Bjorka Glasbruk, Fri eve 5 July 1968
Lingering over tea in the comfortable fire lit downstairs sitting room – Swedish twilight and mosquitoes crawling at the windows. There are a couple of mattresses but most people sit on the floor. Three worn chairs around a table loaded with mismatched crockery – the remains of Swedish “tea”. Hard (uneatable) bread and spoons sticky with jam. (The jam is very good and most people can eat it from the jar.) Two Polish boys have just arrived and are being quizzed in halting German. Tired but content I am reading HG Wells’ The New Machiavelli - our lives are castles built on cards of chance. What an excellent film it would make – leaving out of course the early life and the lengthy dissertations on Victorian politics. The selfishly random selection of mates – how many boys have I dated without really knowing them? At what point does pride become self-destruction??? Isabel is the best of the book – seen through Remington’s eyes she is hard to understand but comprehension may not be necessary. Paolo “Of the Rose” (he says that’s his last name) insists on signing my book. “Where lies love? Here lies love” he writes in painfully awkward calligraphy. When he finds out I am interested in film he shows me the business card of his brother, who is a “metteur en scène” in Paris. Toss might as well be here I am so inextricably bound to that body, that smile. No calls to “freedom” can tempt me to injure myself with my own chains. Probably when I finally manage to convince Toss that I love him, he will leave me. Two weeks from tomorrow I will be in his arms. We will have been separated only five weeks. I like the international atmosphere of this place. Bjorka Glasbruk, Sat 6 July 1968 Watch my hands cleaning potatoes as if they belong to someone else. Full of character, if a little crooked. There’s a dance tonight. I was not going to go, but Paolo Of the Rose said very calmly that if I did not go he would kill himself. He is tremendously attractive in an animal way. Long, wavy black Jesus hair (often a purple paper flower behind one ear; several bead necklaces against his naked chest.) He calls me ‘Philadelphia”. Sometimes he wears a battered leather jacket – leather against naked skin is definitely sensually exciting. Noticing I read all the time he brought me a copy of DH Lawrence’s Plumed Serpent. I said I was “engaged” to “an American photographer” but Paolo is unimpressed. No one is as great a lover as he is. He makes converts, not conquests. Poor Alysse! He doesn’t seem to have a nationality – speaks French and Italian fluently and English passably – is not a student but an employee of this place. He says he is a Catholic and a communist. When I asked if the two were compatible he very honestly said “No.” He has very smoky, burning eyes. Impossible to say whether he really has a “pash” for me or is just being Italian. He is both a pleasure and the bane of my existence. I take a break from him with Norwegian John, who is intense but cheerful, open and friendly all the time. Never threatens to kill himself. John makes fun of my dreamy expression, absent-mindedness and reading at the table. Calls me La Giaconda. He did try to kiss me but when I dodged accepted it gracefully. DH Lawrence is a verbose madman, alas. He has the most deathly set of interlocking neuroses imaginable. The minds of women are absolute closed book to him and it makes him so annoyed. Never has phallus worship risen to such heights. Men are columns of blood, women are valleys of blood. Such fun! Spent my morning working in the kitchen (everyone had a half day off.) Washed up for six meals, cooked for four. I like chef Ola, he has a very sweet sense of humor. We did produce a very good liver stew if I do say so myself. The rest of the time I’m painting or puttying the ramshackle house next door. I ACHE for Toss’ letters. When he picked me up at nasty old Senescence Manor (to qualify for my own graduation trip) and we were driving in the darkness I asked his profile, “What are you thinking?” and he answered, “I love Alysse Aallyn.” Sigh. We hang together so well, Tom & I. I hope he knows it. He took me to his backyard chalet to hide me from his father – behind the bronze cherubs and the might-be Matisse. Not that it worked. His father was cool. We all went swimming together. Bjorka Glasbruk, Mon eve 8 July 1968. Stage is prose and film is poetry – I reached that conclusion today hanging outside a second storey window on a sling. The whole time I’m painting I picture myself sitting in a black room before a sheet of virgin paper. And a cold July it is! I didn’t think I’d make it through today – shivering and covered in paint. I definitely should not be attracted to Rex Entwistle (English Boy) but freezing to death without an easy doubling of body heat is making things more difficult. He’s a charmer! Plus that accent! He makes such delicious fun of Paolo who literally has no comeback but smokes like an inefficient fireplace. Letters from Toss (finally) but they are torturous as he attends the Party Scene (“I have no patience for these silly games after knowing you.”) Leaves me very, very weak. Off in the lorry to Kalmar.
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Saga’s lounge on the way to Goteborg - Sat aft June 29, 1968
Swedes in suits read magazines, French mother plays cards with her bald children – ordinary life Goes On. This is the first class lounge; there is a second-class lounge (which I’ve also been in.) Think its weird of the democratic Swedes to submit to this kind of thing. Looked in mirror, realized I was thin, bought an enormous chocolate bar to celebrate (ate half of it.) The food around here is all “smorgasbord” – no bread, only crackers, lots of cold fish and blood pudding (which I sampled. More honored in the breach than the observance.) Plenty to eat – slept ten hours!!! Pouring rain. 5 PM – After a good stiff walk and staring at the wake for about an hour, crawled into my upper berth of our 4 berth cabin where I lie picking at my toes like a baboon (two other snorers are oblivious.) Feel ill for some reason. (Pudding.) Took aspirin. Brooding about all the ways our Wedding Week might not come off. If Mom invites someone to live in the house, par example, as she has been wont to do of late (and a lamer assemblage of ducks you’ll seldom see.) If Toss has to work in his wretched park, if there are workmen hacking up the kitchen (Mom has remodeled the kitchens of every house she’s ever lived in) but my optimistic brain fights back. Won’t bother us! We’ll never leave the third floor! Sleep in each other’s arms. Memories…me lying beside the pool, Toss with the sun behind his shoulders pulls off my sundress and kisses my jutting hipbone…ah. Wish I could stop worrying that the peach ice cream goddess he is in love with does not exist. What will happen when he finds out some people think I’m positively ugly? Toss’ face, too, is inexhaustibly interesting. Dig toes into sheets, pant and wail: Juliet in search of Romeo. Finished Miss Murdoch for all the good it did me. (Would have made a SHORT compelling story in New Yorker. At least 200 p. it didn’t need. I think the most important thing an author can know is When To Fall Silent. Reserve blathering on for sketchbooks like this one – aphrodisiac exercises for future consolidation.) But what about the Demands of Poverty, asks the ghost of Balzac. Well, Byron lacked that excuse. (Flourish.) Prefer to re-read Jessica Mitford’s Hons & Rebels after brief detour through Don’t Tell Alfred. Sweet Nancy of the Pursuit of Love has gone stodgy on us (as of p. 81). Stockholm – Tues. 2 July 1968 A lovely, lovely day! Gorging myself on pastry in the breakfast room of the Hotel Continental waiting for my train. Seems I could not easily live in any country of my choice as I used to assume – I am begging directions from strangers on street corners here, hoping they understand English. (Which they all do.) Got homesick last night for hard rock – all they have here is Dylan (and some Jimi Hendrix) seems my mush is flavored with Sheffield longing. Met a bearded architect on the train from Goteborg. We chatted about Frank Lloyd Wright, then he got off at Kristinholm Watching Sweden hurry past, it seemed to me the landscape looks like Minnesota – no wonder the emigrants stopped when they got there. I had a nauseating lemonade at the station – then asked my way to the Youth Alliance address. When I got off at Kristineberg I was studying the map when a tall mustached Swede asked if he could be of assistance. He had already hoisted my bag to his shoulders when I realized he was drunk. He tried getting chummy but I was standoffish. (He asked if he could smell me. I said No.) We found the address all right but the office was shut till Mon! Thomas Angulin (for it was he) told me I could stay with his mother who had taken in Finnish children during the war! I asked for a phone booth – he declared there were none – I burst into tears. He promised to find me a phone booth. Really, it was too much, a drunken letch and no place to stay. I called every Youth Alliance number – closed closed closed. We had tea – this seemed to improve Thomas’ condition. (I paid. I bought him cigarettes, too – anything to sober him up.) He offered to take me to some Sweet Swedish Girls who would comfort and succor me – I accepted this. (Sounded interesting.) He took me to a tall apt house where he let himself in with his own key. His girlfriend Anna (for it was she) was taking a nap and was less than thrilled to be confronted by her drunken wastrel boyfriend and Some Girl He Pulled In Off the Street. (I did my best to look Not Rich and in need of succor.) As they talked in Swedish (and I took a shower) she seemed to like the situation less and less (she really needs to take back that key.) I fell asleep on the sofa – Tomas fell asleep on the floor – Anna announced she was Going Out. When I woke up there was a freckle-faced red head looking at me. Her name was Ingalil or Ingalin or something I can’t pronounce (they called me Liz.) Thomas seemed to have sobered up so the three of us left the apartment in Search of Sweden. We took a bus downtown and looked into several Student Cafes that were action-free. (Afternoons last forever here.) Went to a small restaurant for dinner – Coeur de fillet and three bottles of wine. Thomas – broke before – had suddenly become “rich” – he paid for everything and lent Inga money – I can only assume Anna paid him not to sleep with me. (It’s only fair that I should benefit from a deal like this.) Sounds like he’s found a cushy berth for sure. Of course we all want what we can’t have. Inga decided to throw a last minute party so she bought some food and left in a taxi for her apartment near the Tunnelbana. Thomas and I took another taxi and went pub-crawling to pick up people, which was a lot of fun. One of the pubs was next to the Swedish Royal Theatre where the men dress wonderfully – burnt orange wool trousers and blue yellow and gold scarves. At the party (Anna was there – turns out she looks like that all the time) I was lectured about napalm and forced to promise to stop destroying Vietnam. It seemed easier to agree instead of trying to explain it’s really not up to me. Several students declared that they are communists. I was more than ever glad of my Not Rich persona of Girl Locked out of Youth Hostel and apologetic about my monogrammed luggage. A Chinese guy named Gordon (!) fell for me in a big way but I spent the night talking mostly to John who wears little violet-lensed glasses, has long blond hair and is trying to be an artist/writer. I liked him. He stroked my cheekbones and said “I like your face”. Good time had by all. Inga and I woke late in the AM. We talked long over tea about her hitch hiking experiences (with friend) through Poland and Germany. She is an enormously attractive person. Then we went to the Tetley to meet Inga’s boyfriend – an Irishman from Australia - who hadn’t been able to come to the party. Thomas and Anna showed up – he was cranky. (The problem with his “deal” is he is stuck with Anna, who wanted to explain to me the anti-American comments in her anarchist paper.) They are impressed that I’ve read Sigrid Undset. I tried to imagine Toss with this group – seems to me he would fit right in. In fact he is much more social – I am pretty much content to listen. They would be happy to sit in the café all afternoon – but I wanted to see some Stockholm. Inga’s boyfriend told me I was very boring, I said too bad. But had fun walking the cobbled streets of the Old City playing Mrs. Robinson in my head. Coo-coo-ka-choo, Alysse. (Ended up feeling deliciously lazy, sitting alone in a café on a little island off the King’s Palace. Which looks more like a prison. Which the King obviously thinks also because he no longer lives there.) At the Youth Alliance office they gave me all my materials and told me I had missed the morning train to Emmaus and would have to go Tues. AM. I was not distressed by this since Inga told me I could stay at her apt. Unfortunately Inga was not there and her boyfriend Ralph was. He asked me to cut his hair and tried to kiss me. He took no for an answer but refused to let me play Inga’s Dylan records since he was reading Khalil Gibran. I told him I thought Gibran was saccharine and pseudo-Biblical and he became enraged. He wanted to talk about: guess what? Sex! Ralph is a proponent of the Moment of Ecstasy Theory. He worked hard to convince me that Chaste American Girls are the laughingstock of Europe! Bodies must merge without hang-up or ado! Or memories it seems – a strange idea as outlandishly “romantic” in its own way as anything found in True Love Magazine. Sexual amnesia [laying awkwardly to each generation more self-conscious than the last. I told him he’s denying a million years of human evolution. How well will “jungle sex” really accord with a skyscraper lifestyle? We are going to need more interdependency and not less. Gave him my copy of Machiavelli’s Prince (I finished it.) Poor Inga! I don’t buy Ralph’s “theory” but I don’t have to – fortunately Toss is a very romantic guy. I put Unchained Melody on the jukebox and brood. 3:20 - On the train to Nassjo – Sitting in the Old Ladies Compartment of a feeble little train rattling Emmaus-wards. (This Swedish landscape looks like Canada.) The old ladies keep speaking to me in Swedish even though I’ve told them I don’t speak it – staring deeply into my eyes – gripping my arm and speaking slowly. They are making me want to SAY I get it when I don’t. Went to the restaurant car where a plow salesman from Varsavik wanted to make labored and guttural conversation. Re-reading Toss’ letters is making me all gooey-eyed. I am afraid to write him my neurotic monologues. Better not to contrast the intellectual exaltations of travel with the romantic discoveries of love. Can’t we have both? Which is more rewarding – finding one’s place in the world or following the unraveling skein of sensitivity and insight wherever it may lead? I know what I think. But every man I’ve ever told this to gets mad. The more ways I put it the worse it sounds. It always turns into a referendum on my “selfishness”. All I can say is look at the poetry Emily Dickinson wrote. She had the whole world within her – never went anywhere, never saw anybody. She found it all within herself. In a half hour we’ll be at Aseda. Thurs 2 AM – 27 June 1968
Things are not happening right! Toss, where are you? Remember how, when we were riding in the car, I pressed my lips to your knee? I know your smile and I trust your hand. But I can’t tell you my problems. Then there’s Ian MacLauchlan (sp?) Mom’s friend – I like almost everything about him. He is really attractive – knocking back the bourbon and assuming I wanted ginger ale. I wanted him. He asked all about Toss and when I told him said, “He’s too young for you.” He took us to a trendy club and we heard the whole of Sgt Pepper. Mom didn’t see him holding my hand. Then there’s the night porter. Cute young Irish lad named Donald O’Brien knocked on the door three times to see if I need anything! He is really cute! We had a pillow fight and bragged about our scars. (He way outclassed me.) But that was all I needed, thanks. (Little did Mom know she was checking me into the Passion Flower Hotel.) So then he brought me coffee and I didn’t even order it – but I’m drinking it anyway. Coffee never keeps me awake, if that’s what he was hoping. Coffee goes well with the strawberries I bought this morning at Oxford Circus. Tonight Ian took me to the movies we saw Le Bonheur (snooze) because I had already seen A Man and a Woman. Ate dim sum with towers of dumplings. Lunch date with Ian tomorrow. He is giving me a ride to the docks to catch the Saga for Sweden. Think I better tell him I’m a virgin – he is getting way too excited. Aboard the ship Saga – evening of 28 June 1968 Sitting at a table by the window in the long saloon, starving to death. The concept of “snacks” is unknown to the Swedish. This is the “parade” hour when the handsome young rugged things parade up and down. Some are very appetizing but I make bad decisions on an empty stomach. Hope I can make it to their (very late) dinner before I implode. Wrote Toss a letter, telling him we could have a week alone at Pewter Hill when I come back. A wedding night. How could we miss that opportunity? I am such a private person it seems so unlikely that I will find anyone else – or they will find me – but as I have said, there are certainly a lot of bodies parading about. This is a beautiful boat, clean and modern. Their food problem is the only one I can see. Ian’s partner Chris was at his flat for lunch – they are working on a film – Ian very fatherly – so we had quite the decorous lunch. (Pizza. Very small. They all starve themselves on principle – I think it has something to do with The War.) I declaimed my party-piece poem, Evolution (my very own Letter to Maria Gisborne, the only one of my poems I have memorized) to general plaudits & huzzahs. (Chris thought it was Keats!) This world that seems to us so still And echoes no reflection of our will Somehow produced the seed that in us all Resurrected us from worm to fish, to crawl Upon the earth, to stand and then Return a child to creep and crawl again. In some unending pattern sane or not (Judging by the brain that this same seed begot). And yet within our every cell lies curled A revolutionary flag to be unfurled And take us on to who know what potential end Beyond the reach of enemy or friend? Could it be that simple balls of spinning glass Possess the strength to lift from this morass All that we are – though we don’t understand This torch we pas so tenderly from hand to hand? Then Ian drove me to the docks and insisted on a kiss. Not too bad, all things considered (no tongue). Reading Iris Murdoch’s Under the Net, highly recommended by Ian. I don’t like it. (Intellectually pretentious.) Disliking the leading character is a serious drawback. But Ian liked Le Bonheur which I thought was shallow. Moral: “Try to feel and think less and you’ll be fine.” I think I can do better – fantasize about writing The Summerfield Blues. (To the music of John Wesley Hardin.) “Finn won’t even get into bed if I’m not there. I find him leaning up against the door with his eyes closed.” Ah, imagination! It feels all, sees all, knows all and heals all things. Saga’s lounge on the way to Goteborg - Sat aft June 29, 1968 Swedes in suits read magazines, French mother plays cards with her bald children – ordinary life Goes On. This is the first class lounge; there is a second-class lounge (which I’ve also been in.) Think its weird of the democratic Swedes to submit to this kind of thing. Looked in mirror, realized I was thin, bought an enormous chocolate bar to celebrate (ate half of it.) The food around here is all “smorgasbord” – no bread, only crackers, lots of cold fish and blood pudding (which I sampled. More honored in the breach than the observance.) Plenty to eat – slept ten hours!!! Pouring rain. 5 PM – After a good stiff walk and staring at the wake for about an hour, crawled into my upper berth of our 4 berth cabin where I lie picking at my toes like a baboon (two other snorers are oblivious.) Feel ill for some reason. (Pudding.) Took aspirin. Brooding about all the ways our Wedding Week might not come off. If Mom invites someone to live in the house, par example, as she has been wont to do of late (and a lamer assemblage of ducks you’ll seldom see.) If Toss has to work in his wretched park, if there are workmen hacking up the kitchen (Mom has remodeled the kitchens of every house she’s ever lived in) but my optimistic brain fights back. Won’t bother us! We’ll never leave the third floor! Sleep in each other’s arms. Memories…me lying beside the pool, Toss with the sun behind his shoulders pulls off my sundress and kisses my jutting hipbone…ah. Wish I could stop worrying that the peach ice cream goddess he is in love with does not exist. What will happen when he finds out some people think I’m positively ugly? Toss’ face, too, is inexhaustibly interesting. Dig toes into sheets, pant and wail: Juliet in search of Romeo. Finished Miss Murdoch for all the good it did me. (Would have made a SHORT compelling story in New Yorker. At least 200 p. it didn’t need. I think the most important thing an author can know is When To Fall Silent. Reserve blathering on for sketchbooks like this one – aphrodisiac exercises for future consolidation.) But what about the Demands of Poverty, asks the ghost of Balzac. Well, Byron lacked that excuse. (Flourish.) Prefer to re-read Jessica Mitford’s Hons & Rebels after brief detour through Don’t Tell Alfred. Sweet Nancy of the Pursuit of Love has gone stodgy on us (as of p. 81). Early AM Thurs 20 June 68 - Paris
Years ago my sister Genevieve refused to take me with her to Paris: her reason? I would get up on the hotel roof in the middle of the night to meditate. Here I am: five floors up. Dawn just breaking. It’s damn cold, but night is a good time to question ones values. And mine need questioning. People need people: no one would contest that. And the first-hand experience of limitations turns anyone into a bit of a philosopher. Is chemistry the spice of love? The human mechanism is so frail who can comprehend the limitless? We have to break it down, into its components. Someone loves me who is far away. What am I doing here when he is there? I’m trying not to build myself around him, that’s what; twine the ivy round the pole. Result: collapsing ivy. Wed. 26 June 68 - London Mom has finally left – at last I’m on my own in London. We had some good times – went shopping, saw Stoppard’s Real Inspector Hound (delicious). She tried pumping me about Plumly, but although she considers herself an Expert in Child Psychology it is pretty easy to see her coming. Doesn’t seem fair if only one of her daughters is honest so I told her nothing. Either she thinks I’m totally naive or she is. When your daughter starts taking an interest in pretty underwear, The Time Has Come. She is suffering mightily from trying to keep up the fiction that we are a sexually broadminded family. (Poor Dad! He waited guiltily till Mom was gone then when I was blearily frying a breakfast hamburger he crept up behind me and said awkwardly, “How are you fixed for contraceptives?” I almost jumped out of my skin. He is afraid sex belongs to the young – Mom is afraid it doesn’t.) She did say one interesting thing, about how I always thought more about death than anyone else, as if I ”fear I won’t live up to my promise!” Yup, I was a little weirdo right from the start. Two weeks ago was the last time I saw Toss. (Hawk-eyed mother thinks I am sleeping with him already.) The stones and spires of Paris all around me and he’s the only one I see. He thinks he loves me: how likely is that? Tells me constantly how beautiful I am. (Shades of Beales.) Says its not just my body but my soul. I guess I love him as much as I can love anyone. Danger signals all the time. I find myself looking super-critically through the eyes of others: “Just a pair of kids.” Try to fight these neurotic sensations – they are not healthy perceptions at all. Some people have the power to reduce me to a deep abysmal shame about my everything (Genevieve chief among them.) Question everything I have. He has been so trusting, given me so much. When I look at his face I am stunned by his male beauty. When I read his letters sometimes they seem witty, sometimes maudlin, sometimes straining for effect, sometimes insightful; then I hate myself for judging. We are both afraid, both recoiling. When I told him I wanted him to make love to me I realized hw strangely afraid of it I was; he said he couldn’t because we weren’t “protected”. I didn’t want condoms, said I’d get some foam. When I said, “I’m just as scared as you are” he actually said angrily, “I’m not scared.” Just as touchy as any other boy. (More Beales!!!) Really though in every other way he is admirable. Calm, accepting, smart, philosophical. I feel ahead of me a deep opportunity for the entire knowledge of another human being – including the sexual stuff. When I watch him talking to his father I feel I know a side of him no one else has ever seen – seems a lucky chance to possess such knowledge. He says he would rather be with me than anyone. Then I think; he would be having this experience with any other girl. He is just discovering the beauty of women. He really does not know about my uniqueness. And to I want him to know? Can’t decide. Unusually for me, I am not feeling jealous. Maybe because he’s so concealed, so hermit-like – scoffs to me about all the women that he sees. Will he feel disappointment when he sees me again? If he’s as good at hiding his feelings as I am, we’ll never know. He has a totally new quality of humility – I can’t describe it because I’ve never experienced it before! It sounds so ugly in sermons, but it’s a great sweetness. Maybe he knows me better than I think. I wish I was back home with Toss so we could find each other. I wanted him to make love to me that time but I am still a virgin – there is world enough and time. I told Toss, “I hear that it hurts” he said, “It’s a clean pain.” Would he say that about childbirth? He is so passionate I don’t worry about Hopeless Amateur Night. He knows how to take his time. Well, I can’t think about it any more. Alysse you fool you need to get some sleep! |
Alysse Aallyn
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