Clara Callan (20 page)

A party tonight at Evelyn’s and she greeted me with a great hug and kisses. I was looking forward to a conversation with her, but she was preoccupied with her “friend” the dancer June who drank too much
and became ill. She’s young, only twenty or so. Very tall and blonde and beautiful. Striking might be a suitable cliché to describe her. E. spent most of the evening with her in the bathroom. Or so it seemed to me. The young woman is from Texas, and before she got drunk I had a little talk with her, but for the life of me, I could scarcely understand a word she said. She might just as well have been speaking in a foreign tongue. The people at the party were lively and open, but I am so awkward at these things, while Nora moves through the crowd with such ease. I did, however, enjoy meeting some of these people. Graydon Lott is a sweet and gentle man and Vivian Rhodes, who plays the mischievous and careless Effie, is in fact a rather bookish woman who is married to a professor of classics
at Columbia University. He sat in a corner all evening drinking soda water and I believe that he, along with Mr. Lott and I, were the only non-drinkers in the crowd. Everyone was talking about the Civil War book with the room divided between those who had read it and those who were now doing so. “Don’t, don’t tell me what happens.” At midnight Evelyn brought out a cake in the shape of a boat with “Bon Voyage, Nora” on the icing. Nora gave a fine little thank-you speech. How at home she is among these friendly and likeable Americans! I confess to a pang of jealousy as I watched her cutting the cake. To have so many people wishing you happiness surely counts for something. In the taxi back to the apartment, I asked why L.M. had not come along to the party.

“He would have been there if I’d asked him,” she said. “He would have enjoyed standing around and sneering at all of us. That’s why I didn’t ask him.”

Even allowing that she was a little tight, I was shocked at the bitterness in her voice.

A rich glowing afternoon on the Hudson River. It’s exhilarating to be moving on water. My little room (cabin) is quite comfortable and has
a small round window (porthole) overlooking the water. Without it, I would feel a bit smothered in this space. L.M. and Nora next door. L.M. is busy reading newspapers; he brought a stack of them aboard the ship. Civil war has broken out in Spain, and L.M. is devouring any news he can find on this. Nora and I went for a walk around the upper deck (promenading) and she told me that she can’t get a word out of L.M. because he is so absorbed in this Spanish business. After our walk, we had tea and biscuits in the lounge. Dinner will not be served until eight o’clock, a nuisance to a rustic like myself who is used to earlier meals. I shall have to fill up on biscuits. The ship is American, but the crew is mostly Italian, and the stewards make a fuss over the female passengers. They are handsome young fellows in their fancy getup, helpful and flirtatious, proud
as peacocks. Several women in the lounge reading
GWTW
.

Awakened an hour ago and stared out my little window at the sea. When I went on deck it was deserted, except for an elderly man dressed all in white. He was briskly walking about, stopping now and then to fan his arms like propellers, or sink to his knees and rise again several times. He looked a little angry doing this, which I thought a pity on such a lovely morning with the sunlight sparkling on the sea. Nothing now but water and sky as we move between them.

Spent an hour in the lounge this afternoon with L.M. Nora was off playing shuffleboard. She has befriended some wealthy young Americans of Italian descent, a playful group it seems. L.M. came into the lounge and, after looking around in his surly manner, came over and sat down with his newspapers. Ordered a large gin drink from the steward. In his shirt and tie and linen suit he looked flushed and
distended. I wondered if his bowels might not be doing their job. Pleasant enough however. Nodded at my book of Keats’s letters as if they were an agreeable companion to a schoolteacher’s sea journey. Appraised me with his shrewd, intelligent eyes. He is excited over the outbreak of war in Spain. Called it a “fight between Church and the Communists. And the Church will win,” he exclaimed. “Franco will get all the help he needs from Germany and Italy.”

I played the innocent female, mildly distressed by the situation. “Do you think we’ll be in any danger? Don’t we have to go right by Spain, so to speak?”

An indulgent smile. L.M. likes to be asked questions. “We do, indeed, Miss Callan. Or, I hope I can call you Clara. Yes, we have to sail right past Spain at Gibraltar. Your grasp of geography is a good deal sounder than your sister’s. This morning Nora had Spain situated a little too far to the north. Around Belgium, I think.”

“I’m sure you’re exaggerating, Mr. Mills.”

Another smile. “Perhaps a little. And it’s Lewis. Please! We’re on a trip together, Clara.”

Always that hint of sexual playfulness in his voice. Yet he looked hot and ill at ease in the wicker chair, fanning himself with his Panama hat and sipping his gin. It seemed as if he hadn’t yet figured out how to deal with me or perhaps with many things. I wondered if he had been to Europe before.

“Not since the war,” he said and then after a while, “There will be no danger. After all, we’re flying the American flag. Both sides will leave us alone. The last thing either wants is an international incident involving the U.S.A. We Americans are still very much a question mark to Europeans. They still don’t know which side we’ll throw our support behind.”

I asked him about his plans in Italy.

“I’d like to see how that country is working under Mussolini,” he said. “God knows they’ve had time now. If you can believe what you read, he’s done some great stuff. So, I’d like to know whether
Europe’s future is in Fascism or Communism. I’d like to get some kind of handle on that. Certainly, Fascism has lots of friends and not just in Italy or Germany or Spain. There is more support for Fascism in France and England than most people think. By most people, I’m referring to Americans. So, I’d like to see how it has affected everyday life. I’m going to be talking to people who have lived in Italy for several years: writers, painters, a few professors. I’d like to interview Santayana, the philosopher. He lives in Rome these days and I think he would have some interesting things to say about it all. He’s an old man now, but apparently still very alert. But I don’t know if I can get to him. I didn’t get an answer to my
letter. I’d also like to talk to Pound, the poet.”

I enjoyed listening to L.M. and as he talked he seemed to relax. Perhaps he had unloosened a button or two or maybe it was the gin. He ordered another and talked about how Europeans are more interested in politics than most Americans.

“It’s closer to their lives. And they had the war to deal with. I imagine there are many who are scared to death of another one and will do anything to avoid it. A lot of the older people don’t want to go through that again and Hitler knows it. That’s why he got his way in the Rhineland and he’s not finished either.”

Another drink was placed before him. “What do you remember of the war, Clara? You would have been just a kid.”

“Oh, soldiers in the village. Farm boys coming back from army camp all spruced up in their uniforms with their boots polished and their hair cut. I used to play the piano at school concerts and war bond evenings. ‘The Minstrel Boy,’ ‘Keep the Home Fires Burning.’”

L.M. seemed delighted with these images. I looked out the window of the lounge. The day had clouded over.

“You Canadians,” he said, “had it much tougher than we did. You really took it on the chin over there.” He paused for more gin. “I was in it, you know. Not as a combatant. I was against the war on principle, but I joined the Ambulance Corps and got over to France in the
summer of 1918. I was twenty-eight years old. I’m still not sure why I did that.” In fact, he did look rather bewildered by the memory. “Saw some terrible things, Clara. Not as bad as being shot at, but bad enough. That’s why I don’t think there will be another war. Not a big one anyway. A lot of people over there don’t want to go through all that again. Of course, it’s more complicated now. There’s this whole business with the Jews in Germany. I’d like to find out more about that, but the Germans have been stonewalling me. They want to give me the tourist’s tour, I guess. They’ve had some problems with American journalists. They’ve kicked one or
two out of the country so I don’t know how far I’ll get. Once I get these pieces written, I’d like to gather them into a book, maybe for next spring. I’ve already done some things, a piece on radio entertainment, you know, Nora’s world. Another on the radio priest Coughlin and one on the labour leader, John L. Lewis. Covered the Republican and Democratic conventions last month. I thought all this could make an interesting book. Call it
The Temper of the Times
or something like that. What do you think?”

I said it sounded interesting. It was raining now and I watched the drops, driven by a gust of wind, strike the windows and run down the glass. On the deck, stewards were folding up the canvas chairs and people were hurrying inside with newspapers and magazines on their heads. L.M. asked me what I wanted most to see in Italy and I told him the house in Rome where Keats died.

“Nora told me you write poetry. I’d like to see some of your work one day.”

I told him there was nothing to see. “I only dream of doing it,” I said.

He was about to add something when Nora came in from her shuffleboard game with a sweater tied across her shoulders, her hair damp from the rain. She looked pretty and erotic and L.M. rose to embrace her. There was talk of cocktails somewhere with her new friends. Nora and L.M. began to nibble at one another, and I thought
of a nymph and satyr at play. Agreed to meet them for dinner and they left the lounge arm in arm.

On my way to the cabin, I looked out at the rain beating now against the windows. A steward assured me that it was nothing. “A little squall, Signorina. It will soon pass.”

And so it did. A moment ago the sun broke through the clouds and briefly coloured the sea a light bronze. I keep imagining the depths over which we travel: the abyss that awaits the careless or unfortunate. I wonder how far it is to the bottom of the sea.

Nora and L.M. quarrelled before dinner. Something to do with suitable or unsuitable clothing. Lewis a little tight and more than a little disagreeable. Of course, Nora can hold her own. Flashes of the temper I remember from childhood when she and Father would argue over the smallest things. They were in the midst of all this when they knocked on my door to take me to the dining room. Wasn’t the least bit hungry. I can’t get used to eating at eight o’clock and so I keep asking the steward for fruit and biscuits which I bolt in the late afternoon. Also the food on the ship is foreign and rich to me. Soups made from tortoises and strange fishes, guinea fowl, whatever they are. I suppose I am not made for the “high life.”

All seems well again between Nora and L.M. Cooing and touching at breakfast (my best meal). A brilliant sunny day and the sea as flat as a plate. The days are now very warm. This afternoon I saw a faint smudge on the horizon. Smoke from another ship perhaps. A man and his little boy were examining it through binoculars, and after a few minutes the man shyly offered me the glasses for a look. But I could make nothing of this dark smear against the ridge of water and sky.
We introduced ourselves. Mr. Rossi is from Cleveland, Ohio, and is travelling with his seven-year-old son, Marco. They are going to see the child’s grandmother who lives south of Naples. Despite the afternoon sun, Mr. Rossi was dressed like an English gentleman in blazer and white pants and straw hat. The little boy stood next to him unsmiling in a sailor suit and cap. An air of almost comical gravity surrounded both father and son. Life seemed to be a serious business with them and then I discovered that Mr. Rossi had recently lost his wife
and the little boy his mother. She died two months ago in a motor car accident, and so now they are going to spend some time with relatives “in the old country.” Mr. Rossi emigrated thirty-five years ago at the age of fifteen and he has done well in the construction business. He has not been back to Italy since that long-ago day in 1901 when he sailed away with an aunt and uncle. His father is dead but he would like to bring his mother back to America for a visit, though he doubts that she will agree. “She loves her village and, of course, Il Duce. She thinks he is a saint.”

Mr. Rossi told me about his wife whom he met in a diner where she worked as a waitress. In no time they had “tied the knot.” This was only eight years ago. “I was too busy making money to look for a wife. And then when I found one, she was taken from me just like that.” He made a snapping sound with his enormous fingers. She was struck by a car while crossing the street. “But, it was only a nudge that knocked her down and she struck her head. Killed like that and not a mark on her body, so help me God.”

The little boy scarcely moved as he listened to all this, and I wondered how many times he had heard the story. Mr. Rossi carefully fitted the expensive-looking binoculars into a leather case and hung it around his neck. He struck me as a man who pays attention to details. He looked down at his son. “Would you like an ice cream, Marco?”

“Yes, Papa.”

“Would you care to join us, Miss?”

I wouldn’t have minded a bit, for I liked Mr. Rossi and Marco and
the graceful, particular air about them. The sun, however, had given me a searing headache and I had to retreat to my cabin.

This evening there was a change in our seating at dinner, probably managed by Nora. We are now with her new friends, two couples in their thirties. They are in the restaurant business in Philadelphia and this is their third or fourth trip to Italy. They are cheerful, loud, self-absorbed people with numerous jokes about Italian men and their alleged virility. As the single woman at the table, I was good-naturedly warned to be on guard for my virtue. Laughter all around except from L.M. who seemed to be tiring of the shenanigans. He was beginning to take on what Nora refers to as “his bulldog look.”