The Kindness of Strangers

by Salka Viertel

  We jumped when the telephone rang. It was Gottfried to tell us that his father was dead.

  •

  In the summer of that year I left MGM. The producers offered Greta screenplays which she did not find suitable and everything I suggested, with or without her consent, was persistently rejected. There was no Thalberg, no Selznick, no Bernie Hyman to talk to. One day Louis B. Mayer asked me to come to his office. In a very melodramatic tone he accused me of being a heartless highbrow. “If I would ask you to write a scene for Greta” he pronounced it Greeter “in which a poor mother prays for her dying child, you would smile contemptuously and say it’s corny, wouldn’t you? Such a scene would never bring tears to your eyes!”

  Amazed at this assault I said: “What makes you think it would not, Mr. Mayer? It depends on the scene and the story!” I broke off, embarrassed. Nothing in the world would have made me say that a Metro film could “bring tears” to my eyes.

  He went on telling me that Joan Crawford blindly followed his advice and had fared very well by it, and “that poor little girl, Judy Garland, she always does what I tell her; even Norma listens to me—only Garbo is difficult. I am her best friend. I want her to be happy—she should come and tell me what she wants—I’d talk her out of it!”

  I told Greta about my interview with L. B. Mayer; however, she thought it pointless to see him unless the studio had a story for her.

  A few days later Mannix explained to me in a friendly talk that, much as he was trying to please Garbo, she and he did not see “eye to eye in the choice of film material.” Then I mentioned that it seemed the story department had very little use for me. He denied this vehemently: as soon as I had a “good story” and Garbo really wanted to do it, he would consider it with the greatest attention, provided he could find the right producer for it.

  I returned home discouraged and depressed, obsessed by the thought of getting out of Hollywood. Berthold casually remarked that it would do me good to see Edward, Eleonora von Mendelssohn, Sam Behrman and my other friends. I asked for two weeks leave of absence. I was told to wait, but as no one seemed to care if and where I worked, I decided to go to New York anyway. Before leaving I gave the necessary instructions at home; alas, without taking into consideration Berthold’s absentmindedness. I had been gone a week when the story department called and Berthold answered the phone and said: “Mrs. Viertel is in New York.” I returned jobless. Mannix assured me that he understood my desire to escape for a few days, that I had always been conscientious and that any time I needed a friend or wanted to come back to the studio, he would receive me with open arms. I am convinced he meant it.

  There were great changes in our household. Etta had gone to New York, Susan Mann and little Andrew were in England to be near husband and father, Margret had brilliantly passed her high school exams and Edward wanted her to continue her studies in the East. Walter and Hedy had left and I was keeping house, cooking, cleaning, gardening, and writing a story with Polly James.

  A few jobs were offered me, but they were always connected with speculations on getting Garbo. An agent told me that it was difficult to secure an assignment for me because I had been “identified” with films like Queen Christina and Conquest, which had only made money in Europe. Conquest especially had been very costly.

  Shortly before Christmas Peter came home unexpectedly. He had been assigned to Officers’ School in Quantico, the Marine base on the East coast. But first, he and Jigee would get married. He was thin, brown, but unchanged and “he had been lucky”: he had participated in the landing at Bougainville. After he left, his outfit had suffered great losses at Tarawa. When he was sailing home aboard a destroyer, it was hit by a Japanese bomb but only slightly damaged. He was convinced that the Marines “were great” and he was glad that he had joined them. I, too, was glad: first because he was alive, second because he was going to stay in the States for a while. As long as he was not on a destroyer or landing on a Japanese-occupied island—I had every reason to be glad.

  The marriage took place in our living room. A Santa Monica judge performed the ceremony. There were only a few guests besides our two families: Melvin Frank, who, in a week, was to marry Jigee’s sister Anne, Oliver and Charlcie Garrett and several friends of Jigee. Berthold, extremely fond of his daughter-in-law, was happy and so was I, although early next morning Thomas had to present himself at the induction center in Fort MacArthur. It was his last evening at home. He was eighteen and had been drafted.

  The solemn vows did not fail to bring tears to my eyes and Jigee laughed: “What an old-fashioned mother you are!”

  “Probably I am,” I admitted.

  Mockingly she warned me: “You must not be sentimental, dear . . . I know it won’t last.” I was shocked; it was only a minute since she had said “Yes.” “How can you talk like that?” I exclaimed.

  “I am five years older than Peter.”

  “Don’t be silly. Now you are being old-fashioned! You can’t believe it matters!”

  She shrugged, then kissed me and we both cried. Then we looked at each other and burst into laughter.

  It was dawn when I drove Thomas to the bus which was to take him to the induction center. Several shivering young men with small suitcases were already waiting. Later he phoned that if we wanted to say good-bye to him, we could see him off at the downtown railroad station, because he was leaving for a training camp somewhere in Alabama. I drove with Berthold to Los Angeles and we lined up on the platform with a large crowd of parents and sweethearts. We waited patiently for half an hour then we heard marching and commands and a long column of youngsters in ill-fitting uniforms passed by. They halted for a moment, and the women surged forward, calling the names of their men. I could not see Tommy and I was desperate. I was sure we would miss each other.

  “There he is,” cried Berthold suddenly and there was Thomas looking so bewildered, so boyish, so lost and so darling next to a huge beefy sergeant or corporal or whatever he was. The man was making himself important, shouting and commanding. I broke out of the line, ran up to Tommy and threw my arms around him, kissing his hot sweaty cheek. The sergeant yelled. Then again someone in front shouted and the column moved on. Marching out of step, Thomas waved to me and to his father; then we lost him among the uniforms.

  I was shedding torrents of tears as we drove home, which made it difficult to watch the road. Berthold smoked nervously and tried to comfort me. He reminded me how Tommy always adjusted himself to a situation, even when he was small and heartbroken, as for example about Nena’s leaving—poor Nena, her son in the Wehrmacht was now the enemy. I cried that Thomas was too trusting, too kind and unaggressive. I had not brought my sons up for the cursing and the cruelty and the killing. Berthold kept saying that Tommy would be all right. Then he tried to remember a poem Tommy had written when he was nine years old:

  “The hills are robed in forests.

  At the top of the mightiest hill of all

  A tower stands

  From which man can see

  Pastures of green,

  Of which horses and cows dream

  And where plenty is raised.

  At the south is an inland sea

  Bubbling, cool and refreshing

  Like Coca Cola.”

  Coca-Cola was Tommy’s favorite beverage. We laughed and Berthold said again: “He’ll get along.”

  •

  I had some success with my freelance writing and sold a story to Paramount; it helped to pay the taxes and gave us a short respite from mortgage worry. Hans was in San Francisco, where he was finishing a course for machinists. He wrote me:

  I had a talk with the instructor and he began by saying that he considered it impossible to turn out machinists in three months, that I was not ready to go out, and that he felt he could not recommend me. Then he went on, he did not think I was cut out for this sort of work and perhaps I should try something else. I told him that I was determined to make a go of it and that he should give me three mor
e weeks of trial. He agreed to this . . . His attitude has become much friendlier; he has helped me and right now I run the best lathe in the shop and I feel a great pride and happiness in the beauty of its power and accuracy. I know it sounds silly and literary, but that’s what often happens when you try to put feeling into words. But there is a sense of achievement when you start with a rough and dirty bar of steel and after several hours make it into a smooth, clean piece of useful machinery. . . .

  He got a job in the aircraft industry.

  Virginia (Jigee) and little Vicky had gone East, to be near Peter while he was in Officers’ School.

  Suddenly the house was empty without the young. Mama, Berthold and I had our meals in the small breakfast room; and like in a Strindberg drama, Berthold’s frustrations and my unhappiness created tensions. At night he wrote until very late, and he would come to my room as soon as he saw the light of my lamp and, smoking incessantly, walking back and forth, he would talk, prophesying conflicts between the Soviets and America.

  He had finished a play, and had read it to Thomas Mann and Hoffenstein; their warm appreciation gave him the impetus to return to New York and show it to producers. Suddenly he was in a great hurry, did not have time to put his papers, letters, manuscripts in order, and in a room where everything was upside down and in utmost chaos I packed his suitcases. Finally we left for the station. The train was called The Challenger; it was slower but cheaper than the Super Chief. We walked up and down the platform, then embraced each other for the last time. Again he spent the long trip writing letters, intensifying our contact as the distance between us grew.

  March 15, 1944. Dearest Salka: This night I was able to sleep, but not the first one. It was so terribly difficult to leave you with all your uncertainties. Lately one blow had followed the other, bad luck upon bad luck. Perhaps I have so blindly grabbed at this chance to go to New York because it was completely against my feelings. One becomes discouraged (not you!).

  The trip to the station and the few quiet minutes with you helped me as nothing has in a long time. Arm in arm with you one can “challenge the whole world . . .” I will not be away for long, unless the play is produced, which would be a stroke of luck. I can’t, after all the long, harrowing work, neglect this chance. For many years you have given me the possibility to do my literary work: in the drawers of the bureau in my room, on tables, chairs and in cupboards, among newspapers and books, are manuscripts and loose papers containing the lyrical output of my whole life, which one day will justify me before my children. In various folders, notebooks, copybooks are fragments of novels, speeches, essays, outlines, aphorisms, some even sorted out. I hope Mrs. Scott (the cleaning woman) has not swept a great part of it away. It would be best if you left the room as it is, until I come back, which will probably be in four weeks. I shall be longing for Mama. Don’t you think that our talks did her a lot of good? Write soon.

  I love you since ever and for ever—Your Berthold.

  38

  A RUSSIAN SHIP COMMANDED BY a woman captain and “manned” only by women, arrived in Los Angeles harbor, and everyone went wild. There was a great meeting at the Shrine Auditorium, proclamations of enduring Soviet-American friendship; Charlie Chaplin made a speech and kissed the handsome, bosomy captain, and a few days later Mr. Lester Cowan, the producer of the successful film G.I. Joe, invited me to lunch at the Beverly-Wiltshire Hotel to tell me about an idea he had for Miss Garbo.

  I met an energetic, dark-haired young man, and the project he eloquently described sounded very appealing. He wanted to produce a film about a woman skipper of a Norwegian boat played by Greta Garbo, and I should provide the story. He had a sizeable ship at his disposal and also the warm support of the Norwegian Ambassador in Washington. All this sounded very exciting and Greta agreed to meet Mr. Cowan. We had lunch with him, during which he presented his project in greater detail. Garbo was very interested but repeated that she would not sign a contract until she had read the finished shooting script. Cowan said that he would take the gamble as he firmly believed in his project. Next day he asked me to write the story. We signed a week to week contract at a thousand dollars a week, and I became immersed in newspaper clippings and all the reports Cowan had received from the Norwegian Embassy. It did not take me long to come upon a fascinating incident: the escape of the coastal steamer The Galtesund. Ten years later it was wonderfully reported by A. J. Liebling in the New Yorker.

  I had to invent the reason why our ship was commanded by a woman, also invent a love story, but as everything had a real purpose—the Resistance—it became true and exciting. Cowan had engaged the renowned maker of documentary films, Joris Ivens, as technical advisor. Joris was a stimulating collaborator and after a long, long time I was certain that I was doing something worthwhile.

  The story outline was approved by Garbo, with the usual reservation that her consent to play the leading role depended on the screenplay. Encouraged and hopeful, Lester Cowan decided to hire Vladimir Pozner, a French writer of Russian descent, whose contract with Warner Brothers had just expired. He thought that the three of us would make a very happy “collective.” He was right. Our work progressed so harmoniously that I felt a superstitious fear that the “collective” would not last. Pozner, his attractive wife Ida, and their two children were daily guests on Mabery Road. We worked at home and Garbo often came to “inspire” us. After two-thirds of the script was finished Cowan decided that this and a synopsis of the rest should be sufficient for Garbo to make up her mind. He himself was very pleased, especially after he had shown it to people and the “reaction” had been “favorable.” But, to his and our dismay, Garbo refused to play in the film. She gave no reason. Cowan offered to have the screenplay rewritten by other writers, but she remained adamant.

  I had been concentrating so completely on my work and my personal conflicts that I was only superficially aware of the red-baiting which began to occur in Hollywood. To my utter amazement, I learned that Greta had been warned that it was only a matter of weeks before Norway became a communist country, and also that I was “under the influence of the Reds.” Her agent, Leland Hayward, first enthusiastic about the story, declared that war films were “outdated and nobody cared to see them.” The “Reds” could only be Pozner and Ivens and they had been signed by Lester Cowan. Neither of them ever waved the “Marxist finger” at me with such humorless, school-masterly severity as some of my American colleagues. It was no news to anyone that I abhorred nationalism, militarism, fascism, torture, concentration camps, genocide, starvation and the unspeakable sufferings of mankind, inflicted to create a superior race or a classless society. But I never equated Stalin with Hitler, nor communism with Naziism, and I optimistically believed in the victory of reason, which would ultimately defeat white, red or black global bestiality.

  This confession of my political creed seems necessary for the understanding of my future troubles.

  Garbo’s refusal was a severe blow to Lester Cowan’s project, but he kept us on the payroll until we had finished the screenplay. There was a chance that MGM would buy it. Mannix had read it and called me to say that he thought it was an excellent piece of work but MGM was “afraid” that, as we were winning the war, the public did not care about the resistance to the Nazis any longer.

  And so another hope for a Garbo film was gone. I returned to my domestic preoccupations, to “writing on spec,” and trying to solve the eternal dilemma of my economics. Elisabeth Neumann, Liesel, had arrived to make a film test and we spent several days discussing our common cause: Berthold. Then I wrote him:

  My dearest Berthold: I have come to the conclusion that it would be best for you if we got a divorce. You know very well that this would never change our relationship. Liesel is such a brave, dear person and has no other wish than to live for you and with you. We must only agree about the reason for our “parting.” Mental cruelty or incompatibility, awful as it sounds, would be the simplest. Please, Berthold, don’t be sentimental and super
stitious! I am sure that life in this puritanical country will be much easier when you and Liesel are married. And as far as both of us are concerned, we will remain the same to each other as long as we live.

  In his delayed answer Berthold told me he had no desire to discuss a divorce as other, more important things had come up: Thomas had finally confessed that in his determination to be a good soldier he was going through hell. I had sensed this, although his letters to me always sounded cheerful, but with his father he was more candid. He admitted that in spite of the utmost effort it was impossible for him to keep pace with his comrades in running, shooting, digging, taking cover. Just before being shipped overseas, his platoon commander went to the major in charge and advised that the army should not send Thomas into combat as it would mean sheer suicide for him. The major called Thomas and the first question he asked was: “Are you a Jew? Are you trying to get out?” The interview was conducted in such a tone that Thomas insisted on remaining with his company, and repeated the three months of basic training under the most grueling conditions. Finally, upon the insistence of his CO he got a thorough medical examination, which established that because of a slowed down coordination he was unfit for combat. A few weeks in New York with his father seemed a due compensation for ten months of soldiering in Alabama. Meanwhile the war was coming to an end. In autumn our warrior received an honorable discharge, returned home and enrolled at the Junior College of Santa Monica.