Under the Sun: The Letters of Bruce Chatwin

by Nicholas Shakespeare

  B

  Better! Keep your fingers crossed.

  On 8 March 1988 Tom Maschler passed on to Maggie Traugott at Cape this note from Chatwin. ‘Bruce was, frankly, disappointed by your blurb for UTZ since he felt you did not really get to the heart and content of the book.’

  To Tom Maschler

  No idea of the illusionist city of Prague.

  No idea of the ‘private ’ world of Utz’s little figures was a strategy for blocking out the horrors of the 20th century; that the porcelains were real, the horrors so much flim-flam.

  No indication of the technique which allows the reader an insight into the fictional process (or how a storyteller sets about it).

  One of the principle themes of the book is that Old Europe survives.

  Marta epitomises the fact that the techniques of political indoctrination fail and are bound to fail.

  No idea that Utz identifies himself as Harlequin, the Trickster, and runs his own private commedia – outwitting everyone until, finally, he finds his Columbine

  No idea of the Jewish element. Utz is ¼ Jewish – or of the somewhat subversive notion that the collecting of images, ie art-collecting is inimical to Jahweh – which is why the Jews have always been so good at it.

  Art collecting = idol-worship = blasphemy against the created world of God.

  To Harriet Harvey-Wood

  Homer End | Ipsden | Oxford | 5 May 1988

  Dear Harriet Harvey-Wood,

  It’s no good. I’ve been in hospital on and off for 3 months a. with an ordinary stomach disorder of the tropics b. with undiagnosed malaria (temperature of 106°) caught on the famous trip to Ghana [in March 1987].

  I simply can’t face any engagements and have work to do.

  Yours sincerely,

  Bruce Chatwin

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  OXFORD AND FRANCE: 1988-9

  Since his return from Guadaloupe, Chatwin had been spending more time in the Churchill Hospital. Dr Juel-Jensen, who had retired in November, wrote in his last report that Chatwin’s P24 antigen was positive again. ‘I fear that all is not well.’ Chatwin’s new doctor, David Warrell, recorded that Bruce had explosive diarrhoea, no appetite and complained of pains in his spleen. On 12 March 1988 Chatwin was taken off Ketoconzacole. Two weeks later, the fungus returned with new virulence, this time for good. Seventeen months after the possibility was first raised, a skin biopsy indicated that the spots on his face were ‘highly suspicious’ of Kaposi’s sarcoma. On 29 April one of the specialists in the John Warin ward described Chatwin as a ‘very nice 47-year-old travel writer with AIDS.’ It had taken twenty months to establish once and for all what the clinic had initially suspected.

  The fungus infected his brain. Chatwin was suffering from a toxic brain syndrome which began to manifest itself in hypomania. It impaired his ability to think and act rationally, while sparing his verbal fluency and his ability to beguile. His non-stop talk, his grandiose schemes, his unrestrained buying sprees (which would require him to be sectioned), his wish to convert to the Greek Orthodox faith, his charitable trusts, threw those around him into turmoil.At the same time, his hypomania made him a concentrate of himself: someone funny, private, romantic, persuasive who believed fiercely in his own stories.

  To Gertrude Chanler

  Homer End | Ipsden | Oxford | 6 May 1988

  Dear Gertrude,

  I need your help. I’d prefer to tell you the details in person but I have indeed been hammered over the past two years and I hope I have been hammered by God. The fact is that I made the leap into Faith. Elizabeth and I have not had an easy marriage, but it survives everything because neither of us have loved anyone else. If ever I had a regret, it is that I could not have become a monk – an idea which kept occurring to me in the cauchemar of Sotheby’s. I’d explain to you one day why I could never join the Catholic Church,850 since I believe that the churches of the Eastern Rite are the True Church. I have recently learned that there is no contradiction between the Anglican and Orthodox. God willing, it seems possible that I could become a lay brother.

  This does not mean that I would cease to write. I have been gifted with the pen and will continue to the best of my ability. I have been doing very well. My income for this tax year from April the first is around $600,000.851 But I want none of it for myself. If I were alone in the world I would hope to give it away to the sick.

  I do have responsibilities: to Elizabeth, to my parents and to Hugh (whose instability since his motor accident has always worried me). I have devoted certain royalties to my charity, The Radcliffe Memorial Trust, which is run by the man who saved my life. But I must be prevented from giving too much away.

  It does seem that my inexplicable fever was malaria: the temperature returned to normal nine hours after taking anti-malarial pills. You can imagine what 3½ months of raging fever has done to the system. But I don’t regret a second of it.

  My grey matter functioned perfectly and I took a number of most rational decisions.

  I am entirely concerned with the matter of healing. There is no point in setting out to write a book about healing. If a book has to be born, it will be born. Nor is there any point to the enterprise unless one knows what to heal and how, and actually does the healing oneself – even if this means changing the bedpans of the terminally ill.

  I hope to divide my life into four parts: a. religious instruction b. learning about disease c. learning to heal d. the rest of the time free to give my undivided attention to Elizabeth and the house. A tall order, but with God’s help not impossible. There’s no point either in becoming a martyr. Because of my bronchial and circulation problems Elizabeth and I would have to spend most of the winter in a mild climate but I do not intend to buy a house.

  I cannot do this work if I am fettered to possessions. I have envied and grasped at possessions but they are very bad for me. I want to be free of them. I don’t want to land Elizabeth with extra burdens, but I do want to give her all I have in the form of a breakable trust with the proviso that it stay on this side of the Atlantic and the residue go to medicine. I shall make several presents to close friends and that will be that.

  She is not fully aware of this yet, and she would, of course, have to hand me out lumps of pocket money, for books, air fares, etc. I have never known the extent of her capital, but I believe I would increase her existing assets by at least twice if all mine were totted up.

  But you know how frugal she is. She said it is in her Iselin blood.852 She is retentive of possessions whereas I have always thought that by giving or dispersing, you attract more. The real difficulty is to get her to spend money on herself.853 Everything frivolous becomes an extravagance.

  I have been very worried that she is over-exhausting herself and might make herself ill: a. by the strain of looking after me (not easy!) b. by the house, the cooking and the garden. c. most exhausting of all by the sheep. She loves the sheep but, literally, they tear her apart. I think she needs a horse instead and stabling when she goes to India or with me to the sun. It’s wonderful riding country all around and the field is big enough for a horse and a donkey. There would be nothing better to unwind her than to ride a few miles each day. This will all cost money. I will give her all I have, but she still might hesitate. Can you help?

  Do show this to John [Chanler] or any priest. But I’d rather it doesn’t go any further.

  Bless you, Bruce

  John Chanler replied to Gertrude: ‘Ma, I have very carefully read Bruce’s letter twice . . . obviously some of it is a pure fantasy. His marriage to Lib is a fantasy. They don’t communicate on even a basic level. He should discuss his finances and she should discuss her finances together and Bruce should not put Lib’s financial situation in your head.

  ‘If he had this much income in 1987 then he is a rich man and can afford to support Lib and not make her feel guilty about spending money. She is so careful with her money because she never can be sure of getting any money from him. If they had a
true marriage it is not his money, or her money, but our money. It belongs to both of them.

  ‘I would suggest that your reply to Bruce is that you are happy that he has come to some conclusions but that you don’t feel comfortable in making any commitments or decisions without talking in person with both him and Lib in person together and now is not convenient.

  ‘The horse routine is not a real good idea at all.’

  To Gertrude Chanler

  Homer End | Ipsden | Oxford | 17 May 1988

  Dearest Gertrude,

  The horse!854 Obviously she has to be an Arab mare, not perhaps up to competition standard, but breedable. What I suggest is this, you and I go dutch on the purchase, the fence needed to prevent her getting in the garden, a prefabricated wooden stable, saddle etc. We also go dutch on her upkeep – with the proviso, if money matters go wrong (and if they don’t get rid of Mrs Thatcher we shall have a Labour government) there will be a ‘safety-net’ so that the horse doesn’t have to be sold for ‘economic reasons’.

  I get better by the day – although the neuropathy in my legs makes me very tottery. Yesterday, I went to the neurologist who said he could treat it right away, but with steroids – which is obviously out! The nerves should heal entirely within five years.855

  Fondest love, Bruce

  That summer, to the alarm of passers-by, a man in a wheelchair hurtled up the Burlington Arcade towards Piccadilly. It had begun to rain and across his lap he wore a cheap plastic mackintosh. The traffic was dense in Piccadilly, but this did not perturb him. He raised his arm and declared: ‘Stop all cars!’ Then he urged his companion, Kevin Volans, to push. ‘His mind was soaring,’ says Volans. ‘He was really enjoying himself.’

  Chatwin was on a shopping spree. Attached to his wheelchair clanked several plastic bags. These, hurriedly packed by astonished dealers in Cork Street and Bond Street, contained items of enormous value. A Bronze Age arm band for which he had written out a cheque for £65, 000; an Etruscan head worth £150, 000; a jade prehistoric English cutting knife; a flint Norwegian handaxe and an Aleutian Islands hat.

  On another outing, he crossed Duke Street and called at Artemis where Adrian Eales worked, a former Sotheby’s colleague who had bought Holwell Farm from Elizabeth. Chatwin specifically asked for an engraving, The Melancholy of Michaelangelo, by the sixteenth-century artist Giorgio Ghisi. By rare chance, Eales had the print in stock. The price: £20,000. Chatwin told him he was building a collection for Elizabeth. He was then wheeled to the Ritz where he had rented a room. During the afternoon more dealers were summoned to his bed. When he was finished, he turned to his friend Christopher Gibbs with an ebullient eye. ‘Tomorrow, musical instruments, women’s clothes and incunables!’

  To Gertrude Chanler

  Homer End | Ipsden | Oxford | 26 June 1988

  My dear Gertrude,

  Everything seems to be going to plan. You mustn’t worry about the horse because I am not going to consider the horse unless we have a full time groom. I am fairly certain we have the money for it.

  I have been buying your daughter the beginnings of an art collection which I hope will be wonderful.

  In New York we bought the wax model for Giovanni da Bologna’s Neptune856 which has to be one of the most beautiful small sculptures in existence. We are making arrangements to give it to the Bargello in Florence with the use of it in our life times. We also bought an incredible German drawing of the mid fifteenth century.857

  With lots of love Bruce

  As fast as he bought works of art, Chatwin started to shed possessions. Robin Lane Fox says, ‘I received through the post a hard brown A4 envelope with Bruce’s handwriting on it and inside four black and white photographs of Nuristan boys in trailing vine leaves. “Dear Robin, you will understand that these are what I want you most to have and remember.” ’

  Michael Ignatieff was sent a rare first edition of Isaac Babel’s Red Cavalry not long after making a visit to Homer End. Early in July 1988 Ignatieff wrote to thank Chatwin – ‘few books are more precious to me than that, and few friends more beloved than you. So I will always keep it on the topmost shelf of the heart and think of your absurd and loveable generosity.’ Ignatieff went on eloquently to express the concerns and fears which he shared with Chatwin’s family and friends. ‘I came away from my visit with you full of dark and strange thoughts. You seemed in a realm of exultation – extreme physical dilapidation seems to have sent you shooting up into the sky with the angels. And your talk – adorable as always – was as wild as I’ve ever heard it: vows of purity, orthodoxy, crofts in the Shetlands, the art of the sublime, and the UR virus all contending, barging each other aside in your speech. Over it all hung an unmistakeable air of Nunc Dimittis, cheerful, joyous even, but hard to bear for those of us who would much rather prefer for you to remain with us a bit longer instead of ascending into the smoke or the monk’s cell. Even harder to bear was some feeling – forgive me if I’m wrong – that you are in the grips of something, mastered by something, a fever, a conversion, an intoxication, I don’t know what to call it, that is forcing its pace on you, forcing you to accelerate, to struggle breathlessly behind it, chucking away your life behind you as you pursue it. Over everything you said there was the image of Time running, running, and you at your wit’s end to catch up.

  ‘It’s quite possible that you experience this apparent frenzy from inside some deep calm, some serenity that I heard in your music from the savannas. But those who love you – and see only the outside – see someone haunted and in breathless pursuit.

  ‘I’m not sure it is among the offices of friendship to convey my sense of foreboding & disquiet at how I saw you. I may just be expressing a friend’s regret at losing you to a great wave of conviction, to some gust of certainty, that leaves me here, rooted to the spot, and you carried far away. In which case, I can only wave you onto your journey.’

  To the Editor of the London Review of Books

  Oxford Team for Research into Infectious Tropical Diseases, Oxford University | 7 July 1988

  Aids Panic

  In a review of three American books, And the band played on, Crisis: Heterosexual Behaviour in the Age of Aids and The Forbidden Zone, Mr John Ryle (LRB, 19 May) begins: ‘There is no good news about Aids. With a total of 85,000 cases reported at the beginning of this year the World Health Organisation estimate of the true figure is nearer 150,000. Their global estimate for HIV infection is between five and ten million. Most HIV-POSITIVE individuals have no symptoms and don’t know they are infected: but the majority of them – possibly all of them – will eventually develop Aids and die; in the meantime, of course, they may infect anyone they have sex with and any children they bear.’ This is hogwash. The word ‘Aids’ is one of the cruellest and silliest neologisms of our time. ‘Aid’ means help, succour, comfort – yet with a hissing sibilant tacked onto the end it becomes a nightmare. It should never be used in front of patients. HIV (Human Immuno-Deficiency Virus) is a perfectly easy name to live with. ‘Aids’ causes panic and despair and has probably done something to facilitate the spread of the disease. In France, not even M. Le Pen could do much with le Sida. He had a go, but was made to look completely ridiculous. HIV is not some gay Gotterdammerung: it is another African virus, a very dangerous one, presenting the greatest challenge to medicine since tuberculosis, but one for which a cure will be found. Any virus, be it chicken-pox, mumps or HIV, will create a kind of mirror image of itself known as an ‘antibody’ which in time will stabilise the infected person. That should be the pattern. But HIV is a very slippery customer. There is no positive evidence of antibodies at work, only negative evidence that a great many infected people are alive. In one case in the US an infected person suddenly became HIV negative. We should, in fact, take Mr Ryle’s own figures. There have been 800,000 infected persons in the United States, of whom 80,000 have died. That means nine survivors to one death. This can mean only one thing: that some mechanism, pharmaceutical or otherwise, is keep
ing them alive.

  One point cannot be emphasised too strongly. An infected person must never use anyone else’s toothbrush or an electric razor. We all have gingivitis from time to time.

  What is most horrifying about Mr Ryle’s article is the callous cruelty with which he condemns hundreds of thousands of people to death. If a young man who has just been told that he is HIV positive got hold of the article, the chances are he might commit suicide. There have been many such cases.

  Bruce Chatwin

  To Kath Strehlow

  Dedication written in The Songlines on Strehlow’s visit to Homer End, 9 July 1988

  For Kath with love beyond the grave, Bruce.

  To Harry Marshall858

  Dictated by Bruce Chatwin | Homer End | Ipsden | Oxford | 25 July [1988]

  Dear Harry,

  Since we met my life’s taken a number of zig-zag directions. I’ve had malaria anaemia semi paralysis of the hands and feet – all now better but I’m still a wheelchair case.

  On the intellectual front I’ve been collecting Russian icons, trying to arrange to become an Orthodox Priest859 & have evolved certain notions about virology which I’m told by the professors will transform their discipline. Anyway I’m an Oxford don & member of the team for research into tropical medicine.

  This means that any TV appearances are out at present, but in the autumn we might reconsider outside the framework of Peter’s series. I promise to give you an exclusive. Best, Bruce