The Flaming Corsage

by William Kennedy

  “Couldn’t be. It ain’t true.”

  “Wasn’t a joke, Clubber.”

  “I wouldn’ta hurt Giles or ’specially you. You know that, Ed.”

  “I know that, Clubber.”

  Clubber made a noise in his throat, an involuntary blubbering, and ducked his head below table level so none could see. He coughed, a fake cough, and smeared his face in new places with the pink cow blood.

  “Who put Cully up to it?”

  Clubber only stared.

  “Was it Maginn?”

  “Maginn?”

  After Edward revealed to Clubber the valentine’s fatal message, Clubber hid himself in the darkest corner of the attic of his two-story home on Van Woert Street. His sister Lydie saw his lunch pail and knew he’d come home but could not find him. When Clubber heard her step on the attic stairs he climbed out the window and leaped off the roof to kill himself. He broke an arm and an ankle, and sprained a shoulder, all of which were put in casts or wrapped by Doc Keegan at St. Peter’s Hospital. Lydie took her brother home from the hospital and when she went to sleep he crawled back up to the attic and threw himself off the same roof, breaking a leg and a hip, and earning his ticket to the asylum at Poughkeepsie.

  SHE STOOD BEFORE the gilt-framed mirror in the drawing room of her home, primping, reimposing a straying hair, ordering the lines of her solid-gray, V-necked satin dress, its skirt gathered into soft billows at the front to reveal stockinged ankles, the shocking fashion at Auteuil this year. She studied what remained of the forty-seventh year of her beauty. It was persistent, vegetative, clarion. In her own reversed eyes it seemed less fragile now than when she married him and had worried about her too-emphatic cheek-bones, the early lines at the corners of her eyes. Such empty concern. What does all that mean to anyone now? To him? To other men?

  The men in the mirror, behind her. At her. Always at her, in memory or dream, or with their need, or their plangent sorrow at the leave-taking, or their eyes that improve with reversal. And their alcoholic breath on your neck.

  She has known the joy of beauty. But, he wrote, joy is one of her most vulgar adornments, while melancholy may be called her illustrious spouse, a strain of beauty that has nothing to do with sorrow.

  She had begun the day knowing her obligations and desires, an unusual rising, life rarely so orderly for Katrina. She remembered seeing her father, and dreaming of a monkey, knew what Mrs. Squires should make for breakfast: turkey hash, her mother’s favorite, and pumpkin parties, knew the tasks of this consequential morning, knew that revelation would greet her afternoon.

  She had bathed, dressed, and, first order, taken down her large black leather shoulder bag and opened it on the bed. From her clothes hamper, where she had put it for safekeeping last night, she took her mother’s jewel case and put it in the bottom of the bag. She walked to the third-floor storeroom and unlocked the steamer trunk her father had bought for her trip to London and presentation at court. She rummaged under that famous dress of white chiffon over white silk in which she had made her deep curtsy before Queen Victoria, and she lifted out the seven identical leather-bound diaries of her life. She dropped the key inside the trunk, closed it.

  In her room she put six of the dairies in her bag. The remaining one (1896–98) she opened to the page where lay a newspaper clipping of a baseball player photographed in close-up as he throws a ball. Francis of the excellent face.

  She raised her glance to the window and looked out at the maple tree in the garden where she’d seen him perched on a branch, sawing another branch above his head. Her valentine in the tree. And she had immediately, then, dressed herself naked, in sun hat and evening slippers, and walked out onto the back piazza to induct the young man into her life. And didn’t they love each other so well after that induction? Oh they did.

  She built shrines to their love: in her bureau, on her dressing table, on the shelf above the bathtub: a piece of paper on which he’d written both their names: Francis Aloysius Phelan and Katrina Selene Taylor, a snippet of the green canvas he’d wrapped around her when he carried her naked in from the piazza, coins he’d held in his hand, a rag of a shirt he’d left with her, a book with the poems she’d read to him, a handkerchief stained with their love. The shrines were palpable proof of time memorious, when love lived in the next house and came to call.

  Until one day it did not. And she destroyed the shrines.

  She looked at the clipping, his face scowling at the unseen baserunner he is about to throw out at first, scowling at the hidden Katrina he is about to throw out of his life.

  She read the open page of the diary:

  The end of summer, 1898:

  If you saw me plunge a knife into myself would it baffle you? Would you think it a miracle? Do you understand what I mean when I say I have no ability to slide in and out of love? Would you be tempted to pull the knife out of me and cut off my face? Would you kiss me while I bled through my eyes?

  She considered ripping the clipping in half, but did not. She put it between pages of the diary, put the diary into the bag, and went downstairs to breakfast.

  “I dreamed of pumpkin last night,” she said to Mrs. Squires, who was serving her breakfast. “Does that mean anything?”

  “Did you eat the pumpkin?” Mrs. Squires asked.

  “No, it was just pulp and I threw it at a monkey.”

  “Monkeys could mean sharpers are after you, so watch out, Mrs. D. But pumpkin is nice. Pumpkin means happiness. Unless you eat it, and then I’m afraid it means trouble’s coming.”

  “The monkey was a collapsed doll, sitting on a high perch, and I hated it. I hit it with a handful of pumpkin and it came to life.”

  “So the monkey ate the pumpkin. You’d best be careful today, Mrs. D.”

  “I shall indeed, Mrs. Squires.”

  She relished her food, the taste of bygone breakfasts, when her mother shopped and arranged the daily menu. As she swallowed a forkful of the creamy turkey hash the telephone rang in the hallway. She heard Loretta answer, heard her footsteps coming toward the dining room.

  “Martin is on the wire from New York, Missus Daugherty,” Loretta said, and Katrina went quickly to the telephone.

  “Martin?” she said into the mouthpiece. “This is your mother who loves you. Where are you?”

  “A hotel lobby on Fourteenth Street.”

  “Are you coming home?”

  “I’m thinking about it.”

  “You should stop thinking about it and get on the train. Your father’s play opens in four days.”

  “I know that, Mother.”

  “Are you coming to see it?”

  “That’s what I’m thinking about.”

  “Martin, my sweet and only child, please stop thinking and make your decision. You no longer hate your father. You told me so yourself.”

  “That’s right. I don’t hate him.”

  “Then come and be with him for his play. It will be a momentous event.”

  “For some people.”

  “For more than you suppose. Now you must come, Martin. You can’t hide from the reality of your life. You must confront it and see what it looks like. Your mother insists. Do you hear what she’s saying?”

  “I believe I’ll be coming.”

  “You surely will?”

  “I believe I will.”

  “How very, very good that is. Oh how very, very good, Martin. I was afraid you’d fail me. Is there anything else you want to tell me?”

  “I’m staying at Father’s apartment in the Village. I’ve just taken over the rental, as he suggested.”

  “You’re such a sensible young man. I’m so proud of you, Martin, so proud. Have we finished with our talk?”

  “I told you I would call.”

  “And so you have. And I told you I would do all in my power to make the rest of your life as harmonious as possible with your father. I do mean that, Martin. I verily do.”

  “I believe you do, Mother. I’ll see you tomorro
w.”

  “You’ve made me very happy, Martin.”

  “I’m glad for that, Mother.”

  “Then goodbye, my sweet boy. Goodbye.”

  And she placed the receiver on its hook.

  She went back to the table, her mind sprinting into the day ahead of her. She sat down to finish her breakfast, but she could not. She took one forkful of hash for old times’ sake, then went to the drawing room, where she had left her bag and her hat.

  She stood before the mirror, primping, reimposing a straying hair. Her eye swept the reflected room behind her, the room she had created in her own image, and she saw herself unbuttoning Francis’s shirt, saw his hand cautiously moving down her shoulder to touch her naked breast for the first time, to touch her scar. Do you like my scar, Francis?

  She shook the image away, took her new hat with the ostrich plumes off the table and put it on, pale-gray, wide-brimmed hat that matches her shocking dress. She centered the hat on her head, pinned it to the crown of her hair, which was still the color of the gilded mirror. Maginn, behind her, raised a hand to touch that hair he so worshiped.

  “You didn’t deserve to have this happen,” he said.

  He touched the shoulder of her dress, moved his face so close that she smelled the liquor on his breath.

  “I saw it coming. Why would he do this to you?”

  He touched her bare neck. In the mirror she saw the faces of persistent desire, and behind them the will to persistent desire.

  “It should be enough for any man to make love to a woman like you. Having you in my arms is worth any amount of mayhem and murder.”

  She let him turn her around, and as she did she saw the portraits of her parents staring at her. Why do you allow this slumcrawler to touch you, Katrina? Why do you even allow him in the house? Maginn gripped her arms and kissed her. When she could again see his face he was smiling.

  “Shall we sit down?”

  They sat on the sofa facing the fireplace and he held her hand in his.

  “The anger must be consuming you.”

  He put one hand on her thigh.

  “I was in New York when it happened. I talked to a chambermaid who went in to clean his rooms one day and they didn’t hear her key. They were all in bed, making peculiar love. And Felicity was there. The maid knew her.”

  He moved his hand between her thighs, spreading them, and with one finger began slowly pulling up her skirt.

  “There are ways to reciprocate,” he said.

  She turned away from the mirror and crossed the room to the fireplace. She picked up the black iron poker and walked back to the mirror and smashed it with the poker. Mrs. Squires came running from the dining room.

  “Are you all right, Mrs. D?”

  “Perfectly fine, Mrs. Squires. I broke the mirror. Will you tell Loretta to sweep up the glass and throw the mirror in the trash. Then move my father’s portrait into its place.”

  “I’ll tell her right away.”

  “I have to go to the bank and the theater. I’ll be back this afternoon.”

  “Very good, Mrs. D.”

  “The turkey hash was excellent, Mrs. Squires.”

  “Like your mother made, was it?”

  “Exactly like Mother made.”

  Katrina looped the strap of her bag over her shoulder and left the house, her ostrich plumes bobbing as she walked.

  IN THE MACDONALD photographic studio on Broadway and Maiden Lane, the studio favored by eminent Albanians, Katrina confirmed with the secretary her appointment for a portrait sitting. She sat down to wait and the secretary stared at her exposed ankles, one stockinged leg visible up to the shinbone.

  “Is something wrong?” Katrina asked the secretary. “You seem to be staring at my dress.”

  “Oh, nothing wrong at all, Madam. It’s a lovely dress. I’ve just never seen one like it.”

  “Do you like it?”

  “I wouldn’t have the courage to wear it.”

  “That’s a very silly thing to say. One may wear whatever one chooses to wear.”

  “Yes, Ma’am.”

  Pirie MacDonald, the photographer who had established the studio, came out of an inner office in his tailcoat and greeted Katrina who shook his hand without standing up.

  “Your secretary finds my dress unusual,” she said.

  “Does she?” MacDonald stared at her legs, nodded. “Shall we go into the studio?”

  He entered behind her and motioned her to a seat in front of a pastoral backdrop with a sky full of clouds. She shook her head.

  “That will not do,” she said. “I do not want to be photographed with clouds.”

  “Whatever you say, Madam.”

  He moved the backdrop to one side, revealing a black backdrop behind it.

  “Nor do I want blackness,” Katrina said.

  “White, then?” And he moved the black backdrop aside, revealing the white wall.

  “Do you have any yellow?”

  “Color doesn’t show in the photograph, Madam.”

  “But color is there, whether it shows or not.”

  “It’s white or that’s it, I’m afraid.”

  “Then let it be white.”

  She sat in the chair he placed in front of the empty whiteness while he organized the placement of lights, creating the fall of shadow on her face. “When will the photo be ready?”

  “Beginning of the week.”

  “You’ll deliver, of course.”

  “Of course.” He was under his focusing cloth, adjusting the camera lens. “You’ll want a torso portrait, I assume. From the waist up?”

  “Not at all. I want the entire body.”

  She moved her legs to give greatest visibility to her ankles. MacDonald came out from under his cloth.

  “Is this how you want to be seen in the photo?” he asked, indicating her ankles.

  “It’s for my husband.”

  “Very lucky man, your husband.”

  “No, he’s not a lucky man. His life is a disaster, and much of it is my doing.”

  “I’m sure you’re too cruel to yourself, Madam.”

  “I’m not cruel at all. This is just how it happened to be. One is what one is, one does what one does. Isn’t that how you find it?”

  “I’m not much on philosophy, Madam.”

  “But in taking pictures you must see in people’s faces how they are.”

  “Sometimes I think I do, but other times I know what I see is only an illusion. From what I see here, I’m sure this photo will cheer up your husband.”

  “I hope you are right.”

  “Then relax, Madam,” he said as he hid himself beneath the cloth, “relax.”

  “I have no intention of relaxing,” Katrina said. “You’ll have to photograph me as I am.”

  “Don’t move. And look into the camera.”

  “Wait!” she said, for she suddenly remembered Femmitie Staats, defined forever in her painting by her flirtatious smile; and Katrina wondered which feature of hers people would fix upon as definitive. She loathed the idea of its being her avant-garde ankles. Then she saw the dried sunflower in a vase on a corner table in the studio, and she spoke up, told the photographer she wished to redesign herself, and would he leave her for a few moments?

  The billowy V-neck of her dress was adjustable by hidden burtons, two of which she undid, allowing the neck to open to the edges of her shoulders. The separation of her breasts then became visible, but she concealed most of that with the sunflower, whose stem she snapped to shorten it, then tucked the stem inside her bodice. In her mirror image she had become different, new yet again. And, for the first time, the top of her white, oval scar from the Delavan was visible to the world, above the edge of her dress.

  Could one call this appearance brazen?

  She thought not. Some might suggest that a flaw such as a scar should be hidden forever, but she disagreed.

  She called to the photographer to return, and he raised an eyebrow at what he saw, th
en proceeded to take what would be unarguably the most important photograph of his later life. In it Katrina’s hair is symmetrically divided in an inverted V that falls with slight convex curves from the center of her forehead to the edges of her eyebrows, not one hair straying. Her sharply patrician nose is half in soft shadow, her mouth a small smile that says “I understand,” and there are deep oval shadowings that enhance her eyes, render them patient with the melancholy she so covets. She is looking directly at us and into us, her torso slightly rightward, her yellow sunflower an oblique presence, her left shoulder in a gently aggressive forward thrust, for she is yielding, but with a will that only very reluctantly recognizes the inevitable; yet it does recognize it. Her ankles, a statement of rebellion, do not dominate the photograph as MacDonald thought they might; but they color it, as Katrina’s radical exploration of love colored her entire life, and the lives of those around her.

  With the making of this picture MacDonald would elevate himself, for a time, to the status of master photographer of eastern American beauty. Women of privilege, having once seen this photo, would come to Albany from as far as Boston and Manhattan to be photographed by him. But no other photo he took in these years would approach in vividness the image of Katrina and her sunflower with the pale yellow petals: two kindred blossoms of nature’s intelligence, caught at the peak of their elegant desiccation.

  KATRINA WALKED FROM Broadway up State Street to the State National Bank, where her grandfather Lyman and her father had been directors in their time; the oldest bank in the city, where Archie Van Slyke was an assistant vice president, still. She saw Archie at his desk in a far corner of the main banking room, in his tight suit and his pince-nez. He stood to greet her as she walked toward him, and from the lethargic way he moved she decided he was still drinking too much.

  With the Van Slyke and Taylor fortunes behind him, Archie had entered Albany’s banking world with flourish and promise. But he skidded at the death of Adelaide, and moped forward in life, focused on the bottle, never remarrying, keeping himself humbled and blurred. Yet he held his job, kept his modest title, one reason being that Geraldine had always placed unqualified trust in his handling of her once-substantial accounts.