by Deirdre Bair
A significant change happened as the friendship deepened, when it became triangular rather than square. Ugo often traveled for his job as a reporter for the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, leaving Elizabeth in charge of entertaining the foreign friends who passed through New York whether he was there or not. As trusted friends, Saul and Hedda were often invited, and as friends do, they helped with the rituals of entertaining—serving drinks, preparing food, and staying afterward to help clean up and offer postmortems on the other guests. As the relationship among the three intensified, it was enlarged naturally to include Elizabeth’s children—first her infant son, Alexander, and later his older sister, Lucy.
Always before Saul had been irritated by the presence of very young children. His attitude gradually changed when he became fascinated with watching how charming Claire, Ruth and Tino Nivola’s daughter, became as she developed from a toddler into a bright and alert little girl. He was so smitten with her that he nicknamed her Chiaretta and showered her with special drawings and toys. One of his gifts was a very personal book he called an ABCedarian, which he told Aldo was his way to “avoid or postpone more urgent things … work without responsibility.” He was “enjoying it a lot” as he illustrated every letter of the alphabet with a special meaning that was in many cases known only to him. He reserved the letter E for Elizabeth Stille, with whom he had become so deeply infatuated that he was certain he was in love for the first time. Steinberg drew Elizabeth’s E as a swan that filled the midsection of the page. At the bottom, for reasons known only to him and her, he wrote the names Chiaromonte, Pollock, and Le Corbusier.
Elizabeth Stille had been born Elizabeth Bogert and had grown up in Chicago, where her father was a professor of law. She attended Cornell and joined a sorority, concentrating more on fraternity parties than on studying until her mother, who was otherwise a traditional housewife, “yanked her out of Cornell and made her go to a new school in Chicago, a reconstituted Bauhaus under Moholy-Nagy, unproven and unconventional.” This New Bauhaus, as it was originally called, became the Institute of Design, and it not only brought the world of European intellectuals into the life of the young midwestern sorority girl, it also changed her life entirely. She studied painting with Bob Wolfe, a married instructor who fell so deeply in love with her that he left his wife to marry her. They moved to New York, eager to live the life of starving artists, but the marriage did not last after Elizabeth met Ugo Stille, whom she married in 1948 and to whom she remained married until her death in 1993.
When Saul and Hedda became enmeshed in what Hedda called, many years later, “the Elizabethan triangle,” their marriage had already weathered too many of Saul’s infatuations, affairs, and flings to count. Their friends tried not to notice at parties and receptions when Hedda stood at one end of the room suffused with shame and deliberately ignoring Saul, who was deeply engrossed in persuasive seduction at the other end of it. These were the years when Hedda woke up every day with “the terror that grips the shoulders…the promise of a new day of torture, disaster, humiliation.” But she was a stoic who accepted that she could not change her husband’s philandering ways, and she consoled herself that no matter how often he strayed, she was his rock and his anchor and he would always come back to her. This was true until he met Elizabeth Stille, and by late summer 1957 he had told Hedda that he was in love with Elizabeth and they would have to find some way to resolve how they lived so that it would include his being with Elizabeth and her children.
His proposal was that he and Elizabeth should be permitted to be together as a couple, but that this would happen while they remained within their separate marriages. Hedda had come to love the infant Sandro (as Alexander was called), so Saul saw no reason that their triangle could not be enlarged from three to four (and, after Lucy’s birth, five). He was convinced that a ménage à cinq was not only a possibility but one that could become a happy reality. Hedda was stunned, but there was no time to digest his alarming proposal, let alone respond to it. In late August they received word that the Romanian government had finally processed the documents that would permit Lica and her family to leave, and he had to drop everything to go to meet them.
THE NEWS THAT THE ROMAN FAMILY was permitted to leave came as a total surprise to everyone, even the principals. Steinberg had given up hope after he asked Alexander Lindey to add his contacts to the host of influential people he had been importuning over the years and to do what he could to get them out. Lindey did so, and reported back in February 1957 that no one in the government could help because no exit visas were being granted by any of the Iron Curtain countries, and the Roman family could only leave if they “managed to slip out…without authorization.” Steinberg resigned himself to sending more packages than usual and hoping they would get through.
On August 20, Moritz and Rosa wrote that Rica, Lica’s husband, had been called into an official office and told he had been approved for departure on an unnamed date and to an unnamed destination. As this had happened so many times before, Saul did nothing. A telegram from his parents jolted him into action on August 26: “They leave on September 1st through Vienna Genoa. They want to come to France. We beg you to facilitate.” He was ready to fly to Europe, but the question was, to which city? He asked advice from everyone he could think of, starting in diplomatic circles with the American, French, and Italian embassies and consulates. They all told him to go to Genoa, because Vienna was merely the transfer point for Romanian refugees, who would be shuttled onto other trains as soon as the train arrived because the Austrian government did not permit them to stay in the country, no matter how briefly. No one knew for sure, but it was assumed that the Roman family had to go to Israel and had been directed to sail there from Genoa. Steinberg decided to fly to Genoa but was too nervous to wait for them, and as he had friends working on their behalf in Milan, he decided to go there to see what they had accomplished. Ernesto Rogers, “through an exchange of favors” with the French consul, secured a temporary French visa so Lica could have a brief reunion with her parents and introduce them to the grandchildren, especially Daniela, whom they had never seen.
By September 8, with a temporary visa valid only until the sixteenth, the Roman family was still in Bucharest while Steinberg fidgeted in Milan. The eighth was also Saturday and all the official offices were closed until Monday, but he still spent the weekend making “hundreds” of phone calls and sending cables to anyone he could think of who might prove helpful. In Nice, his parents were “frantic,” and while he was bombarding officials and friends with telegrams and phone calls, they were doing the same to him. He decided he had to do something, so he flew to Vienna after he sent wires to the station master at the main bahnhof, the International Refugee Committee, and the American consul, telling them all that he was on his way the next morning. Late that night his parents sent a telegram saying that everyone had arrived in Vienna and would be sent directly to Nice the next day. Shortly after, a telegram came from the Vienna station master saying that Ilie Roman and his wife and two children had arrived at 7:40 a.m. and would leave shortly by train for Genoa. More confusion ensued until phone calls to Vienna assured Steinberg that they would indeed board the train for Genoa. He left immediately and booked rooms there for them and himself in a quiet and genteel hotel where they could decompress for a day before going on to Nice.
IT WAS A DIFFICULT REUNION WHEN Saul saw Lica for the first time in so many years, as if they were strangers being suddenly forced into a false intimacy. Theirs was a childhood relationship forged twenty-five years before, and since then he had all but forgotten how close they had been. Still, he felt “a duty, a responsibility,” to take care of her and her family. Lica was haggard and thin, and to his surprise showed “a great desire to be alone.” Rica seemed “all right,” but at forty-nine, he was “not a strong or tough man,” and he suffered from high blood pressure. Saul didn’t know what to make of his nephew and niece, whom he called “the boy” and “the girl.” Stéphane
was eleven, “tall for his age, intelligent eyes” and Daniela (called Dana) was “still too small and too Romanian.” He was surprised when they both occasionally overcame their silence, fear, and exhaustion and behaved like normal children, at which times he called them “savages, but not bad.” It took a few days, but he got along well with everyone and they “got to be friends again.”
Steinberg still had trouble believing that their documents were in legal order, so before he tried to take them across the border to France, he asked to see them to make sure everything was as it should be. He was distressed to find only a “Romanian and Russian piece of paper” that gave them a visa to Israel, with no mention of the temporary stay in France. He hid his concern, left them in the hotel with instructions to rest, eat, and watch television, and rushed to a Jewish agency that handled the steady stream of refugees that passed through Genoa. The agency personnel told him that the Roman family needed “a so-called passport” which the agency could not release, so they should simply board the train to Nice, which they did. One meeting after another with various bureaucrats in Nice failed to resolve the stalemate over how long they could stay in France. “It looks like Israel is the only solution,” he told Hedda glumly.
In Nice, “too many things” were going on, particularly Rosa’s euphoric hysteria over seeing her daughter after so many years. Saul wanted to get away from the family drama as much as from the problems the Roman family had unwittingly caused. He was convinced they would be allowed to stay in France, even if only for a few months, and to get them away from Rosa, he found several apartments for them, but they were stunned by the possibility of making choices, which they had never had to do in Romania. As they were unable to decide, Saul chose one and helped them move. He told them where and how to enroll the children in school but ended up doing most of the work himself. He transferred a sizable amount of money to the account he had set up in the American Express Bank in Nice for his parents and added Ilie Roman’s name as someone authorized to withdraw funds from it. As soon as he got to New York he planned to arrange for an increase in the stipend so it would cover four additional dependents, which made him worry about finding enough income to replenish the account every month. When he thought he had done all he could to get the family settled, he made tentative reservations to fly to New York on September 17, but one problem after another kept arising and so he had to stay on until the twenty-fourth.
He was in New York on September 25, 1957, when Moritz wrote to send greetings for Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. It was a great relief to learn that Rica had withdrawn money from the account without incident, the Roman family was settled in the apartment, and the children were enrolled in a French school that they liked. Moritz told Saul that Rosa was “on cloud nine” when they came to her apartment every evening to watch television, and he blessed his son for everything he had done for them. But despite her happiness at seeing her daughter, Rosa was still Rosa, and she had complaints: the children were “very cute but also too energetic and spoiled.” Lica was too thin, and Rosa was upset that she did not look like the “princesses in [Paris] Match.” Only Stéphane passed Rosa’s muster, but the six-year-old Dana was a “scoundrel” who made too much noise and caused too much confusion. Lica’s interpretation of the family dynamic was more soothing, as she told Saul and Hedda that “the different generations are beginning to get along.” That was before everything shifted, when, on top of their unhappiness over having to become French, they became too expensive to support.
Once Saul added up all the costs involved in supporting six dependents in France, he told Rica to begin the process that would allow them (Rosa and Moritz included) to enter the United States as permanent residents. Rica was a lawyer trained to navigate bureaucratic byways, so he knew that he had first to secure an “extension of stay in France” before the long process of immigrating to the United States could happen. Also, less than a month after their arrival in France, the Roman family became unhappy with living there. On their own they made significant changes. The original apartment was too dark and noisy, so Rica found another because Lica had caught a cold and was too sick to get out of bed. Rosa’s attempt to be helpful was more obstructive than usual; in trying to cure Lica, she made herself sick with various aches and pains and had to take to her bed, which meant that the still-sick Lica had to get up to minister to her mother. The move to the new apartment meant the children had to attend a new school, which Stéphane accepted but which upset Dana, gave her headaches, and made her “antagonistic.” Lica and Rica found French too confusing after many years of speaking only Romanian, so they decided to learn English instead, in preparation for either the United States or Israel, which they still considered a viable possibility, much to Saul’s consternation.
They did, however, follow his directive to go to the American consulate for the medical examinations that would set in motion the long, involved paperwork process that might allow them to immigrate, and to the prefect of Nice, who needed to grant an extension of their stay in France until the American application was resolved. They dutifully began the process of swearing affidavits and gathering documents that would explain that they had never been members of the Communist Party, that Rica had been held in a Romanian detainee camp for continuing to practice law after Jews had been forbidden to do so, and that he had otherwise been a model citizen who would uphold the laws of the United States if he were permitted to live there.
All of this spurred Steinberg into action, starting with a visit to the Hallmark headquarters in Kansas City to negotiate new and more lucrative contracts. He resented having to put on “a good act as an artist according to the notions of the idiots” in a city he so disliked that he used one of his favorite expressions to disparage it, saying it smelled like Gogol’s nose. At the same time, more letters asking for help came from relatives in Israel, and Ada chose this moment to hint that she too could use a little money.
AT HOME, THINGS WERE CALM BECAUSE Hedda refused to address Saul’s obsession with Elizabeth Stille and also because he was unable to talk about it or decide what he wanted to do. It was actually a relief to be able to postpone thinking about it or coming to a decision after the United States government invited him to accept a prestigious commission to design a 100-meter mural for the 1958 World’s Fair in Brussels.
“I’m in trouble,” he told Aldo after he accepted it, as he lapsed into Spanish to say he would have to use his cabeza and think. His assigned subject was “people in the U.S.” In 1957, long before the term came to be accepted popular use, he described the most important problem the creation of the mural would raise: “How do you draw the blacks?”
CHAPTER 22
A BITING SATIRE OF AMERICAN LIFE
If my life, or yours or others were translated into architecture, who knows what incredible constructions, lack of logic, waste of materials, miraculous equilibrium, wrong locations.
The official invitation to create a mural for the American Pavilion at the 1958 Brussels World’s Fair came from the State Department, but Steinberg’s good friend Bernard Rudofsky had a great deal to do with his selection. Rudofsky was the chief designer for all of the United States’ cultural exhibits, and his charge was to tell “the American Story” within the general framework of the fair’s theme, “A New Humanism.” Rudofsky was looking for “exhibition design with a sting,” one that “pricks our complacency…[and] puts doubts into our heads.” He wanted the exhibits to be controversial, and he was confident that Steinberg was just the man to help him fulfill his desire. Rudofsky got more than he bargained for when reactions to the exhibits ranged from bewilderment and confusion to anger and accusations of sabotage from American visitors who could not recognize themselves or their way of life. President Eisenhower was so disturbed by the controversy that he sent an envoy to investigate.
The American Pavilion was a domed building with an adjacent annex, both designed by Edward Durrell Stone. Leo Lionni, a friend of Rudofsky and Steinberg, had an ex
hibition in the annex entitled “America’s Unfinished Business” that featured the controversial desegregation of schools in Little Rock, Arkansas. It was too controversial for the government and also for visitors and was shut down within days of the fair’s opening. Although Steinberg had intended to portray “blacks” in his mural and worried about how to do it, he ended up by not including any, thus avoiding being drawn into the political controversy. His charge was to cover five freestanding walls that contained eight panels of various widths but all a uniform ten feet high, with the entire length totaling about 260 feet. He undertook the commission with the highest seriousness and concentration, poring over the sketchbooks he had made on his numerous cross-country trips to find the eight to ten themes that he thought best represented America. Before he began to arrange old drawings or make new ones, he studied techniques to find which one would work best, and he made a series of notes about his overall intentions.
As he promised himself to do after the 1954 labirinto mural in Milan, he had worked on perfecting the technique of sgraffito in the 71st Street basement, and he felt confident about adding it to the other techniques he planned to use in Brussels. He finished fifteen pen-and-ink drawings, which were then photographed and enlarged to the sizes they would fill on the walls before brown-paper cutouts were made of most of them. His overall plan was to create composites that would show the vast variety of American life and landscape to curious Europeans. Some of the titles he settled on were “The Road,” “Main Street—Small Town,” “Downtown—Big City,” “Farmers,” “Drugstore,” “Cocktail Party, and the all-American pastime, “Baseball.” Because Europeans were fascinated by California and Texas, he included scenes from those two states and threw in Florida as well.