by Susan Sontag
Maryna remained undisturbed with her glass of champagne a full quarter of an hour before a bearded giant in a red-checked shirt rose from one of the nearby tables and lurched toward her, bottle in one hand and a red geranium in the other, bawling “O Jewelie-ette, Jewelie-ette, wherefore art thou Jewelie-ette!” She looked about the room for Ryszard’s intervention, but a woman was right behind the intruder and already shooing him away with “Get along now, Nate. Don’t bother the lady. She’s worked hard too, and she has a right to sit here peaceable in my saloon and have a drink without bein’ pestered by her admirers.”
Her rescuer lingered next to the table. Fat, tightly corseted, beribboned, a little drunk, around forty-five or fifty, Maryna guessed. “I just want to tell you what an honor it is to have you in my saloon.” She smiled, and Maryna saw that she had once been very pretty. “I just can’t believe it’s you, sittin’ there. It’s like a queen came in here. A queen! Here in the Polka!”
“Which we dance in Poland,” said Maryna gaily.
“No kid?” said the woman. “And I thought it was a hundred percent American!” She paused. “You must want to be by yourself. I wouldn’t blame you. You must be surrounded by people all the time.”
“Do sit with me,” said Maryna. “My friends will be back in a moment.”
“May I?”—she sank into a chair—“May I? I won’t talk too much, I promise.” She gazed, awestruck, at Maryna. “I just have to tell you, you were so”—she sighed—“so wonderful last night. You know we get a lot of plays in Virginia and I always go when I can, I seen them all, almost, everyone comes here, even Booth, and I saw three of his Hamlets. And sometimes he’d stop by the Polka. Once he sat right at this table.”
“I’m pleased to be sitting at Mr. Booth’s table,” said Maryna, smiling.
“Right there where you’re sittin’. Very polite, no airs at all, but he seemed so sad. And he got drunk as a lord, though you’d never know it the next night. Well, he’s grand, I don’t say no, but I like actresses better, and you’re the best. You can really feel somethin’ when a woman suffers, at least that’s what I think. Take the one you just did, the French lady who has to drive the nice young fellow who really loves her away and pretend she doesn’t love him anymore, I can never say her name, it’s not the same as the play.”
“Marguerite Gautier.”
“That’s right. We’ve had a lot of Camilles, but you’re the best. I never cried so much at a Camille in my life.”
“It’s a splendid role for an actress,” said Maryna.
“And the way you do Juliet, that was wonderful, and the other one, I saw everything you did this week, the one about the French actress, what’s her name, you know.”
“Adrienne.”
“That’s it. You did it a whole lot better than that Italian who came here two years ago, I forget her name, and did it in Italian, but that didn’t bother me, when someone is good you understand the feelin’.”
“Adelaide Ristori.”
“That’s her. I like that play. But I like Camille the best.”
“Ah, that interests me very much,” said Maryna. “Could you tell me why you prefer Camille?”
“Because Juliet, she’s just a sweet young thing, and she should of been happy, and it had nothin’ to do with her, those families not gettin’ along. And the French actress, I forgot her name again…”
“Adrienne.”
“Right. She’s good, too. And it isn’t her fault that the man she loves has to be polite to that awful princess who goes ahead and poisons her. That’s just bad luck, if you know what I mean. But Camille, she’s more like real life. I mean, she hasn’t been so good, she isn’t innocent, how can she be, she’s been with a lot of men, so she’s kind of resigned, she doesn’t believe in love, why should she, after all she’s seen of men, and then she meets a man who’s really different, and she wants to change her life. But she can’t. They don’t let her. She’s got to be punished. She has to go back to bein’ what she was.” The woman started to cry.
“Here, Mrs.… Mrs.… I’m sorry, you didn’t tell me your name,” said Maryna, extending a handkerchief.
“Minnie,” said the woman. “How’d you know I was married?”
“I didn’t of course. I just assumed.”
“Well, you’re right. I am married.” She dabbed at her eyes. “But you know how it is.” She tilted her chair back unsteadily. “You don’t marry the man you love.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” said Maryna.
The woman signaled one of the waiters, who brought her a Sazerac. “I’ve gotten to like these fancy San Francisco drinks in my older years. When I was young, straight whiskey was good enough, bourbon, rye, corn, you name it. Somethin’ else for you? My barman makes a real good Brandy Smash.”
“Thank you, no. My friends will be back in a moment, and then I must leave.”
“I hope I’m not gettin’ out of my place. But you look like a woman I can confide in. You’re an actress, you understand everything…”
“Hardly.”
“Let me tell you why I said what I did, about marriage and all, it’s a good story at the beginnin’ though I don’t think you could make much of a play out of it, not with the way it ended.”
“I’m not looking for another role,” said Maryna gently. “But I’m happy to hear your story. I like stories.”
And Minnie began.
“It was twenty-five years ago, no, more … and I was livin’ in California, in Cloudy Mountain, I don’t know if you ever heard of it. There was this fellow who was after me, he was the sheriff, he was a big gambler too, but not a bad sort in his way, I could see that, and when he said he loved me, I knew he meant it, he wasn’t just tryin’ to get under my skirt. He’d keep sayin’, Marry me, Girl, marry me, that’s what he called me, Girl, and when I’d remind him that he had a wife back in New Orleans, he’d say that didn’t matter, ’cause I was the wife he wanted to have. And maybe you won’t believe it, lookin’ at me now, but I wasn’t badlookin’, and I was pure in my heart, I was still a young thing, even though I had this saloon where all the miners came, the Polka, I call all my saloons the Polka, and most of ’em treated me real respectful, like I was their little sister, even though some didn’t and there wasn’t much I could do about it, I mean they were good customers. But I didn’t like that part of the job, it got to makin’ me feel sad, though I didn’t let on, I was always singin’ and laughin’, and I was wonderin’ if there was any way out of that life, but there wasn’t. And then I thought, the sheriff’s not a bad sort, at least he loves me, and I was sort of considerin’ it, though I didn’t let on.
“And then I met this other fellow I really did take a shine to, he was so romantic, he told me I had the face of an angel, me who was keepin’ a saloon. But it was him that had the face of an angel, I never saw a man that looked like that. His face was all bony but smooth too, you wanted to touch his cheek, and he had a high forehead, and sometimes his hair fell into his eyes, big dark eyes with beautiful lashes, that got all crinkly when he smiled, it was a slow smile, real slow, that was like he was kissin’ you with his smile. Just to look at him, it went right through me and made me weak in the knees. Trouble was, he was a bandit, that was his life, I suppose he just fell into it, and then he was known for a bandit, and wanted for murder, so he felt he had to go on. While he was bein’ a bandit he was disguised as a Mexican, name of Ramerrez, ’cause everyone knows lots of Mexicans are bandits. But when he sneaked into Cloudy to court me he was got up as one of those high-toned shrimps from Sacramento and used his right name, Dick Johnson. And then he told me he was the one called Ramerrez everyone was after, but that since meetin’ me he didn’t want to be Ramerrez anymore, and he promised to reform, and I know he was sincere. And I talked to him too and told him all my secrets, and he listened, that was so nice, I never had that, someone you can talk to, someone you can turn your heart inside out to. I almost forgot who I was! And all this while, the sheriff was lo
okin’ high and low for Ramerrez, and nobody knew Ramerrez was really Dick. But the sheriff, Jack, he never missed a trick when it came to me. He saw I was gettin’ kinda interested in the fellow from Sacramento that he didn’t know was Ramerrez. Interested! I was crazy for him! And what woman, if she’s a real woman, doesn’t love a bandit more than a sheriff, you know that, you’re a woman, and you’re an actress so you can play all women, angels and sinners …
“And guess who I hitched myself to? That’s him over there by the strongbox with the six-shooter in his belt, we own this place together. The sheriff. But he gave that up, seein’ as there was more money to be made in saloons, and ten years later, when they found the Comstock Lode, we came here, ’cause you didn’t have to be real smart to see there’d be a lot of money to be made off thirsty silver miners comin’ off their shifts. But why did I settle for him, that’s what I ask myself, when I was so in love with Dick and had gotten up my courage and did go off with him, my head all full of dreams. We had to leave California, which I loved dearly, ’cause he was so wanted everywhere for murder, they would of hanged him if he got caught, and we came into Nevada, which wasn’t a state then or even a territory, as long as nobody knew what lay under this mountain the whole place was just a county in Utah, and we wandered around awhile with no money, gettin’ hungrier and hungrier. And then Dick went back to bein’ Ramerrez, and I got scared, thinkin’ of the life that was in front of me, always hidin’ and runnin’ and bein’ afraid, and I left him and went crawlin’ back to California, and Jack, he forgave me, and I saw he really did love me, ’cause he knew I’d never love him, not the way I loved Dick, and he still loved me, so that I had to think better of him, but that didn’t mean I had to marry him. But I did. First we was sort of married there in Cloudy by the justice of the peace, a real one, even with that wife still alive in New Orleans, but I thought I should let him be serious, and finally she died, so I really am Mrs. Rance now, have been for a long time. And I ended up back in Nevada anyway, it’s fifteen years already. And sometimes I lay awake all night next to Jack, up in the heights the goats run out on the flat tin roofs, like on our house, and their hoofs keep me awake, and I can’t help thinkin’ I should of stayed with Dick, even though he had to go back to bandit life. Maybe I just didn’t think enough of myself. Or maybe I just wasn’t brave. Dick always used to say, there was this poem he used to recite,
No star is ever lost we once have seen,
We always may be what we might have been.
I often say that to myself now.” She took Maryna’s hand and held it tightly. “But it ain’t true.”
“Maryna?” said Ryszard.
Assuring him with her glance that there was no “scene” from which she needed to be rescued, Maryna introduced them to each other.
“This your husband?” Minnie asked. “I seen him with you comin’ out of the hotel.”
“My bandit.”
“Ah-ha!” said Minnie.
“What have you two women been talking about?” Ryszard said nervously. “Or is it not permitted for a mere man to be privy to your secret?”
“And are you goin’ to make the same mistake?”
“Yes. I think so.”
“Ladies, ladies,” said Ryszard, feeling a surge of alarm. “Maryna, it’s late. You must be tired. Let me take you back to the hotel.”
“Sounds like a husband to me,” said Minnie.
“That’s why it may not be a mistake.”
“Well, you’ll know better than me. You’re beautiful. You’re a star. Everyone loves you. You can do anythin’ you want.”
“Can I? No, I can’t.”
Miss Collingridge, smelling of goat, was standing next to Ryszard. “Madame Marina, is there anything you need?”
“I guess she wants you to go back to the hotel, too,” said Minnie.
* * *
THE QUESTION Ryszard had heard himself asking for days. The question. Finally, back in the hotel, after they had made love, he asked it.
“You’re not going to let me stay with you, are you?”
He’d been hearing Maryna’s answer, too. Still, it astonished him to hear it now.
“No.”
“But you love me!” he cried.
“I do. And you have made me very happy. But, how can I say this, the à deux thing isn’t, can never be that important to me. I understand that now. Déformation professionelle, if you will. I want to love and be loved, who does not, but I have to be calm … within myself. And with you I would worry, whether you were bored or restless or not writing enough. And I’d be right to worry. What have you got written in the last month—apart from writing about me?”
“That doesn’t matter! I’m too happy to write!”
“But it does matter. Writing is your life, as theatre is mine. You don’t want the life I lead. You don’t know it now but you would find it out soon, in six months, at most a year. You’re not made to be an actress’s consort. Believe me, it won’t last.”
“Speak for yourself, you terrible creature!” He slammed his hand against the window frame.
“What do I hear, Ryszard? Could it be the sound of crystals dropping off the wintry bough?”
“Oh, Maryna!”
“You’re asking me, and you have every right to ask me, if I really do love you. And I want to say—oh, dearest Ryszard, you know what I want to say. And that wanting is love, too, though not the kind you mean. But the truth is, I never know exactly what I feel when I’m not on a stage. No, that’s not true. I feel intense interest, curiosity, pity, anxiety, desire to please—all that. But love, what you mean by love, what you want from me … I’m not sure. I know I don’t feel love the way I represent it before an audience. Maybe I don’t feel much of anything at all.”
“Maryna, darling Maryna, you’ll never convince me of that. I’ve held you in my arms, I’ve seen your face as no one has ever seen it—” He stopped. Have I, he wondered. He went on. “Maryna, I know you.”
“Yes, now,” she said. “I feel a great deal now, and it is for you, for no one else. But I can also feel it tilting away from you, and pouring back into the selves I create on the stage. You’ve given me so much, dear dear Ryszard.”
“How miserable you’re making me.”
“Maybe,” she mused, “it was because I thought I’d never be in love again that I didn’t care about acting anymore, and thought I could give it up. But now I’ve known it again and—”
“And what?”
“I won’t forget it again.”
“You’re going to live on a memory of our love? That’s enough for you, Maryna?”
“Perhaps it is. Actors aren’t so interested in real life. We just want to act.”
“You think I’ll be an impediment to your career? Too much of a distraction?”
“No, no, it’s that I don’t want to cheat you.”
“I see. You’re sending me away for my own good.”
“I’m not saying that,” she said.
“Actually, I think you’re sending me away for your good. Only you haven’t the courage to admit it. No, Maryna, your real reason for casting me away has nothing to do with your concern for my happiness.”
“Oh Ryszard, Ryszard, there are many reasons.”
“You’re right. Let me see if I can guess them all. Fear of scandal—actress abandons husband and child for other man! Desire for security—actress leaves rich husband for impecunious writer! Unwillingness to lose class privileges—great actress exchanges aristocratic husband for lowborn—”
“Ah, I’m being treated to one of your virtuoso catalogues.”
“Wait, I haven’t finished, Maryna. Fear of flouting convention—actress leaves husband for man ten years her junior! Unwillingness to forfeit hard-won respectability, while bringing up bastard to whose father she claims to have been married. You thought I didn’t know, I imagine, because dear Bogdan pretends not to know.”
“I suppose I’ve no right now to ask you not to hurt me.”
“Not to mention selfishness, hardheartedness, shallowness—” Ryszard stopped. Irrevocable words. Words that can’t be unsaid. He began to cry.
It wasn’t only because he was losing Maryna. It was the end of his youth: of his ability to love worshipfully, suffer unprotectedly. What would he dream of when he no longer dreamt of Maryna? This, thought Ryszard, is the most painful feeling I shall ever have. Was she suffering, too? And could she, too, be clambering over her feelings so as not to drown? This, he thought, is the saddest thing that will ever happen to me. He was in a dark place, where there were only wounds. And then a splinter of relief. Oh, the books he would write now, with only lesser obsessions to distract him! Never again—and the thought came to him on a wave of shame—will I be “too happy” to write.
Eight
MARYNA HAD NO CHOICE but to believe the story Bogdan related when he finally joined her at the Hotel Clarendon in New York in early January. It was not like Bogdan to fabulate. As he himself observed, he rarely felt the itch to tell any kind of story.
“And my fear—” The word was clipped before it could bloom. “And I worried that you were perishing of boredom and frustration back in Anaheim.”
“Not at all,” he said. “Something always flows in to fill the void.”
“Poor Bogdan.” Her smile was amorous, alert. They were side by side on the ottoman. She clasped the back of his head.
“Ah, you’re not to feel sorry for me. You’re supposed to believe me.”
“Make me believe you,” she said and drooped against his shoulder. “Will you think me credulous, or merely overfond, if I believe everything you say?”
“Overfond? I should like nothing better,” he said, bringing her hand to his cheek. “Then I can be sure that even if you don’t believe in my adventure, you won’t disbelieve me either.”