The Making of a Writer

by Gail Godwin

  I’m sorry, but it had to be written.

  This could very well be made into an Atlantic-type story.45

  OCTOBER 14

  I just read Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw46 and now, of course, am far from being lulled to a peaceful, childlike sleep by the creak of the walls and the other strange noises a ship makes in the night.

  The events of the day are as follows: We passed two ships, both going the other way; I slept till teatime, had a mathematical discussion of God with the Walshes, played gin rummy with the W.s, which was an excursion into laughter. Mr. W. gins right off, spreads his cards happily on the table. “You’ve got a great big fat nothing!” his wife shrieks, exposing an ace of spades, a deuce of hearts, and a three of hearts. Of what was the poor man thinking?

  OCTOBER 15

  Quel dommage. Si yo no he habido tanto Scotch, pues entonces podia es cribir la verdad.47 Mr. W. and I almost came to blows, he started counting as I dealt. It is one o’clock & Esther & the Walshes & I have been talking. The Captain came in for a while and did us the honor. And the Jungfrau let me steal some chicken from the icebox.

  I believe more each day that the more we talk to people, the less we understand them.

  There was a rainbow late this afternoon that made an arc for us to pass through.

  Will we ever find ourselves?

  And would it be so good if we did?

  My trouble is that I disillusion people.

  I must learn to keep silent and let them think what a lovely person I am!

  Why spoil their fun?

  OCTOBER 16

  Back to Irene & Joe.

  If I could only reproduce the exact (monotonous) rhythm of his voice, the rhythm that makes all sentences sound the same.

  “Still there? The lighthouse still there?”

  “Play any way ya wanna.”

  I think the most maddening thing about him is the way he appropriates all ideas, all information, all scenery as his own by mouthing about it in his incomparable way. Thus, one cannot enjoy the thought of without mentally connecting the thought with Joe’s descriptions:

  “See it. See it. See? Right there. Gee, lookathere.”

  “Wunner how far apart the ends are. Say, Captain . . .”

  “Better not eat any of these, you gals. Fattening. Lotsa calories. Ha.”

  “That’s six . . . seven. Won’t bend the cards. They have to go around the world.”

  “Better get with it.”

  “Man o chevitz!”

  “That’s for the birds.”

  “Six of one and half a dozen of the other.”

  “I won’t touch anything unner a hunnert dollars.”

  “We cater to all kindsa banquets.”

  “I’m a tough boss. But my crew’s been with me for years.”

  “Be reasonable bout thissing.”

  “Gotta play the las card.”

  “See Scotland t’morra.”

  the lighthouse of Scotland

  the rainbow

  the wonderful pancakes and jelly

  the game of rummy

  Jesus! He knows everything.

  On his face, pink from drink, there is trapped forever the look of a small boy, astounded and wounded to discover that time has caught up with him in spite of his teenage mentality.

  I can just hear his Rotary Club speech.

  Fielding is a huge snob & he depresses me. There are two ways of looking at this thing and I have chosen my way (I had no choice). If I can’t bundle up my youth, my looks, my talent & my personality to get what I want, then I’d better just give up. When I get to Copenhagen I’ll have $900—stash away $400 to go home on if worse comes to worst and that’s still $500. If I can’t go to Copenhagen, Berlin, Vienna, Florence, Rome, Paris & London for twenty-one days on $500, then something is wrong.

  The biggest thing I have to contend with is my own recoiling, insecure, “Excuse me” alter ego. Get rid of that.

  The Walshes are a reflection of my own pessimistic self. They are regarding their European trip as a chore to be endured, they cast skeptical glances at any offered pleasure, they weigh down any conversation with their humorlessness, they are stuck in the gray muck of facts instead of beauty. They sort of shuffle, from activity to activity, with shoulders hunched, clinging to one another.

  I must start right now even when I doubt, even when my heart is heavy, even when I am SCARED to death before an interview or an experience, TO OUTWARDLY PRESERVE ALL VESTIGES OF A SMOOTH, CHARMING, CAREFREE, SLIGHTLY RETICENT EXTERIOR.

  Soon, and with experience with the intercourse of the world, the outward will simply reflect the inward; the exterior will be the interior.

  Met the steward in the corridor during my nocturnal ramblings. He looked rather attractive in a maroon brocade bathrobe—or is it just that I am becoming preoccupied with men due to the very lack of them? Not at all sleepy, and here it is one or two o’clock.

  The breakfast thing depresses me most. The Danes (an EATING race of people) pick breakfast as their one meal to skimp on: one soft-boiled egg sitting perched up there in that minute eggcup (and one morning she even forgot the eggs); thin slabs of raw pink bologna, dry toast, marmalade, tea or that unbearable kaffe.

  OCTOBER 17

  Someone explained to me why my sleeping habits are all fouled up: they’ve been setting the clock up thirty minutes a day. I’m still sacking out on New York time. After breakfast, I went up on deck and saw a beautiful square-looking island, rather anvil-shaped, jutting up, halved by the rising sun. I went back to the room to read Kierkegaard while waiting for Esther to wash my hair & fell into a dead sleep where dreams became almost lifelike. (Lately, I have noticed, my dreams are peopled with men—the men I don’t have. I wake up and feel so happy and then remember with a bang that I’m all alone and I have to search my mind to see if there’s anyone anywhere that I have any claim on.) I woke to the tea gong and went stumbling into the dining room only to find them all sitting down to dinner. Much laughter, etc. Rummy & tea. Some verbal stumbling with the Walshes, then I retired to my room (which, incidentally, is the best, being situated on the prow, therefore wider and angular instead of cell-like) and emptied my thoughts to B., wrote Uncle Bill, and went up for a breath of air. It is suddenly more temperate—warm & moist. The ship was broken down for four hours. We are due into Oslo tomorrow night late. All day Thursday in Oslo. Arrive Saturday in Denmark. Shake the W.s.

  OCTOBER 18

  Norway for breakfast—

  Talked to Mrs. Engineer today at tea. She told an anecdote about a women’s group in Baltimore “with hats like THAT” that had a forum on all kinds of serious problems. (“And now, tell us, what is the criminality situation in Denmark?”)

  She plays tennis almost every day, outside in good weather, indoors in bad. In the summer, she and her husband go camping in Lapland, land of the midnight sun. She described the experience in glowing sensuous terms, and I felt I could see the strange flowers nourished by extra sun-hours, feel myself sleeping at night, under the sunshine.

  They are a couple of the “First Rank,” which means, from what I can gather, that they get to go to the King’s Christmas party.

  Danish women love to “go shopping.”

  The Queen herself never misses a sale.

  The sea is rough tonight. We have started up the fiord, should dock in Oslo around daylight. Ah, won’t it be fun to get off a ship and browse around town ALONE? I am going to see the Viking ships—that is my only museum “must”—and just look in the shops, mail my letters & write a few postcards.

  —2: 00 a.m. I wonder what sleeplessness is like at fifty! If, at twenty-four, I can be kept awake hour after hour by whirling dervishes of past incidents, tumbling one upon the other, no one an end in itself, always attached to a new chapter, a cross-reference, a footnote. And being starved does not help. I am mad for a tomato & cheese sandwich like the ones I use to put away by the dozen on Key Biscayne. Or a peanut butter sandwich & a glass of m
ilk. Ah! When we get to Oslo, I shall have some milk. Oh, isn’t this silly? I’ve never been hungry and unable to quell it.

  Reason for coffee & croissants in Europe: They think stuffing oneself in the morning is barbaric. I have a feeling I’ll love London with its big breakfasts, love of words, snobbery.

  OCTOBER 19

  OSLO

  I have so many impressions to record that it makes me happy to know the next few hours will be occupied writing them down. Today was important, mostly because it was a dress rehearsal for the rest of Europe. By this I mean I was thrown out on my own in the rain in a large city where I spoke only one useful word of the language (tak)48 and where I had to use my brain making a purchase as simple as a tube of Pepsodent. I learned one thing first: A lot of smiling, gesturing, and enunciating will get you one hell of a long way. I found out my “talent” while walking with the Walshes tonight. What the essence of it is, really, is letting yourself go, opening up, showing all whom you meet that you like their country, you are in it to have fun and you want nothing more than to learn to mingle with them and practice their customs. The aloof wariness one must assume in New York or Washington has no place in a land where you are the guest, the noncommunicant sampler. I don’t really know how the W.s will manage. Everywhere my smile was returned. (Ah, the men are restless tonight. I can hear them talking, breaking into laughter, talking low again.) Not only are most of the Nordic people on the streets strikingly attractive (strawberries under their cheeks, glossy, unbelievably golden hair, profiles clean & rugged as the word Skagerrak), 49 but very well dressed. Short skirts, Bally shoes with walking heels, belted raincoats with fur collars, duffel coats with wooden fasteners. Well-fitting cuffless trousers for the men, short raincoats, duffel coats. Ah! Tomorrow if it’s nice I shall dress to kill and hunt bear. Also, what is the history of the troll? I love the carvings of them you find in every window, along with the daringly colorful enamelware, the pewter, the silver.

  We had the Captain’s Dinner in port—sherry, two white wines (a very good Rhine which means “reach for heaven”), two red wines (a bitter & a sweet), and the Captain’s own brandy, beef soup, lobster, duck, flaming ice cream with fruit, much coffee. Johanson really tried tonight—especially after he got a few drinks in him. Joe W. was unbearable, sticking a lobster leg behind his ear, handing Esther a lemon in his fingers, putting his dirty knife on Fra Norwegian’s plate. Esther had a bad day. Her ship-broker friends, seven years ago lighthearted, drinking buddies, proud of her, today took her for a drink but didn’t drink themselves, looked left & right in fear of ostracism, said apologetically: “We’ll do it right in Copenhagen, when we don’t have to preserve face. Ya?” She was almost in tears at dinner.

  OCTOBER 20

  Almost to Copenhagen. The day we leave Oslo is beautiful. The gray comes alive. The fantastic shoreline with the castle on the hill. Kamma Rode has invited me to spend a day with her. “I love to show visitors these—uh—because I am so proud of my country.” She told me the story of the Little Mermaid (and if you climb up and kiss her you will never drown). I have the rhythm of the Danish language in my mind all day. The pungent Ø sound, not duplicated in English, but strangely enough almost in French.

  The navy town of Horden is unbelievably lovely, fairy lights twinkling all along the hill, a steeple, a lighted bridge, colored lights, all rising out of the water against a pink & black sky.

  For an exchange of three kisses (one rather ardent one), the second mate Jacobsen, wiry, red-haired, from the Faroe Islands, gave me a few hours of Scandinavian lore and let me come up on the bridge and see what went. I found out, while we were drinking (TERRIBLE rum) in his cabin with the second cook, the reason for my lack of popularity. I would have had a man knocking on my door every night had it not been for the damned purser. The idiot, looking at the passenger list and seeing “Kennedy: Occupation—None” immediately thought I was a none (Danish for “nun”). He spread the word and all smiles stopped. Only, they couldn’t understand. They had never seen a nun in slacks.

  This slays me. I am still chuckling. The American nun in cabin 8 who drank Scotch, wore slacks, and smiled at men—who respectfully nodded their heads & covered their eyes.

  OCTOBER 22

  COPENHAGEN

  Arrived under the worst conditions and still survived. Wet, rainy, Saturday. American Express closed. Kiosk P closed. The W.s on my tail, and the looks of them makes prices soar anyway. Went to the Tourist Office. Then tried hotel after hotel. All full. Finally, the Kansas. Comfortable bed, centrally located. Eighteen kroner a day—$2.75. As soon as possible I move to Mission Hotellet, $1.75. Dinner last night at ABC Cafeteria— 3.50 Kr. Today 7.25 Kr ($1.03) at Tokanten, the intellectual haunt, weird, macabre, never a dull moment. (Baby carriage hanging upside down on wall. Puppets hanging with nooses around their wooden necks, a merry-go-round horse, an old gramophone, students of all nations, sparkling with exciting talk, switching languages by the instant.) Last night I picked up (very delicately, “Could you please tell me where the cutlery is?”) an Australian engineer who lives in Guernsey, invents tractor & tank runners, about forty-five, interesting, well-traveled. We went strolling on Vesterbrogade. The Bond Street of Copenhagen. Drank Tuborg at festival at Tokanten and at least five men tried to lure me away. A boy played soulfully at the piano. Sight to remember: ruddy blond boy riding a horse along Tietgensgade Bridge (a white horse); at his side his pale-haired sweetheart pedals her bike, placidly holding his hand. My companion of last p.m. (Neville) then took me to the Ambassador. The bathroom there is the only place I encountered a Dane with his hand out. The bathroom attendant literally stopped me and demanded a krone for peeing. After that, the Palladium, where couples danced wildly until 1: 00 a.m. and Neville and I became extremely intoxicated. I had a headache this morning. My God. Today for my companions I had “four Arab monkeys” as they called themselves, chattering in French, Danish, English, and Arabic, at my table. (They simply sat down.) From Algeria & Morocco. Very amusing. Then, the more articulate one took me to the beautiful modern Royal Hotel, where we coveted Swiss watches, Jensen silver bowls & magnificent, sleek mobile furniture.

  OCTOBER 23

  GODNAT—GOOD NIGHT

  The Embassy is behind me. The ambassador invited me to his party for Marian Anderson50 Friday night. A Danish couple—brother & sister— sat with us tonight at Tokanten and the sister gave me a bunch of fresh violets.

  B. loves me.

  The way always to be loved is always to be just leaving!

  —GODWIN

  OCTOBER 24

  Oh Christ, am I tired. Mal de tête. Curse. Budget worries. Took two aspirins. I cannot possibly go to Malmö tomorrow. I don’t trust McCullum anyway. The day was memorable. Sights to remember: the man plowing his field by the sea, the gulls flying behind him digging worms from the new furrow. Also, the sea from the rampart at Elsinore, the boy sitting in a cove, reading poetry while the wind whistled by him. Fredensborg, Frederiksborg. The Ocean Pearl.51

  The Rode home is cozy, full of paintings of ancestors hundreds of years old. Dinner of salmon, asparagus in a frozen gelatin topped with horseradish whipped cream, pork, fruit & nuts, Tuborg, Tuborg & Tuborg. I didn’t even recognize the martini Kamma had made in our honor. She had made it with sweet vermouth. Fell in love with Erik, whose father says of him, “It amuses him to be correct.” All I can say is, he must have been amused tonight. What polish for a seventeen-year-old, clicking heels, perfect grace, a medal for his jujitsu. I ate fifteen walnuts just so he could crack them for me. Also Kamma had invited a young woman medical student who had been to England. She was charming, too.

  Dammit. I may have to buy a dress for the ambassador’s party—or maybe not. Tomorrow I will try on things and see. Otherwise I will go shopping, to the Damefrisor, splurge on the taxi, unless I can meet someone with a car between now & Friday.

  OCTOBER 26

  I went over to the Berlingske Tidende and got a guided tour first.52 Then an “audie
nce” with Knud Meister, the daily columnist who took about ten pictures of me and jotted down some notes for his daily column. So I will be in the column one day soon—maybe tomorrow. Meister is acrobatic in both English & Danish. “Don’t want to fight windmills . . . Gushy . . .” He has been through the U.S., is an ardent advocate of journalism, writing a book; I gave him Dean Luxon’s address. Says trend is only upper-class, university men go into paper now, wants to avoid this & get the best talent. He got Lis & me front-row seats at Marian Anderson and also arranged for us to dine out tomorrow evening . . . I am sure he will mention me to Peter Heller, the cultural attaché, who I learned is a language whiz. (Everybody around here is!) I just may do that interview on DB. “Deeda” is her name.53 Saw an article on her in the October Madame. She is tight-lipped, looks like she has been through a little bit of hell . . . or has put somebody else through it.

  Granted: I have spent more than planned in Denmark (both in time & money). But it has been a good investment. I will train to Berlin— stay one–two days, then over to Paris to see what Miller is going to do. Might try Tribune (Meister knows the editor). It will be bon to have the clipping enclosed so he can see I am a woman to be reckoned with.

  Will put my hair up tonight and really look the part tomorrow.

  Courtesy—that is the magic word. Will write a complete text tomorrow. I have the secret now. It is up to me to use it, to keep it.

  OCTOBER 30

  Stayed up all night with N. and helped him shine shoes.54 Went to the flower exhibition at Glypotek and will never forget the fragrance, the violins playing, the fountain guarded by Rodin’s shadow.55 And the sculpture that brought tears to my eyes. Dubois’s The Prodigal Son.56 Niels, Niels, Niels, Niels, Niels. If only I could kidnap him and take him to America. But no, he is a typical European and would be unhappy without Fidelio and Spain and sailings through Gibraltar. When I came in last night, I went straight to him and still nothing was said. Will I ever feel again what I felt when he suddenly stood up from his chair and came over and kissed me? He was in a concentration camp and still bears the tattoo on his arm. They killed his father.