Mon 22 July 1968
Just scarred my lip tissue on a glass of boiling tea. Damn. Sitting in a nowhere café on a Luxembourg sides street I chose because they play The Lovin’ Spoonful. (Now they’re playing Philly Soul – maybe in honor of me.) I arrived in Luxembourg just fine, except that my luggage did not arrive with me. This will teach me not to travel with baggage. The consigne man was more surprised by my fuss than the non-arrival of my luggage. Told me to come back in the morning. Checked into the Hotel Chemin de Fer where all business is conducted in the bar. I only had Swedish money and all the exchanges were closed but the patron agreed I could pay in the morning. 175 francs. ($3) Bath? No baths, said the gold crossed, bespectacled, black swathed obesity handing me my key. Third floor; miniscule but comfortable. The old lady gave it to me straight: there are no baths. Washed up in the sink and I didn’t have the heart to shave. The tea is good. My cold has moved from nasal passages to my throat meaning I can’t talk; my voice is either a scratchy whine or a snorty croak. Or silence. Good, good tea. Luxembourg is quite a city. I like the pseudo-Victorian monstrosities of the residential section. Reminds me of the Chestnut & Seventh St Post Office. Maybe its ninth street. You know the one I mean – fronted by the lady wrestlers carved in stone. Nothing’s open on Mondays so I can’t buy a tweezer or pair of shoes. Toss will just have to love me for myself. Woke up at none when the maid banged on the door. I thought I was locked in until she showed me how it worked. Enjoying what this trip has done for me – I’ve pretty well ceased worrying about what I look like. There’s a nice park nearby – maybe I’ll rack out on a bench. Plenty of time to kill – my bus doesn’t leave for the air terminus till 8:45. I bet there’s just one plane a day out of that airport (it looks like the Bucyrus train station.) This café is more of a club. People are streaming in and they all know each other. It must be lunchtime. At first it was just me and Beardy – heavy Germanic type reading an economics textbook – now there’s at least eight men. I need to hang around just to improve their décor. Certainly getting the stare from one of these guys – time to blow my nose as unattractively as possible. 3:30 PM Café of the Hotel de Paris - Walked around Lux, crossed bridge to park, fell face-first on the grass, then walked down every curvy side street that I saw. Walked all over the place. The Office of the State Architect was so cool I wanted to run right in and order something. Bought postcards and pen, wrote thank-you postcards to Swedes and sketched in first few pages of story that’s been playing around my brain. Hot bright weather with a strong breeze. Ummmm. Suddenly the stores all opened obedient to my wishes and I bought tweezers, very nice pair of shoes, rough body cream – when I show up at the Airport a transformation will have been Wreaked. Toss, baby why aren’t you here relaxing with me in the sun? It could be so divine. Feeling lots of affection for Luxembourg. It’s just big enough, and it hasn’t the tourists to bring it down. 6:45 PM – drinking a coke at the Café de la Gare - thrown out of the last café by two old bags who seemed really upset by my desire to put my feet up on a chair. Oh well. Bought a dress at the Monopol and then I felt much better. Beautiful burnt sienna, pink and gold with a pattern of leaves – fake silk. Very nice. I am shortening the hem. $20. What a pity my legs are still covered with rotten apple bruises. If Toss really loves me he won’t even notice them. Still struggling with Iris Murdoch as she mathematically works out all the combinations possible between her characters. Back cover blurb promises “incest, violence, castration and suicide.” Beats druggy black humor. I think the castration is going to be all-emotional, though. Poor Miss Murdoch keeps siding with the reader against herself. I think a novelist is not very good when reader keeps constantly noting these technicalities.
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Malmo ferry to Copenhagen – Sat 20 July 68
Absolutely exhausted. My arm still itches where my “graduation day” poison ivy used to be (celebrating in the woods with Toss) you can see the faint scars. Horsefly bites on top of that. So I’ll be attractively swollen when I see Toss. Great. This ferry takes an hour and a half so should make it to the ferry terminal about midnight. Utterly insane. I could have spent the night in a beautiful Swedish farmhouse surrounded by miles of sunlit fields but I was ready to go. All I can think of is Senior Parties at McKenzie’s, leaning with Toss against a horse fence admiring the sunset while he lights his pipe. I don’t mind spending nights at airports with these kinds of memories to keep me company. I’m thoroughly at home in airports – spent some of the best days of my life in airports. Don’t even know where I’m going since all I have is a voucher – Hamburg is probably my best bet. I shouldn’t be exhausted since all I did was sit in a truck for six and a half hours but I think it’s a cumulative emotional thing. Getting over a cold. Last night Rex and I went out rowing on a marsh-like primeval lake while the others celebrated – it was quiet and a bit cold. Steam rose from the water and invisible creature slipped through the weeds – we seeing only their wake. In the AMI volunteered for kitchen duty – 3rd time in a week – can’t imagine why others hate it so much. Unlike painting and grouting it has an end and you get to eat and stay warm. Spent an hour cleaning up after “second breakfast” then it was time to go. Rex drove down with me – we cuddled under blankets in the lorry – he was singing nonsense songs. “Make love to Elizabeth Taylor, catch hell from Richard Burton.” I read Chateaubriand. Heavy going; declines and deaths of assorted female friends & relatives. Modern psychologists would like to get their hands on his sister Lucie – a classic paranoid. At least he loved her. Maybe that’s better than understanding her. We arrived at Charlie’s parents farm outside Malmo (reminds me of Toss’ place in Berkshires) at about six thirty. Charlie is Pablo’s lover – it’s really kind of cute to see them fighting and kissing. We spent an hour trying to get the truck out of the soft sand into which Norwegian John had backed it. Charlie’s parents were going into Malmo and I was eager to get moving. Kissed Rex, Pablo and even vulgar old Giovanni goodbye. “Will you write me?” Each one asked. Sure! Most certainly! (I’m writing you here.) Goodbye Philadelphia…goodbye Giaconda. Força, Força, says Pablo. Now I’m on my second cup of cocoa and feeling pretty good. Will I forget everything? Will my time in Sweden seem like it never happened? Not if I keep writing here… Gulls wheel around the boat as an old lady clears my chocolate cup. 68 hrs from this moment I’ll be seeing Toss’ face. Hallelujah! Copenhagen Airport – Sunday July 21 - 68 Took a taxi from dock to airport – a glass and steel blob. Those wretched Danes won’t let me into the airport goodies without a ticket and I can’t buy a ticket till tomorrow. Copenhagen airport is full of well-dressed women with helpless men hanging off their arms like lapdogs. Odd. I see Lufthansa has a flight to Hamburg - $30 – most agreeable. Then we’ll see how long it takes to get to Luxembourg by train. Till then I’m camping here. In blue jeans, Cuban boots and dusty parka I think I look rather strange. But they are used to such as I. Sacked out on blue couch till a man woke me up to vacuum it. Then he let me get back on. Mercifully. 9:10 AM Great airport to be in once you’ve got a ticket. Washed face and hands and ate my weight in Danish pastries. Strong pulls at coffee, then 15 mins in cheese store trying to choose. (Gouda? Ermenthaler?) Bought Mini-Fynbo. So there. Wish I had Toss here to show him off – the Danes are famed for beauty but he’d be handsomest in the place. After you meet someone who wears his soul on his sleeve other people look pretty mild. As for me I feel like Greta Garbo in my questionable jeans and paint-splattered shirt. I’m going home! Tempted to purchase a split of Piper Heidseck. Reading Jack Kroll in Newsweek on the New American Novel. All druggy black humor alas for the Summerfield Blues. I doubt this age will be remembered for its novels – more for Music. (Vanilla Fudge plays Look of Love). Doors, Blues Project and Tim Buckley are our prophets…Druggy black humor very dated in a hundred years but It’s All Over Now Baby Blue will last forever. Drop magazine to reread Toss’ latest letter in which he fears the Winner of the Class of 1914 Reading prize must have very extravagant ideas about lovemaking. And I have. My plane leaves in 20 mins. Better find out from where. Train from Koln to Koblenz – 7:10 PM – An hour on this train before I change for Luxembourg- pull in just before 11. Not o bad – should be able to find a hotel – giving some hope of cleaning up for Tom – at least removing the layers of filth accumulated in two days of traveling rough. People stare at me so much as I write you would think it was some indecent, private act. If they ask I’ll tell them it’s my forthcoming book: Grubbing through Europe. Fun dinner at Koln. (4711 a very big deal there. Bought a huge bottle.) Ate my way through gritty steak, mounds and mounds of pomme frites and watery salad. Barely able to restrain myself from having a sundae – don’t want unsightly lumps when I see Toss not after all the praise he’s showered on my poor body. He’s so passionately pure, so carved – a wrestler – always fasting. The nut. Yet he has plenty of gusto – a real joy in life. Had my ghastly dinner in the very shadow of the great black lace cathedral – needs serious cleaning and is marred by layers of construction. I’m not as much of a culture vulture as Mom, mostly I’ve looked at people, balancing babies on hips in grocery stores, counting out pennies in train stations, sleeping open mouthed on subway seats. I drink it up. After working my way through Chateaubriand I needed a chaser so picked up Iris Murdoch’s A Severed Head. Isn’t this supposed to be her best book? She writes awful tripe sometimes – how can the critics be so dim. The Unicorn was better. Really if this is the sort of stuff they like there is no hope for me. Is she an unsung lesbian? She tries so hard to write in a masculine manner. According to her masculinity is monstrous selfishness. Rex is also English and I’m sure he’d disagree. Ms Murdoch your problems bore me and your people do not exist. You’d be surprised how much readers prefer a pencil sketch to a carpenter’s diagram. At one point she actually begged us to overlook the fact that the thing bears no relation to reality. Weird. Lucky that I caught this train. Tomorrow I’ll have a chance to do a little shopping before 14 hrs on the plane. I have just enough Sominex to carry me through. Oh Toss I love you so terribly! Will he really be glad to see me or be plagued by mixed feelings? I’m just going to fall all over him. So desperate I’m reading about the Democratic Convention. Apparently McCarthy has the closest position to Saint Bobby so the likeliest chance of winning. Avril’s birthday – Bastille Day – Sunday - Oland
10 AM – sitting in the remains of camp. Tents folding up, People wandering through. Sitting in the sand wearing corduroy levis over my terrycloth jumpsuit. “In the chilly hours and minutes Of uncertainty – I want to be In the warmth of your loving mind… Aaah but I may as well try and catch the wind.” So true. (Donovan) One week and two days!!! What is going to happen to us? I wonder about that, with Toss in Oregon and me God knows where how will we stand it? I would stay home and write if I could write there. I guess I haven’t yet found the place where I can write. I know Balzac – or Thackeray – would say it isn’t a matter of places. Write, woman! I’ll have to think of a way to rake in money so I can go to see him. “When the rain has hung the leaves with tears I want you hear to kill my fears…” So much to say. But if I sit down for a moment I immediately fall asleep. This is a real problem is you are trying to have a meal or keep a diary. How to begin? Rex and I walked and walked around Kalmar but the town was dead as a doornail. Nothing happening on a rainy Sunday. We ended up at a swanky restaurant where Kersi (the Indian from Geneva) was having a coke. He began playing their piano. He was magnificent! Seeing those pudgy fingers flying over the keys was a revelation! Chopin…Debussy’s Mosque – all from memory. In triumph he bought a bottle of wine, drank the whole thing himself and threw up in the lorry on the way home. Eeeeew. And let that be a lesson to you, children. Not to aspire? Learn music? Drink wine? Have digestive systems? Life is so complicated. Once back I washed my hair to get the puke smell out and dried it in front of the fire. I was staring into the fire and Rex said, “There’s no one quite like him, is there?” I said, “No.” Rex asked if he could kiss me good night. I could feel the down along his upper lip. Fri 19 July 1968 My whole system is in open revolt. Such a bad cold I can’t breathe, my stomach can’t handle any more of this awful food and my intestines are making their outrage known. Hideously ugly today – truly hag-like. My hair is black at the roots, white at the tips and full of oil paint. Every article of clothing I own is so smeared in paint and red jam that it ought to be burned. I watch as all my mother’s worst qualities bubble to the surface within me. Why can’t I be like my sister and choose boys based on their tastes, families and circles of friends? Yet I absolutely cannot give in to status concerns or you live too much in other people’s (highly unreliable) heads. On the other hand Toss belongs to a high-status family, very self-consciously so, so who’s fooling whom? Rex is the nobody from nowhere. Vicious circles of Extreme Sensitivity. These wars play out on the battlefield of my skin; my face looks like the Last Siege of Ypres. I am so afraid I will run up to Toss at the airport and he will blanche and stagger backwards. Who wouldn’t? I’m also a sexually starved mess. I am eyeing everyone as a Possibility. I desire to close amoeba-like over some poor wretch. I told Rex not to kiss me so now he doesn’t try. I realize I am punishing at least three people with my desires and then I hate poor Toss with all the fever of my own self-hatred. Whereas Rex is such a darling, freaky child – he’s so much like ME. To suppress hatred or to recognize it? Conundrum. Maybe hatred is the true murderer of freedom. Everyone will be glad to leave this camp. International relations have become Strained to say the least. After the French girls left morale dropped severely. No wonder the world is in such a mess! And now I can’t sleep. I lie here swallowing gross stuff and listening to my ears crackle. Staring to think Toss is the only person who can ever love me. |
Alysse Aallyn
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