Under the Sun: The Letters of Bruce Chatwin

by Bruce Chatwin

  In September 1970 Elizabeth set off for India in a converted yellow grocery delivery van, an eight-month expedition that would take in India, Afghanistan, Iran and Turkey. Her passengers were Elizabeth Cuthbert, a schoolteacher, and the artist John Nankivell (‘a young male pencil artist of real talent’, John Betjeman wrote to Stuart Piggott). The journey was made at the instigation of Penelope Betjeman who wished to investigate pagoda temples in the western Himalayas. Betjeman herself drove in a second Morris van with another artist, Elizabeth Simson. Chatwin, originally to be part of the group, reneged. He did, though, agree to meet Elizabeth and Penelope in Istanbul and to show them the city before the next stage of the journey, and to meet up with them again in India once he had finished his book.

  To Charles and Margharita Chatwin

  Postcard, ancient houses of Istanbul | Turkey | 28 September 1970

  [Elizabeth’s handwriting] B just getting his train ticket to Paris & should be with you in a week. This is a marvellous place – we leave Wed for Anatolia & beyond.

  [Chatwin’s handwriting] Overeating here – stuffed mussels with hazelnut sauce. Starvation trip on train without sleeping car. Discipline needed in Stratford, please work all day – exercise at weekends.

  XX B

  To Derek Hill

  Postcard, compote service of gold encrusted with diamonds, Topkapi Sarayi | Istanbul | Turkey | 28 September 1970

  If only you had the money for this and Wemyss Ware. Much love Bruce and Elizabeth

  To Patrick Leigh-Fermor

  Yenikoy 177 | Istanbul | Turkey | 1 October 1970

  Dear Paddy,

  . . . Unfortunately, I have to return to England because our tenant269 ratted two days before Elizabeth left with Penelope and the rest of the caravan for India. The house cannot be left untended, and I go on the Orient Express tomorrow. I’ll look out the Comparative Dictionary of Indo-European languages for you in Blackwell’s, and would like to give you some of it as a present anyway. Do let me know if you have already done anything about it.

  I escorted the caravan of ladies and their one sensationally ineffective gentleman across the Bosphorus. I dread the result. The cars lost each other for five days in Yugoslavia and Bulgaria. One attempted rape on Penelope and her friend by a Turkish infantryman in a maize field near Edirne. Penelope selflessly offered herself instead of the girl. Offer finally accepted as rescue came. Not before the soldier himself had offered five Turkish lire, his week’s pay, for the younger specimen. In Istanbul two exposures behind bushes, from sailors; but if the ladies will picnic in Gulahane park on a Sunday . . .

  I have just returned from watching a party of fishermen hauling a drowned horse from under Galata Bridge, and am now going to the hammam.

  As ever Bruce

  To Elizabeth Chatwin

  Holwell Farm | Wotton-under-Edge | Glos | 15 October 1970

  Dear E.,

  Have just had your letter from Malatya. That John [Nankivell] does sound unbearable and spoilt. I’m very sorry I simply can’t send 100 dollars as the financial situation is as you said rather desperate. I have decided to go down to barricade myself into Holwell because it is terribly confined here. Linda,270 I must say, keeps the place like a surgery except that the flies in the upper room are appalling and make it impossible. I shall occupy the bedroom. Stayed in London with the Knight and Olda271 in their very agreeable new house in Fulham Road area.

  Drama in excelsis about my teeth which were the cause of real anxiety. For a week they made tests on the tissue of the gum to make sure it wasn’t cancer. The teeth may have to come out anyway and the gold filling removed. Incompetently done in the first place and rubbing for years caused it. I had visions of half my jaw coming off, and got rather alarmed. Mr King has been very good about it all, but I have to have about six sessions before they will be able to clear it up. The cost! I shall probably have to flog a few things to keep going, and might sell the Pomeranian suite. Sandy272 thinks he’s sold the Maori, but then he permanently seems to think he’s sold it and no money is forthcoming. The Nashes are here. The Arctic Tern has arrived back and looks marvellous. Vogue delighted with the piece I dashed off in a morning and are paying £200 for it.

  Now UTA273 are prepared, I think, to fly me for free to Ceylon in January. What about that? I could I might add also go to Tahiti, Madagascar or the Cameroons. I would write a piece.

  . . . Went riding with Rich Ron [Gurney] last weekend on the Berkshire downs which was quite beautiful.

  Some of that later Seljuk architecture can be appalling. Never cared one bit for that elaborate portal at Sivas, but have never been to Divrigi or Malatya. I don’t quite agree with you over Hittite art. I think that Yazilikiya is most remarkable. It’s very tough and solid, and requires a bouleversement of all one’s ideas as to what is beautiful. I like it all the same in the time of the Old and early New Kingdoms. You’re not, I suppose, going to Nimrud Dagh.

  I am just going to move my stuff to Holwell in the land rover and must dash this to the post or it won’t get you in Teheran. Most mystifying. A huge consignment of gold and silver dishes arrived from some dealer in Teheran for me at London airport. I replied I knew nothing about it and had the whole lot sent back. It might have been some smuggling operation, and I simply don’t want to be involved. It wasn’t the textiles of last year.274 That for one is certain.

  Love and all.

  xxx B

  To Derek Hill

  Holwell Farm | Wotton-under-Edge | Glos | [October 1970]

  Some cutting away required, but not malignant cancer which is what the biopsies were about. If only we knew less about medicine and were able to trust to the mercy of God, we might live less long, but be saved innumerable alarms. See you soon, I hope. Much love, B

  To Elizabeth Chatwin

  Holwell Farm | Wotton-under-Edge | Glos | 22 October 1970

  Dear E,

  Vastly windy day and the leaves pouring off the trees, and the house buzzing with flies, and a new addition – bats, long eared bats that mysteriously secrete themselves into the bedroom and hover around at night after the flies. It’s a curious sensation the noise of fluttering air, more mechanical than animal, and I could even hear the high-pitched screech.

  My parents have been here this morning to try on the overcoat.275 Un vrai sac, I am afraid. She must have thought I was a giant. I can see my father ending up in it.

  Lunch the other day with Sally276 and later a walk with her and Master, and needless to say I succumbed to his entreaties about cutting down the tree on the path. Lenny277 is going to do it.

  I have taken to staying in the Knight and Olda’s basement in London which is very convenient and pleasant, but I don’t know how long it’ll last. Teddy [Millington-Drake] is here from Patmos and is going back to New York ‘because I don’t have anywhere else to go’. Poor thing. We may both come out to India, but as I have firmly maintained I make no promises as to the date. The book progresses. There is no doubt about it. But as I have cast the whole thing in a different literary form, and have abandoned the confining institution of the paragraph in favour of a more militant SLOGAN, the whole thing has had to be recast. Am having a great row with Vogue magazine as they intend to publish my article under the title ‘IT‘S A NOMAD, NOMAD, NOMAD WORLD.’278 Either the title is changed or it’s coming out. Thank you.

  Have heard from Cary [Welch] who is busy as usual with the young folks. New Young Folks this time with art classes and Zen cookery lessons.

  If you get a chance can you let me know what you have decided to do about the fencing which has to be done because the sheep have been in the garden. Who is supposed to be coming to do it? A ghastly new vicar,279 a really priggish vandal has come and proposes a real clean up of Ozleworth, this involving the removal of the tombstones in the interest of Hygiene. Fury all round. It’s the stupid fault of the Fergussons280 for not attending to it properly.

  Thank God my teeth really do seem to be better. A very nasty week that was, wa
iting to hear the results of the biopsy on a piece of my gum from the Cancer Clinic.

  Vandalism is in the woods. That horror Mr Woodward is chopping near Newark Park now. Thank heaven for our little bit of scrub.

  She is awfully curious that Linda. Secretive in a funny way. Frankly I thought she’d leave when I came. She said ‘I suppose it’s your house, isn’t it?’ but now she seems to have got used to the idea of my presence. She is silent, moves stealthily about the house, has the most terrible friends, really terrible friends, professional snivellers – except John281 who came one night. I receive nobody, except that I may be having Keith282 plant some more trees. I am afraid I cannot find time to DO the garden, only to offer some useless advice. Lenny [Ballinger] is very helpful, and is chopping the apple tree up for firewood. I intend to plant some more of those willows in the willow patch.

  If I’m through by Christmas I may go to Darling D[erek]. I don’t know whether it’s a good idea or not. We shall see. In India please look out for hand made paper, old looking but with all the bits in it. Also anything you can find in the way of original natural not aniline colourings paints etc. When I have finished the book I am going to have a really big painting and drawing session. I have got all worked up about the old passions Seghers,283 Leonardo landscapes, Sung masters etc. There is a North West Coast stone whale in Sotheby’s looking rather neglected, unillustrated, unloved by F[elicity] N[icolson], Sandy [Martin] etc, but really beautiful. May try and buy it. Am selling kufic lettering, maybe the Green Man284 if I can get enough and some other footling thing. Nothing of yours – yet!

  love, B

  PS Have read another horrendous article about Heraclium285 and have eradicated 2 by the peonies. Where are the others?

  To Elizabeth Chatwin

  Holwell Farm | Wotton-under-Edge | Glos | 28 October 1970

  Dear E.,

  If you are that desperate for money, we will send some, but the question remains how much do you need and where do you want it. Quite frankly we have had so much expense here that I don’t know whether I’m coming or going, with rates, oil and the mortgage payments who demand monthly payments at the rate of about £500 per year. We simply cannot go on asking my parents to fork up, as there will come a limit. I have been doing some more journalism which brings in a bit, and I think I have sold the Maori board but I am reserving all the money from it for an emergency.

  My pectoral286 has been the success of the year £50, sold the fish hook off which nearly paid for it; the pectoral itself comes from the famous Caroline Islands, and is worth about £400, at least John [Hewett] offered me three.

  The flies are incredible here, and I have caught worms and a terrific resurgence of ringworm, which must be from the cats287.

  I am much less depressed about the book though, which does seem to be getting along far better if slowly. I have changed the literary form.

  A red writing case came for you here this morning, will I pay for it £6 or so and what do you want done with it. Kept?

  The posts must be very bad between here and Teheran if you didn’t get my letter, but of course the first week after my arrival back in the country was so fraught with anxiety that I didn’t get one off before.

  Elizabeth Simson. If she drives you mad which she plainly does, imagine what she’d do to me. I might even become a homicidal maniac.

  Did you meet up with Roger the Lodger?288

  love, B

  To Elizabeth Chatwin

  Holwell Farm | Wotton-under-Edge | Glos | 6 November 1970

  Dear E.,

  It’s all very well you complaining about no news, but I have no idea as to how fast you are travelling. You are a. miles behind schedule but b. failed to get my letter in Teheran. Yet today we have one quick as lightning from Afghanistan. I don’t know, so you’ll now have to put up with a boring succession of correspondence in Delhi.

  All is well enough; the house has been filled this weekend with Linda’s friends including Japanese. The Hodgkins and Kasmin and Tomlinsons are coming tomorrow night. I have met some rather nice people called Roberts who are relations of yours in a way I cannot fathom. Iselins as usual, but they are as county English as you can imagine. The girl hunted with the Genesee Hunt but was not available for cross-questioning. I am going to exercise their hunters once or twice a week in Cirencester Park and have become quite horsey, stamping around the house in riding boots. Would you like to write to me to tell me what to do about the Forest and Orchard Nurseries, and whether they are to plant the beech hedge. If they come don’t you think they might as well tidy up a bit. Fred289 is far too busy with the transformations at the Bowlbys’290 and you know my horror of turning the sod. Might plant a tree or two, but that’s my limit. Miranda [Rothschild] after endless procrastination seems to have bought a very pretty 17th Century house in Cheyne Row (the p-a-and s of this typewriter are giving out causing me endless pain and fury). What am I to do?

  . . . Teddy [Millington-Drake] and John [Stefanidis] came for lunch. I cooked deliciously but naturally neither were hungry. ‘Fancy serving haricot beans with lamb. Fancy!’

  When you are in Delhi will you please make detailed enquiries about the following. The North-West Frontier Province, Bhutan, Sikkim, Nepal, and Ladakh. I will quite definitely want to go into the high Himalaya in the spring, and that’s that. I simply can’t think of it at the moment to make plans, but I want any amount of gratuitous information. I want to write a very specific travel diary about it to publish, but I do not have to have a camera with me if that is the obstacle as I fear it may be with the frontier problem. Is there any literature available. Also can you find out for me the name of the man who arranges expeditions with sherpas in Nepal?

  Imagine my horror when Vogue proofs came back with the title changed to ITS A NOMAD NOMAD NOMAD WORLD. Jesus what horrors editors. Am tackling the Jews in the book, god what a nasty lot! Everywhere the smell of singeing flesh. Do you mind if I sell the Green Man to buy an Eskimo seal coming up in Sotheby’s. His eyes have been haunting me for the past two weeks as seals’ eyes do. Bloody typewriter collapsing as I write. I hate typewriters.

  Love B

  Notice came that £200 or so was deposited by Mellon291 to your Bank.

  To Elizabeth Chatwin

  Holwell Farm | Wotton-under-Edge | Glos | 15 November 1970

  Dear E.,

  I have your letters from Delhi today, which is also if I recall correctly your birthday292 though I am not very good about remembering things like that. In any event the anniversary of your birth has been marked by a ceremonial planting – Holwell farm now has a Salicetrium and you can guess what that is till you return.293 It has also been graced by a beech hedge, which I have had put inside the apple trees, and it looks and is far nicer than if it were outside the apple trees. The back has also been graced by a mixed planting of spurges, hostas, White Buddleia, pale pink clematis, Rosa brunonii and it will be absolutely charming.

  There is a creature called David Hann who is supposed to be coming to work in the garden. I have sold a coin of Euthydemus to Hon R[obert Erskine] to pay for same. I think he may say that a very firm hand ought to be taken with the cross paths etc. in order to eradicate the weeds. In the yard is a ziggurat of reddish topsoil of the finest quality, because at 40/ – per ton I said they might just as well bring five tons and three for the hedge.

  You will have to admit that my instincts about P[enelope] were fully justified. Eccentricity carried to that extent is egomania, and not particularly interesting. John B[etjeman] is having her letter describing the rape photostatted and circulated, so Jim L[ees]-M[ilne] told me.

  Phone rings at 8am brightly yesterday. Sally [Westminster] inviting herself to lunch. And last night I was at Keith [Steadman]’s to meet the Garnetts294 when Derek [Hill] rang saying he had something vital to talk to me about, the worst possible news, something really serious had happened. For some reason I could not sleep and when I did I dreamed horrible nightmares of Derek and the Andy Garnetts in a
futuristic house. This morning too at 8-30 Derek in a funereal voice, spent five minutes telling me how serious and terrible the situation was without telling me what it was.

  It seems that Faber’s have turned his Morocco book down unless D[erek] manages to produce £8000 to cover the printing costs. Did I know a foundation who would put up the money. What I did not say was that D[erek]’s photos are so atrocious that it would be a miracle if any publisher looked at them with or without the £8000. Anyhow I suggested the Mellon Foundation, and much cheered he said he would write AT ONCE to Bunny Mellon, and of course etc. etc. she’d do everything to help being such a close friend. I am afraid that was the cruellest thing possible because poor Mrs Mellon if she has any sense will say no and there will be an embarrassing scene and a broken friendship (by whom?). The simple fact remains that it is unpublishable. Why are all one’s friends lunatics?

  Charles T[omlinson] came to dinner with the Hodgkins and Kasmin the other night, and the morning before Charles appeared with his latest monotypes, which I like in a way as they have a certain quality. Would I mind hanging them in the drawing room so that Kasmin etc might take a look, and possibly have an exhibition etc. etc? Really quite dotty because the Kasmin Gallery only goes in for Candy stripes twenty feet long, and not black blodges 2⅔ by 3¼ in.