by Cecil Beaton
Chichicastenango, Guatemala: February
Sam and I admitted that we are not very fond of lakes or mountains! Nevertheless, undaunted, we set off in the beautiful early morning sunlight.
On the road through the mountains, little people, with bundles on their heads, or terrible burdens of earthenware pots and plates strapped to their weary bodies, hurried towards the Sunday market. The hubbub was no less than we expected. We were suddenly involved in a world of wonderful colour, quiet, no evil smells, a beautiful place. The colours were mostly deep dark rose, reds, mauves, purples, blacks, dark browns, dark blues.
The stalls were hung with cloth, handwoven stuffs of brilliant magentas, yellows, blues, purples. They were also selling full-petalled cabbage rose-heads as offerings for the church, and there was an animal market and a food market too. There were women wearing shawls folded on their heads and with fringes hanging down their backs. The older women wore a lot of jewellery. One white-haired old dowager escaped my camera but was magnificent, with more beads than anyone — the grande dame of them all.
The Guatemalans, unlike the Mexicans, do not like to sing and dance. They have great dignity, and the bargaining is never a squalid affair. Still it amazed me to see the effort that went in to organizing the stalls, bringing the merchandise from so far and with probably no hope of sales. The tourists behaved badly as usual and were out to be difficult.
At each end of the market are perched the two white churches, twins save that one is Roman Catholic and the other is for the Indians. The former was crowded with people, marriage services being performed and candles being lit. The other church with its poorer carvings was rather like a Renaissance church. Masses of corn cobs and paper dolls were being offered at the shrines and incense blackened everything.
Sam and I collapsed after our long day, and talked of the afterlife, the death of the body but the survival of the spirit. It is against nature that nothing should be carried on. There is growth, wellbeing, life, then death; but, says Sam, it cannot just stop. He is certain that things of the mind are stronger than those of the flesh, and that the great urge, the energy, the knowledge accumulated, must be used up in some other way. Sam has spent much time contemplating, and knows a great deal of the religions and philosophies of the earliest inhabitants of this earth. He ponders much on the mysteries of their civilizations and the future of our own.
I fear that tourism will soon spoil Guatemala; people are finding the place extremely cheap in comparison to their other haunts. Already the merchandise in the city is Americanized. I feel we came here and got out just in time.
THE BERLIN WALL
June 1974
I have just got back from a short visit to the Nico Hendersons. After two days in Bonn staying in the pretty, white icing-sugar Residency, we flew to West Berlin and Ann Fleming and I were taken on a tour of the Wall. It was an experience that was dreadfully disturbing.
The wall itself is depressing enough, a slovenly made slice of foul concrete, too high to scale, with greasy curved top to prevent fleeing hands from getting a hold. Those who take a poor chance on their lives by trying to free themselves from life under the Soviets, have to contend with barbed wire, border guards high in their dreadful turrets, and, worse, guns that go off automatically at a vibration; land mines, potholes and terrible Alsatian dogs that are meagrely fed so that they remain savage.
From our vantage point of safety it was terrible to look upon what appeared to be a completely deserted city. It was as if a scourge had visited the place and life hardly existed. There was nothing to be seen that was free, except a rabbit which darted to and fro among the ruins of what appeared a dead, desiccated and sinister place. Bomb rubble from the Armageddon of the last war was still there; a few distant traffic signals were working, but there was no traffic to be seen, poverty everywhere, hardly any public transport and a foul stench of cheap petrol filled the nostrils.
As it happens, there is, a mile away, one town that though deprived in comparison to West Berlin is very much alive to the theatrical arts. Here stage productions are lavish and there is no shortage of performers, so that when La Traviata is done, sixty waiters serve the demi-monde. But life in this Russian-dominated ‘prison’ is tragic and terrifying.
As we were taken to the various checkpoints in our British military car, I was alarmed by the feeling of danger, although there was no need to be. Our guides told us of the frequent attempts at escape that somehow miraculously continue to be successful, though we do not know how many are shot or tortured in their efforts to get away. Those who take on the terrible dare are mostly young, and under interrogation they reveal themselves to have escaped for personal, rather than political reasons. If and when they reach sanctuary, the army gives them a rousing welcome, and the festivity ends in their becoming stupefied with drink. The British Military Police enjoy their job. They love taunting the guards who are court-martialled if they fail to spot and shoot at an escapee; and they and their families may also be tortured. So when the run is on the British fire guns in the air to give the Germans an alibi. To prevent their guards from becoming too friendly, the East Germans change the personnel each day. One man will be unmarried, another will have a family. As strangers they are not likely to exchange confidences. Often the border guards try to escape but then they are shot by their confrères fearing retribution.
One of the most ‘inviting’ spots for a possible get-away is where the river bends, and at a certain point is quite narrow. But this is treacherously deceptive and is heavily defended. Shrines erected to those who have died here are tended carefully with flowers and lamps are renewed. It is a haunting sight.
The hunting down of escapees or smuggling of any sort is unbelievably thorough, yet in spite of this there are still those who have the nerve, or imagination, to overcome all difficulties. Close to Checkpoint Charlie there is a small ‘museum’ containing exhibits which reveal man’s ingenuity and courage in his determination to be free.
My greatest hope is that one day during my lifetime the Soviets will crack, that the subjugated satellite countries will regain their freedom. I asked our military guide if he was optimistic. He said: ‘Something must change.’ Meanwhile he is enjoying his Boys’ Own Annual fun of helping escapees by ‘acts of humanity’; but there is still no crack in the Wall.
A TIME FOR REFLECTION
March 13th, 1974
Yesterday I went to the Imperial War Museum, not my favourite place, to see the collection of photographs that I had taken during the war for the Ministry of Information. They have all been put into over thirty albums and, to my amazement, I find there are thirty or forty thousand of them.
It was an extraordinary experience to relive those war years; so much of it had been forgotten, and most of the people are now dead; the Western Front, where at least three hundred of my pictures were unaccountably lost, Burma, India, China. It was fascinating to see the scenes in old Imperial Simla, the rickshaws drawn by uniformed servants, the grandeur of the houses, the palaces; the bar scenes, the men on leave swigging beer, and to wonder how I had been able to ‘frat’ with such unfamiliar types. I had not realized that I had taken so many documentary pictures, and that such a lot were only of technical interest. Looking at them today, I saw many ideas that are now ‘accepted’, but which, thirty years ago, were before their time. The sheer amount of work I had done confounded me. In spite of the horror of the war, much of it had taken me to places of beautiful natural landscapes.
It was a thrilling but upsetting morning, for I felt that I was dead and that people were speaking of me in the past. ‘The greatest collection by one person of any subject in our museum.’
After three hours of deep concentration, I got up from the desk to prepare myself to go home and to leave the completely different world I had been in.
I went out into the grey dreariness of Lambeth today. It had been a particularly revolting week with strikes, power cuts and epidemics. Despite the dark grey skies I was bu
oyant and would not believe that my life had lost any of its old fire and zest. Much depended on the future.
*****
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Copyright © The Estate of Cecil Beaton, 2018
The Estate of Cecil Beaton has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work.
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organisations, places and events, other than those clearly in the public domain, are either the product of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously.
Any resemblances to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales or purely coincidental.
eBook ISBN: 9781912546428
* * *
[1] Raymond Mortimer, Eddie Sackville-West (Lord Sackville), Patrick Trevor-Roper, and Desmond Shawe-Taylor share a house at Crichel in Dorset.
[2] Eileen Hose, my friend and secretary.
[3] My good friend, Kinmont Trefry Hoitsma from San Francisco.
[4] The Duchess of Devonshire’s daughter and her husband Toby Tennant.
[5] Kasmin, David Hockney’s dealer.
[6] Lady Ripon (daughter of Lord Herbert of Lea, the Victorian politician).
[7] Raimund von Hofmannsthal and his wife (Lady) Elizabeth.
[8] Lord and Lady Casey.
[9] My gardeners, Mr and Mrs Smallpeice.
[10] Dame Edith did, in fact, appear again on the stage after this, giving readings.
[11] Sir Michael Duff.
[12] Countess of Avon.
[13] The Viscountess Head.