The Dud Avocado - Elaine Dundy [69]
“Don’t you remember?”
“Would I be asking you?”
“Well, let’s see. I’m not too clear myself, but it seems to me there were a couple of other bars—some places near your hotel—would that be possible?”
“It would indeed. Oh Christ, this is hopeless. I’ll never get to the bottom of it. And that man at the Embassy is so awful.”
“Want me to go over there with you? I might be some help. Let’s see what I can do.”
“No. Some of my friends have tried already and made it worse.”
“Start pulling some strings from the outside.”
“Yeah, that’s it.”
“And don’t despair. It’ll probably turn up. Sorry I haven’t been around to see the show, I’ve been too busy on another project—I’ve got to know Dertu and his puppets—it’s fascinating! But I’m coming around in a couple of days to see how you’re all making out. I won’t tell you when, so stay on your toes.”
“Sure. Well—sorry to have bothered——”
“Bye, Gorce. Take it easy, child.” Click.
“Bye.” Bang. That was me.
I went to the O.K. and the Villa Villa and the one next door. Nothing. I went to Shugie’s. Shugie didn’t even remember seeing me that night. Just as well, I thought, I must have been in wonderful shape.
I had thought of Uncle Roger almost from the very beginning. Uncle Roger was the one person I could count on to get the thing straightened out. But unfortunately it was in our agreement that I wasn’t to get in touch with him for two years.
So I did something I almost never do; I wrote to my mother and my father. It was a most unusual step for me to take. However, when they got over their surprise at not being surprised to find me in another scrape, they pulled themselves together and rallied their forces and yes, I must admit it, they really did their very level best. Mother, in San Francisco, where she owns and operates a cosmetic firm, began contacting powerful senators (whose letters, postcards and wires to the Paris Embassy were alt Kafkaesquely rerouted to that powerful Man in Charge, who flung them back scornfully, assuring me that they would not “constitute official recognition”); while Daddy, who, after a series of failures in love and finance, got religion, and now edits a Jesuit magazine out in Brooklyn, uncovered for me forgotten Embassy officials in forgotten rooms overlooking the Avenue Gabriel, where I sometimes spent fruitless but pleasant afternoons having tea and looking out at the chestnut trees.
Then I got busy myself. Almost daily for two months I bombarded Washington with angry, pleading, and servile letters. I spoke of the career aspect—it was essential for a promising young actress to be able to travel; I spoke of the educational and cultural aspect—it was monstrous for a girl of my age to be prevented from visiting the art monuments of the world; I even spoke of the patriotic aspect—it was heartbreaking as a citizen of our great country to be denied so important an identification with her beloved land. Nothing doing. They would consider the case in their own sweet time.
NINE
BUT DON’T THINK life was all passports and acting. More and more there was Jim Breit—though to this day I cannot understand what on earth he saw in me, except, of course, my bones, or my surface textures, or whatever else he happened to be painting at the time. In fact, if he ever writes his memoirs, I shall probably appear as The Girl on the Boulevard Montparnasse, or the Floradora Girl, or something like that. I mean he didn’t exactly altogether approve of me. Not that he ever said anything about it. The worst thing he ever said to me—and that was not until a whole lot later—was that I was impure. I had to admit that if anyone ever had the right to say it, he did. For he was pure all right; as pure as the driven Mobile for which he eventually gave up representational painting.
“I suppose for a girl of your sophisticated tastes—” was the way he always started off sentences, teasing me about the gay, mad, theatrical whirl, or my friendship with Blair Perrins (whom he found chi-chi and affected), or my tenuous connection with the International Set (the King of Lithuania,