by Grand, David
I would only spoil her fun, said Bloom.
Joseph, she needs looking after.
Won’t you look after her for me?
My dear brother, how it is you’re able to depict the complicated motives of men in your art without truly understanding them will forever remain a mystery to me.
* * *
Several times a week, Isabella dressed in gowns that displayed the full extent of her beauty and developing tastes, and she and Simon would drive down Mount Terminus into the basin, where the extension of the city had become complete. Out they drove onto the grid filled with more and more elaborate homes, with green lawns and colorful gardens kept alive by aqueduct water flowing ceaselessly from the northeast. Soon enough, Isabella hired a driver and began accepting invitations on her own. Several evenings a week, she left for these parties unaccompanied to homes and hotel suites, beach cottages and ballrooms, and often didn’t return to Mount Terminus until early the next morning, when, so as not to wake Bloom, she would sleep in the gallery with the door locked, and wouldn’t emerge until late the following afternoon. Bloom would know where she had been only from the invitations that arrived addressed to them both. Otherwise, they never spoke of the parties or the people she’d met or what exciting distractions and entertainments existed in the widening city below. Rather, when she chose to give Bloom her full attention, she was some paler version of his Isabella, the Isabella who, for the time being, tolerated her reclusive husband, whose lifestyle he stubbornly clung to out of habit and fear of a world he couldn’t imagine himself being part of. As he never questioned her or complained, she, for now, didn’t question or complain to him. Instead, for the time being, when they were together, they talked of the subtle changes in the weather and the night sky, what news she had heard from Simon about his most recent conquests—his most recent acquisitions, the newest actors, actresses, directors under contract, how Bloom’s preproduction of The Death of Paradise was coming along. And not frequently, but often enough that he didn’t feel entirely deprived, they acted out—with more comfort and familiarity than excitement—the passion they once enjoyed together in the gallery.
* * *
The more estranged from Isabella he grew, the clearer Bloom’s focus became in the studio. For years now he had been dreaming of The Death of Paradise, seeing it piecemeal, in fragments, but he had now begun to see it all at once, and knew if he shut himself away for a period of time, if he allowed the story to fully consume him, he would be able to bind all the disparate parts together once and for all, and finally be done with it. He thought perhaps once he was through, once he had put this final picture behind him, he could become more the man Isabella needed him to be. If she saw to what lengths he had gone in making this picture, he believed, she would appreciate the way her absence had affected him. She might see in the complexity of this work he planned on dedicating to Isabella, the complexity and the depth of the love he felt for her. Except to travel down to the new Mount Terminus Studios lot to oversee the construction of the larger sets—those on which the Spanish locales would be shot, the ship on which the Estrellas and their cohort would make their journey, the Mission Santa Theresa de Avila in which the priests would reside—Bloom remained behind the closed doors of his studio, drawing and thinking through the smallest of details, the lighting, the camera movements and perspectives, the blocking, the narrative and text for the intertitles. He wrote many pages of notes on the way he wanted the actors to perform, notes he would deliver to Gottlieb some weeks before they went into production. He feared that the picture, if not treated with the most subtle movements and gestures, could easily be reduced to overwrought melodrama. As was always the case when Bloom immersed himself in this part of his process, he rarely slept, paced a great deal, held elaborate conversations with himself about the elaborate scope of this picture. Its epic length he found stifling—the walls of his studio could hardly contain the many hundreds of panels he had drawn, and although Bloom had the ability to see and feel everything all at once, the energy it required to maintain this vision depleted him. He had grown so lost to his pursuit, Isabella had begun to notice the toll it had been taking on his health and appearance, and she felt it necessary one night to visit Bloom in his studio to express her concern. Bloom hadn’t been aware of it, but Isabella had from time to time been observing him work from outside the studio window. What she had seen, she told Bloom, she found disconcerting. She was particularly upset by the sight of him talking with himself, speaking at times as if there were someone there beside him. She found herself haunted by the images of him listening and responding to that invisible someone. When she saw him like this, she told him, she felt something break inside her. She felt overtaken by feelings of shame, and she wondered if her neglect had contributed to Bloom’s state of mind. If I’m hurting you by not being here, she said, I beg you to say so. Bloom rejected this idea. As long as she was content with the life she was leading, he refused to stand in her way. Although he most certainly missed her, and wished she would spend more time in his company, he wouldn’t keep her from whatever life she wished to lead, no matter how unrecognizable she became to him. Given what he knew of her, knowing so intimately the insatiable hunger inside her, he wouldn’t be the one to restrain her. He wouldn’t risk being perceived as a barrier to her happiness. He wouldn’t allow her to despise him for keeping her from doing whatever it was she needed to do for herself. To preserve and protect their love was his only purpose, and so he said, as a way to placate her, I promise you, you’re mistaking my obsession for distress.
To this she said, I’m afraid for you.
I’m hardly in mortal danger.
Nevertheless, said Isabella.
It’s true, I do lose myself to my work, but I’m not in any peril.
Isabella eased her head onto Bloom’s chest and again said, Nevertheless.
I’m touched by your concern, but, really, truly, you needn’t worry.
She then held Bloom for a while, and he could feel from the tightness with which she held on to him there was something more she wanted to say. I know how it goes against your nature …
What?
What would you think if we were to host a party here when you’ve completed your preparations? What would you think if we were to fill the gardens and the courtyard with music? I want us to dance together. I want to see you mindless and frivolous, if only for one night.
Bloom said, I’ll dance you through the gardens right now if you like.
Please, Joseph. I’m being serious.
Bloom was reminded of Mephisto’s Affinity, of Mrs. Mephisto ordering her husband to the surface for a well-deserved Sabbath.
Really, Joseph. It’s a wonderful feeling to dance to music and feel yourself moving about with others moving beside you. Try to imagine it. Try to imagine the fascination you might feel for the strangers surrounding you.
You know I’m not inclined that way.
I know, but I want you to experience it for yourself—they’re only people, not unlike you or I.
Bloom tried to imagine it, but he couldn’t move in his mind beyond the images of faceless shadows pressing against them in the dark. But when Isabella then said, so disconsolately, I’ve missed you, Joseph, more than you could possibly know, Bloom was unable to say no to her.
Yes, he said, why not?… I’ll rise to the occasion.
Do you mean it? Do you really mean it?
I’m a grown man, Bloom reasoned on her behalf. If I’m to be your husband, if I’m to be with you in every way, I can’t remain apart from the world forever, now can I?
Isabella stopped clutching his ribs and pulled her face from his chest. I know you don’t really mean it, but I do want you to try. I really do want you to give it a try.
Then I’ll try. For you, I will try. He stood up and walked Isabella outside and down into the courtyard. They wandered together about the trunks of the grove and Isabella asked, You do still love me, Joseph, don’t you?
; Of course, I do, said Bloom. I’ll always love you. Bloom turned to Isabella and searched the darkness for the contours of her face, but found his eyes unable to make out its lines. In that instant, Isabella had disappeared right before him.
* * *
In a month’s time, Bloom completed his preliminary work on The Death of Paradise. Every image of the story had been imagined, every transition, every line of dialogue. He had sketched every costume he wished sewn, every prop he wished to have manufactured or found, wrote directions for how every set was to be dressed. He had mapped every movement to be made by his cameramen and his actors, every lighting configuration, for every track to be laid. He scheduled the dates they would appear on what stage, the order in which every scene would be shot. There were five volumes in all, all of which he neatly lined up on his drafting table and presented to Gottlieb, who, upon seeing to what lengths Bloom had gone, nearly wept with joy. I have produced in you, Gottlieb said with his usual hyperbolic flourish, a burning bush! What lives inside of you, Rosenbloom, is a mystery for the ages! And on this day, Bloom departed his studio with no plans of returning to it anytime soon. He bathed for a considerable number of hours. Afterward, Meralda shaved him and cut his hair, trimmed his nails. He dressed himself in a suit and a pair of shined shoes. And he went to Isabella and told her his news. And Isabella was pleased.
* * *
The gardeners arrived shortly after daybreak. They set about grooming the grounds under Gus’s purview as they had done for some years now. Not long after they appeared and began meandering through the labyrinths to clip away the overgrowth of the hedgerows, the kitchen staff and wait staff Isabella had hired to assist Meralda arrived, and soon they began unloading from trucks enough crates of food and wine, ice and spirits, to fortify the entire city. They unloaded dozens of tables and chairs, sets of crystal and silver, bales of linen. From Mount Terminus Productions arrived the makings for a stage and a dance floor, and they brought along as well many bundles of kerosene torches, some of which went to the courtyard and the grove, but most of which were immediately untied by the gardeners, who then spiked them into the ground one by one along the urn-shaped figure formed by the convergence of the gardens; and down the edges of the straight drive they continued hammering on to the front gate. When the last of the trucks had delivered their freight, and the rhythmic pounding of the stage construction had ceased, several of the men from the wait staff, along with the gardeners, took to raking the gravel before the house’s entry, down to the street, where, when they had finished smoothing over the tire tracks and had landscaped the white stones into a uniform surface, they swung the wrought-iron gates closed and opened the pedestrian entry beside it. The front grounds emptied now, and Bloom, who had been watching at various times of the day the comings and goings from his tower’s pavilion, waited in anticipation for the encroaching city he had witnessed grow up before his eyes to make its entry into his home.
Knowing he would understand the nature of this question without lengthy explanation, Bloom asked Gottlieb when his small, bearded friend climbed up to greet him, Why, Gottlieb, must I see shadows where there are none?
Gottlieb rested his elbows on the pavilion’s ledge and placed his fingers in his beard. Simply put. You are blessed. Touched by God. And those touched by God are always a little mad. You, Rosenbloom, are quite normal in that respect.
I am normal in my madness.
Yes, said Gottlieb. You are.
They all seemed to arrive at once, shortly after the last streaks of twilight evaporated from the horizon. They parked their cars on the road, and as couples and small packs they walked as shadows into the orange glow of the torchlit drive. They strolled along the gardens’ borders, many pointing and commenting on the sizable grounds.
It’s time, Isabella said as she climbed into the pavilion with Bloom. She looked magnificent, and Bloom told her so. She was wearing a long dress made of crushed silk and around her neck a pearl choker. In her hand she carried a leather-bound tablet, which she handed to him.
What’s this?
A gift from me, said Gottlieb. To calm the nerves.
If you find yourself feeling uncomfortable, said Isabella, search out a seat somewhere and draw.
The more cruel you are to your guests, said Gottlieb, the more they’ll admire you.
You needn’t be cruel, said Isabella, kissing his cheek. They’ll admire you as you are. When you’re ready to come down, I’ll be waiting.
She’s nervous for you, said Gottlieb as Isabella descended the staircase.
As she should be. Bloom watched Isabella’s dress sweep the stairs as she made her exit, and then he and Gottlieb continued to watch them come. They came and they came, and soon enough Bloom could hear the orchestra strike up, and over the din of the instruments tuning he heard Simon’s voice cry up to him. Joseph!
Remember, said Gottlieb. You’re meant to be affable.
Bloom leaned over the rail and shrugged his shoulders at his brother.
Don’t come down, I’ll come up! Simon broke from his entourage and Bloom saw him move in the direction of the service entrance, and a few moments later he came charging up to greet them. He looked out onto the sparkle of lights scattered across the basin, and said, It’s been some time since I was last up here. I forgot how far and wide you can see from your perch.
You’re always welcome to share it with me.
I was told in advance that if I saw you up here when I arrived, I was to escort you down and keep an eye on you. But before I drag you down there, I was hoping you and I could talk for a minute. Simon turned to Gottlieb.
You needn’t say it, said the little man. I know you well enough.
I was thinking, said Simon when Gottlieb had left them. I was hoping you’d consider something …
What’s that?
A suggestion.
With regard to what?
Isabella.
What about her?
She’s lost, Joseph. She’s in need of a purpose.
I’ve tried. But this, said Bloom with a hand out toward the oncoming throng, is what she wants.
Which is why you must show her she’s greater than all this nonsense.
Isn’t this your sort of nonsense?
I didn’t say it wasn’t right for me. But I can tell you, it most certainly isn’t right for her. She is lost, said Simon. I can promise you that. And if she is lost, you are lost, and if you are lost, I …
What?
I have failed you. And myself.
How’s that?
I’ve invested a considerable amount of money into your latest effort and I have no intention of seeing the promise of the return dashed because you’re blind to the needs of the living.
Simon delivered this line as if it was intended to be funny, but Bloom couldn’t find the humor in it.
Just ask her to assist you on The Death of Paradise. She’s talked about nothing else since you locked yourself away.
Has she?
She’s enthralled with the story.
She and I, we discovered it together.
I know.
Before she left. Before she became …
My point exactly.
But she’s only expressed her concern about me. She’s said nothing to me one way or the other about the picture itself.
That’s because she hasn’t wanted to get in your way. She has it in her mind that you need to be left on your own to do whatever it is you do when you lose yourself to your work. Simon waved his arm around the aviary. She treats you as if you’re some fragile creature who must have his plumage fluffed just so, for fear of risking an Icarus-like plummet.
Bloom thought this over for a moment. Perhaps I do.
You and every other prima donna worth my trouble. But you’re missing my point. Your wife, the ever-so-lovely Mrs. Rosenbloom, has lost her way. And you, my oblivious brother, need to show her she has a place by your side.
But of course she does, said Bloom. She must kno
w that.
I don’t think she does.
Here I was all this time thinking she needed the freedom to explore this other side of herself, and you’re telling me I’ve in actuality been neglecting her?
No, said Simon. Not at all. I’m simply saying you should invite her in to our little world of magic-making and let’s see what happens.
She won’t think I’m pressuring her to give up her new life? Her new friends?
I have a feeling, a very good feeling, she will be receptive.
Yes?
Yes! Even if she doesn’t say as much, she needs you to show her the way. She needs a nudge in the right direction.
What can I say?… I’ll nudge her.
Good.
And Simon?
Yes, Joseph?
Thank you.
Don’t thank me. Just come along, or I won’t hear the end of it.
* * *
A clamor of voices, a voracious sound Bloom had never before heard, filled the tower stairwell as they descended. He followed Simon to the bottom and entered the villa through the front entrance, where he found illuminated by bright incandescent light the hundreds of shadows he had watched walk the drive. They stood about in small groups throughout the entirety of the house. Never before—not even in all his years on the overcrowded lot—had Bloom seen so many people crushed into one place or felt the physical warmth or smelled the commingling of scents generated by bodies standing in such close proximity. The biting scents of perfumes and colognes, the briny wafts of damp body odor, the savory whiffs of cured meats and smoked fish, he took it in all at once as they brushed past people acting out private performances in the corridors. The scents and the cacophony of conversation, the monologues, the piano music from the parlor contaminated by the music from the courtyard, all went to Bloom’s head. He was relieved to hear one of the bartenders say, when Simon asked if he happened to know where she was, that he had just seen Isabella step outside. Why don’t you go ahead, said Simon. I’ll bring out the drinks. All Bloom could manage was a nod, and then he slipped away down the long corridor running to the courtyard doors. He made his way outside, where he discovered Isabella standing at the nearest corner of the reflecting pool surrounded by several young men and a young woman who was swinging the head of a dead fox. He knew it would be proper for him to join them and announce himself, but they all appeared so familiar with one another, he wasn’t certain how to interject himself without disturbing the festive mood. He instead headed for one of the café tables set around the edge of the dance floor, and there took a seat, and so not to make it appear as if he were in need of anyone’s attention, he opened the tablet Gottlieb had given Isabella to give to him, and he took Gottlieb’s suggestion: he started sketching, and as Gottlieb had predicted, the movement of his hands calmed him. Perhaps because of the power of suggestion, or because he had manifested in his mood the great discomfort he had felt throughout the day, he found himself making a grotesque mockery out of the woman swinging the dead animal. He extended her sharp nose into an oversized beak. Her slim figure, he made skeletal. He exaggerated the bones of her shoulders and chest, extended the length of her fingers, elongated her jaw, pointed her chin, hollowed her eyes, diminished her cheeks, yet he left unchanged the elegant gown she wore and posed her body with the same glamorous poise with which she carried herself, and he hung over the joint of her bony elbow the fox, to which he added an overly long tongue that lifelessly lolled from the corner of its dark lip. To the men, Bloom did the same as he did to the woman. He turned them into Punchinellos dressed for Saturnalia, well prepared to feast on Isabella, who he drew as full and round, with a softness. However, he couldn’t help but notice, as he fixed the lines forming her image on the page, how, as she talked with these creatures—who, with their enormous gestures, appeared to be acting for an invisible camera—Isabella appeared to be mirroring them, and comfortably so, as if for a long time now she had been studying how oversized and artificial emotion was expressed in the features of the face and the physicality of the body. At the sight of this, Bloom felt a queasiness grow inside him. Had he not been so compliant, he wondered, would she have turned to this? Or had he tried to cage her as Fernando caged Miranda, would she have turned into one of these creatures anyway? He began to see all around him grotesqueries from the hand of Hieronymus Bosch. Feral, thought Bloom, and predatory. Sharp in teeth and claw, in the darting movements of the eyes. He could see clearly for the first time since their day in the naked rose garden how Isabella’s hunger, her enormous appetite, had in this company manifested itself into a character with whom Bloom felt at odds. For this role, for these absurd people, she no longer pursued her scientific interests? For these mindless conformists, she was no longer satisfied with the quiet subtleties of Mount Terminus? For her place among these ridiculous men and women, she had abandoned him for Simon’s companionship?