“What would you do if you were at the Fischer place?”
“Go into the bathhouse, but only for as long as it took to let up a bit. You know, rain down here has a way of going on and on.”
It was dark in the tower room. I sat on the edge of the bed, shivering, and Roman lit a candle and set it in front of the window facing the beach. “It’s going to get rough down there,” he said, looking out. “A person could get lost in that ocean and never be found, you know.”
He looked across at me, his eyes somber. Something about the way he looked frightened me, and I sat silently, waiting for him to speak again. “Either he would be caught by an undertow, or attacked by a shark or something, and that would be the end for him.”
I couldn’t understand this maudlin train of thought, and walked over to stand beside him. “Everyone has to die, Roman. But if we have faith in God, there’s no reason to fear death.…”
“You sound like a Sunday school teacher. I didn’t say I feared it. Look, life is like this,” he said, drawing out a match from the box on the windowsill and striking it on the rough wall. “When we’re born it’s like the spark that ignites this match.”
The match fire caught, crept down the stalk, leaving a curl of charcoal above it. “While we’re alive it burns like this.” I watched his eyes, sparkling above the tiny flame. “When we die it goes out, poof!” he said, blowing it out just as the flame reached his finger. “We simply cease to exist.”
“Is that what you believe?”
“That’s all there is, baby. That’s why I live for the moment. Whether you know it or not, you believe it, too, and that’s why you’re here with me right now.”
He kept looking at me, through me. I wanted to help him, to find out why his mood should become so bleak. “Come into my arms, Serena,” he said finally. “Oh, God, how I need you!”
Roman always encouraged my dancing, and when I suggested one day I might skip a class, in order to come to him sooner, he wouldn’t hear of it. “Certainly it would look strange if you suddenly began missing lessons, and anyway, dancing means a lot to you, doesn’t it?”
“It was everything … till you came along.”
“All right. I’d be the last one to have you give up what you love most for me. I’m not worth it in the first place, and anyway, every person—man or woman—ought to live up to his greatest potential, if he can.”
Truly I had never considered dancing in that light, although Madame praised my ability often and had even broached the subject of my going to a school for advanced training far from here—up East somewhere. Such an idea was out of the question, though, because Dad couldn’t afford to send me—how he managed to scrape up the money for me to dance with Madame was an item never discussed between us, yet one about which I had idly wondered a few times. Besides, Dad didn’t take my dancing seriously, and only gave me the lessons because he felt he owed me something extra for the time I spent with Mother at home. Then, of course, there was the problem of Mother, always lurking in the background. There were so many reasons why it was impossible for me ever to study away from home that I had soon closed the subject once and for all with Madame, telling her one day, “I’m sorry, but you see it is absolutely impossible.”
That same day I’d walked home downhearted at the finality of my own remark, even though I’d never dared hope her idea might become a reality. And on that day I’d silently adopted a philosophy toward dancing, uttered in a prayer that God would see fit to allow me to go on taking lessons for as long as I wanted—years and years, even until I was older than Madame herself—and if he would, I’d not ask for more into the bargain.
From the first few weeks of urgent meetings with Roman in the tower, my dancing ability seemed to blossom, for I now approached each routine or exercise with new and deeper feeling, whereas before I’d been a less inspired, though fairly meticulous, student. Knowing Roman felt my dancing important gave me a new sense of freedom in it, and each movement, each turn of the head or hand, became a thing born of love rather than of concentration and study. Madame, always quick to notice any change in what she called her dancers’ “bearing,” said one day, “See how much better you do when you relax, Serena—now you look like the real dancer I know you can be!”
One morning, when I’d gone straight to the Pavilion from the studio, breathless from hurrying because we’d stayed over for a long practice on brisé volé, Roman took my carpetbag from me and said, “You’ve never danced for me, and here I am your most encouraging fan.”
He sat down on the bed and began to dig through my bag. “What’s this filmy pink thing?”
“My practice outfit.”
“Oh … I don’t think my sister practices in outfits like this. They’re more sophisticated in New York, wear less on the dance floor and at the bar. And these are your shoes,” he continued, pulling one out and nudging his hand down inside it. “Your feet are long—more narrow than I realized.”
“Yes. As you see, I ought to replace the ribbons on those shoes. They’ve grown ragged.”
“You’re ordinarily careful about such details, are you?”
“Yes, but lately I haven’t—”
“I know. Someone has been occupying too much of your time.”
“I wouldn’t say that. But I do think of him a lot when I’m not with him, and less about making a trip to Lalor’s to buy dancing shoe ribbons.”
“Do you practice at home?”
“Yes, on the back porch. I use the railing as a bar.”
“My sister’s always practicing, has a bar in her apartment.”
“What’s your sister like?”
“Hannah’s two years older than me. She’s been in New York four or five years. She’s never married, unless you could count being married to her work in the ballet corps. I don’t see her very often.”
“Did she go to New York before you?”
“Long before. I went only three years ago, to join the King’s band.”
“What did you do till then?”
“My, aren’t we inquisitive today?” he said, the look of mischief coming into his eyes. “What’s the difference? Would I ask what you were doing three years ago?”
“If you did, I could probably tell you, and it wouldn’t be much.”
“Well, it’s the same for me. Here, I have an idea. Put these things on and dance for me.”
“Oh, Roman, not here. The room is too small—I’d probably run into the wall.”
“Not here, silly, downstairs in the main hall. I’ll accompany you at the piano.”
“But I wouldn’t know what to have you play. We dance mostly to classical music, and I’m not too familiar with the titles.”
“Come now, quit stalling and put these on. You can just begin something, and I’ll pick out music to go with it. What kind of musician do you think I am? Go on, don’t stand there fidgeting. I want to see you dance.”
“All right But what if someone should come in while we’re in there?”
“So what? It would only be a band member, come to pick up something or other, and they all know better than to interfere with me.”
I put the costume on, and the shoes, and sat obediently on the edge of the bed while he laced up the ribbons. He was insistent upon this small act of chivalry, and I loved the warmth of his hands as they wound the ribbons tightly around. His manner was businesslike as a shoe salesman, and when he was done they were wrapped as snugly as though I had wrapped them myself. He patted my knee and said, “All right, old girl, let’s go.” I stood up, but as we reached the door and opened it I hesitated again.
“Serena, don’t act as though I were sending you to the guillotine. After all, who else do you know who is even interested in your ballet?”
“No one, except Madame D’Arcy.”
“And old Nicky boy, what does he think?” he asked as we spiraled down the stairs.
“Just about what you would guess … that someday we’ll be married and I’ll forget such
foolishness, or so he hopes.”
“See how I corrupt you? Putting ideas into your head about really being somebody? My, how scandalous, tsk, tsk.”
I wanted to put my arms around him when he said that.
The floor of the Pavilion hall loomed larger than ever, with the chairs moved out of the way since the last cleaning, and no one to take up the vast space except Roman and me.
“Now, now,” his voice echoed as he reached the piano. “What will it be? Can you remember the name of any tune you dance to? Surely you can. Nick would be outraged if he knew his best girl couldn’t name all the classical works.”
“I am not Nick’s girl, and I’d appreciate your not saying that, if you don’t mind.”
“Yes, of course that’s true, although he has yet to realize it. Now, come on. Think of something …”
Today he was a new Roman—exacting as a class instructor. I wondered how many sides there were to his personality, and whether I would ever know all of them.
“You probably wouldn’t know it,” I said finally, “Mendelssohn’s ‘On Wings of Song.’ We learned a dance to it last spring that I loved, so I still remember all of it, I think.”
“How dare you accuse me of being so lowbrow as not to know, ‘On Wings of Song.’”
He opened the piano cover and ran his fingers over the keys. “Now, get down there in the center, where I can see you. Shall I turn a spotlight your way?”
“Don’t you dare,” I said, and padded softly across the floor. I had never felt so gawky as I did that day, standing there before the music began. In Madame’s studio, the only place I had ever danced except in the privacy of my own back porch, no one need feel foolish because everyone was doing the same thing. Everyone was dressed alike, and all were taking the same steps, whether or not they executed them properly. Here, I was like a star about to perform before an audience, and suddenly I thought I could imagine how Margueretta Sterling might have felt as she began the execution of her dance from Swan Lake. I took a deep breath and struck the beginning pose. “Ready,” I said. “The tempo is rather slow.”
“I’ll follow you,” he said, and began the long, elegant passages of the music with the sureness of the concert pianist. The dance began slowly, dreamily as the music to which it was set. I moved stiffly at first, rather like a marionette fresh from storage, but as the music lilted on, more crescendo with each measure and vaster in range, I forgot my misery at being a spectacle, and danced the routine with confidence and joy. When Mendelssohn’s masterpiece wound to its quiet, peaceful end, I made the final movements and lowered myself into a bow to the floor. Roman shouted, “Bravo, Bravo, she can really dance!” and his applause rang through the empty hall like the clapping of many eager hands.
Then a voice rose deeply from the rear of the hall, “I fully agree.”
I turned around to see Professor King standing just inside the door. “Good day,” he said politely. “I didn’t know they had ballet here in the Pavilion.”
“Oh, they don’t. Please forgive us, if we were in the way—”
“Nonsense. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Please continue. I’m just here to pick up some papers from the office, then I’ll be off to town. Roman has excellent taste, I can assure you. Perhaps I can watch you again, at another time.”
Roman made no comment all this time, and when the Professor was gone I said, “Well, thanks for leaving me to explain by myself.”
“Explain what?” he asked innocently. “I owe him no explanations. It was you who were so anxious to excuse yourself. Ah, Serena, sometimes you remind me of a little mouse who’s come timidly out of his nook in the dining room, just in time to frighten a dowager passing by in her trailing skirts. He runs back into the safety of his nook, never realizing he has frightened the dowager just as much as her screams have frightened him.”
“But doesn’t that prove what I’m saying? I’ve no right to be here, any more than the mouse has a right to be in the dining room.”
“On the contrary. I’m only saying that you are not a little mouse, so stop behaving like one. You’ve as much right to be in this hall as King.”
“All right. But for that, you’ve got to play some more for me. This time I’ll be the one to sit and watch. I had no idea you played so beautifully.”
“I haven’t always been a traveling musician, dear,” he said, and began to run unhesitatingly through tunes from Bach to Beethoven. I shall never forget that day, for it gave me a new confidence in myself that all the talking and encouraging could never have given. I’d actually delivered a good rendering of a dance routine, and if I could do it before Roman Cruz, obviously accomplished in the field of music, perhaps I could do it one day in front of others.
It was dispiriting, then, to go home and face the problems there.
Mrs. McCambridge stood impatiently at the door as I walked up. “You’re late,” she said. “You sometimes forget that I must go home and fix lunch for my family.”
“All right, all right, I’m here now and you can go. Have you given Mother her lunch?”
“Of course. Don’t I always feed her at eleven? I haven’t missed feeding her at eleven in all the years I’ve been here. Not that she always eats.”
“Did she eat today?”
“Not very well. She hasn’t eaten really well since her sick spell not long ago. Serena … I think it would be nice for you to go into her room and spend some time with her this afternoon. You know, I’m certain she’s aware when you stay beside her bed. She loves you, even if she can’t show it.”
“All right, Mrs. McCambridge. I was planning to, anyway. Maybe I’ll brush her hair. She seems to like that.”
“There’s a good child. Well, I must be going now. I told William to put a pot roast in the stove this mornin’, and, knowin’ him, he’ll let it get overdone if I tarry any longer.…” She was standing in front of the hall mirror, pinning on her gray felt hat, which she had worn every day since I could remember. “William hasn’t been up to snuff lately, runny nose and all. I shouldn’t wonder if that boy isn’t in bed when I get home, forgettin’ entirely about my roast.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. Tell him I hope he’s better soon.”
After she left I went straight up to Mother, and as her room was stuffy I walked over to raise the window a few inches higher. Then an odd thing happened. I wasn’t even looking outside the window, just down at the latch, when I became aware of the feeling someone was watching me. I looked across at James’s bedroom window in Claire’s house. There was no one there, and the window was closed. Yet the curtains fluttered slightly as though someone had only just touched them and moved on.
Chapter 9
Dad was becoming more and more aloof. At first I’d thought it my fault, because I did take care to avoid him at times. It’s hard for me to hide my feelings from him, and I knew the fewer our conversations, the safer I would be.
Yet he, too, no longer sought my company as he used to. Often he had dinner out, and when he came in, would likely go straight up to his bedroom, stopping only to open Mother’s door a few inches and look in.
That evening I heard him come in downstairs as I was feeding Mother, and when she finished her tray I took it to the kitchen and found him sitting at the table with his glass of whisky. He didn’t hear my entrance, and as I watched him sitting there, looking toward the open back door, I thought perhaps he, too, had some immediate problem which I’d been too wrapped up in myself to notice.
I sat down across from him. “Dad, is anything the matter?”
“Oh, Nan, I didn’t hear you come in. No, should there be?”
“No, but you don’t talk much lately and stay out a lot. Something wrong down at the church?”
He gazed at me steadily for a moment, then said, “The church? There is little that can happen there at this point. It’s all been done, long ago.”
I didn’t know exactly what he meant by that, except I’d been told once that the mayoral election Charles ran in
more than ten years ago had had something to do with it.
“You mustn’t give up, Dad. There are lots of other churches in Galveston now, and maybe St. Christopher’s doesn’t have the best location among them. Maybe you ought to consider moving, closer to Broadway or—”
“Move? No, there’s no need for that now,” he said, then brightened. “Besides, we’re not doing so badly. We still have the loveliest garden in the city, and many loyal parishioners.”
“Dad, tell me about what happened when Charles ran for mayor. I know what happened at the church was connected to it somehow, but I’ve never been sure how.”
“Charles can’t be blamed for any of it,” he said. “There were two things that went wrong. First, I mistakenly tried to be active in his campaign. The bishop learned of it and disapproved of my behavior. But that wouldn’t have been an insurmountable problem; indeed, no one in the church would have needed to know.
“The turning point was the fact so many of the communicants were either employed by or somehow connected with the Wharf Company. You see, they were a mighty force. The Wharf Company was naturally against Charles, because he came out strongly against their policies. At that time, politics entered everything—well, I guess that’s still true. Anyway, the congregation began dividing into factions, and people began to leave. Imagine, factions in the church! It was all ridiculous for a bunch of Christians, of course, and should never have happened.
“Yet you can’t control the feelings of people. Even if I curtailed my own activities in the campaign after the bishop gave me a scolding, everyone knew how close Charles and I were as neighbors and friends. Then of course there was Lucien Carter.”
“Who?”
“You wouldn’t remember him—you were too young. Lucien owned a shipping company based here, and he wholeheartedly supported Charles during the election. He was also a member at St. Christopher’s.”
“I see.”
“Yes. He left Galveston shortly after Charles dropped out of the race, but there was a lot of bitterness toward me because I was Lucien’s friend, too.”
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