The Kindness of Strangers

by Salka Viertel

  Now that I was working for Metro I had to get used to the fantastic waste of time and to the endless waiting for conferences with Thalberg. Even when he summoned us to his office he was constantly on the telephone or suddenly called away, until finally he had to go to New York. Bess Meredyth wanted to spend some time reading about Christina and Sweden, and I grasped the opportunity to ask boldly for two weeks leave of absence to go to Mexico. I suggested that my work for Metro should start after my return, but Thalberg decided to keep me on the payroll as a reward for my “contributions” at the conferences. I cabled Berthold. From the steamer Santa Anna sailing to Mazatlan, I wrote him:

  Dearest Berthold,

  What a wonderful tropical night! The Americans play deck games, I feel an utter stranger, longing to be close to you, who are in Paris and very likely not even thinking of me.

  After the endless conferences with Thalberg and Bess Meredyth, I felt the urgent necessity to get out of Hollywood. Also I could not resist Oliver’s and Louise’s persuasions to join them on an excursion to Mexico. The children are well taken care of and MGM continues to pay my salary. In the last week I had lost seven pounds and was a nervous wreck. Now, cut off from Hollywood, I am beginning to find myself, which has some disadvantage. Oliver, always kind, patient and helpful in my struggles, has become one-hundred-percent Yankee on the boat, and I hope that when we land we will get along better. I miss you. If only I could talk to you about this insane chapter in my life!

  This ship is taking us to Mazatlan, then we go by train to Guadalajara to see a lake, the name of which I have forgotten, then to Mexico City. I shall stay there only three days, then return to Santa Monica.

  This boat is a mail carrier and the food is horrible, but on deck we have a big tank filled with seawater and one can swim and cool off. The passengers are middle-class American families: quiet, polite and pleasant. I am waiting for your letters which will be forwarded to Mexico. I am so anxious to hear how you found my family and what happened to your film project with Korda. Of course, the tragic condition of your father makes everything else unimportant.

  [From Guadalajara:] It was so unbearably hot on the boat that I could not finish my letter. The two days in Mazatlan were even worse, but fantastic. Berthold, we have to see Mexico together, it is an incredible experience. It is Spain and the Indians, the South Seas and my fatherland—the Ukraine. A fascinating mixture. I miss you! The name of the lake is Chapala.

  [Mexico City:] I have just returned from a stroll in the city. Large piazzas, old streets and on their pavements live, eat and sleep Indians and peons. They squat in the dust playing dice. A ragged, dirty crowd stands around and watches. Others sell or buy mangos, pottery, garlic, bananas, with great noise but terrific grandezza. In the cathedral a priest in civilian clothes teaches little orphan girls to sing. Outside on the steps sits an Indian family. The father, a fat Indian papa, quarrels with his wife about a piece of enchillada which she grabbed from him. Impassively she goes on chewing, then he says something which makes her furious and she spits the enchillada into her hand then stuffs it into his mouth. A sweet, brown child with enormous eyes sucks at her breast, staring at them apathetically. If only I could remember everything I see.

  It is a shame that I cannot stay longer and see more of Mexico. I share with my whole heart Eisenstein’s infatuation, and understand his despair not to have finished the apotheosis of the Mexican revolution. We should have visited him here while he was shooting but you were a prisoner of Paramount.

  This letter took two weeks to reach Berthold and by then my effusiveness seemed ill-timed.

  * Laurence Beilenson was a friend of Oliver and also our lawyer.

  27

  YOU ASK HOW EUROPE IS, Salka? It is overwhelming. Impoverished, poisoned by politics, which means by hatred; still, you touch earth again and it is holy earth, and it is your own. The shock of this encounter makes you lose your mind; then gradually your old life, buried and forgotten, emerges from it. If only you were here! You must come, if only for a visit.

  I read this with some bitterness and dismissed the temptation from my thoughts. Mexico had made me hungry for Europe, but it was out of the question to leave the children and my new job. In the studio only Bess Meredyth had missed me; under the shock of a new Hollywood scandal, Thalberg had very likely forgotten that I existed. Paul Bern’s naked body had been found in the living room of his house, a bullet through his head. A pathetic farewell note to Jean Harlow, his wife of two months, provoked sordid and cynical speculations. The press surpassed itself in sensationalism, while the studio exerted all its influence to protect their investment in the star. Harlow’s new film was about to be released and women’s clubs were voicing moral indignation.

  Bess told me that no one had been designated to supervise Queen Christina. We plodded along, doubtful that the film would ever be made.

  I had become very fond of Bess, a warm-hearted woman. Queen Christina was not exactly her cup of tea, but she was interested, and raved about me to the front office where I had encountered distrust and antagonism. Thalberg had emphatically expressed his satisfaction with my work, but now a great war was going on between him and L. B. Mayer, and he threatened to resign. Having finished the first draft of the screenplay we sent it to his office, and were told that he and Miss Shearer were leaving for Europe. There were rumors that he had suffered a heart attack. Weeks of waiting followed. Bess’s salary of several thousand dollars a week was climbing to a majestic figure, which did not bother her conscience; but I was uneasy, although the studio could easily afford to waste the money it paid me.

  I could not stand the waiting and the idleness and began to write an original story. It was about jobless people but as there were twelve million unemployed in the country, the story editor said that “nobody wanted to see such a film.” However, remembering the “identification” theory, he did not discourage me and I continued to inform myself about life in Hooverville—Hoover suits made out of newspapers, the hunger marchers shot at by the police, and the veterans demanding their bonus. It was a quixotic idea, because all that hardly penetrated the airtight atmosphere of MGM.

  The presidential election was forthcoming. L. B. Mayer was a Republican and had requested that every employee of the studio donate one day’s salary to the Hoover campaign. I declined my contribution with the excuse that I was not an American citizen. With little enthusiasm Oliver and Louise endorsed the Democratic ticket. Oliver considered Roosevelt an “aristocrat, a dilettante,” though well-intentioned. He quoted to me a political commentator who said: “Roosevelt is a man who thinks that the shortest distance between two points is not a straight line, but a corkscrew.” But I was carried away by Roosevelt’s speeches, and sorry that I could not vote.

  In constant variations Berthold’s letters reiterated his chances, offers, aims and ideas, pouring out brilliant thoughts, sharp observation, disappointments and violent invective. Arriving two weeks after they were written, they infected me with his doubts, and revealed his inner resistance to concentrating on any project. After four years in Hollywood he had come back just when most of the European producers and directors would have given their souls for a call to the Paradise on the Pacific, while others were rapidly adjusting themselves to National Socialism.

  Berthold was still weighing Korda’s offer against a freelance project with a producer whose enterprising spirit and financial backing he greatly overestimated. Also for weeks he had not been able to tear himself away from Paris and suggested we should all move there.

  Finally he went to Berlin:

  On every street corner you see youngsters in uniform shaking their collection boxes; opposite them, on the same corner, the Communists. Lately both the young Communists and the Hitler Youth went on strike together. Four dead. The Government reacted with strong measures, but the strike continues.

  You read the results of the election. I heard them at Camil Hoffmann’s, on the radio. What the Nazis lost in votes was gained by
Papen and the German National Party. The losses of the Social Democrats went to the Communists. I am sure that many Jews voted for Papen, trying to keep the present dictatorship (Hindenburg, Papen and General v. Schleicher), which to them means capitalistic order and protection from the extreme Right and Left. . . .

  The sadistic prostitutes still gather on the corner of Tauentzien and Kurfürstendamm, complaining aloud to passers-by that the police will not let them wear their high boots anymore. Despite the new morality their numbers have increased. They look younger, prettier, rather “bürgerlich,” and beg more than solicit. The Eden Bar and other night spots are ultra-chic and full of foreigners and film people. There you can see Conny Veidt, Charles Boyer, prominent stage actors and financiers. Berlin is still more elegant than New York. Less traffic and not many automobiles, an enormous amount of beggars in front of luxurious eating places: Kempinski, Mampe, and new Viennese and Hungarian restaurants—does it give you a picture?

  In ten days I may know what I am going to do. Perhaps Brecht’s St. Joan of the Stockyards or Hauptmann’s Hannele, the latter as a film for UFA. I was offered a marvelous play by a Hungarian dramatist, it’s called Dentist Asks for Dowry. But what I would like to do most is the Brecht play. Of course, it’s picking chestnuts out of the fire, but these are the best chest-nuts existing.

  Again the slow mail made my letter a monologue:

  . . . No I am not disappointed about the chances for Queen Christina. I know it could be a wonderful film, but MGM has the power to spoil it. Until now I had lived in the hope that it would be made in Europe, but Greta is coming back and I am stuck here. Dearest Berthold, if you are not making a film or staging a play immediately, you should return as soon as possible. Alas, I am sure that you are discussing a hundred projects, talking to a thousand people and dissipating your energy. Now that I am earning money we should consider it as a great chance for you to settle down and finish your books. The last check I sent you came from my salary and I did not have to draw on the savings account. I have also sent money to Poland.

  I am lonesome for you. The only bright moments are the children, the New York Philharmonic concerts, which are broadcast on Sundays, and books, if I have the time to read them. Last night I read to the boys Perutz’s Bontje The Silent. We were moved to tears. In spite of his he-man pose, Peter is a tender, poetic soul. Hans is unusually intelligent and thinks very logically—but he likes to take it easy. I have not received the report cards yet.

  Berthold:

  You urge me to stick to my writing. Of course I do. I don’t cease to write. Right now I am finishing a long essay about my return to Europe, what I have seen, thought and experienced. I am constantly writing new poems and working on old ones.

  No, darling, I am not as diverted and distracted as you think, and you must not envy me this European trip. I was quite disturbed and shaken when I left Paramount, and I’ll return to you refreshed and regenerated. I am afraid I have become a legend to the young people here, a historical figure, and I don’t relish it at all. But after Hollywood it is extraordinary. They have built a niche for me and expect me to climb on a pedestal and stay there peacefully and quietly. To tell you the truth, I am just as isolated here as you in Hollywood. We are running parallel now, not as one stream. This is the difference. A painful one and hard to bear. . . .

  On October 7, 1932:

  Korda introduced me to British-Gaumont and, as I wrote you, they are interested. But they also are not starting production before the New Year. Otto Katz* has arrived in Berlin from Moscow, where he is the director of Mesch-Rab-Pom Films. He says we could work there together: I as a director, you as an actress and also directing. The technical and physical conditions are difficult, and he suggests I should go to Moscow and see with my own eyes. Piscator, Egon E. Kisch and many others are already there. It sounds very tempting. After Hollywood I am not afraid of dictatorship, but the language! Having barely learned English I cannot face Russian. For you it would be child’s play, but for the boys!! Tommy?! To make a film there would take more than a year.

  Meanwhile, I am sitting in my room at Elisabeth’s (she takes excellent care of me) and writing poems. I have shown them to Karl Kraus and he considers them extraordinary. Also Erich Engel is very much taken with my poetry. And so, while Fate weaves her web, I am writing.

  My answer:

  . . . You are telling me about all the people as if I had seen them two weeks ago, and you don’t mention how they impress you. Not a word about Hitler’s increasing power. Not a word about Elisabeth, Jenny,† whose fate worries me. You cannot imagine how I long for Europe. To consider Katz’s offer is quite insane. Now really! “Mesch-Rab-Pom.”! I would like to see you in Russia, watching every word you say, controlling your temper!

  Your agent said that it would be best for you to direct a film in Europe, a successful one. Then he could “sell” you here at a high price. A genius, isn’t he?

  President Roosevelt had been elected with an overwhelming majority but between the election and his inauguration on March 3, 1933, the economy of the country continued to deteriorate. The studios cut all salaries in half, though, strangely, the stars were not included in the arbitrary measure. The sudden reduction of my income was a shock, but Jessie offered to stay for half her wages. I did not want to accept, but she insisted, saying that she considered herself lucky to work for people she liked. As so often happens, the poor were more generous than the rich.

  December came and with it the usual pre-Christmas melancholia. Berthold wrote:

  It’s good to know that you are all together in the dear house on Mabery Road, while my path leads over a bedeviled hill. One should not look back as one climbs.

  My letter of December 19:

  You know that I love you and that I belong to you. Once, when I was terribly unhappy because you were infatuated with somebody else, you told me: “Imagine it is an illness; you would not love me less were I sick.” But you are leaving me alone in my illness. I need you. If it’s true that your longing “is unbearable,” come back! What are you waiting for, my dearest? I also long for our life together. Do you want me not to see Oliver anymore? Forgive me for saying it so bluntly. But I only feel the same fondness for him as for this new, strange country, and neither he nor I have any serious intentions toward each other.

  From Berthold, December 31, 1932:

  I did not spend Christmas with the Gielens, which would have been the only solace for not being with you. Suddenly my father’s condition worsened and I had to go to Vienna. On Friday morning from seven o’clock we all remained with him until he breathed his last. The end was a slow, constant ebb. . . .

  Finally the studio appointed a producer for Queen Christina. He was Walter Wanger, a handsome man in his early forties, college-educated, with excellent manners, liberal opinions, but evasive and “diplomatic.” It was easier to talk to Thalberg, who could be blunt and arrogant, but was seriously involved in film making. Wanger assigned a new writer with “a fresh viewpoint” to tackle the script. Mr. Ernest Vajda was a Hungarian, whose faulty English and preposterous personality were softened by the perfect syntax and great gentleness of an Englishwoman, Mrs. Claudine West. She was the most self-effacing, recalcitrant collaborator an egomaniac could wish. I was promoted to Wanger’s “assistant and artistic advisor.”

  Vajda’s screenplay was filled with the so-called “Lubitsch touches,” and the drama changed into a comedy. Of course it no longer had the slightest resemblance to the original story. Wanger comforted me by saying that he wanted first to give Vajda a chance to express his viewpoint and that a British writer, Mr. H. M. Harwood, was en route from London to give “class” to the dialogue.

  The Christina script was shaping into the very Hollywood vehicle Garbo had hoped to escape. The conferences with Vajda provided occasions for constant clashes. He was unbearably arrogant, personal and provoking.

  •

  Meanwhile, the confrontations with Europe had affected Berthold’s h
ealth and he needed a thorough physical check-up. At the Viennese Cottage Sanatorium, Professor Norden confirmed that his diabetes had increased but, thanks to Berthold’s basically strong and healthy nature, it was possible to check it with a rigid diet. As soon as he was free of sugar, Berthold recovered. Even his hand-writing showed a miraculous change.

  But there was also another reason for his soaring optimism. He had met the philosopher and writer Herman Broch, the author of the Sleepwalkers and Virgil’s Death:

  Broch belongs to the intellectuals who function in a narrow circle because they create a formula, an essence, which afterwards hundreds and thousands of others superficially dilute and popularise. I don’t say it bitterly nor with antagonism but knowingly.

  Broch is a beautiful, dark, melancholy man, a very noble bird. He had read my poems and came to visit me in the Cottage Sanatorium. For three hours we carried on a most intense and concentrated conversation; then he insisted that I let him read the novel I had started to write in Dusseldorf. I did not tell you that I changed the title to I Love You, Ariadne. By Ariadne is meant the labyrinth of one’s ego, from which neither reality nor spirituality can point the way out. We have chosen our identity and only death can deliver us from it. Dear heart, to you I know this sounds pessimistic, but it is above pessimism or optimism. It is a spiral which leads from the lowest point to the highest. It is lyricism and religion, not sentimental poetry but introspective activity, transformation and trans-substantiation in the process of writing, which continues endlessly as life itself. It’s a second life.