Life was looking very sweet and I didn’t want to make any more literary experiments for a while. Back in Denmark I started another action adventure, titled Plague from Space. By this time Seldes was gone and there was another new SF editor at Doubleday. Larry Ashmead had taken over while Bill, the Galactic Hero was still in production. He had enjoyed the book and was nice enough to tell me so, and he bought Plague as well. A long publishing and personal relationship began. Unhappily John Campbell did not purchase the serial rights. Though Science Fantasy in England did, at a much lower rate of course—thus the joys of freelance.
Sometime after it was published I got a horrified letter from Larry saying that some new writer had stolen my plot outright and had written a book called The Andromeda Strain and would I sue? Never litigious, I said no. Of course as the years passed I rather wished that it had been my original book that had been made into a film; but that is life.
We moved home twice in Denmark, first to Rungsted Kyst where Karen Blixen was our neighbor, although we never met her. Then the final move north almost to Elsinore, to the little fishing village of Snekkersten, or “ship stone” in Danish. The story was told that ships used to take on ballast at the harbor here. Our house was on Rortangsvej, “pipewrench street”—but the name had no history that we could discover.
Life was very peaceful and satisfactory in Snekkersten. Moira was going to nursery school in Helsingør and Todd attended the primary school just up the street. The family had grown too large for the faithful Anglia, particularly since we wanted to take a Danish babysitter with us on our summer trips south. With great reluctance I traded the still-functioning Anglia in on a Volkswagen bus. This had been a Copenhagen taxi and the tiny engine was reaching the end of its working life. The flimsy engines in these primitive vehicles weren’t worth repairing; you simply traded a clapped-out engine in for a rebuilt one. The VW van—called a rugbrød by the Danes, because it was shaped like a cubical rye bread—was primitive and basic beyond belief. It had no gas gauge. When the engine spluttered and died you knew the tank was empty. Before the moving vehicle lost way you groped for a handle and pulled up on it, opening an auxiliary five-liter fuel tank. If you were lucky the thing coughed back to life and you looked for a filling station.
We tore out the old seats and rebuilt the interior as a camper. There were bench seats and a table, while Joan cooked on the ledge over the rear engine, on a Primus stove, when the back door was opened. At night everything was rearranged as a large bed, big enough for three, with a bunk for Todd above.
Life was very peaceful and satisfactory in Snekkersten. With growing children the benefits of socialized medicine have to be lived with to be believed. We were quite happy here and settled in well. After our first year in Denmark we were all bilingual, but talked Danish most of the time because Todd and Moira usually had their friends in the house. We had settled in nicely and the writing was going smoothly and selling fine. A novel a year, some short stories, an anthology or two—and of course the weekly Flash Gordon strips. This steady output meant that we actually had a bit of money in the bank, so it became possible that we could budget a summer holiday. Europe was at our door and we wanted to see more of it. By the summer of 1962 Todd was six and Moira three and a half—a good age to start traveling.
We started out on a not-too-ambitious first day for a shakedown trip. Across the island of Sjaelland to the Storbaelt ferry to Jutland, the northern, Danish part of the peninsula, to a grassy campsite. After a good meal at the campsite restaurant and a night’s sleep we were prepared to see the rest of Europe.
Neither Joan nor I were happy at the thought of spending a night in Germany. So after an early start we headed south across the German border, had lunch in the camper, and well before dark were across the border and into Holland for the first time, heading for a campsite.
It was wonderful country—and very much like Denmark. There was a grassy field to park in, spotless toilets and showers, a cheap and very good restaurant. Camping was a very middle-class form of holiday at this time, mostly in tents of various sizes and grandeur.
Now the years of speaking Esperanto were paying off. The yearbook, the Jarlibro, listed clubs and facilities in every country. In Paris, on Ile de la Cite, we stayed at the Pension Esperanto. It was one room thick and seven stories high; good for the legs. A good French breakfast included—in Esperanto of course. (Bonan tagon sinjoro—ĉu vi havas kafon kaj kreskanta? “Good day, sir—will you have coffee and croissants?”) Very civilized.
After Paris a leisurely camping journey across France was followed by a frightening trip from Switzerland to Italy by train. The underpowered VW made slow going through mountain passes, churning away in low gear most of the time. When I discovered a car-rail link I thought I was onto a good thing. I wasn’t. We drove the bus onto a flat car and the wheels were chained into place. There were no passenger coaches on the train—we had to stay in the car! Rattling and swaying we passed through the pitch-dark tunnel and were occasionally doused by water leaking through the stone ceiling. We were very glad when sunlight and Italy opened out before us. Never again would we subject ourselves to this tunnel torture.
Reaching Italy was like coming home. We were speaking Italian again and basking in the warmth of the country and the people. Italians are mad for children, and captivated by picole bionde—little blondes—which both kids were. When we entered a restaurant they would be swept up and carried into the kitchen. They were sat onto a table and fed bits of food like baby birds. We poured a glass of vino locale and relaxed.
During the previous few months I had been in correspondence with the Ravenna Esperanto Club. I was going to speak to the group—the first American to have visited them. They had even found a most reasonable month’s summer rental for us. It was near the beach at a very good price. I spoke to the group, made new friends, and enjoyed the hospitality and home cooking. The small house we occupied was owned by a widow who rented it out during the summer—and moved into her garage until autumn.
We settled into an easy routine. Joan and the kids would spend the morning on the beach while I hammered out Flash Gordon scripts on the portable. They returned for lunch and, if I had done my quota of work, we would all enjoy the sun and sand for the afternoon. We would shop for the makings for dinner on the way back and an early night after a long day. These summer trips across Europe—ending up in Italy—became a happy annual event. The work went well—we actually had money in the bank for a change. The children were happy in school and out of it. We were well settled into Denmark.
Perhaps that was the problem, the nagging feeling that something was not quite right.
12
There was one trip to Italy that I was actually paid to take. Life has few riches as fine as this one. It seems that the Italian Tourist Office had decided to hold a film festival, to encourage the summer tourists to come to Italy for their holidays. As usual there were science fiction enthusiasts working away in the background. Anyone can throw a plain old film festival. So why not beat the ordinary and have an international festival of science fiction films? And hold it in Trieste, since, frankly, there is little else to attract tourists to that international city at the top of the Adriatic. The thinking was that, since there was nothing else like this on the world scene, all the countries would be happy to contribute films to this showcase for free. As a further temptation, some big-name SF pros would be invited as judges—and getting them would be the only expense that would be needed to get this festival off the ground.
The invite was like gold. A week in the best hotel—with all expenses paid. What could be bad?! (The films were; but that could be suffered through.) And, with infinite wisdom the sponsors had also invited two old mates, Brian Aldiss and Kingsley Amis, to be judges as well. Not only that—my entire family was included in the invite.
We drove from Denmark across Europe in our decaying VW camper. It was a dusty VW that drew up at the luxurious entrance of the Grand Hotel de la Ville,
but a client was a client. The porters whisked our bags into the hotel and a driver took the car to the garage. Joan and the kids went to have a restorative drink in the lobby bar, while I did all the passport and ID paperwork so dear to the Italian heart. Then to the room! In reality, it was a suite, with a Mussolini balcony where one could give speeches to the masses. Our bags were there ahead of us so Joan unpacked and we settled in. I rang room service for more drinks and some sandwiches, and signed for them. I was running a tab with all expenses paid. Luxury!
Brian and Margaret Aldiss arrived later that afternoon with Kingsley and Hilly Amis soon after. We all joined in the lobby bar then went in for an early dinner in the hotel restaurant, which proved to be a first-class Italian meal. There was an impressive wine list that we did great damage to. The judges had to attend the opening ceremony that evening; the ladies opted out, sensing correctly that the Italian ceremonies would be long and boring.
The festival formally opened in the Castle San Giusto, in the Roman theater in the castle grounds. The sky was clear and it was a pleasantly warm Italian evening. The introductions were boring, but boredom was alleviated as the moon rose over the battlements—it was in partial eclipse.
The opening film began and, it can be said, this put a bit of a damper on the occasion. It was The Man with the X-Ray Eyes. A Roger Corman film starring Ray Milland. Now Roger has made some notable films, but most tend to be low-budget potboilers. Ray Milland must surely have made some memorable films—but they are now remembered only by film buffs. I am forced to say that this film was less than memorable. Since we were judges we lived through it, making scurrilous comments to ease the pain. We had had plenty of wine with dinner, which fueled what we thought were humorous remarks.
All would have been well, and normally we would have found the hotel bar and the ladies. But the lights came up and there, sitting just in front of us and well within easy earshot were—yes, fate’s cruel design—Roger Corman and Ray Milland. Much shrunken we crawled out and headed for safety. I regret to say penance was not done. By hindsight it was just too funny. And it was a really bad film.
After that first night we attended special advance screenings of the films for the judges, held in the mornings. This worked fine because we then had the afternoons free. So we all decided to do a little exploring. We visited the market and museums, and the aquarium with its leaking tanks, where the children grabbed the tail of the long-suffering resident penguin, Marco. The city of Trieste is tucked away right at the top of the Adriatic Sea and is less than a mile from Yugoslavia. None of us had visited that country—which became suddenly possible when we discovered that we could make a day trip by simply showing our passports.
A trip was planned for the next day. Since we would be missing our midday meal at the hotel, Joan had the hotel prepare a picnic luncheon. We were off as soon as the morning films ended. Notching up one more country on the VW’s record. A quick look-in at the border, stamps in the passports, and we rolled into Yugoslavia.
It was pleasantly rural and undeveloped, a rocky countryside with small farms. The one we saw was being tilled by a one-horse plow. Foreign tourists were still a rarity in those days and we felt like explorers in a new world. We stopped at a gas station to buy a map and it was a pleasant surprise to discover that everyone spoke Italian, which made it easy to make special arrangements when we stopped at a country hotel with a restaurant garden. We were the only customers there and they were only too happy to please. They brought out the menu—unhappily in Serbo-Croatian. We did not want to experiment with some dodgy food—not with the fine Italian lunch waiting in the basket in the car.
“Strike a deal, Harry,” Brian said. “Tell him we’ll buy plenty of drink if we can use his garden for our picnic.”
“I second that,” Kingers added.
A deal was struck. I didn’t have to exaggerate the amount of drink we would need and the waiter—probably the owner—hurried away. He was back soon enough with a first drink course, a pitcher of slivovitz. It was the size of a water pitcher and cost about what water would cost in a restaurant back home. There was red and white wine, a beer or two, and imitation Coca-Cola for the kids, called tsokta-tsokta.
Then there was the packed lunch—which proved to be more than a simple picnic lunch. There was pâté and caviar, a whole roast chicken, three kinds of salad, a variety of cold meat, pasta salad and rolls, giant black olives and assorted pickles.
It was paradisiacal. All of the food, and a good deal of the drink vanished. Then it was late afternoon and time to cross the border before dark. The gents went to pay the bill, which was more than reasonable. While we were splitting it up Kingers, ever one with the eye for drink, drew our attention to the row of bottles behind the bar.
“I say, chaps—look at that!”
The bottles all contained products of the ALCO distillery, and featured drinks labeled in English. There was cherry brandy, port, sherry—and ALCO REAL SCOTCH WHISKEY. This could not be passed by. We all ordered a shot and toasted and drank. It was strange, different, not scotch. Then you belched and it was a blend of slivovitz, the local plum brandy.
We drove back to Italy with most of my passengers enjoying a nice sleep.
We made two more Yugoslavian luncheon runs. On the second one the border guard accused me of running unlicensed tours. I had to buy him off with Todd’s ray gun water pistol—replaced under duress.
There is something else I must record. Brian Aldiss often talked of doing a book: The Worst Toilets in the World. At this Yugoslavian hotel Margaret, Joan, and Moira had to go and pee—girls always go together, as you know—and went into the hotel. They came running out: “Oh, it’s terrible, it’s terrible!” Brian and I ran in: “Let’s see it!” We had to see how terrible it was. “That’s nothing,” Brian said. “I went into a toilet in India which was so dark that I had to feel my way, and when I sat down on the toilet I found myself on an Indian’s lap, and he said: ‘Excuse me, sahib, but I was here first!’”
We had incredible lunches, different every day. Italians don’t just make a sandwich, there’d be meats of all kinds, salads and what have you, and huge black olives. And we’d have the best local wine, which was more than drinkable. Then after the lunch we’d go and have a nap on the beach we found there, and the kids would play in the sand. I remember once we were trying to find our way back from this beach to the border. We stopped the VW bus near a little barracks and Brian was trying to get some directions from the policeman. He was having no luck, and finally Kingsley shouted out:
“Oh Brian, do tell him to fuck off!”
These guys couldn’t speak any English, but “fuck off,” that they understood! “Fook off?!” they roared. This was not the time for intelligent discussion. Brian ran back and jumped into the open door of the camper and slammed his head into the doorframe, almost braining himself. We laid him down and drove away.
We had all sorts of jolly times that week and all in all it was a successful festival with an interesting aftermath. The festival lasted for a week and featured some truly desperate films. In the mornings we at least had a chance to weed out the most awful endeavors. There was one French film that gave avant-garde a bad name. The only good thing about it was that it only ran for ten minutes. It consisted simply of a man carrying a human-size replica of a plastic toy soldier over his shoulder, walking through the streets of Paris. We assumed it was Paris, but it was so dark it was hard to tell. That was it. There was also the German submission. This was clear enough—too clear, if anything, when the lovely heroine is stretched out on a dissection table and cut open—with a real corpse dissected and bloody. We convinced the Italians to drop it. Not family entertainment.
Luckily these were the exception and there were some outstanding films. The Czech contribution was excellent, Ikarie XB-1, which was based on the novel Magellanic Cloud by Stanislaw Lem. This was a world-class film that alas, never gained general release. The rest of the films were dogs that deserved their earl
y demise.
All in all it was a worthwhile endeavor that was repeated the next year. We went but, alas, our mates weren’t invited. At least Arthur Clarke was there, a writer I have always admired. His novels are among the best ever written while his short stories are so memorable that I can quote from them from memory. Now I would be sharing a drink alone with Arthur!
Would that our expectations lived up to our dreams. The first low blow was a corker. Arthur didn’t drink. After deadly pressure he did accept a small sherry, but he did no more than touch it to his lips. I looked at it with mean depression and went in search of a large whiskey.
Worse was in store as he lived up to his fannish reputation. SF fandom has a vocabulary all its own. “Gafiate,” for example, means get away from it all. And truefen have fan names. Arthur’s was “Ego Clarke,” a name assigned—not chosen. I was soon to find out the truth of Arthur’s fan name. No matter how I tried, the conversation had but one topic. Arthur.
I soon admitted defeat and went with the tide—and enjoyed it. There were endless tales of conflict with Stanley Kubrick. They had just finished shooting 2001: A Space Odyssey. And it was great material. I looked at the untouched sherry, sighed—and knocked back a restorative whiskey. De disputant non disputant est. Or, you can’t argue with taste.
Harry Harrison! Harry Harrison! Page 18