For Esme - with Love and Squalor: And Other Stories

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Esme asks the narrator what his job was before entering the Army. He answered that he would like to consider himself a professional short-story writer. When asked if he has been published, however, he wavers, trotting out a denouncement of American editors. It didn't especially, but I didn't say so. I said that many soldiers, all over the world, were a long way from home, and that few of them had had many real advantages in life. I said I'd thought that most people could figure that out for themselves. Since the late 1970s, Schnabel’s experimental practice and use of unconventional materials has invented a new kind of painting. In 1990, at the time of the acquisition of Schnabel’s four paintings Los Patos del Buen Retiro for the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid, then director María de Corral wrote, “...what really interests me is that nothing gives the impression of being fixed or closed off. Instead, all of the elements seem to be in a permanent state of flux and one’s perception of them is so arbitrary that all interpretations end up being equally valid.”

X sees that the wristwatch has been broken in transit. He sits for a while, then, “suddenly, almost ecstatically,” feels sleepy – the first time he has experienced that feeling, we can infer, in a long, long time.I am rereading Nine Stories by J.D. Salinger, titled by an English publisher For Esme: With Love and Squalor, reviewing my favorites separately along the way. “Esme” is one of those stories. The collection focuses on how the US was doing post WWII. Salinger was a veteran, having fought at the Battle of the Bulge and other famous battles. He also worked in counter-intelligence as well. When he was at the Battle of the Bulge he was carrying six chapters of the Catcher in the Rye, and he also wrote as many as twenty short stories during the war. In 1963, film and TV director Peter Tewksbury approached Salinger about making a film version of the story. Salinger agreed, on condition that he himself cast the role of Esmé. He had in mind for the role Jan de Vries, the young daughter of his friend, the writer Peter de Vries (and yes, I am well aware of Salinger's interest in younger women, including Joyce Maynard, who lived with him when she was eighteen--I read that book and liked it, but my view is that the stories in this collection and in Catcher--Holden's sister--feature young girls as somewhat idealized symbols of childhood goodness). He put his arms on the table and rested his head on them. He ached from head to foot, all zones of pain seemingly interdependent. He was rather like a Christmas tree whose lights, wired in series, must all go out if even one bulb is defective.

These sit alongside a number of self-portraits, including the both intimate and monumental Bonnard inspired Reading in Bath I and III; never-before seen series Pictures of What I Did Not See, which depicts Joffe undergoing a traumatic illness and being cared for by Esme and a series of startlingly honest self-portraits. Produced one a day over the course of a year this 2018 series captures both the artist and her environment – from London’s cool winter light to the haze of a summer in the stifling New York heat. That cat was a spy. You had to take a pot shot at it. It was a very clever German midget dressed up in a cheap fur coat. So there was absolutely nothing brutal, or cruel, or dirty, or even –” His face lit up. "Meet you at the corner!" he shrieked, and raced out of the room, possibly in hysterics. This story was published in The New Yorker in April of 1950, and the narrator specifically says that he is recollecting his time in England in April of 1944, when he was taking a training course in Devon, directed by British Intelligence. In London, just prior to receiving his assignment, the narrator finds himself in front of a church, and he learns that a children's choir is practicing. He goes in and listens to the choir, noting one girl, especially, whose voice stands out among the rest. X threaded his fingers, once, through his dirty hair, then shielded his eyes against the light again. “You weren’t insane. You were simply doing your duty. You killed that pussycat in as manly a way as anybody could’ve, under the circumstances.”

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Loretta was Clay's girl. They intended to get married at their earliest convenience. She wrote to him fairly regularly, from a paradise of triple exclamation points and inaccurate observations. All through the war, Clay had read all Loretta's letters aloud to X, however intimate they were--in fact, the more intimate, the better. It was his custom, after each reading, to ask X to plot out or pad out the letter of reply, or to insert a few impressive words in French or German. Clay left his feet where they were for a few don't-tell-me-where-to-put-my-feet seconds, then swung them around to the floor and sat up. "I'm goin' downstairs anyway. They got the radio on in Walker's room." He didn't get up from the bed, though. "Hey. I was just tellin' that new son of a bitch, Bernstein, downstairs. Remember that time I and you drove into Valognes, and we got shelled for about two goddam hours, and that goddam cat I shot that jumped up on the hood of the jeep when we were layin' in that hole? Remember?" Staff Sergeant X's wife: At the beginning of the story, the narrator (Staff Sergeant X) remembers the name. X explains that they decided not to go to Esmé's wedding after talking to his wife. Later, Esme and Charles return to the tearoom. Esme explains that Charles wants to kiss the narrator goodbye. The narrator takes the opportunity to ask Charles, “What did one wall say to the other wall?” “Meet you at the corner!” Charles shouts, his face alight. O.K. G'night! Take it easy, now, for Chrissake." The door slammed shut, then instantly opened again. "Hey. O.K. if I leave a letter to Loretta under your door? I got some German stuff in it. Willya fix it up for me?"