The Making of a Writer

by Gail Godwin

  Part three

  WALK, DON’T RUN

  Klampenborg by the Sea, Denmark

  OCTOBER 31–DECEMBER 17, 1961

  Before receiving any assurance about her upcoming Travel Service job in London, Gail spent two months in Denmark, securely housed but overly guarded, admired by men but ruled by a need to write, in possession of money but running out of it quickly. To complicate things, there was the season: late fall and Christmas in a country where morbid joking disguises the loneliness brought on by winter darkness.

  On a few occasions during this period, Gail fell ill with colds and flu. “All you can do is count them,” commented her friend Gaert. Yet amid all this turmoil and uncertainty, the seeds of stories were planted.

  Gail’s experience of her overbearing landlord, Mr. Høiaas, culminated, seventeen years later, in the story “A Cultural Exchange,” published in Atlantic Monthly. ( She later included it in her collection Mr. Bedford and the Muses.) The story’s conception can be traced to the journals. On December 21, 1961, Godwin wrote down the tale’s original title, “A Dollar’s Worth of Hygge.” Witnessing here the development of “A Cultural Exchange” provides us with an illuminating look at Godwin’s writing technique: her use of personal experience and journals, the creation of organic stories, and the development of ghostlike presences.

  Reading the works of Isak Dinesen enabled Godwin to absorb the Danish ethos. Gail also found Hans Christian Andersen’s tale of the Little Mermaid, whose statue on the Copenhagen coast she visited, especially evocative. It speaks of the cultural exchange between a voyager and a sea denizen, and of their crossing of worlds. The mermaid, in order to cross, painfully transforms her fins into feet. The ordeal relates to Gail’s perceived need to change her hurried mode of existence—running—to the Danes’ philosophical gait.

  It is a conflict worthy of a novel, Godwin thought, and she titled her work-in-progress about her Denmark months “Walk, Don’t Run.” But Gail did not stop running. She was no mermaid. She’d stick with her own nature and not marry herself to Denmark.

  OCTOBER 31, 1961

  Calm down, self. Buy paper, go to Embassy library, read everything, and then come home and write, write. After hacking a considerable chunk from my budget I will leave for Berlin.

  Sight to remember: the windmill from the train en route to Hellerup. Niels boarding the trolley . . . the parrot shop.

  NOVEMBER 1

  I am happy. And I am going to see about staying in Copenhagen for the winter. I could write and learn Danish & German. Lorraine57 & I spent the day together and I like her so much. Niels & I met at Drop-In and then went on to a small bar with carpets and soft sofas, and—MOST IMPORTANT OF ALL—no people. There we planned to build another boat and sail to Mexico this summer in June. He built one before & sailed it to Calais, where he sold it.

  NOVEMBER 2

  Niels: “Whenever I wonder whether I can do it I think of the Vikings and I know if they can do it, so can I.”

  I am coming down with a cold. Mailed the story on Mrs. Blair58 to the Washington Post—and got a letter off to Bev Miller. I feel awful.

  NOVEMBER 4

  What will happen now with the U.S. Travel Service?

  NOVEMBER 6

  Now to describe yesterday briefly. What a wonderful way Mr. Rolf Høi-aas59 had of deciding for himself whether or not Miss Godwin would be suitable to live with him and his motherless twenty-seven-year-old son, whom he affectionately calls “Frowsy” because of the boy’s general untidiness and bristly beard. First he met me at the station, looking much more like the Cook’s travel rep at a London station than a Norwegian migrated to Denmark. He suggested we first have lunch at the Ryttergarten (part of the riding academy at Klampenborg), during which we were joined by a Mr. Munk, from a Danish noble family dating back to King Gorm almost.60 He lives alone over Ryttergarten; his wife & daughter both, as Mr. H. put it, “have bats in the belfry.”

  Mr. H. then took me for a lovely ride in a horse-drawn carriage through the woods, all yellow and bittersweet with cold, looking down over Øresund over to Sweden, finally coming to the King’s hunting lodge, where deer swarmed on the golf course and a few albinos plucked at the weeds at the base of trees.

  And then Mr. H. & I drank hot lemon rum at the Bellevue, and finally he let me know I’d passed the test and said: “Well now, shall we go across the street and have a look?”

  It is a warm, cozy house, badly in need of paint in the kitchen (which I shall do) and flowers in all the lovely vases. The Russian samovars need to be polished to brassy perfection and Frowsy needs to be encouraged to leave his Gillette razors and biological specimens somewhere besides the dining room table.

  Funny thing: The only thing I fear is that Mr. H. will begin loving me too much. I will not forget how he raised his glass for a skål and said, This has been a very happy day for me indeed. And indeed it had. But a tear slid unabashedly down his lined face and I almost got in on it myself.61

  NOVEMBER 7

  To what purpose all this everlasting thinking and worrying, when life is so fleeting and goes like wind through the grass?

  So now I stick to the wisdom of nature and simple things and the freedom they give as I stand and marvel over them. The hunger in the twilight, as the first migrating wild duck comes flying in, feels himself free, released and uplifted. Or watch the rye grass swaying in the wind, see only that and you are free. Or take some soil in your hand, a handful of the timeless earth, a handful of peace. You are free one precious instant.

  —MARTIN HANSEN, The Liar62

  (Denmark’s Albert Camus)63

  The thoughts here express the essence of what I love about Copenhagen and Denmark—and Niels. Although I must bear in mind that in many, many ways Niels is not a true Dane because he is happy, even during what they call “the depression month of November,” he is not loud, and he does not like parties.

  The bells! They are always ringing here. Again today I am full of so much to say and I have learned new things. Got up very late, 1: 00 p.m., or thirteen o’clock, as they say here, because I was up until four this morning. Met Lorraine at the Embassy library and must again marvel at the warmth and understanding shared. She has accepted me as a friend. I am sure, because over egg rolls and ginger in the Chinese restaurant at Øesterport, she told me she was twenty-seven instead of twenty-five, had been married, had an eight-year-old child. She went into detail, describing her feelings before, during, and after the marriage, and I understand. Her husband went to Tufts, while she went to Wellesley. Enough said. Lorraine, I understand. We discussed sex and pregnancy and such things and how wonderful it is to have a friend. Not since Eleanor Stem64 have I had a woman friend with whom I could really say what was on my mind. So she took the train home to her rather restricted life with a Polish family and I will begin such a life tomorrow with Papa Høiaas.

  NOVEMBER 9

  KLAMPENBORG BY THE SEA65

  It is always difficult for me to relocate. But here I am bedded down comfortably in my new room. It needs so much cleaning, but other than that, it’s all right. Tomorrow I go to Berlin with Klaus & another friend.66 This was the life I wanted, wasn’t it? This is the life I have chosen. I will never forget how I felt last February, sitting in my very comfortable house in Key Biscayne with all my belongings. I was terrified that I would never see the world, never travel, never have romance.

  Tonight I am a little ill at ease, but it will pass. It will pass. I love the sound of Danish in the next room.

  Lars67 and his girl sleep together here and it is all right. There are so many things I want to know about the Danes.

  NOVEMBER 13

  I am very happy. The wind howls, and if I turn around I can see the ocean (which is very wild today). I am listening to a symphony, cuddled deep within a chair. I am preparing dinner, received just the letter I wanted from Bev Miller in London. It said, in effect, I would be in the Travel Service soon—but not yet. Perfect.

  Let me descr
ibe my comfort. I picked the last white and bittersweet flowers from Mr. Høiaas’s garden and put them in a crude round bowl— blue ceramic—they bloom their last under a fluttering hanging lamplight. I have put Papa H.’s pipe and things in order and opened a small bright enameled teakwood container of matches. The wind howls. The radio is playing “Yesterday.”68 This is one of the few times it is today. Lorraine’s love affair popped (he came into the cafeteria with another girl and said to Lorraine, “Oh. What are you reading?”) and I gave her directions over the phone from my Europe on $5 a Day on how to get to Spain. She wants to try her luck in Salamanca.

  Lars has put a sign on the bathroom door: “Ladies and Gentlemen.” Mr. H. & I went to see Sanctuary.69 How well I remember the last time I saw it. This was the third time. And finally I saw that when Candy Man says “everything is going to be all right,” he is doing it to reassure himself.

  NOVEMBER 14

  For dinner we had a very snobbish hors d’oeuvre: mock oysters—a thin slice of bread, spread with butter; center, a raw egg yolk, sprinkled with onions, capers, and circled with a slab of herring. Followed by a very heavy golden pea soup and sausage and potato—and much leg-pulling from Lars.

  “We have a very strict Danish custom, little sister. When we skål each other we must always use the same liquid. ” And raising his glass of that (to me) detestable schnapps, he said sweetly, “Skål.”

  “Just wait till Gail starts pulling your leg, Frowsy. You’ll have as much chance as a celluloid cat in hell,” said Papa H.

  This has been a rather frustrating day for me: (1) I spent money, (2) I forgot to mail my letter to London, and (3) I couldn’t find a typewriter to write my article. And it is still inside me, weighing me down. I bought the Jaeger suit Niels saw in the window—but I am not sorry. It cost enough to last a lifetime. And Niels will like it on me. But I shouldn’t have bought the sweater and two cashmere scarves. The girl was most charming after I had bought everything. She invited me to a fashion show next August. Ha. Tomorrow Lorraine comes in the morning, Niels calls between four and five, and I can enjoy another day. I am going to do exercises tonight so I won’t get fat.

  We borrowed a phonograph and listened to the Red Army Choir.70 They are marvelous. “Ka . . . lin . . . ka, my love.”

  Mr. H. just finished my articles and said quietly, against the background of Volga music and pipe smoke and reading lamps: “I like your writing very much . . . you go straight to the point . . . You’ll be a big shot someday . . . if you want to.”

  NOVEMBER 16

  The honeymoon with this country is over. I have begun to find in the people certain careless qualities I do not like. And I begin to see the weaknesses in a socialistic form of government. I am very satisfied that I am an American, and when I go home, I might go back to the university and take a master’s degree in American history. Yesterday was hell on earth. Niels didn’t call. It was so unlike him, I was shattered. Poor Mr. H. ordered a dozen oysters and a bottle of liebfraumilch and offered cinemas, walks & talks. The more he offered, the more uneasy I became. Finally I worked myself up into a frenzy and was actually afraid to stay alone with him in the house. Ah, why must there be complications in what seemed to be such a pleasant situation? If I can just stick it out until Bev Miller notifies me.

  I took the train uptown late at night and waited for N. on the corner of Helgolandsgade. At least five men thought I was a ——. At last he came tramping across the street with that walk of his that looks always as if he is embarking on a foot trip around the globe.

  HE WAS SICK AT HEART BECAUSE MY ADDRESS WAS NOT IN HIS WALLET WHEN HE WENT TO CALL AND THOUGHT THAT I HAD STOLEN IT BECAUSE I DIDN’T WANT HIM BOTHERING ME ANYMORE. THAT GODDAMN VIRAGO OF A MOTHER TOOK IT. SHE DIDN’T EVEN COME TO SEE HER SON IN PRISON . . . But I’m ahead of my story.

  We sat in the lobby of the Hotel Kansas until five talking. And we talked of many things. I understand him better now. I must get this down in order. It is very important.

  First he told me what he had seen after each bombing in Berlin. (“A man in a horse-drawn cart came around with a shovel.”)

  When he was nineteen, the army called him. He told them he had rather go to prison for two years. They took him anyway. So, one night, he stole a jeep and tried to run down a sergeant whom he particularly hated. He ran him down (all this he drew for me in diagrams) and then got out and picked him up and drove him to the hospital. The sergeant recovered and today waves at him in the street.

  His mother found out we went walking that morning. She doesn’t like me one bit and I’m sure I’d hate her because I think she is a queer kind of mother. She wants for him only what she wants. She wants him to marry that blond acrobat Ina and invites her over and pushes them together every minute. She tells him he “doesn’t know the American girl.” Oh, I hate her. Anyway, on May 20, the deed is erased from Niels’s record, he is free to go. He promised to come to London and work with the theater. He has a friend who will get him a job.

  The radio is playing the theme song from Glenn Miller.71 Oh, naturally, I miss the U.S. This is a self-imposed exile. It is only me that says, You can’t go home. And yet, I miss my car. And B. And all the little habitual things. I miss being a master of my language. But enough of this. If I sell some articles maybe Lorraine and I can go to Spain for a few weeks in the spring. That damn typewriter has not arrived yet. If— when—it comes, I will type a letter to Bev Miller and go downtown and mail it. Will see Niels tonight at eight. Hope he took my record back. He has to tell his mother when he will be home for dinner.

  Got home and had tea with the H.s. Frowsy really puts on a show. I think he is about the most cuddly looking Dane I have ever met. He sits there with that mop of wild, undisciplined hair springing in all directions from his head, his long underwear peeking from beneath his trousers, and gives animated discourse on Danish humor, dinosaurs, and anything else I happen to mention. He makes these long-dead animals, the crackly little crustaceans, the wiggly fish, come alive with his amiable language. It is as if he loved them.

  “Can’t you see the mother dinosaur coming home and finding that little devil about to make off with one of her eggs? She smashed him so hard, he was recently discovered fossilized in the rock where she left him.”

  His description of the “enthusiastic Danes on skis” almost broke me up.

  “Ah, yes, when we have two inches of snow on the ground, they pack up their skis and hurry to break their legs on the little mounds of Deerhaven.

  “Thousands of Danes go down those little hills until there is no snow left—and then they still go down.

  “Beer sledges, with no provisions for steering—oh, no, they can’t think ahead, come down at about fifty kilometers and smash into the people going up the hill. Everybody breaks his neck or his leg or at least his nose and they all sit about afterwards with their parts in casts, drinking beer, impatient to get back and try to kill themselves again.”

  The Danish humor is rather sick, bizarre. The Danes love Thurber, Charles Addams, and lyrics like these by Tom Lehrer:

  I hold your hand in mine, dear,

  I press it to my lips . . .

  My joy would be complete, dear,

  If you were only here.

  And the Danish hobo standing reverently in front of a good liquor store, saying, “How can people sell liquor.”

  If all this doesn’t make a good book, nothing will.

  NOVEMBER 17

  After one! And still I procrastinate on this idyllic afternoon in Bella Vista. There are days—and times—and periods of time when life flows smoothly and we are very much in tune with all around us. This is one of those times. So what does it matter if I drowse. It can be done tomorrow—when Niels and his memory are out of the way for a while.

  What a glorious morning! It will be remembered long after I leave this place. Niels came at eight, Frowsy overslept, and so we all started breakfast. Frowsy went for the eggs and met Lorraine coming back from the stables
, so she came, too.

  EGGS & my too-weak coffee and fresh bread & marmalade—and the macabre songs of Tom Lehrer. Niels didn’t like them. Lorraine thought N. was beautiful and I caught her looking at him more than once.

  I walked with him to the train and watched it till it was out of vision. I was alone in the clear, crisp, yellow & blue morning and only a moment ago, he was here. Now it was only a matter of intellect whether or not he existed at all.

  We walked hand in hand through the village and picked a small window where we decided we would like to be living. As we crossed over to the station and passed the old crone on horseback and the flock of children returning from a walk in Deerhaven, I thought: Now here it is. I’ve got it.

  Now she began to think of what she had read about deep-water fish, which have been so much used to bear the weight of many thousands fathoms of water, that if they are raised to the surface they will burst. Was she, herself, she wondered, such a deep-water fish that felt at home only under the pressure of existence? What was a deep-water fish to do, if married to one of those salmon which here she had seen springing in the waterfalls? Or to a flying fish?

  —ISAK DINESEN, WINTER’S TALES, “THE PEARLS”72

  NOVEMBER 19

  The old men scrubbing down the white tile walls of Norregade Station with long-handled brushes. At 12: 30, as I’m waiting for the last train home, they look like misty, gray souls damned eternally to the underground.

  Gudrun’s father came last night. First he called and said he couldn’t come. He told Gudrun he didn’t think he should be around such nice people. But Susan, Gudrun’s little girl, took the phone and said, “You have to come, Mor-far;73 I’m here.” And so he came, a big man, a welder in a shop, with big laborer’s hands and elaborately polished round-toed shoes. I knew he had on his one suit. At first he was nervous, but soon he relaxed—and took off his coat—and held the child in his arms. After a wonderful dinner of boiled hen with soup and wine and asparagus sauce, I dressed and took the train to town to see Niels at the hotel. I was feeling no pain either way. Of course as soon as I saw him, all qualms & reservations melted and I was again his meek little girl. I am afraid of him, Lorraine was right. And yet, if something doesn’t happen quickly, I am going to be free of him and once more in love only with myself. Why do I have to be so intelligent? I demand all the subtleties & nuances and vibrations of a superquick mind. I can only fool myself for so long that a man I love has them when he doesn’t. Fink didn’t have it, really. Paul did. B. did. Niels? Well, let me try a little longer. I am not absolutely slam-bang sure.