Under the Sun: The Letters of Bruce Chatwin

by Nicholas Shakespeare

  To James Ivory

  Holwell Farm | Wotton-under-Edge | Glos | 15 September 1971

  Dear Jim,

  Sorry for this hasty note. Elizabeth is flying to Boston and then to Upper New York State to face her sister’s342 wedding, and she will post it. I am two-thirds of the way through typing the book out, but the last chapter will require some energetic doctoring before I can bestow it on the unsuspecting publisher. When and as it is ready, I shall come, but not before I am released by him. Once in the US I don’t particularly want to go back to the UK but still plan the South American trip, all being well.

  She’ll phone you in NY, because the poor thing is penniless, more penniless than I, which is a happy state of affairs but not likely to last. This means she will HOUND you for the dollars, so that she can go on little shopping expeditions to Abercrombie and Fitch.

  Once I’m through I’ll apply my febrile mind to the idea of the film about THINGS. Incidentally I have a splendidly macabre story about a compulsive collector of Cherry Blossom Boot Polish tins, set in North London between the wars, and ending with the most enigmatic death. See you I hope in about 6 WEEKS. Oh dear! What a long time!

  Love

  B

  To James Ivory

  Holwell Farm | Wotton-under-Edge | Glos | [October 1971]

  Dear Jim,

  You’re an angel to send the cheque. Lord knows why you should have had to pay for the bloody car anyway though we’d have been pretty stuck without it. Anyway it eases the financial situation here somewhat. I have hardly earned a penny for the past four years, though I manage to survive somehow – a mixture of meanness and cunning but nothing more. The bright star on the horizon financially is that I have a feather cape from Peru bought for 300 bucks in 1966 in NY. Yesterday the phone rang from a friend asking whether I would accept $22,000 for it. You bet I bloody well would.343 The deal has yet to go through, but God . . . just one further proof of the lunacy of the times.

  I have found the letter344 to my great joy. Quote . . .

  ‘According to you I have no appreciation of art. Well, I guess under certain circumstances maybe I haven’t. Now take your Egyptian stuff. I wouldn’t give you thruppence for the lot. But I have stood before the Absinthe drinkers in the Jus de Pomme for hours on end. I surround myself with the most beautiful objects this horrible world has to offer – including people. I am undoubtedly one of the most beautifully dressed men in the world. Everything I put on my body is the very finest of its kind that can be bought in the world so I think I can appreciate fine art or at least some aspects of it. Here is a little something you might like to think over. I have known many people in my long long life from garbage collectors to kings . . . etc etc’ page upon page of it. I can’t tell why I find it so funny.

  We have just had a lunch party for thirteen people including my parents, some cousins of E.’s and their cousins – some local unspeakables. So I am feeling rather washed out.345 The manuscript is at the typists. Regrettably there will have to be some radical alterations because I have just read some latest books on my line, and they show where I am wrong. Whole tracts will have to be rewritten, though the main thesis doesn’t change. I hope to give the thing in to the publisher in early Nov, and then come with Howard and Julia Hodgkin to Boston and then to NY mid or late in the month. I keep on saying this and then nothing happens. I’m appalled at how long everything takes to get done. Living in the country doesn’t help because one has to go hurtling up to London or Oxford to check a reference. In the end they’ll probably turn the bloody thing down. It’ll be interesting however to see which way the escape route runs. It really is too funny. Two friends of mine, ex colleagues and partners at Sotheby’s resigned from the board because they, as non-smokers, objected to Sotheby’s allowing Wills’, the tobacco firm to bring out a cigarette called Sotheby. I had a good laugh and said very loudly in the salesroom that another brand name for cigarettes is ‘Passing Cloud’.

  ACTION in film is to my mind the answer. I’m afraid film without fast action is for me nearly a non-film. To me it’s the whole point of the medium. I am very keen to do something on the pilgrimage theme myself – the idea of finding oneself in movement. Any ideas?346

  Must stop I fear.

  love Bruce

  On 2 November 1971 the Chatwins’ neighbour James Lees-Milne dined at Holwell Farm. Afterwards, he wrote in his diary of Chatwin: ‘What does this boy want? He is extremely restless. He hates living at Holwell, wants continuously to be on the move . . . He has finished his nomad book and I wonder how good it is. When the ‘or’ has worn off his ‘jeunesse’, how much substance will be left?’

  To John Kasmin

  Postcard, A Kirgis Woman in Pamir Making Curd | Holwell Farm | Wotton-under-Edge | Glos | 29 November 1971

  ‘Owing to constant dirt his clothing swarms with parasites which he amuses himself by killing in a most unceremonious way. It is a common sight to see an official of high rank open his sheepskin or kaftan wide open to catch an offending insect and execute him on the spot between his front teeth’

  Lt-Col Prejevalsky, Mongolia.

  Love Bruce

  Please may I BUY the Kotah drawing of an elephant all falling down? £80.

  To Joan Leigh Fermor

  Holwell Farm | Wotton-under-Edge | Glos | 30 November 1971

  Dear Joan,

  I agree with you. I think the collections of the Hermitage are worth the price (usually heavy) one has to pay to get to them. Being outside a tour is equally ghastly, because then you are not at the mercy of Russian hospitality. This entails drinking sessions till two in the morning which start up again at ten. Liver pains and Animal style are intertwined in my consciousness, though, to my credit I may boast, Professor Masson, the Head of the Leningrad Archaeological Academy, slumped under the table while I stood on it declaiming Shakespeare for the benefit of his sister.

  I do hope to see you in England. When do you come? Paddy [Leigh Fermor] I know is going to D[erek] Hill for New Year and we are supposed to be in Ireland for Christmas. But I have the most itchy feet and want to go to Niger – more nomads, the Bororo Peuls, the most beautiful people in the world who wander alone in the savannah with long-horned white cattle and have some rather startling habits like a complete sex-reversal at certain seasons of the year. So I may be off.

  I have finished my book, but am so heartily dissatisfied with it, I hope it won’t be published. I was brow-beaten by the publishers, who didn’t like the idea of Nomads in Central Asia, into something far too general. It’s turned out to be the great unwriteable. But there’s no point in letting it ruin one’s life.

  Would Paddy put me up for the Traveller’s Club? As I’m never really going to live in London it might be a convenient place to stay for a night or two in the week. I resigned from mine347 because it was full of backgammon playing freaks. Anyway, it’s an idea.

  Have made it up with Miranda [Rothschild]!348

  Love

  Bruce

  Late in 1971 Chatwin borrowed a 16mm camera from Robert Erskine, who, since their journey to Afghanistan, had become well-known on television presenting a series of on-location archaeological films, The Glory That Remains. Inspired by his discussions with Ivory, Chatwin planned to make a documentary about the market in Bermou, Niger.

  To Cary Welch

  Holwell Farm | Wotton-under-Edge | Glos | [Christmas, 1971]

  Dear C.

  Got your letter by sheer chance. I managed last week to wrangle a free ticket to the heart of blackest Africa, and should by now have been celebrating Christmas among the baobabs and bowerbirds. This was not to be. When I came to present my ticket, I found that it was stamped for January 1st and not before. So I am back at the farm rather disgruntled and listening to a Moroccan record of pipe music made by a new friend called Brion Gysin,349 who in turn is a friend of the dreaded Mr Burroughs. I am at my lowest ebb at the minute, but will probably recover once the voyage starts. I have been trying to decode from the
German a paper entitled Uber epilepti che Wanderzustande or the wandering mania.

  About the money for the Maori board. The trouble is that it is an essential ingredient towards buying this flat,350 and I can’t do without it. Otherwise all the complicated transactions I have with the bank to buy it will be fouled up unless I have it ready before completing the purchase. This does I fear mean NOW – BY RETURN! If you haven’t already put it in the post can you send it direct to my bank Lloyds Bank Ltd 23 Corporation Street, Birmingham 2, attention Mr Williams, marked for my Property Account. I calculate the sum to be 1482 dollars at the current rate of exchange. If it is on the way, will you let E. know by cable so that she can open the letter and pass it on. Sorry about this but it is as you see rather vital. I have had to raise all the money myself without asking for a sou from the USA side, because the last time I talked about it with them, they promised and promised and when it came to the crunch refused to lift a finger. Since when prices have doubled. I have sold literally everything I possess – which has also been very disheartening (not yr wedding present!).

  To Charles and Margharita Chatwin

  Agades | Niger | 29 January 1972

  Hope all went off OK with the flat, though I have to confess it all seems so remote to me here. I can’t understand why one has to live anywhere special at all. I have been looking again at nomads. Amazing group of cattle breeders called the Bororo Peuls who have no possessions, no houses, no tents even but follow their magnificent lyre-horned cattle about the bush. May go on from here through Nigeria to Lagos – thence by air to Cameroun and back mid-March. Much love Bruce

  To Elizabeth Chatwin

  Hotel de Rivoli | Niamey | Niger | [February 1972]

  Dear E,

  Cabled you from Agades but didn’t know if you ever had it. Asked you to ask Nigel Greenwood351 not to sell the feathers. Don’t know why I think it’s the one thing we should keep. Have just come back from the Mts of Aïr – camel journey of 10 days. Feeling very Beau Geste352 and have grown neat military moustache to match (am being horribly interrupted by a pair of delicious tarts in bonbons and bandanas armed with portraits of President Pompidou who left yesterday – my fault for sipping champagne on the sidewalk). Haven’t heard from Kasmin if he wants to go to Cameroun or not. I am tempted having £280 left. Will go up to Tahoua tomorrow to take the film of the market at Bermou. Most aesthetic market I’ve ever seen. Tuareg Bouzous Peulhs and Hausas, camels cattle that might have come from Egyptian tomb paintings etc

  Hoping you might have had the proofs of the History Today article353 to send to the above address, but if you cannot get them here by Feb 8 at the latest I think we better forget it till I get back.

  Have one marvellous story to write up354 – French colonial setting (for which reason a round of the bars and cabarets tonight).

  May go from here to Nigeria – Jos Ife Benin Lagos then to Cameroun up to Fort Lamy. Don’t yet know. It’d be hellish hot.

  Love B

  To Derek Hill

  Le campement, Tahora | Niger | [February 1971]

  Not a scrap of architecture except the famous mosque of Agades which is little more than a mud-pie. Everything here is made of mud or dom palm fibre. Still the French colonial/New-Independent-inspired-African-Republic manner is an endless source of fascination. Le Style Neo-Sodomite355 – Anarcho-Egyptian – Annamite-Pagoda – Cap Ferrat Mauresque – Functional Mud Hut moderne. Quite homogenous . . . I don’t think I shall travel any more. Have just had a very tiresome session with black drunk muslim racists and am in a highly chauvinistic frame of mind. Love Bruce

  To Elizabeth Chatwin

  Hotel de Rivoli | Niamey | Niger | 5 February 1972

  My Dear E.,

  Have just returned here after shooting the bloody film. God knows how it’ll be. I hated doing it – a blank day in my life. Can’t remember anything of it. All is a very spectacular market where the desert folks meet the settlers. Anyhow it’s worth a try, but I simply won’t lug around all that camera equipment in future without a car – and how I hate cars!

  Two things are new. I have started writing a long story – may even be a short novel. You know how I have an incurable fascination for French hotel/bordel keepers of a certain age in an ex-colonial situation. Well I’ve been in on a most amazing series of encounters with one in Tahoua. Even held the fort while she had a crise cardiaque after sleeping with a Togolese bandleader (L’Equipe Za-Za Bam-Bam et Ses Suprèmes Togolaises). Much better than writing a travel piece because one can lie.

  Second my moustache. It’s beginning to curl up at the edges in a raffish, almost Blimpish way. I have to confess it is highly chic and for the first time in my life I feel I have got away from that awful pretty boy look and can envisage the possibility of growing old – if not with dignity at least with a certain style.356 At the moment one might well have had a career in the movies in the age of Ronald Colman.357 It’s sort of d’Artagnanesque. The card was from Christopher [Gibbs] inviting me (in purplish prose) to stay in the pinnacled folly in the Ourika valley – I don’t know if I shall. I have now £200 left and all my air tickets. May very easily decide point blank to go through Dahomey, thence by boat to Douala and up through Fort Lamy.

  XXX Bruce PTO

  PS. Enclosed please find the AIRWAY BILL for a sack which I have sent air freight today. It contains in my rucksack at the bottom – the film which you should give to Robert [Erskine] as soon as possible + a whole lot of Sudanese cottons for my flat + the camera tripod (also for R.E) + some books + a box containing a number of highly precious possessions, including a dried chameleon and the eardrum of a lion.358 Guard this box very carefully for reasons which will be explained later. I thought it would be best if you cleared the package rather than R[obert] E[rskine]. You’ll need the car. Package went off today 7 Feb to Paris.

  XXX B

  PPS leave for Dahomey tonight.

  To Charles and Margharita Chatwin

  Postcard of Chatwin with moustache | Ouidah | Dahomey | [February 1972]

  This town, an old slaving port, is one of the most fascinating places I’ve ever been in. The architecture is Brazilian baroque and owes its character to the liberated slaves who returned to their African home – often exceedingly rich – and built up a sort of Creole aristocracy whose descendants still walk the streets. Latin-American Catholicism is all mixed up with Voodoo religion from both sides of the Atlantic. The upper crust of Ouidah are all direct descendants of a Portuguese who managed to extend the slave trade clandestinely forty years after it had in theory been abolished by the British. Fascinating material for a book.

  To Elizabeth Chatwin

  Hotel de Douala | Douala | Cameroun | 16 February 1972

  This place is something between Lausanne and a Turkish bath. Perfectly ghastly. Am on the hunt for a sculpture in the bush – one of the Bamileke dance masks of which four examples are known. Kasmin to whom I talked on the phone is sending some money. One or two other things to buy and I hope to recover the expenses of the trip. If I get the mask I shall probably fly back with it in a week or two xxx B

  Dahomey was absolutely fascinating with voodoo dances etc.

  To James Ivory

  Holwell Farm | Wotton-under-Edge | Glos | [March 1972]

  Dear Jim,

  So I’m back, never thinking to be back, and all the time I was in Africa having the guilty feeling of not having written you. Not having your address there was nothing I could do about it.

  I have a moustache. I am thinner. I am crazy about Africa and the Africans. There aren’t enough of them here yet. The thing I most miss here is the proximity of people. There one is quite used to a big mama with the fat rolling on her slapping you in the face with her tit as she humps it out to feed her infant. Here they recoil at the least touch.

  I am still writing the bloody book. I finished it once to my satisfaction, but not the publisher’s, and now I firmly believe it to be a load of humourless, egotistic, sententious rubbish. And I’ve
set it aside to write a little story about an old style-French whore who retreats into the desert to run a hotel, and then there’s another one about a young Hong Kong salesman of cheap cotton, who catches syphilis in Free Town and cannot return to his wife and newborn son. I’ve got to pick up better Chinese patter before this one will come off.

  I also made a short filum. Hated doing it I might say. People threw things at the camera when I pointed it at them. It’s about the markets in Niger, where trade is a sort of language which prevents people from cutting each other’s throats. I thought – and still do – that it’s far too amateurish to be of any use, but Vaughan Films are prepared to hack it into something, and then hawk it about the television companies.

  Cary and Edith [Welch] were here and I just caught them in Paris on my way back from Dahomey. Seemed in very good form. They were with that zombyish creature called David Becker. They also said you were coming to Europe, especially for the Cannes Festival. Will I see you?359 May even go to the Grand Banc with my writing for a bit.

  I do have a flat. A hideous one-room affair, shaped ‘in the form of a pompadour wafer’ to quote the estate agent. I bought it because the rents are so capricious. Its merit lies in its being on the 9th floor overlooking half London, and its position, just off the King’s Road. Can’t move in quite yet till the painters come. The address is L8 Sloane Avenue Mansions, London SW3. Am about to send a letter to an African boy, who has just written ‘I am very happy I have saved the money to write to you’, also hoping that I am well and strong enough to do my job.