The problem was one that had been solved, at least partially, by Frank Lloyd Wright and Louis Sullivan, though eventually Sullivan was defeated by the very source (the public) which had helped him to solve the problem. It was a matter of education: education of the public to a condition of mind where his, Pierro’s, ideas would be acceptable.
Wright had gotten it across to a reluctant public that there must be a coordination between nature’s form and life itself; a synthesis, a blending of the material and spiritual as far as the individual building was concerned. His theory, that of ‘form follows function’, was that the shape and decoration of a building be based entirely on its use. He had pointed out that the Pantheon was erected to house a statue, not a bank. Louis Sullivan had in a sense initiated this theory. Though the actual revolution was based on the discovery of new material; the use of steel as a framework, cheap glass, and the electric elevator. Sullivan had initially contended that what was appropriate for a Greek temple or a Gothic church was not appropriate for a steel building or factory. Wright had merely elaborated on this theory; developed it not merely by his technical approach but by his spiritual approach.
But Wright and Sullivan hadn’t in reality caused the revolution, though Wright in his old age liked to think that he had. Because before there can be revolution there must be cause. And the cause was what we called the industrial or machine age and its by-products.
The real cause was steel.
And once the cause, steel, had been established, the only thing that the rebel needed was a demagogue to lead the way. Wright was born, Pierro believed, in the perfect place, in the perfect time, with the perfect characteristics and requirements. What is more, he had taken his chance and won. But how many had taken the chance and not won? how many were there? Pierro wondered again now suddenly as he drove aimlessly along. How many were there? What blind faith did it take to make a Milton, or a Blake, or a Wright? Or was it faith that mattered?
Wright had indeed shown the way with buildings, Pierro believed. But only shown the way. Only met a requirement. Simply, a requirement of the Time. The men in the cities simply needed more space. And there was only one way to go and that was up. And steel had made it possible. Not Frank Lloyd Wright.
What Wright had made possible was that man should fulfill his own need. Because man inherently clung to his past, to his old ways because he knew the nature of those ways. To him (man) the past had reality, while the future offered only the uncertain unknown. That man’s greatest weakness was his clinging to his racial past was evidenced by the very war we were now fighting. So Wright had to convince man of that which he presently required. It had not been a simple job.
But as the individual building needed revolutionary approaches, so did the individual city, Pierro believed. Because of transportation and communications, in America especially, the city as it was today designed and constructed was as outmoded as the wooded framed, brick building that could be constructed safely only to a height of around eight floors.
As manufacturers of this industrial age went to where the consumer was, the city, or a series of smaller cities, villages, townships, must go to the home, not only because there was no more space in the city for homes, but because, in spite of the development of transportation and communications, the American housewife would have less time.
The entire concept of the American home had undergone a change, Pierro had analyzed. The excluding of in-laws, unmarried sisters or brothers, even of domestic help, had not only multiplied the number of homes that were needed but had placed an added burden on the housewife herself, in spite of all the new appliances that were supposed to make life easier. For the meal that once served six or eight or ten persons now only served three or four, yet the man-hours to cook and serve the meal remained the same, so that you had an increase in man-hours and a decrease in productivity, actually. And where an earlier American mother would have the service of the in-laws, unmarried brothers and sisters, the modern housewife would not. She would have to answer the phone, do the marketing, prepare the meals, tend the baby, pack the lunches for school—multiple duties that an earlier American mother would not have had to cope with. And with the increasing prosperity that America was undergoing, meaning less of an availability of domestic help because of more lucrative opportunities in manufacturing and industry, and because of the increased cost of living, suburban life would be intensely magnified, bee use the housewives would not be able to come to the city. So the city, as Pierro saw it, must have a new plan. Not only for itself, but for the areas surrounding the cities. A plan that would provide a maximum of efficiency according to public demand.
Pierro was in reality going to school on Wright s experience. Wright was first recognized not in America, but in Europe. And Pierro thought if he could get just one of his city plans accepted in Europe, then America would be in a mood acceptable to his ideas. Yet he wanted to do the actual work on the plans at Bloomfield Hills, then go on to Europe. He had made serious and meticulous studies of Athens, Rome, and Paris when abroad. And he felt he would get a much better perspective of those cities from a distance; certainly more of an objectivity than he would possibly get living in the city of his project. In this respect he knew his weakness: he was very imaginative and inclined to be overly stimulated by any suggestion, no matter how meager the potential. Living in the city of his project, he could not get away from this suggestivity.
The only thing was, he didn’t have any idea how long it would take to have a presentable plan readied. It might take several years working as he would have to work. And where would he get the money? And if he got the money, did finish his plan, suppose then it wasn’t accepted. On the other hand, he could stay with the security of the here. Stay here and work, actually do many of the things that he wanted to do, even experiment perhaps, and almost certainly gain local, if not national, prestige and recognition.
Anyhow, he felt, Bloomfield Hills for now wouldn’t hurt him. But he would have to make his decision there. And whatever he decided would be for all life, he knew.
Pierro had not really intended to take the actress Marci Preston to the buffet in Lake Forest. That is, he had not really directly asked her. The day before he had met her shortly after his arrival at a cocktail party a school chum’s parents had given at their apartment on Lake Shore. Later that evening they had by chance drifted into the same group when Charlie Wilson had invited them to his buffet. Marci, who had been in New York, Hollywood, and on the road for the past several years, mentioned that she would be glad to accept, but besides having no car, she didn’t drive and didn’t think she ought to impose on any of her family to make the drive from Evanston to Lake Forest—they were short of stamps as it was. How did she go about going by train?
At this point Charlie Wilson’s wife suggested that Pierro bring her along, Pierro being the only bachelor in that particular group and Charlie Wilson’s wife being the kind of person that enjoyed the role of the matchmaker on any scale. Pierro, for a change not irritated by one of Mrs. Wilson’s suggestions, said it would be a pleasure. And at the time it seemed acceptable to Marci. So, knowing they were going to be ‘together’ the next evening, they had made an effort to get better acquainted.
She had quite a background, Pierro found out quickly. In fact, they found out after a few moments that they had both been at the Sorbonne at the same time and had many mutual friends, both European and American. Her grandfather had been a successful Chicago engineer and her father, who was paralytic, had never worked. For a while, before the depression, they had spent the seasons in Palm Beach and Northeast Harbor in Maine. Marci had been to Europe seven times and was schooled in Switzerland as well as France, and tutored for one year in Italy. She had very little formal schooling in America, though she did spend one semester at Smith during the depression years. The depression had wiped away a considerable portion of the family income, though they still lived comfortably, and when the war came she had gone to New York and studied dramat
ics. She had always had a flair for the stage, she had told him, but was not completely devoted to it and didn’t think that she ever would be, though she had enjoyed the experience more than anything in her lifetime.
Pierro arrived at her home promptly at six for cocktails. She greeted him at the front door in a plain white summer dress. She was really a very imposing woman, he thought as he looked at her standing in the doorway of the large old gray stucco house of sixteen rooms that overlook the cliff and the lake. She was tall and red-haired, in a way almost august in appearance, and she was not what Pierro would call buxom, nor thin, but rather well-proportioned in a Scandinavian sort of way. She was, in fact, she had told Pierro previously the day before at the party, predominantly Swedish. And later by a subtle probing Pierro had found out she was actually sixth generation American.
Her manner as she greeted him was gay, almost forward. And they went out on the porch where a grey-haired old Negro servant served them a cocktail with her father. Pierro chatted with him unconstrainedly after he found that Mr. Preston had himself been doing graduate work in engineering at LIT when he was stricken with the paralysis that had left one side of his body totally paralyzed and which impaired his speech considerably. He seemed genuinely interested in Pierro’s architectural background, and then asked Pierro if by chance he were any relation to Old Pete Stratton. And when Pierro cautiously, but not visibly so, replied that he was, Mr. Preston began to explain with all the romantic enthusiasm of a shut-in what a character Old Pete had been in the days of The Mill; expounded with all the embellishments that Old Pete would have secretly loved what Old Pete had accomplished since he had come to America; expounded with a respect and admiration and friendliness for Old Pete that genuinely irritated Pierro and made him feel suddenly quite uncomfortable and anxious to leave. Nevertheless, Pierro said he would be happy to give his regards to Old Pete from Mr. Preston. In fact, if it were all right with Marci, they would be stopping by Old Pete’s on the way to Lake Forest.
Much to Pierro’s relief, they left after one cocktail, and as they walked toward the car, she stopped for a moment and looked out over the lake that was a darker blue now that the sun was setting back behind them. And now the tall trees were quiet, and the living creatures quiet too, all quiet with the setting sun and the day’s end.
“How I love this old place,” she said. “This has always been home. Since I can remember.”
For a moment Pierro thought of his own dark room in the dingy two-story walk-up, and then of how much this reminded him of Nick’s home; that was not really his, Pierro’s, home as much as Mary had tried to make him believe that it was his home, really, too. But somehow it would never be his home, no matter how Mary tried.
“I don’t think I’ve been here this time of year since I’ve been a child,” she said.
“This is a big year for coming home,” Pierro said.
They continued walking toward the car and got in and started.
“We don’t really have to stop at my aunt’s,” he said.
“I’d like to.”
“Fine, then,” he said. “My Aunt Mary did want me to stop by. But we won’t stay long. I think you’ll like her.”
“Good,” she smiled. “You see, I’m curious. After what Father said. And Charlie Wilson told me about what a promising architect you are. I want to see what kind of family makes such a promising young man.”
“Are men made?” he asked with that reserve that was so much a reserve, she thought, that it could have been taken either as an aloofness or even as a sarcasm. “Or do they make themselves?”
“Both I think,” she laughed, as if at his seriousness, he thought.
They were driving north now along the Lake and he took a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and went to offer her one, but she took the pack from his hand: “I’ll light them,” she said.
“I think you’ll find my uncle a very eccentric man,” he said, as if not noticing that she had taken the cigarettes.
“He must be. You don’t get along?”
“Not too well,” he said. “We shouldn’t, I suppose. I mean, we come from different countries. We have the difference of years. And strangely, I suppose, of background.”
“Doesn’t he have any family? I mean besides you.”
“Oh yes. A son a few years younger than I am. Nick. And a daughter who will soon be eighteen.”
“What does Nick do? A professional man, too?”
“You are curious,” he turned and grinned at her suddenly. He had white even teeth, and suddenly she noticed how anciently fine was his head, how dark the skin, not as if burnt layer upon layer from this sun, but dark with an ancientness of history, and she was suddenly slightly astonished and perplexed by the contrariness of the grin to the reserved way that was his.
“Nick’s in Paris. In the hospital. I don’t know what he’ll be. He’s rather odd. Brilliant in a way, I think. But stubborn. And wild, at times. It’s funny, as close as we’ve been, I don’t think I know him too well.”
“You get along.”
“Not really. I mean on the outside. But often, Marci, I felt that somehow we do. I can’t explain it, really. As a matter of fact, we always fought when we were younger.”
“And he always won.”
“No, I did. And that was strange, too. Because he always fought a lot. And licked tough boys. He had a reputation for being tough. And I never fought anyone except him. And he never did lick me.”
“And whose side did Aunt Mary take?”
“Aunt Mary always takes the loser’s side.”
“And Uncle Pete the winner’s?” she smiled.
“Yes,” he laughed suddenly. “Always.” He threw his head back laughing earthily, contrarily to the reserved way he appeared. Then began to twist one end of his black moustache.
Then suddenly it occurred to him how much he had told her about his family. More really, in this little time, than he had ever told anyone except Gyorki, and just as suddenly he stopped laughing and drove silently on, wondering why he had said what he had said, especially about Nick. Was he trying to impress her, he wondered. He had never gotten along with Nick. Or Old Pete. Never, with any of them except Mary and Yvonne. What was wrong with him? He was no ordinary Stratton. He might look like one. And have the name. But he was no Stratton. Not really. He was himself, goddamn it. And he would stay himself. And the first chance he had tomorrow he was going to send Old Pete a check for two-fifty. He’d be goddamned if he’d sell himself to anyone for anything, much less to Old Pete for two-fifty. How utterly stupid and easy he must have thought you were when you took that check, he said to himself, suddenly infuriated; infuriated with that sense of thwart and guilt that he would sometimes get, and only ever be able to get over, it seemed, by hours and hours of work at his drafting table. Stratton. A goddamn Stratton, he was saying to himself. But outside of a tightness of his lips, his face remained an expressionless mask. A syphilitic Stratton, he finally said it to himself. A syphilitic Stratton, he wanted to scream and get it over with.
She did not know what it was, what he was thinking of. She could see the tightness of his lips, and noticed once the sudden whiteness of his knuckles on his anciently dark hands as they gripped the steering wheel, but she felt the tension, felt it mounting and mounting, and doubled it seemed, by the mounting silence, and redoubled by its very suppression; a fierce, savage, violent yet somehow controlled tension that suddenly began to actually frighten her, as if he were not really now in control of all his faculties, and at the same time held her with an awesome and strange fascination, and suddenly she noticed how pointed were his ears, and then he spoke, quietly and reservedly spoke.
“Are you going back to the theatre?”
She didn’t answer for a moment.
“Oh yes. I mean I’ve read a play I like very much. But that won’t be until fall. I’m going to New England later this summer, though. For stock.”
“Did you think you’d make good when you started?”<
br />
“I never cared much. I liked it. But I wasn’t what you’d call stage-struck. I’m still not. Though it’s a considerable satisfaction for a girl of my background to see her name up in lights. And to know she got there herself.”
“I think caring too much can hurt your work.”
“I’m sure of it,” she said. “Or too little. That can be worse.”
And they drove along talking about the theatre for a while, then about what the war had done to America, and she asked him about the war and he told her how he was wounded and had almost died. And told her how silly, how stupid silly we were to still fight wars, and soon they pulled up in front of the Strattons’, and as they walked up the porch steps they could hear voices from the dining room. They rang the bell and waited, and soon he saw Yvonne coming toward the door.
CHAPTER XIII
PIERRO introduced Marci to Yvonne and they went into the living room.
“In the dining room, Pierro,” Yvonne said smiling that slightly mischievous smile.
They all walked in together and before Pierro realized it he was staring down at Nick. He just stood staring unbelievingly for seconds, his mouth half-open, and no one speaking, waiting.
“Hello, Greek” Nick said finally, smiling that slightly sardonic smile.
“My God! Nick!” Pierro said. “You look—terrible.”
Nick laughed.
“Pierro,” Mary said. “Nick looks wonderful.”
Nick looked over at Marci and his eyes remained fixed on her for a moment with that unintentional but nevertheless slightly hungry and invading look, then he got up and came around the oval teak dining room table and embraced Pierro and kissed him on the cheek. And Pierro, before he realized what he was doing, had kissed Nick back on the other cheek. And they backed away and stood there staring at each other for a moment as if they had both gone lunatic for having done what they just did. It was the first time they had kissed since Old Pete had caught them fighting the last time and made them, Nick remembered.
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