Transformations of Portrait in Smoke

"Not that I remember."

"Did she ever mention any place she'd like to live . . . or go for a vacation? Anything like that?"

Collins leaned back in his chair. He opened a box of cigarettes, selected one, and lit it with an expensive silver desk lighter.  "It's been so long since she left that it's hard to remember," he said exhaling a deep breath of smoke. 

"Did she write you after she left?"

"No," he said, "there was no reason she should."

"Did she say why she was leaving?"

His eyes burned at me hotly, but his face didn't change. The phone rang and he picked it up. He gave several short answers and hung up. He paused for a moment. "She said she was leaving town and that was all," he said finally. 

That stopped me. Was this the end of the line? I tried to keep my face and voice steady. "She didn't say why?"

"No." He stopped for a moment and seemed to be listening. "Come to think of it," he said slowly, "I have a feeling it might have been New York."

"Was she a good secretary?"

"Excellent."

"Didn't she ever use you for references."

"Never."

I turned towards the door. "Thanks for your time, Mr Collins," I said. 

His voice didn't change; his face was expressionless. 

"I'm afraid I wasn't much help," he said indifferently. His voice hung in the air for a few seconds and he reached for his pen on the desk and started signing some letters. Deliberately he laid his pen to one side and turned back toward me. "You know, April," he said, "I've often wondered what happened to Miss Allison. I hope you find her. If you do, I'd like to know."

"You would?" I asked. 

"It isn't important," he shrugged, "but I'd be glad to make it worth your time . . . just for my own curiosity." 

(from Portrait in Smoke, Ch 4 Part 1). 

You can read it in English for free, on archive.org :

https://archive.org/details/portraitinsmoket00bill

*

It isn't very well known these days, and I'm speaking from considerable ignorance, but I'll stick my neck out and suggest that Bill S. Ballinger's Portrait in Smoke (1950) is absolutely one of the great noir novels, though it makes no attempt whatever at the tensioned prose of e.g. In A Lonely Place.

And I'll also claim that Krassy Almauniski's ruthless path from the Yards to Lake Shore Drive, painfully traced ten years later by the obsessed small-time collection agent Dan April, is one of the great novels of Chicago, though with no notion of being a game-changer like Native Son.

*

Miss Krassy Almauniski, 4120½ South Hempstead, today was announced the winner of the Stockyard Weekly News beauty contest.  ... 

So begins the faded newspaper clipping from ten years before. 

South Hempstead, along with that crazy high number, hints at South Halsted: i.e. Halsted Street, "the backbone of Chicago", which runs north-south behind all the skyline. It passes by the stockyards (the area called Back of the Yards), and that's where Krassy's story begins, c. 1940, in evil-smelling slums. 

[Halsted street, for its great length and diversity, has acquired a fabled quality, maybe from Conrad Friberg's pioneering docufilm Halsted Street (1932), which in turn inspired David E. Simpson's Halsted Street USA (1995), which you can watch here: 

https://www.folkstreams.net/films/halsted-street-usa

I also found this long article by Stanley R. Osborn (from the mid 1950s?):

https://chicagology.com/chicagostreets/halstedstreet/ ]

*

It was a great era of transformations, the noir era, when novels and movies ran alongside. You could take something excellent, turn it completely inside out and end up with something completely differently excellent. It was an insight about social existence and social presentation, I feel.

Maybe all creative eras are full of transformation, but I'm especially reminded of the age of Shakespeare: the same commercial spirit, the furious activity of re-authoring and multi-authoring and revising and filleting and recycling other people's material into other forms.  

*

And while we're on the classics, one of the first things you'll hear about Portrait in Smoke is its notable use of two alternating narratives: Dan April in the first person, Krassy in the third person. The set-up itself is strangely exciting, in a way that goes beyond the things Krassy actually does or April's tenacious ferreting out of facts (and lamentable misinterpretations). 

The way Ballinger runs it I couldn't help wondering if it was reading Bleak House that showed him the potential. 

Don't think that this is like the familiar method of modern genre fiction about, say, WW2 or the 1960s, where someone in the present day finds an old diary in an attic.... That's more about speaking to the interests of the aging demographic who still read fiction. One of its reassurances is that life still has a present and a future but we're quite right to think that everything that really mattered happened back then.

In Portrait in Smoke the alternating narratives aren't really that far apart in time, though far enough to make Dan's stalking difficult. Here the message is of relentless change; ride the wave if you can, but you'll never completely understand it and if you're Dan April you'll always be small-time.

The passage I began with is a great example of the double narrative line at work. Mr Collins will never know what April's after, of course. But also, April will never know why Mr Collins agreed to see him, or what was really between Collins and Miss Allison and why Collins genuinely doesn't know what happened to her and why he wouldn't mind knowing. Only the reader, blessed with the other narrative line, will be able to put it all together: some of it, anyway. Ballinger, naturally, doesn't spell things out. 

*

Krassy, though....

*

"That's rugged," said Waterbury sympathetically. 

"Not too rugged," said Krassy bravely, "fortunately my parents left me enough money . . . that I don't have to worry. But it is lonesome . . . sometimes." She looked at her watch. "It's getting late," she added. "I should be leaving."

"I'll drive you home," Waterbury suggested. "We have a car at our disposal on the tour."

"I'd love it," said Krassy. 

Waterbury went up to Krassy's apartment with her. She mixed him a drink, and seated him in Collins' favorite easy chair. Then she scrambled eggs and made coffee. They ate it off the coffee table in the living room. Waterbury stretched out his long legs, lit a cigarette, and jammed his hands in his pockets. "I like it here," he announced.

"That's nice," said Krassy.

"I wish I didn't have to leave," he said. His face was expressionless and his eyes steadily watched the ceiling. 

"I wish you didn't, either," said Krassy. "But you must, you know."

"I may have so little time . . . that I'd like to spend it all with you," he said. 

Krassy shook her head. Waterbury arose from his chair and crossed over to the lounge; he seated himself beside her and put his arms around her. He kissed her, and Krassy returned his kiss with simulated passion. 

"Don't make me leave. Not tonight!" His voice was urgent. 

Krassy gently disengaged his arms. Taking his face between her two hands, she looked directly in his eyes. "You want to make love to me, is that it?"

"Yes," Waterbury replied levelly.

"No," said Krassy. She stood behind the couch and held her arms behind her back. "I want to wait until I'm sure," she told him softly. 

"I'm sure," he said. "Aren't you?"

"I don't know . . . not really. But I'm going to wait until I am sure." No persuasion from Waterbury could change her mind. He returned to the club that night. 

One week later, on December 24, Krassy married Dana Waterbury. 

(from Portrait in Smoke, Ch 5 Part 2)

--Lo siento --se compadeció Dana Waterbury.

--No lo sientas tanto --contestó vivamente Krassy --. Afortunadamente, mis padres me dejaron algún dinero... Es decir, no tengo preocupaciones monetarias... aunque resulte a veces algo triste vivir sola. Oh, se hace tarde --concluyó, después de consultar su relojito--; debo irme.

--Te acompañaré a casa --sugirió Dana--. Tenemos un coche a nuestra disposición.

--Te le agradezco de veras.

Dana subió al apartamento de ella. Krassy le sirvió un vaso y le invitó a sentarse en el sillón favorito de Collins. Luego, batió huevos y preparó café. Comieron en la mesita del saloncito. Dana estiró sus largas piernas, encendió un cigarillo y hundió las manos en los bolsillos.

--Estoy bien aquí --declaró.

--Lo cual me halaga --sonrió Krassy.

--No quisiera marcharme nunca.

Le dijo inexpresivamente, contemplando el techo.

--También a mí me gustaría. Pero tienes que irte, lo sabes de sobras.

--Dispongo de tan poco tiempo. . . que me gustaría pasarlo contigo. 

Krassy sacudió la cabeza. Dana se levantó del sillón y atravesó la salita yendo hacia el diván. Sentóse al lado de la joven y la rodeó con los brazos. Le besó y Krassy contestó a sus caricias con fingido apasionamiento.

--No me eches..., ¡al menos, esta noche! --murmuró él. 

Krassy se deshizo lentamente de su abrazo. Sosteniéndole el rostro con ambas manos, lo miró fijamente. 

--Deseas acostarte conmigo, ¿verdad?

--Sí --asintió Dana, con voz átona.

--No. Quiero esperar hasta estar completamente segura --denegó ella suavemente.

--Yo ya lo estoy..., ¿y tú?

--No lo sé. De veras; no lo sé. Y aguardaré hasta que esté segura.

Las frases persuasivas y melosas de Dana no la conmovieron. El joven regresó de mala gana al Club aquella noche. 

Una semana después, el 24 de diciembre, Krassy se casó con Dana Waterbury. 

(from Retrato de humo, 1971 translation by Mario Montalbán.)

It might be any heart-warming story of a wartime fighter ace and a whirlwind romance during his brief return from the front, if it weren't for that one word "simulated". But to us it means something completely different because it's Krassy's story we're following, and we know a lot about her though not everything. The symbolism, if that's what it is, of seating him in what used to be Collins' favorite chair (compare the symbolism of her dyeing her hair black, a few pages before). Her fraught, mostly repelled, feelings about intimacy. Her desperate longing to be secure: the war hero Captain Waterbury represents old money and Philaldelphia and ultimate respectability. Her underlying feeling, almost invisible but it's definitely there, that despite her impeccable choreography this fairy-tale isn't going to be hers... she won't be able to keep it; it isn't even what she wants. 

*

I first read Portrait in Smoke in a Spanish translation (originally from 1971). I might as well introduce it by quoting what the back jacket of Retrato de humo says, as well as I can render it:

Dan April's story is an obsessive quest. April is trying to track down the girl that he fell for ten years ago. For him Krassy represents everything that's beautiful and sweet and worthy of love . . . Inevitably, the reality does not match the illusions of this unhinged passion. What gradually emerges is the true nature of Krassy, an adventuress who ends up in the comfortable lap of an aging millionaire . . . .

Two parallel narratives are juxtaposed in Ballinger's novel: the ideal, as magnified by the poor April, and another, more real, in which the woman he loves is calculating and cruel, has a weakness for betting on horses and lets nothing stand in her way . . . The astonishing thing is the union of both narratives, whose marvellous resolution, strictly in line with the story and the thematic construction, shows Ballinger to be one of the most modern and powerful of crime writers. 

Anyone who goes on to read Portrait in Smoke will find things to question about this, but I think it gets us to the right kind of place for asking those questions. 

*

The 1971 Spanish translation, by Mario Montalbán, is very confidently free (as you'll have seen) and mostly oretty plain, giving little hint of Dan April's slang. 

Sabía que, de llevarlo encima, apenas duraría algunas semanas.

I knew damned good and well I´d shoot all the dough if I kept it around where I could get my hands on it. 

Yet sometimes the Spanish text goes off-piste and adds ideas of its own, too. 

And besides, who´d believe me?

But the whole thing doesn't make sense. It doesn't make any sense at all. I been thinking about it and talking it over with myself. And then on top of that I get dreams. And it still doesn´t add up. I can´t understand why it happened. ...

Además..., ¿quién iba a creerme?

Nadie, puesto que el asunto, considerado en su conjunto, carece de sentido. No, no puede en absoluto comprenderse. Lo he examinado y estudiado desde todos los ángulos posibles, y continuamente le doy vueltas en mi cerebro. Y para que mi angustia sea aún mayor, sueño con ello. Pero todavía hay más. No entiendo cómo sucedió. ...

Or it just changes things. Fire-escapes become neon lights, thickly knotted ankles become exaggeratedly thin ankles....  the translator follows his own vision -- why not? -- and leverages ideas that were available in Spanish culture. For example, Mike Manola becomes "un valentón de taberna".

The Spanish translation is shyer of sexual content. After all Franco was still in power in 1971; maybe that had something to do with it, or maybe it was just about what the readership would tolerate. Anyway, it drops the rhythmic humping of Krassy's father and Maria, or Mike Manola's hand on Krassy's breast. Most importantly it drops Krassy's abortion; in the Spanish translation Krassy is only pretending when she tells Collins that she's pregnant. 

*

Portrait in Smoke  was the basis for the British movie Wicked As They Come (1956), starring Arlene Dahl. You can watch it on YouTube, and I think you should enjoy it without my spoilers, which will follow immediately.

The first thing you'll be struck by is the music: it's by the great Malcolm Arnold. The setting is initially New York, then London, finally Paris. The New York crowd scenes include black extras (I dare say that wasn't unusual, but it surprised me.). Sid James, of all people, is Cathy's Noo Yawk step-father. 

You can tell that the screenwriters read Portrait in Smoke attentively. They made fearless transformations, but these transformations often highlight something that was latent in the novel. For instance the remodelled Larry Buckham, emotional and pathetic in the novel, is here prone to erupt in sudden violence. The remodelled Tim O'Bannion is developed into a powerful male lead, but along lines that the novel had already laid out before putting him aside.

(There's one unforgettable glimpse of the secretarial course and all the girls typing and swaying along to the music. A reminder that Portrait in Smoke is partly a novel about sheer hard slog. Both Krassy and her tracker are exceptionally diligent.)

The screenplay uses only parts of the book. Most drastically, there's no Dan April, and there's no Chicago. The denouement is quite different. Cathy (=Krassy) is on a ruthlessly gold-digging path, but as it turns out she kills her wealthy, elderly husband (Dowling, replacing Powers) by mistake. O'Bannion challenges Cathy to explain why she can't love anyone, and eventually discovers that in her teens Cathy had been attacked by four hoodlums (the unstated implication is that she was gang-raped). None of this was in the novel, and it turns complex hints (e.g. her spontaneous revulsion to Mike Manola's touch) into simplistic formulas, yet it feels in tune with how the novel brings us to see its heroine. The possibility of Cathy's redemption, i.e. finding true love with Tim, is cautiously hinted, but not seriously, because we're already heading for the exits. 

*

A nice little twenty-minute chat by James Ellroy's biographer Steven Powell about Portrait in Smoke, which is apparently one of James Ellroy's favourite novels:

https://venetianvase.co.uk/2024/02/18/ellroy-reads-portrait-in-smoke-by-bill-s-ballinger/