Apprenticed to Venus

by Tristine Rainer

  Renate, out of concern, made the three-hour drive out to Sierra Madre, insisting that Anaïs tell her about the pain.

  “It feels like when I was eleven and my appendix burst. In the hospital an abscess formed on my abdomen and wouldn’t heal. I think this is just an echo.”

  Renate frowned. “Possibly, but pain usually carries a message. Wasn’t it right after your appendix burst that your father left?”

  “You should have studied psychiatry, Renate.”

  “I don’t need to. It was in the soil from which I grew; Sigmund Freud was our next-door neighbor in Vienna. Anaïs, are you afraid of being left now for some reason?”

  Anaïs nodded and managed a pained smile. “Rupert has given me an ultimatum: if I don’t divorce Hugo and really marry him, he’s breaking it off. He keeps telling me he wants a whole life, a family.”

  “He can’t mean children!”

  “He thinks I’m near his age. Even his mother, who can’t stand me, keeps asking when we’re tying the knot.”

  “Don’t you want to marry Rupert?”

  Anaïs shook her head. “I just don’t want to lose him. I don’t want to lose my husband, either.”

  “But you have to choose one, and therefore, you have to lose one,” Renate said, and gently added, “as you lost your father when you suffered this pain as a child.”

  Tears broke, making Anaïs feel like that helpless, abandoned little girl again.

  Renate ordered Anaïs to fly to New York to see an internist. Afraid that an illness would make Rupert think about her age, Anaïs told him that she had to go for a magazine writing job. What was one more lie?

  “Anaïs? Can you hear me?”

  There was a nurse looking down at her. Tubes in her arms. Nausea. Vomit. Dry heaves. Utter weakness. Pain. So much pain from the incision where she’d had the abscess.

  Hugo’s face. Hugo, there day and night. His eyes, her beacon. Hugo’s hand holding her limp hand. Hugo’s love, all that mattered.

  “Was it cancer?” she asked him.

  “No,” he said, lifting her palm, kissing it. “They got everything. You’re going to be fine.”

  But that was not what she read in his eyes.

  “I love you so much,” he said, kissing her forehead.

  Eyelids heavy, she drifted off again.

  “Your incision is healing nicely.” The doctor smiled.

  She was sitting up, had applied her makeup, and was wearing her bright red burnoose for courage.

  “Was it cancer?”

  “Didn’t your husband talk with you?” the doctor replied.

  “Yes, he said you got everything. What did he mean?”

  “We gave you a hysterectomy.”

  She was so stunned she was inert and couldn’t ask more. No one had told her they could take her female parts. Rupert had begged that she marry him, have his child. That choice had been made for her. Inexorably.

  CHAPTER 14

  Malibu, California, 1964

  TRISTINE

  WE HEARD THE SOUND OF tires on the gravel outside, and Renate bustled in carrying a bag of groceries. As she put them in the fridge, she called from the kitchen, “You can’t believe how much two young men eat!”

  “When will they be back?” Anaïs called.

  Returning, Renate assured her, “You have another hour. May I join you?”

  Once Renate had assembled some floor cushions for herself, Anaïs touched her hand, the way she had mine. “Tristine has told me what she now understands—that Rupert and I have had to pretend we’re married because of the Forest Service. That I am still married to Hugo. She’s agreed to take his calls to help me save my marriage.”

  I thought I’d agreed to confirm for Hugo what the letter said about the lecture series and Anaïs staying with me. I had not realized I would be “taking Hugo’s calls” to save her marriage. That was a huge responsibility, one I could easily screw up. Yet suddenly the idea filled me with a sense of mission. Believing I had ruined my parents’ marriage, I now seized the chance to save Anaïs’s marriage to Hugo.

  Anaïs gazed on me with hope and trust, and then said to Renate, “I’m afraid that Tristine is troubled about needing to lie to Hugo. She does not fully grasp that these are misonges de la gentilesse. I think we should explain to her about Rancho Sosegado.”

  “What is Rancho Sosegado?” I asked.

  Anaïs lowered her voice. “It’s the rest ranch in California I made up for Hugo as my excuse to visit Rupert. Renate was the voice of the ranch owner.”

  Lounging sinuously on the floor pillows, Renate explained, “Hugo would phone my number to reach Anaïs, and I would say that ranch guests were not allowed to come to the phone but that I would convey a message. Then I would phone Anaïs at the cabin, and when Rupert went out, Anaïs would drive to Sierra Madre, the nearby town, and phone Hugo collect from a pay phone. She’d told him that I, the ranch owner, wouldn’t let her use the ranch phone for long distance calls.”

  Anaïs sighed. “It worked well until Renate married Ronnie, and he moved in with her.”

  Renate seemed to take Anaïs’s words as an accusation, for she rose abruptly and strode back into her kitchen. Anaïs marched after her. I couldn’t make out their whole argument, but I overheard Renate snap, “The phone company promised to have my number changed next week. I can’t get them to do it any faster.”

  When they returned to the living room, Anaïs said, “Renate is going to explain to you about an unfortunate incident last month.”

  Renate straightened her posture. “Ronnie was already living with me when my son quit UCLA and moved back home. Anaïs and I didn’t tell either of them about Hugo’s calls to Rancho Sosegado.” Wincing, Anaïs massaged her temples while Renate elaborated. “Last month Hugo called here, and my husband answered. Hugo asked him, ‘Is this Rancho Sosegado?’ and Ronnie said, ‘Wrong number!’ and hung up.”

  Anaïs added in distress, “Hugo phoned back and Ronnie hung up on him again.” She stopped to slow her breathing. “Renate, tell what happened next.”

  Renate said with great dignity, “Several days later, Hugo phoned once more, and this time my son answered. Hugo insisted he speak to the woman who owned the place where Anaïs Nin stayed. Peter told Hugo he knew Anaïs, but that she never stayed here.”

  I asked Anaïs, “Is that why you don’t want to be here when Ronnie or Peter get home?”

  “Yes, they’re too young to understand,” Anaïs said, and Renate nodded in agreement.

  I was the same age as Renate’s son and nine years younger than her husband, but they evidently thought I was mature enough, which was flattering.

  “Tristine, do you understand? Now Hugo knows I’ve been lying to him about Rancho Sosegado for seven years!” Anaïs cried.

  I was stunned at the enormity of her deception, and at the same time impressed that she had been able to pull it off for so long.

  She eyed me sternly. “You will warn me before you let anyone move in with you?”

  I shrugged. “There’s no space for a roommate in my single anyway.”

  Renate rolled her eyes. “Anaïs means don’t let a man move in with you.”

  “I don’t even have a boyfriend.”

  “That won’t last,” Renate said, and Anaïs readily concurred.

  I grinned, delighted they thought so.

  Anaïs placed a folded hand under her delicate chin. “I’m thinking of telling Hugo that the ranch owner was so annoyed at people calling to leave messages for guests that she had the phone disconnected, and that the phone company assigned the number to the men who answered.”

  “Excellent plan,” Renate said. “And with Tristine and the lecture series, you are now covered for the next two years.”

  So that was why Anaïs had made me change the invitation letter to a series of lectures! She could no longer tell Hugo that she was writing at the California rest ranch, but she could say repeatedly that she was coming to give the pre-arranged lectures at U
SC and staying with me. As this last piece fell into place, the chill I’d felt was encompassed by blackness, as if I were inside the freezer and someone had closed the door. Did they expect me to lie to Hugo for the next two years? I would have to memorize every detail of what Anaïs had told him. Renate had been able to pull off their ruse for seven years, but eventually even she had screwed up.

  Anaïs asked me, concerned, “Do you think you can do this?”

  “Yes,” I said with a conviction I didn’t feel. I didn’t have sufficient experience with lying. I was unqualified for this assignment, but now it was too late to tell Anaïs.

  “So, everything is settled.” Renate rose, indicating it was time for us to leave. But when Anaïs and I stood, Renate commanded, “We must make an oath with Tristine.”

  Alarmed, I looked to Anaïs. She simply shrugged and nodded with a resigned smile that I should humor Renate.

  “Put your hand over mine,” Renate instructed me.

  She extended her elevated right hand. I placed mine over hers. Anaïs placed her right hand over mine. Her hand was soft and cold. Renate stacked her left hand over Anaïs’s, and we followed suit until our six hands were piled like pancakes.

  Renate began, “Tristine swears not to repeat what she has learned or may learn about Anaïs’s life. She may discuss it only with Anaïs or Renate.”

  I felt a frisson of excitement.

  “Say ‘I swear,’” Renate urged, and I did. Renate continued, “We vow to keep Anaïs’s secrets, revealed now or in the future, under pain of personal disaster. The person who betrays this oath, unless released by Anaïs, shall be visited with betrayals increased in magnitude to the tenth degree. Repeat after me: ‘This I swear in the name of Archangel Raphael to the East, Uriel to the North, Gabriel to the West and Michael to the South. So be it. Amen.’”

  We repeated Renate’s words, but Anaïs’s voice was so faint, I heard only my own. The hocus pocus reminded me of the silly solemnity of my ADPi sorority initiation, and I was tempted to giggle—but the chill from Anaïs’s hand penetrated mine, and I could tell that Renate was completely serious.

  CHAPTER 15

  Los Angeles, California, 1964

  TRISTINE

  HUGO PHONED ME THREE DAYS later. “Hello, Tristine.”

  I wasn’t ready! I went into actress mode. I told myself this was improvisation. The givens were that I was a sophisticated young woman who was friends with Anaïs Nin, such good friends that she stayed in my apartment when she was in LA. Ready, set, go.

  Perhaps with too much gusto, I responded, “Hugo! It’s been a long time. It’s great to hear from you.”

  “Thank you, Tristine. And thank you for helping Anaïs when she’s there.”

  “Oh, no problem. Do you have a message for her?”

  “No, is she staying there now?”

  “She’s not here at the moment, but I can get her a message.”

  “Well, no. I’ll tell you why I’m calling. I hope you won’t mind if I ask you some personal questions.”

  Uh-oh. I couldn’t figure out whether to say yes, he could, or no, he couldn’t.

  He must have gotten tired of waiting for me to reply because he went on. “Anaïs told me that you’ve moved universities. She gave me your new address at USC.” Moved universities? I hadn’t moved. I wasn’t sure how to respond.

  “Yes.”

  “Hmm. I’ve heard that USC has a good football team.”

  “That’s what everyone says. I don’t—”

  “Actually, that’s not what I wanted to ask you about.”

  Oh god, I’m not going to be able to do this!

  “I have a friend whose son was going to enroll there,” Hugo continued. “My friend says that the surrounding neighborhood is quite dangerous. A lot like Harlem before the riots this summer.”

  “But the campus is safe.”

  “How many blocks would you say your apartment is from campus?”

  “Oh, it’s only a few blocks from campus,” I fudged. Twelve blocks could still be a few. “And my building is safe.” I wished.

  “I never worried when Anaïs was staying at your apartment near UCLA. Westwood is a good neighborhood. But that rich-kids school you’re at now is in the ghetto. Go figure.”

  I was trying to figure. Hugo thought Anaïs had stayed with me before when I was at UCLA? But I’d never gone to UCLA or lived in Westwood. I just held my tongue while Hugo continued to admonish me to be careful on my “new” campus. Finally, given my silence, he stopped and asked, “So what are you majoring in?”

  “English lit.”

  “Well, why would an undergraduate transfer across town for that?”

  I hadn’t transferred, but he certainly thought I had. Okay, I prompted myself, go with what the other actor gives you. Preserve the illusion of reality: Why would an undergraduate transfer colleges? For a great professor! But USC didn’t have any. Well, there was one great art history professor who was gay, but they’d fired him. Think! Think! Got it!

  “I’m applying to UCLA for grad school, and they prefer to take undergraduates from colleges other than UCLA. So I had to leave to be able to come back.”

  “Hmm. You should come east for grad school. Gotta go. Do take extra precautions, won’t you?”

  When I put down the receiver, my heart was pounding. I thought it had gone all right. Hugo sounded cheerful when he hung up, but how could I know?

  I immediately phoned Anaïs.

  “That’s interesting Hugo called you so soon,” she said. At her request, I recounted my conversation with him, sentence by sentence.

  “You are a great actress, Tristine!”

  I felt triumphant, as when I’d won first place in a national high school acting competition. I started to ask Anaïs why Hugo believed I’d transferred from UCLA to USC, but she interrupted, “Can you come tomorrow evening to hear Rupert’s quintet?”

  Was she really inviting me? Or was she covering because Rupert had just walked in? I said uncertainly, “I’ll need your address.”

  “I’m going to put Rupert on the phone to give you directions,” she replied. “The music begins at six, but you should come earlier. You and I can go over some correspondence. Plan to stay for dinner before the music.”

  I was becoming a part of Anaïs’s life! “How long do you think it will take me to drive to Sierra Madre?” I asked.

  “Oh, we haven’t lived in Sierra Madre for two years!”

  “Did the forestry service relocate Rupert?” I asked.

  “No! He’s no longer with the Forest Service. He’s teaching secondary school in Hollywood, near our apartment here.”

  Anaïs’s faux Tudor building was in the flats near Fountain, a Nathanael West neighborhood: Swiss chalets next to Egyptian temples, Mediterranean terraces next to Moorish turrets. As I circled block after block for a parking space, I became increasingly disenchanted with Rupert for having left a cabin in nature for this congested grid of tired apartment buildings. Then it hit me—as I nearly hit an Impala pulling out of a parking space—Rupert was no longer a forest ranger.

  From what Anaïs had said, he hadn’t been one for several years, so he and Anaïs no longer needed to pretend they were married. Yet Rupert had introduced himself to me as Anaïs’s husband at Holiday House. Why? The only people who had heard him had been Christopher Isherwood, his boyfriend, Renate, and me. None of us would have cared that Anaïs and Rupert were shacking up. That’s what anyone who was cool was doing these days, according to Hugh Hefner. I added this to my list of things I wanted to ask her.

  After I parked and arrived at the apartment, Anaïs opened her cross-beamed door, wearing a long, embroidered caftan.

  “Please have a seat,” she said, indicating a nubby brown couch not unlike the one buried in my mother’s living room. “It’s awful, I know,” Anaïs apologized, “but Rupert refuses to part with it. He can be impossibly bullish.”

  There were touches of Anaïs’s style everywhere: her Spanish
shawl thrown over the grand piano; a fireplace grate with surreal, swirling patterns; books neatly organized in the built-in bookcases. But whereas the eclecticism of the apartment she shared with Hugo in New York harmonized, here her things clashed with the Tudor-beamed ceilings, Rupert’s modern bargain-basement furniture, and a few vintage prairie-style pieces.

  Anaïs perched herself gracefully on the front edge of a square maple armchair. Pulling out my shorthand notebook, I asked, “Shall we deal with your correspondence first?”

  “Oh, I just said we’d do correspondence because Rupert was standing there. I don’t have any today. I invited you early so we could have a tête-à-tête. Rupert won’t be home for hours.”

  Nevertheless, I hushed my voice. “I need to know certain things in case Hugo calls again.”

  Anaïs smiled. “What do you need to know?”

  “How come Hugo thinks you have stayed with me, and that I attended UCLA and transferred to USC?”

  “I had to say that, Tristine. I hope you will forgive me.”

  She might have been waiting for me to say I forgave her, but I was waiting for her to explain, and finally she did, making Balinese dancelike movements with her hands as she spoke. “Just about the time you and I met in New York, Rupert left the Forest Service, and we moved here to Hollywood. Hugo was used to speaking to Renate as the voice of Rancho Sosegado, and I didn’t want to change that pretext. The problem was, it was a four-hour round trip from Hollywood to the Sierra Madre post office to pick up Hugo’s weekly letters. It was too much driving!”

  “Hugo thought he was mailing his letters to you at the rest ranch?” I asked to clarify.

  “Well I’d told him that the eccentric owner wouldn’t let guests receive mail at the ranch so he had to mail his letters to a P.O. box at the nearby town. But after Rupert and I got settled here in Hollywood, I told Hugo that the Sierra Madre post office had been shut down. Since Hugo had just met you, and you’d said you would be attending college in Los Angeles … Hold on. I want to look this up. You need to get this right, because Hugo, though he has a terrible memory about everything else, recalls in precise detail everything I tell him about my trips out here.”