Chosen for Power

by Rex Baron

  “And do you like him?” Lucy asked.

  “Oh yes, but we are not friends.”

  “But I thought you said you liked him. I know he likes you very much,” Lucy offered.

  “Yes, yes that is true, but we are not the same. It is said that my profession, the moving pictures, is made from carnival performers, thieves, prostitutes and worse. I am an immigrant who worked in a jelly factory. David knows nothing of these things. He has fine manners and schooling. I have learned much, but we are not the same. I am like the prize horse, but David is the owner of the stable. He will pat my head, as long as I am strong and win the race, but I do not fool myself that we are equal. There is an easy friendliness between him and people like me, but only because I am popular, only because my name appears in the paper. That is why I do not mind whatever the papers say about me... or us.”

  Lucy thought for a moment about her friendship with David. Perhaps what Paulo said could be true of Celia, who seemed to tolerate her presence in the apartment, but never of David, who truly appreciated her talents and cared for her as a friend.

  Paulo's mouth twisted into that faint sneer that had so taken her attention when she had first seen it in her dream.

  “Do you mind what they are saying about us?” he asked.

  She did not look up from the intricate pattern of horses’ hooves embossed into the muddy surface of the trail.

  Suddenly, he was kneeling next to her. She could see the cloth from his trouser leg sink slightly into the damp earth.

  How odd that a gesture like this, intended for dramatic effect, consciously executed to infuse passion and romance into a moment, would be viewed from so lowly a position. He was making love to her, or about to begin the screen version of a romantic assault on her, yet, she could only be aware of the mundanity of mud on his breeches. He spoke of passion to her, not clever words, but in a gesture meant to carry the meaning of his intent as it did so handsomely all the way to the last row of any darkened theater. She felt the heat from his hand, caught the fragrance of his breath, the dark, unmistakable smell of a man's body. She turned her face toward his and let the kiss happen.

  “I had dared hope that what the reporters were saying was true,” he whispered, his lips touching her ear. “I want it to be true from this moment.”

  She kissed him again to make him stop talking. Words of love were absurd. She did not know how to be in love with this man. He knew nothing of her music or her life. But the living image of the silvery idol came closer, spreading a burn into her throat with his dark lips, like an incubus that comes in the night and breathes the vapor of forbidden knowledge, of pleasure, into the blood of the unsuspecting.

  •••

  The telephone rang. Celia placed the receiver next to her ear to hear Lucy's excited voice on the line.

  “Celia is that you? I have wonderful news. I've decided to go to California, to act in the moving pictures. Of course, I wanted to tell David immediately of my decision. Don't you find it exciting?”

  Celia recognized that there was no real question to be answered.

  “I suppose that this sudden decision has something to do with your new friend Mr. Cordoba?”

  Lucy was annoyed by the reproachful tone of her reply.

  “I just wanted David to know so that I might get away as soon as this opera closes. I'm told that in California there is sunshine all year round, and they can make pictures regardless of the season.”

  Celia heard only every other word as the line hissed and popped.

  “Where are you calling from?” she shouted into the telephone.

  “Connecticut. Paulo and I have come up for the afternoon. I'll be home by the last train. I'll tell you about it then.”

  “Yes, but what shall I tell David? Are you wandering halfway around the world on an adventure or are you making a specific picture?”

  “I'm already halfway around the world from Germany, what difference does one more continent make. I'll tell you about it when I get back. Don't wait for me for dinner. I'm more than content to stay where I am for a while.”

  Celia heard the earpiece click, then go dead. She replaced it in its cradle and picked up her needlepoint.

  “It's all a bit too much,” she muttered to herself. “Who ever heard of spending the afternoon in Connecticut.”

  Lucy arrived late in the evening. She had expected an ominous, fatherly David, determined to dissuade her from her folly, but instead, he sat in his reading chair and listened while she explained the deal that Paulo had helped her make with Jesse Lasky of Lasky Famous Players in California.

  She was required to make three pictures based on famous operas within a period of eleven weeks. She would be paid one dollar for every hour of sunlight that she remained in California, and two dollars for every hour that she posed for the filming. The contract also included a villa in the hills, equipped with full staff, a chauffeur and touring car, and her own railway car for the trip west, with space to accommodate an entourage of hairdressers, maids, vocal coaches and even her own custom-built piano. Lucy insisted that David, and of course Celia, be among those making the trip West.

  David rubbed his finger along the side of his nose.

  “I'd say you negotiated brilliantly. The next time we spar for a new opera contract, I'll be careful to keep my wits about me, or you'll have me working for you.”

  “It seems a little ridiculous to want to film an opera singer when these pictures have no sound. They might just as well use a picture actress to play the part,” Celia broke in.

  “That's just it, my dear,” David corrected her. “That's just the point. Lucy is not just another actress, she’s a world-renowned singer. People demand to see her and meet her.”

  “Paulo Cordoba wanting to meet her certainly didn't hurt,” Celia remarked coldly, piercing the cloth frame of her work with her needle.

  “Celia disapproves.” Lucy looked toward David for a reaction.

  “Celia does not understand the effects this will have on the theater. If you appear in these three moving pictures, I'll lay a wager that next season the opera will be packed in a way we've never seen before.”

  “What about the exclusivity of the opera. Aren't you afraid of losing that?” Celia asked, annoyed that she was losing ground in the conversation.

  “It's not the exclusivity of the opera that concerns me, it's the popularity,” David reminded her. “Why should we set ourselves up to compete with these moving pictures. Although they have no real value and will remain mute forever, they have a vulgar excitement in their immediacy. The public will never accept the noble and uplifting in place of the titillating... all that eagerness and emotion only a few feet away. No, Celia dear, I think we would be well advised to become part of this trend, as low as it is, and in return, we can lift it to a level that it never dared dream.”

  “Rubbish,” Celia muttered, breaking a piece of thread with her teeth.

  David took Lucy's hand in his and gave her an approving smile.

  “You will be the emissary of life to the dry and dusty places, like Saint Bernadette, bringing forth springs of healing waters to quench the parched palates of the Philistines.”

  “Don't be sacrilegious David,” Celia scolded.

  “Whose idea was the dollar an hour thing?” he asked, ignoring his wife's reproach, “A delicious bit of bargaining.”

  “It was Paulo's idea really,” Lucy admitted. “He made Mr. Lasky believe that I wouldn't think of setting foot in California unless he met that condition.”

  “I'd say your Mr. Cordoba is looking out for you handsomely.”

  “Then you will go to California with me?” Lucy asked with real excitement.

  “It sounds like a marvellous opportunity... and quite an adventure,” David said, as he slapped his knee in imitation of what he presumed to be a western gesture of excited compliance.

  Lucy turned her attention to Celia, who pretended to ignore the yo
unger woman’s unwavering gaze until, at last, she raised her eyes and twisted her mouth into a weak semblance of a smile. She rose from her chair and gave Lucy a peck on both cheeks, forgiving her for her rashness in jumping into all this.

  “I suppose I just don't have imagination like you both do,” she sighed.

  “That will certainly change,” David laughed. “All sorts of adventures will befall you on such a trip.” He assured his wife that she would blossom like a tropical flower amidst the glamour of the palms.

  Celia returned to her chair and recovered her needlework. She knotted her thread to finish her work and coolly informed her husband that she would not be accompanying him on the trip West.

  CHAPTER TEN

  1921 New York

  Reporters and photographers crowded the station platform, trying to shout above the sound of the steam coming from the underbody of the train. They peered into the train windows, making notes of every detail of the lavish interior.

  The private car had been outfitted with chrome and etched glass appointments, as well as walls covered in lavender brocade. The salon car carried a concert grand piano, suitably fastened to the floor, and sleeping compartments had been provided to accommodate an ample number of maids and guests as well as Lucy and the Montagues.

  David complained that the decor was somewhere between a cheap hotel room and a bordello. He said it was difficult to find a place to sit with a good cigar without having to be confronted by a purple pattern or a glass stag, which were etched into each of the compartment doors.

  Considerable coaxing and a wardrobe of summer clothes was the price of Celia's company. David had decided it would be better to have her along than sulking at home, getting into things, and she had cheered herself up, despite the dreaded, steamy weather, by deciding that she could be useful and serve as a kind of chronicler of the trip. She had secret ambitions of selling her account to one of the ladies magazines upon their return, but she made no mention of this to David.

  Paulo had waited on the platform talking to members of the press, signing autographs for the schoolgirls who pushed each other forward through the crowd to meet him. He had lingered even after the porter's last call, when the train began to creep along. He had calculated it in his peripheral vision. He calmly signed one last autograph, handed back the book, then, reaching out with his free hand, caught the stairway handle of the already moving locomotive and swooped himself up onto the stairs in order to display for his fans and the cameras his dashing and athletic best.

  “Can I get you something?” Ellen Auriel, the little dresser asked.

  Lucy looked away from her own reflection in the train window. “No, thank you Ellen. I'm just fine. I needed a little quiet after all the excitement.”

  The young woman turned to go, then stopped.

  “I just wanted to tell you how much I appreciate your taking me along on this trip. I've never been out of New York City.”

  “Yes, well it's not Europe, but perhaps this trip will serve as practice for the next one.”

  The young birdlike girl bobbed her head on her long neck and showed an awkward smile. “I'll leave you to get settled. Do let me know if you need anything,” she said.

  Lucy smiled and returned to her own face in the window. She heard Ellen close the door and listened to her footsteps echoing along the corridor, until they blended with the gentle clattering of the train wheels. She heard the sound of the piano from the next car and the voice of someone singing a popular tune, mingled with the laughter of friends.

  She thought of how happy she was, something that one often tells oneself, but almost never really experiences. She had everything she had ever wanted, even the silly and beautiful Paulo, who had made this glorious adventure possible.

  Ellen Auriel walked along the corridor of the moving train and stopped to ponder the exotic landscape as it passed by. She realized that to some, endless fields of corn and green meadows teeming with growing things would not be considered exotic. For her, it was the very first time she had seen such expansive landscapes that seemed to go on forever. As she had mentioned to Miss von Dorfen, she had never been out of New York City since the day she was born, and she felt, at this moment, strangely “newly baptized” as a citizen of the world instead of just a New Yorker. She knew that whatever happened, this trip would be an adventure... and a success, because it would undoubtedly afford her the opportunity to do some sketching, and perhaps even a watercolor or two.

  She could scarcely believe her good fortune. Only a month before, she had been walking the pavements of the city trying to find a position as either a dresser at the theater or, failing that, a lady’s maid. The employment agency had her listed in the category of ‘domestics’, which she feared would eliminate the possibility of working in the theater. But as luck would have it, just as she had become desperate and was about to consider a position as personal maid to a notoriously difficult, aging society matron, a girl she met at the Woolworths’s lunch counter told her about an opening for a dresser, needed for a visiting theatrical celebrity from Germany. She had undergone a single, terse little interview with the head wardrobe mistress at the theater and was hired on the spot, without even presenting references.

  And here she was, flying across the country on a fast-moving modern train, in the presence of wealthy and sophisticated people, far above her in social standing. She did not, however, feel uncomfortable in their company, because, in spite of the fact that her father had died of typhoid when she was very young, her mother had made certain that she and her sister had the best education they could, and had sent her off at age ten to work in the convent on Ninety-second street, washing and ironing in exchange for her education. She had not minded working for the nuns. After all, she had been born a Catholic and had been trained to believe that to be of assistance to the Sisters, in even the most menial way, was not only a welcome opportunity, but a blessing as well.

  It was there at the nunnery that Ellen had her first exposure to art and countless books, filled with stories of greatness and information that was sometimes excitingly mystical and arcane. There were titles like: “A Treatise on the Polarity of the Mind: A Study in Christian Dogma and Values” or “The Pagan Christ: Selling the Doctrine in the First Century.” But what she liked best were the many volumes that contained brilliant color reproductions of the great works of religious art, from all over the world. She came to know which painting or triptych or statue resided in which church, and was often called upon by the Sisters to remind them just where the piece they were discussing might be found.

  In time, through her reading and study, she had come to understand her religion from a different perspective than the one she had been taught as a child. She began to recognize the polarities of good and evil that were, of course, commonplace in the standard teaching, but were now taking on a new dimension. What the church had separated into light and dark, good and evil, suddenly opened out into a whole new understanding that the good and evil that was supposedly a choice was not just a simple decision of one over the other. It was, in fact, a continuum, along which every form of activity or feeling was contained... from all good, all the way to all bad... and everything in between.

  She began to be aware of physical energies that surrounded certain activities, like a dull buzzing sound that she had become aware of each time the presiding priest had broken the communion host wafer over the cup of Christ. She noticed that the sound continued as a hum and a vibration, radiating through her whole body, until well after the consecration had been completed. She had also noticed that during the evening vespers, as the nuns knelt in silent prayer, she was often aware of waves of coloured light radiating out from their heads and shoulders, and she learned to associate those hues of pale, forgiving blue and agitated pink with the personalities and the temperaments of some of the Sisters. She was secretly aware of an angry feud going on below the tranquil atmosphere or even of some sexual frustration that was only otherwise betra
yed by a fierce outbreak of eczema.

  As a result of her years at the convent, Ellen had not only learned to be of service with a light heart, but had seen the ways of energy and had learned the truth about her religion and the world. They were both a place of light and dark and good and evil, but there was so much more. She had learned to be an accurate judge of people... to read their motives and intentions and understand that, in spite of the protective presence of God, there were other forces afoot that one needed to learn to recognize, and that there was evil in the world that extended beyond the realm of mere choice. Evil was real... not as the devil or Satan, but as a dark energy that existed within all people. She had learned that, as the old saying goes, every man and woman has their price. Whether riches, true love, passion or survival... almost anyone would be willing to strike a bargain with the energies of darkness and sell their immortal Soul to have what they desired.

  Miss Auriel pulled herself away from her musings at the window and headed toward Lucy’s train compartment. She had much to do in order to prepare the young singer’s clothes and accessories for her first dinner on the train.

  Lucy sat in the club car, and, like Ellen, stared out the window, imagining what her life might be as a result of this fanciful adventure. She watched in anticipation as the grayness of the city gave way to the comforting greens of the forests and hillsides that led west. She also remembered that she was moving still further away from her friend and benefactor, Prince Henry. She felt the motion of the train, the passing of the miles, widening the space between her and her life in Germany.

  Her feelings had cooled toward the Prince, and she thought how old he was in relation to Paulo. What a sorry, ungrateful friend she was. And yet, it seemed she was always being asked to exchange one life for another, to become something better and more perfect. It was a renewing process, like animals and birds in nature, shedding their skins and plumage to give way to a new and improved self. Like a snake, she thought coldly.