by Lillian Ross
“I went on a cruise with this friend of mine’s daughter Debbie,” Janet said as we walked with her along Broadway. “We stayed in Athens for two days, and then we went off on a boat for three days and four nights. Taking a cruise is definitely the wrong way to see Greece. You get up at crazy hours, you ride a donkey, you buy trinkets. You spend three and a half hours going to Delphi, which is gorgeous, and the guide sends you up some steep hills. He stays at the bottom, because he’s seen it already. The ruins in every place consist of one, two, or three pillars, which is the one thing I learned in third grade: Doric, Ionic, and the other one—the plain one, the middle one, and the fancy one that starts with ‘C.’ ”
In a butcher shop near Ninety-ninth Street, Janet took a number and stood in line. “The guides lead you to a ruin and show you three columns and say, ‘This was the queen’s bedroom,’ and they show you a hole and say, ‘That was the slaves’ bathroom.’ My friends who had sent me to Greece as a birthday present wanted me to look at ruins, but I spent a lot of time talking to people and different animals. They don’t have any dogs over there, and just a couple of cats.” Janet ordered a chicken and two steaks. “I did see a lot of big statues and Greek vases,” she said. “I liked them very much, but in the historical part my mind wanders. On these tours, you get information like this: ‘The Greek population is ten million.’ The guides say things like ‘As you already know, the Persians beat the Athenians, or vice versa, in something B.C.,’ and ‘Greek Myth No. 486: Apollo was four days old, and he was either on a dolphin or in a chariot, and he killed either a python or a man called Python, and then he purified himself for eight days.’ ”
Our own mind started to wander. “That was the first god that was ever sorry about something,” Janet added.
“I would say, ‘Quick, look out the window, there’re some goats!’ ” Janet continued. She handed us the bag of meat and a briefcase. “I made a list of the places I went and the places I didn’t go,” she said, reaching into her handbag. “Now I’ve lost the places I went, and I won’t be able to remember where I was. Oh, yes, that was Delphi. I feel very bad about missing Ephesus. Instead of going up to Ephesus, I stayed at the bottom of Turkey, and I got stuck with a harem ring. The man who sold it to me said I could break it up and give it to five people for Christmas. I forgot to ask if it was worth anything. Here’s a tag from the underwear I bought for the trip: ‘Intimate apparel for the woman of today who wants only what tomorrow will bring.’ ”
Janet turned a corner, and we followed. “Nero took five hundred statues from various places, I don’t know why,” she said. “ ‘Rich as Croesus’ comes from Croesus, who was very rich. Somebody told him—one of the gods, I think—‘If you cross the river, you’ll destroy a great kingdom.’ It turned out to be his own kingdom. On the way back from Delphi, you stop for ten minutes of shopping. I was going to buy this fur cap with a tail for my ex-husband who lives in Canada, but my friend said he wouldn’t like the tail. There were three couples on the cruise who didn’t go to see one ruin or one vase. When they got to Athens, they said, ‘Is there any shopping around the Acropolis?’ I was exhausted from all the ruins. Near the end, in one of those Athens museums, I was following a tour group around when my friend came over to me and said, ‘What are you doing?’ I said I was listening to the guide. My friend said, ‘She’s speaking German.’ I was so tired I didn’t notice.”
Standing in the middle of her living room, Janet suddenly said, “Damn! My life is spent looking for my eyeglasses.”
She went into the kitchen.
“I’m against sisterhood,” she said, turning on the oven. “I was never for it in the first place; now I’m finished with it. Everywhere I went with my semi-mutilated passport, I said, ‘All you have to do is pick up the Scotch Taped tag and look underneath to find my right age. Then you put it back.’ Every decent person, every man, did that. Sometimes they smiled, sometimes they scowled, but they all did it. Nobody stopped me till I got to Israel, where there was this female customs person. She said, ‘What does this mean?’ Then she went away and came back with an armed soldier, who said, ‘If this were an Israeli passport, you’d go to prison.’ At which point, he ripped off the Scotch Tape and ruined my passport. I entered the country in a rotten mood. In Tel Aviv, I met a black guy named Brian who was selling granola bars on the street, and I promised him I’d send his picture to his mother in Gary, Indiana, and say he’d be home soon. He’s been gone for ten years. He belongs to a group that say they’re not religious, but they all went over there because that’s the first place God is coming when He comes back again. If there weren’t any trees in Tel Aviv, it would be as hideous as Athens. In Jerusalem, an eighty-five-year-old priest kicked me out of St. Saviour’s Church. I went in there during a service, and my camera made a very loud noise. A priest rushed back and said, ‘Are you a Christian? No, you’re a tourist. You have to leave immediately!’ I apologized, and we had a nice talk. He speaks eight languages. He guessed my age, and then he told me he was being polite. He guessed forty, but he really thought I was fifty. He blessed me in Chinese. I have his address.”
After a moment, Janet said, “If I were religious, I would want to believe in reincarnation.” She dumped some Brussels sprouts into a pot. “My Israeli friend Shamai said that in the Jewish religion everybody comes back newborn. I never knew that. He said, ‘Even your mother will come back.’ I said, ‘You mean I’m going to be newborn with the same mother? What kind of religion is that?’ ”
Janet looked under a dish towel. “Where are my eyeglasses?”
1983
D. OF D. — George Throw
WE have been to a party held around Her Grace the Duchess of Devonshire. The party wasn’t given by Her Grace (it was given by B. Altman), and you couldn’t say that the party was given just for her, either, because it was surrounded by furniture and the probability is that the hosts would have been disappointed if someone had looked only at the Duchess, and not at the furniture. But the movement of the party was around her, no doubt about that.
It isn’t a good idea to go to this sort of party alone, so we took two friends: one actually English, the other American but well versed. Our English friend told us that the Duchess has been more in evidence than she was formerly, and that there is today a brand of tea called Duchess of Devonshire’s. Our well-versed friend told us that a kind of slat-backed garden seat used at Chatsworth (Chatsworth is the principal seat of the Devonshires) is available in the English marketplace. “We ought to be on time. She will be,” our English friend said.
We were on time. We walked through the cool, spacious ground floor of Altman’s. Cosmetics were laid out, and handbags. We walked slowly. The ground floor of Altman’s is unusual in its size and in its atmosphere. After hours (the party was held after store-closing), it is mysterious. This has to do with the things’ not being for sale then. They are shiny, but they are not for sale. We went to an elevator. We were taken up by an attendant who was businesslike and made the ride up feel like a ride on a train. When we arrived at the party zone, we saw first a dominating color photograph of Chatsworth hanging on a wall. Then all kinds of furniture. The angle, or hook, of this furniture was that the originals from which these pieces had been copied were still in the possession of certain aristocratic English families. Our well-versed friend made a study of the labels on these pieces. Then he moved over to a chair that was not a part of the aristocratic line. “On the other hand, this is just a chair,” he said. He reached under the seat and found a label. “It says here that the covering fabric and filling material are made in accordance with the U.F.A.C.,” he told us. “And that construction criteria are designed to reduce, but not necessarily eliminate, ignition by a burning cigarette.”
We walked toward the place where the Duchess was standing. “The Duchess is a very kind woman,” our English friend said. “It is a recorded fact that when she and her sisters were still in the schoolroom they divided up the world. Her sister Jessica se
t out to be a Communist; Deborah said she was going to marry a duke. Deborah is the Duchess.”
The Duchess was standing near a white platform, made not of plastic foam but not of anything much better—perhaps a kind of white construction board—upon which there was a small Plexiglas box containing a printed card that read “Inveraray Castle. His Grace the Duke of Argyll.” Over the Plexiglas box stood a table—an Adam inlaid and cross-banded Pembroke table. “Wouldn’t it be better to say ‘From Inveraray Castle’?” our English friend asked.
The Duchess was wearing a polka-dot dress. She had shiny gray hair. Her shoes had bows. Her dress was girlish, in a certain way. People were introduced to her, and floated by her. One man was misintroduced. “Kick him,” the Duchess said, referring to the man who had given the faulty introduction.
We thought that we might ask the Duchess about the tea and the slat-backed chair, but we didn’t. Self-explanatory, we thought.
We went back downstairs. We thought, Maybe our era will be known as the era of parties in stores. The ground floor of Altman’s seemed completely prosperous and happy. Everything was clean and shining.
1984
WITH FELLINI — Lillian Ross
FEDERICO FELLINI, the one-of-a-kind moviemaker, came to New York the other day to be honored by the Film Society of Lincoln Center in its annual tribute to a film artist, and here with him for a few days was his one-of-a-kind gang: his wife, the actress Giulietta Masina (star of the Fellini movies “La Strada,” “Nights of Cabiria,” and “Giulietta of the Spirits”); Marcello Mastroianni (star of the Fellini movies “La Dolce Vita,” “8½,” and “Ginger and Fred,” a still uncompleted one, in which he appears with Miss Masina); the actress Anouk Aimée (star of “La Dolce Vita” and “8½,” and also well known for her Claude Lelouch–directed movie “A Man and a Woman”); and various advisers, helpers, and experts on things American and many other things. We hadn’t seen Fellini and the gang in several years, and so we were delighted when Fellini asked us to join them as they set out, the morning after their arrival, in a cavalcade of limos heading for Darien, Connecticut, and the country home of Dorothy Cullman, chairman of the F.S. of L.C., who had invited the whole gang, including us, for a typical Sunday-afternoon visit to her remodelled eighteenth-century Colonial house with grounds and pool. The visit was scheduled to include the obligatory swim, the quintessential tour of what-was-there-before and what-is-there-now, and a good meal. Fellini, gray-haired, ageless as ever, and nattily decked out in as preppy an outfit—navy-blue blazer with gold buttons, gray slacks, black loafers, white shirt, red silk tie—as has ever appeared in Darien, directed us to sit in the limo with him, Miss Masina (she was up front with the driver), Miss Aimée, and Mastroianni. Northward we went, followed by the others, who included a full complement of tribute workers, an admirably efficient bunch: Joanna Ney, public relations; Vivian Treves, interpreter; and Wendy Keys, co-producer, with Joanne Koch, of the whole shebang, to be put on in Avery Fisher Hall the following night. There were lots of high-spirited “Ciao!”s and laughter and the Italian equivalents of “Get a horse!” from those in our limo to those in the one behind us, and then Fellini settled down. He called to his wife up front, asking whether she was tired, and she replied, keeping her eyes on the road ahead, that she was never tired when she was happy, and she was happy. Fellini gave affectionate pats to the rest of us.
“This is the first time we are all together in New York,” he said. “And now we go to Conneckticut,” he added, giving a phonetic rendition that was used comfortably by everybody thereafter.
“When we see each other, it is always the same,” Miss Aimée said. More pats from Fellini, reciprocal pats from Miss Aimée, pats from Mastroianni to both of them. Mastroianni, who was wearing a cream-colored Panama hat, adjusted it to a more rakish angle. He was wearing an impeccable, creaseless cream-colored linen suit, a black-and-white striped shirt, and a black tie.
“Anouk is a good fellow,” Fellini said, in his most playful manner. “She is a famous actress who makes Western pictures,” he went on, to us.
“Is that Conneckticut?” Mastroianni asked, pointing out the window at New Jersey as we drove up the Henry Hudson Parkway.
Fellini pointed in the opposite direction, at Grant’s Tomb, and we identified it for him.
“Cary?” Miss Aimée asked, looking stricken.
We explained Ulysses S., and everybody looked relieved.
“We go to swim, and we will have a big lunch,” Fellini said. “Soon we will see Conneckticut.”
We asked Mastroianni whether he had seen any of the rushes of “Ginger and Fred,” which is not about Rogers and Astaire but about two dancers who call themselves Ginger and Fred.
Mastroianni said he never goes to see rushes, because they are shown at night, after shooting, at the time he likes to go out to dinner. “Anyway, is his problem,” he said, with a Mastroianni-charming smile-cum-shrug at Fellini.
“Is my problem,” Fellini said. “I leave ‘Ginger and Fred’ with four more days of shooting to shoot, and fly to New York, and is my problem to go back and finish ‘Ginger and Fred.’ But is worth it to see Conneckticut.”
There was a brief discussion about getting into bathing suits in Darien, and Mastroianni referred affectionately to the fact that Miss Aimée was still thin. More pats from Mastroianni for Miss Aimée, who laughed and tossed her hair back off her face.
“Do you remember, when we made ‘La Dolce Vita,’ on location in that tough neighborhood, I didn’t know Italian then, and I heard the young men hanging around and shouting at you?” Miss Aimée said to Mastroianni. “Then I learned later they were shouting, ‘Be careful, Marcello! You will hurt yourself holding her! She has too many bones! Give her food, Marcello!’ ”
“That place was full of thieves,” Fellini said. “We had to pretend we were leaving, and we had to sneak back in the middle of the night, but the thieves all came back, too.”
“Look at the trees!” Mastroianni called out, pointing at the countryside. “Look! There’s Conneckticut!”
Not yet, we said.
Miss Aimée told us that she was going to work next making a sequel to “A Man and a Woman,” on its twentieth anniversary.
Mastroianni put on a mock-doleful expression. He told us that in the mid-sixties Miss Aimée had called him in Rome from Paris to say she was going to make “A Man and a Woman,” and had asked him to join her, playing the part later taken by Jean-Louis Trintignant. “She say to me a young director, unknown, no money; she plays a widow; I play a widower. I say no. I made a mistake.”
“Two Academy Awards,” Miss Aimée said, with a laugh. “Best Foreign Movie, Best Original Screenplay.”
Connecticut! Everybody looked out at the Colonial-style wooden houses, some painted yellow, most painted white. Mastroianni wanted to know why so many Colonial houses were built of wood, unlike the old houses in Italy, which were built of stone.
Everybody looked bewildered.
“We go to the house of Dorothy Cullman, and we ask Dorothy Cullman why,” Fellini said decisively, and everybody looked at ease again.
Destination reached: a light-beige-painted clapboard house with white trim, built around 1720, overlooking a slope of weedless, perfect lawn, as long as a city block, that was surrounded by weeping willow, apple, ash, dogwood, and Japanese white pine trees and led down to a waterfall and a huge, pondlike swimming pool with a Japanese-style boathouse in front of it. Here and there on the lawn were wooden sculptures, some of them abstract and some in the shape of people or birds. Up a white-and-tan pebbled walk Fellini and the gang strode—like characters in Fellini movies—toward the house, and we were all greeted on the walk by the hostess, an attractive woman with a very pale face. She wore an ample peach-and-white antique Japanese kimono over a white cotton jumpsuit, and she had on flat-heeled white sandals. On her wrists she wore handsome matching wide antique Indian bracelets of ivory and silver. She extended both hands to the guests.
&nb
sp; “An apparition!” Fellini whispered in awe.
“Welcome, Mr. Fellini, I’m Dorothy Cullman,” she said. “Lewis, my husband, has just taken our cook to the hospital, because our cook was suddenly taken ill. But I promise you there will be lunch.”
Fellini kissed one of Mrs. Cullman’s outstretched hands, Mastroianni kissed the other, everybody relaxed, and we were off on Sunday-in-the-country. In a glassed-in addition to the old house, with a complete view of the lawn, trees, sculptures, pool, and Japanese boathouse, we munched on crabmeat on apricot halves and pâté on toast, and chose drinks. Miss Aimée said that water would be fine, but Mrs. Cullman said, “No, no, no, you don’t have to drink water—we have orange juice,” so Miss Aimée took orange juice. Mrs. Cullman said that it seemed to be hot and the gentlemen might want to take off their coats, but Fellini and Mastroianni said they wanted to keep their coats on. Mrs. Cullman said that she had bought her peach-colored kimono and another one, just like it, to use as covers for her living-room cushions. Glass panels on three sides of the room were sliding doors; Mrs. Cullman slid them open, and everybody exclaimed over the view. Mr. Cullman appeared, wearing bluejeans and sneakers and an Italian striped cotton shirt, and reported that the cook was now healthy, so he had brought the cook back to the kitchen.
Mrs. Cullman sat down next to Fellini and said, “I have only two Italian words—molto bene.”