[Dorothy Parker 03] - Mystic Mah Jong

by Agata Stanford

  “Just think,” I said, encouragingly, for I knew he’d prefer to spend the evening at Madison Avenue Madame Polly Adler’s, enjoying quality booze and schmoozing with friends. “You can review the séance.”

  “Stop trying to sell me, my dear Mrs. Parker. You had me at ‘pul-eeaase.’ What time are we going?”

  “Jane? What time are you going to the séance?”

  “Ten o’clock.”

  “Shall Mrs. Parker and I pick you up, or—”

  “Uhhh, no,” I said, a little too quickly. He’d misunderstood.

  “Speak up! What was that?”

  “I said, no.”

  “No, what?”

  “Bob, you are filling in for Dottie. She doesn’t want to go.”

  “Then Mrs. Parker can fill in for me at the theatre and review Our Private World.”

  Shit! Damned if I do and damned if I don’t.

  And that is why I found myself, two hours later, sitting next to Mr. Benchley at the dining room table of Madame Annabelle Olenska, psychic medium of Washington Square.

  Jane, the instigator of the evening’s fiasco, took suddenly, if conveniently, ill, soon after supper, and telephoned me and Mr. Benchley at our favorite speakeasy, Tony Soma’s, with her regrets. After supper, Mr. Benchley and I had ambled over to Tony’s on 49th, to while away the hours over a martini or three until it was time to taxi down to Greenwich Village. That’s when Jane called from home to say she’d suddenly been struck with a migraine and couldn’t possibly join us at the séance. By that hour, Mr. Benchley and I were deep in our cups and most agreeable to attending the entertainment of a spirit show.

  The Checker Cab discharged us on the cobblestones across from Washington Square Park at its north side a few minutes before ten o’clock. The row of townhouses facing the park raised the specter of Henry James as we stepped onto the slate sidewalk, giggling and irreverent. A cold drizzle sparkled like glitter against the softly glowing orbs of the old gas streetlamps, now refitted with electric bulbs. I was looking up at the dimly lit façade of the house, my face misted and cooled. It was a refreshing jolt to sobriety after the smoke-filled heat of Tony’s. There, the odors of stale tobacco and rain-sodden wool combined with smells of fried steak and spilled gin. (The taxicab was not much better. It reeked of wet leather and God-knows-what-else that had permeated into the seats.) Seeing this particular street again brought it all back. A picture flashed through my mind’s eye.

  “The las’ time I was here—” I sputtered out in an incoherent blabber, the memory of twenty years ago taking shape . . . .

  When I was a little girl, my stepmother had insisted I accompany her to the department stores. On our way downtown we drove past the mansions lining Washington Square Park. The winds started blowing, and we sought cover at the home of a family friend along this block. It was a stifling summer morning, and our hack stopped at this very spot.

  “Watsdat?”

  “I said : The las’ time I was here—”

  “Wataboudit?”

  “Awww, shit!” I said, forgetting what I had been about to say.

  “Shit?”

  Light-bulb moment! “Tha’s it: Shit!” I said, and the memory was like a slap in the face. “A summer shit storm, back when I was a kid, in ought-one or -two, I think.”

  The White Wings couldn’t sweep up the streets fast enough. The heat-wave, coupled with a month-long drought, had dried the droppings of a hundred-thousand horses coursing through the city, and it was by this time all pounded to a fine powder by automobile, carriage, and streetcar wheels. Then this dust was swooped up by the winds off New Jersey, which resulted in a ghastly brown, choking, eye-burning storm. A shit storm. By the time it was over, we were covered by a dusting of manure.

  “Whadsdat?” asked Mr. Benchley, as he ineffectually tried to wipe the rain from off his soggy coat sleeves. Looking up from the curb, he pulled a face expressing his distaste, and I saw it was not in reaction to the recounting of my childhood recollection, but rather the near-ruination of his wingtips from his having stepped into the deposit left by a canine no smaller than a great Dane. Sloshing the offensive shoe in a puddle at the curb, his attention shifted at the sight of a fellow walking along the sidewalk toward us, an umbrella bobbing above his head.

  “Just a minute,” he said to me, as the man approached. Leaving my side, he stopped the fellow and, leading him by the elbow, returned to me. I ducked under the protective canopy.

  “Hello.”

  “Mrs. Parker, meet ‘Man with Umbrella,’” said my friend by way of introduction.

  ”Howjado.”

  “Now, whatcha waz saying?” he asked me.

  “Never mind.”

  A sporty, cream-colored Moon roadster rounded the corner of Fifth with a growl and a bang, causing us to jump farther back from the curb. With another acceleration, the backfire was repeated and once again jangled our collective nerves.

  Bidding adieu to our protector, Mr. Benchley and I climbed the steps to the front door where, after ringing the bell, he removed the offending shoe, to be recovered on our way out. We were received by a pretty young woman wearing a bright-purple caftan, who relieved us of our soggy coats and hats, gave no indication that there was anything odd about a one-shoed gentleman, and ushered us quickly into the drawing room, where had gathered a half-dozen or so people, elegantly garbed in evening clothes and posed upon sofas and chairs before a violently burning fire.

  Turning away to inconspicuously push a finger under the clasp of a pinching garter, I came face-to-waist with a manservant of Indian descent, dressed in turban and gold-threaded jacket, black bearded, and in possession of mesmerizing black eyes. I was a little taken aback by his commanding presence, for he stood ramrod-straight, holding a tray containing a brass decanter and tumblers, from which he offered us refreshment. Expecting liquid reinforcement, we received instead a tepid brew, greenish in color and cloyingly sweet. Distasteful, to say the least, and as I picked a leaf off my tongue after an initial sip, it was a most unpleasant start to the evening. I touched Mr. Benchley’s arm, the tumbler on the rise to his lips. Stopping midway to look at me in query, I shook my head from side to side. He got the message, and when the coast was clear, poured the drink into a big palm beside the windows.

  Pocket doors parted and a woman of indeterminate years entered. She wore a caftan of sky-blue silk shot through with golden threads. The unruly mass of fire-engine-red curls was encircled with numerous bands of gold-braided roping, in the style of the ancient goddesses. The effect was more Medusa than Minerva.

  She walked toward us through the drawing room, which contained a disordered jumble of cultural artifacts—Indian weaves, oriental carpets, Egyptian statuary, African carvings, and a couple of strange items, all gathered together beneath a potted plant on a huge marble-topped, claw-footed table. This hodgepodge of artworks combined feathers, sticks, mud, and hair!—altogether an interior decorator’s nightmare.

  “Voodoo,” said Mr. Benchley.

  “Who do?” I replied, misunderstanding.

  “I see that everyone has arrived,” said the woman, with a yellowish, snaggletooth smile. “I am Madame Olenska.”

  Everyone rose from their seats; skirts were smoothed; cuffs were pulled.

  “Are you Miss Grant?” asked the Madame.

  “Uh, no, Miss Grant was unable to attend, and asked me to sit in for her. I’m Mrs. Parker, and this is my friend, Mr. Benchley.”

  “Well, you are welcome, then. Have you all been introduced?”

  “We haven’t had the pleasure,” said Mr. Benchley.

  “Very well. Mrs. Parker, Mr. Benchley, you met my assistant, Caroline Mead, when she greeted you at the door, and then you were served refreshment by Rabindranath Tagore, the brilliant Indian mystic and my friend. So now let me introduce you to Mr. and Mrs. Brent.”

  She gestured toward a couple in their thirties: she, a pretty strawberry blonde with waves pulled loosely back in a chignon, and wearing a
simple, rather outdated green frock; he, unremarkable features behind rimless spectacles. I was struck with the impression of a small-town pharmacist bringing his five-and-dime clerk bride to the big city.

  “Donald Brent?” asked Mr. Benchley.

  “Why, yes.”

  “Oh, I know about you, Mr. Brent. I mean, I’ve heard you play. Mrs. Parker, Mr. Brent, here, is an excellent cellist, a friend of Jascha’s.”

  “Aren’t you married to the mezzo soprano, Margaret Harrington?” I asked.

  “Maggie is Margaret Harrington. She’ll be performing at the Metropolitan Opera this weekend in the title role of Carmen.”

  “How delightful to meet you, Mrs. Brent.”

  I had been wrong. This couple was far from being naïve, small-town tourists curious about mysticism.

  “And this is Mr. and Mrs. Booth—”

  A smartly coiffed and strikingly beautiful Mrs. Booth extended her hand. “Pleased to meet you,” she said, in a rather strident tone, marring the perfection of her physical charms. “Call me Bette.”

  Was that a real beauty mark on the corner of her plump, blood-red upper lip, or a pencil mark? Her short, wavy black hair shone brilliantly in the light of the chandelier; her complexion glowed through porcelain perfection. And it struck me: “Your name is Bette Booth?” I asked. “Why is that familiar?”

  “Beats me,” she said in a nasal, high-pitched, squirrelly voice that betrayed her Brooklyn roots. “I’m not famous or noth—anything,” her voice trilling with a childish giggle.

  Such a beauty, but she desperately needed elocution lessons.

  Mr. Booth leaned in to shake Mr. Benchley’s hand. His rounded vowels and crisp consonants as he spoke, “Pleasure to meet you,” were in sharp contrast to his wife’s unfortunate bray. He took my offered hand, and nodded, “Delighted, Mrs. Parker.” The Booths seemed an odd coupling, and not only in appearance, for he was really nothing to look at—fair and balding, and pale beside his striking wife. But his manner betrayed a cultured upbringing. Bette? Not so much.

  The Madame took my arm, completing the task at hand: “And these lovely people are Mr. and Miss Franken, Siegfried and Frances.”

  Brown irises floating in huge white orbs and fringed with lashes any woman would die for dominated a pale, round face that rested above an old-fashioned wing-collar, giving the impression that the man possessed no neck whatsoever. Siegfried Franken clicked his heels and bowed in greeting. He smelled pleasantly of cologne, and his neat, dark head—trimmed, center-parted, and combed—gleamed of excessive brilliantine. But although his toilet was impeccable, there seeped from him a distasteful oiliness that was underscored by his sibilant, nasal, and accented, “A pleeshor choo meetch choo.” A craggy, toothy grin flashed yellow from under a thin upper lip.

  Frances Franken, a fraternal twin, I guessed by the similarity of features, nodded, and flashed big teeth. There was something singularly unattractive about the pair, something desperate and unhealthy looking about them, for all their tidy wardrobe. In all honesty, the impression was purely physically suggested, as they’d not as yet spoken more than a couple of words of greeting.

  “And . . . there you are, Lord Wildly,” said the Madame, interrupting my thoughts. “Come and meet the others.”

  A figure appeared from behind the window-seat drapery that flanked a big bay window overlooking Washington Square Park. As the man moved out from the darkened part of the room and into pools of lamp- and firelight, I was struck by the lean, dark good looks of the fellow, a man in his late thirties or early forties, perhaps. He was not particularly tall, but he carried himself over toward us with a slightly forward leaning, as if he’d been accustomed to accommodating low-header doorways. This leaning, this posture, made him appear very approachable, in spite of the regal title. But the one thing that made him most endearing, besides the slightly disheveled mop of shiny, curly brown hair, was the one imperfection revealed when he smiled: the tiny gap between his two front teeth.

  Lord Tristan Wildly shook hands with Mr. Benchley, and took my offered hand. A blush rose to my cheeks when I realized the time to pull my hand away had long since passed. I lowered my eyelids, finally, as I had been staring for too long into his startling green eyes.

  I am a sucker for good-looking boys. An English Lord, hmmm . . .?

  Usually, I am not enamored of the upper classes. I poke fun at the rich, the privileged, the titled, who look down their long noses at the self-made millionaires, the industrialists, the tradesmen, the artists, and the innovators of our society. Before the War, it was fashionable for wealthy men to be idle. Taking up the Law was viewed as useful to while away time from the domestic tedium of home and hearth (and for a wife, to get her husband out from underfoot). Or there was the daily arrival at one’s club, where the society of one’s own kind might be enjoyed. Ambition and profession belonged to the drudgery of lower-class survival. But, now, perhaps because in the trenches all men are created equal, and so many sons of society’s matrons had fought—some dying, some wounded, all suffering the trauma of the trenches in No Man’s Land—against a common enemy alongside their poor and middle-class brothers, since the War there has arisen a new class philosophy among the youthful rich, a modern view for living that includes engaging in purposeful employment and service. It’s become the new trend.

  Unbelievably, and against all I ever stood for, I was as impressed as any social-climbing twit might be with Lord Wildly’s title, his refined, aristocratic British accent, and warm, dulcet tones, which brought to mind the young actor Ronald Colman. And, yes, I was getting a bit carried away in my fantasy, for I imagined the soft rustle of his lips at my ear, whispering sweet nothings as we rendezvoused behind a Chinese screen in the ballroom of his stately home in Sussex. Of course, it’d been a while since a man had come along who interested me . . . and until he said or did something stupid, which undoubtedly he would, I would remain smitten.

  “Mrs. Parker!” said Mr. Benchley.

  “Yes?” I answered with annoyance. “Oh, it’s you,” I said, watching as Madame Olenska led Lord Wildly out of the room. “Whaddaya want?”

  “Madame Olenska bids us enter the inner sanctum.”

  “Huh?”

  “Let’s go.”

  He took my arm like a jealous prom date, and shuttled me through pocket doors into a dining room where, in the center of the room, a round table was surrounded by numerous chairs. Lord Wildly was nowhere to be seen.

  Our hostess took her place at the table and began assigning seats to the company: I was seated first, to the left of Madame, with Mr. Benchley to my left at about three o’clock; Frances Franken sat next to him, with her brother Siegfried landing at about six o’clock; Bette Booth continued the boy-girl-boy setup with her husband, Benny, next to Maggie Brent; Donald Brent sat down at eleven o’clock to the right of Madame.

  I looked around for Lord Wildly, and I turned to see him rising from off the floor in the butler’s pantry, painstakingly examining the mahogany wainscoting through a magnifying glass. He returned to the dining room, running fingers along the underside of the fireplace mantel, under which several logs were smoldering, and around and under frames of paintings, like a blind man reading Braille. And then, on hands and knees, he crawled the circumference of the room, tracing a wire, which led to the telephone housed in a niche in the wall. Continuing on, he inspected the inside edge of the doorframe leading to, I could only assume, the kitchen. He walked through that door, and then returned soon afterward, walking swiftly to the chandelier, peering through his glass at the electric wires and crystals. Once again on his knees, he crawled under the table. I adjusted my skirts for modesty’s sake, giving him a good view of my ankles.

  “Have you lost a stud?” I asked, bewildered, as I put my head under the tabletop.

  “Or perhaps, your mind?” asked Mr. Benchley, following my lead.

  Lord Wildly reemerged, stood erect, adjusted his white bowtie, smoothed his coat, and then walked out thr
ough the pocket doors into the drawing room.

  So, here I sit, I thought, a reluctant member of Madame Olenska’s Side Show, when I could be dishing out dirt and throwing back highballs with Tallulah at Tony’s.

  A few moments later, Lord Wildly burst into the room, announced all was clear, pulled up a chair from against the wall, and placed himself between me and Madame Olenska.

  “Found what you were looking for?” I asked.

  “Happily, I haven’t.”

  My confused expression prompted Madame to explain:

  “Lord Wildly is from the Society for Psychical Research in London.”

  “Yes, the society investigates paranormal activity. I am here to observe Madame Olenska’s . . . talents as a trance medium.”

  “Like Conan Doyle, writer of Sherlock Holmes,” hissed Siegfried Franken at Mr. Benchley. “I see his lecture on supernatural phenomena.”

  “Sir Arthur conducts his own investigations, I must say. Daft as a brush, he is,” corrected Lord Wildly. “I am here to research paranormal phenomena in your city.”

  “Oh, how exciting, you’re a ghost detective!” I laughed.

  “You were looking around for wires and trapdoors and switches, weren’t you?” asked Mr. Benchley. “But you didn’t find anything.”

  “Not a sausage.”

  “Have you checked the attic?” he asked.

  “All right,” I said in aside to Mr. Benchley, “be nice. Where are you staying while visiting our city, Lord Wildly?”

  “‘Tristan,’ please, Mrs. Parker.” He reached into his pocket and brought out a gold case from which he removed a calling card with his hotel penned in.

  “Call me ‘Dorothy.’ You’re staying at the Waldorf. Makes us neighbors, sort of.”

  “Cock a hoop!” he replied, and I hoped that meant that he was pleased, but I couldn’t be sure he hadn’t just insulted me.