by Rex Baron
“Ask Mr. Montague down here from the office will you,” the costumer shouted up to one of the stagehands. “I can't have people telling me, at this point, that they won't wear the clothes I've made. All the material that was ordered has been used up, and I'm not about to start again.”
“I'm sorry,” Lucy stated emphatically. “I know these costumes are patterned after the original Bayreuth production, but that was nearly fifty years ago, and those costumes were designed to be carried by much larger women.
“It's not my fault if Mr. Montague insists on hiring insubstantial singers,” the costumer muttered as he stormed off the stage.
Lucy was annoyed. She hated being put in the position of a demanding Diva, yet the price of being burdened with dozens of yards of blue brocade fitted to a heavy breastplate was a humiliation she was not willing to endure simply for the sake of appearing accommodating. She frowned at the tin-plated headdress that would take a neck the circumference of a tree trunk to support.
She hated that David would be called to mediate, and although he was scrupulous about every detail of one of his operas, she knew that the consultation was strictly for the benefit of the costumer and that David would not fight her on this.
At center stage, she watched the technicians raise the wall of the great pyramid into position as two others, clinging precariously to the catwalks above, artfully arranged the gauze scrims that would be lowered to create the twilight sky.
Strange, she thought, how the play of light along a painted surface could fool the eye into believing in a two-dimensional world, and conjure in the mind some vision of a time and place one had never experienced. Was it truly an illusion, or was one merely remembering something that the mind and many lifetimes had veiled and faded into little more than an unsettling sense of déjà vu? Must one have been at the bottom of the ocean to judge whether a representation of it is faithful; must one have walked the windswept parapets of a forlorn fortress to acknowledge the correctness of its representation in paint?
The orchestra players began to trickle in, tuning their instruments in violent discord until the conductor appeared and tapped his baton to signify the beginning of rehearsal.
He led them through the overture as the entire company gathered on stage for the choral blocking.
Lucy waited for her cue to sing. As she lifted her arms, miming the weight of the chains that would bind her wrists, David came down the aisle with another man and took a seat a few rows from the stage. They were just beyond the lights, making it difficult for Lucy to make out who might be with her impresario. She wafted through her Aria while the entire company stood transfixed. Even the costumer stood in the wings, holding the questionable costume to his chest, enchanted by her voice.
Lucy finished at the top of a stairway that led to the crown of the great pyramid. She had mournfully dragged herself up, step by step, suffering the ignominy of a slave. She was touching and valiant and exquisite.
These were the words that David's companion had used to describe the young singer.
“She is even lovelier than in her photographs,” he whispered. “I must meet her.”
“Now Paulo, be patient. You've come all the way across the country, four days on the train just for this moment. What difference will a few more seconds make?”
The young man put his fingers to his lips, demanding silence until the Aria was finished.
The entire company applauded as the final note rang out.
“Come, my friend,” David laughed, “your moment has come. LUCY,” David's voice called out over the shuffling on stage. “Can you come down here for a moment? I have someone I'd like you to meet.”
Lucy walked to the edge of the stage and squinted into the lights. David and his companion rose to their feet.
“A most unattractive facial expression, my dear,” David called out. “Unfortunate timing as well. We wouldn't want that lovely face of yours all screwed up, out of shape, just when you meet the most talked about young actor in the moving picture business. He's come all the way from California to honor us with a visit. Hurry down here. I want you to meet Paulo Cordoba.”
Lucy moistened her lips and descended the makeshift plank that led over the orchestra pit out into the audience. She ran her fingers through her cropped hair and deposited herself in front of David and the young visitor with as much poise as possible.
He was exactly the sort that Lucy would have expected to be in moving picture plays. It was as if the climatic influences and constant nurturing sun of Portugal, Spain and Italy had contributed in producing a strain of beautiful, flashing-eyed, dark-skinned males, tailor-made for the new pictures business.
She did not know him, and yet, his closeness made her uneasy. Her eyes fixed on his mouth and the dazzling white teeth that took every opportunity to present themselves in a luscious smile. She did not hear the words of introduction that David spoke or her own reply.
For some curious reason, all she could think of at that moment was the blue linen envelope that had arrived that morning from the Prince. He had entreated her, yet another time, to return to Germany and his friendship. He had offered to arrange a season at the Berlin Opera that would feature her in the greatest roles. He spoke of his loneliness with his wife and begged Lucy for her companionship.
It is impossible, she thought. There is no hope of divorce, no inkling of acceptance. There could be no future in it for her.
David's voice broke through her pondering, bringing the stranger's face into focus again.
“Paulo has invited us to view one of his moving picture plays tonight. He has one, intriguingly enough called The Consequence of Love.”
David cleared his throat, signaling a subtle mockery at the quaintness of the idea.
“It's very moralistic,” Paulo hastened to add, “not at all vulgar.”
Lucy smiled. It was a word she had heard on Celia's lips only that morning.
“It portrays a young, innocent woman who has made a grave mistake in her life. The picture shows how the power of love can save her from it.”
Lucy searched his face for some evidence of whether he embraced this simplicity as his own philosophy or was merely outlining the plot of a photoplay targeted at an audience that wholly endorsed such naive notions.
“Do you believe that love can do all that?” she asked flatly.
“I believe that love is a powerful thing,” he nodded. “It can redeem and it can also destroy. It is our choice how we use it.”
“Yes, but is one always in the position to choose?” Lucy asked.
“An interesting question, and one that I'm sure can be pursued at length later,” David broke in. “I must say, I compliment you for not wasting time in finding a topic that interests you both equally. Celia and I didn't even broach the subject of love until two years into our marriage... ah, kudos to a younger and more impetuous generation.”
“You will come then?” Paulo asked eagerly, directing the question at Lucy.
CHAPTER SIX
1921 New York, Fourteenth Street
The empty theater on Fourteenth Street was cheerless and dark as the car pulled up outside. Lucy drew back the drapery at the window of the touring vehicle and surveyed the dinginess with a slight chill.
It had been one of the licensed theaters a decade or so ago, before Broadway had taken the lights and breath away from it, leaving the gilded remains to decay like the skeletons of Spanish galleons lost at the bottom of the sea. The marquee, which had once been Ising glass, suspended in an intricate iron frame, now had bits of wood unconvincingly painted to replace the broken glass, and the facade, once even and symmetrical, was now damaged and out of balance. Lucy sighed. David patted her hand.
“Gruesome isn't it? There is nothing more depressing than faded grandeur, hopefully something that neither you nor I shall live to bemoan. Now cheer up, we did promise after all. You know, I'm beginning to have more respect for Celia's good judgment in not com
ing,” David said with a cynical little smirk.
“Where is Mr. Cordoba?” Lucy asked. “Perhaps there is some mistake.”
“Don't look so unnerved dear girl. It's the right address, and I'm here with you. ‘Shall I believe that unsubstantial death is amorous, and lures thee here in dark to be his paramour? For fear of that, I will stay with thee. Here, here will I remain with worms that are thy chambermaids’... oh, here he comes now.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet... love.” David said with a sigh. “Depressing places bring out morbid themes I suppose.”
Paulo's luscious smile appeared at the window.
“I am sorry,” he said. “This was the only theater that I could rent on such short notice. I hope you don't mind.”
By the time they reached the lobby, it was apparent that no one else was meant to attend the viewing of Paulo's picture. This, evidently, was part of the surprise.
Lucy smiled and remarked that she found it wonderfully extravagant to have the entire theater to oneself. But secretly, she was disappointed that the image she had built in her mind of a gala event, in the style that only the picture people could create, had been reduced to three solitary people surrounded by dozens of rows of mildewed seats in a tumbledown theater, in an unsavory part of town. She, like David, almost envied Celia her evening of sulking alone at home.
But Paulo did interest her. Life for her had been about learning to sing. She had studied and traveled, but she knew very little about this sort of man. He was what others imitated and envied, much as they imitated and envied her, but he seemed so easy and unaware, as if the price he paid for his celebrity had been so small it had escaped his notice altogether.
This would be the perfect opportunity to sit cordially in the dark and study him. He seemed so simple and good-natured that she truly wanted to be able to admire his work. She stole a glance at his fine profile and broad shoulders as he introduced the members of the quintet, which had been engaged to provide music for the filmed play.
Paulo waved his hand over his head as a signal to the invisible projectionist, who sat in his fortress high overhead at the back of the theater. The lights were dimmed to a deep twilight and the projector's mechanical clatter stirred the stale air around them, piercing the heavy darkness with a single beam of light. As the violins began to play, an image of a girl appeared on the white screen in front of them. It was a grown woman, but dressed as a child with long curls down her back and a black waxy little doll's mouth painted where her lips should be. She danced about a barnyard, feeding chickens with grain from her apron. Little square teeth, in a ghoulish smile, poked their way out from behind the black lips, as the strange child wagged her finger to scold a mongrel dog.
Lucy caught a glimpse of the horrified amusement on David's face. She would have laughed aloud, had she not seen Paulo staring at the screen transfixed, a look of earnest delight in his eyes.
The quintet struggled with something by Brahms, then a bit of Schubert, blended together to enhance the foolishness of the girl's exaggerated movements.
As the story unfolded, the girl, trapped by a villainous lover, tossed her head mournfully and rolled her eyes like one possessed, running from one end of the screen to the other, as if trying to escape her fate on foot.
It was not until the second reel of the film that Paulo made his appearance. Lucy was stunned. There on the screen was the face from her dream, transformed into silvery light and shadow. His heavily outlined eyes smoldered. The luscious smile was now cruel and exciting. Suddenly, his real presence next to her was overwhelming. She could not take her eyes from the screen to face him in the dark, and yet, she knew that his eyes never left her. She could feel them caressing her, tangibly passing over her body like the hands of a lover, exploring her flesh with tenuous but unrestricted pleasure.
On the way to Luchow's on Fourteenth Street, David reassured Paulo, somewhat insincerely, that he had truly enjoyed the picture play and would certainly have stayed to see another if only the dinner reservations had permitted it. He had set the dinner for precisely ten o'clock, and had told his two young friends that he had selected Luchow's because of the sentimental attachment he had made in the early days of his life in the theater, when this section of Fourteenth Street rang with the music and laughter that had now moved up and across town to Broadway. It was one of the great Biergarten restaurants during the cheerful days of the previous century. With its dark wooden paneled walls, broken up into discreet little private booths, it had sheltered the romantic exploits of the dandies of the day as they attempted to win the hearts of the Flora Dora girls and members of the Gilbert and Sullivan chorus. David had promised that out back, paper Japanese lanterns still draped themselves in careful order, illuminating an intimate garden of tables set for two in soft, flattering, yellow light.
When they walked through the oval glass doors, engraved with an elegant ‘L’ on each, it was as if the press had been alerted in advance. Cameras covered their every angle and admirers hesitated between Lucy and Paulo, trying to decide which autograph to choose, until David insisted that they be taken to the privacy of a compartment in the back.
Lucy signed her name on a napkin and handed it back to the eager young woman who had scurried up next to her demanding a token.
“I'll never get used to being overwhelmed by strangers,” Lucy said, shuddering, as if shaking off a chill.
“A small price to pay for being at the top of the heap,” David reminded her.
“I don't mind so much,” Paulo added. “It pleases me that people want to know me.”
“It's just when so many people want to know you at once...” Lucy started, as she settled into the cozy wooden booth and let her crushed velvet coat drop from her shoulders.
Lucy listened as David explained how ardently Paulo had urged him to arrange the meeting with her. But she could not help notice that he seemed almost crestfallen at being pulled away from the photographers and was distracted by the adoring fans who sat only inches away on the other side of the partition.
David ran the tip of his finger around the edge of a water glass, producing an irritating low sound.
“You had something to do with this... all this commotion and the photographers, didn't you David?” Lucy asked, her face brightening.
“Well, I won't say that I did directly, but a few of those pictures in the paper couldn't hurt any of us,” David answered, touching his finger thoughtfully to the side of his nose.
“You arranged all these people?” Paulo asked.
“I can't take credit for being that clever. I had heard that the Dolly Sisters were coming here for dinner after their show at the Palladium, and I thought if we got here first, we might take advantage of the set up. It's disreputable I know, but an opportunity that I would be mad to pass up.”
“You never cease to surprise me.” Lucy shook her head in dubious admiration.
Suddenly, the round little face of a waiter appeared at the entrance to the compartment and informed David that he was wanted on the telephone. David shot a wink to Paulo as he slid out of the booth.
“Take good care of our Lucy until I get back,” he said slyly.
“Your moving picture plays are wonderful,” Lucy said, trying to avoid the young man's intense green eyes. “It's no surprise you are the toast of the picture business.”
“You could be too,” he answered with enthusiasm. “The people would be mad for you in the moving pictures. You would be famous overnight.”
“I thought I was already famous,” Lucy answered with a wry smile.
Paulo's eyes widened with alarm. He grabbed her hand from the table and pressed it to his lips.
“Forgive me dearest Miss,” he said softly. “I am a great fool. It is only that it would please me so much to see you a part of my world, because I could never aspire to even the lowest position in yours.”
Lucy giggled.
> “Surely you didn't really come all the way across the continent on a train, just because you saw my face on an advertisement for throat spray, did you?”
“For you, I did.”
He answered with a blank sincerity that not only amused her, but moved her as well. He was totally unlike the Prince and all the other men she had known, who were craftsmen with words, painting pictures with them, which, in spite of all their beauty, remained lifeless. This simple man, with all his dark intensity, brought forth his words painfully, but each one possessed a life that had its own soul. He continued to speak candidly of his feelings for her, and she found herself carried along by his passion.
He had a simple and profound belief in what he wanted and he expressed it, not only with halting words, but in his face and with his physical presence. He was elaborate and dramatic in his protestations of infatuation, moving and gesturing, insinuating with his body as she had seen him do on screen.
Lucy suddenly realized that he was acting, hoping to have the same enchanting effect on her that he knew he had on thousands of adoring women.
He told a tale of an impoverished childhood, of a family, an endless collection of names, sisters, relatives and rivaling brothers, who longed to come to America to follow in his footsteps. He had been the clever one, who attached himself to someone in the grape jelly business and was brought to New Jersey to supervise a cannery. He had been poor. He had suffered. He had been unloved. He stumbled on and on over his story as painfully as if he were treading it without shoes.
Lucy wondered how much of it had been invented for her benefit, and how much of it had been tested countless times on young actresses, with kohl painted around their eyes and long curls down their backs. Still, she found herself stroking the soft tan of his face with her gloved hand.
“My poor clever boy,” she heard herself say aloud.
His lips found their way to the palm of her hand, but she pulled it free and threw back her head in a breathless laugh of amusement. “You are mad,” she said. “I can see that you take your work very seriously.”