The Grand Surprise

by Leo Lerman

  OCTOBER 23, 1973 • EN ROUTE TO SYRACUSE, NEW YORK Mindy [Wager]'s party for Felicia—during which she confided that she's to have her face lifted on November 11 (“Just a little lift”), and Lennie, across the room, confided that he was having the best time of his life because “I've had more cocks in all of my holes! Such cocks! …”

  OCTOBER 28, 1973 • NEW YORK CITY

  TO RICHARD HUNTER • edinburgh

  I guess that our Christmas plans have been decided for us. On Thursday, my navel burst. It was awful. It happened early in the morning while I was dressing—the navel got huge and stuck out like a doorknob and was lurid purple. The pain was dreadful. I didn't want Puss to know. I took my bath and put on my clean underwear, in case I had to be whisked to Beth Israel, but Puss was suspicious because I was unearthly quiet. So he burst in, and I fainted. It was all more awful for Puss than for me.

  The next day we went to Dr. Freund, the surgeon who did the last two operations. He said, yes, the navel was completely open (and still is) and showed us how to push it in again, because he won't operate unless it strangles—which it could at any moment. This is a mess. I now have three possible operations: the navel, the eyes, my left leg which is in a bad way. Nevertheless, I feel fine and look that way, and I am losing weight fast and will be a sylph again—and everyone will say how sick I look.

  JOURNAL • October 28, 1973 Ruth Prawer Jhabvala came to lunch (as did James Ivory) with us in the Rose Room of the Algonquin. She was one of the few writers I have been curious to be with. I was not disappointed.131 She is more Indian than Polish—although the Polish Jew is there—a sort of allusive atmosphere. Ruth P.J. is very small (or small seeming), very quiet—her special quiet, running smoothly over submerged pebbles and rocks and shards of laughter. She said she went nowhere, did nothing save be at home, take care of the family, and write. When I said that we thought of her always at parties gathering material for her comedies of manners, she answered: “One party goes a long way!” She did say that years ago she had gone out a lot. We liked her deeply.

  Twyla Tharp—”It's a Mormon name,” she said. Small, become a cult figure, pleasant with a residue of reserve, a sediment of caution, pale—sort of faded coffee skin (perhaps the last of summer), a suggestion of intense vigor—or is it evidence of bone-deep commitment? Her new work is transitional, incredibly professional, having assimilated Jerry [Robbins]'s and George [Balanchine]'s idiom, making a shrewd, lovingly comic comment on it.132

  NOVEMBER 24, 1973 Jennie Tourel died near midnight, slipping away. All of that effort, ego, hard work, all of that being Jennie Tourel … gone. Those hundreds of thousands of times Jennie looked into her glass…. She was a great musician, a great singer, triumphing over her lack of a great voice by the strength, the fineness of her musicianship, and her technique. Her surroundings were vulgar, her eye was perhaps vulgar, but her ear was impeccable, although sometimes, in these later years, betrayed by her monstrous ego. She was intensely Jewish, and loyal, and had her own sense of humor—although she was humorless about herself. She thought of herself as an amoureuse, and indeed she had many lovers and several husbands and scores of admirers. She also attracted a certain variety of yenta, which we always could spot immediately as “Jennies”—no matter what born religion or race, these were Jennie yachnas [busybodies]—rich, full of low animal cunning, overdone, and each a princess.

  I first saw Jennie singing with Maestro. She wore a white “gown” (all of her dresses were “gowns”) and she sang superbly. This was her first New York concert appearance, and I stood, having come to hear Maestro, in the back of Carnegie Hall, overwhelmed. Later she told me that the gown cost $90 at Bon-wit Teller's. She was dark, intense, passionate—with the technique—a triumph, rather like Nora [Kaye]'s, over the Grand Concourses of this world. I know that she is at peace, if she is somewhere singing away, her voice more glorious than all others in some heavenly choir, in which she is, of course, the soloist.

  DECEMBER 4, 1973 [Comedians] Peter Cook and Dudley Moore came to lunch—most likable. The civility of Peter Cook. When I asked Peter what he really felt like, he said, promptly, “Secretariat… I would like to feel like [the racehorse] Secretariat—all that money and then being put out to stud!” Dudley said that he felt “like a libidinous possum.”

  DECEMBER 28, 1973 Gloria Emerson to lunch at the Algonquin. She loves Frankie Fitzgerald—or rather admires her—but feels more comfortable with Marietta [Tree, Fitzgerald's mother] and is deeply fond of Penelope [Tree, the sister]. “Frankie insists that you have to earn everything. You have to walk a mile to earn a taxi ride. You must ride in subways. She's rich in her own right. We're the ones that hire cars and do extravagant things, but she's the historian of our generation.”133 About Gloria's return from Vietnam: “I went immediately to Dior (Paris) and sat in the cabane and cried, and then I went into the loo and sat there and cried. I was weepy to be alive and there.” Gloria is splendid to look at—very tall (“I'm rangy”), huge dark eyes with well-depths of speculative compassion in them, immaculately, elegantly dressed—a pole of a forty-three-year-old woman, who's been twice married. Gloria's eyes are like those delicious prunes that come from Farmers Market [in Los Angeles].

  Yesterday, climbing a stair at a party, my right leg weakened into absolute uselessness, and I fell as I reached the upper landing—but painlessly, not even spilling the food upon my plate. My leg, literally, gave out.

  DECEMBER 30, 1973 Tatiana rang from Cornwall Bridge to ask me to ring Marlene (who crept into town last night to arrange for an operation upon her wounded leg).134 My heart told me not to ring, but I did, and Annie welcomed me, went off to tell Marlene, whom I could hear in the background: “Say I stepped out a minute.” Then Annie returned, abashed, and told me this. I said, loudly, “Tell Miss Dietrich I'm at home….” So be that. She will ring if she wants a service, etc. She is old, spoiled, stupid, and quite frequently drunk. Such a topple from tipple—a result not a cause. She's to be pitied, for she lived by and from her beauty—not her true beauty, of which she had much, but the artifice which her fans saw, applauded, and paid for. As Momma's center was her open door, mistaken for an open heart, so Marlene's center was her insatiable narcissism—her “beauty”—and this is now gone, this center, although she can counterfeit it for huge audiences. I am almost always sad for one who has lost his kingdom—his domain. Neither Momma nor Marlene has made the necessary transition. The possibility: Nothing exists save one's self135

  NOTE: On January 23, 1974, Leo entered the hospital in New York for extensive nerve tests and surgeries to repair his abdominal hernia and remedy the weakness in his right leg.

  JOURNAL • January 23, 1974 Sitting on the edge of my bed in Room 1162, the Lensky Pavilion [at Beth Israel Hospital]. Three years since I was last here, in that room 1161, next to this one, where I almost died, and where David Webster came to see me (or was that the time before, on the floor below?), and where Maria C came, carrying great gifts of fruit. Now I feel well and know that tomorrow I will be sick. Odd, that—but Puss finding the little photo of Ela, on the pantry floor, seems so good a sign, meaning that they who have gone on ahead are all watching over me. So now I must say good night and rest in the love that nourishes me and in the hope that my “time” has not come. I love being alive. It was my own Gray most of anything or anyone ever in all my life. I did do something extra: I lived. I will live….

  6:30 A.M. A shiny-eyed black woman—really delicious chocolate brown— came in, gave me a thermometer, marveled at my farmyard and quilt,136 said, “You sure travel heavy…. All these things. I would sure hate to clean your place. What a mess….” All most friendly, with a great show of magnificent white teeth and gleaming of the whites of her eyes. Then she told me about the curative weeds and sea grasses of Jamaica. Many of these, she said lovingly, could be bought in the 116th Street Market, where I went, sometimes twice weekly, when I was a very small boy, with Grandpa Goldwasser. The black woman told me about fever grass (brew
it fresh in the morning for tea) and breadfruit and something for cancer and nutmeg for a stroke and about fishing—the trout leaping under Niagara Falls and caves. She spoke pure poetry, matrix poetry, with deep, calm, loving laughter. Then a little nurse came, took my pulse and pressure, and soon she will return, bind up my legs, give me “my needle” and so to oblivion—or wherever—and out again I hope. Night. I wish that I could see dawn. I love dawn, perhaps best of any time. On my little radio—Debussy—The Sea. And if I can't see, hear the sea … this Debussy is the most sea-satisfying. I could add up the signs again, but I won't…. The best sign was Puss finding Ela's picture on the pantry floor. Now I will read, Theater Left, or maybe my Shakespeare, until I fall asleep and wake again. I need splendor in my heart and glory in my eyes and a great music of words in my eyes and ears.

  FEBRUARY 5, 1974 Still in Beth Israel (Alvin Colt reminds, in a letter, that there was a stripper yclept Beth Israel). I haven't written in this notebook—days on end—because so much and so little happened and that made a wall. But I have learned so much and I've been trying to sort it out. Now I will wear a brace, do therapeutic exercises, carry my stick, and cope.

  FEBRUARY 18, 1974 Last night we went across (my first outing) to Carnegie, to find Maria's concert canceled. The behavior of the public was odd:137 I like best [actress, later producer] Valentina Fratti, gaping from her window high over Fifty-sixth Street with a perfect view of Carnegie's stage door. Valentina announcing the arrival of each floral tribute. “Such roses—at least six dozen long-stemmed red roses! Going in!” Then after an hour of this—deep silence, speculative silence, from Valentina—followed by: “The roses are coming out!” So, the tide flowed and ebbed, and Maria was fast away in the Stanhope. I think that Maria is sick—physically—and also she is terrified.138

  So much more to write about these last weeks—the agony and the terror (I had little of that) and the amusement (sometimes the pain was funny) and those earliest nights when I crept, in mind—almost physically—through the night, from square to square on my patchwork quilt. That is how I got from pain to pain to pain and so to the other side of pain. But the needles and electrodes—only interest in hearing the sounds in my muscles and seeing their action—jumping geometric green, gold lines on the little monitor screens— muscles making sounds of forest fires or spring ponds alive with peepers or motorboats chugging across bays—always preceded by the sharp click-click-click. The Small Adventures, which mean so much—fishing up the telephone when it fell, the vast winter skies and their armadas, the light on the windows, the petals of the masses of flowers falling with sound of snowflakes. Also the goodness of Nurse [Toby] Jensky. All of it—this strong, wonderful month.

  FEBRUARY 26, 1974 • NEW YORK CITY

  TO RICHARD HUNTER • bermuda

  The brace is no good. It rubs my knee skin off, slips almost instantly, is cumbersome; I can't put it on or take it off by myself; I can't get into taxis or out by myself; it will make me into a cripple! So, that's that. Good news is the exercises I have. I do them twice a day, and they do seem to help. I also play with Silly Putty. I go to my office and get tired.

  JOURNAL • march 6, 1974 Tonight's Maria concert was appalling—wholly awful. She and [tenor Giuseppe] di Stefano seemed like two pitiful people auditioning unsuccessfully at some provincial Italian opera house. She looked wonderful—eagle, heroic, young—and her dress was a miracle of subtle diminishing—celadon green and great trailing sleeves—all very luna moth. She used her hands exquisitely. But when she opened her mouth—139

  MARCH 7, 1974 Maria on the blower: “Oh, we want to see you, 140 but don't bother you because you were sick. I want to tell you: I know I looked good, but I can sing better. That wasn't good, as good as I can do….” She knows. And she knows that I know.

  APRIL 2, 1974 Kirk [Askew] died. Ironically, [his wife] Constance lives, she having been an unapproachable invalid these many years. The last time I saw them, she stood on one of Peter [Lindamood]'s gorgeously flowered [Grand Union Hotel] Saratoga carpets, muffled in white marabou, only her head free—that Hogarthian visage cracked and shattered with laughter. So, Constance emerges. Kirk having been the prisoner of her sickness, she now appears to be the prisoner of his black endeavor these last years. He made the prison and she made the prisoner—or each was the other's prisoner. The Askew daughters are now three middle-aged women. The artworks still marvelous, but everything else worn and unglamorous—including all of those formerly powerful people. If you laid us end to end, you could hear the pterodactyls scream. Constance was upholstered in a brownish tweed and bosomed in efficiency, her hearing-aid battery prominent, like a large industrial part on her ample bosoms. Puss and I walked, in memoriam, past the Durlacher [gallery's] doors.

  APRIL 20, 1974 • NEW YORK CITY

  TO RICHARD HUNTER • paris

  Constance seemed to rally for this event, which was semi-thronged with survivors, most of whom had known one another well years ago and now took moments—into minutes—to recognize one another. Awful. Janet Flanner, Lillian Hellman, and Louise Crane [patron and poet] stood together, and I said, “I wouldn't know to which one of you lovelies to give the apple.” And Janet, in her eighties, said promptly, “Don't bother, I ate it years ago.”

  JOURNAL • April 28, 1974 This week I spent most of an afternoon with Nancy [Mrs. Henry] Kissinger, having Avedon photograph her, and I have now interviewed her. I liked her for her reasonableness, her consideration, her good looks, especially the outline of her face (V. Woolf cheekbones), her niceness, and her candor. This was a neighborly visit rather than an interview.

  This morning Marguerite Young rang up to tell me that Ruth Stephan had hired a car, driven off into the woods on the vastness she had bought, on which her house was to start building on May 1, and there in the wood, on the cold April ground, had lain down, swallowed sleeping pills, and so died. I do not believe this, unless she was driven to it by that dreadful Mr. F [Franklin, her last husband] or cancer, but she, always optimistic, would not have killed herself over sickness. When I last saw her, several months ago, she was full of life and hope. She did this on April 9. I rang Richard up in London and he was flabbergasted—but then complained, as usual, about expense, a pain in his side, etc.

  I wonder what Ruth wore. Did she run back to get a scarf, a sweater to warm her in the cold April day? I see her as I first saw her, so many years ago, in blue velvet—almost crushed pansy blue—her blond hair loose and long—a sort of fairy-tale atmosphere. “I am a poetess like a bird sings,” she said. Then all those times we met in a tea saloon and consumed enormous sundaes, parfaits, rich sweets, mountainous ice creams. Then she sent me that $1,000 I needed to buy the lease of 1453. There the check was, early on the last morning, a present which solidified my future.

  MAY 1, 1974 I have now “formally” left Mademoiselle, after twenty-six years. Most fortunately, I have (I am so aware of precisely how completely risky this is) Vogue and the remnants of Playbill. So ends twenty-six years. I will see them through August.141

  MAY 9, 1974 I must be resolute now and rid myself of—first most of the books. I can no longer hold out. I must conserve such strength as I have for any work that I wish to do. I cannot waste myself on any of these matters. I must be solid within. I sell the books to buy, I hope, some domestic peace. I do not for one little moment believe that selling the books will buy that, because my experience shows me that when this is done, something other instantly will take its place. This has nothing to do with love: That does not change. This has to do with my being: I can be without the externals. If I can manage, as I have, my sight impaired, my muscles withering, I can manage about the externals. I must not say one word about any of this. I must do it, knowing that what I do will do no good save for me…. Most of my friends are dead, far off, or alienated. I must cut myself from things and since these books are of the first importance, I must begin with them. I have had them. What a comfort, the sweet, spring rain. If I cannot go into the country,
I will go there in my mind, in my heart. There is so little discontent in me, almost no envy. I have had more than my share of love, joy, admiration, opportunity.

  MAY 29, 1974 Wanda told me that Volodya [Horowitz] plays only one hour a day, walks thirty blocks each day. All food must be sent on to each concert place—gray sole, etc.—special foods.142 The funniness of Wanda. She stands like her mother, has her father's eyes, and still wonders whether he ever slept with Ela—which he did—and she describes Ela taking the Guardi drawing from the wall of Kammerschloss—”a fake” says Wanda—and giving it to Maestro.143 This was a real rencontre at Alex and Tatiana's.

  JUNE 3, 1974 • WASHINGTON, D. c. Yesterday afternoon with Mrs. [Gerald] Ford in the little house in Alexandria in a sloping meadow.144 She has an American midwestern gentility and sadness and optimism and aspiration and reverence for “beautiful.” Easy to make fun of and hard to explain to Manhattan and Europe. She is good, kind, dreamy, sedated, boring—a family woman who said, “Well, I was going into a business—dyeing fabrics—when all of this happened and …” The facial and hand gestures (very graceful) articulated the rest—dreams flown away, annihilated…. She talks a lot and always quietly— smiles coming and going like clouds with sun behind them. Everything she says comes after a silence, while—through the sedation—she thinks out what you have said. Then she talks in quiet, very quiet “takes”—leaving spaces during which I had to make myself not talk and somehow gauge when to talk. I would have to count slowly.