Savage Grace - Natalie Robins (42 page)
Miramar
Valldemosa
Mallorca
Dear Sam—
Tony received a fine today of 120 pesetas and an admonition. I did not go to Palma with him but our horseman did. Brooks Baekeland never showed up—nor does he seem to be concerned about Tony’s troubles. Anyway I thought
you
might be.
I am very tired, having in the last month risen at
5 A.M.
, fed & watered the horse, cleaned the stable, weeded the garden, watered the plants, fed the cat, cooked the breakfast, washed up, planned the meals, driven 20 miles to shop for food, driven back 20 miles to cook lunch, read poetry, listened to music, washed up, washed the kitchen
floor, swept the house, cleaned the bathroom, made my bed, looked at the view, cut flowers, arranged same, wrote letters, paid bills, kept accounts, walked down 1,000 ft. to the sea & back for a quick swim, prepared cocktails, cooked dinner, dressed & looked beautiful for dinner, made conversation, been entertaining, left the dishes, and
God alone knows what I did when I finally got to bed! Anyway I’m tired and am off (I hope next week) to Cadaqués for a few days and from there to Ethel’s in Málaga (while work here is in progress) for a rest.
Hope you’re having a good time—Ethel says she heard it’s going to be a very boring cruise.
This is my last letter to you!
Love,
Barbara
Ethel Woodward de Croisset
I had been to stay with her in this terrible house on the cliff the month before. I’d bumped into Mimi Cohane, Jack’s wife before Heather, in Cadaqués, and she said, “You must go to see Barbara in Mallorca.” Mimi, you see, had just been there, and she said that things were going very badly. She told me how she’d been walking around the property with Barbara and the first thing she saw in the garden was a chair, a broken chair, and she said, “What’s that chair doing in the flower beds?” And Barbara said, “Oh, pay no attention to it. Tony put it there.” Pay no attention! And then they did a tour of the house, and on the steps going down to the cellar there was a typewriter—smashed, absolutely mangled! And Mimi said, “My God, what’s that?” “Oh, pay no attention to it. Tony was upset about something and threw it down there.”
So I went to see her, and when I arrived, Michael Alexander was also there and the table was set for this lovely evening on the terrace. But in the middle of dinner Barbara had a fit of madness over something and insulted us—I mean, like a madwoman! You know, some general insult: “You goddam fucking fools!” You know, what
mad
people say—I saw a person in the bus once screaming like that. Barbara went howling out into the garden, in the moonlight. And we tried to reason with her to come back in the house and go to sleep. I tried every way—even being very severe—you know, all the things you
try.
And after that, exhausted, I gave up, and she stayed out in the field. As I went off to sleep, I could hear Michael Alexander talking with Tony, who was terribly upset by all this, saying, you know, “Tony,
don’t
feel responsible.”
The next morning I was cleaning up—there was a mess of dirty dishes, thirty, forty dishes—and Barbara came sashaying in and said, “
You
don’t have to do that.” And I decided not to speak to her—I was going to give her a little bit of
my
temper. So I kept a stony silence. She just ignored this sort of thing, you know—
airily.
I think I relented after some time. We never mentioned the drama of the night before. You know, you just never mentioned these terrible things.
Letter from Barbara Baekeland to Sam Green, August 24, 1970
Miramar
Valldemosa
Mallorca
Sam—
Tony says you told him I was the most impossible woman you’d ever met. I don’t think it’s correct to talk to a young man about his mother this way!
Barbara
SNAPPING BACK
IN 1979, TONY BAEKELAND
was gradually taken off his medication until he reached a stage where he seemed to the authorities “quite rational, quite reasonable.” Dr. Maguire was still resistant to the idea of his being released without the assurance of regular follow-up care. When Tony himself learned what the costs involved might amount to—$50,000 and up per year for a private facility—he told Dr. Maguire, “No way—I don’t have it.”
An officer from the American Embassy in London continued to monitor Tony. A State Department document concerning a visit on March 20 notes that “Baekeland appeared to be in good health and spirits.” Another document, dated June 8, states that “Baekeland says he has been told by his doctor that he can expect to be released in a few months.” But another document reporting on a visit five months later, on November 13, mentions that Tony Baekeland could count on being released only “sometime in the near future.”
Postcard from Antony Baekeland to Sam Green, September 9, 1970
Dear Sam—
On the plane to Mallorca. Been visiting with my father who is now living in Brittany—a nice change. I miss you and think of you often. Perhaps we’ll see each other soon? Much love from your screwy friend.
Tony
P.S. How is my sainted mother?
Letter from Barbara Baekeland to Sam Green, September 18, 1970
France
Transatlantique
French Line
Darling Sam—
I’ve just had a fabulous morning, working from 6:00 to 1:15 finishing my novel and roaring with laughter—some of it’s very funny. You’d better check it out before I decide whether or not to publish it. There isn’t a word in it which isn’t true.
This ship is first class. I’ve eaten $1,000 worth of caviar since I boarded and all the wine is free!
Have spoken to no one except my muse—very funny fellow.
Tonight will have cocktails with an old friend who is aboard—Valentina.
Shall
we speak about Garbo? And shall I drop
your
name?
Having a lovely time refusing to be picked up. Am knocking them dead with my new clothes! I look great in them. Please charge some for yourself—pay later.
Please drop Tony a line in Mallorca. He loves you and I know would be cheered to hear from you.
My plans are, as usual, vague—dependent on the book, the divorce, the state of my finances, etc., etc. Wish I could have someone’s help with the latter. My income is quite handsome, as I pay no taxes, and will go up in April when the London flat is rented again. But no matter how much comes in, it all seems to go out. If I make money on the book I’ll be quite well off.
You have already read the Spring and Winter sections but not Autumn and Summer. Summer is a kind of summation, and it is that section in which you play a role. I would like to know if you think the treatment is too candid and, if it were to be accepted by a publisher, if you would have any objections. I prefer not to disguise or change the names. I am, as you can understand, anxious to have your clearance, as once I am assured that neither Tony nor you have any objections to the frank treatment, I can go ahead with the necessary steps and submit the manuscript for publication.
Meanwhile here it all is. Please let me know what you think. I can’t tell if the structure is sound and if the four sections belong organically together. Would appreciate any suggestions.
Love,
Barbara
Letter from Sam Green to Barbara Baekeland, October 15, 1970
Fire Island, New York
Dear Barbara,
I am sorry that it has taken me so long to write this letter. Of course you have my permission and best wishes in having the book published—if you can find a publisher, that is. I very much doubt that you will be able to, as—content aside—it is very unfinished. My impression is that it is not only a first draft but that you didn’t even reread it after it was typed—there were so many imperfections and redundancies on almost every page.
As to the content: I cannot think why anyone would be interested in the self-indulgent rampagings of a mad international wastrel. I am referring to the last portion of the book, you must realize, as the first segments are very lovely, interesting, beautifully written, and polished.
There is such a deterioration in style between the first part and the last that it is difficult to believe the same person had a hand in both. While in the beginning the author has some objectivity, as well as considerable insight into the personalities and needs of the other characters, in the second there are nothing but obtuse value judgments: “she is a dear”—now
that
tells the reader a lot! These comments are about as deeply as you go into understanding anyone else.
The principal theme seems to be the persecution of a woman by Spanish authorities because she, as a
guest
in their country, refuses to comply with the rules which govern their way of life. She rampages around Spain—and the rest of the world—demanding attention, or whatever else is her immediate need, from everyone she encounters. Not only does she demand SERVICE—but QUALITY service as well. And what does she give in return? Only money. Grudgingly, and not very much, at that.
Perhaps if the heroine were a tiny bit servile herself—at least to the needs and concerns of those with whom she has some emotional or blood ties—it might occur to her that people are here to help each
other
instead of simply to make demands.
Perhaps you should rewrite the book as a journal—for that’s exactly what it is, a jotting down of observations—without any descriptions (most of which are of concern only to you—in fact, the only concern you have for the reader is the odd “we shall see” interjected between the ramblings), and try to discover why your life in the last years has been so agonized. And if you feel that you are still right and everyone else is wrong, then continue on your way.
This is a tough letter because you asked for my opinion and I’m giving it to you straight—without any indulging of your fantasies. I hope you know that I am concerned and that that is why I have made the effort.
Love,
Sam
Anatole Broyard
She was in my writing class at the New School for a while and she was the only
grande dame
we had—it was as if Mrs. Vanderbilt had walked into class. She had some talent but she didn’t work hard enough—she just wanted to fling the thing out into the world and be a success.
Steven M. L. Aronson
Somebody had told Barbara that I was that season’s bright young man in publishing, so she tantalized me with her novel the very first time we met. I was introduced to her in New York, in her own living room, by a friend we had in common who had brought me to one of those parties she was always giving.
The apartment was sort of junglelike. I remember the living room—the way it was lit was interesting, and it seemed exotic and romantic, with all those terraces looking out over everything. And I remember my first sight of Barbara: surrounded, attended, her tawny head thrown back. What a magnet. She was so generous with friends, so bold with total strangers (me!), you would not easily have guessed she was a woman at the end of her rope.
She became a friend from that evening. And later, when he got back from Mallorca, she worked Tony into my life. The three of us would spend cozy, perfectly uneventful weekends in a cottage she was renting on the beach in East Hampton—until the Sunday morning she burst into my room with the
Times,
handed me several sections of it, then sprawled across my bed to read the magazine section. At some point I looked up and saw Tony standing in the doorway. I’ll never forget his face, contorted as it was into an incomprehensible expression of rage. Barbara had spared me the more salient facets of their history, but later, when I finally read her manuscript, I understood what kind of jealousy it was that had caused that rage.
A few weeks after this, she came to a dinner party at my apartment in New York wearing a black evening dress made of hundreds of little feathers. For days they kept turning up—behind sofas, under chairs. I sent one back to her with a note. “I laughed and laughed,” she replied, “and will keep the feather forever.” From then on, though—in almost every letter she sent me from the mad, gypsy life that she was leading—she enclosed a feather from that dress: so many feathers it must have been plucked clean.
In a letter postmarked London, November 17, 1972, the day she was killed, she said, “Tony somewhat improved—oh! but it’s heavy!” She was inviting me to spend Christmas with the two of them on Cadogan Square. Folded into the envelope was the accustomed feather: “Would that it were from the goose that laid the golden egg! What can I do with feathers except fly?” By the time that feather had crossed the Atlantic, she was six days dead. It was “the last lovely flutter of her strong wings.” Sad! I mean, what could be sadder—feathers without the bird.
Had she lived, Barbara would be a woman completely beyond my imagining now. In fact, the night I sat down and read her novel I saw that she already was.
It was part fantasy, part confession, part paean to profane love, and Barbara, great self-appreciating personality that she was, had clearly written it with the awareness of contributing to her own legend.
What I remember best is the section titled “Summer,” in which the heroine and her son and a male friend of theirs set sail on some tainted sea. First the mother seduces the son, then she seduces the friend. Later she comes upon the son and the friend in bed together. “Leave him alone! My son is not a homosexual!” she screams. “He functions very well sexually with
me.
I’m not going to let a little pansy like you ruin everything I’ve accomplished.” It was wild. It was garbled. But despite, or because of, its obviously pathological content, the book had a power, a certain unnerving power.
Ellen Schwamm
You couldn’t tell with Barbara—the lines between reality and her imagination seemed sort of shadowy, or suitably moveable, at will. We were in the same writing class. I remember she claimed to be the heroine of one of James Jones’s novels.
Francine du Plessix Gray
Barbara’s novel was absolutely terrible. I remember her coming to stay with us in Connecticut and giving us two or three chapters to read. We told her it needed a lot of work, and she dug into us in
such
a way! She started attacking
my
writing—I’d just published “Governess” in
The New Yorker
, which later became the first chapter of my novel
Lovers and Tyrants.
She said, “
That
was a piece of shit. How do you dare to criticize
me?
Jim Jones thinks my work has genius.”
Letter from James Jones to Barbara Baekeland, Undated
10, quai d’Orléans
Paris IV°
Dear Barbara,
I am returning your story manuscript with this letter. I can only say that I have to treat it as a professional writer or not at all, and my feeling about the story is that it simply does not come off. I find the style much too heated and fervid for the material; and I don’t think the resolution is believable, given the characters.
With regard to the novel which you mentioned you have finished,
I can’t of course say anything about that now. However, if the style is at all similar to this story, or fragment, I would cool the style considerably. I would of course be glad to read it for Delacorte Press, but if it follows in the vein of this piece you sent me, I can almost guarantee you that the editors there would not take it.
Gloria will be writing to you about Tony and all the other things.
Always all personal best.
Sincerely yours,
James Jones
Elizabeth Weicker Fondaras
One weekend in East Hampton, Barbara came to dinner and afterward we settled around the fire in my big winter living room and she read her manuscript aloud to us. She was so excited and enthusiastic about it. I remember extravagant images—the striped walls were coming in on her, or she would be floating down to the sea with rocks rolling all around her. It was like a dream. They were the strange ravings of a person in a crisis—you could see trouble and despair.
Dr. E. Hugh Luckey
I was a houseguest of Liz Fondaras’s the Saturday night Barbara Baekeland decided to entertain us by reading from her novel. I sat there bored stiff for about an hour of recitation. I would have probably gone to bed if it hadn’t been for Liz.
John Sargent, who’s the chairman of the board of Doubleday, was also present. Liz had set that up, you know. She’s the great matchmaker of all time—she tries to help all of her friends.
Well, I knew the game. When Barbara Baekeland took that manuscript out, I knew what was going on—she wasn’t interested in how
I
would like it, she was interested in how John Sargent was going to like it. I remember the look on his face as it was being read.