Empty Mansions (29 page)

One of Huguette’s great enthusiasms, for half a century, was authenticity, in the form of designing tabletop models of real-life Japanese buildings—castles, teahouses, cake shops—which she commissioned from Japan. These were pieces of art in wood and fabric, miniatures with exquisite detail and authentic materials. She insisted that they have detachable roofs so she could see the interior surfaces and furnishings.

Through a go-between in California and several translators,
Huguette corresponded with the Japanese artist who cut the cedar for her roof, an old man she knew simply as “the artist.” The man, Saburo Kawakami, took long trips for her in Japan, once
changing trains four times in a single day to reach Hirosaki Castle, so he could take photographs and measurements of each wall and tower.

The measurements in her detailed designs had to be converted from English inches to metric centimeters to traditional Japanese
shaku
, and then the artist’s replies had to be converted back again. The costs were considerable. In 1991,
she accepted an additional charge of $38,600 just to add doors to a wood house. In 1992, she sent $67,000 for a castle, and on they went to the next project.

“
She knew what she wanted to have done,” said her go-between, Caterina Marsh. “If she was not pleased, not that many times, she was gracious,
but you understood you were going to have to redo it. If we believe in something, we’re not going to take a poor substitute for it.”

Mrs. Caterina, as Huguette called her, had married into the family of an old-line dealer in Asian art and artifacts, G. T. Marsh and Company. Though she and Huguette enjoyed hundreds of letters and phone calls through the years, she never had Huguette’s phone number.

“
She had a very happy voice,” Caterina said. “It was cute. One of her favorite words was ‘peculiar.’ ‘Isn’t that peculiar, Mrs. Caterina,’ she’d say.

“I still have that voice in my ear. She was always polite, always asked about my husband and my son. She was just a delightful person. I think she had fun—don’t you think?—doing these projects that were not easy.”

“The artist,” Saburo Kawakami, was a bit overwhelmed by the relentless requests from his “Clark-san.” At one point, Caterina cautioned Huguette, “
It seems the artist is becoming more and more nervous every time he receives our letters.”

The castle projects continued nearly to the end of Huguette’s life. For example, in February 2004, when she was nearly ninety-nine, she had the artist working simultaneously on a small palace, a garden with a red bridge, and new screens for a theater. Eventually she wore out her Japanese artist, who was becoming too ill to continue. A new artist was brought on, but
Huguette wasn’t happy with his work, finding his style too modern.

• • •

Huguette was an avid collector of rare, historic Japanese dolls, particularly the tiny ones representing the emperor, the empress, and their ladies-in-waiting and court musicians. These figures are known as
hinaningyo
, or hina dolls.

These are not merely playthings, as they might be in the West—young Japanese children usually aren’t allowed to handle them—but rather objects of religious celebration and national pride. On March 3 of each year, the third day of the third month, Japan celebrates the festival known as Hina-matsuri, or Girl’s Day, an ancient day of purification for the nation. The hina serve as protective talismans, absorbing malevolent spirits.

Huguette prized her hina dolls, especially the tiny ones—called
mame-bina
, about five inches high, with heads the size of a bean—and the three-inch
keshi-bina
, with heads the size of a seed.
She said one of her favorite movies was Akira Kurosawa’s
Dreams
, which has a sequence about hina dolls that come to life to punish a boy’s family for cutting down some sacred peach trees.

Huguette said her favorite novel was
The Hidden Flower
, a love story written by Pearl S. Buck. Huguette corresponded with Buck in the 1940s and gave money to her humanitarian efforts for children in Asian countries.

The Hidden Flower
, published in 1952, describes a forbidden love between an American serviceman and a young Japanese American woman living in postwar Japan. The woman, Josui, was born in the United States but returned to her ancestral home rather than submit to a life behind barbed wire in the Japanese American internment camps established during World War II. Now, however, Josui finds herself feeling as out of place in Japan as she did in America. Hers is a story of beauty and pain, of a woman’s quiet, dignified courage as she attempts to move from one culture to another—not unlike Huguette’s own story.

• • •

Caterina Marsh said that neither Huguette nor her hobbies seemed the least bit odd—once you talked with her.

“
We are all taken by customs and culture,” she said. “I have a brother who became fascinated by trains. There’s nothing strange about having a fascination like collecting stamps.

“She developed an incredible knowledge about the art and culture of Japan. It was astonishing what she knew, all the legends and folklore. To me, she was the last of an era.

“We are all a little peculiar, as she would say.”

THE GOOD FAIRY
 

H
UGUETTE
’
S FAVORITE MAGAZINE
in her youth was a popular French weekly for young girls,
La Semaine de Suzette
, which holds an important place in the collective memory of France.
Suzette
included games, crafts, recipes, and dress patterns for the doll Bleuette. Available only through the magazine from 1905 to 1960, Bleuette was about eleven inches high, about half the size of today’s American Girl dolls. Most important, the magazine included stories with lavish color illustrations.

Huguette did more than fondly remember or collect these souvenirs of her youth. In her middle age, she applied her own brand of generosity, reaching out to the magazine’s illustrators, becoming their patron, their friend, and their savior. An entire generation of the greatest illustrators in France found themselves blessed by an unseen benefactor from America.

She remembered one illustrator in particular from
Suzette
, and also from her books of fairy tales and fables, filled with “Le Maître Chat” (the mischievous Puss in Boots), “Le Petit Poucet” (the tiny Tom Thumb), and “Cendrillon” (the underdog Cinderella). His name was Félix Lorioux. American audiences may not know that name, but they’re certainly familiar with this one: Walt Disney.

Lorioux was an early inspiration to Disney, who worked in France after the Great War in 1919. Lorioux was hired by Disney to illustrate early Mickey Mouse books, including the French version of
Mickey and Minnie
. In 1916, Lorioux had created the character of a comic goose in a sailor suit, a goose that looks a lot like Donald Duck. A humble man, Lorioux was often credited by others for creating Donald Duck, but Disney published his illustrations for decades without crediting him. As a silent protest or wink, Lorioux would hide the names of his family in his drawings for Disney.

In France, Lorioux is as well known as, say, Beatrix Potter is in England. Lorioux illustrated more than one hundred books and has been
called one of the most influential artists of the twentieth century. Whom did he influence? Well, to name one,
Picasso, who riffed on Lorioux’s tragicomic Don Quixote.

In her forties, Huguette went looking for Félix Lorioux. In 1950, Artine Courbalk, a French bookbinder in New York who had known Huguette since childhood, sought out Lorioux on her instructions. Courbalk was the intermediary, a courier for instructions from Huguette to the arts. In his many letters to Lorioux, Courbalk offered a detailed portrait of Huguette’s personality. He described her, in French, as a “
rare bird,” very kind, compassionate, and generous, who “always keeps her smile, the smile of a child.” She doesn’t drink, doesn’t smoke, never seems to age, and doesn’t wear makeup—“she is ravishing and does not need it.” Courbalk explained that Huguette lived in a separate apartment from her mother, though they were “very close and inseparable.” He said Huguette suffered from epistolophobia—the fear of writing letters—which is why she mostly used the telephone and sent telegrams. He tipped off Lorioux that Huguette was “rich, very rich,” and capricious, confiding that her whims “are really a command, and will be well paid for.” He said she wants light colors, pastels, and fairy scenes and doesn’t like to hear bad news or to express any criticism. In short, Courbalk described Huguette as “a comet.”

Through Courbalk, Huguette commissioned works from Lorioux—starting with illustrated legends of France, then a series of fairy tales—“except the unpleasant scene where Snow White is laying down poisoned,” and without the witch, she cautioned—and sought his help in finding all the back issues of
La Semaine de Suzette
, particularly those for the years 1912 and 1913, when she was six and seven. The artist’s daughter-in-law sent Huguette her personal collection. Lorioux and Huguette exchanged lively letters for decades, and he opened the door for her to support an entire generation of illustrators in France.

Like Huguette, Lorioux was a bit uncomfortable among people, feeling more at home with his fantasy figures and insects. He painted vivid watercolors for Huguette’s eyes only, portraying her as a princess among the fawning inhabitants of a miniature world of lovable insects in fancy clothes.

One hand-painted birthday card, sent to her in 1952, shows a royal
grasshopper, sitting high on pillows in the blossom of a giant purple flower, studying herself in a mirror, while a colorful host of ladybugs scramble up a rickety ladder carrying, and spilling, gifts for her: jewels, jelly beans, a picnic, a bouquet of flowers. In 1954, Félix sent Huguette a drawing of an aging butterfly suitor giving flowers and jewels to a bashful butterfly princess.

Huguette supported Lorioux and his wife, Lily, with her generous “little gifts” for many years, and in 1989 she gave an arts group $100,000 for an exhibition in New York of his scholarly crows, pompous bureaucrats, and robins wearing spats. Lily called Huguette “
our benevolent fairy.”