Appetite For Life_ The Biography Of Julia Child Part 5

What Julia did not know yet was that Paul and Charlie had had their stars "read" by an astrologer named Jane Bartleman and that Charlie sent periodic updates. Paul, since April 1945, had waited for his foretold "intelligent, dramatic, beautiful" woman to come, bringing "some complication inherent" in their relations.h.i.+p. He referred to this reading as his "cave-of-emeralds future." In the margin of a May 13 letter to Charlie, which recalled the prediction and in which Paul confessed his loneliness ("More than all else-more than security, more than art, more than music-I need love), Paul wrote years later: "Julie, you Idiot! Wake up!"

At the time, Paul did not yet see Julia as a serious love interest, though she took it more seriously. Fifty years later she would remember that their romance began in Ceylon and continued in Kunming: "It was a gradual getting together; by the time we went to China we were in love. There were a lot of attractive women around. He loved women." As the years went by, they would invest their love in China with a commitment beyond any evidence suggested by his letters. Indeed, he spoke of other women, one with whom he wished to "rise with the sea-tides, put the pungent flavor of wild sage on her tongue, and comb her hair with the wind." He did write of Julia: "Tommy and Julie and I together last night at his quarters. I read them all your letters since 25th of April-Julia knows you by now" (June 2). "I am really starved starved for a certain kind of companions.h.i.+p" (June 10). "I am aching from the rudeness and savagery of life ... I have lost the sense of savor, the feeling and creativity, the expansion that comes through love given and returned." On June 19, he wrote: "I cannot seem to rid myself of the touchstone of Edith, against which I try the others. n.o.body begins to measure up to that standard." He threw himself into his work: "I shall bend my energies in large measure to this incredibly shocking, stupid and futile war." On Edith's birthday, June 27: "I miss her terribly." He thanks Charlie for photos: "Julia and I have decided they look like some Fairy's version of the real thing. Jeanne says they look as though you've 'gone Hollywood.'" Paul wanted to be "released from the prison of this time and place," but "where would I go?" for a certain kind of companions.h.i.+p" (June 10). "I am aching from the rudeness and savagery of life ... I have lost the sense of savor, the feeling and creativity, the expansion that comes through love given and returned." On June 19, he wrote: "I cannot seem to rid myself of the touchstone of Edith, against which I try the others. n.o.body begins to measure up to that standard." He threw himself into his work: "I shall bend my energies in large measure to this incredibly shocking, stupid and futile war." On Edith's birthday, June 27: "I miss her terribly." He thanks Charlie for photos: "Julia and I have decided they look like some Fairy's version of the real thing. Jeanne says they look as though you've 'gone Hollywood.'" Paul wanted to be "released from the prison of this time and place," but "where would I go?"

LIQUOR IS QUICKER.

The end of the European war brought more visits from friends, who carried in the liquor for what Julia called "the five o'clock refreshment period." "A gla.s.s of pure water is as remote as Chateauneuf du Pape," declared Paul, but finding spirits was somewhat easier. According to Betty MacDonald, it was difficult but necessary to get liquor: "We had parties at the big house. Because it was hard to get liquor in China, the pilots would come in with Carew's gin. Then the Navy began to take alcohol out of the steering wheel box that lubricated the steering wheel. Anything for a drink. There was [also] some alcohol available through the French, who came out of Indochina."

The music at the parties was the same as it had been in Ceylon, but without the British note, such as "There's a Troops.h.i.+p Just Leaving Bombay" or "Waltzing Matilda" (the latter from Australia). The songs on the few phonographs in the camp included "You Are My Suns.h.i.+ne," a favorite of 1942, "Pistol-Packin' Mama," and "Blues in the Night." If the McWilliams backbone said do your job well, the Weston imp drove her to dance. For one party, planned by Paul, a jazz band of black soldiers played until 5:30 A.M A.M. for the boogie-woogie dancers.

Among the friends who were in and out of Kunming and Chungking were John Ford, the film director and now naval officer, who with his crew of cameramen seemed to be shooting another movie. Jane Foster, the party girl and leftist expert on Java, Bali, and Malaya, came briefly from Kandy, according to Paul's letters. Ned Putzell, as he had in Ceylon, accompanied General Donovan on a Kunming visit. According to Mary Livingston Eddy, Donovan remembered most of the names of his OSS personnel. When Byron Martin was touring with another general, Julia ran to greet him: "She ... grabbed me under the arms and lifted me to my toe tips (I was rather slight of build at the time) and planted a kiss. I felt as honored as I ever have been," he wrote. Paul greeted Joe Alsop, who (he informed Charlie) was thinner, balder, and sporting an even "strong[er] atmosphere of Cafe Society, with quite a sound fake British accent." They preferred his two brothers, Stewart and John, who were in the OSS in Europe.

Theodore H. White was a favorite of both Julia and Paul. He had been in China since 1939, when, as a twenty-eight-year-old with a Harvard fellows.h.i.+p, he continued his study of Chinese and worked as a translator in Chungking. John Hersey of Time Time found him, and White reported on the war for found him, and White reported on the war for Time, Life Time, Life, and Fortune Fortune. Years before Julia arrived in China, White was covering the war and explaining China and the Chinese to his American readers in a more comprehensive way than any other reporter. He believed that the real power of the Orient resided in the Chinese, not the j.a.panese. Julia found him affable, and Paul enjoyed his visits to Kunming.

While the Chinese transplanted the rice in the paddies and harvested the wheat, Julia joined Jeanne, Paul, Jack Moore, and another man for an overnight holiday. "We left Sunday afternoon at 4:30 packed in a jeep," wrote Paul. There was a monsoon in progress and they all got soaked in spite of ponchos, "but n.o.body cared because it was lovely, lovely, Freedom!" Freedom!" They drove out past Paul's favorite red bridge for another hour before turning off the main road to a lush valley surrounded by purple mountains. Here they checked into a tiny resort hotel at a hot spring. The next day in the rain they went walking along rice paddies, watching local peasantry transplanting rice, looking at the big waterwheels, swollen river, and deep mist on mountains. There were "startling patches of emerald green when the sun broke through and red brick soil where eroded," wrote Paul. They sat on a high plateau and chewed pine needles, smoking and talking and taking pictures of each other. They drove out past Paul's favorite red bridge for another hour before turning off the main road to a lush valley surrounded by purple mountains. Here they checked into a tiny resort hotel at a hot spring. The next day in the rain they went walking along rice paddies, watching local peasantry transplanting rice, looking at the big waterwheels, swollen river, and deep mist on mountains. There were "startling patches of emerald green when the sun broke through and red brick soil where eroded," wrote Paul. They sat on a high plateau and chewed pine needles, smoking and talking and taking pictures of each other.

Mary, Julia's roommate, says that when Dillon Ripley came to visit and look at birds, Julia took him to the hot springs, about an hour's drive away. Julia adored soaking in the hot water. According to Jeanne Taylor, she declared: "Do you realize that if everyone in the d.a.m.ned war had a Sani Hot Springs bath every day, it would be over by now?" Jack Moore, who worked with Paul, remembered trips with Julia and Paul to visit the springs, temples, journeys over "spine-crus.h.i.+ng dirt roads" that were a sharp contrast to the British-built country roads of India, and to commercial restaurants for "real meals.... They had obviously done a lot of exploration with Chinese food."

That summer Paul went to the hot springs with others, including Jeanne. It is not surprising, therefore, that Mary Livingston Eddy said, "I was not aware that Julia and Paul were romantically involved in China. I saw them together, but we all were together."

By August both the war and the partying quickened. "There have been quite a few visitations of the big WD/IBT [General Donovan]," Julia wrote in a communique to Ceylon. Clearly the focus was on concluding the war in Asia. Personal life went on as usual, with Paul's longing for "The Big Affair," and Julia involved in busy social life, longing for him. She acted the role of Miss Preen in a production of George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart's The Man Who Came to Dinner The Man Who Came to Dinner with a cast of two dozen, calling themselves the Area Entertainment Guide. Lieutenant Colonel Birch E. Bayh, the Theater Special Services Officer (a future U.S. senator from Indiana), p.r.o.nounced the production a "splendid success." with a cast of two dozen, calling themselves the Area Entertainment Guide. Lieutenant Colonel Birch E. Bayh, the Theater Special Services Officer (a future U.S. senator from Indiana), p.r.o.nounced the production a "splendid success."

The women were renovating their house during July for even greater parties. After hiring a new number one boy, redoing the floors, repainting the walls, and recovering the furniture (much damaged by the five resident dogs), they hosted the visiting generals and OSS personnel-seventy-five in all, says Ellie's diary. The rains began that night and did not stop until three inches covered the new living room, while holes were drilled in the ceiling to keep it from collapsing. Somehow, by hiring help and working diligently, they cleaned the house up and hosted three hundred people (including General Donovan) for c.o.c.ktails that August evening, with guests spilling out onto the large veranda circling the house. "The rain stopped, the party was a huge success, and the visiting general was very pleased!" Before the week was over, the compound was under three feet of water and Julia was frantically rescuing top-secret doc.u.ments.

Within hours of the party, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiros.h.i.+ma (August 6). Two days later Russia invaded Manchuria, and the following day another bomb obliterated Nagasaki. General Douglas MacArthur told Teddy White, "There will be no more wars, White, no more wars."

If the war was ending, romance was heating up. Betty MacDonald remembers Paul coming over to spend time with Julia: "He would read to her a lot. One of the books was about s.e.x. d.i.c.k [Heppner, said MacDonald] made fun of them and asked, 'What's Paul doing with this book about s.e.x?' Perhaps he was catching her up." Betty was not the only one to notice that Paul was "blossoming around Julia." For Julia's thirty-third birthday he wrote her a poem about her "melt[ing]" his "frozen earth."

AN UNCERTAIN ROMANCE.

AT WAR'S END The poem is dated August 15, 1945, the same day the news arrived of the final surrender of the j.a.panese. In Kandy, Jane Foster won a case of scotch for correctly guessing the date of the surrender. She was sitting at a desk opposite Gregory Bateson when the loudspeaker announced the news that "an atomic device" exploded over Hiros.h.i.+ma. In Kunming, Ellie wrote to her parents: "It seemed unbelievable that it is over, and there was very little hilarity or celebration here-everyone was too busy I guess."

The next day Paul wrote to Charlie that he was fond of Julia and hoped that Charlie and his wife would meet her someday, for "even in a USA context she will show up very well": Over the 18 months or more that I have known Julia I have become extremely fond of her. She is really a good friend, and though limited in relation to my concept of la femme integrale, she still is understanding, warm, funny, and darling.... [S]he is a woman with whom I take much comfort, and she has helped me over many a rough spot by just simple love and niceness.

Everyone stayed up late at night talking about the coming peace accord and what it meant to their futures. The big excitement in the OSS was organizing commando groups to be sent to j.a.panese prison camps around Asia. It was the OSS's last important operation, and historians agree on the valor of the OSS in rescuing POWs, among whom was General Jonathan Wainwright, captured by the j.a.panese on Corregidor early in the war.

Uncertainty about the future of China gripped everyone. America's policy for a postwar China was a "model of ambiguity," notes one historian. Indeed, there was no policy. With the j.a.panese defeated, Chiang now resumed his civil war against the Chinese communists, and OSS agents were left inside communist territory. Theodore White said that with their victory over j.a.pan the United States had lanced a boil in China, and the killing would continue until it became the "greatest revolution in the history of mankind." Both sides lied and killed, but Mao had the people on his side (White makes it clear that the United States chose the wrong side to support).

Continued flooding killed refugees, whose bloated bodies floated by in the river. Rats started to eat shoes, belts, soap, and pistol holsters. Local restaurants were now off-limits, but Julia would remember the effect years later when she told Parade Parade magazine that she learned to love food in China: "We always talked a great deal about food, particularly ... because there was a plague going on, and we couldn't eat the Chinese food." During this time women were required to have two men escort them, according to Mary Livingston Eddy. "Julia was upset because she wanted to stay in China; I wanted to go home, but was ambivalent because I had put my family through enough worry." magazine that she learned to love food in China: "We always talked a great deal about food, particularly ... because there was a plague going on, and we couldn't eat the Chinese food." During this time women were required to have two men escort them, according to Mary Livingston Eddy. "Julia was upset because she wanted to stay in China; I wanted to go home, but was ambivalent because I had put my family through enough worry."

For Julia, the awareness of her unsecured future ripened with the news of the war's end and Paul's birthday poem to her. She loved Paul, but there seemed so many obstacles. He was unsure, though his poem spoke of the "scattered seed" of their "Sweet friends.h.i.+p" growing "to final ripened grain." He was ten years older, introvert to her extrovert, experienced to her inexperience. She had a strong father; he had none. She had the privilege of an Ivy League education; he had none. Though he attended Boston Latin and took some extension courses at Columbia University, he was self-taught and had supported himself since youth. Everyone from this period of his life remembers him as highly intelligent and, in Jack Moore's words, "interesting, complex and very articulate (an untutored American might have thought he was a Brit)." His grasp of poetry, music, painting, languages, and the sciences put her education to shame. She had no intellectual rigor, was highly emotional, and given to spontaneous merriment.

She certainly did not match his ideal of women, especially in contrast to his Edith, who was pet.i.te, dark, chic, sophisticated. Nor did he conform to her image of Western manliness: Paul was a cosmopolitan man who loved the company of women, for, as he told his brother, "the friendly a.s.sociation of beautiful women is a panacea for almost anything." Yet his hard body revealed the years of physical labor aboard oil tankers and at a munitions factory in Lowell. When he looked at one of his hands, he wrote in 1943, he saw his experience: Thousands of hours of engraving which now make a burin fit with such comfort, the manila ropes that have raised blisters there hoisting sail on the Nova Scotia schooners, the judo jackets that have broken its fingers, the sheets of stained gla.s.s that almost severed its thumb, the ax handles that have glazed it, the b.r.e.a.s.t.s it has caressed, the paint brush handles that have numbed its fingers, the wine gla.s.ses it has lifted in delight, the photographic solutions it has stirred, the violin bows it has guided through the intricacies of Bach, the dogs it has scratched behind the ears, or its knowledge of Venice water, egg-beaters, ski-wax and hand clasps.

The touch of this hand taught Julia how dough feels when it is plunged into boiling oil. She was in love. But the contrasts were so great that Paul did not foresee his love for Julia, except as one of many girls with whom to romance. Years later he would castigate himself in the margins of his diary at every casual mention of "Julie." ("What stupidity that Julia was right there right there, and I never realized it was she!! she!! It was Julia, of course! I never guessed it!") It was Julia, of course! I never guessed it!") To some of his correspondents, Paul sounded like a man in love. Professor George Kubler, an old friend of Paul's who taught art history at Yale, received a lengthy letter about a long-legged California girl. As he read the letter to his wife, Betty, she realized it was her cla.s.smate at Smith, Julia McWilliams. To Charlie, he pointed out Julia's strengths: "A constant, steady and driving worker-quite self-disciplined and a wonderful 'good scout' in the sense of being able to take physical discomfort, such as mud, leeches, tropic rains, or lousy food." Though he still questioned her ability "to sustain ideas for long," he thought she was "tough and full of character, a real friend," he wrote Charlie. "I am very fond of her," he adds, informing Charlie he had invited her for Thanksgiving dinner.

In early September it was not settled between them. The j.a.panese signed the peace accord aboard the USS Missouri Missouri in Tokyo Bay, but Julia did not want to leave China. There were farewell parties for those who were leaving. "Life is chaotic here," Ellie wrote to her parents. Peachy was sent home early; Marjorie became a war correspondent for in Tokyo Bay, but Julia did not want to leave China. There were farewell parties for those who were leaving. "Life is chaotic here," Ellie wrote to her parents. Peachy was sent home early; Marjorie became a war correspondent for Fortune Fortune in Chungking; Betty was flown home after helping to write the history of OSS/China and began working on her memoir in Chungking; Betty was flown home after helping to write the history of OSS/China and began working on her memoir Undercover Girl Undercover Girl (1947) while rooming in New York City with Jane Foster. "People are departing right and left and the airport has been busier than usual getting them over the hump." And "so many close relations.h.i.+ps that have been built up over a period of months and months" make "everyone so uncertain," Ellie added. "We find ourselves hanging in mid-air." Betty MacDonald described it as "a sudden vacuum which peace had brought." (1947) while rooming in New York City with Jane Foster. "People are departing right and left and the airport has been busier than usual getting them over the hump." And "so many close relations.h.i.+ps that have been built up over a period of months and months" make "everyone so uncertain," Ellie added. "We find ourselves hanging in mid-air." Betty MacDonald described it as "a sudden vacuum which peace had brought."

When Gregory Bateson arrived to visit Kunming, Paul accompanied him to his university lecture and Julia went with him and a young Chinese sociologist to visit temples in the western region and listened to their tales of Chinese social customs. She was sorry she had seen so little of China.

Julia was recommended in September for the Oak-Leaf Cl.u.s.ter award by Colonel Richard Heppner for her "meritorious service as head of the Registry sections of the Secretariat of the Office of Strategic Services, China Theater." (In May she received an Emblem for Civilian Service.) But awards did little to dispel the weeks of waiting and boredom and frustration with her housemates.

Julia resumed a diary, as she had during other critical moments of her life. The irritation that she felt toward her roommates (even their morning throat clearings drove her to distraction) was probably displaced s.e.xual frustration. She concluded one page with an example of the practicality and perseverance she learned in China: the mental tack to take, she told herself, is "genuine love and understanding of individuals as part of the human fabric of life." Still the upbeat girl from Pasadena, but a more experienced one.

At the end of September, Julia and Paul took more trips to the lovely hot springs, this time alone. Halfway up the mountain above the springs, in the cool air under a hot sun, Paul wrote to his brother: "Julia is here beside me and we have been reading aloud to each other from a collection of Hemingway's short stories." On a second visit he described her sitting beside him on the hilltop above the springs, she in pale blue slacks and dark blue sweater. The rains had stopped and the deep soil erosions were the color of cinnamon. Far beneath them were the yellowing rice paddies and the collapsing world they had known for two years: Donovan returned to his law practice when Truman announced the dissolution of the OSS, scheduled for October 1; Paul's Presentation Unit was transferred to the State Department, but he had no a.s.signment; Julia was arranging for the transfer of all papers to the OSS Archives in Was.h.i.+ngton; most of the OSS branches were to become a part of the War Department; and everyone was turning in their guns and buying jade. Julia and Paul both feared they would soon be out of a job. They talked about meeting each other's families when they returned.

With the cholera epidemic dissipating, Julia and Paul decided to go on "a terrific binge of spring rolls with garlic (jaodze) [steamed dumplings], duck (yaadze), mixed green vegetables with hat on, sweet-sour big fish, pig meat, green beans [and] pudding, not to mention duck-wind-pipe hot soup." Paul described the roasting chestnuts now in season and the orgy of eating he enjoyed with Julia.

She was sitting on her string bed in her "moldy room," writing in her diary, regretting her departure from China, where she had found the intellectual stimulation that would feed her natural curiosity for the remainder of her life, and wondering if she would win Paul Child (who had asked to be sent to Peking). Her "affair of friendly pa.s.sion and companions.h.i.+p" with Paul had no clear future: I am not the woman for him as I am not intellectual. He is probably not the man for me as he is not constant nor essentially vigorous enough-which is hard to explain. Perhaps it is his artisticness [sic] that makes him seem to lack a male drive. But his sensitiveness and the fact that we can talk about anything and there are no conventional barriers in thought communication make him a warm and lovable friend.

What she interprets as the lack of "male drive," is (as is clear in lengthy letters to his brother) complete exhaustion ("I couldn't even get an erection") and lack of physical pa.s.sion for her. Tucked inside her diary is a page on which she wrote the lyrics of a popular song beginning: "A Man without a woman / Is like a s.h.i.+p without a sail."

Julia spent her last month briefly confined to quarters during a Chinese uprising (Chiang was solidifying his power) and saying goodbye to friends. The few women who were left gave a party for about sixty people in the house, with punch that packed a punch, and a phonograph for dancing. "We tried sunning on the balcony ... [but] the bullets would fly overhead," wrote Ellie. During one encounter in Yunnan province, an arrogant young redheaded Air Force intelligence captain who could speak Chinese because he was the son of a fundamentalist Baptist missionary stupidly stood up against a group of Chinese communists and was shot. His fellow OSS intelligence colleagues considered John Birch's act stupid, an overreaction at a roadblock. For the political far right, his death would become a martyrdom, the first of the Cold War, the seed of the John Birch Society.

Bradley F. Smith argues that the OSS played a "marginal part" in China, but historian R. Harris Smith thinks otherwise. Although historians do not agree on the importance of the impact of the OSS on the war, it is clear that America's first attempt at international espionage was to give birth to the CIA in the months to come. The latter organization would not be characterized by the "free-wheeling, intellectually stimulating, and politically liberal" environment of the OSS (indeed, Ralph Bunche would be amazed at the rigidity, conservatism, and prejudiced environment of the organization that took the place of the OSS). One of the best historians of the OSS, Harris Smith, charges that the initial hamstringing of the OSS in China led the United States to overestimate Chiang and Russia, which in turn led FDR to make his deal with Russia at Yalta. Theodore White agrees that the United States forced Mao to throw in with Russia. Both a.s.sert that the OSS should have backed Mao and kept the Russian influence out of China. The OSS performed one clear service, argues Stanley Lovell: Donovan's OSS "ama.s.sed an incredible amount of information about practically every nation in the world," data that would be used for years to come in every branch of the military. In this process, Julia McWilliams played a key role.

Just before Paul flew to Peking and Julia to Calcutta, they had their last meal together in their favorite restaurant in town, Ho-Teh-Foo, which specialized in Peking cuisine. Paul described the meal to his brother: We had spring rolls (a mixture of vegetables, meat and garlic rolled into a sort of lady-finger and fried in boiling sesame oil); long leaf cabbage and Yunnan ham; winter mushrooms with beet tops; Peking duck (broiled and de-boned into little half-dollar-size pieces). The bones were mixed with transparent noodles and spinach and an egg, and made into soup. The duck-pieces were brought sizzling-hot with a stack of thin, freshly-cooked, limp, unleavened wheat cakes, into which [they] rolled the duck and leeks, brown fermented-applesaucy soybeans, and any odds and ends left from other dishes. [We] finish[ed] off the meal with the soup. [October 8, 1945.]

At one of their final parties the few women remaining were dancing every dance, but Julia's thoughts were on Paul in Peking. "Beloved Julie," he wrote October 15, where the reception for the Americans was like a hundred Mardi Gras, "at the risk of sounding trite, I wish you were here I wish you were here. I need you to enjoy these marvels with, and I miss your companions.h.i.+p something awful. Dearest Julie, why aren't you here, holding my hand and making plans for food and fun! Love, Paulski." She would not receive the letter until she was in Was.h.i.+ngton the following month, but she clung to his promise that they would meet each other's families and see what each looked like in civilian clothes and surroundings. All those years of hunting through others' recipes for an adult life had led her to Paul.

Chapter 8.

EASTWARD H HO.

(1945 1946) "Life without you is like unsalted food."

PAUL CHILD.

AFTER A MONTH on board the troops.h.i.+p on board the troops.h.i.+p General Stewart General Stewart with 3,500 people, the three women were starving for a taste of America. Julia McWilliams, Ellie Thiry, and Rosamund Frame, knowing that their bags would not be found for hours, carried out the plan they agreed upon on board s.h.i.+p. After Thibaut swept away Rosie, his new fiancee, to Elizabeth Arden's, Julia and Ellie found a cab near Pier 88 and asked for New York City's famous "21" Club, the former speakeasy for "Ivy League clientele," now turned restaurant. There they ordered their celebratory martinis and oysters, the best food and drink of home. The journey had been long and uncomfortable. with 3,500 people, the three women were starving for a taste of America. Julia McWilliams, Ellie Thiry, and Rosamund Frame, knowing that their bags would not be found for hours, carried out the plan they agreed upon on board s.h.i.+p. After Thibaut swept away Rosie, his new fiancee, to Elizabeth Arden's, Julia and Ellie found a cab near Pier 88 and asked for New York City's famous "21" Club, the former speakeasy for "Ivy League clientele," now turned restaurant. There they ordered their celebratory martinis and oysters, the best food and drink of home. The journey had been long and uncomfortable.

HOMEWARD BOUND.

More than a month before the troops.h.i.+p's arrival in America, Julia flew back over the Hump to Calcutta, where she was stuck for ten days living in a ten-foot-square room with five other women and a dog. All the planes had been commissioned to deploy troops from North Africa to the Pacific. She wrote of her dilemma to Paul, who was in Peking before traveling home via Hawaii. Finally she was put on a troops.h.i.+p for a spartan and difficult journey, nothing like the original journey to India on the SS Mariposa, Mariposa, a converted cruise s.h.i.+p. a converted cruise s.h.i.+p.

The General Stewart General Stewart moved down the thick Hooghly River from Calcutta and into the Bay of Bengal on October 27, 1945, with the last three women of the original group. Julia, Rosie, and Ellie had been out the longest, feeling dirty and exhausted. "We did look like we had come off a cattle boat," said Julia. "We had been in China with few clothes and no makeup." Eighteen women from several countries shared a single stateroom. Deafening Navy loudspeakers just outside their stateroom carried reveille at 5 moved down the thick Hooghly River from Calcutta and into the Bay of Bengal on October 27, 1945, with the last three women of the original group. Julia, Rosie, and Ellie had been out the longest, feeling dirty and exhausted. "We did look like we had come off a cattle boat," said Julia. "We had been in China with few clothes and no makeup." Eighteen women from several countries shared a single stateroom. Deafening Navy loudspeakers just outside their stateroom carried reveille at 5 A.M A.M., awakening the thousands of people on board s.h.i.+p, including 400 in the s.h.i.+p's hospital. Taps sounded at 9 P.M P.M.

When they pulled into the tree-lined bay at Colombo, Ceylon, for refueling, the harbor was crowded with wars.h.i.+ps and freighters. Julia felt years older than the young woman who first sailed into this harbor. After stopping at Port Said in the Suez Ca.n.a.l for water, the transport sailed for New York Harbor, as Julia and Rosie and Ellie made plans for a festive arrival.

The "21" Club was followed by shopping and a "perm" for Julia. Unlike Rosie, Julia had no fiance, but Paul, who had left Shanghai for Pearl Harbor, then San Francisco, made plans for her to meet his family in Was.h.i.+ngton, DC. "We were not engaged then," Julia said later. "We wanted to see our families before anything was decided."

For the second time Julia pa.s.sed through the cavernous dome of Union Station and checked into the Brighton Hotel in Was.h.i.+ngton. The station, hotel, and Q Building carried such a feeling of normalcy that her two years in Asia seemed a dream. The bustle and urgency were gone; Q Building felt like the morgue for a dying OSS. Discharge forms were in triplicate as usual, and when Julia had her final physical examination before being discharged, she was told she had a slightly rapid pulse, but no sign of hypertension.

Her heart quickened further with Paul's arrival and her brief meeting with his double, Charles. Chafred, Paul's name for his identical twin brother and his wife, Fredericka (Freddie or Fred for short), lived at 1311 Thirty-fifth Street in Georgetown. Charlie Child was still working for the Department of State (chiefly on UNESCO), while his wife worked as a nurse's aide at Georgetown University Hospital. Their daughters, thirteen-year-old Erica and eleven-year-old Rachel (little Jonathan was only three), do not remember meeting Julia at this time, but they would have seen her only as one of Uncle Paul's many friends. On his return trip from China, during which he tanned his body nut brown on the deck of the s.h.i.+p, Paul wrote to Charlie of his continuing grief for Edith Kennedy, but his references to "Julie" were increasingly positive: "You will appreciate her warmth, and you can quickly learn, as I have, to discount the slightly hysterical overtones of her manner of talking." Her warmth and naturalness were indeed what they first admired. Paul and Charlie were now forty-four years old and, though Charlie was to celebrate his twentieth wedding anniversary that April, Paul had never married.

Before she left for California, Julia applied for another job in government, as Paul would also do. Her form (December 12) a.s.serted that she was willing to locate "anywhere." The work she preferred was "public relations;" she did "not want to do any more" office administration, "particularly anything to do with files." files." Though she fudges on her height, saying she is only six feet tall, she honestly explains that she was fired from Sloane's for "insubordination, actually for general immaturity." Within seven months she would change her mind about wanting to work for the government again. Though she fudges on her height, saying she is only six feet tall, she honestly explains that she was fired from Sloane's for "insubordination, actually for general immaturity." Within seven months she would change her mind about wanting to work for the government again.

Julia was increasingly aware of the changes in herself, especially when on the way home to Pasadena she visited Pittsfield, where she no longer cared about the approval of Aunt Theodora. Paul, reflecting on the past year, also thought she had changed since he met her. In his Christmas letters from Charlie's permanent home in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, then under eighteen inches of snow, Paul tells her that he finds comfort in writing to her: I have been warmly and deeply aware myself, since I first met you on the porch of the tea-planter's bungalow ..., how you have been emerging from the mists, indecisions and att.i.tudes of your past into a fuller and more balanced life. I am curious to know if your family will have noticed that you are indeed a newer and better Julie, a more emotionally stable Julie, a more thoughtful Julie, a darlinger sweeter and lovelier Julie-or are these perhaps qualities which you always had and which it took my old eyes two years to see-finally? I would be unworthy of my semantic salt if I did not allow the possibility that it was I who had changed-not you-I who had become more perceptive, I who had finally been able to see the reality. But there is another possibility which we must both take into consideration. That we have changed each other for the better, because I believe that a relations.h.i.+p based on appreciation, understanding and love can work that sort of double-miracle-and whether we do or do not manage to live a large part of our future lives together, I have no regrets for the past, no recriminations, and no unresolved areas of conflict. It was lovely, warming, fulfilling, and solid-and one of the best things that ever happened to me.Affectionately, Paulski THE EDUCATION AND SEDUCTION OF JULIA.

For the first six months of 1946, Julia was in Pasadena, preparing herself in several ways for the arrival of Paul, who was concluding his work for the Department of State. With Jack Moore, he was preparing a map showing the locations of the State Department's employees around the world for the Senate Appropriations Committee, and in March he was decorated with the Medal of Merit. His letters, at first signed "affectionately," then "love," convey the healing environment of his family, as well as his worrisome burden with the "frightening world"-both extremes he wanted to share with her. As one wag said a long time ago, the two most dependable aphrodisiacs are the presence of a desirable woman and her absence.

By contrast, Julia was taking music and cooking lessons. It was no accident that both art forms were close to Paul's heart. "Paul's mother was a good cook and he had lived in France. If I was going to catch him, I would have to learn to cook." She experimented with cooking for weeks, sharing her triumphs and failures in letters to Paul, until she finally decided she needed formal training. Her best friend, Katy Gates, remembers that "Julia was smitten with Paul and said, 'We must go to cooking school, Katy.' I said, 'All right, we'll go to cooking school.'"

In the spring, Julia and Katy Gates drove three times a week to Beverly Hills for cooking cla.s.ses at the Hillcliff School of Cookery, taught by Mary Hill and Irene Radcliffe. Julia called them "two old English ladies" who featured "waffles, pancakes, and omelets." According to Katy, Julia wanted to learn to make souffles. "Mrs. Hill had never seen anything quite like Julia," whose ambition and enthusiasm matched her physical strength. Katy recalled their practice dinner parties, especially their "Bearnaise Connection" dinner, for which they subst.i.tuted lard for the unavailable b.u.t.ter and discovered to their dismay that at the buffet table, beside the steak and vegetable, the "bearnaise" sauce had turned to solid lard. Neighbors Douglas Gregg and Ed Valentine loved to tell about the time she forgot to puncture a duck-they had all gone hunting together-and it exploded in the oven. Old KBS pal Berry Baldwin recalled being served oxtail stew, to the wonder of the guests.

Every triumph and disaster of their cooking school experience was reported in Julia's letters to Paul. After a pancake disaster (she had not yet learned how to cook with eggs), Paul wrote a letter a.s.suring her she would eventually be a "wonderful cook because you are so interested in food." He likes "sensual folk," he added, "in the sense of those who use and enjoy their senses on all fronts."

Probably at the suggestion of the government doctors in Was.h.i.+ngton, DC, Julia consulted her Pasadena doctor, who discovered that Julia had a goiter wrapped firmly around her vocal cords and removed it surgically. For years she had thought she had a "fat neck." "I noticed immediately, after I threw up my dinner the first evening it was out, that my voice had cleared. It was getting more gruff and hoa.r.s.e daily. Now it is a clear, compelling bell-like coo," she wrote Paul as if to a.s.sure him that her voice was maturing.

Because in his letters Paul mentioned t.i.tles of his major interest, general semantics, she took S. I. Hayakawa's Language in Action Language in Action with her to the hospital. Paul called himself a Korzybskian semanticist, and for years credited this scholar's work for disciplining his mind and writing style. To discipline her own mind, Julia subscribed to the daily with her to the hospital. Paul called himself a Korzybskian semanticist, and for years credited this scholar's work for disciplining his mind and writing style. To discipline her own mind, Julia subscribed to the daily Was.h.i.+ngton Post Was.h.i.+ngton Post and the Sunday and the Sunday New York Times New York Times to become more informed and (she told Paul) to distinguish the missing and discolored stories presented by the Chandler family in the to become more informed and (she told Paul) to distinguish the missing and discolored stories presented by the Chandler family in the Los Angeles Times Los Angeles Times. (Paul would later call this newspaper "a Tory-angled, extreme-rightist, Republican die-hard paper.") He suggested other book t.i.tles and wondered if she had friends with whom she could discuss world affairs. He also suggested she meet the Beaches (and makes a point to say that Beach was bis.e.xual), whose two boys Paul tutored in Asolo, Italy, in 1925. These friends near Pasadena would be an "opening wedge for you in a different world," he wrote her on February 11, 1946.

The letters between Julia and Paul proved an important instrument in the growth of their love. They exchanged gifts (engraved silver cigarette box from Julia, poetry from Paul), ideas, opinions on current political events (such as Paul's enthusiasm for the newly created UNESCO, for which he seemed "ideally shaped and created"), and words of endearment. "I adore you," he wrote January 10; "I long and languish for you," she wrote five days later. The next month her letters began: "Dearest one." The following month he wrote: "You play a leading role in my fantasy life," and later: "I have kissed no one since I kissed you." His letters were lengthy, articulate, and artful; hers briefer and initially quite simple. Most evident in Paul's letters were his continuing guidance, especially in expanding her knowledge about s.e.x.

He encouraged her to read Henry Miller and, when she announced her sixty-five-year-old father might remarry, made frank references to body parts in a dissertation on the p.e.n.i.s of the elderly male. He also sent a witty detailed description of graffiti in the men's room of the State Department auditorium. After Jane Bartleman, the astrologer upon whom Paul and Charlie depended for astrological guidance, made a detailed prediction about Julia's future-a prediction that had Paul and Julia falling in love with other people-Julia responded that Bartleman was probably in love with Paul herself. "Then, Saturn will not be sitting on your sun sign; it will be Venus, with limbs askew, upon your Capricorn," she wrote. In response to Paul's detailed a.n.a.lysis of Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer Tropic of Cancer, a "forest of stiff p.r.i.c.ks through which one wanders amazed, delighted, and revolted," Julia agreed with his a.s.sessment of Miller, liking the "surrealistic 'stream' sequences which seemed amazingly Daliesque." A clever, eager-to-learn woman signed her letters: "Much loving and more so-." Henry Miller was an earthy teacher in Paul's absence. "You seem to be expanding on all fronts-semantics, cookery, Henry Miller. How's your bosom?" he wrote, pleased by her frank and natural response.

It was Julia who then took the initiative in love. She first wrote "I love you" and spoke of her "warm love l.u.s.t." And she was the first to suggest a concrete plan of action: "Why don't you fly out about in August and drive across the continent with me? We could say we were meeting some friends in Needles." Paul responded immediately: "I want to see you, touch you, kiss you, talk with you, eat with you ... eat you, maybe. I have a Julie-need. Come on back and sit in my lap and let me bite off your earrings again. I have never tasted tasted such delicious pearls!-let other gourmets eat their oysters. I will take pearls (on your earlobes) and be more tantalizingly and magnificently fed than they. So to bed, pearl-hungry." The food references were the key metaphor of longing in part because Julia was regaling him with her cooking feats. "Why don't you come to Was.h.i.+ngton and be my cook-we can eat each other," he again suggested. "If I buy a Buckminster Fuller house will you come and cook for me and play the pianola?" such delicious pearls!-let other gourmets eat their oysters. I will take pearls (on your earlobes) and be more tantalizingly and magnificently fed than they. So to bed, pearl-hungry." The food references were the key metaphor of longing in part because Julia was regaling him with her cooking feats. "Why don't you come to Was.h.i.+ngton and be my cook-we can eat each other," he again suggested. "If I buy a Buckminster Fuller house will you come and cook for me and play the pianola?"

Julia told her father that she intended to look for another job "because life in Pasadena is comfortable and lovely but not for me." Her sister Dorothy, who ran the McWilliams household and worked in an Army hospital all during the war, wanted to go to New York City to work in the theater (she would later do stage-managing for Gian Carlo Menotti's operas). She believed Julia should stay with their father. Paul warned Julia about the delayed adolescence resulting from living with parents. John McWilliams, Sr., settled the question when, after two years of keeping company with Phila O'Melveny, he decided to marry the fifty-year-old widow, much to Julia's relief.

Philadelphia Miller O'Melveny was from the families of Gail Borden and Roger Williams; she was named not for the city but for the daughter of Williams, founder of Rhode Island. A friend of several in Julia's Pasadena group, "she became part of my father's generation when she married him." Julia adored her. Phila was the widow of Donald O'Melveny, youngest son of the founder of Los Angeles's oldest law firm, O'Melveny and Meyers. Fifteen years younger than John McWilliams, who had been widowed for nine years, she was a Roman Catholic with several children of her own. Soon she became (in John McWilliams, Jr.'s words) "mother to all three of us and all our children just as though we were hers." Dorothy went to school with Phila's children, echoed her brother's praise, and would name her only daughter after her stepmother (younger Phila would inherit the older woman's wedding ring at her death). "Phila's father was a fierce Republican," said Julia, which so reinforced John McWilliams's views that "we ended up not being able to agree on the weather."

Julia's father continued to be active in California politics, particularly in financially supporting a "fine, upstanding young Navy lieutenant" (in his words) from nearby Whittier named Richard Nixon, who in 1946 ran against and easily defeated Democrat Jerry Voorhis, a five-term inc.u.mbent in the House of Representatives. Nixon smeared him as a communist sympathizer, and the easy win encouraged him to run against "that woman" (as McWilliams, who did not approve of women in politics, called Helen Gahagan Douglas). Interestingly, it was Julia's noisy communal cooking orgies, as well as her disagreement over politics, which drove her father more frequently to dinners at the home of widow O'Melveny.

For the May 8 wedding of her father and Phila, Julia's brother John came from Ma.s.sachusetts with his wife, Josephine. He had been in the war earlier than Julia and was severely wounded in the field artillery when he was blown off a bridge in France. Since 1940 he and Jo lived in Pittsfield, where he worked in the family business, the Weston Paper Company. He shared his father's good looks and his politics.

Julia's loyalties were already with the Democratic Party and her artistic, liberal Paul. After he suffered a recurrence of dysentery and a sense that he was "deeply tired way down inside," she suggested he come West for a month and live with her. They would eat well, relax, and turn slowly in the sun "like chickens on a spit." Yet he made no immediate plans to visit California because he was still working at the State Department, looking for a career for himself, and keenly aware that he had little savings, no house, and no car. He was also waiting for the government to sort out how much leave time he had acc.u.mulated.

In the six months of their correspondence, Julia and Paul became increasingly intimate with each other as they shared their deepest secrets. In the sharing, Julia's insights into herself matured: Until I was about 25, I was usually so self-conscious that I actually hurt if I thought people were looking at me, then I somehow realized that so many people were so busy with themselves that they were not looking at me at all. And I am continually trying to keep "ME" out of as much of my relations with people as possible, and transfer a full interest to you/them, which automatically, and actually, makes me a more lovable person to them....

Julia and Paul were also building a base of mutual friends and acquaintances. Paul spoke in detail about his discussions with old Paris and Was.h.i.+ngton friends such as Paul Nitze (later an arms-control adviser to Presidents), Jo Davidson ("Like you, [Julia,]" Paul wrote, Davidson is "interested in life as a whole instead of in parts"), d.i.c.k and Annie Bissell (he moved from the OSS to the CIA), Richard and Alice Lee Myers, Professor George Kubler, Archibald MacLeish, and Julian Huxley. (Paul knew Davidson well in Paris; Huxley he met at the home of Edith Kennedy in Cambridge.) Paul kept Julia abreast of the movements of their OSS friends, including Guy Martin (who went back to Donovan's law firm), Marjorie Severyns, General Wedemeyer, and Mary Livingston Eddy. Paul and Charlie invited Jack Moore and later General Wedemeyer for dinner at the Child household. Tommy and Nancy Davis left for San Francisco in March. Ellie was to marry Basil Summers in November, and Gregory Bateson would divorce Margaret Mead. Numerous OSS personnel (Arthur Schlesinger, Stewart Alsop, Allen Dulles, David Bruce, Arthur Goldberg, Richard Holmes, William Colby, C. Douglas Dillon, Clark McGregor) were now part of the new CIA. Teddy White published a book about China, predicting that Chiang would "inevitably" collapse. Henry Luce fired him.

SEEING DOUBLE.

Most important, Julia learned more about Freddie and Charlie, with whom Paul was living. She learned about their warm supportive family life in their home (called Coppernose) in Lumberville, Pennsylvania, where the family spent weekends cultivating and planting the gardens.

Through his letters, Julia learned more about Paul as well, when he described the differences between himself and his brother: Paul was precise and formal in his speech and writing, Charlie a rapid and emotional talker; Paul was right-handed, Charlie left-handed; Paul liked the "architectonic boys like Mozart and Stravinsky," Charlie responded to Wagner and Sibelius; Paul's painting was controlled and designed, Charlie's suggestive and dynamic. Strangely, it was Paul who lived the wilder and more adventurous life: "broke my hip, 7 ribs, a shoulder, 3 fingers, a wrist, a collar bone, etc. I got the needle in the eye [it was Charlie's doing]. I joined the Canadian Army at 16, I worked on schooners and tankers and arms and at stained gla.s.s while Charlie was being a Harvard man. I went to Europe first, and made fake furniture while he followed, married and settled down. I had a mistress...." Paul was, in Child language, a "finnie"-that is, a "finished product," one who had "an innate sense of form." He thought that his young niece Erica had his artistic sense and spent hours teaching her about form and color in art and music. She and her brother and sister would always look upon Paul as their second father.

Paul was a natural teacher, a quality that Julia would later discover in herself. And his organized approach to life would draw out the McWilliams Presbyterian order in her. His discipline, which would have a profound effect on her later career, had a source in family but more specifically in his own will. As he told his brother in 1968, their chaotic and unstable childhood led him into "a major struggle ... toward clarity and toward formality, simply to hold down the cover of my personal Pandora's box." While Charlie seemed to "opt for chaos" and "hug blinding Mystery and Chaos to [his] bosom," Paul, "always [aware] of earthquake, nightmare, discord and vertigo trying to sweep me into their world," chose "the realm of discipline" as the only means of action, creation, or usefulness. Not surprisingly, fifty years later, his favorite niece, Erica, would suggest that Julia embodied the extremes of the Child twins: "Julia is very emotional and sentimental (you cannot go to a movie without Julia crying).... But she is one of the most disciplined people I know."

Paul's discipline was reinforced by his study of semantics and jujitsu practice. When young boys, the twins had seen a photograph of two j.a.panese men "all tied in knots" in the office of Edward Filene's Boston store. When "Uncle Ed," their mother's paramour, explained jujitsu to them, they tried it on the floor, went home to practice on a mattress on the floor, and after taking formal cla.s.ses in later years Paul became a black belt. He maintained his physical conditioning, despite blindness in one eye, car accidents, exotic diseases caught in foreign lands, and occasional severe headaches and double vision.

Paul's insistence on physical toughness began, Julia later learned, when the twins, dressed in their Little Lord Fauntleroy suits for a musical performance with their mother, were taunted by other boys in Boston Common. Paul's violin and Charlie's cello did not survive the melee.

"I would rather have my head resting on your b.r.e.a.s.t.s than throbbing up here on my shoulders," Paul wrote on May 22, 1946, during one of the four-day headaches he had suffered with since a severe concussion several years earlier. In their correspondence now, they were "aching" for each other. Julia took a two-week holiday to the San Francisco area to visit her friends Gay (Bradley) and Jack Wright and Paul's friends Tommy and Nancy Davis, who were expecting a baby. Paul accidentally ran into Phoebe Brown, just returned by air from Shanghai with the news that Julia and Paul were seen romancing in Was.h.i.+ngton. Meanwhile, Paul was struggling with the bureaucracy to get a five-week leave to come West for Julia.

"I can't think of anything nicer than a month with you, all over the country," wrote Julia in May. She was "ready to roll" out of Pasadena anytime after July 4. The plan was to have him visit her family, then they would drive up to see the Davises, and cross the country to Lopaus Point, Maine, where they would holiday in a cabin built by the Child family.

Paul left Was.h.i.+ngton July 4 on a new coast-to-coast train, arriving in Los Angeles July 7. Between introducing Paul to her friends and visiting his acquaintances in the area, she prepared special meals for him: she and Katy made brains in red wine sauce and naively stirred them as they cooked, leaving a mushy mess of white lumps. Julia was dismayed: "It was awful. Paul said he married me in spite of my cooking," she would later say on many occasions. This disaster caused her to wipe the Hillcliff School of Cooking from her resume memory. In a Cooking Club Chat on America On-Line in 1996, she said, "I had really never done any cooking until France."

According to her friend Gay Bradley Wright, who came down from San Francisco for the event, Julia's father gave a party to introduce Paul to her friends. "When I met him we talked all evening; I just adored Paul." When he was comfortable with someone, "Paul was a raconteur who could mesmerize a.s.sociates with his stories," said later friend William Truslow. "He was an artist and could put in detail, creating an atmosphere. Though inner-looking, he cared what others thought of him. Julia, by contrast, always wanted to know what you you thought." Julia's stepmother, Phila, also liked Paul immediately, as she would all of the spouses of her husband's children. Julia believed that her mother, Caro, would also "have loved them all." thought." Julia's stepmother, Phila, also liked Paul immediately, as she would all of the spouses of her husband's children. Julia believed that her mother, Caro, would also "have loved them all."

Father John was a different matter, not just because Julia was his first daughter but because Paul was an artist with a European aesthetic and appearance. He wore scarves in his open-necked dress s.h.i.+rts and cultivated the sensual. "My father was very difficult," explained Julia in 1988. "He was a very conservative Republican, and he thought all artists [and intellectuals] were communistic. Paul was an artist and and a Democrat." A traditional father, he wanted his daughter to marry a man like himself. a Democrat." A traditional father, he wanted his daughter to marry a man like himself.

Having lost his own father when he was a baby, Paul was probably antic.i.p.ating a fatherly relations.h.i.+p with Julia's parent-at least this was Julia's wish. But the differences between the two men were immediately evident and never bridged. Paul talked with precision and daily tested "operational truth" with a detached rationality. John was settled comfortably in his political and religious beliefs, not accustomed to evaluating these beliefs or himself. It became clear to Julia that there would be no harmony and the choice of loyalty must be made.

LEAVING POP.

When Julia and Paul drove out of Pasadena in her Buick, she made her final move away from home. She would visit briefly in the years to come, but this trip signified the break she had to make, not just physically but psychologically. Her choice separated her from the life in which she was born and reared, a life insulated by privilege and intellectual provincialism. She would move into a life perhaps just as insular, but a life of art, sensuality, and intellectual discipline.

After a weekend in Ojai with Julia's friends, they drove north to San Francisco to see the Davises and their new daughter, then to Crescent City, and, in a large northern sweep from Bend, Oregon, to Spokane, Was.h.i.+ngton, and Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, to Billings, Montana, and Flint, Michigan, then into Canada and down through Rochester, New York, to Maine by the first of August. They took turns driving every hour and tried to cover at least three hundred miles a day. Their guides were the AAA and Duncan Hines.

Paul had seen some of this country before, both during the time he worked in California in 1924 (painting sets in Hollywood) and during a trip across the country seven years before with Edith Kennedy, Charlie, and his wife, Freddie. In Paul's current letters to his brother, he made occasional comparisons with these earlier trips. In the Ojai Valley, where they spent their first weekend with Julia's old friends, including the Gateses (Freeman's cousin owned the 3,500-acre ranch), Paul discovered he could ride well after his eleven years of polo riding while teaching at Avon Old Farms School in Connecticut, a very English school founded by Theodora Riddle. Paul dreamed of having a house there someday. (Thirty-five years later, he and Julia would buy a home nearby on the coast at Santa Barbara.) If Paul made his own comparisons with earlier trips, it was Julia's trail that was the more historically interesting. Her journey eastward made a revealing if not ironic reversal of the journey her grandfather McWilliams took westward to California in 1849. Indeed, she crossed his path in the Sacramento River valley, at the Columbia River, and on the Lewis and Clark trail, where he "had to decline [Chief Alikit's] liberal offer" to marry his daughter. While her seventeen-year-old grandfather and his wagon train companions were refreshed and thrilled by the mighty Columbia River gorge, Julia and Paul, nearly one hundred years later, found the rugged, 115-degree journey from Briggs to Spokane h.e.l.lish. Where McWilliams found dense forests and Indians, Julia and Paul saw endless "dry tortured canyons" and the "naked horror" of a mighty river. In contrast to her grandfather, who carried the Bible and Plutarch's Lives Lives in his wagon, Julia brought along in her Buick eight bottles of good whiskey, one of gin, and a bottle of mixed martinis. Julia's reversal of her grandfather's pioneering voyage was modern and illicit. She and Paul spent each night together in a $2.50 to $5.00 trailer park or motel. Yet, as was her grandfather, Julia was a pioneer in leaving her family and blazing a trail, not westward, but eastward, and eventually back toward Europe. in his wagon, Julia brought along in her Buick eight bottles of good whiskey, one of gin, and a bottle of mixed martinis. Julia's reversal of her grandfather's pioneering voyage was modern and illicit. She and Paul spent each night together in a $2.50 to $5.00 trailer park or motel. Yet, as was her grandfather, Julia was a pioneer in leaving her family and blazing a trail, not westward, but eastward, and eventually back toward Europe.

As much as they delighted in the enormous redwoods wrapped in fog, the dramatic Crater Lake, and the snowcapped mountains of Idaho and Montana, they delighted most in the discovery of each other. They talked and read to each other from newspapers or Time Time and and Life Life. Paul's physical prowess and ingenuity were tested by a tire blowout in the sage-and-lava-strewn wilderness of Oregon. Her strength and sportsmans.h.i.+p were demonstrated daily. "She is a splendid traveling companion," wrote Paul from Crescent City, California, on July 19, "loves to look at everything, likes small places with local color flavor better than big ones, for both eating and sleeping-is jolly, objective and considerate." Five days later, in Billings, Montana, he wrote: Julie is a splendid companion, uncomplaining and flexible-really tough-fibered, a quality which I first saw in her in Ceylon and later in China. She has great charm and ease with all levels of people without in any way talking down to anybody. She's got a much tougher stomach than I have, and in the 3 years I've known her in War and Peace, in tropics and in USA, has never been sick from anything. She also washes my s.h.i.+rts! Quite a dame.

She used that "great charm" on the border guard when they crossed into Canada for a day (he allowed them to take in more than one bottle of liquor). In a rugged little town in Montana, she got out of the car in her bare feet with red-painted toenails and, without concern, walked into a lumbermen's restaurant with Paul, sat down, and drank a beer. It was July 22, 1946. Everyone was "goggle-eyed" reported Paul, "but no cracks."

A CABIN IN MAINE CABIN IN MAINE.

After leaving Highway 102 and pa.s.sing through the tiny town of Bernard, Maine, Paul drove to the end of the peninsula, Lopaus Point, crossing what he now called "Burma Road," a gnarled and dippy lane he warned Charlie not to cement over. Here on the rugged coast of New England, southeast of Bangor on Mount Desert Island, Julia and Paul spent an exhilarating ten days, during which Julia became a member of the Child family. She was the first woman since Edith whom Paul brought "home." They were rechristened JuPaulski. Paul holidayed here in the years before the war and used a Lopaus stone as a paperweight on his desk in India. This family and this land were his stone.

Julia and Freddie were instant friends, and the photographs of them reveal their freckled sisterhood, though Freddie was half a foot shorter with flaming red hair. The only criticism Julia would ever make of her was that she was very protective and defensive of her family and household. She was a marvelous and inventive cook, and Julia relished the fresh lobsters during this first visit. Because the quarters were still partly tented and without running water and electricity, their intimacy and compatibility were immediately tested.

Julia closely observed her lover and his double as they dragged in the logs for a new section of the house, working without need of verbal communication. Both were physically strong, both jujitsu experts and artists, and now employees of the Department of State. Their long devotion as well as their p.r.i.c.kly relations.h.i.+p became evident to her. In part this was a result of their different temperaments and in part, Julia thought, because of Charlie's guilt over Paul's blind eye. As a child, Paul had turned to look over his shoulder and the needle Charlie was holding went into his eye. Charlie's children, years later, described the twins: "Paul was pessimistic, introverted, and didactic. Charlie was optimistic, extroverted, and spontaneous. They gave each other these roles and played them to the hilt!"

Charlie was smitten with Julia's "tall willowy" figure and "blue, blue eyes, as jolly and gay as Paul was serious." Thus he would describe her in his memoir of Maine and their cabin building: "She possessed more than a touch of the unexpected: she was a tough relentless worker."

The children loved Julie (or Aunt JuJu), as everyone called her, especially Rachel, who was the most like her. "When Paul brought her to Maine, it was a significant event," says Rachel Child, who fifty years later still remembers the color of Julia's dress and her long, beautiful legs. "They talked about war stories, and she was so funny. We kids were mesmerized. I was infatuated with her. For one thing, she was the kind of person who would drop things, and so was I. She was a wonderful addition to our family; she arrived like a breath of fresh air. She was a great mentor for me, being so positive an