Short Stories: Meeting Viege
(This story was originally published in the No.10 edition of 2029 magazin in 1994. I've taken the liberty, as it is my story, and edited it. It never got the proper copy edit it needed.)

I met Viege Traub through my friend Peter from Hamburg. He used to visit me and my boyfriend in Pasadena regularly. He always really liked my art work and suggested I use Viege, a friend of his, as a subject for one of my paintings. So it was decided I should meet her the following Sunday.

     That Sunday Peter and I drove the Pasadena Freeway towards West Hollywood. Viege lives in one of those little bungalows they've split into two apartments. It's a very cute and quaint little place right on the verge of Beverly Hills with Palm trees lining the street. She has a little porch with a white wicker chair and many plants sitting out front. We opened the screen door and knocked on the inner door. After some time and sounds from within, the door opened up to a dark room, and there before me stood Viege.
     Viege is a little lady, but then again I'm tall. She has silvery white hair and wears just a smear of light blue eye shadow, maybe just on one eye. She was wearing a ruffled flue blouse with slashes of color in it. The look is deceiving, for under the simple attire, I soon began to realize that she is like no one I've ever met before.

     She led us into the dark little space, and that's when my eyes began to adjust to the dark, and I saw that the room was filled with piles of papers, books and pictures. There were lots of old painting on the wall, mainly Bauhaus artists. She collects different types of Angels, and these too were everywhere. It seemed everything in her life, past and present, was lying in this room, scattered like her thoughts.      She cleared a space for us on the couch and went into the kitchen to bring us tea. The light filtered through the curtains highlighting the little particles of dust floating through the air. She came back with a silver tray filled with tiny cookies and tea. She slowly and gently tried to set them down, all the while her hands shaking making them rattle like a chandelier. I reach out and helped her, steadying the tray. She sat down and smiled at me. She was very curious to know why Peter wanted me to do a painting of her, and what we were going to use it for. Of course at the time I didn't know I was going to be writing this along with it. It's always hard to describe to someone what the painting will look like, especially if they haven't seen any of my other paintings before. Out of a good stroke of luck, I remembered to bring some slides.

     Peter left to take care of some business, so it was just the two of us an awkward moment for me. Generally I'm very chatty, but with older people I tend to feel like, "what do I know?" I might say something stupid. I see this person sitting there filled with all these experiences and adventures, from a time that I have always admired and wished I had grown up in (the 30s, 40's and 50's). I wondered if we'd have anything whatsoever in common. I decided to break the disquieting spell she had on me, and get started at what I came there for. I took her outside and had her sit in the wicker chair on the porch while I took some photographs of her. She was very shy about it, because she was the one used to doing the interviews, not the other way around.

     Later, when we had gone back inside, sitting comfortably on the sofa, she told me a bit about her life. Just a taste of the mystery, and adventure that was her story. As the warmth and darkness of the room engulfed me she told me she was born Hedwig Von Grolman in Potsdam, Germany. Her accent only slightly giving this away. She studied psychology and married a man named Traub (he was one of the founders of the German DEFA, German Film Academy). After her husband died, near the last days of the Second World war, she went with her children to Munich where she worked on a German Paper. Then in 1951 she came to the United States on a State Department-sponsored visit as a teacher from the University of Munich. When she met her second husband, she moved into the neighborhood of Beverly Hills. She was writing for the European Culture Exchange and became one of the Co-founders of the Golden Globe Awards. Through her work on the magazine and the grand parties that they threw, she met and made friends with some incredible and infamous people.

     As she was telling me these stories, she rose and sifted through a pile of books that were lying on the end tables. After much searching and lots of other interesting finds, such as journals, pictures, and notes, she brought forth her piece of treasure, her guest book. It was filled with signatures and salutations from all her admiring friends and acquaintances. There before me, in disbelief, I read aloud, "Anais Nin, Henry miller, Fritz Lang, Cary Grant, Marilyn Monroe, Lawrence Olivier, Rock Hudson", and the list went on. She talked to me about her intimate relationship with Anais Nin, and about the strange friendship she had with Fritz Lang. She had books with little pieces of paper tucked inside to mark off the photos that she directly contributed or donated to them from her endless supply. Through parties and banquets she had lots of pictures taken with people like Rock Hudson, Arnold Schwartzenegger and many others.

     In the late 70's she got divorced and moved into her little Bungalow. Today she continues to write for magazines, as well as being a psychologist to transsexuals who are preparing to undergo their sex change, helping them go through the adjustments of their new lives.

     That day wasn't my last visit to Viege. I continued to visit on Sundays to hear her stories and have tea, and I brought my boyfriend along sometimes. She would make us dinner and afterwards we would sit in her cozy little place talking until we got so tired that I would nod off, and she would slip into German. Viege became a very special portrait that I treasure. I'll never forget her reaction to my painting of her when I was through "But the head is so big!"

     Her friendship meant a great deal to me. When we moved to new York, the last person we visited was Viege. She didn't even realize we were leaving the very next day, and she was touched that we took time out of our crazy moving schedule to visit her. I believe she might have thought we would forget her and leave without saying good-bye.

     I never met such an incredible person before. She taught me that I should absorb the life around me. Viege is a woman who struggled and survived through love and war, birth and death, travel, cultural differences, unique social circles and career moves. She defied what is considered appropriate for women, and gained a kind of wisdom from being open to experiences and introspections. One should be lucky to have such a life. One thing for sure, when I go to L.A., the first person I'll look up is Viege.

(Viege Traub, Ph.D., died in 1996, of natural causes in Los Angeles. She was 86. Viege will always be in my heart. And I'm so lucky I have her portrait hanging on my wall)