Part 23 (1/2)

When the book finally appeared in Germany, with the subt.i.tle ”Modern Cla.s.sic,” Don just grinned, said Marianne.

As their mutual fascination deepened, they began to meet at the Trattoria da Alfredo on the corner of Bank and Hudson streets. The place was dark inside, painted in cool greens and yellows, with rows of wine bottles on shelves around the walls.

They were genuinely anguished by the intensity of their connection. Don had enormous regard for Frisch. In ”Departures,” he wrote, with only slight exaggeration, of a man in similar circ.u.mstances, phoning a couple's apartment hoping to reach the woman but getting her husband instead: ” 'Well...' I ask cordially, 'what amazing triumphs have you accomplished today?' ”

In another story, ”Three,” Don writes fancifully of a struggle between an old man and a younger one over the older man's wife. Here, as in ”Departures,” the young lover is presented as miserable and ineffectual in the shadow of the brilliant elder statesman.

In 1975, Frisch published a short autobiographical novel ent.i.tled Montauk. Montauk. Although Don is never named in the book, Frisch wrote candidly of the suspicions he had of his wife's relations.h.i.+p with an American writer, describing in detail the Trattoria da Alfredo and the interior of Don's apartment (with its ”INGRES poster”). He quoted a pa.s.sage from ”Departures” (”But where are you today? Probably out with your husband for a walk.... Do you think he has noticed?...What foolishness! It is as obvious as a b.u.mper sticker....”) Although Don is never named in the book, Frisch wrote candidly of the suspicions he had of his wife's relations.h.i.+p with an American writer, describing in detail the Trattoria da Alfredo and the interior of Don's apartment (with its ”INGRES poster”). He quoted a pa.s.sage from ”Departures” (”But where are you today? Probably out with your husband for a walk.... Do you think he has noticed?...What foolishness! It is as obvious as a b.u.mper sticker....”) Frisch portrayed himself as responsible for his wife's unhappiness (”I had been preoccupied with the world”) and accepting of, though saddened by, her friends.h.i.+p with the writer, whom he ”admired.” He wrote that this writer ”is afraid of feelings that are not suited to publication; he takes refuge then in irony; all he perceives is considered from the point of view of whether it is worth describing, and he dislikes experiences that can never be expressed in words. A professional disease that drives many writers to drink.”

Elsewhere in the book, Frisch recounted an occasion when, after an evening of eating and drinking at the Frisches' place, the writer suddenly ”rose to his feet, went to the door, and disappeared.” Worried, Frisch followed the man to his apartment. ”Sorry,” the writer told him. ”I'm drunk.”

Don sometimes sought late-night conversations with other women. Renata Adler recalled that at three o'clock one morning she was awakened by her apartment buzzer. ”I lived then in...a brownstone on East Seventy-Eighth Street,” she wrote in her book Gone. Gone. ”Don came up the stairs, sat down in the living room, accepted a scotch, and said, 'All right. Go ahead and say it. I know it. You think Garcia Marquez is a better writer than I am.' ” Garcia Marquez's breakthrough novel, ”Don came up the stairs, sat down in the living room, accepted a scotch, and said, 'All right. Go ahead and say it. I know it. You think Garcia Marquez is a better writer than I am.' ” Garcia Marquez's breakthrough novel, One Hundred Years of Solitude, One Hundred Years of Solitude, had appeared in English in 1970. ”I said, Honestly not,” Adler wrote. ”I had never read Garcia Marquez. [Don] said, 'Come on. You think Garcia Marquez is a better writer than I am, and had appeared in English in 1970. ”I said, Honestly not,” Adler wrote. ”I had never read Garcia Marquez. [Don] said, 'Come on. You think Garcia Marquez is a better writer than I am, and A Hundred Years of Solitude A Hundred Years of Solitude [ [sic] is a better book than I will ever write.' I said that I had truly never read Garcia Marquez. After a while he left.”

In the midst of all this, Don began an affair with Karen Kennerly. He met her through Jerome Charyn and Mark Mirsky, writers and teachers at City College with whom he had become friendly. She was putting together an anthology of fables from around the world ent.i.tled Hesitant Wolf and Scrupulous Fox. Hesitant Wolf and Scrupulous Fox. Random House had signed to publish it. She had gathered more than a hundred pages of notes for the introduction she needed to write for the book, but the task felt overwhelming to her and she had stalled on it. Don told her, ”Write five pages and make every sentence golden.” She did as he said, and came up with seven ”perfect” pages. Random House had signed to publish it. She had gathered more than a hundred pages of notes for the introduction she needed to write for the book, but the task felt overwhelming to her and she had stalled on it. Don told her, ”Write five pages and make every sentence golden.” She did as he said, and came up with seven ”perfect” pages.

Kennerly says, ”Don had the golden ear of all time.” In conversation, ”every sentence he uttered was stylish, like his work.” At the same time, ”he didn't lead his life like a major writer who is totally boring in person. Style was simply what he breathed. Maybe his Catholic schooling accounted for his very fine manners and his formality.”

She adds, ”He was a tortured soul. He had a great darkness inside. And he was heartbreaking. I was very moved by him.”

At the time, she was also dating Miles Davis. Naturally, this intrigued Don. ”I was with Miles from 1966 to 1979,” she says. ”Don's story 'The Sandman' is all true. I'm the woman in that story.” In the piece, the woman receives a late-night phone call from a man she is seeing. ”That's Miles,” Kennerly explains, ” 'very good, very fast,' as the story says.”

”Don always wanted to meet Miles, and Miles was curious about Don, whom he called 'Texas,' ” Kennerly says. ”I desperately wanted to keep them apart, because I thought Miles would outcool Don, and Don had a very big investment in being cool. One night, Don came over to my apartment and we were about to go to dinner. Miles called and said (hoa.r.s.e, whispery voice), 'Whatcha doing?' I kept trying to put him off and he said, 'Is he there? Is Texas there? I'm having dinner at Elaine's. Come meet me here.' Don said, 'What is he saying? What is he saying?' I told him and he said, 'We're going.' When we got there-it was very early, about 6:30-Miles was sitting at a table by himself, already halfway through dinner. It wouldn't have occurred to him to wait on anyone. He had on these big sungla.s.ses. Finally, Don said, 'Hey man, why don't you take off your shades?' Miles said, 'Why? It's all all black.' After that, the conversation was very stiff. Then Miles got up and said, 'Bye. Gotta go. Good to meet you.' Don and I barely got through dinner. It was very painful. That was the only time I ever saw him out of control in a social situation-it's what I feared would happen. We asked for the check and the waiter said Miles had covered it. Don said, 'No, he has not. I am paying for this meal. Put his money on his tab.' The waiter didn't know what to do, because Miles only came in about twice a year. Finally, I took the boy aside and said, 'Just consider yourself lucky that you got a big tip tonight.' He kept Miles's money and let Don pay for the dinner.” black.' After that, the conversation was very stiff. Then Miles got up and said, 'Bye. Gotta go. Good to meet you.' Don and I barely got through dinner. It was very painful. That was the only time I ever saw him out of control in a social situation-it's what I feared would happen. We asked for the check and the waiter said Miles had covered it. Don said, 'No, he has not. I am paying for this meal. Put his money on his tab.' The waiter didn't know what to do, because Miles only came in about twice a year. Finally, I took the boy aside and said, 'Just consider yourself lucky that you got a big tip tonight.' He kept Miles's money and let Don pay for the dinner.”

Don would tell Kennerly that Miles had a ”tin ear, nowhere as good as Charlie Parker's.” Kennerly argued with him, and Don admitted, ”Well, he's great, but he's not up there. up there.”

”I think he really thought that, and not just because I had been with this very s.e.xy man,” Kennerly says. ”Don always feared that he would be like Miles, that he wouldn't be considered one of the greats.”

In the early days of Kennerly's affair with Don, Anne was around much of the time, visiting from Denmark. ”I had a big mother-daughter crush on her and had fantasies of her coming to live with me-screw mean old Don,” Kennerly says. ”In a way, at first, Anne was our glue.” In the spring of 1972, Don made plans with Birgit to send Anne back to Denmark for the summer. When he told Kennerly he wanted to spend the summer with her, and grow closer, she was thrilled. He promised he'd find a summer rental for them in Maine. But after that, whenever she'd ask about the arrangements, he'd put her off, or say he'd checked into a couple of places but hadn't heard back from them. mean old Don,” Kennerly says. ”In a way, at first, Anne was our glue.” In the spring of 1972, Don made plans with Birgit to send Anne back to Denmark for the summer. When he told Kennerly he wanted to spend the summer with her, and grow closer, she was thrilled. He promised he'd find a summer rental for them in Maine. But after that, whenever she'd ask about the arrangements, he'd put her off, or say he'd checked into a couple of places but hadn't heard back from them.

”He could be a tough customer,” Kennerly says. ”Finally, toward the end of spring, we were drinking somewhere in the Village, and he said the single cruelest thing a man has ever said to me.” He stroked his beard with one hand while gripping a scotch in the other. He turned to her and said, ”So. What are you you doing this summer?” doing this summer?”

Kennerly was stunned. ”But the truth is, we were perfectly matched,” she admits. Suspecting that Don wouldn't follow through with his promise, she had, had, in fact, made other plans. She went to Ireland and had a fling with a young Irish journalist. ”Don went to Texas that summer,” Kennerly says. in fact, made other plans. She went to Ireland and had a fling with a young Irish journalist. ”Don went to Texas that summer,” Kennerly says.

In Houston, Don spent time with Pat Colville, an old friend from his museum days. She and her husband, Bill, had thrown the going-away party for Don when he first moved to Manhattan. Now she was separated from Bill, teaching at the University of St. Thomas.

Anne had flown to Houston with Don. They stayed with his parents for a few days until she was scheduled to travel to Copenhagen. One day, Don's sister, Joan, and her two sons accompanied Don and Anne to AstroWorld, a Disney-like amus.e.m.e.nt park. Don tried to enjoy the outing, but all he could think of was Anne's imminent departure.

One afternoon, Don left her with his mother and drove to Helen's advertising agency on Buffalo Drive, a busy thoroughfare near the places he and Helen had shared in Montrose. Without warning, he walked into the office. Helen looked up from her desk and there he stood, grinning at her. After she'd regained her composure, she said simply, ”I've thought of you mostly with love and affection.” Don replied, ”Me, too.” Quietly, she told him he'd hurt her feelings when he'd dedicated Snow White Snow White to Birgit. He said her letter about the dedication hurt him, as well. She stood and kissed him on the cheek. Then they hugged and laughed. to Birgit. He said her letter about the dedication hurt him, as well. She stood and kissed him on the cheek. Then they hugged and laughed.

At lunch a few days later, at the Courtlandt Restaurant on Francis Street, close to the first apartment they had rented together, they caught up with each other. In addition to her work with the ad agency, Helen had been taking courses at the University of Texas and writing a Ph.D. dissertation on William Faulkner. She noticed that Don seemed nervous to be back in Houston, ”apprehensive of getting too personal or at least wary of becoming nostalgic or sentimental.” His boyish look was gone, she says, his red hair noticeably thinning, but he was slender and jaunty. It took her awhile to get used to the indentation in his upper lip, a result of his cancer operation.

”He was as dissatisfied as ever,” she recalled. ”He was not unhappy with [his] work but with what he felt was limited recognition for it.” She was surprised at this, having seen the splendid reviews of City Life. City Life. Don's desires were contradictory: On the one hand, he wanted only readers he could respect; on the other, he felt his audience was too small, made up only of a few Don's desires were contradictory: On the one hand, he wanted only readers he could respect; on the other, he felt his audience was too small, made up only of a few New Yorker New Yorker readers and the literati in Europe. readers and the literati in Europe.

Mostly, Don talked about Anne, about the anguish he felt because of living much of the year without her. He told Helen he ”couldn't have made it” without his daughter. Of Birgit, he simply said that she was ill. She often phoned him from Denmark, seeking help with problems he couldn't a.s.sist her with long-distance, like locating her misplaced checkbook.

Helen saw Don frequently that summer at social events where he'd show up with Pat Colville. Helen was still dating Sam Southwell; they were considering marriage. Don told her he no longer expected marriage to provide an ”ideal relations.h.i.+p.”

Back in New York, he resumed his affair with Karen Kennerly. He told her he had been miserable in Texas, and he seemed distressed that she had enjoyed herself in Ireland. He appeared to doubt his virility around her, though this struck her as silly: ”We made love every night. He was in his early forties, and his drinking didn't slow him down,” she says. He'd point to young men in the street and tease her, saying, ”He could be your lover. Or what about could be your lover. Or what about him him?”

When she told him about her Irish fling, ”he started hammering away at my self-esteem, telling me I couldn't be happy, [that] I was an anxious, depressed type,” she says. ”Like many male writers, Don, I think, wanted someone simpler than he was, less complicated.”

She says, ”He was spooked by a lot of things.”

”Donald was extremely fond of women, and it's not gossipy to say that,” says the novelist Walter Abish, who met Don around this time. ”It was central to him; it was in his makeup. And it was also literary. I mean, read the writing: There is concealment there....” A love of language, games-the flirtations, the obstacles, the overcoming overcoming of obstacles-that keep things interesting between women and men. of obstacles-that keep things interesting between women and men.

39.

HITHERING THITHERING.

In the midst of his domestic churning, Don gathered several copyright-free nineteenth-century ill.u.s.trations to make a picture book for Anne. He called the book The Slightly Irregular Fire Engine, or The Hithering Thithering Djinn. The Slightly Irregular Fire Engine, or The Hithering Thithering Djinn. Farrar, Straus and Giroux published it in 1971. Farrar, Straus and Giroux published it in 1971.

The ”book was dictated by the pictures,” Don said. The ”text was written to fit” them. A knitting pirate becomes one of the central characters, whom the heroine, Mathilda, encounters in a magical Chinese paG.o.da that appears mysteriously in her yard one day. ”The pirate comes from a rather well-known children's book of the period, which had an entirely different story,” Don said.

His ill.u.s.trations are accompanied by legends such as ”SLENDER-WAISTEDNESS / Corseted Divinities with Waspish Affinities / Worrying, Flurrying” and ”BURIED JEWELS / Oceanic Dredging Company.” Sometimes, the legends enhance a particular picture. For example, when the paG.o.da appears out of nowhere in Mathilda's backyard, the phrase ”Suburban Disturbance” lines the right-hand margin of the page. In other cases, the legends bear only a peripheral relations.h.i.+p to the story line: Surrealism for children.

The legends ”come from a nineteenth-century printer's typespecimen book,” Don explained. ”It's a catalog from which printers can order type, samples from type specimens, and whoever set the specimens was wonderfully funny and imaginative.... I just took them out of the catalog and used them...as a design element to make the pages more interesting....”

The paG.o.da is stuffed with astonis.h.i.+ng surprises-a tumbling elephant, a rainmaker, a ”barrel of pickles surmounted by a sour and severe citizen”-none of which satisfies Mathilda. She wants a bright red fire engine. Finally, the paG.o.da vanishes, leaving in its stead a green green fire truck. Well, ”green is a beautiful color too,” Mathilda concedes. fire truck. Well, ”green is a beautiful color too,” Mathilda concedes.

In The Slightly Irregular Fire Engine, The Slightly Irregular Fire Engine, Don suggested that the world of ”CONTENTMENT” is bought at a severe price (”Corseted Divinities...Worrying, Flurrying”). ”Entertainment” is our only means of escaping worry. Yet there are limits to what we imagine. The adventurous pirate has been reduced to a harmless domestic figure, knitting and rocking in a chair. The truck comes painted in the wrong color. The Victorian ill.u.s.trations remind children Don suggested that the world of ”CONTENTMENT” is bought at a severe price (”Corseted Divinities...Worrying, Flurrying”). ”Entertainment” is our only means of escaping worry. Yet there are limits to what we imagine. The adventurous pirate has been reduced to a harmless domestic figure, knitting and rocking in a chair. The truck comes painted in the wrong color. The Victorian ill.u.s.trations remind children and and adults of Lewis Carroll, but they locate this remarkable world at an unreachable distance from us. adults of Lewis Carroll, but they locate this remarkable world at an unreachable distance from us.

”I never saw The Slightly Irregular Fire Engine The Slightly Irregular Fire Engine in progress,” Anne says. Don said he ”tried it out” on Anne, on one of her visits to New York, ”and she was kind enough to say that she liked it very much.” in progress,” Anne says. Don said he ”tried it out” on Anne, on one of her visits to New York, ”and she was kind enough to say that she liked it very much.”

While he may have discovered the pirate pictures at random, their appeal for him was tied to his childhood delight in Sabatini. He was sharing a cherished personal pleasure with his daughter.

The book ends with a portrait of a ”gay and laughing couple,” Mathilda's parents, accompanied by the caption ”CONTENTMENT.” Given Anne's family situation, this was heavily ironic-it was also a poignant recognition of what Anne most desired, just as Mathilda wants a fire engine. Don gave his daughter what she was after...but only in fiction. It was the best he could do.

Reviewers were generally respectful of The Slightly Irregular Fire Engine, The Slightly Irregular Fire Engine, but they were concerned that it might sail over the heads of many children. The book was distinguished by ”elegant chatter,” but the pictures were ”too static” for kids, grumbled but they were concerned that it might sail over the heads of many children. The book was distinguished by ”elegant chatter,” but the pictures were ”too static” for kids, grumbled Time Time's reviewer. Writing in The New York Times Book Review, The New York Times Book Review, Selma G. Lanes praised Don's ”felicitous and blithe voice,” his ”considerable promise as an author for children,” but she also worried that kids, lacking a sense of nostalgia, wouldn't enjoy the ”wooden” Victorian ill.u.s.trations. In Selma G. Lanes praised Don's ”felicitous and blithe voice,” his ”considerable promise as an author for children,” but she also worried that kids, lacking a sense of nostalgia, wouldn't enjoy the ”wooden” Victorian ill.u.s.trations. In The New Yorker, The New Yorker, Jean Stafford effused over this ”immensely captivating” book with its ”disconcertingly bright” heroine. Roger Straus was pleased enough with the book's reception to offer Don a contract for a second children's volume (which he never attempted). Jean Stafford effused over this ”immensely captivating” book with its ”disconcertingly bright” heroine. Roger Straus was pleased enough with the book's reception to offer Don a contract for a second children's volume (which he never attempted).

Don had published two books in two years, one of which, City Life City Life, had received extraordinary attention, but he struggled during this period to please Roger Angell. At this point, Angell was the reader Don most trusted; he spiraled into a ”panic” whenever Angell went on vacation, but these days-particularly throughout the summer, fall, and winter of 1972-Angell rejected more of Don's stories than he accepted. ”Badly strained,” ”much too close to Joyce,” ”familiar and overused irony”-these were Angell's typical responses. To the editor of an anthology seeking to reprint the definitive version of one of Don's stories, Angell said, ”Almost everything [Barthelme] submits these days seems to be in midstage; he keeps revising even the stories we have purchased, right up to the page proof, so one can't be too definite in advance about the final look of the thing.”