Nick and Jake
Page 4
With no affection,
Margery Carraway
A NEW YORK JOURNAL
AMERICAN EXCLUSIVE
by DOROTHY KILGALLEN
February 22, 1953
STATE DEPT. PINKO, LITTLE RED THRUSH IN CONSPIRACY
This reporter has learned of a secret correspondence between “Little Red Thrush” Ronnie Gilbert and Nicholas Carraway, the State Department Commie recently unmasked by the McCarthy Committee. We have obtained a copy of a letter in which the Thrush tells Pinko Nicko, “If I were in Washington, I’d probably be tinkering with the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.”
From the desk of:
JOHN FOSTER DULLES
February 23, 1953
Mr. Carraway:
I expect your letter of resignation on my desk by 5:00 PM today.
John F. Dulles
Secretary of State
Nicholas Carraway
c/o YMCA
1711 Rhode Island Avenue NW
Washington, DC
Feb. 26
Dear Margery,
After all the catastrophic events of the last ten days, your bombshell is neither the most unexpected nor, if truth be told, the most wounding. If we are both honest, we’ll admit that this breakup has been a long time coming. Our marriage has been an abandoned battlefield for many years now.
I don’t think we need to quarrel over the division of spoils. I shan’t want much. I have enough clothes here in Washington. I’ve instructed Dick Daley to sort out the money and property and to make sure you have everything you need and want.
As for my “Little Red Thrush,” as you and the press and that idiot McCarthy delight in calling Miss Gilchrist, she is as innocent in all this as a songbird struck by a speeding train. The idea of my having had an affair with that young lady would be laughable if the effect of all this weren’t so tragic. She has, I would guess, less knowledge of sex than you do. That our conjugal life managed to produce a son proves, I think, the existence if not of Divine Miracles then at least of a Cosmic Sense of Humor.
My immediate plans are vague. I only know that they call for putting an ocean between me and the country that until a week ago I served without reservation. I still believe in this country, but at the moment the evidence suggests that it does not think much of me.
If you should have any reason to get in touch with me, you can write care of the Guarantee Trust Co. in Paris. I’m going to try to find Alden and see what I can do about making up for things.
A good marriage is a terrible thing to waste. Ours, however, is one the world will little note, nor long remember.
Yours, Nick
(ENCRYPTED AND DECODED)
(2/24)
FROM: IRVING KRISTOL
TO: ALLEN DULLES
DO WE NEED SOMEONE ELSE TO SHADOW BARNES? IT LOOKS AS THOUGH CARRAWAY’S OUT OF THEPICTURE. OR ARE YOU WORKING WITH MCCARTHY ONTHIS?
KRISTOL
(ENCRYPTED AND DECODED)
(2/25)
FROM: ALLEN DULLES
TO: IRVING KRISTOL
WORK WITH MCCARTHY? IT WOULD BE EASIER TO WORK WITH GARGANTUA. BUT MCCARTHY CAN BE A USEFUL IDIOT. HE’S DROPPED A GIFT INTO OUR LAP RE: OPERATION ELBA WITH THIS CARRAWAY BUSINESS. IT’S A PERFECT COVER FOR C. TO INGRATIATE HIMSELF WITH THE LEFTIES. RIGHT NOW HE’S FEELING LIKE A SAFE FELL ON HIM. WE’LL LET HIM LICK HIS WOUNDS ON HIS OWN, TO KEEP HIM CONVINCING, BEFORE WE BRING HIM IN AND BRIEF HIM. BUT HE’S A COMPANY MAN. HE’LL PLAY BALL.
DULLES
Ile de France
February 28
Somewhere at sea
Mr. Alden Carraway
C/o American Embassy
Paris
Dear Alden,
I’m sure you’ll have heard by now about your father and the McCarthy hearings. I still don’t understand it. You’d think a man who had served his country and his family with such conspicuous colorlessness would be spared the indignity of these wild accusations of love nests, Communist conspiracy, and high treason.
I’m on board the Ile de France, sailing for Paris. Right now I have an overwhelming need to get away, not just from Washington, but from everything familiar. It’s not so much that I am feeling the disgrace. For some curious reason that doesn’t seem to bother me as much as it should. Men I’ve known for years are suddenly crossing the street to avoid me, and somehow I find the uncrowded side of the street much more agreeable than I would have thought. I have more the sensation of going toward something than running away.
We’ll have a good talk when I see you, which I hope will be soon. I will be staying at the George V, and I hope to be able to buy you dinner and begin a long and very important process of making things right between us.
Your Loving Father
PS. Your mother and I have separated.
FROM: NICHOLAS CARRAWAY
ABOARD THE ILE DE FRANCE D T
TO: JACOB BARNES, PARIS HERALD TRIBUNE
3/3/53
ARRIVING PARIS THURSDAY UNDER CLOUD STOP IF STILL SPEAKING TO PARIAH CONTACT HOTEL GEORGE V
CARRAWAY
Alden Carraway
219 rue de Vaugirard
Paris 15th
3 March
Dear Mr. Barnes,
It has been a while since you’ve heard from me and had to deal with my submissions to Encounter. You were kind enough to take me seriously and give me some encouragement, and for that I’m very grateful.
I just wanted to let you know that I’m leaving Paris, and it will probably be a while before I try writing anything for publication again. I met an amazing guy at the Dome a couple of weeks ago, an American named Larry Darrell. I don’t know how to describe him to you--he was kind of bohemian in his dress, with a threadbare coat patched at the elbows, no hat or tie. His hair needed cutting, and he wore a full beard that showed signs of gray. But his smile was dazzling--white, even teeth, and dark eyes that seemed to start somewhere way back deep in his head. There was a look in those eyes that I can’t explain, except to say that you felt like they knew something, or very likely everything.
We got to talking. I told him I was a writer. He listened to me spout my ideas about politics and social inequality, and he didn’t say much, but I had the feeling that my words were being drawn into some profound and infinite space, as if he were not just hearing me but absorbing me into something universal. I know this will sound ridiculous to you, Mr. Barnes, but I was impressed and a bit unsettled. I realized that I was talking to someone who had actually been to the places I was only writing about. What did I know about the “Third World”? What was I doing, trying to tell anyone else about it?
We met again a few days later, and he told me a bit about himself, about how as a young man he had traveled to India and spent some time in an “ashram” there. He’d achieved something he called enlightenment, which I don’t begin to understand, but I can tell you that the effect it seems to have produced in him is something we all could use a bit of.
Anyway, I’ve decided to give up writing and Paris and political causes for the time being, and head East to see if I can find some of this enlightenment stuff for myself. I don’t know where exactly this search will take me, but I’ll try to keep in touch and let you know how I’m doing. Again, I appreciate all your help and belief in me.
Yours Truly,
Alden Carraway
PS. Apparently my father is coming to Paris.
That’s another reason I’m taking off.
Hotel George V
MESSAGE
EN VOTRE ABSENCE
Jake Barnes
1 rue de Fleurus
Paris 6, France
Dear Chris,
Carraway going, Carraway coming. Young Alden writes to tell me he’s chucking politics for enlightenment. He met up with Larry Darrell --you know, the chap who started Brett off on Eastern thought--and there went another young firebrand out to change the world. Perhaps it’s all for the best. Who the hell knows.
I’ve met Darrell. He’s good. He’s very good. And sometimes the damn world does seem vanity of vanities, like the prophet says. The wind goeth toward the south, and turneth again to the north. The King Barnes version of the Good Book--product of a misspent youth. It’s all horseshit, anyway--I don’t know whether I give a damn what people believe in--but it matters to me that people have the guts to stand guard in a lonely outpost of the maquis, or to keep secrets for strangers they’ll never see again. Who’s to say Alden’s wrong? But I keep punching anyway, against the bastards. Whoever they are.
Meanwhile, the father has arrived in Paris. Nick Carraway, who I told you about. Poor guy has had his belief system shot out from under him. The American Dream, Eisenhower edition, marginal notes by Tailgunner Joe McCarthy. I know how he feels, having been shot up a bit myself.
We’re a fuckingly complicated generation, Chris--ripped untimely from the womb of innocence and thrust into a meat grinder. Hard to imagine if you weren’t there. You’ve made a hell of an Odyssey, but going to Denmark was the smallest part of it. For us--me, Carraway, Darrell--leaving America was probably the biggest part. Those of us who never went back, it turns out we could never really leave it. Guys like Carraway who tried to go back, never really got there. It’s all tied up with Einstein and relativity--you can’t step in the same river twice. How’s that for irony and pity?
Je t’embrasse,
Jake
Ronnie Gilchrist
1337 Primrose Lane
Winnetka, Illinois
Mr. Nicholas Carraway
C/O Guarantee Trust Co., Paris, France
March 10, 1953
Dear Mr. Carraway,
First of all, I’m so sorry for everything that’s happened to you. I guess I just don’t understand what can be going on in America if a man like you is accused of being un-American. My mother says where there’s smoke there’s fire, and I keep trying to tell her that Senator McCarthy said some terrible things about me, too, but she just pretends she’s not listening. When I tell her that I lost my TV show because of it, she says that was all your fault. But I know that’s not true. I know you’re the finest man I ever met, and if America has turned its back on you, well, there must be something wrong with America, that’s all I can say.
So much has happened since I last wrote you, and some of it’s been exciting, but it’s all left me very confused. I’m not sure what to do, and I wondered if I could turn to you for advice. After I left Washington, and came back to Winnetka, I got a call from Mr. Irving Sheinbloom in New York!!!!! If you don’t know who he is, he’s a major figure in the Folk Music field! He wants me to come to New York and talk to him, he says he has some wonderful ideas for a new career for me. I told him that I was afraid no one wanted to hear so much as my name any more, but he said that in New York that would all be different.
I hope you don’t mind me writing to you, after all that’s happened. If you do, just tell me Ronnie, go away, and I’ll understand. I do feel so terrible knowing it was me who dragged your name into this. I hope you’re liking France. I would love to go to France or Europe one day.
Your Friend,
Ronnie Gilchrist
4/12/53
FROM: I. KRISTOL
ENCOUNTER MAGAZINE, NY
TO: LAWRENCE DARRELL
POSTE RESTANTE
LHASA, TIBET
DARRELL
HOW ARTICLE ON INDOCHINA COMING?
KRISTOL
4/12/53
FROM: LAWRENCE DARRELL
POSTE RESTANTE
LHASA, TIBET
TO: ALLEN DULLES
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
WASHINGTON, DC
DULLES-
MAY HAVE SOMEONE FOR YOU
DARRELL
Nicholas Carraway
Hotel de l’Odeon
14 March 1953
Dear Miss Gilchrist,
Please don’t think of trying to shoulder the blame for this sorry turn of events. I’m afraid your mother is right--if anyone is to blame, I am. It was my responsibility to protect you. Unfortunately, I couldn’t even help myself, so here we both are, orphans of the storm.
I’m glad to hear that you are finding some opportunities in the folk music field. You do want to be careful, though. I get the impression that real Communists do actually lurk behind the guitars and banjos of the “hootenanny” stage. Although, to be perfectly honest, I really know very little about the subject.
That seems to be my essential truth these days--I’m coming to realize that I know precious little about much of anything. When your country sucker punches you, it knocks you for a loop. I’m sure you feel that too, but in my case there is another quarter-century or so of accumulated beliefs and assumptions to eat, and it leaves a bitter taste in the mouth and a hollow pain in the belly.
(I had delusions of being a writer in my younger days, and you will notice the symptoms rising to the surface from time to time. I’ll do my best to contain them.)
So far I have had no luck in one of my objectives in coming to Paris, which was to patch things up with my son Alden. We had a falling out a few years ago, when he accused me of being a prig and stuck in the 19th century. I took offense at the time, but I’m starting to suspect he may have even given me the benefit of a century or two.
I have been here for a week now, and I’m already beginning to feel at home here in a way I never did in Washington. I’ve made a friend in Jake Barnes, a veteran American journalist who is the Bureau Chief for the Paris Herald Tribune. He’s easing my way into the expatriate community. He’s a wonderful guy, big and bearded and full of life. And he’s that rare bird, or rare in the circles I move in, a man with a conscience to match his intelligence. He actually sees the world in terms of right and wrong. You don’t get much of that in Washington. Or even in Chicago, come to think of it.
He warned me off the expensive luxury of the Hotel George V, and arranged my move to a little dive on the Left Bank where I’m now in residence. It’s an odd, narrow building that is said to date to the 16th century. I can well believe the plumbing hasn’t changed since then, and the room is not much bigger than a closet, but there is a little wrought-iron balcony overlooking a pleasant little courtyard, and the price is right. The food is great, the wine is cheap, and the coffee is so good they have a different word for it over here, “café.” But then they have a different word for everything. That’s the French for you. And there’s a bar called Harry’s where they know how to make a martini that can make a man forget McCarthy.
Please do keep writing, and let me know how you’re doing. I will feel much better about things if I know you’ve managed to land on your feet.
Yours Truly,
Nicholas Carraway
Ronnie Gilchrist
Martha Washington Hotel
New York City
March 19
Dear Mr. Carraway,
Thank you so much for responding to my letter. It means a lot to me that we can still be friends. And I just want to tell you that I LOVE the way you write, and if I could write like you do, that’s what I’d want to do all the time.
Well, to make a long story short, Mr. Sheinbloom was calling about The Weavers! Have you ever heard of them? They’re the folk music group Senator McCarthy was asking me about? They had that big hit song, “Goodnight Irene”? Anyway, he’s an executive at Decca Records, and he manages them or something. He said he’d seen a kinny (sp.?) of me playing the banjo on “Snicklepoo” and he wanted me to come and audition for them!!!!! He said he’d pay my way to New York. So I decided to come, I mean I couldn’t just sit around in Winnetka and listen to my mother.
Still, I was scared to death!!! Luckily I met this nice girl at the Martha Washington Hotel for Women, where I’m staying. Her name is Jackie Susann and she wants to be a writer, and she gave me a pill to calm my nerves. I’m not sure what it was, but it really helped when I went in to see Mr. Sheinbloom. He told me that Mr. Seeger, who is one of the
ones that started the group, might have to leave because of “trouble with the government,” and they might need a replacement. I said “But I’m a girl!”, and he just laughed and patted my knee and said he knew that--isn’t that funny? And he wanted me to come in and meet the Weavers the next day!
You’ll never guess who I got a call from that night!!!! Do you remember little Johnny Phillips, one of the Snicklekids on my very first show? He’s a teenager now, and I guess he’s in the mailroom or something at Decca Records. Anyway he’d heard about me auditioning for The Weavers, and he wanted me to show them some arrangements he’d been working on. He has all these ideas for four-part harmonies with two men and two girls. They’re a little weird, I guess, but they sounded really good to me, or maybe it was just those pills Jackie gave me. Johnny was so sweet, he said I’d been sort of like a mama to him, and I was a bit embarrassed, but I told him we all need mamas and papas.
Anyway, when I got into Mr. Sheinbloom’s office the next morning--that was this morning, it all just happened!--the Weavers were all there, except for Mr. Seeger. There was Mr. Lee Hays, who is this big teddy bear, so cute. And Ronnie Gilbert--she’s the one who has a name that sounds like mine, that made Senator McCarthy so mixed up. And there’s another one, they introduced me to him too, but I can’t remember his name now. I guess I was too nervous. I tried to show them Johnny’s arrangements, but Mr. Hays laughed and said they don’t read music! He told me to just sing some songs that I knew. So I sang “John Jacob Jingleheimer Smith,” and Mr. Hays joined in on the chorus, but the others didn’t seem to like it much. Then I tried “Hi, Said the Little Leatherwinged Bat,” and they all joined in on the “Howdy, dowdy” part! I thought it sounded really good, and Mr. Hays clapped when I played my banjo break!
Then I wanted to show them that I knew topical songs like they sang, so I did “The Ballad of Rodger Young.” It’s that wonderful sad song about a private in the infantry who “fought and died for the men he marched among.” When I finished, Miss Gilbert kind of stared at me, and the other man said he was going to go get some fresh air, and Mr. Hays took Mr. Sheinbloom aside, and Mr. S. told me to go back to the hotel and he’d talk to me later. When he called he said it wasn’t going to work out with The Weavers, but he’s invited me to come up to his apartment this weekend to work with me on some new material. He’s so nice!