B007RT1UH4 EBOK (50 page)

love,

W.

To Edith Gaddis

Hôtel de l’Oasis

Alger [Algeria]

[28 February 1951]

dear Mother—

The draft arrived, and thank you so much for managing it so well and quickly—you can’t imagine how much such attention means.

The trip is coming on exceedingly well, though just now rather more rushed than I’d like, but we shall return more leisurely. Must be in Tripoli in 3 days—among other things, we are making some moving pictures.

Algiers is as excellent a place as I’d believed—and the casbah marvelous. I hope to spend more time here on return.

love,

W.

To Edith Gaddis

Uaddan Club

Tripoli [Libya]

5 March 1951

dear Mother—

Everything in order. At the Uaddan Club in Tripoli (a uaddan is an African animal resembles a Rocky mountain goat). For these few days things are quiet, with Mr Tudor-Pole taking care of some private concerns, and I spend the time going around the city—exciting in its old Arab part, but quite Italian for the rest. Wednesday I believe we are going to get hold of a couple of camels and go to an Arab town far enough from beaten track to make the car impossible. By the weekend we should be startling back, but this time more slowly, and a more southernly route, along the edge of the desert—it is that part of Africa that I look forward to, needless to say. Finally, we should be back in Sevilla by Easter Sunday.

Some of all this time and energy is devoted to a 35mm. motion picture camera, making background shots for a documentary film—quite a business, trying to photograph an Arab with a camel train in the desert who isn’t quite sure what you’re up to. Otherwise it proves a quiet and fairly uneventuful trip—the desert. The camels, and Aunt Mabel’s burnoose 1000 times. [...]

with love,

W.

To Edith Gaddis

[
Though WG apologizes below for not saying much about his month in North Africa, the experience resulted in an exotic passage on pp. 877–79 of
R
—not the kind of things one writes home about to mother.
]

Algiers, North Africa

23.3.1951

dear Mother—

Arrived here last night, and very happy to find your letter. Apparently the confusion is my fault—but I was certain (and am) that I’d sent you the address in Tripoli before I left Spain.

At any rate now all rests easier. It has been an excellent trip, and I think that by now we’ve finished work on this documentary film which was the reason for it. Shall spend 3 or 4 days in Algiers, and I should be back in Spain by the end of the month. From there shall start figuring on coming home—either mid-April or beginning of May. Much depending on money.

I’ve just written Morton—
Atlantic Monthly
—to ask him to keep any “biographical note” as brief as possible—born in N.Y. in 1922, educated mainly in New England—mention this African film if he likes. In other things pending, I’ll hope for answers to questions in my last letter (my bank balance, your cable address, &c) in Sevilla.

As yet I haven’t much to say about North Africa—I am still too occupied sorting out the impressions I’ve had and as yet been unable to put in place. But for the moment Algiers is a fine city, worth spending a few days in certainly—though they say that people still get hit over the head at night in the Casbah. Not as warm here as it was—though coming as we have just up from the south, Biskra and Bou-Saâda, near the edge of the Sahara, it would seem cool. We have sand everywhere—the car coated and lined with it, and clothes pretty saturated, and eyes and lungs. But a clean shirt makes a great difference.

love,

W.

To Edith Gaddis

Sevilla

[3 April 1951]

dear Mother,

Safe at last, the harbour past . . . and coming back to Sevilla by now is much like coming home. But of coming home—well, you’ve got to take me in.

How glad I was to find your good letters (real Letters) from you waiting for me here. And I have put you through all sorts of difficulties there, and I’m sorry about it, I only realise what troubles you’ve been having when I read of your hectic businesses with American Express and West Union &c. Certainly alot was thrown off by your not having my Tripoli address, as we were there for two weeks (there and in the mountain beyond) working on this film which took more time than planned, so we’re late getting back here to Sevilla. David only stayed over for a day, then went on back to London, or rather set out for London, last evening. The trip and the work there were immensely worth while, in spite of having made this temporal dent in my ‘own’ work. As for that, the prospect of getting back into it, while at the same time trying to make arrangements to come back across that Atlantic, are rather involved, I’m still trying to work it out.

This is what I have in mind, though as yet I don’t know about a port for departure; but I’d think within about 3 weeks I should hope to be boarding something, in a western direction.

I don’t know if there is enough of this novel finished as I want it to be finished to show there in New York with any hope of ($al) encouragement. But I intend anyhow, when I return, to start immediately investigating the USIS, the American propaganda bureau, what Bill Haygood is working with in Madrid, for possibilities. I’ve had this in mind for some time, and on this trip have talked with a number of people about it. Just now I’ve also talked with it here, am to meet him for coffee later. And so, I’ve those two possibilities. Heaven knows, I’d like to come back and settle down to work again there in Massapequa, while this other thing is working out, if it will work out.

The money business on the trip worked out, because David’s company had blocked money in these countries we working in, and so I drew on that, through him, and trust that you’ve had my letter asking for 130$ to be sent to him in Paris American Express. Therefore the rest of the money which is floating or flying somewhere between me and you now, should eventually come to rest here. How good you are to offer me passage home. And I think I shall have to borrow some from you, though heaven knows if it could be managed how much I’d rather work my way back. But that seems about gone, those days, with Wim Boni on the cattle boat. Still I’m going to investigate. But the peril is getting into some big port, and wasting as much time and money, in Lisbon, say, waiting for a likely boat with an empty deck-hand’s berth, as it would cost to simply go down and buy a passage.

To tell the truth, I’m quite nervous at the prospect of coming back. When I returned to Sevilla there were 20letters waiting here for me, and each pointing to a world of rankest confusion. But I must come back, notably for Margaret, really, that most exquisite and wonderful girl. And also, to tell the truth, I think prospects look good, though it is easier said from this place than accomplished in that one. (Incidentally I told American Express in Algiers to forward to me here immediately the 100$ which hadn’t reached there before I left.)

Believe me, I thought about you and Margaret on Easter [25 March], —I’d never have thought—or perhaps I would—as we stood in Notre Dame, in Paris, that in the next Easter I should be walking through the raucous bazaars in Algier’s Casbah, spending the evening leaning over the baccarat tables at the casino (hastening to add here that I did not play nor lose even 100francs). So there is North Africa, accomplished for the moment. Cairo still distant . . . it is a long way off you know. From anywhere.

with my love

W

Safe at last: from the chorus of a nineteenth-century temperance song called “Anchored!” (1883; lyrics by Samuel K. Cowan, music by Michael Watson): “Then safe at last, the harbour past, / Safe in my Father’s home!”

home [...] take me in: another allusion to Frost’s dictum, “Home is the place where, when you have to go there, / They have to take you in.”

this film: described later as a “documentary film on the background of fine-paper making” (8 March 1957).

USIS: U.S. Information Service

Wim Boni: unidentified.

To John and Pauline Napper

[
While he was north Africa, WG mailed several picture postcards to the Nappers.
]

Sevilla

5 april 1951

dear John and Pauline,