by Adam Braver
Edison laughed.
She reached over and took his hand. There was nothing sensual or maternal in the touch. Two comrades falling through space, holding on boldly and passionately to make the landing more graceful. Edison squeezed her hand. And for a moment, that flesh and bones coupler of interlaced fingers was all that ground them to the earth. In a workshop in New Jersey. Where genius flowed so discreetly. Two wayward stars looking for a galaxy.
They did not leave the lab for another hour. Edison talked about how he always imagined the rhythm and structure of Shakespeare’s poetry with each invention that he was working on, knowing that the same balance and science of intricacy could be applied to both, while Sarah laughed and slapped the table, exclaiming at the irony that she only saw the fineness of invention in her art (and also mentioned that recently she had become intrigued by sculpting in order to be able to touch and feel the art). And where candles would have dimmed to suggest the passing of the hours, the electric lights burned bright and timeless.
When they finally got back to the house at half past two, Max and Edison’s wife were left sitting alone together, facing each other in sleepy silence, each with their own aggravations. Mary Edison’s fiery jealousy could be witnessed by her refusal to make eye contact with her husband. Her resentfulness was not rooted in the fear of infidelity, but in the betrayal of her husband’s isolated and private world, which she had ascribed to his genius. In fact, jealous may not have been the right word; instead maybe it was shock. The shock of discovering that her Thomas’s insular world was penetrable—just not by her.
And poor Molly. He was twisted and contorted in his chair, arms folded against his chest, his legs crossed tightly and kicked under the seat, as though closing himself off from any intimate conversation that might accidentally come his way in the deep and silent night. His greeting was one of relief and of frightened disappointment. In fact, he had whispered in her ear in French something to the effect that he was worried that she was going to leave him here all night drowning in dilettante discourse. Mary Edison offered a cordial but not forthright invitation to stay in the guest room, but the waiting coach (which was on the clock that only got punched in New York) was the saving excuse. They parted quickly. Standing on the porch under a light snowfall that diamond sparkled in the lamplight, each offered cultured graciousness in their farewells. Sarah forgot to thank her host formally for such an inspiring and magical evening. As she stepped off the porch, Edison ran after her, slipping on the last step and gripping the banister for balance. Mary Edison looked away. Max Klein hustled into the carriage (“we will be lucky to get back to the Albemarle Hotel by four A.M.,” he grumbled, “and then we’re sure to be a wreck for Boston”). Edison grabbed onto Sarah’s arm. He forgot to make the recording, he had said. She thought she would cry.
The next afternoon’s dailies hardly reported on it.
No conflict. No drama.
No drama. No news.
The hotel waiter served Sarah’s plate over her right shoulder, and then followed with Max’s. Abbot Kinney broke the conversation to say, “Thank you, Anthony,” before returning his attention to Max’s authoritative yet lacking dissertation on the science of the lime light. Sarah leaned over to paddle the eggs’ rising steam toward her. She took in the buttered perfume and let it awaken her stomach, allowing the steam to wash over her face. She barely heard Kinney when he asked, “Much more satisfactory now, Madame?”
She looked over at him without raising her head, and in her most rehearsed role of gentility and public manners, she told him that they were parfait.
“And by the way,” Kinney added, “I have spoken with some of my press contacts and it appears that this immoral business from those loudmouth Catholics will not have any effect on the box office here. Ticket sales are brisk.”
She blew delicately over her fork, watching the heat disappear. “That is good news.” She took the first bite, feeling the comfort and satisfaction of eggs properly cooked.
“We were really not worried on that account,” Max added. “I would say that nearly every tour that we have been on in the United States has seen some group that has cried out that Madame Bernhardt is immoral. In fact, we might even start to question ourselves if we didn’t hear that. We certainly plan it into our publicity budget. Right, Madame?”
“The American free press. Can’t take sides. Standing on the high wire of objectivity,” she said.
“Well,” Kinney stated, “I would suspect that we have benefited more than the bishop on this one.”
“The bishop,” she muttered. “The bishop…Do you know the expression ‘stage business,’ Monsieur Kinney?”
“I confess my lack of theater knowledge.”
“An actor conveys her meaning in two ways: one, by the way she delivers her lines, and two, by the small unscripted things that she does with her body. The way she fiddles with her hands. Or how she picks things up and puts them down again. Or the way she blows smoke rings. The combination of little gestures tells the audience so much about the character—often by contradiction, or sometimes by reinforcement.”
“Madame,” Max tried to cut her off.
“I have been asking Max this very question.” She turned to her manager: “You must be so tired of hearing it.” Then she focused back on Kinney. “What do you think this bishop was doing when he spoke to the press? They are always the contradiction, those of the higher order. They speak the words so eloquently and piously from the script, often with a curse of virtuous indignation thrown in for emphasis. But the little things they do tell you the real truth about them. What do you imagine this Bishop Conaty was doing with his hands?”
“I wouldn’t know,” Kinney replied, clearly enjoying the revival of the younger Sarah.
“He probably kept a hand innocently rested on his robe. And each time he talked with more passion, I will bet that he tickled his crotch. Talking of decency while actively pursuing his own indecency, thereby fueling the passion for his hatred of me. People like me just reinforce his shame.”
Max cut her off. “As I said, this is all in typical fashion. A little jousting match to try to draw attention. Only Madame is evidently much more skilled than any of her adversaries.”
Max was really starting to sound idiotic right now. In his effort to keep from being upstaged by Kinney, he was starting to turn into Kinney, all brash and strutting, telling war stories to build his character. And while it was true that they had dealt with this shit throughout her career, it was also true that those kooks had never been able to claim success before. But now they had kept her from playing in Los Angeles. Successfully exiled her from maybe the second greatest theater town in the States. Booted her hapless ass out to circus town. And while Max was prattling on with his own version of reality he had also forgotten that his center stage diva was a lot older now. He still lived the illusion of the impudent Sarah. When they decried her as ghoulish, she had had Max arrange to have Nadar take publicity photos of her in a coffin. If they said she conveyed debauchery, well next time she would lower her neckline a little. But people had grown immune to the vitriol, they hardly noticed that her brazenness had started to retreat now that she was older. They didn’t even talk about it anymore, and if they did it was in this same tone of bravado defiance that Max was adopting and that Kinney was loving. It is no wonder she found herself craving opium. Even at this early hour.
As they sat making plans for when the company arrived, Kinney and Max started looking like a couple to her, only she wasn’t sure if Kinney was starting to look like a full-on queer, or if Max was butching himself into a full-blown Max. Either way she needed to remind herself to talk to him about that ass that he was making of himself. She listened for a few minutes to their detailed logistics, and then took another bite. She closed her eyes and let the ghost steam rise over to seal them shut. If she couldn’t see it then it wasn’t there.
FAY HAD LEFT WITH VINCE BAKER in the morning. Walked out the front door by his side
and kissed him good-bye on his goddamned porch steps. Unbelievable. She actually had had the gall to get out of bed and play house. After she cleaned up some of the dishes to make some room on the kitchen counter, she had managed to take his lone egg and three pieces of bread and stretch them into a minimal breakfast for two. Covered in his white terry robe for privacy, Baker could barely eat. Fay was watching him. She had had that falling look in her eye. The dreamy one. The princess in the castle who had been kissed by prince charming, thereby releasing the broad and tramp in her out into the night. Some castle. And some princess. She had a sweet face and all, good size hips with a pair of legs to dream about, but let’s face it, she and he had spent most of their night smashed on booze and hope, and for the better part of the evening they had hardly been two compassionate loving human beings bent on connection, but rather lonely hollow frames commanded by the crap they had ingested to hold each other in order to pass the night. Love and commitment were not exactly part of the arrangement.
Baker started to head into the office, but the truth was he didn’t really care anymore about the fucking Herald and Los Angeles water-money politics or hearing about his phantom Sarah Bernhardt story. What he really cared about was getting a real amount of food and coffee into his system so he could feel partway normal and relieve the buzzing in his head.
Out on the sidewalk, the salty air made its way through the city streets and bent the tops of the palms so forcefully that it seemed they might break in their fragility. And while Baker usually would head downtown to C. C. Brown’s and sit at the counter leaned over old-man style and inhaling the steam of the coffee, trying not to be blinded by the shining white tile floors, he couldn’t go there because Fay had taken the morning shift, and if he walked back in she would surely think he was riding in with the stinking glass slipper nestled somewhere between his crotch and his heart. Damn if she had to be working last night. A little self-control can go a long way—especially when taking the long run into account. Now C. C. Brown’s had to be placed on hiatus until the blood and pheromones cooled down. The typical strategy of avoidance would have to be employed until Fay’s romance turned to anger, then to disappointment. Then he could show up again and feign being the object of her pity for men.
He paced the sidewalk. Trying to figure out where he could go for food, safe from women, and safe from politicos. Once his belly was full, then he would try to figure out how he was going to ram his fist right up Graham Scott’s ass and get back onto the water wars. His story would not be blown by the screwups of the Herald newsroom and their idiocies at the Vienna Buffet over a year ago. The real issue at hand was the corporate barons standing to make a fortune over control of the valley’s water supply. But then maybe that is what the Mahogany Row boys were afraid of. Don’t want to bite off the hand that may feed you. Fear is a newspaperman’s poison pill. And the entire goddamn newsroom was popping them like candy. They ought to have their own Hippocratic oath about keeping their constituents free from harm and injustice, and not hide their heads between their legs at the first sign of trouble or questioned advertisers’ dollars. One would think there was some accountability to truth and justice in this business.
He’d straighten all this out.
If he ever got his strength back.
ABBOT KINNEY’S Chautauqua Theater. The name and its namesake both filled suddenly with life. Kinney stood near the entrance to the floor proudly watching Sarah Bernhardt’s company disperse throughout the auditorium. They were like a tactical unit. Specially trained and skilled in their purpose and mission. And though few at first sight had the grace and sophistication of their leader (upon arrival they looked like ragamuffin clowns, with their tousled hair and oversize, rumpled clothes featuring a combination of patterns and bright colors that brought Kinney back to his European days), once they assumed their posts, huddled in their conferences, and began orienting for the various tasks, they looked as proficient as any successful professionals.
He watched Madame Bernhardt skulking by the front of the house, her expression bored and defiant. Pacing sternly along the right side of the stage, then stopping to lean back and drift her stare vacantly to the rafters. Occasionally one of the clowny stagehands would approach her in obvious nervousness, standing patiently to ask her opinion. Bernhardt would listen with her chin held up properly, punctuating her attention with a slight but mannered nod. And she never once looked directly at the stagehand. Her eyes remained focused on the ceiling, except for when she drew them down to emphasize disapproval or surprise. This time, as with the others, she threw her hands up in the air and turned her head in a cliché of French disgust. The stagehand walked away when her arms finally lowered, and she began pacing again, fidgeting her fingers at her side. And though Kinney was suspect of her ability to manage her life at any higher degree than that of a blind, flatulent lapdog, he could not deny the power of her luminescence as it filled the room—even in such a moment of ordinariness.
Max Klein walked up to Kinney. “It is amazing, isn’t it? How the hands of men can transform an empty room into a breathing village so easily.”
Kinney nodded. “Is Madame Bernhardt upset?” he asked. Klein seemed barely capable of maintaining her. From where Kinney stood, it seemed like the diva walked right over her manager day and night. It’s a wonder Max Klein never went the other way and ended up married, for how much he appeared to like to be stepped on by women.
“Why would you ask?”
“You are making sure she is content, right? I would just like everything to run smoothly from this point on. Although I don’t think a little public outburst now and again regarding the bishop would be the worst thing to happen to us. But let’s make sure that we plan for it. No more chances with the press.”
“I will make sure to relay that to her…Is her car parked along the pier?”
“I saw it myself.”
“It is good for occasions of momentary solace. Sometimes even the sun needs to hide behind the clouds for a while.”
“Well, I look forward to seeing her shine.”
“You will soon see Sarah’s brilliance. There are just some technical difficulties to be determined. Differences of opinions, you know.”
“Is it the hall?”
“It is more a matter of having an empty hall. It leaves more room for discussion.”
“The auditorium is fine, I hope?” Kinney asked.
“The auditorium is fine.”
“And Madame Bernhardt?”
“I have told you—she too is fine.”
Kinney said he was glad to hear it. Since the episode on the pier he had had a needles-and-pins stomach about this performance. He really did not have any secrets, nothing to hide about his business dealings and such, in fact he had made the point with all his accountants that every transaction and deal that had been made to bring Venice of America to life should be free and clear of malfeasance. He had worked hard to keep a clean reputation, limiting his newspaper contacts to benign press releases and general statements. So far there had been very little interest in Venice, but he knew they were waiting. Newsmen like Vince Baker, who made a career out of making the major players sweat. In fact, when Kinney had seen him the other day during the fishing fiasco, he felt sure that Baker would churn that drama into something that somehow implicated Venice of America. He just wanted to keep reporters like that away and control the news of Venice himself by feeding anecdotes to the entertainment guys. Bernhardt was a risk. He knew that. She had a reputation for speaking out or doing crazy things, so maybe that pier incident should not have come as too big a surprise (although her reputation clearly had the potential to be an asset). He just had to keep a sharper eye on things. It was a gamble he needed to take. How else could he get a star of her caliber to his place? Against his better instinct, he was willing to trust Max Klein’s ability to hold the reins. But one slipup and Kinney was taking control of the whole production, and don’t think for one moment that he was afraid of the reputation
and brilliance of Sarah Bernhardt. The only thing that scared him was the newspapers. Not Sarah Bernhardt. Not the Catholics. Just guys like Vince Baker. Just the gutter press.
It could cost him a king’s ransom to make sure the story was set straight.
SHE LEANED AGAINST THE STAGE, feeling the ridged edge of the floor cut against the back of her neck. A big empty house, almost tomblike. She might have been anywhere. Standing in the middle of a blank canvas while the artist mixed the colors to paint the scene. It doesn’t take too long to find out that no matter how expansive and different the world, a theater stripped of life is the same everywhere. This was the lull that she detested most. The point before the stage takes form. When everybody is running around confused, as if they have never done this before, and absolutely convinced that nothing is going to work. Then they scream at one another for a while before cowering down to her to adjudicate the matter, only to have her render the same judgment: “Isn’t this what I pay you for?”
She might have gone over the top with Alexandre. It is simply amazing how quickly even the most self-assured can regress into the common insecurities that overtake the room. As lead carpenter, Alexandre had constructed this set at least a thousand times now. Today he was compelled to doom. Nothing was going to work. “I don’t think we can have the set done in time. The impossibilities are too large,” he lamented in that hollow refrain of the amateur. Per usual, Sarah was forced to turn into mother (it didn’t work out well once in its organic biological state, why would it work in this removed case?), and she had to have him explain the problem, thereby reducing the panic to levelheaded planning. “Tell me from start to finish,” she had said to Alexandre, as her eyes drifted around the large hall.
“This theater is not proper for a production of this level of intimacy,” he said. Nodding his head. Waiting for her reply.
“I do not know what you mean,” she said. “Intimate?”
“This set is designed to be personal. As though the audience was peering through the windows of 9, rue d’Antin. But look at the size of this room.” He swept his hand in a dramatic gesture. “It is as if they are looking in from the neighboring rooftop. As though we are turning the audience from members of the cast to simple gawkers. And that is not what you wanted. From the start that is not what you have wanted.”