by Jocelyn W. Knowles

from Michigan Quarterly Review, Fall 2008

I had a make-believe job at the Saturday Review of Literature that paid me ten dollars a week and, as I had no greater wish than for the life of a writer and a job in publishing, I loved it. I was surrounded by book people. Although there had been no real vacancy at the magazine, the editor, Norman Cousins, was a friend of my college classmate, who persuaded him to hire me. It was great luck for, at the time, on the eve of our entry into World War II, jobs were scarce.

I ran errands, mimeographed reviews, and had long, enjoyable lunches with staff members—tall, lanky Fred Rosen, smirky, jokey, and in charge of the almost nonexistent ad sales; George Dilkes, the sober, romantic Francophile bookkeeper; and, upstairs at Current History magazine's office, Roger Straus, a young editor, handsome, rich, and wanting to learn the publishing business. Roger had a seemingly inexhaustible cache of horrendously dirty words so constantly shocking that they blew the breath out of us like a fierce clap on the back or a punch in the stomach. As a result, we were always laughing, in some weirdly perverse reaction. All of them were only two or three years older than me, but they had slightly more serious work and more substantial wages—Fred, for example, made forty-five dollars, a huge difference, for in those days a dollar was a fairly big sum. Sometimes, after lunch, Roger would pay for one of the droshkies opposite the Plaza at Central Park to drive us back to work down Fifth Avenue in glorious style, all of us giggling, hair blowing in the soft wind.

It barely registered with me that the magazine was a musty little publication with a tiny circulation that featured dry, posturing book reviews by the two elderly staff, Henry Seidel Canby and Amy Loveman. When they founded it twenty years before with Christopher Morley and William Rose Benet, all had modest literary reputations and collegial connections to Harry Sherman, who had just started the Book of the Month Club. They believed that a magazine devoted to book reviews would promote book buying. But, if once they had been creative, with age they had stiffened, and the young staff joked that our few subscribers were little old ladies who never read the reviews but bought the magazine for the puzzle and the Personals. It was kept going by its benefactor, Hal Smith, one of the vanishing race of wealthy gentlemen who could afford to make publishing his hobby. He was a good friend to writers, a drinking pal of Sinclair Lewis, and, once, the co-owner of the distinguished publishing house of Jonathan Cape & Harrison Smith. Cousins, the new editor in chief, was our age, a feisty, dapper little man, but a journalist rather than a literary person. He liked to be called Hank—more manly, I think, than Norman. He wanted to brighten the magazine, improve the circulation, and perhaps even make it profitable. His vision did not sit altogether well with the elderly reviewers but the élan vital ran thin and they went along, even when he dropped the offending "Literature" from the magazine's name and altered its mission to a journal of general opinion.

     My room in the Village cost me thirty dollars a month. It was the only room on the ground floor of a little two-story red brick house, circa 1785. Its walls were painted deep, bright, Van Gogh blue, and its one window looked on the little cobbled street where, above the Italian restaurant across the way, a cerise and turquoise neon sign flashed on and off day and night, casting colored shadows into my room. I owned a bed and a little birch bench that I thought was beautiful. I loved the place, my first away from home. My mother sighed when she saw it. "Why don't you come home?" she said.

I made do on my salary by never buying clothes or taking myself to a movie or investing in real food. Except for the lunches my colleagues paid for me, I lived happily on penny Tootsie Rolls and Cokes. The good thing about the Cokes was that if you returned the bottle, you got three pennies back, with which you could buy more Tootsies. Once in a while, I splurged and bought half a dozen peanut butter and cheese crackers. Everything was delicious.

After work at night I had been writing a short story, which I now sent out to Partisan Review, a prestigious showcase for both literary and political writings, with a strong anti-Soviet bias. My story was apolitical, a study of the slow, excruciating deterioration of a marriage that had started out well. The couple was English, sitting out the war in America thanks to a guest teaching job he had been offered. She was a political activist who quickly found a cause. She was strong, beautiful, fiery, and, he often thought, noble. He adored her. But he suffered intensely, day and night, from guilt at having left England in her worst moment, and she taunted his sentimental patriotism. The story, told from his point of view, the war in the background, related the interior and exterior events that drove him into the arms of a boy whose curious resemblance to her attracted him and, in the climax, brought him to do violence against her.

Clement Greenberg, one of the editors, phoned and arranged to come to see me. I wondered why he would come to me rather than the other way around. Perhaps he had no office? Perhaps for some mysterious reason he needed to see me in my habitat before making a commitment? I was faint with excitement. I tidied my room and bought three stalks of freesias for five cents apiece—a dangerous extravagance. By the time he arrived, the room was scented with their fragrance. He sat on my little birch bench, I on my bed, while he told me he thought I was going to be an important writer and he would like to publish the story as it was, but the other editors thought it needed changes. They thought it should focus more on the wife's activities. What was she up to? Might it even be treasonable? I thought that was not the point of the story at all; bringing politics into it would change it entirely. But, although I felt strongly that it was my own work and not theirs and I liked it the way it was, I was willing to try. I certainly wanted to become an important writer, and if this was the way to become one, I would do it. I barely understood what they really wanted.

Not long thereafter a woman phoned who identified herself as the wife of Cyril Connolly, the British editor of Horizon, the international literary journal. She was having a party, she said, and she'd like to invite me. She had heard about my work. Her guests, all literary people—she dropped a few names I recognized—would be eager to meet me. I was blown away. I said yes, of course, when, where, thank you.

What had she heard about my "work"? It must have been Clement Greenberg talking about me—"going to be an important writer." Far more importantly, if she had heard of me, perhaps her husband would also have heard? I could hardly eat or sleep or pay attention to where I was going. I must be famous already! Barely twenty and famous! And not even published! What would I wear? Must do something to improve my appearance, look older, stay up all night before the party to cultivate dark circles under my eyes, slick down the wayward tousle of what my grandma called my "chrysanthemum head" ... about the dimples I could do nothing. I was sensitive about my appearance because I looked younger than twenty and risked not being taken for a serious person.

     Hal Smith was not often in the office, but on one of his visits he asked me if I could read French and if so would I like to help him translate a French novel he was interested in. We could work at his home, after hours, and he would pay me well. It was a weird offer considering how difficult it is to make a good translation and how casual his interest in my abilities. But I had lain too long in the embrace of nineteenth-century English literature and dreams of a world when writing was all-important to recognize how weird it was. I was like a chick just hatched and bursting into the real world where things, however odd, were the way they were. I accepted enthusiastically.

His home was a large, beautiful, richly furnished apartment off Fifth Avenue. I had the impression of dark, polished woods and velvet sofas. He greeted me in his velvet smoking jacket, its dark color setting off his beautiful silver hair, and offered me a drink. I did not drink. "Neither do I," he said, grinning. He was tall, well kept, even featured, blue eyed. His age I could not imagine. Only the silver hair notified me that he was old. Taking my coat, he told me a funny story about the time when he and Sinclair Lewis had been on a heavy drinking binge, and upon waking the next morning he found that his expensive new cashmere coat was spattered with green ink. He was mystified. What had he been doing? He could remember nothing. Nor did Lewis know anything. It was enough to frighten him off drinking for months. Now, he only took an occasional social drink. Nevertheless when he settled on the sofa, one hand held a beautiful cut glass of scotch and soda, the other a paperback French novel called Les Faux Compagnons. He had set an identical glass for me on the coffee table beside a silver bowl of nuts and a Larousse dictionary. He patted the space next to him.

"Come closer," he said "so we can read this book together."

I had to sit pretty close to see the page. He held the book, and I leaned into him to see it. We began by taking turns reading aloud and slowly translating one sentence at a time. His French was only a little better than mine, and we consulted the dictionary often. Whenever it was my turn, he took a little sip from his drink. We had not finished the first page before I realized we were not keeping a record of our translation.

"Well, never mind," he said. "How about a notebook. I have one somewhere around here. Do you take shorthand?"

I did not. But, although I was a fast writer, I didn't see writing out the whole book by hand.

"I can type," I said. "If we had a typewriter and two copies of the book, I could type it as we go along." And, I did not add, we wouldn't need to sit on top of each other. "Do you have a typewriter?"

"Isn't this ridiculous," Hal said, and took a deep, thoughtful swig of his drink and picked up a cigarette from the silver box on the coffee table. He lit it with a silver lighter and inhaled deeply. Then he looked at me and laughed. His teeth were yellow. "Ridiculous!" he repeated. "I'll have a typewriter for you next time," he said, "and you can take the book home tonight and see what it's all about."

I moved away a little, but not so much as to be offensive, and wondered if I might go.

"Tell me about yourself," he said. "Let's just enjoy your visit."

I took a handful of nuts. What should I tell? That I was someone who preferred Matthew Arnold to Wordsworth? That I often went to sleep reciting "Dover Beach" (" ... on a darkling plain where ignorant armies clash by night")? Was it not the most beautiful poem in the world? That Clement Greenberg had said I was going to be an important writer? That Cyril Connolly's wife had invited me to a party? So far, my life had been only about reading and writing. I had never really done anything to talk about. But what should I say?

The nuts were too salty. I took a sip of the drink before me; it was hot in my throat and raced through my blood and I knew I was taking too long to reply.

"Quito," I blurted out. "I'm planning to go to Quito." "Really! That's interesting. Why Quito?" He turned to look at me, his blue eyes engaging my own. "Are you visiting someone there?"

I shook my head, thinking of the National Geographic's beautiful colored photos of Ecuador in a recent issue. "I'm interested in the culture," I said, "more exotic and unfamiliar than Paris or London."

"That's very true. Actually, you know, there are few good, popular books about the place. Are you thinking of writing a book about it?"

"That hadn't occurred to me." I took another swig of my drink, which tasted awful. But it seemed to give me strength.

"You should think about it. A travel book might do very well ... So you plan to leave the magazine?"

"O no! ... That is, it may take quite a while to save enough money for the trip ... "

"Maybe we could do something about that," he exclaimed.

His pale blue eyes glinted. He was really a very nice old man and I liked him.

"Ever done any writing?"

"A little," I said modestly. The alcohol was making me fuzzy, and it did not occur to me to take advantage of the moment. A friendly publisher and an unpublished writer.

"Well, write me a few pages about what you want to do, where you want to go, and what the costs will be. And we'll see." He laid his blue-veined hand on my knee.

"I must go," I said. "It's getting late."

"Aha, a Cinderella!" he joked and removed his hand. He took another sip of his drink and ruminated for a moment. "Well, that's too bad. Weren't we just getting to know each other? . . . Well, I'll get your coat. Don't forget to take the book; shall we have another go at it next week? I'll have a typewriter for you."

It didn't occur to me that in squirming out of Hal's offer as I intended to do, I might be missing the fork in the road that could have led more easily to being if not an important writer at least a published one. Maybe even rich.

     Meanwhile, there was the party—a disaster. The hotel room where Mrs. Connolly was staying was small and stuffy. A large crowd of people squeezed into it, all standing in groups, jabbering, drinking martinis, and smoking. Cigarette smoke hung over the room like cirrus clouds. It was very noisy. Mrs. Connolly greeted me at the door, took my coat, and graciously guided me from group to group, introducing me as "that new young writer Clem has been talking about." I recognized some potent names in the book world but was tongue-tied before them. Everyone smiled politely but seemed anxious to resume interrupted conversations. Finally, Mrs. Connolly left me with another lone guest, fetched me a martini that she urged on me despite my protest, and went on to other duties. While I thought of something to say to the man, whose name I didn't catch, he said, "Please excuse me, I must find the men's room." I stood alone for several minutes, then went to the bar, put the martini down, and left.

One day, turning the corner of my street, I saw a For Rent sign on the house at 75 1/2 Bedford Place. It was common knowledge in the neighborhood that Edna St. Vincent Millay had once lived there. The thought was enough to send all her best lines racing in my head ("O world, I cannot hold thee close enough ... ") along with the possibility of occupying the very space where, probably, they had been conceived. I longed to have it, even without inspecting it. The house was three stories high, wedged so narrowly between two larger houses that it only warranted half an address. Perhaps the space had once been just an areaway. It was only about nine feet wide but quite deep, and like all the other houses in the block, it ran back to a delightful tiny private garden. I peeked in the window facing the street and could see a tiny kitchen, went around the back and peeked in to the living room where I could make out a tiny fireplace and a staircase to the upper floors. The agent I called said it would be $110 a month, when did I want to see it?

I hardly needed to see it. I told Fred about it, sighing over the impossibility of renting it. He told George Dilkes and they both went and looked at it. "Let's share it!" he said. "I could pay forty-five dollars for the whole top floor, George could pay thirty-five dollars for the second floor bedroom facing the garden, and if you could pay thirty dollars for the other second floor bedroom—it faces the street but it's nice—then we could have it!"

So we did. We gave only passing consideration to our sullied reputations. In those days, it was not accepted convention for single men and women to live together. People who did were certainly immoral Bohemian suspects. We didn't care. We loved the little house. We were only friends. It's true that George had once proposed to me, but I had quashed that idea at once, aghast at the thought. We had never seen each other outside of the office, where we were pals but certainly nothing more. I liked George but heavens! to marry him!! Never. He was physically repulsive to me—his arms and legs were furry, his hips were wide, and there was a little whine in the timbre of his voice.

"Why!" I exclaimed. "How can you think of such a thing! We hardly know each other."

"We have so much in common," he protested gravely.

"What?"

"Well, we both speak French ... " (He really did say that.) It must have been a literary impulse for he did not seem offended by my refusal and we lapsed back comfortably into being just office pals.

We all moved in. We each had a bed. I brought my little birch bench. Fred had a chair. George had a small bookcase. We needed very little furniture. No room was wider than nine feet. Fred's top floor was narrow but long; it ran the length of the house from front to back, so he could have his chair and even a bureau, if he wanted. On the second floor there were a clothes closet and built-ins in the bedrooms where we could shelve the rest. We bought two chairs for either side of the living room fireplace. When we were together, one of us could sit on the floor.

     We celebrated our move with a small party. Eight of us, standing, crowded the room. Fred brought Jane Krieger, a vivid girl soon to be his wife; George brought Claire and Ivan Goll, a refugee French poet who may have thought George's association with the Saturday Review was more influential than it actually was; Roger brought Madame Pearl Metzelthin, the founder of the new Gourmet magazine. I don't remember bringing anyone myself. Except for two or three college friends, I knew only the very attractive man I was seeing, whom I did not want to introduce to anyone, wary of the easy misreadings of our household. We served wine and I made some delicious little roll-ups—bacon wrapped around water chestnuts and broiled in the tiny oven. Even Madame Metzelthin thought them delightful. Everyone was enchanted with the little house, marveled at our daring, and laughed and talked all night, and the party was a great success.

It was all very wonderful. Every day was a pleasure; we got along beautifully.

I worked on my story. It was difficult to see how to use Greenberg's suggestions. It did seem to me they would change the whole point of the story. But I did my best and sent it off.

Meanwhile, I had the idea that Norman Cousins might agree that it would brighten up the magazine to feature profiles of writers. I wanted to do one about W. H. Auden, who had recently emigrated to the U.S. Auden was a hero to me. I had read everything he had written, and possibly everything written about him. I marveled at his trip to China with Christopher Isherwood and their wonderful play, The Ascent of F6. I thought they were daring and funny and clever, deep and grave, and such wonderful poets. I especially loved Auden's great "September 1, 1939." I had to imagine what he looked like, for at that time author photos on book jackets were uncommon and the newspaper pictures I'd seen were indistinct snapshots. But I had a general idea. He was not handsome, but he looked wise as poets should and I loved his work and I loved him for it. If, at that time, there had been such a thing as a bobby-soxer, that's what I was. To me, he was as wonderful as the Beatles were to another generation. Just to think of the possibility of meeting him in the flesh made me feel faint. And, with a commission from the Saturday Review, I could do it.

Norman agreed, but he would not commit himself to publishing it. He wanted to see the finished article. I would have to take a chance. I did use Saturday Review stationery to give weight to the flattering letter I wrote coaxing Auden to see me, but I avoided saying I was commissioned to do the article, nor did I confess that I was a free-lance novice. I left it to the letterhead to say what I couldn't. His agreeable reply invited me to visit him at the New England farmhouse where he was staying for the summer. I smoothed out the creases in his notepaper and carefully laid it between the leaves of my Oxford English Dictionary to preserve for posterity. So I was all set, except for the railroad fare, which I inveigled the man I was seeing to buy for me.

During the weeks before our appointment, I thought about my article night and day, scribbled notes, outlined conversations, clarified my purpose, which was not to write about his poetry—there was plenty of that—but to draw a picture of the man himself, to do the sort of celebrity profile that has since become common. I had a fan's prurient interest in the most trivial detail about him, and I was willing to ask such low-class questions as whether he bit his fingernails, what kind of a bed he slept on, his favorite movie, and such. But I also hoped he would talk to me about his emigration to the U.S., his politics, and his homosexuality. Gossip about these matters titillated literary circles. The rumor was that, since he was a vocal supporter of the Loyalists in the Spanish war, as well as some other suspicious causes, he must be a communist. He was criticized for staying safe in America while the bombs dropped on England, and there was confused speculation about his relationship to Thomas Mann's daughter, Erika, whom he had recently married. He let the gossip swirl, never publicly discussing any of it. If he would speak to me about these matters, I could clear up any misinformation, and, regardless of what his answers would be, my devotion was impermeable. But I could only ask about these things if at the outset I established trust and empathy between us. I hoped my devotion would shine through.

     The cab fare from the railroad station to the farm was more than I had, but as it was said to be only three or four miles, I could walk it. I liked to walk and it was early enough that I'd be on time for our appointment if I walked briskly. I loped along in my pretty, freshly washed and ironed orange linen dress and the beautiful new white shoes bought for the occasion. The day was lovely. The mountain air exhilarated me. I practiced breathing deeply and exhaling slowly. I passed open fields and wooded copses but houses there were none, nor cars nor people. The route lay along a narrow, unpaved hill road and soon I became hot and sweaty. My new shoes rubbed against my heels and made big, painful blisters. I took them off and walked the rest of the way barefoot, bruising the soles of my feet on little stones, bits of metal, and the other detritus of the dirt road. By the time I reached the farmhouse, I needed a week of healing. My feet were beyond the help of the Band-Aids that I might have asked for, as the soles of my feet were also abraded and swollen. I saw that I would simply suffer bravely, for art's sake.

The farm house was a modest two-story white frame set on a broad sweep of well-kept lawn, its porch overhung with a thickly blooming wisteria vine. I hobbled up to it, sent my name up to Auden with the woman of the house, and dropped down into the grass in the shade of a big old oak tree. I tried to put my shoes on my painful feet; I didn't see how I could even stand up, but as I was about to squeeze into them, grimacing and sighing to myself, Auden appeared on the porch. No photo had prepared me for his appearance—a tall, big-boned man with lank pale hair, unkempt in a dirty pair of white pants and a rumpled, stained white shirt. As he walked toward me, ashes from his cigarette spilled unheeded to his shirt. His skin looked pasty, the color of oatmeal, and his face was lined with deep crevasses. Behind him came Chester Kallman, a slender young man in his teens, like Auden in soiled whites, like Auden pasty skinned and holding his cigarette in the same manner. It was like a vaudeville act but there was no sign from either of them that it was a joke. For his part, nothing could have prepared Auden, either, for an interviewer like me—a rumpled girl in the grass with dirty bare feet—not a picture of the person he might have expected from one of America's respected literary publications. I jammed my feet into my shoes and scrambled up. Auden was frosty. We politely shook hands. "We must hurry," he said without ado "we're late for lunch." The town cab was already topping the hill.

It was a short ride to the home of our hostess, Minna Curtis, a translator of Proust and a professor at Smith College. We had only enough time on the way to chat about the weather and my trip. It was an opportunity to explain about my sore feet, but I was afraid it would only add to the undignified impression I had already made on him when I wanted so much to establish what I thought of as a properly professional relationship. Chester Kallman sat silent, smoking, spilling ashes. It was a puzzle why this shadow figure was with us.

We stopped at a beautiful old stone house, long and low to the ground as though it had grown from seed there amid the sheltering oaks and maples. The professor greeted us at the door, acknowledging me with a nod and a smile. We were late, she said, the soup was getting cold, and, taking Auden by the arm as we walked to the dining room, she seemed to be continuing a conversation begun another time. Kallman and I trailed behind them.

The dining room, looking onto the woods, was a step down from the foyer, beamed and white washed and simply furnished. The trestle table was long enough for a dozen people but the settings for five were comfortably spaced. John Housman, Orson Welles's partner, sat at one end alone, eating the potato soup we were going to have. He nodded at me when we were introduced

"From the Saturday Review, eh?" he smiled. "What's a little wench like you doing at that old rag?" I had never heard either myself or the Saturday Review spoken of that way; I could only manage a smile in reply.

     We were seated, the professor next to Auden, Kallman and I facing them across the table, and Housman at the head. The conversation with Auden begun at the door now continued between the three of them. They were talking about some people involved in Housman's new production whom I had never heard of. I had a feeling I was not among friends but did not know what to make of it. Was it my earlier disarray? My youth? Something in my appearance? My voice? I had scarcely spoken. Perhaps Auden, who was new to America, had discovered too late the magazine was not the publication he thought it. There was a reputable one in London with a similar name. Kallman was busy with his cigarette. One, half-smoked, lay sputtering on his soup plate in bitter, acrid last gasps. Should I ask him to put it out? But I did not dare entertain a single distraction from any chance to enter Auden's conversation. If I slipped my shoes off under the table, would I ever get them on again? I decided against it. The potato soup was excellent. I helped myself to the salad, attractive in a big glass bowl with silver servers. Now, the conversation was turning to the Spanish Civil War and in a momentary pause I seized the chance to ask Auden if he was a communist. Silence thundered around the table. It struck me like a blow; how could I have made such an irremediable mistake? I had established none of the rapport I knew was essential to raising the issue. My feet hurt. Auden looked down at his soup. Professor Curtis said, not unkindly, as though speaking to a child, "That's not a good question. Try something else." I could scarcely ask him all the juicy things that mattered to a fan-what car did he drive, his favorite movie, what did he like about the U.S .... and what about Erika Mann—what did she wear to the wedding (if, indeed, there was one)? I buttered a piece of bread, and the conversation began once more to flow around me.

As the coffee was being served, Professor Curtis smiled at me across the table. "John here is driving back to New York as soon as we've finished lunch. Would you like to go with him? Nicer for you than waiting around for the evening train, especially since Wystan must hurry off now to his other appointment." Hurry off? We hadn't had a chance to talk yet! It was clear they wanted to be rid of me, and I said yes. Everyone said polite goodbyes, even Auden's mysterious shadow, Chester Kallman, who had said nothing since I first set eyes on him.

It was a lovely day. We drove down to the city in Housman's open car under a pure sky on sunlit roads, the green trees of summer arching over us along the way, green lawns and green bushes flying by on either side of us. I could not muster a word and Housman offered none.

When I got home, there was an envelope with my story in it, and a note from Partisan Review saying "Sorry. Not quite."

I tried to write about my "interview"—to make something of nothing—but anything I could tell about that little sortie was about me not Auden. It was hot and I sat on the edge of my bed in my little room, typewriter on the little bench before me, and stared at it. I typed "the brown fox jumped over the red fence" a hundred times. Then I typed all of "Dover Beach" over and over but it made me cry. Nothing availed. Finally, I gave up.

 

Too soon, Fred and George went off to war, and I couldn't keep the little house. But I got a lovely job as a lady brakeman on the Pennsylvania Railroad, and I moved to an apartment at One Grove Court, the house where O. Henry wrote "The Last Leaf." The very tree was still there, in full leaf, and so close to my front window that I could reach out and touch it.

 

About the Author
Jocelyn W. Knowles was the first woman organizer for the Brotherhood of Railway Trainmen (now defunct) and wrote about the experience in American Heritage, July/August 1995. She is currently writing a satiric whodunit about murders in a literary agency. She lives in Sarasota, Florida. (Author photo circa 1940)

 

Michigan Quarterly Review
University of Michigan

Editor: Laurence Goldstein
Managing Editor: Vicki Lawrence