Collages (13 page)

The old people had a wonderful memory. They
remembered every detail they had heard, the color of his horse, the color of
his belt, the number of beads on his necklace for luck, the names of his
comrades, his friends, his relatives in other countries, the name of every
battle, of every place where he had been.

When she left them, they made her promise to
return. She carried a brief case filled with precious notes, letters, sketches.
She had an intimate knowledge of the man. His stature, his fierceness, his
valor made the modern world seem tame and fearful.

But the plane caught fire a few minutes before
they landed. The pilot sent messages through the intercom. “If we can land
before the second motor catches fire we will be safe. We only have four minutes
to go. Please do not panic.”

One minute. Two minutes. Three minutes. Four
minutes. They landed and stepped out through the emergency door. A fire engine
and an ambulance awaited them. The plane was emptied without accident, but the
fire raged after they left it, and in this fire burned the intimate personal
data on Shumla which his jealous religion, his jealous gods, did not wish to
release to the press, to the world, to women like the Consul’s wife who
committed adultery in their dreams.

COLONEL TISHNAR CAME TO PARADISE INN for
dinner. If Renate had wanted to make a portrait of him it would have had to be
a collage for he seemed made of all textures except human skin, human hair. His
white hair could have been made of spun glass, his skin of sand-colored suede,
his slim military figure of some new suave plastic.

His language too was stylized and every word
glazed with patina. Long service with the British Intelligence Service had
given him a stance which reminded one of photographs of T. E. Lawrence. He had
known Lawrence, and shared with him a love of adventure, freedom, exile and
poetry.

Colonel Tishnar had the gift of distilling from
his own life only the humorous aspects. Having excluded illness, danger,
tragedy, and personal relationships, his life appeared enchanted and pure
fiction. His stories were perfect for dinner parties and they disturbed no
one’s digestion.

This evening he was a guest of a famous
producer and they were planning to go on a safari together. The producer was
asking him about the idiosyncrasies of lions.

“Well,” said Colonel Tishnar, “I can tell you
one story which will give you an idea of the fastidiousness of lions in general.
Did you ever know Mrs. Larrabee? I was with her on a safari. Mrs. Larrabee had
never resorted to the magic of dress or cosmetics, to any artificial effort to
reconstruct herself. She may have decided at the beginning of her life that no
charm or art could enhance her bold features, her straw-dry hair, her skin
grained like sandpaper. We were lion hunting in Nairobi. As you probably know,
the rule in this sort of hunting is to remain in the jeep and to keep on
driving. Two natives accompanied Mrs. Larrabee, one to drive the jeep, the
other to carry her gun. Somehow or other, her jeep became separated from the
rest of the caravan. When it reached a shallow gully the engine stopped. While
it was being repaired Mrs. Larrabee went for a walk along the bank. She was far
out of sight and walking back meditatively when she noticed across the dry
river bed an enormous lion walking parallel to her at the same pace. Mrs.
Larrabee remained calm. She continued to walk towards her jeep. So did the
lion. They both reached a bend in the gully. Towards the right was the road
back to the jeep.

“Towards the left was the jungle. And here the
lion calmly walked into the jungle and disappeared. But before the parting of
the ways he looked at Mrs. Larrabee rather wistfully, as if to say goodbye.
Mrs. Larrabee told me the story. She wanted me to explain what had saved her
from being devoured. I could not explain it. The lion may have decided that
Mrs. Larrabee’s skin and boniness belonged to a new species of animal which did
not tempt him. It may have been that he had already eaten and that there was
nothing here to stimulate his appetite. Anyhow, what I could not tell Mrs.
Larrabee was that if I had been the lion, and if I had met her walking along
the edge of that gully, I too would have continued to walk in the opposite
direction, wouldn’t you?”

Once during the evening he paused in the middle
of a story as if the end were no concern of his, and he had to be reminded to
continue until he reached the climax.

“The end, you want an end,” he said. “It may be
I have lived too long with the Moroccans, and I have come to believe as they
believe that nothing ends, nothing is ever finished.”

“What about the adventurer’s life? Does he
always remain alone? Will you every marry?”

“I could only marry if I could find a woman who
has had as rich a life as mine. Then I would be willing to stay at home, and
sit by the fireside, and we would both tell each other of our endless
adventures and relive them all.”

“I know exactly the woman for you,” said
Renate. “She has had as adventurous a life as yours. T. E. Lawrence carried her
books of poems with him, she visited him in the desert, and I am sure you were
at the same places, knew the same people, made the same voyages.”

“But never at the same time,” said Colonel
Tishnar. “This lack of synchronization augurs badly for a marriage. Already I
ask myself was she always late? I never could bear to wait for a woman.”

“She has just arrived,” said Renate.

Tessa’s dress was airy, of a black transparent
material stiffened by chemistry as organdie had onc been by starch and ironing.
It gave her the crisp silhouette of a young woman. The enormous bow on her
breast seemed like wings which would carry her off at any moment. Her hair,
though grey, was glossy and electric, and the ends curled in the air like
feathers at full mast. Her dress, the stance of her high-heeled shoes,
reflected the alertness of her spirit. Her laughter and her voice were young
and supple. Age could wrinkle her skin, freckle her hands, ruthlessly weigh
down her eyelids, but it could not deaden her fervor, her mobility, her
obedience to every challenge of life.

As soon as she was introduced to Colonel
Tishnar she began a story: “I have just come back from my gold mine in Ghost
Town. I bought it when they discovered a cheaper way of treating the low grade
ore discarded by the old miners. All I have to do is climb a ladder down the
shaft, from my very own cellar, pick up enough ore, treat it in this new acid,
just enough of it to spend in the evening at the famous gambling table of the
old pioneers. Ghost Town is coming back to life. The old saloon is still
decorated with red damask walls and a crystal chandelier brought from France
when wealth first came to the miners. One can live and gamble on ten dollars a
day. I am going to invite all my artist friends to come and live with me there.
The only difficulty with this plan is that I have lost their confidence. During
the war I offered some of the homesick surrealists a way to sail back to Europe.
I bought a ship for them at auction. It was in New Orleans. And I invited all
those who wanted to sail to come with me. But the ship sank in the harbor,
before they even boarded it. Some of them may have thought it was a plot
against surrealism.”

When Tessa left, Colonel Tishnar whispered to
Renate: “What a pathetic woman. All flutter and furbelows, no meaning to her
life, all chaos.”

Renate spent a sleepless night. For she knew
that Tessa, too, had been searching for the man who had enough stories to tell
to make their staying at home not seem like a retirement from active life. And
she was ill with a bad heart. How could Renate inform her that Colonel Tishnar
had decided to leave that very day for India? Could her old heart bear this
defeat, she who was not familiar with failure? She would expect Colonel Tishnar
to call her up. Her charm had never failed. But it was Renate who called in her
warmest, most exultant voice: “Colonel Tishnar thought you absolutely charming,
too charming in fact. He told me you reminded him of his dead wife, who made
him suffer a great deal and who was unfaithful to him. He is leaving for India.
He told me you are far too dangerous for his peace of mind.”

Tessa’s voice grew lighter and younger, even
though the tired heart caused breathlessness between each sentence. She was
elated to think that Colonel Tishnar had run away so far from her power and
charm.

“And do you know, Renate, I think he is right.
I am sure I would have been unfaithful to him.”

So there was Colonel Tishnar already won,
married, and betrayed, all in a few hours, a victory to stimulate the failing
heart of any woman.

RENATE GREW TIRED OF PAINTING PORTRAITS, of
hostessing, of designing dresses, and so she made a plan for a new magazine.

way out
because they were out of the way
of people who never left their offices.

John was a clairvoyant film critic and he wrote
for Renate describing all the beautiful and original scenarios written by
writers of quality which lay in “cold storage” in the studios. He also wrote a
dazzling article made up of all the paragraphs which had been lopped off at the
beginning, in the middle or sometimes at the end for the sake of layout.

Judith Sands offered several stories which were
too long or too short for other magazines, and which did not tie up with any
journalistic news item like a play on Broadway, a film in Hollywood, or a
murder, or burglary or a leap from the fifteenth floor.

Several novelists had beautiful chapters left
out of their novels. The novels had been weighed on a scale and found to be two
ounces overweight.

Betty was dressing dummies for Saks windows,
but she was skilled in lively and seductive layouts. She did not split stories
into fifteen to-be-continued columns interrupted with gaudy advertisements. She
quarantined commercials.

Henri offered his most secret recipes.

Harry sold records in a music store, and had
stored in his mind the most complete knowledge of jazz music and its composers.

Renate was inviting contributions born of
enthusiasm, inventiveness, novelty, exploration, of people in love with their
media and whose love was contagious. What she banished was the bored critics,
the imitators, the second-handers, the standardized cliches. Even the first
dummy aroused in people a feeling they were at last to know, read, see
everything other magazines neutralized, dissolved, synthesized, deodorized,
sterilized, disguised, monotonized, mothproofed, and sprayed with
life-repellents.

“It must be alive,” was Renate’s only editorial
principle.

Alive like Don Bachardy’s line portraits of
personalities, like Renate’s women and animals, like Judith Sands’ stories of
cities and the lovers who had lived in them, or the Consul’s wife’s selection
of how writers had written about women dressing (or undressing) and a thousand
other scintillating subjects which other editors believed radioactive.

Renate advertised for capital. The very same
evening she received a telephone call: “My name is John Wilkes. I am answering
your advertisement. I like the idea of your magazine. I am 27 years old. I made
my money in oil wells in Phoenix. Send me the dummy. Here is my address. But do
not telephone me. It makes me nervous. I am always on the go for business. I
never know where I am going to be. Send me a budget for what you will need to
run for a year. Tomorrow I fly to New York for a conference. The next day I may
be in Egypt. I am bored with business and welcome a new interest.”

Renate posted the dummy. The young millionaire
telephoned again: “I am in New York. I received the dummy. I like your ideas.
Keep working on them. As soon as I can I will fly to Los Angeles and meet your
staff and your lawyer. Tell your lawyer to prepare a rough draft of the
contract.”

Renate made the usual inquiry about Mr. John
Wilkes. The answer was: “Unknown.” But it was suggested that John Wilkes might
have accounts in the name of his company. Or perhaps not in Phoenix at all. So
Renate relinquished the search for credit references.

Manuscripts began to arrive, cartoons, letters,
recordings to review, books to review, passes to film openings, theatre
openings. Renate and her staff were invited to fashion shows, exhibitions, to
travel at half-rates to Paris, to visit film stars, to interview visitors from
Japan.

They all gave up their routine jobs. Renate had
cards printed with their various titles. Every morning enough original material
arrived to fill a magazine each day.

John Wilkes was still busy, flying here and
there, but always telephoning, always interested. He sent a photograph of
himself. He looked as Gary Cooper looked at his age.

Renate rented an office. Friends helped her to
decorate it. The symbol of it was a mobile. Several mobiles hung from the
ceiling, setting the theme of liveliness and motion of the magazine.

In a few weeks they were in touch with all the
countries they had wanted to visit, all the personalities they had wanted to
know. It was if everyone responded to the ebullience and felt attracted to the
atmosphere not yet desiccated by story conferences and dehydrated by editorial
policies. Secret wishes and fantasies were being materialized. Every encouraged
idea generated a new one. Renate could hardly contain the richness. It was like
an oil well which had overflowed. Circulation problems? Only a problem of circulation
of the blood.