Pilgrim Son: A Personal Odyssey Page 18

  Keith said, 'Good. We publish authors, not books.' Then he went on his way.

  The sun was beginning to peep over our horizon. No one but a fool or a very young writer would feel that the millennium had arrived because one book had been accepted, and I was thirty-five-and-a-half. But it would be equally foolish to see only the pitfalls. An excessive caution is worse than none at all. There must be thousands of people who had written more than two books before having one accepted. Keith's parting words, though sobering, also held out promise of an exciting and ever widening future. We publish authors, not books meant that they trusted an author to develop. I wasn't contracting for one book but becoming a partner in a continuing enterprise, in which it was their duty to treat me fairly and show efficiency in selling, and my duty to write better books. It was my duty, in particular, to Keith and Helen, for Keith had revealed that they had had a hard time persuading the Viking chiefs that Nightrunners — and I — were worth publishing.

  They had only won by the Fabian tactics of putting off a decision every time someone seemed inclined to speak out against the book. It is also relevant that when Harold Guinzburg, the then owner, had formed Viking, almost the first book he published was Lives of a Bengal Lancer.

  Well, I thought, I seem to have done a This end first to the publishers, at least. Now for the readers... But soft, between me and the readers stood the critics.

  The New York critics, who would most affect me, ipso facto belonged to the American Liberal Establishment, which stood much closer to the professional intellectuals of mainland Europe than it did to the British equivalent. Man lives by thought, the communication of thought, and action. Writing should reflect this trinity, but the A.L.E. did not accept the importance of the third leg, action. To them only thought and the communication of thought mattered. This was in general not so in England, where a man could be an expert on Provençal poetry and a big game hunter; a football fan and a historian; a politician and a novelist; a soldier and a painter; and neither world despised the other (though they could laugh at it), because they recognized their equal validity, and their dependence on each other.

  Apart from sneering at action the A.L.E. had taken sides in many questions of the day, and believed that writers should do so too. I did not. I had come to believe that the writer's duty, as a writer, is to offer some effectively worded insight into the human condition. If anything else, a particular situation, for example, is at the centre of his work — that is, if the situation and not the humans are the essentials of it — it will not last, because all situations change. It is for this reason that Of Mice and Men is a greater work than The Grapes of Wrath. The Depression has long gone: George and Lennie live for ever.

  Nor did I believe a writer should write to change social or political conditions, abolish poverty, or castigate brutality. A person can write for any of these purposes, just as he can write to explain how to boil an egg or use a tangential inferometer; but he is not then a writer, he is a mechanic, using words as his tool.

  But the A.L.E. believed that writing should be inspired by a political and social conscience, and their judgments were consequently not of the writing but of the writer's attitude; and if the wretched fellow had not expressed any political view, why then, impute a bad one to him, and castigate him accordingly. A clear example of this was in the reviews of the war reminiscences of German generals, submarine commanders, and fighter pilots, which were just beginning to appear. The criticisms were political, not literary: the authors had been Nazis and were therefore dirty dogs. I had done my best to destroy Germany and all Germans, and wish I had been able to finish the job; but evil can be brave, can be perceptive, can know hunger and thirst and pain, and can write well about them. The A.L.E. thought otherwise, and made no attempt to be fair. If Julius Caesar were to publish his Commentaries here, now, I thought, the critics would make no mention of his prose, only of the fact that he and his imperialistic legions were invading the freedom-loving peoples of Gaul.

  The John Day letter (already quoted) turning down Nightrunners showed how all this would affect me. I was writing about India in the colonial days. I had done my best to feel as each of my characters might feel — patriotic Indian, patriotic Englishman, self-serving prince, and so on; but certain concepts — e.g. 'loyalty', and the 'master-man' relationship — were in themselves anathema to the A.L.E. It was incapable of appreciating, for instance, the attitude of the old-time British private soldier, whose motto was, 'I'm as good a man as you are — sir.' All it heard was the 'sir' at the end, because the rest was not spoken aloud.

  I was not concerned with making a judgment on these or any other concepts, but I was desperately concerned with transmitting the reality of them.

  The result would be that my 'exciting story about the Indian Mutiny, showing how hatred breeds hatred' would be pilloried because it had little about race-prejudice in it (though much about race-pride, British and Indian); nothing about the evils of colonialism (my theme was the inherent melancholy of power); no anti-heroes (though several opposing heroes); and a great deal of action. All in all, a bad outlook. Oh well, it was no use crying before I was hurt, though well to harden my sensitivity. Worse things happen at sea, as Frank Laskier used to say, in and out of season.

  My efforts to re-create the Kansas of 1910 succeeded. Lester Wimpy was bought by Colliers for $750; and the editor asked Miriam to tell him more about 'the brilliant new young American writer'. That one cracked my protective wall. We gave half to the Hills — to Marian, specifically, at her request, that it might not all disappear in gin before the kids got some new clothes — and had a small celebration.

  I awoke with a start. The full May moon flooded our little bedroom and the trees were shimmering silver outside. I heard a whimpering and shuffling close by, and tensed. Good God, had Nanny projected her longings across the Atlantic? A woman's voice sobbed, 'Jack... Barbara... help me... ' It was a woman, though I did not recognize the blurred, tearful mumble. Barbara turned on the light and we saw Marian Hill, wearing only a nightie, at the foot of our bed. She threw herself on to it, reaching out to us, crying, 'He's going to kill them. Oh God, save them!' She was drunk, of course, but very much afraid, too. Barbara pulled her up on to the bed and held her close while she muttered that Ray had refused to go to bed; he'd drunk another bottle of gin after we left, beaten her up, thrown her down the stairs, sworn he'd kill the kids. 'Please, please, Jack, save them!'

  I pulled on a dressing gown and shoes and looked at my arms collection: my own ceremonial sword, a Japanese officer's sword, a Burmese dah, and a Gurkha kukri. I selected the Japanese sword — really the best suited for heavy work — drew it, and set out across the wet grass. It was half past three in the morning and the night absolutely beautiful, a stirring in the silver trees and the road itself like a river of dark and light. I stalked along in silence, carrying the bare sword on my shoulder. What would I say if Ray invited me in for a drink? I'd have to accept and then he'd say, 'Nice sword you have there,' and I'd say, 'Yes, jolly nice, got it off the body of a...'

  I was there. The windows were open and I heard heavy snoring from upstairs. That must be Ray. Then I heard the typical high-low ah, ah, ah, ah, of Kathy, who always rocked herself to sleep; she might have psychological problems, but she wasn't dead. That left Jim. He might be a corpse by now, but I doubted it. In any event, I did not intend to find out. After a careful circumnavigation of the house, finding no bodies in the bushes, I returned home. Barbara was giving Marian coffee in the kitchen. An hour later, when she had recovered herself, she left. Soon afterwards the Hills separated, and the house fell vacant. After a month or two Ray found a lady alcoholic with $18,000 a year of her own money, married her, and lived happily ever after. Marian, too, married again and left the neighbourhood.

  On the Immigration front a legislative assistant to one of the Congressional committees, perhaps prodded by Mrs St George, suggested a way out of my difficulties. It was very improbable that the Kilgore-St Ge
orge bill, or any other like it, would be passed. I should instead apply for permanent suspension of deportation on the grounds that I was the sole support of a legal resident — Barbara. My first reaction was a near-paroxysm of anger that none of the Immigration people with whom I had argued, begged, and pleaded for three years had suggested this method before. My second was wonder why my lawyers had not known of it. That led to the third, the suspicion that there must be a trap in it. But careful inquiry confirmed that it really was the best course open to me.

  The first step, if I were to apply for permanent suspension of deportation, was naturally for them to try to deport me. (How could my deportation be suspended if no one were deporting me, see?) So a formal warrant was issued, ordering me to surrender myself at 70 Columbus Avenue at such and such a date and time, for deportation. I obeyed, bearing with me the request that the deportation be permanently suspended on the grounds that etc., etc. Now they released me on my own recognizances and set a date for the hearing of my application, setting forth all the information they would need from me before the hearing.

  The paper-chasing of previous years was now seen to be nothing but preparation for this moment. I gave up real writing in order to fill in forms, declarations, and statements. I ran from New City to New York to Milltown to Hawthorn getting fingerprints, certificates, and X-rays. I drafted affidavits wherein my past and present agents, and Harold Guinzburg and Keith Jennison and every magazine editor who had bought one of my pieces, all swore to my probable earning capacity and economic self-sufficiency. I mailed out certificates to the effect that I was a model of moral rectitude, perseverance, cleanliness, frugality and sobriety, and these were signed (in quadruplicate) and returned by Roddy McLeod, General Pete Rees, General Dick Hull, Field-Marshal Slim, Vyvyan, Bob Scott, Bill Sloane, Squire Deming, Maxwell Anderson, Old Uncle Tom Cobleigh and all. Remembering George Washington's troubles with the cherry tree when young, I manfully swore that I had committed adultery but had never been a member of the Communist Party. I swore a great deal, one way and another, before finally wrapping up all the papers and taking them to New York. As the West Shore thumped and groaned northward that afternoon I had a feeling that I had knocked on my last door. Someone would now have to open it or I'd bloody well break it down.

  On June to, 1950, we set out for Maine, taking Marie Laure Auberjonois, then thirteen, with us as baby sitter. We got off late and only made Nyack, ten miles away, before stopping for lunch in a tavern. It was one of the first days of the Kefauver hearings into organized crime in the United States, which were being televised. We stayed, absorbed, later than we meant to. It was to our ideas an extraordinary way of making such an investigation. In effect the general public were being brought on to the committee's bench, to turn the inquiry into a show-biz act. But of course Kefauver was not a judge, he was a politician; the way he conducted these hearings, and what he unearthed, would affect his future. He would be inhuman not to think of that, rather than solely of truth. Although we saw the value of the process in certain cases, we put down televised public hearings as another defect of the American judicial and investigatory systems, together with trial-by-the-press, and interminable delays caused by unworkable procedures. What the country badly needed was the equivalent of Royal Commissions, headed by trained judges with life appointments and no political or other axe to grind.

  The Kefauver public hearings were often preceded by private hearings at which the committee tried to find out what sort of evidence each witness was going to give. At one of these so-called executive sessions a very pretty lady, asked why so many gangsters were eager to load her with jewels, roundly replied, 'because I'm the best goddamn lay in America.' (I am sorry to add that the committee didn't have the nerve to ask her the same question on the little screen.)

  When we set off again we had the top down, the sun shone, and the children in the back jumped up and down singing,

  We're off to Maine We're off to Maine

  And not by any boat or train.

  Later, Susan, influenced by the family in the Chicken Coop, who combined religious fervor with unfortunate personal habits, began to chant,

  God made the sun

  God made the moon

  God made the stars

  God made the trees

  God made the sea...

  A long thoughtful pause, and then:

  God made everything, except our furniture.

  Meanwhile, Martin, standing up against orders in the back seat, chirruped, 'Dodge... Chevy... Chevy, Pontiac, Cadillac... Ford...'

  'No, it isn't, it's a Mercury,' I said crossly, 'and sit down.' It was about the last time I was able to correct him on the year or make of any car seen on the road, from any angle at any distance. He was a month short of his fourth birthday.

  We passed through Mystic, Connecticut, and spent an hour at the whaling museum, where a faithful reproduction of an early 18th-century New England whaling port was being built up. It was a very peaceful, pleasant town of old houses, with a broad, sheltered estuary ringed with great elms. We remembered it.

  After spending a disturbed night in a decrepit motel built so close to the New Haven Railroad tracks that giant freights actually seemed to crash through our bedroom at eighty miles an hour, and at intervals of half an hour all night, we had two fractious children on our hands, and taught them Animal Euchre. (For the sake of any parents who have not heard of this excellent time-passer, you allot each child or team one side of the road, and every animal he sees on that side is worth points — different points for a cow, horse, dog, etc. Some rule has to be made about herds or flocks too large to be counted in passing. A cemetery on one side takes that side's score back to zero, but of course it is up to the other side to see the cemetery. A cat on a window sill always counts game-winning points, whatever they are, usually a hundred for each game; five games the set.)

  Next day we came about noon to the Westerstago Inn behind Prince's Point. Maine! The sky was a pale northern blue, the air sharp and smelling of fresh seaweed, and the roadsides bright with wild roses. We ate steamed clams and lobster rolls, both for the first time, and then set out to find our landlord. Dr Rounds showed us the Indian arrowhead stuck in the door of his house — it had been fired during an Abenaki raid of the the mid 1700s — and then took us to the cottage close by. As promised, it was primitive, but, to people accustomed to the Indian mofussil, perfectly livable. We set up a work table for me in the corner of our bedroom, screwed the ancient electric burner (one ring) into a light socket, noting that the wire grew rather hot to the touch, bathed the kids in the sink, and went out to explore the cove. It was perfect, a curved sandy beach, with seaweed-covered rocks at either end and a cluster in the middle, and not another soul in sight, or prospect. This is it, we cried, aloud, walking hand in hand on the sand in the twilight. Maine!

  Two weeks later, when we were well settled in, and knew our way to Cumberland Center and Falmouth Foreside, and the grass was growing as high as the children's heads along the lane, North Korea invaded South Korea. Not again, I thought, not another weak-kneed acquiescence... then President Truman threw the power of the United States into positive action to throw back the aggressors. The same action threw me into a sea of self doubt and questioning.

  We walked again along the sand, the Halfway Rock light flashing out of the Atlantic night to the east. That transformation which we knew, theoretically, would happen when we left England had come to pass: we physically loved America. We had lost nothing of love for the English land, but the nostalgia for it had faded. (We longed to eat English bacon again, and Melton Mowbray pies, and Dover sole — but the belly's hungering is not the same as the heart's aching.)

  This land under our feet, Maine or Rockland or Manhattan, was where our hearts rested. From now on, wherever we travelled, however much we thrilled to the journeys, it was these seas, this sun, this wind that would define 'home'; and the dogwoods blooming at the high curve of South Mountain Road; and the sunburst sensation
of freedom and gaiety when the October maples showered gold on the people going to the football — combative, friendly, generous, alert. They had been generous to my country, above all, and we had never had to grow a protective shell around our nationality. Apart from a few absent-minded jabs from the Irish, and a rather apologetic hostility from some Zionists, Britain was liked and admired. Equally among people whose national origins gave them no cause to love England as among the professional Anglophiles, we had met a singularly moving sympathy with England and appreciation of what she had achieved and suffered in the past forty years. As soon as the storekeepers in Haverstraw learned we were English — which was at once, from our accents — they would exclaim over the unfairness of the hard times then gripping England; of the rationing; of the people's doggedness during the war; of their discipline under crushing taxation.

  Italian greengrocers gave us fruit, and Greek delicatessen owners bread free, because we were English. In twenty-eight months neither of us had ever had to defend England against verbal attack, though we had once or twice been asked to explain anomalies.

  Now the United States was at war, and England had promised to help. What should I do? Not even a British general mobilization and a call to the Colours would get me back to England after what I had been through to stay here, because their Colours would not be mine. Nehru was obviously not going to offer any armed assistance from India, and I had no intention of returning only to serve on a British Army staff. In any event general mobilization was most unlikely unless the Russians came in. I could join the U.S. Army. I had fourteen years' experience, eight of them on active service, as a command and staff officer. Surely I could translate the generality of what I had learned into the specifics of the U.S. Army, just as I had learned how to translate my knowledge into a movie script? But I would not, repeat NOT, serve as a journalist or writer in a propaganda or information service. I was a writer now, by force of desire and achievement... but not in battle.