The Last Summer of the World

by Emily Mitchell

  Clara comes into the room and puts her arms around him from behind so her head rests between his shoulder blades.

  “How was your journey? You must be exhausted. Would you like some coffee?”

  He twists around to face her. “Yes. But a kiss first, please.” She stretches up to kiss him and then runs her fingers lightly down his cheek.

  “It has been a terribly cold, terribly long January without you.” She goes through to the kitchen, and Edward sits down on the sofa, with Mary on his knee. Now she has moved on from his collar to the strands of hair that fall over his face. She encloses them in her round baby fist and tries to pull them out.

  “Ouch, that hurts,” Edward tells her.

  “What’s she doing?” says Clara’s voice from the kitchen. The apartment is so small—three rooms, one his studio—that they can hear each other wherever they are inside it.

  “Pulling my hair.”

  “Ahh. Yes. She likes hair. It’s almost as delicious as copper coins, though not quite as yummy as newspaper. I almost considered having mine all cut off; but I thought you wouldn’t be very happy to come back to find your wife bald, and heaven knows it is dismal enough for me to look at myself in the glass right now without getting rid of my one remaining good feature. Here.” She comes through from the kitchen. “I’ll take her if you’d like.”

  He looks at her as she slides across the floor, reaching out to take Mary from him. In the two months that he’s been away, she’s begun to take on the extra weight of her pregnancy, her body slowly transforming into something new. Her limbs have softened; the fine angles of her face have disappeared under flesh. Her belly protrudes now so he can see where she is carrying their second child; the skin over it will be smooth and purposeful. He finds that he is just as astonished by these changes as he was the first time. When she was pregnant with Mary, he would run his hands over that strange tight skin at her middle, so he could feel the child underneath begin to move, to demand its own separate life.

  “No, I’ll hold on to her. You mustn’t strain yourself too much,” he says.

  “Oh, it’s OK. I’ve gotten quite used to coping alone. I can hold her in one arm and do any number of things with my free one. You should see me.”

  “Hasn’t Mrs. Leffert been coming to help you?” he asks.

  “Mrs. Who? No; she vanished around the middle of last month. I told you that paying her in advance was a bad idea.”

  “What else was I to do?”

  “Well, anyway, Marion helped take care of Mary when she could. And Mildred has been here a lot. She has been my rod and staff. I don’t know what I would have done without her …”

  She sighs and he sees how tired she is. Her face, the drag under her eyes.

  “I am sorry,” he says. “I thought Madame Leffert would be more reliable than that. I wish we could have afforded more permanent help.”

  “Oh well, it was all right. We managed.” There is an edge in her voice when she says this by which he understands that it was, in fact, not quite all right. “Let me get your coffee,” she says, and disappears into the other room.

  He feels put out by this, because he thought that the woman whom he had paid to help Clara would be honest enough to come until the end of the month. True, the arrangement had been rather ad hoc, and she was not a professional, didn’t have the right references. But at that time money had been tight and they had been able to do no better. Still, he thinks, his discontent clearing slightly, that time is ended now; things will be easier; and Clara will be happy when she hears the news …

  “Here you are.” She carries the service in on a tray and places it in front of him. Mary wriggles around and begins to reach toward the shiny pewter pot. Clara comes and sits down beside Edward and snatches her away from it.

  “Oh no you don’t. That is very hot and you will be very unhappy if you touch it.” She mimes putting her hand close to the metal surface and drawing it away suddenly. “Ouch,” she says. “Hot. Don’t touch.” Mary looks at her, looks at the coffee pot and begins to cry.

  “Oh dear,” Edward says. Clara picks up the little girl and walks back and forth across the room, making hushing noises to her. Mary’s crying becomes more desperate. Her whole body turns red with the effort, her face a scarlet knot of muscles squeezing out screams.

  “Is she all right?” Edward asks.

  “She’ll be fine,” Clara says. “This is just what happens if she doesn’t get her afternoon nap.” Mary calms for a minute then surges up again, her crying coming and going like gusts of wind. “Oh, you are too much for me,” Clara says softly to the squalling bundle in her arms. “Much too much too much.” She continues to pace and sway. “We’ll have to talk around her. So tell me about the show. Tell me what happened.”

  “Well …” He pauses. He likes this feeling of having good news to impart. He almost doesn’t want to tell her quite yet because the anticipation is so sweet in and of itself.

  So he tells her first about his journey and his time in New York. He helped to hang the show, which took place at Alfred Stieglitz’s Little Galleries at 291 Fifth Avenue. They got wonderful reviews, he tells her. Rodin’s drawings, which he had brought from France along with his own work, shocked a few people, who wrote to the press to complain and the newspapers printed the angry letters. As a consequence, the drawings sold incredibly well. Not bad for a first show in the States.

  “I’m proud to have been the one to introduce those drawings to America,” he says. “It’s quite an accomplishment.”

  “Yes, that’s nice. But what about your work?” Clara asks. “Did it make any money?” He is taken aback at the directness of her question. He feels that he has been beaten to the punch; that his good news has been somehow deflated by her demanding it. Of course, money is not without its importance, but there is more to it than that, he almost says. There is the progress of art. There is … But he reminds himself that she should not be excited in her present condition. Her temper should not be agitated.

  “I’m getting to that,” he says. “Patience. Let me take the baby. You can rest.” He stands up and takes Mary into his arms. By now she is tired of crying, and after a couple of turns about the room, her sobs diminish, become hiccups and then a yawn. She snuffles and curls herself into the hollow between his arms and chin, and closes her eyes.

  “There, there,” he says softly, and passes her back to Clara on the couch. He sits down beside her, takes her one free hand in his.

  “I did make money from this exhibition. Actually, it was quite a lot, more than I’ve ever made before from a single show. Almost all the work I took with me sold. And I have orders to fill for additional prints—enough to keep me, to keep us, going for a long time. Clara, this really was a breakthrough for me. We can certainly take a house for the rest of the year, and probably next as well. And we can hire some help for you, a proper femme-de-ménage, maybe a cook, too.”

  She looks at him, her face displaying disbelief.

  “Is that true? Really?”

  “Clara, remember how much you loved the little towns out along the Marne when we went driving there last summer?” She nods. “I’m going to go and look for a house we can rent there. A place with a garden, fresh air, peace and quiet, lots of light. Not too far from the river. You can rest. Mary can have space to play, and we’ll have lots of room for the new baby when it is born in the spring …”

  “Do you mean it?” she asks.

  “Absolutely.”

  “Our own garden, and more space …”

  “Well, there will be four of us very soon. We couldn’t have stayed in a tiny apartment in the middle of the city. Growing children need space and freedom.”

  “How wonderful.” She leans back heavily against the arm of the couch. “I don’t know if I could have made it through another winter in this place, always worrying about Mary getting sick again and then with the new baby … But, oh, just think, a house and a garden …”

  “And I will pu
t a chaise lounge under the trees for you, so you can sit outside and read.”

  “We’ll have a garden with trees, then.”

  “We’ll have whatever kind of garden you want!”

  “Oh, it’s too marvelous. When will you go to look for it?”

  “Next week. Tomorrow. As soon as you want me to. Send me away tonight if you like,” he says. “I’m at my lady’s service.” Clara laughs and he sees, inside her weary face, the beauty, the brightness he loved there first and that he sometimes forgets in the normal run of their life together. In her arms, Mary stirs and wakes and looks up at her mother with huge, solemn eyes, wise and fathomless.

  How beautiful they look together and how extraordinary this moment is, balanced between the struggle of the past and the mystery of the future; hope makes it radiant, he thinks. Clara looking down at the lovely face of their daughter, who has after all come though that frightening bout of fever this winter and is healthy and strong and growing just as she should to become as beautiful as her mother, as clever as her father. All this is his, and he thanks whatever powers there are in the universe for it. For during his time in New York, he reached another decision, which is to come back fully to his wife and child, and to cut off the other entanglements of his time and affection.

  His affair with Isadora had gone on, albeit irregularly, for almost three years when he saw her this past month in New York and ended things definitively. They had not been together often, and since their lives had always been outwardly committed to other people, neither of them had ever expected more than this occasional intimacy. Though he continued to be captivated by her, entranced by her vivid energy, he never came to love her. Nor does she love him, not in the sense in which the word ought to be used. They fed off each other, that was all, and when the break came, there were a few tears, but on the whole it was kindly and amicable, something they both felt was overdue.

  And then there was the ebb and flow of the correspondence he had kept up, in secret, with Kathleen Bruce; though the links seemed tenuous, that, somehow, was more difficult to sever. More wrenching. But he has done it. And he is glad.

  Now his heart can be at home with Clara and his child, and soon with his children! This is where he does not entirely agree with Rodin on the subject of love—which reminds him: he must go up to Meudon later this evening to give him the news about the show. But this is what the older man, for all his great wisdom, does not perhaps understand: that there could be a freedom in this decision to be faithful. There can be depth to it, revelation. He will be able to think, and so work, more clearly. Now that he has no other lover, he can live without the fear of discovery and disaster. And then there are moments like this, whose beauty cannot be equaled, his wife and his daughter gazing at one another, seeing who knows what in each other’s eyes.

  “Clara,” he says, “don’t move. Let me get my camera.”

  “Oh, no, Edward, not now. I’m such a mess,” she protests.

  “You are beautiful,” he says. “Stay there.”

  —

  IT HAS BEEN a long time since he has taken her photograph, so why must he choose this moment, when her hair is disheveled and she is wearing only this old black smock, looking for all the world like a farmer’s wife from Brittany? Still, she is so pleased right now that she doesn’t care. Let him photograph her wearing a sack! She sits straight on the chair, Mary on her knee, and arranges her comfortably while he fusses with his camera, setting up.

  “Beautiful, exhausting girl,” she says. “Your father wants to photograph us, so you must behave for at least five minutes.”

  When Mary fell ill in January, it was hard for Clara. She was all alone, in a small, drafty apartment with her baby and that horrible sticky-sounding cough for company; that cough, which wouldn’t go away for weeks on end no matter what powders the doctor gave her. And then Mary had developed shivers at night, which Clara was told must not go unwatched. She must sit up and make sure that the child did not get too warm or too cold. She must not leave her unattended.

  It was during those vigils that she came closest to despairing. She would think of Edward, far away, attending to other things; she imagined him dining out, enjoying himself with Alfred and their other friends in New York. He wrote to her often, his letters came every few days, but they were not the same as his presence, not really reassuring or comforting, and because of the delay, they gave her advice about Mary that was out of date by the time it arrived. During the worst of it she would start letters asking him to abandon the show and come back to her on the next boat, but she felt she could not send these—he was there to work; he needed to work, she told herself, as much for her as for himself. So she tore up the letters and told herself to be patient, and stayed up at night watching her child sleep fretfully and wake herself shaking. Then one night something inside her turned over. One night she looked down at the small sleeping form and thought: I hate you. Simply that. She shocked herself, scared herself a little, but nevertheless, she had thought it, quite clearly, and it couldn’t be denied. Her brain moved on from there to her husband: I hate you. For being away, for leaving me to this life where I hardly see the sun or leave the apartment, where I have no time to play or sing, or do any of those things that give me joy.

  Mary’s fever had receded as the weather warmed a little, and Mildred had come to her aid, visiting and keeping her company, looking after Mary for the few hours at a time that she could manage. Clara’s emotions calmed. She felt she had been wrong, wicked, to blame her husband for a distress that was not, after all, his fault, and as for hating her daughter—that had been the fatigue and anxiety, the sleepless nights. She was ashamed even to have thought it. It was best forgotten about.

  And now! It was as if he had heard her, read her thoughts. A garden and a femme-de-ménage. How glad she was that she had not sent those demanding letters; how worthwhile in the end his absence had been. He was fiddling with the flashbulb now, and he glanced up at her and grinned, and she couldn’t help smiling back because she loved him and because she felt he had understood what she needed without her having to ask for it. There had been a while, last spring, when she felt he was absent even when he was there, and she had wondered: What was drawing him away from her? Was there another woman? But now she feels he is here, with her, in mind as well as body.

  “In the new house,” she said, “will we have room for a piano?”

  “Of course,” he said. “If that is what you want.”

  “Oh yes, and I’ll be able to play without worrying about neighbors and noise, and if I have some help with the house, and with the child—”

  “Children,” he puts in, smiling.

  “—maybe I can get enough finger strength back to begin to think about auditioning for some public performances. I could come up to Paris and work with a teacher here …”

  “Well, perhaps. But you wouldn’t want to leave the children for long periods of time, would you?”

  “No. Well, of course. I suppose not.”

  “I certainly wouldn’t allow it: it isn’t a good idea for small children to be without their mother. But we can get some help for you and you will have more time for your music.” Clara nods and looks at him solemnly. And then quite suddenly, surprising both of them, she begins to cry.

  HE HAS BEEN looking at her through the viewfinder of his camera, almost ready to frame his shot, but now he stops what he is doing and stands up.

  “Oh, don’t cry now, darling. Why are you crying? I thought you said you were happy.” He comes and offers her his handkerchief. “Now, what is the matter?”

  “Nothing. Nothing. I am fine; and I’m very happy. It’s just that it was so hard, this winter …”

  “Well, it isn’t going to be hard anymore, not like that. Now smile for me. I want your lovely smile. There.”

  He goes back to the camera and takes three pictures of them, Clara and Mary seated on the couch; then standing beside the window where the light is beginning to fade now, early:
it is still winter. He is pleased, although already the perfect moment of their happiness is slipping away, disturbed first by her tears, and now he realizes that he must leave soon if he is to make it up to see Rodin this evening as he promised. He puts the camera away, in its case, while Clara lays Mary down to sleep in her crib.

  “I will make us some supper,” Clara says. “What would you like?”

  “I’m sorry, my love,” Edward says, pulling her into an embrace, for the first time only her without Mary. “I remembered that I told Rodin that I would go and give him the news and the receipts from the show as soon as I got back. I hate to go when I’ve just arrived …”

  “Yes; do you have to?”

  “I promised; it is too bad, but it is work, you know. I can’t put it off.”

  “Well, if you must,” Clara says, “you must, I suppose. Will you be late, do you think?”

  “That depends on him, I guess. I can’t just run out right after getting there. I have to stay and talk and—”

  “Drink wine and make merry.”

  “Darling, don’t be like that.”

  “I’m sorry; I only wish you didn’t have to go this evening. But you are right, it is work … one has to do it …”

  “I’ll be back as soon as I can be.”

  “All right.”

  “And then next week I’ll go and start looking for our new house. There, that has made you smile at least. Kiss me.”

  She leans up to kiss him, but he feels the resentment still lingering in the perfunctory motion, the way her eyes flit away from him as soon as she steps back. What can he do? He doesn’t have a choice; he cannot afford to offend Rodin, and frankly, he doesn’t want to. He would like to see his friend now. He wants to talk over the events of the last month with someone who cares fully for what it means in artistic terms that these drawings have arrived in America, been seen there, reviled, celebrated and accepted. He is looking forward to their conversation. That is not such a terrible thing.