Read Online Some of My Lives by Rosamond Bernier - Free Book Online Page A

“Follow that truck. Don’t let it out of our sight.”
    For ten days we weaved up and around and down the Andes. At the border with Venezuela, Cúcuta, the Colombian authorities had failed to send the release papers to allow the paintings to exit the country. We waited two days at Cúcuta, and you can be sure those days seemed very long.
    By then the taxi driver had become a family friend. He invented a little song called “Peggy la güera de Nueva York” (Peggy the Blonde from New York). He had heard Lew speak to me as Peggy. And I am not blond, but then everything is relative.

    We finally made it to Caracas and were met by the director of the local museum, Luis Alfredo López Méndez. He seemed very nervous and was perspiring freely. It was ten in the morning, so we were a bit taken aback when he suggested a scotch. Anything for the job, we accepted.
    Very soon he blurted out, “I will tell you, someone is sure to tell you, I am the man that ‘Latins Are Lousy Lovers’ was written about.” We remembered that an article by someone called Helen Gurley Brown had appeared in a well-known American magazine. She had been married to the subject. We expressed our sympathy at this poignant admission.
    Eventually, we actually moved into Luis Alfredo’s ramshackle house. We were offering our services for the Latin American venture without a fee; as a contribution to the war effort, the Modern was to provide a per diem for expenses. This was so small, and the cost of living in Venezuela was so high, that the only way to survive was to accept his hospitality.
    What I most remember about our stay as his guest was that he had a maid with a harelip who bellowed an idiotic local song called “Aurora” all day as she dusted absentmindedly.
    I also remember the bus signs to a neighborhood called Paraíso: “Paraíso Directo.”
    We were in charge of publicity and sent a selection of photographs to the local newspaper. This included Speicher’s magisterial portrait of Katharine Cornell as Candida and a lush nude by Bernard Karfiol. The newspaper printed the nude with the caption “Katharine Cornell as Candida.” Very naughty. The reactions we heard were usually a highly amused “Ay, qué cándida!”
    It became evident to us that the most interesting artist was an eccentric figure who lived on a beach off Macuto. We saw his work in the Caracas Museum: mainly white landscapes, delicate yet firm. His name was Armando Reverón. So we drove off to find him.
    We found him at work on the beach, an emaciated figure painting at an easel propped in the sand. There was a second easel and a second figure busily painting away: his pet monkey. This was accepted by all as the most natural thing in the world.
    We were invited to lunch in his tent with his companion, a shy, dusky native woman. He explained to us that there were no knives,
he didn’t believe in them, so we used objects carved in wood by our host. He didn’t believe in tea or coffee either, but offered a drink I remembered from my childhood: Postum. The food consisted of vegetables and fruits. No meat—so who needs knives? The only other guests were some life-sized dolls Reverón had sculpted.
    I reported my impression of Reverón’s work to the Modern. This was in 1941. The museum put on a Reverón exhibition in 2007. No one remembered that it was my idea. (And no one at MoMA remembers that they have Orozco’s Dive Bomber and Tank because of me.)
    We reached our last stop, Cuba, in December 1941. Days were already short. It was quite dark when we were met by a distinguished Cuban intellectual, José María Chacón y Calvo—round of person and serious of mien. He took us on a motorized tour of Havana, pointing out the important landmarks, such as the National Capitol, a Washington Monument (D.C.) look-alike. The only trouble was that by then it was pitch-dark and the