The Crimson Portrait

by Jody Shields

  The bustling crowd in the Drury Lane Theatre ignored Julian, as the chandelier in the lobby gave little light and his mask was scarcely noticeable under his hat. He directed Catherine to their seats in the first tier, explaining he would join her momentarily.

  Catherine’s nerves were set on edge by the sharp, papery rustle spreading across the theater as programs were opened and examined. She studied the audience below, the men’s thick, stern foreheads, the women’s bare shoulders rising from the rounded curves of the seats, emanating an air of wholeness. She was repulsed by their confidence, their certainty that they were inviolable.

  Her anger dissolved into an unexpected longing for the ill, their hesitant frailty, their gratitude when granted respite from pain. The truth of their bony, suffering figures.

  The curtain rose on a performance of meaningless activity. Her fingers curled into claws; her fan dropped into her lap. At this moment—when every face was turned to the stage—she knew Julian was present in the audience. She scanned the aisles and tiers, the rows of seats between the tall columns. She would divine Julian in this place, force him to reveal himself.

  The audience applauded, and the movement of their white gesturing hands, strangely shapeless from this angle, seemed marooned in darkness. In the opposite box seat, a lone figure leisurely turned toward Catherine, and in the twilight created by the stage, a spell was cast and Charles was brought back to life.

  Catherine stared, then looked away from Charles and back again; each glance struck a shock of recognition followed by the slow waver of disbelief into joy. If her body had been glass, the shift of the emotions that possessed her would have been visible as color. But as the mask became familiar, the illusion faded, and Charles’s beloved face became stiff, unmoving, a portrait of a dead man. There was no resurrection. She couldn’t fix or save him.

  Wild applause signaled the end of the performance, and in the moment she was distracted, Julian vanished. Catherine ran down the stairs.

  The ceiling settled its elaborate gilt calm over the throng of people in the lobby, chattering, tugging on their coats. A man searched for a dropped glove on the floor. Faint laughter drifted from the aisles. Catherine frantically pushed her way toward a bearded stranger wearing a top hat, who angrily turned around when she mistakenly seized his arm.

  Outside, the street was a blank darkness, as every window had been blacked out, the shape of buildings muted against the equally dark sky. An insistent noise in the distance heightened to a siren’s shriek, and instantly the invisible current that had held the city in check was broken, and people rushed into the theater, into any open doorway. The globe lamps on the facade of the theater dimmed.

  Catherine searched everyone who jostled past, fear seeping into her from their expressions.

  “Ma’am, you’d best go back inside,” scolded an elderly man. “That’s a warning siren. Air raid.” When she didn’t respond, he shrugged and ducked into the theater.

  The siren’s wails became more urgent, seeming to transform the sky by sound alone, as it became dirty gray, frayed near the horizon. Thin threads of light stitched the clouds. Searchlights. Another siren repeated, much closer.

  “Catherine.”

  Julian took her arm, only his eye betraying concern in the expressionless mask, and propelled her into the lobby. They quickly moved with the others down the aisles to the stage, where a distinguished man in a tailcoat shoved aside the heavy curtains.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, I can offer you a fine seat below stage,” he boomed.

  “Will the price of the seats be lower?” a man called out.

  A woman giggled nervously. “Imagine the orchestra conductor leading an evacuation.”

  Holding Catherine’s cloak, Julian helped her over the ropes coiled on the floor backstage, then down several flights of steep steps. At that point, most of the group refused to go any farther, preferring to risk remaining where they were. The conductor hastily bid them adieu and guided Catherine, Julian, and a stout, wheezing businessman in a shaky descent down rickety iron stairs. With a flourish, he opened the door into a brick cellar, the shy light of the bare bulbs futile against the cavernous arched space.

  Jovial as if guiding a tour, the conductor dusted his hands on the tails of his evening jacket. “We’ll wait out the storm together in this ship. I apologize for the lack of heat.” He shook hands with Julian and Catherine, shivering in velvet. “But we’re completely safe here.”

  The conductor and the stout man gallantly pulled boxes and trunks into a clear space so everyone could sit down.

  “This is the subcellar storage room where backdrops are stored between productions.” The conductor gestured grandly at a huge canvas flat painted with gray crags and a fiery sunset, and other stacks of flats leaned against the walls. “I can see the mountains from Tannhäuser from here. Although that opera has been removed from the repertoire.”

  “Hello? Hello? Is there room for us?” A middle-aged woman and her daughter, a young woman in her twenties with curly dark hair, eased down the rattling stairs, gingerly clutching the rail. Another dilapidated trunk was found to accommodate them, as the jittery young woman refused the conductor’s offer to give up his seat.

  Catherine clung to Julian as they stood silently in shadow away from the others. She was waiting for the moment to correct the deceit that she had put in motion.

  “Please, let’s go back upstairs. Take our chances.” The hiss of her whisper vibrated.

  Julian woodenly shook his head, and she couldn’t tell if he refused her request because of concern or fright.

  Everyone but Catherine had previously suffered through a bombardment, and their initial giddy relief at finding shelter soon faded into dull, resentful silence. Time passed. The conductor wished loudly for a deck of cards or a music score to study. No one answered.

  “I’m going to amuse myself if the rest of you can’t stir yourselves,” the curly-haired young woman announced. As she spontaneously pirouetted before the painted backdrop, the fitful illumination had the effect of obscuring her limbs beneath the weight of her skirt. Glad for a diversion, even a wobbly, eerie parody of a dance performance, the group heartily applauded. As she made exaggerated bows, lights along the walls began to wink erratically.

  Catherine fixated on color, her thoughts fiercely burning yellow and orange, praying this would preserve the light. She made cold judgments against herself, swearing to keep certain promises in exchange for escaping this place.

  Suddenly, blackness washed over them, absolute as a silent lake. The young woman sank to the floor, whimpering with fright.

  “Blast,” a man swore loudly.

  “It was her dancing that extinguished the light,” joked the conductor, although there was no amusement in his voice.

  “Don’t think the authorities could have objected. The girl has talent.”

  “It’s no comfort, all those bricks above our heads. Ready to bury us.”

  “What are you going to do? Well?”

  “There’s a lantern in my office. I’ll fetch it.” The conductor slowly banged his way up the staircase, noisy as a wounded animal. Curses, fumbling, and finally a door squeaked open, admitting a wire-thin line of light.

  Darkness magnified sound. Catherine was able to identify everyone by the distinct pattern of his or her breathing, which commanded more space than their invisible bodies. She grew increasingly tense, aware that breath would cease when the air was thick with flying plaster and dust, powdered brick, glass.

  The floor vibrated, and a deep rumbling stretched out time, one, two, three breaths.

  Fear transformed Catherine, forced her hands, arms, legs, into trembling, clumsy weightlessness. Julian’s fingers gently threaded through her hair, caressed her neck. The touch of his hands expanded, became a shield, a raft away from darkness. She pressed herself against him, and locked in an embrace, she wondered if they would perish together. Perhaps in the midst of destruction all around them, they could both b
e transformed to pillars of stone or salt and be saved.

  A droning intensified, moving closer.

  “Are we going to die down here?” The young woman wept.

  The sound became a shaking that possessed the ground, propelled through Catherine’s thin satin shoes, up her legs into the core of her body.

  “Never let me go,” Catherine cried against this force, not caring if the others heard her.

  A huge crash shook the walls, and their shouts were overwhelmed as the floor tilted free of gravity, and dust and invisible objects rained down in the pitch dark.

  Silence. Then coughing, and the middle-aged woman began to moan.

  Gasping, Catherine raised her head, spitting out the rough, bitter grit filming her mouth. “Julian? Julian?” She inched forward on the floor, grabbed an arm still warm in its sleeve, relieved when his hand responded with a firm clasp. “Thank God. Thank God. I must tell you —”

  “Everyone has last words and regrets,” the stout man interrupted, invisible but nearby. “Heard the same talk when my boat foundered near Islay. Let’s get on with it.”

  “That was close.”

  Faint movement at the top of the stairs announced the conductor’s return, followed by the glowing cylinder of a lantern, clanking and swaying in his hand, his steps blocked by debris.

  The lantern was set down in their midst, its light softened by a nimbus of circulating gray powder. Their voices rose, loud with relief, filling the space as they shook the dust from their clothing.

  The conductor and the stout businessman crouched together, making bold talk against the powerless indignity of waiting, agreeing that the zeppelins were unable to fly backward or navigate in a gale.

  “Trust the enemy to design a machine with a basic flaw. Shows you how shortsighted they are.” The conductor folded his arms with satisfaction.

  “We’ll knock ’em from the bloody sky.”

  “Let us pray the zeppelins have passed and our troubles are over.” The middle-aged woman tugged her shawl closer, and her daughter leaned into the lantern light, her profile in bold relief, staring at Julian.

  Catherine squeezed Julian’s hand, signaling that he should step away from the lantern light. “It’s all clear now. Let’s leave this place,” she pleaded, pulling his arm.

  But the young woman wasn’t satisfied. “Wait,” she said. “Wait. There’s something wrong with that man.”

  The conductor peered closely at Julian, then looked away. “The sky is falling, and we all need a bit of luck. Leave him be.”

  Catherine sensed her skin contracting, as if fear had diminished her. Save yourself, Julian, she thought.

  Julian waited, motionless as a statue, as the young woman tipped the lantern, directing its full glare at his face.

  “My God, look at him.”

  Catherine moved to protect Julian, but he swept her aside. The mask made a deep shadow along his jaw, and only his eye was alive in his uncannily smooth face. With great delicacy, he unhooked the spectacles from his ears, and the entire mask slipped off into his hands, a gesture as simple as drinking from a cup.

  The young woman shrieked, and the others instantly recoiled as if they were one body. The lantern fell over; its light ricocheted into huge, exaggerated shapes on the walls, broken by their alarmed shadows. Julian was feared more than the darkness.

  “Where is he? Is he gone?”

  The two men searched the room, holding the lantern between the flats of scenery, expecting Julian would be crouching there, hiding.

  “He has gone.”

  The men swung the lantern at Catherine, bleaching her skin and dress white in its glare.

  “Who was he?”

  “A monster?”

  “I don’t know,” Catherine whispered. “I didn’t see him. He was standing behind me.”

  Not satisfied with her answer, they surrounded Catherine, and her breath hardened in her chest. For a fraction of a second, she was prepared to let the incident pass, to make a joke. To dismiss Julian.

  She pushed the conductor aside and stumbled to the stairs, toward the light around the door. Loud footsteps followed her.

  “Let her go.”

  “For pity’s sake, hold the lantern so she can see.”

  Catherine’s skirt tore on the stair rail and ripped again as she jerked it free, so great was her hurry to reach Julian.

  There was slightly more light upstairs, and by the hollow impact of her running feet, Catherine guessed she was backstage. If Julian had left the theater, she would never find him. She would be lost.

  Her flailing hands struck a heavy thickness, curtains, and she struggled to find a way around. The curtains admitted a slice of cold air as she slipped through and stood still, darkness blocking any recognition of her surroundings. Her awareness extended into a sense of height, an open space.

  “Julian?”

  The theater lights slowly returned, everything reestablishing itself in place—the rows of seats, the chandeliers, the length of patterned carpet—before her eyes, and she found herself standing at the edge of the stage. Dizzied, she quickly stepped back.

  A man waited in the center of the theater.

  “Julian?”

  He didn’t acknowledge her.

  “Julian, forgive me.”

  He walked down the aisle, holding his mask in one hand like a shield, stopping in front of the stage.

  He was silent for so long, she finally cried, “What do you want? Tell me. I will do it. I meant —” The pulse of her heart swelled up, filling her throat, choking her.

  “One day you’ll wish me gone. You can’t even recognize it.”

  She fell to her knees, her skirt billowing as she held out her arms beseechingly.

  A minute passed, then another. The lights that had held steady quickly bled into gray as his tall figure turned and walked swiftly up the aisle.

  “Don’t leave,” she whispered, then slammed her hand against the floor of the stage.

  In the distance, a siren pitched itself higher and higher, soaring in advance of a pounding vibration nearing the theater.

  Epilogue

  1919

  AT A RECEPTION held in the elaborate hall of a civic building, Anna was honored for her wartime work. A prominent Boston socialite had arranged the event, and Anna sat onstage holding an ugly bouquet of carnations, enduring a tedious program of praise for “Mrs. Coleman.” As a girl began to sing, Anna’s eyes wandered, and the staring faces in the audience blurred and wavered around Kazanjian, standing in the back of the room. In an agony of impatience, unable to leave the stage, Anna waited through the song and the speeches that followed.

  Anna shook hands, bolted from the stage, and, her face stiff with anxiety, forced her way through the crowd, pushing aside a matron attempting to congratulate her.

  The double bronze doors at the end of the hall were shut. Kazanjian had disappeared. She stepped outside and found him leaning against a balustrade at the farthest side of the vestibule. He was thinner, more careworn.

  “Dr. Kazanjian . . . ,” Anna began, then corrected herself at his gesture. “Yes, Varaztad.”

  He returned Anna’s smile.

  Later, Dr. Kazanjian came to the studio behind Anna Coleman’s house and walked solemnly around the easels, the modeling stands supporting half-finished busts of a child and a young man. He studied the brushes, paints, chalks, containers of water, cans of turpentine, boxes of plaster and clay, reacquainting himself with her in this way.

  “The familiar objects make me feel welcome,” he said softly.

  “As you are welcome.”

  They spoke of many things that afternoon. He was now teaching at Harvard. He had heard the news about Dr. McCleary.

  Anna explained she’d stayed at the estate for a time after he’d left for the front. The surgeons had made huge advances, and masks were no longer necessary for the wounded. But the most disfigured patients had remained, waiting for new treatments, for miracles, some men enduring
more than forty operations on their faces. Many were still being cared for at the estate.

  He received this information like a man hearing news of a foundering ship, miraculously righted, on which he had once booked passage.

  “I’ve had some news of the others,” she said.

  “Please tell me.”

  “Catherine lived out the war at the estate, volunteering as a nursing aid. She even worked through the influenza epidemic. So many patients died, some in a matter of hours. The medical staff wore masks over their mouths and noses to protect themselves from infection. It seemed the buildings were haunted, as everyone was bandaged or veiled and afraid. The entire estate was in quarantine. It was terrible. Julian had found work as a moving-picture operator in the village cinema. His damaged face was no hindrance in the dark projection room, and it was soundproofed, the walls lined with asbestos because of the highly combustible film. He was one of the lucky few. His relationship with Catherine was entirely unsuspected by anyone else. Until she fell ill and he cared for her.”

  So they arrived at what was unspoken between them.

  He studied her for a moment. “Dr. McCleary once quoted a Sanskrit proverb to me: ‘Before you cut, turn the knife seven times in your hand.’”

  “My dear Varaztad, may we at last abandon such caution?”

  He made her wait so long for his answer that the sun through the window became uncomfortable on her shoulder, her body suspended from the ache of her neck.

  “I rejoice at your question,” he said finally.

  Author’s Note

  The Crimson Portrait is a work of fiction. It was inspired in part by two historical figures, Anna Coleman Ladd and Varaztad Kazanjian, and recounts an imagined fragment of their lives. Other characters, names, and incidents are used for the purpose of fiction and are not intended to disparage any actual person, company, or institution.

  Memoirs from the Edwardian period as well as World War I were valuable sources for this book. Memories and Base Details by Lady Angela Forbes, Ourselves, 1900-1930 by Irene Clephane, Discretions by Countess Frances Evelyn Greville, and Turn of the World by Baroness Elizabeth Wharton Decies evoked the frivolous pleasures of that time. Bright Armour by Monica Grenfell Salmond and Lady Diana Cooper’s The Rainbow Comes and Goes were two young aristocrats’ memoirs of their volunteer work in a hospital.