The Kindness of Strangers

by Salka Viertel

  Berlin is a witches’ cauldron, the crucial place, and perhaps for this reason, in spite of its ruins, it is so alive. How much I would have liked to work at the Deutsches Theater! They wanted me so badly; they pleaded with me, but it is impossible with my American passport. They want me in West Berlin also and I have agreed to direct The Glass Menagerie at the Hebbeltheater, providing there is no war in autumn.

  I saw our dear Luise Wenzel, and have spent as much time as I could with her. She lives in a tiny back room, emaciated, stooped with age but makes plans to reopen her Pension. The questions about you, the boys, Rose, Edward, Mama were pouring, your ears must have been burning . . . And what a wonderful, decent woman she has remained . . . Ah, Salka. . . .

  It was now certain that having fulfilled his commitment in England, he would return to the German theater. His successes began in Zurich. Then he had several offers, from East and West Berlin, for guest performances, but he signed a longer contract with the Burgtheater in Vienna. This return to the city in which he was born, to the ambience of his youth, symbolically closed the cycle. . . .

  The Austrian Government had entrusted the leadership of the State theaters, the Burgtheater and the Academie to my brother-in-law, Josef Gielen. Remembering only too well the transition from Viennese Gemutlichkeit to fierce Nazi brutality, Rose did not look forward to being Frau Direktor. Also it meant separation from her young daughter, who was married to the violinist Ljerko Spiller and lived in Buenos Aires. Rose’s letters were mostly about her little grandson and about Michael, her son, who had inherited not only Edward’s talent, but also his dedication to modern music. However, for Gielen it was essential to return to more challenging tasks than the staging of operas at the Teatro Colon.

  Edward was not forgotten in old Europe either; his Viennese friends urged him to return. He refused, but accepted an invitation to teach in summer at the Salzburg Mozarteum.

  “Hitler and the war destroyed our world,” wrote Rose, “and for me art is not important enough to replace lost human values.”

  She promised that on her way to Vienna she would stop in the United States to visit Edward and Clara in New York, then spend a few weeks with us in Santa Monica.

  As I could not afford to be choosy, I was taking all kinds of odd and badly paid assignments, some of them quite funny in retrospect. One was the rewriting of an already completed film, shot in Italy, with a cast which spoke every language except English. It had to be dubbed by American actors, but the producer, as he had to spend the money, insisted on changing the dialogue, but it had to match the lip movements of those on the screen. For many weeks, from nine in the morning until late at night, I sat in the dubbing or cutting room, writing and rewriting; and if it had not been for the patient help of two calm, efficient men, the cutter and the sound engineer, I would have lost my mind, while increasing my vocabulary extravagantly. The producer would telephone me from New York, often as early as six A.M., demanding new “A picture lines” for his B Picture, in which the beautiful shots of Venice were tragically wasted. In the end he even stalled about paying the balance of my salary.

  After this experience it was heaven to work with Jean Renoir. Previews of his film The River were unsatisfactory; the audiences could not understand the story. Renoir invited me to one of the screenings, and while I was watching the film it occurred to me that if it were told in retrospect, and if there were more shots of the Ganges, the lovely but loose scenes would gain clarity. When Renoir asked for my impressions, I suggested a narration: something like a nostalgic recollection which would tie the story together. I went home and thought no more about it; but two days later the producer, who had financed the film, called, saying that Mr. Renoir intended to re-edit his film and would like me to write the narration I had spoken of. In all my years in Hollywood this was the first time that someone had not regarded all ideas as his own.

  The River had been made on a small budget and I was poorly paid, but I had a wonderful time working with Renoir. Later, his backer refused to have my name on the credit list. Renoir was in France and could do nothing about it, nor could the Screen Writers’ Guild. The arbitrators admitted that my claim was justified but although a provision existed in the S.W.G. contract that a writer might have credit for “additional dialogue,” there was none for a narration, even if it represented 25 percent of the screenplay.

  Money stays with people who love it, but much as I tried to acquire this virtue, I was still poor. However my friends assured me that I never looked better. I resigned myself to the haphazards of freelancing, but the house, that dear old house which had sheltered so many, seen so much and served all kinds of good causes, did not resist the years as well as I did. The roof leaked, the paint peeled, the iron fence was rusty, the windows would not close, and termites had invaded the basement. It was disastrous when a major repair became unavoidable, and the mortgage persistently reverted to its original amount. When he was working for a studio, Peter came to the rescue, but he had a wife and child and was not a Croesus. Edward contributed to the support of Mama, but Hans’s modest income and his passion for ancient Packards hardly covered his own needs. He would buy his cars for seventy-five dollars, sometimes even for fifty, and would drive them until they fell apart, which happened sooner than he expected. He would leave the wrecks on the road and the police towed them away, presenting him with a bill and a summons. Even on the installment plan this procedure became quite costly. I tried in vain to persuade my dear first-born that with the money he paid for his Packards, plus fines and repairs, he could get a decent Ford or Chevy. “Yes, but they don’t compare in design,” he would answer haughtily.

  If it had not been for the generosity of my friends—the Chaplins and the Stewarts—foreclosure on the house could not have been averted. The sword of Damocles hung twice over my head. I thought of selling and moving into a smaller house, but as a “temporary recession” prevailed, it was easier to buy than to sell.

  •

  I began to give drama lessons—in Hollywood it is called coaching—because a few young actors suddenly “discovered” me. Had the rich been as talented as the poor, I could have embarked on a new and rewarding career; although I do not believe that acting can be taught, especially not in a hurry. I did my best to cure the mumbling and abominable diction, and tried to convince my pupils that the “mike” could not perform miracles. I induced a few to work seriously, and those few also discovered that Shakespeare was not a deadly bore. But the majority lacked dedication to their profession. The concern for a career was more absorbing than the passion for acting, and their days were spent chasing after talent scouts and producers. I was reluctant to accept payment for lessons for which they had no time to prepare. I spent more hours dissuading, comforting and advising those with mediocre talent, than working with the promising ones. They all tried hard to “develop a personality,” but the young men imitated Marlon Brando or Tony Curtis, while the girls relied heavily on Vogue-model looks.

  This may give a one-sided and perhaps unfair picture of Hollywood’s young actors, but such was my experience. Of course, there were exceptions, and several of my pupils achieved a deserved success in films, on the stage, and in television.

  As “entertainment,” television is never as fascinating as when it is used as a political forum. I thought the Un-American Hearings were an unbeatable show, but I was told it had a disappointing rating—not to be compared with Lassie. An enterprising woman, Ilse Lahn of the Paul Kohner Agency, began to encourage me to write for T.V. I tried a few plays and to my great surprise she sold two of them. In the course of the years she stood by me staunchly not only as my agent but as a friend.

  The summers in Santa Monica gave Edward a much needed rest and the leisure to compose, for which he never had enough time in New York. He would sit under the pithasporum tree, humming and scribbling on his score sheets, while Clara, stretched out on the grass, slowly turned into a dark brown Indian.

  Again we were living in the naggin
g fear of another world war, around us intolerance and distrust. Those who sympathized with the legitimate urge of the Asiatic people to free themselves from age-old exploitation were denounced and suspected, while the United States supported their corrupt power cliques.

  Arnold Schoenberg was getting old. He was emaciated and suffered from asthma; only his huge, burning eyes remained the same. Trude was exhausted by care and worry; the two boys strong, intelligent, enterprising, very American; the girl, Nuria, a beauty. Trude’s brother, Rudolph Kolisch, and the philosopher and musician Dr. Theodor Adorno, Edward’s friend of many years, came often to Mabery Road. There were excited discussions about the new Thomas Mann novel, Dr. Faustus. Without having read the book, Schoenberg objected that Mann had made his hero the inventor of the twelve-tone system. Dr. Adorno, who had been Thomas Mann’s musical advisor, defended the author. There were impassioned arguments about “Geistiges Eigentum.”† But everything was amicably settled when Thomas Mann, in a short note in his book, explained that despite all his respect and admiration for Schoenberg he had never intended to use him as a model for his hero.

  Finally Rose arrived, her lovely face a little more lined and faded, more silver in her hair, but otherwise the same Ruzia, slim and graceful, her walk and movements unchanged. She told us about her life in the Third Reich, how courageous friends had helped her and the children to leave; then about Argentina under Peron. Young Michael participated in student demonstrations and would come home beaten-up and bleeding. Mama could not hear enough about Eva Peron—giving audiences to poor and frightened Jewish refugees, keeping them waiting from morning until ten or twelve at night, then trying to impress them by appearing in a Dior evening gown, a tiara on her head, and covered with jewels.

  Driving along the coast or showing Rose the canyons and valleys, made me realize once more how much I loved California. In the back seat, his mane blown by the wind, one paw on my shoulder, Timmy seemed to agree with me.

  Then Rose had to leave, and the farewell was sadder than any other. Would she ever see Mama again? Peter, Jigee and Vicky were also on the move. Peter was to write the screenplay to Decision Before Dawn, in Germany. They would visit the Gielens and Berthold, in Vienna.

  In the Theatre Arts of February 1950, Eric Bentley wrote: “. . . What [Berthold] Viertel’s work preeminently shows is the quality left-wing directors have scorned or ignored: finer feeling, personal feeling . . . The revolutionary act is to go back and find the real thing, unhurriedly, without fanfare.

  “There has been a lot of talk of Stanislavski of late among people who are worlds away from him temperamentally, humanly. Viertel’s fresh, direct, and delicate humanity, his patient thoroughness in preparing his productions, his realism that can render all the transitions between sweet and bitter, is closer to the Russian master in spirit than anything else I have come across. . . .”

  * Lindermann was a Jew.

  † Spiritual ownership.

  43

  THE KOREAN WAR and the investigations influenced life in the United States, and many of my friends preferred to leave the country. Ella and Don went to London; Thomas Mann, disgusted by attacks on his anti-Cold War attitude, moved to his last exile: Switzerland. The Chaplins, who had planned a visit to England, were informed that the Immigration Board, disregarding Charlie’s reentry permit, would not let him return unless he cleared himself of “charges of a political nature and of moral turpitude.” He and Oona decided not to come back.

  My agent Ilse Lahn firmly denied that I was blacklisted: “Everyone knows you are not a communist.” And as usual the producers told her that if I had a good story and Garbo committed herself to appearing in it, I would be employed. “They know they are safe in their offer,” I said, and she reproached me for my pessimism.

  But with all our varied difficulties, life went on. Hans, Thomas and I were each having our share of trouble, although under the circumstances, mine was the lion’s share. Nevertheless, people were still drawn to Mabery Road, especially the young. One of them was Norman Mailer, who seemed a mixture of ancient wisdom and astonishing naïveté, somehow thrown out of balance by his world fame; and much too young and complicated to be married. We were very fond of him. Then there was James Agee, critic and essayist, passionately addicted to films but essentially a poet. After a long day’s work with John Huston, for whom he was writing a screenplay, he would come to Mabery Road and, if no other guests were present and no discussions and arguments going on, we would sit and listen to music: to Edward’s when he was there, otherwise to radio concerts and records; or sometimes he, Agee, would sit down at the piano and play his favorite Schubert sonata, not ostentatiously and not very well. And very dear to me was the young poetess Naomi Replansky. She lived in Ocean Park, which was at that time a conglomeration of ghettos: poor, orthodox Jews, Negroes, beatniks, and white and black homosexuals, all living in peaceful coexistence.

  I could not say that Mama had become an invalid, but her trembling had increased to such a degree that I had to bathe and dress her and on bad days, even feed her. The doctor thought that it was caused by the severe shocks during bombings in Poland and Moscow. As she was fastidious and independent, it depressed her to be attended at every physical function and she hated her disability and her old body. I assured her that I did not mind taking care of her and that she was still my lovely Mama. This was true: her skin was spotless and silky, her face finely wrinkled, her hands and legs slim and astonishingly unmarred by age. As long as I could remember, although rarely ill, she had been impatient with her doctors, convinced that she knew as much about remedies as they. But it was impossible to be angry with her because she was always gentle and considerate, and so grateful for everything I did that it brought tears to my eyes. She was happy to give Thomas his German lessons, and she read Proust, although she preferred Jane Austen. She was affected by the death of Heinrich Mann and asked me to take her to his funeral. She listened to the eulogies by Lion Feuchtwanger and the Reverend Fritschmann of the Unitarian Church; then said that although everything was very dignified, she found American funerals too cheerful.

  A few months later Arnold Schoenberg died. To the last, Hollywood did not recognize his genius and only very few attended his funeral.

  Peter had finished his film and he, Jigee and Vicky returned to Zuma. I could not help noticing that there was that certain tone of marital irritation between them, which makes the wife sound like a governess and the husband revert to adolescent rebellion. The war had left an indelible stigma on those who had participated in it, had seen horror and suffered incredible hardship; while their women, especially in America, lived in peacetime comfort and easily forgot what their men had gone through.

  Restless, and running away from their problems, Peter and Jigee decided to sell the house they had built with such love, and go back to Europe to spend the winter in Klosters. Their predilection for the quiet mountain village also drew Peter’s friends there as soon as the skiing season started. Irwin Shaw and Bob Parrish became enthusiastic Klosterites. Vicky was going to a Swiss school and sent me and Mama dear little notes in German. Jigee’s delight in Europe sounded undiminished, at least as she expressed it in her letters. However, she and Peter did not get along and there were brief separations.

  But in the autumn of 1951 I received the news: “You are going to be a grandmother.” I was pleased because apparently the recurrent difficulties in their marriage were over. Outsiders never witness reconciliations.

  It was La Rochefoucauld who said: “It is impossible to love a second time what one has truly ceased to love,” and there is no explanation and no remedy for it. When it happens, hurt and pain are so overpowering that the heart does not forgive nor forget.

  On April 30th, 1952, my granddaughter Christine was born in Paris and I received a cable from Peter saying that mother and child were well. A week later Jigee wrote me that she and Peter had parted. It was a long letter, very brave and decent, and it made me terrribly sad.

&nb
sp; Christine is a new joy and Vicky always is, but not having Peter anymore overshadows everything. He is in love with a French girl named Bettina . . . I sort of wish I could say or think otherwise, but actually she is nice, and beautiful in an extraordinary way, charming and thoroughly adorable. I can understand Peter’s feelings; I only wish it had come at another time. . . .

  The baby came three weeks early. She is small but intact, and exactly you, to the tips of her fingers. It is as if I had no part in the making of her. Her eyes are blue, and she is clearly a Steuermann, only on a very small scale. . . .

  It is not a happy time for Peter either; he is thin and worried and sorry to have hurt me, but it’s done and I told him it would be better if I did not see him at all for a while. Maybe later, on a friendly basis, but now I am too hurt and too sick to be able to bear it . . . I know no one ever ruins anyone’s life—and I cannot blame Peter alone.

  I was heartbroken about Jigee’s sorrow and I knew, only too well, what Peter was going through. He had been deeply attached to Jigee, but the accumulated bitterness had made it impossible for them to live together. “When love begins to sicken and decay. . . .”

  “I wish you could live with us,” wrote Jigee. “Life would somehow have a fuller meaning if we were together. You would be so much to Christine and she to you! I wish I could tell you how every expression and gesture of hers is absolutely you. It is a wonderful thing for me. . . .”

  The photos she sent confirmed that Christine was an enchanting baby, but she was much more like Peter. I could not imagine myself having ever been so devastatingly charming.