The Swans of Fifth Avenue(6)

But Truman, watching them, recognizing the sneering disdain—and the barely concealed fear—in their eyes, smiled to himself, even as he kept chattering to their wives. “These eccentric old cousins who raised me—such material! You’ve read The Grass Harp, of course. Sook was such a wonderful, crazy old lady! She adored me. They all did—I was the pride of Monroeville, Alabama! The star! And you must meet my friend Nelle. Nelle Harper Lee. She’s in New York now, working on a novel about our childhood, apparently, although I’m sure she’ll need my help, poor thing. She’s bright, but not quite as gifted as moi—but shh, you didn’t hear that from me!”

—

“NELLE WAS MY ONLY FRIEND in Monroeville,” Truman told Babe, bitterly. They were in her bedroom, her sanctum of sanctums, at Kiluna Farm. That was her home—oh, of course the Paleys had many homes; an apartment in the St. Regis, a summer house in New Hampshire, the beach house in Jamaica. But it was the sprawling estate—“Eighty acres!” Truman exclaimed to his lover, Jack Dunphy, who only grunted and said “So what?”—on Long Island that was their constant, their true north. After the fateful plane trip, during which the two of them had immediately tumbled into a conversation neither could recall, except for the fact that it seemed to bind them together with an invisible golden thread none of the others present could unravel, Babe immediately invited Truman out for the weekend. She had installed him in a guest room equipped with a personal valet, fresh flowers, the finest Porthault linens, and a view of her spectacular gardens. Truman—after first allowing himself to roll around the plush carpet like a puppy, bounce on the bed like a ten-year-old, and bury his elfin face in the flowers—knocked on her bedroom door and walked right in without waiting for a reply, as if he’d been there a thousand times before.

And Babe—who rarely allowed anyone into her bedroom—smiled and patted the bedspread and found herself, to her amazement, sitting cross-legged next to Truman Capote, who studied her anxiously, his eyes big and blue and innocent. He was like a child at times, she decided, as so many people did upon meeting him. A child who needed reassurance and shelter from the capriciousness of a cruel world. And so she surprised herself by sharing confidences as she had never done before, not even, really, with her two sisters back in Boston.

“Nelle was a tomboy—tough as nails and she didn’t have too many friends herself, plus her mother was crazy as a loon. But she wanted to be a writer, too. We had that in common. No one else in that dusty Alabama town knew what a writer was. But we found an old typewriter in her father’s office and we oiled it up and got some ribbon and would take turns pounding out stories and dialogue and anything that came to mind. We called it ‘going to work.’ Nelle and I wrote ourselves out of Monroeville, since we couldn’t very well leave on our own. Lillie Mae went off to New York, divorced my father, married Joe Capote, and still she didn’t send for me. Not until I was eleven. So I was left to be raised by these kooky old cousins, mocked for my good manners, my nice clothes that Nina sent. Mocked for being me, smaller than any other boy, prettier, too.” There wasn’t a trace of bitterness in Truman’s voice; he lolled about the bed, grabbed his knees, and laid his head upon Babe’s lap.

—

“MY MOTHER DIED OF PNEUMONIA,” Truman whispered to Slim, to Gloria, to C.Z. To their husbands, now joining their wives by the fire, a cozy, bejeweled, hushed little group surrounding this charming male Scheherazade with the barest traces of a southern accent, the odd, enchanting lisp, the dreamy eyes. And that hair! Fairy hair, spun gold, with long bangs. Men did not have bangs; men wore their hair slicked back with Brylcreem, no-nonsense.

But Truman wasn’t a man. He wasn’t a woman. He was an unearthly creature, a genius—or so those who weren’t inclined to read had been told by those who were. A genius whose eyes were now wet with tears. And their hearts opened to him, as of one accord. “My mother was very young, still beautiful, you know. It was only a couple of years ago. I was in Europe and couldn’t get back in time. She died of pneumonia and she was all alone. And so now I’m an orphan.”

The wives wiped their own tears. The husbands said to themselves, “Well, he’s not so bad, after all, the little fellow. I’ve never been friends with a fag before. What the hell.”

—

“MY MOTHER KILLED HERSELF,” Truman told Babe. His eyes were dry and frighteningly clear. “Killed herself with booze and pills. She’d tried before but always chickened out. But not this time. Old Capote lost all his money, you see. She had nothing—she was back to being Lillie Mae Faulk, not glamorous Nina Capote. She couldn’t bear it. She couldn’t bear me. I was in Europe, working on the script for Beat the Devil, and I had her cremated because she would have hated that. It’s so sordid, disgraceful. But now you know.”

He frowned, and sighed, and seemed lost in memories; Babe thought his face most beautiful in repose, when the delicate features—the small, yet lusciously red-lipped mouth, the flushed and freckled cheeks, the surprising cleft in his determined jaw—weren’t working so hard to beguile.

Suddenly he opened his eyes wide and peered up into her face. He smiled that mischievous smile, patted her knee, and cooed, “So now you know about me. All about me. Tell me about you.”

And Babe felt she had no choice—and didn’t want one, anyway. This was communion, something of a nature so deep she couldn’t articulate it, only feel it rumbling beneath her ribs, tickling her heart. Surface, surface, surface—that was her life, and it had been, for as long as she could remember. But here was someone who had bared his soul to her. He had shown her his wounds, his scars; the real ones, the ones that never healed. The ones that weren’t visible to the naked eye.