in Virginia, we would be equally welcome. Friedl’s mother, whom we
had left in Frankfurt two weeks before war broke out, and who had escaped finally, via the Soviet Union and later China, was counting the days until we should arrive with first-hand news of Friedl and her husband and baby. Her uncle, whom we had last seen when he came from the concentration camp in 1938, and his wife and family were ready to welcome us in Los Angeles. Oh, and countless others. There was not a city where we had to set foot, but someone or someone’s parents or children or uncles or cousins wanted to see us.

  It was like the old days, when we went to Europe with messages to and from everyone. Only this time, we were to meet for rejoicing. It was a happy ending on an enormous scale.

  But, if it was to be a tour of refugee friends, it was also to be a tour of prima donnas. In New York, we were to see Elisabeth Rethberg again; we had said goodbye to her in Salzburg just before war broke out. We were to visit Marjorie Lawrence and her husband at their ranch in Arkansas. In California, Lita and Homer awaited us with an affectionate delight undimmed by twelve or thirteen years’ separation.—To them we would always be “The Girls” however many years had rolled between.—In Connecticut, we were to meet Geraldine Farrar, for all those years pen-friend with one of our oldest friends from the opera queue. And in Maryland, we were to find Rosa again.

  No wonder the horrors of the last eleven years were beginning to seem unreal. What seemed increasingly near and real were the good old days, which linked up so perfectly with the joys that stretched in front of us. And, most strangely and satisfying and reassuring of all, was the realization that, at last, the two mainstreams of our lives were merging into one. If the refugee work had once taken us away from operatic joys, now it was returning us to them.

  Those months in which we prepared for our return to the States were very happy ones. On January 4, 1947—twenty years to the day since Louise and I had first set foot in New York, had first walked along Fifth Avenue and turned along Thirty-Ninth Street to the Met—we left Europe once more, this time by air.

  Bad weather delayed our journey a good deal, but nothing could dampen our spirits this time. The only trouble was that the hour of our arrival had become so uncertain that, in the end, no one was able to be at the airport. Indeed, we arrived at our hotel almost casually.

  And there, sitting in the hotel lounge, waiting for us as she had once waited in a hotel in Frankfurt, was Lisa Basch.

  We fell upon her with cries of joy that must have forever dissipated any idea of “the stolid Britisher” entertained by anyone around us. We hardly knew what questions to ask each other. We could only embrace, exclaim and laugh.

  Three minutes later, Mrs. Stiefel arrived with her daughter. And, wafted on the wings of another joyous reunion, we all went up to our room.

  I shall never forget how it looked. It was like a film star’s room. There were flowers and telegrams and candy and cakes and letters and phone-call slips. Somehow, we had not expected anything like that. I took one look around and began to cry.

  But dear Mrs. Stiefel said, no, I must not cry, that the time for crying was long past, and now was the time to rejoice that we were all happy and safe. So I cheered up and began eating candy, which had always had the power to raise my spirits in every phase of my existence, and soon felt much better.

  Rosi Lismann came, her daughter called up from Washington, and every five minutes the phone rang to say there was either someone else to see us or to speak to us by telephone. Our particular section of the world seemed to have been hit by a hurricane—but a hurricane of affection and good wishes.

  How sweet it is to be remembered. And to be remembered with love and gratitude. One doesn’t do one’s few good deeds with that thought in mind, but nothing is lovelier than to have it happen. It was a mad and wonderful day. And that night, though Louise and I had had about four hours’ sleep per night for the last three nights, we rushed off to the Metropolitan where Pinza was singing Boris Godunov.

  How the years and the miles fell away again. Last time, it had been The Marriage of Figaro in Salzburg and war was just over the horizon.

  We went around afterward and just stood in the doorway of his dressing room and grinned.

  “Good lord!” Pinza said. “Where did you two spring from?”

  “We just arrived from England this morning,” we explained airily, “and thought we’d come and hear the best basso in the world tonight.”

  Then we all laughed and were suddenly exchanging the news of the years in between. It was all like something one invents in a nostalgic daydream. But this was really happening.

  Ten magical days in New York followed. Days of reunion and reminiscences and endless discussion. We ought to have been worn out, but one has wonderful staying power when one is so happy.

  Backed by the letter of introduction from our old friend in the Covent Garden queue, we telephoned Geraldine Farrar and were immediately invited, in the kindest terms possible, to come out to Connecticut and visit her in her home there. And one cold day, when a light powdering of snow lay on the hills, we motored out to Ridgefield to meet one of the brightest stars of other years.

  With characteristic and enchanting humour, Geraldine Farrar described herself as “a prima donna of ancient vintage,” but if ever anyone had the secret of eternal youth, she had. I am, as everyone who knows me will confirm, a chatterer by nature, but I would willingly have sat silent for hours while Geraldine Farrar talked. She still retained a vitality, a charm, a wit that would have made her the centre of any stage, and we could not hear enough of her recollections of the great operatic years through which she had moved as a queen.

  Her turn of phrase was superb. It was she who said of Caruso: “I sang with every great tenor of my time, but there was not one who was fit to polish a jewel in his crown.”

  Later in that unforgettable afternoon, our dear Elisabeth Rethberg came to collect us and drive us over to her country home nearby. But first, we all had tea together. And though, of course, the warm friendliness of the occasion was what really mattered to Louise and me, perhaps a certain measure of pride may be forgiven us. We smiled at each other across the table, as on either side of us sat an operatic star whom all the world had been delighted to honour. I think no operatic fan would hold it against us that our heads would probably not have fitted our hats at that moment.

  A few days later, we took another airplane to California, where Lita and Homer waited.

  We arrived early on a hot afternoon and called them before we had taken our coats off. Homer answered and promptly said, “Can you girls be ready in twenty minutes? We’re taking you to a concert, and we’ll be with you as soon as we can make the hotel.”

  It was wonderful how none of the previous reunions ever took the edge off the next one. It would have been worth coming the 6,000 miles only to embrace Homer and then rush out to Lita, waiting outside in the car, and overwhelm her with kisses in her turn. We were fulfilling all we had promised ourselves that night we had crouched under the dining-room table while the flying bombs whizzed past overhead.

  For the four days we were able to spend in Los Angeles, Lita and Homer had cleared the decks of every other social engagement. All their time was ours. We drove around in their car and saw something of that then-beautiful garden city of the west, or sat in their enchanting bungalow or sometimes on the side of the beds in our hotel bedroom—or wherever it was most convenient and easy to park ourselves while we talked and talked and talked.

  After all, we had thirteen years’ news to exchange. There was so much we had done that had to be told and re-told and enjoyed. Our method of voice production must have been pretty nearly as good as Lita’s own, we decided, for our vocal chords stood up to the strain splendidly.

  Even when the all-too-short visit was over and we had to say goodbye, we were sustained by the thought that we could plan for a foreseeable future once more. We promised that we would not let more than two years go past before we came again. And this promise, I am glad to say, we were able to keep.

  We went
east once more to New York; then to Philadelphia, to Washington, even for one day to Virginia, just to take in everyone we had promised to see. And then, as we neared the end of this magical month, we took a train to Baltimore.

  It was a beautiful sunny afternoon, I remember—what we used to call “Ponselle weather” in her years at Covent Garden because, somehow, we always seemed to queue for her performances in sunshine. Earlier in the visit, we had telephoned to make final arrangements, but Rosa had been away from home. However, we had spoken to her husband, Carle Jackson, who had made us unreservedly welcome and promised that he would himself meet us at Baltimore station.

  We had no difficulty in recognizing each other—I suppose we looked very British—and we were soon in the car and heading for Villa Pace. At this point, and with a calmness we were afterwards to find characteristic of him, Carle dropped a bombshell.

  “I didn’t tell you on the telephone,” he said, “because I knew you’d think it necessary to be polite and make all sorts of excuses about not coming after all, but Rosa isn’t at home. She’s in a nursing home and won’t be back for a couple of days.”

  In answer to our chorus of anxious enquiries, he assured us that she was not seriously ill and that we should certainly see her during our visit. Meanwhile, he did everything a perfect host could do to make us feel at home, and several of their friends on the neighbouring estates were equally determined to see that we enjoyed our visit. It was impossible not to feel some disappointment, of course, but it was equally impossible not to have that disappointment yield before all the kindness and thoughtfulness that was lavished upon us. We might have been lifelong friends, rather than two unknown admirers out of the past. And to this day, Louise and I feel grateful to Carle.