by Cecil Beaton
Thirty people assembled with their lugagge at the shack pathetically named ‘Airways House’. The long and incessant delays were easily borne for we all knew at the back of our minds how darn lucky we were ever to be getting away. I was told to change out of my uniform into a civilian suit prior to landing at Lisbon. Portugal, being neutral, does not welcome Service men, so they must hide their uniforms in their overnight kitbags while they meet Germans on ‘friendly terms’. It was still dark when we got into a launch and sailed on a long journey before we boarded the Bristol clipper (the flying-boat that took Churchill to America), an enormous machine, like a vast air-train with silk-lined walls, desks, Pullmans or hotel-lounge chairs, and various compartments for sleeping, eating, smoking. A great adventure this, for none of us before had been in a flying-boat. We took off so smoothly in the blackness that we could not tell when the aircraft had become airborne. We slept, and awoke above a carpet of white clouds with breakfast awaiting us.
We have juggled with time so much that it has little meaning left for us. Once we did a spurt of twelve hours and came down to refuel in Bathurst: we eat up two gallons of petrol per minute on our 8,000 mile journey home.
When, eventually, we circled a mountainous coast line and swooped down into the blue Bay of Lisbon, the door of our flying hotel was opened on to a gay, sunny scene. Small flags fluttered and turquoise wavelets splashed a white jetty that might have been painted by Tissot.
At once we found ourselves in the pre-war atmosphere of holidays in Spain or the South of France.
LISBON
Did they know anything about my visit? No, the Press attaché had heard nothing. But two young men at the embassy, Stewart and Herbert, looked after me with interest and enthusiasm and telephoned several departments to inquire if there was a job awaiting me here. Yes! The Air Ministry had called about my arrival, but further inquiries only brought a blank. I felt I was here under false pretences. Stewart was of the opinion that I should not stay, since there was nothing for me to do here in Portugal. Herbert said he thought they should wire the Air Ministry as it would be too bad if I were to go back home only to be sent out here again. Stewart smiled to himself as he booked me a room at an hotel, and conducted me there himself.
No wonder he smiled, for the Aviz Hotel proved to be a phenomenon. More like a Victorian millionaire’s mansion, it was decorated with gigantic pieces of heavily-carved mahogany, medieval statuary, Portuguese tiles, eighteenth-century wrought iron, vast Spanish carpet and unliftable tureens of encrusted silver filled with ugly flowers. The whole atmosphere was so rich and unlike anything we have known since the war, that it was as if that over-size baroque clock in the hall had been put back twenty, even forty, years. Stewart left me, having inquired who my next-door neighbour was (in case she was a German or Italian), to bath, to shave, to dress in different, cleaner clothes, and to have a meal.
Lunch was an event. In a shrouded rose-reflected Louis XVI dining-room a few tables were filled by a varied assortment of pre-war personages of various nationalities. In a corner, his back to the wall, sat Mr Calouste Gulbenkian, the oil and caviare king and art patron. A portentous silence prevailed as the most sumptuous and extravagant meals were served. My eyes were out on sticks as the wagon of hors-d’oeuvres was wheeled over the thick carpet towards me. These proved to be a banquet in themselves. How I managed after this to swallow three more courses I do not know, particularly as I had eaten almost nothing during the last weeks; but there was no room for the gargantuan strawberries.
My bedroom, with its apricot-coloured furnishings, silk flounced lampshade over the bed-head, and palm tree rustling outside the balcony, was an oasis. The bare dank cell of the RAF mess at Lagos was forgotten until I brought out my dressing-gown from the bag, and once more my nostrils were filled with that smell of mould and I remembered that other bed and pillow of damp moss and fungus.
Yes, I am glad I’d been ordered to stop off here (for what reason I am still ignorant!) I wandered down into the town and with what relish did I regain my appetite for sightseeing! The lovely eighteenth-century buildings and ornate rococo decorations are something of which I have been starved since the war.
The façades are often painted deep coral red and white, and have ornate stucco decorations sprouting from the caps of pilasters, whilst above the balustrade on the roof, obelisks grow out of stone urns. By chance I came into heroic white marble squares ornamented with ornamental arches and statues. I admired gardens with classical busts that appeared out of pillars entirely grown over with foliage. It was a great pleasure to sit and enjoy the green shades by the Neptune who watched a fountain spring from the pot he held in his arm.
It is astonishing to see the shops so crowded with rare foodstuffs, sweets and liqueurs, and all those things that are unprocurable at home — silk stockings, watches and lipsticks. I am likewise amazed to note how many kiosks carried so many English newspapers and magazines (many more than there are to be had at home). I looked at an Illustrated London News to discover if any of my war pictures had yet appeared, but only saw how the English months have passed, that everyone is wearing entirely different clothes, and how Princess Elizabeth has grown from childhood to be a young lady.
At the secretariat I looked through a pile of German propaganda magazines. Their photographs of the war, both in colour and black and white, are so much more original than ours. Not only do they know the value of restraint in colour, but their attitude is so bold. They show dramatic blurs — pictures taken in semi-darkness, in smoke, in rain or fog that create a tremendous dramatic effect. Yet it is baffling that these magazines, which are so much in the contemporary spirit, should still harp on the abolishment of ‘decadent art’ when, in so many other ways, their minds and tastes are more flexible than ours.
Friday, July 10th
The Rip van Winkle aspect of Lisbon has its disadvantages. Portugal is undoubtedly the refuge of the ‘rats’, and the Hotel Aviz caters for the richest of the collaborators who come here to do their deals. Perhaps her blindness to the world situation has cost the country her former greatness and has resulted in Portugal living now in the twilight of her days. But maybe my vile ruminations have merely been caused by my not being able to get a taxi. In this land of luxury there is one shortage — petrol. The streets are almost bereft of traffic, and since coal is in short supply electricity must be saved so that even in the Aviz Hotel lights are turned off after 10 o’clock.
The Ministry of Information have at last telegraphed that they wish me to photograph the entire Cabinet and all local celebrities. They have sent a list of proposed sitters ranging from the President to Salazar, from admirals to cardinals. I cannot think this can be of much help to anyone, and it is certainly of no ‘importance’; but it will provide me with a contrast to the recent pictures I’ve been taking.
The business of setting about this task was dire. At the Secretariat a man named Almeida was to give me a permit to use a camera (it appears that in Lisbon you are arrested for taking pictures, and once in prison it may take weeks to get out), but to find him at his desk was our first difficulty. Owing to stringent economies resulting from Salazar’s reforms, and the balancing of the budget after many years of financial chaos, sacrifices have been made by many people including Government officials. This may be the reason why many civil servants live by another job, and therefore arrive at their government office only at 5 o’clock in the evening. When at last Mr Almeida appeared behind his desk he treated us to an extraordinary histrionic act. Surrounded by telephones like a Hollywood agent, he carried on long conversations each time the bell rang. He would dial numbers without ceasing, curse the operator, hang up and dial again immediately. He would throw wild gestures at the telephone and grimace like a tortured madman. Having kept Herbert and me as spectators for half an hour, Almeida then, for our protection, got on to three policemen. But oh, how sad he looked that he, Almeida, was at his desk so late in the day when most other people had long since gone to drin
k beer or eat ices at the cafe! At length, after his hysterical performance on the telephone had reached a crescendo he confided, ‘Things are moving fast!!’ I could not help laughing, but Herbert explained that this was comparatively true: patience is the first thing one has to learn in Portugal for time, as we know it, does not exist. (No war correspondent had ever been able to send a word home before ten days of incessant, dogged hanging around.)
When I am free, Marcus Cheke comes round to take me sightseeing. Free? What have I to do but wait? My delight is all the more keen since this fellow, who wrote a fantasy about the Directoire called Papilée, was one of the most surprising of my early literary discoveries. No Englishman knows more about Portugal; he has recently written a life of Pombal, the great eighteenth-century dictator. In fact, Cheke himself is an eighteenth-century character: vague, eccentric, temperamental, what is known as artistic, and full of quiet charm.
I am finding him an excellent guide, rich in fascinating information. He is fond of the Portuguese but considers the people of Lisbon are polluted by the artifices of the world. Yet they are unsophisticated, feckless and childlike: one of their great pleasures consists in letting off fireworks, and one bullfighter-nobleman, bearing a name that has stood for courage through several centuries, visits the zoo twice a week where he throws firework squibs into a den of monkeys.
Our taxi today, bent on pleasure, dashed with a fury only known to Portuguese taxi drivers, up the cobbled steeps of the Moorish quarter — the Alfama. It climbed huddled streets hung with balconies, bird-cages, morning glories and washing. This is part of the town that has survived the catastrophic earthquake of 1755 when two-thirds of Lisbon fell down in fifteen minutes. When surveyed from the summit of the town the jumble of roofs appears like a patchwork quilt with its texture of coarse weaves. Here is the fish market, and the women, bearing huge platters of fish on their heads, become excited and fight continuously, smacking one another across the face with a turbot or a lobster.
The taxi then darted down the hills. On two wheels, it navigated the hairpin bends that are protected from a drop of great precipitousness by a delicate ironwork grille, depositing us before the beautiful eighteenth-century riding school. Here is the great collection of gilded coaches. In addition to these carved marvels of locomotion, one can also be amazed at the taste displayed in the uniforms that were worn in the processions by the coachmen, heralds, musicians and footpads. The embroidered suits of the aristocracy are incomparably rich in colour with gold and silver embroidery and buttons of mosaic, porcelain, enamel and jewels. Even the shoe buckles are like precious jewelled picture-frames. This, my first visit to a museum since the war, brought me back vividly to those distant days when, the Sitwells having ‘discovered’ baroque, Bavarian holidays were spent sightseeing in their wake.
Is it possible to convey one’s pleasure of a first visit to the Palace of Queluz? Even Beckford in his letters was unable to do justice to the pink and pistachio green, Cinderella-like palace. It is prettier than anything in Bavaria: with a greater licence and fantasy than anything in France. It is the apotheosis of all ‘fondant’ architecture. One building, with Dutch gable and double mansard roof, boasts a façade ornamented with sphinxes, angels blowing trumpets and lacework balconies. It is a startling display of architectural fireworks.
Tuesday, July 14th
The battle of Alamein has been brought to a lull for five days now. We have even made a few nibbles into the enemy’s lines and have taken 2,000 prisoners; yet the danger is as serious as ever. Human nature is such that we can accustom ourselves to almost any set of conditions. The enemy’s proximity to Alexandria, which first caused panic, is now accepted with calm.
Wednesday, July 15th
No more slothful mornings. At last arrangements have been completed for my camera to be used as part of a goodwill gesture. An early start from the Press Office presaged many full days of flattery to the leading citizens of Lisbon. Statesmen, marquesas in black with fluttering fans, an eighty-year-old admiral, a cardinal patriarch and other Church dignitaries, the head of the army, the home guard and the Red Cross, a woman poetess — all these figures were set apart, in a scene of their own, far from the intensely living and dying world of Africa.
In a castle entirely renovated in the nineteenth century, President Carmona, who has been called the Botha to Salazar’s Smuts, received me with old-world graciousness, in spite of the fact that he had just been given a painful piqure in the leg. Born in the 60’s President Carmona led the coup d’état of 1926 which eventually resulted in the foundation of the present Portuguese New State. Now, after fifteen years as President of the Republic, he enjoys as much prestige as a regency sovereign, has the army as a solid block behind him and is respected and loved by all classes. The revolutionary has become a grand old seigneur with grandiose manners which he now exhibited in spite of obvious disappointment that none of us proved to be the colonel the secretariat had told him to expect. Looking like an illustration by Caron d’Ache with his straight, lithe figure — a legacy of his army days — in a black coat and striped trousers, with his white moustache turned up at the ends and his hair parted with a flourish, he posed like a dandy of another day. The Victorian decorations of the castle lent themselves to delightful pictures with the mustard brocade walls, portraits like oleographs, and the huge gilt clock under the glass dome. In some of the many silver frames were photographs of a lady who was reputed to be his cook, whom the President had recently married. Maybe she was a good cook; certainly she was no beauty.
Each day brought forth more sitters: old men in resplendent uniforms and aristocrats in blue and white tiled gardens. But each day also brought forth more prevarications from Salazar. At last I prevailed upon my superiors to call a halt to this tiresome hide and seekery, and to allow me to return home without the Garboesque leader in my portfolio.
After my final sitting (the chief of the naval staff, an admiral with a long nose pointing to the left and grey hair cut in a fringe), I dropped my camera on his stone staircase. This Freudian accident made me realize with what foolish confidence, yet incredibly good luck, I had embarked on my Middle Eastern trip with only one camera. The Rolleiflex, which had seen me through sandstorms and the roughest jolting in jeeps, with typical German efficiency, was now put out of action when, psychologically, I must have wanted my mission to be completed.
A CHILD FROM OCCUPIED PARIS
I am now awaiting permission from the Ministry of Information to return home. The frivolous eighteenth-century delights of this pretty pistachio-coloured town, and the unaccustomed luxuries of a peacetime existence are beginning to pall and I’m starting to fret for home. Moreover, knowing not one native and being unable to speak a word of the language, I feel I have imposed too much on the hospitality of Marcus Cheke and others at the embassy, and am conscious of becoming a lounge lizard.
Today I lunched — instead of alone — in the hotel restaurant, with the little Castellane girl whose parents were out to lunch. I enjoy so much the company of girls of this age; they have an appealing quality that I always come back to. This one is particularly enchanting with a sort of poignant hopelessness. ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘it is a terrible thing to be fourteen!’ She didn’t mind being eleven, and she looked forward to being nineteen — but twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen and on — oh, it was horrible because she wanted to behave in a grown-up way but couldn’t help being childish. She is writing her memoirs. They start with the ‘exode’ from the Germans when France was falling.
It is a curious sensation to find oneself on neutral ground and to listen to first-hand stories from enemy-occupied territories. This little girl talked about Paris under the Germans, and how everybody loathed the Boche but dared not show animosity for fear of being chucked into jail. When her father took her to Luna Park two Germans decided to get into one of the revolving cages that rise like a windmill high into the sky. The owner of this attraction saw his opportunity for a bit of fun and made t
he cage revolve in mid-air at double speed. A crowd of Frenchmen below looked up, roaring with laughter, as the frantic Germans above bellowed ever louder. In the crowd a young German soldier went up to a girl who was yelling with amusement. ‘Very funny they are, aren’t they?’ he said conversationally. The girl was silent, looked haunted, then fled.
Jews must wear yellow stars on their lapels saying, ‘I am a Jew.’ This child saw one of her school friends wearing this badge in the park, and was so embarrassed for her that she dared not talk to her. ‘Aren’t they terrified, the Jews?’ ‘No, they seem to be doing very well — the “black market” is run by them entirely.’ My small friend also told me a lot of gossip about mutual friends, of their political sympathies, and the effects of the Occupation on trade. (‘Business is thriving — the Germans pay well!’) ‘What do the French say about the RAF raids over France?’ ‘Oh, they’re very amused!’ ‘Aren’t they terrified?’ ‘No, they are confident that the RAF will only hit the factories. They hear the bombs drop, and then later the warning siren goes.’ We laughed at anti-German stories, and became ribald about a party of eight brutish Huns that were devouring an eight-course lunch at the next table.