Under the Sun (8 page)

Looking forward to seeing you on the morning of the 22nd.

Yours, Bruce

 

18 Grosvenor Crescent Mews | Belgravia | 30 June [1960]

 

Dear E.F.P.,

In the present state of the market the price of £9,500 was a very good one and is by most people considered to have been the highest relative price in the sale. I think that the way to approach them is to inform them that having sold the other successfully at auction you are now rather reluctantly prepared to sell the other quickly privately. You must emphasise the fact that they are absolutely unseen and that the restoration was carried out by Mr Lank entirely on your instructions. Sotheby's name must on no account be used in connection with St Anthony Abbot and it must appear that the decision to sell only one stems entirely from you.

I do not think it would be wise to withdraw the picture from Sotheby's until you find out whether they are still prepared to buy, as you would burn your boats here and all the contacts that this place affords.

With regards to the question of price my own feelings are that you should start off at £8,000 and be prepared to come down reluctantly to £6,500 if need be, but one simply doesn't want the thing stranded on one's hands with nobody interested.

However, I think it would be unwise to hurry the matter and please would you not do anything without my being in the picture as it would not make things easy for me here.

Enclosed is a photograph for you to have, but it is essential not to show it to
anyone
yet.

Looking forward to having your comments.

Regards to Mrs P.,

Yours,

Bruce

Sotheby's | 34 & 35 New Bond Street | 19 July [1960]

 

Dear E.F.P.,

Very many thanks for your letter. I think that the way is all clear for you to write to Rawlinson
³⁶
and find out if their American client is still interested.

Enclosed is a full and I think complete cataloguing description of St Anthony Abbot which will I hope lend weight to its authenticity.

Should he be no longer interested, do please let me know quickly, because I think that I may be able to arrange something else. If Rawlinson does fail you though, I think we should urge Mrs Gronau into activity first. If they are interested may I please somehow see you with the picture before showing it to them?

I am going to Greece for a month on September 7th which should be marvellous.

Regards to you both, Bruce

Postcard, Cape Sounion | Temple of Poseidon | Greece | 15 September 1960

 

It rained today for the first time this summer. Spent weekend on island of Aegina where I met O Marlburian. Food very good. Xenias Melathron v. expensive and not as good as Tambi, at a third [of the] price. I had no cheque book so please will you pay for table-cloth and I'll pay you back, B

Postcard, windmills at Rhodes | [September 1960]

 

So that's what you took a pot at!
³⁷
you naughty fellow! Yacht trip to temple at Lindos with Lord Merthyr (R.C.C.)
³⁸
and British Ambassador + Jill Kannreuther. B

Postcard, Dionysus mosaic | Delos Island | Mykonos | Greece | 19 September [1960]

 

Do come here, but for God's sake
not
in the boat
³⁹
. Blows force 8 at least all the time from the North. Last night from Rhodes, asleep on deck when wave came right over me taking with it my hat and a little bag that I bought.
Full
. Am going back to terra firma and shall go to Crete by AIR. B

 

In Crete, Chatwin stayed with Allen Bole, ‘a rather hopeless but highly entertaining American' who lived in a house in Chania near the harbour. Bole, a musician, had been Wanda Landowska's assistant on the harpsichord and was now trying to write. Chatwin
used to say of him:‘He doesn't realise that the Mediterranean is very tough. People come here and think
dolce far niente
– it's nice to do nothing – and it ruins them.'

Chatwin several times returned to Crete before his marriage, to walk but also to seek out rare plants.‘I once spent the whole month of April combing the White Mountains in search of the rare
Fritillaria sphaciotica
, and my search was a total failure.' He was possibly influenced by Robert Byron who, when visiting Mount Athos, had dug up for his mother, who had implored him to bring her ‘something living from the Mountain,' a species of crocus. (‘Grasping pseudo-trowels of living marble we gouged a dozen sepulchred bulbs into a biscuit tin.') In a draft for a botanical essay on the flowers of Greece, Chatwin wrote of these pleasures: ‘If you will take a light-hearted walk through the hills of Attica in spring time, or wander through the upland pastures of Crete, your bag full of late oranges and hard goat cheese, resting in the odd shepherd's hut and drinking his staccha, the rich soured ewe's milk of spring, and possibly clamber up to the snow line of Ida for the sheets of the blue
Chionodoxa nana
and the tricoloured Cretan crocus,
C. sieberi
, there are rewards that no life in sombre cities can dispel.'

18 Grosvenor Crescent Mews SW1|10 October 1960

 

My dear Ivry,

Have just got Avril's
⁴¹
mother's invitation for the 24th with a note from A saying that you're having a dinner party. Should love to come. Feeling much better
⁴²
and am back at work. Sorry short note. Love B

Postcard, Matisse window | Chapelle du Rosaire | Vence | France | 25 May 1961

 

Went today to see this.
⁴³
Marvellous weather. Have done absolutely nothing except get really quite a good colour. Love B

 

Cairo | Egypt | Christmas 1961

 

Arrived safely but 1 day late owing to fog. Weather marvellous. Writing from the Step Pyramid.

 

Postcard, The Khonsu Temple | Karnak | Egypt | 30 December 1961

 

Having a wonderful time. Back from the Sudan to see Abu Simbel. Return to Cairo and back Mon. XXX B

Postcard, Panarea, Isole Eolie | Messina | Italy | [summer 1962]

 

Had a cable from Hugh yesterday. He appears to be in Athens by now. I may meet him in Sicily next week.
⁴⁴
This island is absolute paradise.

It's very easy to take a little house here in the summer for almost nothing, and money is virtually still unheard of. B

Postcard of Brooklyn Bridge | New York | 3 January 1963

 

An average of –
4 parties a day,
4 times the work.
4 hours sleep
4 times as expensive
– and I'm fine. B

 

Herat | Afghanistan | 10 September [1963]

 

Darling Mum,

Afghanistan at last! It took three days to penetrate this far from Meshed which is only 250 miles away over the Persian border. Robert had a fetish that the bus service was totally useless. We were told that oil tankers crossed to Kandahar daily and duly made arrangements to accompany a Mr Huchang Fesolahi at 7am the next morning. We were half an hour late. Mr Fesolahi was nearly a whole day late. We drove with him for a hundred miles in acute discomfort and apprehension; it makes one nervous when the thousand gallon tank is behind one's head and in spite of a large DO NOT SMOKE sign Mr Fesolahi has smoked at least 5 packets of nasty cigarettes. He then let go of the wheel and shrieked with alarm. The receipt for his load had apparently blown out of the window. He expressed his intention of returning to Meshed at once. He didn't though and drove to a road hut built of mud and straw. He entered and slept; the inhabitants drove us out. We attempted sleep in the cab which was worse than useless. At dawn I caught Mr Fesolahi escaping. He meant to leave us in charge of the tanker until his return two days hence. A gale was blowing, billowing sand in our faces and blotting out parts of the road. We did not mean to stop. We found two friendly Afghans in a lorry with scenes painted from Shakespeare's Avon, the monarch of the Glen and other pictures taken from Mehem-Sahibs Christmas cards of 45 years ago.

Arrived after two hours with them at a tea-house at Turbat-Jam where there is a 15th century shrine. I ran to it and back in 12 minutes, and when I returned the Afghans and Robert and a host of others were sitting round in front of the lorry smoking marijuana through a hookah. In pieces together with the hookah was the dynamo. The result – need for a new one. It was 7 o'clock. We waited till late afternoon sipping tea and very irritable. A posse of Land Rovers driven by dashing Afghans then gave us a lift. By 10.30 we were over the border. Wild eyed frontier guards were armed with bayonets. Customs officers at this post have great difficulty at night. They have one hurricane lamp. It was blowing another gale as we stopped at the only rest house, a mud affair built below the ground. The gale howled; the proprietor, wall-eyed, continually blew his nose on the end of his turban. A mess of chicken appeared which I was unable to face. The others all did, I sipped tea. Herat at last at 3 in the morning. The Park Hotel was built by Amanullah in the days of his ‘folie de grandeur'. Furnished extravagantly in the manner of the Paris World's Fair of 1925, it has the appearance of an expensive hotel in Juan-Les-Pins. The garden is attractive; it is well-painted, deckchairs and cheerful awnings are on the terrace, within a gracious loggia, tables and chairs ranged all around; but this is Herat and not the South of France. Demand for lunch produced a triumphant smile. Yes, sir, no meat, no rice, no butter, no Pepsi-Cola, no Coca-Cola, no drink, no fruit. Bread and tea only. ‘Eggs? Maybe yes! Tomorrow!' Flanking the portrait of the King however are a pair of dusty vitrines of misplaced flashiness. If they were in our imaginary Juan-les-Pins hotel they would contain beachwear, ties, scent of works of art. Here no! There are two tins of corned beef, rusty and probably useless, 1 tin of nescafé, opened dampened and caked, a tin of tuna fish, some old lard and a carton of Californian honey. The corned beef costs about £1. Robert is famished and so we settle for the tuna, only a little less expensive.

To the bazaar in a curricle, jingling with bells and hung with red pom-poms. You sit back to back, the form of these vehicles hasn't changed since Alexander used one to cross from here into India.