Steinbeck (93 page)

So long, Scapegoat—
John Steinbeck

Sag Harbor
PRIVATE August 14 [1963]

Darling—

This is a private letter to you and not for the rest of the company.

In past years, when I used to give you money presents I found myself getting angry that you got very little of it for yourself.

Second—In the last couple of years we have taken on and rightly so, added outlay. That's not important. What is important is that I think you have been under a burden of having to tell me about it. Even knowing I would agree didn't change anything. You were in effect asking for money.

Now, therefore, this is your birthday present. It is the amount the government permits without tax. It is deposited to your private account in the Sag Harbor Bank. The reason for it is that you may do what you want to do or help whom you want without asking anyone. But it is also for you to buy some pretty things for yourself.

You have been so wonderful about the boys. If I don't say it often, I think it often. And this present is in no sense a reward. Rather it is a celebration. Happy Birthday—darling, and many of them. You make a good life for everyone around you.

Love,
John

New York
September 27, 1963

Dear Dook:

As usual I start running in circles. This next journey has up and pounced at us. My eye seems to have recovered nicely. We have to go to Washington Friday to be briefed (what is that?). Next Monday we fly to London. Then to Helsinki and to Moscow the 15th of Oct. Home about Christmas.

I think maybe I'm too old for this kind of thing. But, hell, I'm a little wiser than I was and not nearly so sure of things.

Anyway, I wanted to get a note off to you before we leave the country. I always feel that it is final and that is stupid but I do. Been doing it for years. And it doesn't change. But we are pretty seasoned travellers. Some years ago when we had been driving around France with a different stopping place each night, Elaine said that when I said “Good morning,” she got up and started packing in her sleep. But her pride is that if I say in London, “Hand me a pair of pliers,” she can do it.

I haven't really anything to say except that I am very glad we are together again. It gives me a good feeling of security. Let's not let it lapse again.

love
John

New York
September 19, 1963

Dear Michael Sholokhov:

I hope you will remember an afternoon we spent together in Stockholm. At that time, you promised my wife and me caviar from your own river Don. She has never been quite satisfied since.

We shall be in Moscow about October 15th for a visit of about a month, and it would give us great pleasure to anticipate meeting you again.

I'm sorry I can't write to you in Russian, but there it is—I can't.

Yours very sincerely,
John Steinbeck

New York
September 19, 1963

Dear Konstantin Simonov:

May I remind you that very long ago, I had the pleasure of meeting you and that you extended to me and to my late friend, Robert Capa, great courtesy and hospitality. I remember an evening of laughter near a spiral staircase in a time when laughter was a rare commodity.

My wife and I will be in Moscow about October 15th and it would give me great comfort to believe that I might see you again to renew an acquaintance I have valued.

Yours very sincerely,
John Steinbeck

New York
September 19, 1963

Dear Ilya Ehrenburg:

I hope that you will remember that you were my first sponsor in Russia and with some small intervals, my consistenf defender.

Quite simply, my wife and I will be in Russia about the 15th of October. It would be a great pleasure to me to see you again and to renew a valued acquaintance.

Poor Capa is dead. He stepped on a land mine in Vietnam in a war he did not want to attend. But I remember the remarkable little carvings in wood from a monastery. I still have mine.

I hope we may be able to see you.

Yours very sincerely,
John Steinbeck

Moscow
October 18, 1963

Dear Elizabeth:

Very little time is left for anything except sleeping. We left London a week ago and it seems months. In Helsinki they had arranged a program which nearly killed us. Can you imagine seeing 900 booksellers at 9 o'clock on Sunday morning? Well, we did. Our ambassador there [Carl Rowan] is a fine man and we got to know him and his wife quite well. Then on to Moscow where some old friends met us including Sweet Lana [Svetlana, who had been his Moscow guide in 1947]. We go pretty hard here but I have demanded periods of rest. The paper Isvestia which printed Winter serially gave us 500 rubles yesterday. Today we go to the publishers who are to give us money. A number of books have come out. Winter, they say, was a great success and even Charley is being translated. A young man from the Embassy [Peter Bridges of the Political Section] is our interpreter and he is excellent. We go south to Kiev on Monday night and then to Tbilisi in Georgia, and he and his wife will go with us.

Moscow is greatly changed. Miles of new apartment houses stretching out almost into infinity, and, since land has no private value, each has lots of room and gardens around it. People are much better dressed than the last time and not so tired. In fact not tired at all. It is I who am tired.

People here are very kind to us. Our hotel is what they call Stalin neogothic—all grandeur and marble and a huge suite with great chandeliers, very different from the old Savoy with the stuffed bear, where Capa and I stayed. As we knew she would, Elaine makes an enormous hit and is greatly loved and courted.

I find I am not doing any writing, but must tell you the thaw is very definite. You can feel it everywhere. I am more than good now. It has come full circle. I asked a writer why Winter is so popular here and he said, perhaps because the problem is not unknown here. Please tell Annie Laurie that a play version of Winter is going into rehearsal at the Moscow Art Theatre. Might be fun to have it translated and try it in New York. That would be a switch, wouldn't it?

The car hasn't come for us yet so I go on with this letter until it does. One nice thing here. They don't get moving before noon. The Finns got us up at 8. And they stayed up just as late—too.

 

 

 

Next day
and it should be
Saturday, the 19th.

Well, yesterday was a strange day—First to one publishing house which had printed Winter. I am told the edition was 300,000 and was sold out immediately. After quite a talk they gave me 1,000 rubles. The strange double talk that went on we will carry engraved on our hearts where it won't do us much good either. I gave it to Elaine, new name Sonya Goldenarm, a famous Russian pickpocketess. As nearly as I can make out, payments to a foreign writer have no relation to the number of books sold. It seems that all books are sold out immediately but are not reprinted. Thus it is possible for a book of an edition of half a million to become a collector's item within twenty-four hours of its issue.

At 2 we went to Ehrenburgs' apartment for lunch. A fine lunch with lots of good talk. There is no question that the thaw is on—people—at least intellectuals—speak quite freely on almost any subject but of course they, from having no experience with the outside world, are fairly limited in some of their estimates.

We are trying to keep the appointments down and to have nothing early in the morning. Last night after the ballet, which ended at 10, we went to McGrady of Newsweek where we met American and Russian news people and had a very good time.

Now I am going to close this and send it by the first courier.

Love to all there,
John

Moscow
November 8, 1963

Dear Elizabeth and all:

Yesterday the big parade in the Red Square. Very impressive, even depressive. We got to our places about 8:45—five military checks of tickets and passports. The parade started at 10 sharp—the first part military troops in tight formation, then all the big weapons, tanks, artillery, rockets, then the sports club in their uniforms, also some military, then the factories with models of their products, thousands and thousands. It was cold, very, and our feet got frozen. About 12 we edged our way out and came back to the hotel where we could still see the parade. It was over about 1:30. In Stalin's time they say it went on until 5—We were sufficiently weary, rested a while and then went to the reception in the new big theater in the Kremlin—diplomats, delegations. K. [Khrushchev] was there rattling the saber the way my Uncle Will used to on the Fourth of July. Tables in the largest hall you ever saw—Tables 200 feet long crowded with food and drink, and the delegates drinking vodka and cognac like water. He would speak a while—then stop and speak again. And people went right on talking. Once he said. “I am the Chairman and no one listens to me, and you say we are not democratic.” His second round he became a dove of peace, carrying hope to the U.S. as well as to all the other poor benighted non-socialist countries of the world. It was the same old gook. You will be interested to know that Russians have not heard of and will not believe the shoe tapping incident at the U.N. They say—the ones we have spoken to—that it is impossible.

We have met many writers now and editors, liberal and otherwise. I have been busily planting the poison of the copyright everywhere I can. Edward Albee arrived and is pitching in wonderfully well. I knew he would.

Tonight we all go to Leningrad for four days, then back here for two days. We begin to wonder whether we can hold out. The schedule is so heavy and every once in a while I begin to flag and fail. There is no time to write. I simply collapse into bed when I can. And the crack of voices goes into my dreams. And the constant translation is nerve-wracking.

And the phone keeps ringing. There is a quality of madness about it. And I seem to be joining in.

I have to go now. Lord! how I would welcome another day off. Leningrad will be mad but not nearly so mad as Warsaw.

Love to all there. When I get home I'm going to sleep for a week.

John

Krakow, Poland
November 20, 1963

Dear Elizabeth:

The quaint look of this letter, together with the fact that I am writing it at all is the result of an accident. Our tour master made a mistake and found he hadn't booked us for three things tonight and we leaped with joy. It is the first evening off since that far-off day in Moscow when we had a whole day. No one can conceive what our program has been. Thinking back, I don't believe it. Elaine has hit the sack in flames.

When we moved up a meeting with a hundred members of the Writers' Union to 6 P.M., our Polish guide and conscience was faced with the dreadful truth that we had no place to go but to bed. Oh! Joy, Oh! Bells. Oh! Christmas ornaments!

I hope there will be some word from you when we get back to Warsaw. Mail just seems to disappear. I don't mind their reading it but I wish they wouldn't keep it.

Tomorrow we drive four hours (everything takes four hours) to Breslau which is not called that anymore and I won't even try to spell it. Then to something that sounds like Wootch [Lodz]. I must have autographed 10,000 books and the names alone are longer than the books. There is no pity. They've got us and they use us. But of course that's what we came for. There are many times when we wonder whether it is worth doing. The Embassy people say yes. You see we really don't know what is going on in the world. All I know is that my books are very popular here and here they pay.

We left Edward behind in the big red city looking a little scairt. We will meet up with him in Prague. It's very kookie to write a letter you know is going to get the eye, just as it is strange to have any normal conversation in a hotel with bugged rooms. Everyone just takes it for granted but it's hard to get used to. It's even in cars. One long bit in a two-seater with a racing motor. Theory is that the distributor head will veto the bug. I don't know. Nicest one is in your national flag on your restaurant table. You put it on another table. Isn't this silly, to think that people will go to this length? But they do.

(Note to Big Brother—“Yes, I'm talking about you. Want to make something of it? And I'll tell you something else. If a boob like me can catch you out so often, what do you think real smart people are doing? While your chicken-shit bureaucrats are working on saving face I have four new methods for taking the skin off your cheeks. It's a great joy to write to you. For 40 days I have wanted to reply but I knew I could not get in touch with you except through the bug or the seeing eye letter. You're so Godda.nned stupid.”)

Do you know, some friends, dissatisfied with their breakfast, criticised it privately and alone and the next morning the corrections were made. How stupid can you get? Elaine the Fayre has proclaimed in her ladylike stentorian whisper —“If they want tourists they'd better start with coat hangers, wastebaskets and bath mats.” And after three days these appeared without her speaking to anyone but me.