AFTER MY vodka, I had a light supper, did a bit of reading, and awaited sleep with trepidation. What lay in store? Previously my dreams had been either transparently simple or obscure in an amusing way, like something the director Richard Foreman might devise for his smart and silly Ontological Theater. I wasn’t used to having dreams that seemed to require investigating, yet resisted memory so effectively.
When at last, drowsy but still awake, I made myself shut my eyes, two pictures appeared (superimposed, as if projected simultaneously) on the blank screen of my closed eyelids. One was of my father on the final morning of his life; the other was of Eve, unconscious, a few hours before blood poisoning took her down. Jordan, terminally ill, had been ready to go, had wanted out. But Eve? On that evening in her apartment—the last time we’d spoken, when she’d demanded my silence—had she hoped to be saved, or trusted she wouldn’t be?
I fell asleep with that question unanswered, as it had been nightly since her death.
INTERLUDE
THE BIRD’S feathers were by now rather ruffled!
Well, that was only to be expected. How best to put it? When I first began playing on her dream-stage, I’d have said Camilla was someone for whom consternation was inevitable.
I’m speaking not of ordinary vexation but of something more purely existential, which in Camilla’s case displayed itself chiefly with respect to her family. And here I’m reminded of a letter Anton Chekhov wrote to Seva, in which he made the following observation:
Nowadays, almost every civilized person, no matter how healthy he may be, never feels so irritated as when he is at home among his own family, because the discord between past and future is felt primarily within the family. The irritation is chronic . . . It is an intimate, family irritation, so to speak.
All the questions surrounding Camilla’s recently departed cousin were related, it seemed, to this intimate irritation. And if I were to continue agitating Camilla’s night-mind? Eventually her waking self would recognize that the discord she was experiencing was merely improbable harmony: harmony masked, in disguise.
THE YOUNG American chemist whom Seva met in Paris had left an indistinct impression on me.
Not that Jordan Archer was bland. He was good-looking (if slightly anemic), with a lean sense of humor his French colleagues clearly enjoyed. No, he wasn’t dull; if anything, he was a bit louche. But he had none of the effervescent energies of so many of Seva’s associates. Jordan simply wasn’t a theater person, though he certainly was a dedicated spectator.
He had an avid interest in all things related to perfume, as well as a knack for turning up wherever Russians were to be found. Looking back, I give him credit: this was a man with good instincts for cheap talent. In Paris he zeroed in on exactly that group of people who might help him come up with fresh ideas for the packaging of perfume—a task he found burdensome. Russian artists and performers have often been short on cash, hence willing to sell their creative talents for next to nothing. Jordan had a sharp eye for other people’s susceptibilities.
ZINA TOOK a shine to l’Americain: he brought out the maternal side of Seva’s wife. I can still see them sitting in the hotel restaurant, sharing their first meal together.
Jordan pecked at his dinner like a listless sparrow while Zina tucked greedily into hers. Suddenly she noticed that Monsieur Archer wasn’t eating very much. This set her off—Zina could never stand seeing someone pass up good French food. Mange! she ordered, pointing her fork at his plate.
Jordan gave her a wan smile and nibbled a little, but he didn’t make more than a small dent in his dinner. From that point on, Zina decided that her mission was to fatten him up. They dined together on several occasions, and each time she cooed at him appreciatively whenever he managed to finish his meal.
It must’ve been a struggle for Jordan to acclimate himself to Seva and Zina; their unruly appetites roughed up his own. Although he shared the Meyerholds’ enthusiasm for red wine and brandy, Jordan was physically incapable of overindulgence. He never smoked, claiming tobacco was bad for his sense of smell, and he shunned garlic. (This refusal shocked a French waiter who, upon serving Jordan a plate of snails dripping in garlicky butter, was politely ordered to rinse off the snails and return them dry. Mais, monsieur, the waiter sputtered, ce sont des escargots!—to which Jordan replied coolly: Ça n’importe pas.)
He was certainly someone who knew what he wanted. Jordan’s encounter with Camilla mère, however, must’ve stopped him in his tracks: meeting her, he’d met his match. After a long, taxing courtship, he and his lover finally managed to make peace with each other and their bond. But then Camilla fille was conceived, and Jordan’s future abruptly rerouted itself. A daughter’s birth, a wife’s death—a brutal confluence. . . . Jordan took what happened as evidence of his own wrongdoing. If I hadn’t impregnated her, she wouldn’t have died. There was no one with whom he might have shared this awful notion. He kept it at bay, barely—waiting for the day his guilt (lupine, determined) would rush in and savage him.
CAMILLA FILLE knew her father felt responsible for what had happened. Knew, too, that she was somehow the underlying source of his torment. Children sense such things and carry their sensing with them, even into adulthood, as a kind of chronic foreboding. This I picked up on. The hum of anxiety—nameless, pervasive—was familiar to me.
When in June of 1939 Seva traveled to St. Petersburg (then Leningrad), I’d known something was wrong, though I couldn’t have said what. The weather had played its part. At that time of year, the sun sets extremely late; people go out strolling along the Neva and its canals at midnight or later. This lends the city an air at once festive and friendly. But that June the White Nights held an oppressive, nearly electrical charge—like what you’d feel in the air just before a thunder-and-lightning storm breaks out.
Seva had been jumpy, ill-humored, and distracted for weeks, and Zina had urged him to take a much-needed break from Moscow’s hothouse environment. He’d hopped on the overnight train to Leningrad, arriving at its central station after an uneventful ride. Although it was only eight in the morning, Nevsky Prospect (at that time called Twenty-Fifth of October Prospect—ah, those absurd name changes!) was bustling.
Seva took a streetcar for a few blocks, crossing the Fontanka; then he disembarked and strolled for a while. At the Griboedova Canal, he paused to watch the gray-green water flow lazily beneath the bridge of the four griffins. For the first time in far too long, he inhaled a long breath of contentment. Then, having had his fill for the time being of the city’s visual attractions, he made his way to the flat on the Kharpovka Embankment where Zina’s sister and her husband lived.
The night of June nineteenth, he visited friends and stayed out very late, drinking, eating, and gabbing. He didn’t return to his sister-in-law’s flat until about seven in the morning. The walk home did him good; the air was cool and clear, and Seva gulped it appreciatively. As soon as he turned his key in the building’s front door, a black crow fell headfirst into the canal. I don’t think Seva witnessed this peculiar sight; he was caught up in remembering the evening’s lively conversations. The occurrence struck me, however, as irregular and inauspicious. Sure enough, the NKVD officers arrived two hours later with an arrest warrant . . .
BUT I’M ignoring my timing. A director’s most important task (Seva always claimed) is to impose a rhythm on a performance. No more peeking ahead! Back to where we belong: in Camilla’s theater.
And for our next act? It was time, I decided, for the masked man to identify himself. Thus Meyerhold steps out from the shadows and puts Camilla on notice: Think you can slack off? Not on this stage, you can’t!
FOUR
TALK TO me, my father says.
We’re in a city, and it dawns on me that this must be Paris, where I was born. I have never visited there; I know it only from photographs. We’re near a river, I can smell it.
Across the street from us is a church. I’ve seen it on postcards; it’s not Notr
e Dame but another one, smaller and lovely. Faint sounds of singing emanate from it. I picture its interior, drenched with colors filtering through stained-glass windows on which the midmorning sun is raying hard.
Jordan is staring at me, waiting for me to answer his request.
Come on, Cam! he wheedles. You don’t have to make it so hard. Just talk to me a little! You don’t have to tell me anything important . . .
He looks the way he always used to look, ever the same: his brown eyes (irises flecked with gold) alert behind his wire-rimmed glasses, his thin lips pulled back from slightly crooked upper teeth. He’s brushed his hair back from his face; it gleams in the sunlight. He’s wearing a beautifully cut gray suit, a pale blue shirt, a handsome tie, elegant black loafers, a belt with a tasteful silver buckle. He’s slender and tall, topping six feet. He doesn’t look like a businessman or a chemist; he looks like a sensualist, which he is.
I reach toward his face. My hand goes up to his left ear, my forefinger stroking that spot just below the lobe where perfume is applied. As I start to withdraw my hand, Jordan catches it with one of his own, his fingers lightly encircling my wrist. My forefinger is still extended as though I were wagging it at him. He stares at its tip for a few seconds, smiling; then he blows on it, a warm hit of air, and fragrance is released—an exquisite misting of white flowers whose scents arrive in succession: gardenia, narcissus, lily of the valley. After the sweetness something else, darker and muskier, begins to assert itself, modulating the soft whiteness into a lower register.
Ah, the smell of earth, Jordan says, inhaling. And I should know, because I’m dead. So I can be objective about these things. Can you?
I’m trying to remain quiet, but Jordan’s question provokes me. No! I yell. What do you expect?
I expect you to be able to converse with your old man for a couple of minutes, Jordan answers. It’s not such a hardship, you know.
Actually, it is a hardship, I say.
Still hung up on those final moments, aren’t you, Cam? The pills, you’re remembering me forcing them down with the pudding, right? You make an awfully good chocolate pudding, by the way.Merci,chérie!
His French accent is perfect. He bows from the waist, like an actor. Standing to one side, I start coming unstuck.
You bastard! I shriek. I should bethrilledbecause you’re taking the time to show up, right? But guess what. You don’t have acluewho you’re talking to! You never have, Jordan. You don’t know me from fucking Adam!
Please, my dear, he says. I’ve never cared for the adjectival use of that obscenity. It’s averb,Camilla—it has a verb’s force. You should use it accordingly. You could say, for instance,Fuck you, Father!
I fly at him. I leap onto his chest and plant my knees on his collarbones. He wraps one arm around the calves of my legs, supporting me; the other arm he raises high, as if he’s about to hit me. Lifting my own hand, I grasp his forearm, pushing forward, hoping to topple him.
We’re locked like this, swaying unsteadily, when a man in a black cloak emerges from the shadows. He strolls over to us, proceeding with an elegant elasticity. In the background I hear piano music, a song like a circus tune or the saccharine, repetitive medley of an ice-cream vendor.
Tsk, tsk, says the man, so softly I can barely hear him over the noisy piano. You two seem to have forgotten everything I taught you. Your knees go to thechest,remember? Not so high up as this!
He points at my kneecaps, which are lodged just below Jordan’s neck, and frowns at me.
You’ve practically got your knees in his throat! And as for you (now he addresses Jordan), you’re not arched back far enough. Why have I bothered instructing you if you’re going to flout the rules? This is real theater, not just a bit of gymnastics! You’re each playing apart, remember? You two are in arelationshiphere.
The man yawns, stretches his arms high over his head, waves them indolently from side to side, and lets them fall, slapping his sides loudly with both hands.
Aaah, he exhales, it’s like I told that journalist, way back when. Talent always experiences a role deeply, whereas mediocrity merely enacts it.
He turns to Jordan and me. I mean it, he says in a low, hard voice. You aren’t dealing yet!
Abruptly Jordan drops me. I land in a heap, pick myself up, dust myself off.
The man gives Jordan a dark look.Va! he shouts.
A trampoline descends from above and lands with a clatter a few yards away from us. Jordan eyes it, gauging the distance. Crouching, he bounces lightly on the balls of his feet; then he takes a few brisk hop-skips and springs forward, leaping and landing directly on the trampoline’s center. He jumps, jumps, gaining momentum and height, his necktie flopping. Then he does a midair flip, lands straight-legged on both feet, and pops off at an angle, vanishing into the wings.
Standing to one side, I stare at the empty trampoline. The man is looking at me now, his lips pulled back in an enigmatic smile.
As foryou,he says, it’s not enough—it’s never enough!—to simply do the exercises.Roles,one must always be thinking about roles. Ask yourself what parts this father of yours played. And with whom, for whom? Do you know? Or do you only think you know?
Who are you? I ask, turning to him.
Vsevolod Meyerhold, he says, bowing. At your service.
“MY WORD,” said Stuart, “what are we wearing?”
We were sitting in a bar near the theater, awaiting Danny. The bar offered a grand array of beers. Stuart was drinking a local brew called Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout, which he described as malty and smoky; it had a thick, creamy appearance, as though its ingestion required a spoon. To his dismay I’d ordered a Molsen, which in Stuart’s book is like ordering a glass of fruit juice in a winery. The bar was crowded. As Stuart pulled in his seat, leaning toward me to allow another patron to pass behind him, his eyebrows rose with curiosity.
“Wearing?” I repeated. Looking downward, I inspected my white T-shirt, blazer, and black jeans. “Seems to me I’m wearing what I always wear. Maybe you need new glasses?”
He’d just bought new ones (they had thin red wire-rimmed frames and looked rather like those of Abby, Sam’s daughter, as I’d already teased him), and he scowled at me now through their oval lenses. “Not your clothes, dumbo,” he said. “Your scent.”
“Ah,” I said. “It’s something new. They sell it at that Japanese department store in Midtown—the chic one.” I waved my wrist before Stuart’s nose. “Nice, isn’t it? It’s the only one I’ve worn that isn’t one of my father’s.”
He placed his cheek against mine, sniffing deeply at my neck. “Fabulous. And does the lover-man approve?”
“Yes, the lover-man approves,” I answered. “He is exceedingly easy to please.”
“Easy to please,” echoed Stuart, pensively. “I’d say your lumpenproletarian has done you some good after all.”
“My what?” I jeered. It was an open secret that Stuart fancied Nick, whom he’d met once or twice.
“That handsome representative of the working class! Your woika,” said Stuart, sliding into a Brooklyn accent. “Your hard woika,” he added, chuckling. “I can well imagine how you exploit him.”
“Keep your dirty mind off my guy,” I said.
“Yes, ma’am.” He mimed a schoolmaster’s rectitude, crossing his arms at his chest and drawing himself upright. Then he relaxed, reaching across the table to squeeze my forearm gently. “Glad you’re enjoying yourself, Cam,” he said. “I have to say I didn’t think you still would be. After the initial kick wore off, that is. I wouldn’t have pictured you in such a long-running movie. It’s very French. Only you’re not very French. Nor is the man himself, needless to say.”
“Oh, come on—Nick’s a good pal,” I said. “I seem to require a degree of loyalty in a man, and I get it from him. Despite the fact that he’s married to someone else.”
“No,” said Stuart. “You get it because of that fact. Let’s not make too much of the adulterer’s fidelity.
”
“Have no fear,” I said. “Let’s not forget who the adulterer’s mistress is. She’s not exactly waiting for the adulterer to declare his intention to marry her.”
“True.” He sipped his beer and smacked his lips approvingly. “You know,” he went on, “Carl’s spoiled me. We spend so much time together, and he hasn’t once tossed me out the window. He’s an absurdly decent person. How did I end up with an absurdly decent person?” His face contorted into a parody of bewilderment, all raised brows and widened eyes; then his expression resettled. “Dunno,” he said softly, his tone serious now. “Not a clue. Lucky stars.”
I imagined Stuart in his lover’s arms, his self-doubt edged to one side by Carl’s steadfastness. The mental picture comforted me for a moment; I felt as though Stuart’s domestic tranquility were somehow rubbing off on me. His next words, however, dispelled this.
“A question. Are you fixing on spending the rest of your life in the company of a married man? Just asking,” he added as I started scowling. He reached over and pinched my chin between his thumb and forefinger. “Thing is, you’ve been involved with Nick for five or six years now, right? You’re stingy with the details. I’m not talking sex, I’m talking”—he thumped his heart lightly—“this. Seems to me you’ve been treading water, Cammie. Nick’s a nice guy, fun guy, good guy. And? But? Well?” His head clicked back and forth with each query. “I mean, the man’s not planning on divorcing the wife—fine, I’m not lobbying for that! But the thing is, you don’t seem to have upped the ante. Know what I mean?”
His gaze was warm and undeflectable; I could feel the years of our friendship behind it. “Lately, whenever I’ve tried asking you about this—and about Eve, too, while we’re at it—I feel like I’m being put on hold. One moment, please,” he mimicked nasally. “Please be assured that your call is very important to us . . .”
Thirty-three Swoons Page 10