by Gail Godwin
How Frowsy relishes each incident in his life.
“Now I shall come on some clotheses and go and fetch some bread and milk mmmmm . . . We shall have a fine breakfast!”
“I shall have my smørbrød and then we will listen to one Bach cantata.”
“Tonight I shall go to my fiancée. Mmm. She has a lovely ass.”
“Now, I shall go shit.”
All in the same zesty tone.
I am always searching for a story. Until I find it, would it not be better to try little drills? Short, clean sketches of things that I understand.
Nautical terms.116
Written in GG’s journal by Frowsy—at GG’s invitation:
Cristmas traditions in Denmark
First of all in Denmark we celebrate the evening the 24/12 not the following day. The celebration actually starts with the preparations finish the night [evening] before 23/12. This evening is called lillejuleaften [Little Christmas Eve].
Lillejuleaften skal du barrke
pa min dor,
for lillejuleaften es leagen
aldrig Sor.
Little Christmas Eve you shall
knock on my door,
because little Christmas Eve
the cake is never dry.
Everyone coming the eve 23/12 shall have at least one cake or he will “carry out Christmas.” We have a Christmas tree with candles on and besides it a bucket with water. It is of course decorated with lots of things in a more or less traditional way. I have personally things to put on that tree which are more than one hundred years old. Under that tree is placed gifts from our friends and the gifts among ourselves as soon as they arrive. In the afternoon we go to church and when we come home we dine. First we have rice porridge. In that is placed one almond, the one who gets that in his portion shows it before eating it and then receives an almond gift. MANDELGAVE. Then we have goose or duck filled with apples and such inside and after that baked apples with jam inside. To the goose we always have a good red wine, chianti or bordeaux. Then the dinner is over, we sit down to coffee and cognac, children get some too (only time in the year), and then the head of the family read letters and cards from absent friends. If there are children, gifts are given now, and then we dance around the lace hand in hand singing Christmas carols. If there are only big children, we dance first. Then we sit with our gifts having chocolate, nougat, almonds, marzipan, and homemade little dry cakes of different colors and tastes, drinking cognac and—whiskey.
Then the candles of the tree will begin to go out, if we wish when the last candle dies the wish will come true. We go to bed very very late, when we awake we have a gorgeous breakfast.
GLAEDELIG JUL,
Lasse.
SVIKMOLLEN
BLAEKSPRUTTEN117
This is an ADVENTSKRANS [Frowsy’s drawing of an Advent wreath].
There are four Advents Sundays in December. The first Sunday and following week the first candle is lighted, next Sunday and following week two candles is lighted and so on.
JANUARY 16
TUESDAY
More Wisdom from the Satyr in Long Underwear:
“Later on, you won’t need so many words to say exactly what you mean.”
“I think it is all right to go for the extremes. However, know ahead that you may pay and pay dearly.”
“There can be no art without experience. Expression, yes, but no art.”
“Take a situation and examine it and write about it in the light of
what you understand, or
what you don’t understand.
Images for Sometime:
NEW ORLEANS: What was it about that city?
Mother Winters’s disillusionment syndrome.
The whole story → from eighth-grade enthusiasm to the night in the rain.
Why did I keep up with her? It is interesting to speculate on the causes and durations of friendship. That was a delicate and intangible thing.
The diary—into which went painstaking care.
The hospital on the hill.118 Grieg.
Da da da da da da da dum.
And slowly answered Arthur from the Barge
The Old Order changeth, yielding place to New
God fulfills himself in many ways
Lest one good custom does corrupt the world
Comfort thyself; what comfort is for me
For I have lived my life; may that which I have done
May God within himself make peace
For the whole round earth is in every way bound around
the feet of God.119
. . . and I would kill my mother if she came into my room; even Wiggles was too earthy for my rhapsodic Grieg & Tennyson. Religion and Sacrifice Flights.120
To the tune of “Notre Dame”: “She always has a sweet ready smile; she makes our classes all seem worthwhile—eighth-grade class stand up and cheer for our teacher very dear.”
I went back every year at first, and then I went back whenever I came home. I always went expecting to find something and I always came away with a sense of having been deprived. GENTLE FAITH. HOW CRUEL IS TRUTH!
GAIL AND MOTHER WINTERS
In the autumn of 1950, Kathleen Winters, an idealist in her mid-thirties, came to Asheville. The Religious of Christian Education, a French Catholic order, had sent her to St. Genevieve’s Preparatory School (grades 1-8) to serve as principal and eighth-grade teacher.
An Irishwoman from Galway, Winters had taken religious vows in her late teens. Her order then provided her with an education in Brussels and Boston, which she followed up with advanced degrees in English and science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
For eighth-grade students at St. Genevieve’s in 1950, this spirited woman, with her warm wit and steady heart, and her passion for music, literature, and mathematics, immediately became a favorite. They worked hard for her, imitated her sprightly walk and surprised, throaty laugh, and composed a “class song” in her honor to the tune of “Notre Dame.” She was to become a central figure in Godwin’s life.
At thirteen, Gail began her first diary, bound in black paper, which she illustrated with drawings and cutouts. She wrote in it faithfully every day in order to get down as much as possible about each school day under the influence of her mesmerizing mentor. She began slanting her handwriting to resemble Winters’s distinctive script more closely.
At this time, Gail was living with her mother and stepfather in the Beverly Apartments, which was within walking distance of St. Genevieve’s. She regularly stayed after school and helped Winters straighten up the classroom. Or the two would take a walk around the grounds of the old Victorian building, or listen to classical records until it was time for the nuns to go to chapel.
Back home, in her room, Gail would write in her journal, listening to Grieg or Rachmaninoff on the record player. She would recite passages from Tennyson’s Idylls of the King.
In the early evening she would walk up the hill to sit on the bank outside Mission Hospital and look across to the tower at St. Genevieve’s. She’d wait for the bell for evening prayers to ring and feel balanced between the “Winters” world and the not-too-stable world of the Coles. Gail’s mother had miscarried a baby and was trying to have another one; Gail’s stepfather was growing unhappy in his job as a management trainee at S. H. Kress & Co.
The “disillusionment syndrome” Godwin writes about in the Copenhagen journal refers to less-than-satisfying visits with Winters in Asheville during the decade or so after their eighth-grade closeness. The Coles had moved away, and when Gail returned for visits to Asheville, there was never enough time to talk of real things.
In her teens and early twenties Gail had become secretive about certain areas of her life, and there was an awkward formality between herself and her old teacher. Also, Winters had stopped wearing the habit, an accommodation that was, at first, disconcerting to Godwin.
Nevertheless, the friendship and correspondence between Gail and Mother Winter
s continued and grew. In the final years, their relationship blossomed. The mentor-disciple dynamic evolved into an easier relationship between equals who enjoyed each other’s company and conversation and were able to discuss their spiritual lives. After Gail’s mother, Kathleen Cole, died in 1989, Winters took to signing her letters “The Other Kathleen.”
Mother Winters died in her mid-eighties on Good Friday of 2001.
JANUARY 17
Frowsy routed me out this morning at an unprecedented hour with dire threats and many slaps on the bottom. I went to the Spanish Embassy, met a Spanish woman & experienced for the first time the thrill of speaking in another language. Bought my ticket for Sunday (320 Kr). It is interesting to speculate about other passengers. I don’t think there will be many.
Anyway, several important things I want to get down. Dug out my old Herald clippings and Frowsy was reading the one about the old men at the Stranahan shuffleboard court.121 I had forgotten that I could once write simply & humorously, but I could. “Flanked by two faithful incisors,” etc.
JANUARY 18
Today it happened. Frowsy brought a letter to my bed and I saw the regular red, white & blue stripes of the airmail and knew. “This may be from the man in London,” Frowsy said.
“Yes,” I said. “But I’m not going to read it. It’s a no. I can tell because it is thin.”
But I was wrong.
JANUARY 19
One hell of a day, weather-wise, that is. Got two of Salinger’s only four stories I haven’t read out of the American Embassy library, even though it means getting up early in the morning. I am going to lie in the sun forever for one month, get a tan, get healthier.
I can’t even remember what clothes I have at home to be sent. Probably end up buying new ones anyway. Well, I’m going to take the London job, devote myself to it (because, let’s face it, I have to earn money in order to live) and to my writing. This won’t be easy, because I know myself. I know my puttering tendencies and I admit that I love to sleep. Also, I will be tempted to get in the RAT RACE once more (clothes, parties, affairs, status symbols, etc.). Remember, Gail. Just remember. I know very well how many years I have yearned (however foolishly) for my chance to work abroad. Now I am getting that chance and I realize the pleasure of it all. I must try, once again, to establish certain rules to go by and try to stick to them once again. I have been luckier than most. Now, (1) Don’t tell anything about yourself to anybody that you don’t have to. Always be polite, cheerful & evasive. And (2) Do your very best on your job. Don’t clock-watch. Don’t come in late. And don’t (as Keith said)122 try to reach the moon in one day. I sincerely believe if I want to be a writer I can. It may take longer than I expected. That’s all. My duty now is to faithfully keep journals.
Høiaas just tried to make a Bloody Mary with tomato juice & schnapps. He is coughing his brains out. Life is full of surprises for those of us who are inventive.
JANUARY 24
BARCELONA—OLÉ
I will probably die any minute now. I just drank two sips of Spanish water.
Things I want to remember re travel article “The Art of Blending In”:
The lobster-bedbug joke.
The Pyrenees—I couldn’t believe it. All that hot, ochre grass, the green powder puff–like eucalyptus trees & then the snow.
The two sisters in black. Toilet tissue, wine from tin cups, Elizabeth Arden facials in the reflection from the sun.
The seventy-year-old artist cum knapsack & five necessary sentences in any language. Eggs raw through a hole.
The Swedish couple.
The farmer-gardener from Ohio & Copenhagen. Horse-feathers. “Just ‘supplement’ them on their good wine or their beautiful scenery and they’ll do anything for you!”
Berlitz session on the bus:
not one camera,
not one time did they ask for specialties from their own country,
not once did they shout their own language with much armflailing, etc., expecting to be understood.
The travel bureau went overboard to help me and we didn’t speak a word of English. I go to Madrid on the night train & spend mañana . . . El Prado (if I can see where I’m going). Then tomorrow night I take a sleeping car to Málaga.
Things are going too fast.
A priest in a motorcycle helmet.
The foxy taxi driver. “In a taxi, of course!”
First time in my life I’ve been ashamed of having too much money. The man in that ratlike cell of a zapatería fixed my shoes in ten minutes—Cuanto cuesta? I asked.
He said 12 pesetas.
I gave him 25 pesetas, murmuring something about “por la bondad.” He accepted it with a graciousness I found touching.
ENERO 26
MADRID
Estoy muy cansada y me duelen los pies.123
I am sitting in the Goya room in El Prado after spending four hours here. I have five more hours to kill (it is two) before my train leaves [for Málaga]. I do not know what the difference is, but I do not like Madrid as I liked Barcelona. This place is a little like New York in public attitude.
. . . and there will always be an American . . . picking his nose in front of a Goya.
One bitch just passed the picture of the Giant eating the girl.124 “Oh, my God! Ugh!” Classic.
MÁLAGA
How many people know what it is to be completely alone—languageless, companionless, with one hell of a cold, all your clothes wrinkled so you feel like a scarecrow whenever you emerge on the street? To beat that, you are in a town where there is no heat. Ever since I have been here, I have felt a thin veil between my senses & reality. I cannot quite seem to smell, or taste, or hear or see or feel as I used to.
This afternoon—have money changed (if possible) & pick up plane tickets. Will I ever be warm again
and secure
and with a man
and looking nice?
This morning I dried my hair in the sun under the Moorish ramparts. Bought a bathing suit for 390 pesetas—$6. A bikini—what the hell. If I can just survive until I get into a hotel in Canarias.
Went back to Wagons-Lits and found out they weren’t “seguro” about the plane to Las Palmas. So I came home and had another nervous breakdown.
I have lived in Europe for four months. Whether or not I have learned enough to write I do not know, but I have learned many other things. The main one is how much I love the U.S.; the second, how to save money; the third, how to write better than before.
Perhaps I can find something in Torremolinos.125
Ah well. Canarias may still come through.
It did.
JANUARY 30
Sitting in the sun at the sidewalk café I laughed at myself. This is supposed to be fun, you idiot! I said.
Now, all I must do is:
pick up my shoes at 5: 00 p.m.,
pay my bill after supper,
leave a call at the desk, and
write out the Spanish phrases.
B. will send me as much as I need & deduct it from my car sale.
Gibraltar was too cold (at least I will be practically in Africa in Canarias). Also I am going to have a bath.
Part five
ANDANTE
Málaga to London
JANUARY 30–APRIL 29, 1962
Before Gail arrived in London she secured for herself an extraordinary respite in the Canary Islands. “I have a prescience that this is going to be a happy month of tropical warmth & golden beaches & memories of strange freedom,” she wrote on January 31, anticipating not only the next rhythm in her life but also the retrospective view of it that she would have years later.
Her month in the Canary Islands was a special time for Gail, one marked by an unequalled degree of luxury, idleness, and sunniness. For the islanders, it was historic, too—a period between the economic depression and population flight of the postwar years and the tourism-fed turnaround stimulated by Generalissimo Francisco Franco in 1960.
“I had ne
ver been to a place like the Canary Islands,” Gail says today. “It was just beginning to become a tourist destination and was basically unspoiled—warm sun, beautiful banana plantations—like going to heaven and being able to bring my books.”
Gail’s paradise of literature-and-freedom was accompanied by a relationship that, despite some disturbing notes, tempted her to consider putting marriage before career. This conflict, along with the boardinghousedramas that follow in her London entries, would make for some suspenseful moments—challenging situations that forced a young woman into difficult decisions about what was truly essential to her.
JANUARY 30, 1962
Málaga—the city is not so bad now that I have my ticket securely in my pocket to leave. Sat in the sun on Avenida Generalissimo Franco & drank cognac (6.50 pesetas) and squinted happily in the sun. Was joined by an assorted entourage (two Argentinians, one Scotswoman, one Canadian from Toronto). And the lotería women filed past, and the men with black bands sewn on their collars and left sleeves (every man seems to have lost someone here), and the jingling horse carriages and the fat priests taking afternoon strolls.
I like the way the Spanish bureau of tourism is set up. You know how much you’re going to pay before you get there.
The little zapatería did an A1 job on my shoes. They can save anything in the way of leather here. Too bad I don’t need shoes or suede or something. This time last year . . . the poison had set in. I had broken the first rule of marriage. The Slaters were due to arrive the next day.126 I chose this life. (I remember the conversation with Bud Koster. “It was either Tahiti or my family.”127 And I am not sorry. This way, I will not yearn. Most people write so they can get enough money to travel to other countries. I did the last first. Why do I need to write? We shall see. Slowly. Get to London. Get settled. Buy a typewriter. Write the stories that I have planned.