Best Friends

By Yvette Nachmias-Baeu

Best Friends is a story of an unusual relationship between two gifted women who share their lives in a correspondence that spans three decades. It is autobiographical and yet it is also the memoir of a brilliant woman with remarkable vitality, whose life is continually interrupted and altered by bouts of schizophrenia. Overarching moments of shared experiences and gossip, Best Friends reveals a period of time, a now almost distant history, filled with personal and social transformations that affected our lives. I was deeply moved by the story of Beth’s yearning to become a great writer which perhaps has been realized in the pages of Best Friends.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu Publishing Services
• Release date: May 7, 2018
• ISBN: 9781483482750

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Best Friends

Yvette Nachmias-Baeu

Copyright © 2018 Yvette Nachmias-Baeu.

Edited by: Joyce Fingerut

Website and Blog: www.yvettenachmiasbaeu.com

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted by any means—whether auditory, graphic, mechanical, or electronic—without written permission of the author, except in the case of brief excerpts used in critical articles and reviews. Unauthorized reproduction of any part of this work is illegal and is punishable by law.

This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

ISBN: 978-1-4834-8276-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4834-8275-0 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018903420

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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Lulu Publishing Services rev. date: 4/18/2018

IN MEMORY

BETH BRYANT

DECEMBER 3, 1936 – MARCH 22, 2011

ALSO BY YVETTE NACHMIAS-BAEU

A Reluctant Life, memoir

Clara at Sixty, novel

Not My Day to Day – Essay - Befriending Death: 100 essayists on living and dying

Sylvie – short story - Shoreline Anthology

Our memory is a more perfect world than the universe: it gives back life to those who no longer exist. — Guy de Maupassant

Beginnings

It happened on a particularly cold and snowy day, I settled into the now worn leather chair, which is years old, and began to read a thicket of letters, stored away for many years, to and from a person who had once been my best friend. I did not know what had become of her or of our friendship. For the first time in many years, I gave over my day, and all of the evening to read these letters and think about her. I recognized her voice as clearly as if she were still speaking to me. She had slipped my mind up till now, but through these letters I was transported back to another time. Cleared of the debris of years, I found myself in the back-then. In the once-upon-a-time.

Two women and their friendship are here in these letters. Both women now long gone. Time has a way of seeing to it. One has died, the other grown older. We are not the same people throughout our lives. It is a curious component of what we possessively call our lives. Sometimes, like a cat and its popular myth, we are given nine, sometimes ten, sometimes more, sometimes considerably less. But each of these lives brings a complicated transformation. The moments in the letters were once real and it is my wish to bring her back to life through the decades in which I knew her, through the letters we wrote to each other and the times we passed through. The gossip, the history, the people, the exclamations and emotions and realizations we experienced are all in the letters and help to remind me that before Beth Bryant (or Betty as she was often called) disappeared, she had been so completely alive.

Betty lived to be seventy-four. While her body or her mind or both often failed her, she managed to live through seven decades. I missed over two decades of her life and will never know what they were like. The clues suggest that she may never again have experienced the full bloom of creativity or love or fulfillment. That will forever remain a mystery to me. She became invisible by virtue of her mental condition. She chose not to keep up with those she had once known. And we chose not to find her. Did she die friendless, a pauper; or was she still in her own way, gregarious and connecting to the people that were now around her.

What I do know is that just before her death she was living in a transitional house. She had become a ward of the state and there was likely no one at her grave to send her off. No friends or family surrounding her deathbed. Perhaps there are no markers to remember that she once lived. According to her death certificate, her ashes lie in the Tulacay Cemetery in Napa, California, and if I live long enough to retrace my steps, I will pay her ashes a visit. I will want to say, I tried but failed to be your friend. My efforts were meager.

Her ex-husband, John died three years before she did. Neither of them knew where the other was; or if they did, no one said. Many of those who peopled these letters are also no longer alive. We have all become history. Some of us have left reminders that we have passed through. We are some of us now out-of-print.

But each of us has a history. And these letters are a portion of hers and mine. Betty and my sister were friends well before I came to know her, our own friendship developed accidentally and apart from those beginnings. She was a lively, smart and affectionate person who was robbed, hamstrung by her disease, of the inherent possibilities that she might have achieved. I will always wonder what she thought about in her many moments of clarity and the imaginative moments of her mental fog.

Beth Bryant. Deceased. The word hisses off the page next to her name. I searched for her a few times over the years without success. But today my search ended when I learned that she died in San Francisco on the 22nd day of March in the year 2011. I notice that my own journal has no entry for that day. Apparently there was nothing special to write about. It was just a day like many others. I probably spent it fetching groceries, feeding dogs, clearing fallen branches from my yard, reading the last chapter of a book, watching a movie. There was nothing recorded at all. I always assumed I would know when something of importance happened. Some cosmic messenger would alert me. But that didn’t happen, and yet I was not surprised to learn that she was no longer alive. The truth is she hadn’t been alive in my world for years, though I thought about her now and again and sometimes more often.

The fat file holding our correspondence that had been tucked away in my file cabinet spanned a period of twenty-seven years. I kept it, not knowing exactly why, except that I knew her story and my story mingled for a time in that complex universe of being twentyish, thirtyish, and finally fiftyish. Now that she has died, her death certificate feeling cold in my hands, I have an overwhelming need to remember her as I knew her. There on the page she is still alive, our parallel lives recorded, in words that were her own through her letters, written during a time when we were actively engaged in living, in places that are gone. Hers is one of the many small lives that are not heroic or oversized, a life built on the foundations of her strengths and weaknesses. The snapshots that I have set forth here in this volume remain vital and important to me and may find their own moment.

Beth had, for much of her life, a deep desire to be a writer. It was the identity she carried with her, probably all her life. The occupation stated on her death certificate says so. She wanted more than anything else to publish a celebrated book of worth, always pushing herself to realize the goal, not only to be the journalist she had become, but a woman of literature. It was what she considered the work of her life. But there were forces buried deep in the fabric of her psyche that never allowed her to reach her goal.

One day in 1977, she locked the door to the apartment she would never return to again. She turned her back on the apartment she had joyfully outfitted for years, delighting in every new acquisition, loving every wall she painted, caring for all the plantings that made up the garden she tended with such devotion. She left the life she had known and never returned to it.

Police picked her up a few days later when she was found wandering naked on a beach in Big Sur and was immediately hospitalized. Diagnosed with acute schizophrenia, she was nonetheless released six days later with a prescription for antipsychotic medications and the advice to seek help. She had refused, as was her right, to be admitted for treatment. She could not be committed against her will. That’s the law.

The news of her whereabouts became sketchy for a time. She had bouts of schizophrenia earlier in life and prior to this dramatic episode had often warned her friends to watch for symptoms that she was becoming ill again. But when friends tried to confront her with the urgency to seek help, she was already too far into her illness to recognize the signs. It appeared to her that her friends had become hostile and were now enemies. Frightened by what she perceived as their menacing behavior, she packed a bag and ran away. Weeks before, she had asked her husband of many years, to leave their home, and he complied. She told him, prior to this incident, that she would be divorcing him because she intended to marry another man, John W. Perry, a psychiatrist, who as it turned out, knew nothing about their planned nuptials. He had become part of her delusion. He was already married and battling cancer which she was sure she could cure with her devotion. When she sent out invitations to their wedding, reaching dozens and dozens of her friends and colleagues all over the world, the alarm bells began to ring.

Sometime in September of 1977 I received one letter from her husband.

September, 1977 San Francisco, CA

Dear Yvette.

Thank you for your compassionate and affectionate card. I needed it. As you can see, I’ve moved out (at Betty’s insistence) in the middle of a book project. I feel incredibly sad—about equally for Betty and myself. I seem to have lost a marriage and a home. She’s lost everything; I am only a portion of it. The worst part is that I’ve no way of knowing whether her turning against me is genuine alienation, or part of the delusionary stage through which she seems to be going.

Some of the things she told people we know were frightening— hearing messages from God on TV, curing Dr. Perry of cancer by touching his arm, arranging peace in Ireland by Christmas of 1977. Is this the prelude to another complete mental breakdown? I don’t know. I haven’t seen her since July, but I suspect that these delusions are a kind of hiding process from the spectacle of having failed at the task she cherished most: her schizophrenia book.

I’m only a few blocks away from our apartment. I’ve written Betty that I love her and will be there when she needs me. I don’t know if that is much help. Personally, I will carry on as best I can. I have to get this damned Australian book out, which is already months late. My new place is nice, but dead, if you know what I mean. There is nothing personal at all. John

Years elapsed with sporadic notes from John, none of them kept, except the one dated:

November 12, 1984 San Francisco, CA

Dear Yvette,

I am extremely sorry to hear about the death of your mother. My own mother died last year, so I know how you must feel. No matter how you prepare yourself intellectually for such an event, you’re never prepared emotionally. Please accept my sympathy.

I’m very concerned about Betty, though I haven’t seen her in more than a year. She’s lost all her travel books by refusing to get in touch with our publisher. Now I don’t know whether she has any income at all, or friends or anything. She simply does not answer anyone’s letters. John

Notes:

September, 1977 San Francisco, California

The Irish Troubles refers to a violent thirty-year conflict framed by a civil rights march in Londonderry on October 5, 1968 and the the Good Friday Agreement on April 10, 1998. At the heart of the conflict was the constitutional status of Northern Ireland. The goal of the Unionist and the Protestant majority was to remain part of the United Kingdom. The goal of the Nationalist and Republican minority was to become the Republic of Ireland. This was a territorial conflict, not a religious one. At its heart lay two mutually exclusive visions of national identity and national belonging. The political violence lasted a long time and was bloody. During the Troubles, the scale of the killings perpetrated by all sides - Republican and Loyalist paramilitaries and the security forces - eventually exceeded 3,600. As many as 50,000 people were physically maimed or injured, with countless others psychologically damaged by the conflict.

John Godwin was Beth Bryant’s husband and author of a number of books including, This Baffling Word, The Mating Trade, Alcatraz.

Over the next years, no one knew much about her. I feel sure no one tried very hard to find her. The burden of carrying a friend whose mind had lost its power and had become rearranged makes cowards of us. She chose to disappear, no longer willing to contact the people she had once known, trusted, or held close. The question for me was always what I might have done. What I was willing to or not willing to do. We lived on opposite coasts. I had failed at being her friend. I knew that. But being her friend had become too hard to do. The very last thing she asked of me was to send her money which I did. But in that letter, as I read it now, was a veiled request: What shall I do now? She was asking for help and I ignored her question. Her last letter to me was written in 1988 and then the line went dead. Twenty-three years passed since we had been best friends. It took another six before I learned of her death.

What were those twenty-three years like for her? They turned out to be as many as were allotted her. Because schizophrenia does not often have a very good prognosis I was never sure how she managed in the last years of her life. There are clues gleaned from her death certificate, though. I do wonder, accompanied by unpleasant pictures occupying my mind, yet with the still vague hope that she was able to find a small sunny room where she could tend to her plants and to her writing, able to live without being institutionalized, able perhaps to live within the confines of her delusions. She had been a bright, courageous, active, talented and sometimes needy woman who had been my best friend, now buried deep in the membranes of my memory.

When we met in 1961 Betty was no longer under the guidance of her parents and their strict code of religious doctrine. Born to a Baptist minister she had always had rebellious feelings about her indoctrination to the bible and its teachings. Living under the thumb of her parent’s inflexible religious code, she was often in conflict. Her body often had to claw its way back to health. Unable to have children because she had suffered from a bad case of endometriosis, resulting in a total hysterectomy, Betty at twenty-three no longer felt compelled to be obedient to what she believed were false rules. There would be no obvious consequences in experiencing life in a freer way. Living a long distance away from home, she began to live her life absent of certain constraints. When I arrived in San Francisco, I felt compelled to visit her during her many hospital stays, to lend some support, though I remember at that time, I acted more out of duty and sympathy, than true affection.

I recall viewing her as a curious mix of intelligence and courage and trouble. My affection for her did not grow quickly. I was adopted by her as one of the people in the friendship circle she was building. There is a way in which we eventually begin to recognize people who are meant to be part of our lives and she slowly moved into mine and became a person I willingly befriended though I was still not clear whether I felt comfortable with the choices she made or the personality she often displayed, which seemed at times to be too self-centered and overwhelming. However, she was also self-aware, smart, and amusing—all with the same concentration of purpose.

When I arrived in San Francisco, all of my friends, including my sister, had established jobs and were actively engaged in the beginning construction of their new lives, so that when I entered the scene, a mildly heartbroken young woman, trying to figure out how to make a life in a new city, they were all there to help give me primers on what I could hope for.

Many months later, one by one, we left the Nob Hill flat on Clay Street we had shared, embracing the next phase of our journey, and by this time, Beth had become my best friend. She would often get involved with a man and head off to some romantic spot and play house for a time, in between living a life she wasn’t yet sure how to manage. Over the course of the next twenty-seven years, our lives were held together by a strong bond, often thrashed out in letters.

1961

When I auditioned and was accepted as an actor member of the San Francisco Actor’s Workshop I was excited that I had achieved my first major goal in a new city. A few months later I was asked to audition, three separate times, for the part of Shen Te/Shui Ta in Bertolt Brecht’s, Good Woman of Setzuan, a part I had wanted to play ever since I knew I wanted to act. All the young women at the Actor’s Workshop had been asked to audition quite a few times. I won the role and was filled with joy and fear. The production was cast, the score written and we were deep into rehearsal when the notice came that the Actor’s Workshop had to close the production down due to a lack of money and resources. Too many other productions were still on the boards. This had been my challenge and my dream, and I believed it was my beginning. I had been both thrilled and terrified at the prospect of carrying such a strong play, so that when the news came that it was closing before it opened, I was devastated, and strangely relieved—hating that I was. Before much time passed I came down with an acute appendicitis attack and had to have immediate surgery. I wondered if the cancellation of the play resulted in or happened because of my own fears. My convalescence took longer than I anticipated. Betty had recently returned from Mexico. When she left the apartment on Clay Street and moved to another apartment a considerable distance from Nob Hill she ran into a new man, who none of us took to. He was a folk musician. Since her roommate Mary had just left for a trip around the world, she too decided to hook up and travel with him, which is when our correspondence began.

Spring, 1961 Valle de Bravo, Mexico

Dear Yvette,

There are little knives that carve our destiny. One such knife that struck a deathblow to my last job certainly carved a lovely destiny for me. Being here has been a wonderful experience, and in our little white Pueblo, we have been happily playing house and entertaining friends. I horseback ride almost daily and Saturday we took a motor boat out on the lake. I’ve been to a bullfight, visited the pyramids and one of Maximilian’s castles. We eat out of pottery and sleep on a single mattress, pee in the open air outhouse and haggle for our food in the market-place. I can make a big Mexican soup, toned down for American taste, and Enchiladas. I am so happy I do not want to leave. But we are just about out of money and Wednesday morning we are heading for San Miguel and then, if the car holds up, we will make a mad dash for the Bay area and a hot bath and back to unemployment.

I am going to come back to Clay Street to live and see what the future holds. I will admit beginning to like marriage as we have lived it here. Betty

Summer, 1961 San Francisco, CA

Dear Beth,

While your letter was addressed to Mary, I did open it because I was bursting with curiosity. Here is what is happening. One of your manuscripts came back from The Post unaccepted, and Mary sent it on to the next slick on your list. Sorry. Also a returned manuscript came from your writing professor, but I suppose Mary will tell you about that. Ken read your story and liked it in many ways. Here are some of his comments;

It is an honest piece of writing. He liked the characterization of Mary Lou. Felt it held an appealing amount of fantasy. It has serious possibilities, he said, implying, however, that more could be said with what you have already established. He commented on your good technique and perceptions and said it held his interest. The ending, however, made him sorry that he had gotten caught up in the story since he felt it was too slick and sentimentalized. Hope that his comments were useful. Yvette

Summer, 1961 San Francisco, CA

Dear Poo,

As soon as I am less contagious I will come over and tell you jokes and read Peter DeVries and make you hold your stitches as it only hurts when you laugh and/or fart. I may bring you a bottle of wine to keep you oblivious to the entire torture chamber atmosphere. These are all tried and true methods. Well, Camille, here is a role worthy of your talents and a very interesting audience to reach. Your supporting cast promises to do its bit parts on cue and I understand that you have been very well directed up till now. Your pal, Boo

August, 1961 Venice, CA

Dear Yvette,

Back in Venice, we took a cheap hotel room on the boardwalk in the same hotel where Pitt’s two friends earned their hotel room by cleaning the hotel daily. When they left for Denver, we took over their room and their job. Pitt is working at night as a delivery man for Chicken Call-In. About this time I was chomping at the bit for a typewriter so went out and rented me one. I wrote one story and then more things happened and I haven’t had any time to write since. We met a guy on the boardwalk who also sang folksongs. We hit it off and started a trio singing on the boardwalk together. People stopped and listened and threw us money. We did this for four nights, gathering up quite a following. On the fifth night I fell down the hotel stairs. Nothing was broken, but there was some ligaments and soft tissue damage. On the sixth night I joined them on crutches. It was on this night that Pitt was arrested and charged with soliciting and vagrancy. An organization, The Venice Forum stepped in to help as they are set up to protect the rights of the poor, honest and arty types. We plan to fight this and they will provide legal aid. So we are involved in a principled legal battle.

So you see, I have decided to stay with Pitt. We have discussed it from all angles and realize that we may be making a mistake. Now I think you will agree that though I often decide to enjoy a relationship that spells danger and excitement, I never fool myself about the limitations of the man involved or the lack of wisdom in permanency with the man and invariably fall out of the relationship (or am pushed out by the man) with some remarks as to the value of the moments we shared together, etc. We are not in love or passionately involved. We don’t even like each other at times. However, we want to stay together right now. Both of us have experienced the same type of man-woman relationships—a passion for the impossible. We have the same values, the same type of background, the same strictly honest principles, the same interests and want the same thing out of life. But I will not marry a man with whom I do not experience some passion, desire, or love. However, Pitt wants to take care of me as man to woman and see if these things will develop. If they don’t, he is providing me with the funds to withdraw so that I do not need to feel trapped. I admit it is a strange way to go into something like this. Nothing is lost financially and I am not in love with him, so I will not suffer emotionally. I will admit to missing Robert very much—more the passion he inspired in me than the person himself. The romantic Mexican trip will long stand out in my mind for pure hedonistic pleasure. But we both agreed of the impossibility of extending that relationship. Please do write as I hunger and thirst for news of thems I love. Betty

September 1, 1961 San Francisco, CA

Dear Beth,

Received your letter over three weeks old, lying-in-wait for me to respond. I guess you answered all the questions I was likely to have. I can’t completely deny still having some reservations about Pitt, but on the other hand I marvel at your flexibility and inherent ability to make each experience an interesting one. I trust you to see the good from the bad and, if necessary, pave alternative routes.

When I left New York after my recent trip, my dad was still pretty depressed and recuperating from his heart attack. It created a stigma, for him. It represented many of the fearful things in our lives—like old age, inactivity, financial problems. He probably was more sensitive than usual because he has been a prisoner in bed for the past three weeks, so he has had the time to ruminate on negative thoughts. While I was there he was also thoroughly bored and quite emotional. He cheered up a little once I showed up. He has a great need to be reassured. Mother has been extremely brave and only loses it on rare occasions. I tend to treat her rather sternly I’m afraid. When I wasn’t worried about my parents I thoroughly enjoyed New York again. It was really grand being back. I must say I have lost none of my fervor for this old town. I feel so alive here. I feel sure if I was not with Ken, I would have remained here and tried my hand at legitimate theater.

Back in San Francisco, the Clay Street apartment is now vacant. I feel very nostalgic about the parting of the way and a great sense of loss, not having either you or Mary Price near. I certainly never took advantage of your presence but it was always comforting to know people to whom I could talk to were nearby. I do have my sister and Ken, of course, which is no small thing.

I have moved into Vallejo Street with Ken Dewey for now. We are trying to get the conservatory that is attached to this big old house, the one with the Rubber Tree growing within. I love the ballroom but we can no longer live in it because the building has not met inspection. Meanwhile we can still use the ballroom for rehearsals and events and will move into the gardener’s cottage in the back which reminds me of the Secret Garden, walled in and all.

Since the cancellation of The Good Woman of Setzuan, I doubt anything will come from the Actor’s Workshop for some time. The Commedia project with the Mime Troupe has halted for the time being, but it will resume. Working with Ann Halprin on Saturday mornings is a new source of interest. Ken is trying to get some of his plays published and Ann’s group is interested in possibly doing one.

Other than my three days of work at the Hospital, where they now have me floating from one floor to another, one day in the emergency room, the next in intensive care, things here are quiet.

The news of your white vision, aka wedding dress, bought before leaving for Southern California will come in handy if that is the way the world is turning for you. Your pal, Yvette

September 21, 1961 Venice, CA

Dear Rusty aka Yvette,

Ken Dewey published! Great news! Please tell me what issue of Contact his play will be in. Gee, I’m glad, and for you too, Poo. I have always felt mime/dance/theater to be a great medium for you—ever since the days of dancing to West Side Story at breakfast on Clay Street. I am taking a creative writing course. My professor has a philosophical bent which is a good adjunct to my studies with my past writing professor— the technician. This man is concentrating on symbolic transfer—the method of showing a truth through the use of everyday details, people, places and plots. Love, Betty

October, 1961 San Francisco, CA

Dear Beth,

I have just learned