Isadora

by Amelia Gray

  He tried to ignore his nervous dread. This was only a debate among grown men in a library after dinner, the kind of thing he always imagined he would enjoy. “I own shoes older than anything you could find to love about Berlin,” Max said, “including your Wertheim’s.”

  “Why, you’re not a true German.”

  Max lifted his chin a little. “I was born in Vienna.”

  “That explains it. Miss Duncan loves Vienna, but I find it overall a little smug. Do you know what I mean? And driving in Austria is a nightmare. I pass through half a dozen towns where I’m suddenly on the wrong side of the road.”

  “Vienna is beautiful.” It was strange to hear him call her Miss Duncan, as if she were a charge or a child. “And it was an inspiring place to grow up.”

  “Left side, right side. No warning. Again and again, the officers would stop me to address the flow of traffic in dialects I couldn’t possibly understand. I had to start carrying a roll of notes just to buy them all off.” He smiled as if he had just claimed an ability to survive a winter on flour mixed with lard.

  “I’m certain you could,” Max said vaguely. “Trella mentioned you had a chance to observe a calisthenics class?”

  Paris shook off the memory of his season in Austria. “That’s right, I was meaning to mention it. You’re having the girls run the length of the hall forty times, yes? And then lifting iron weights?”

  “They’ve grown quite accustomed.”

  “Right. The thing is, Miss Duncan doesn’t like it at all. Too much thoughtless movement confounds the body and removes its discipline, she claims. Perhaps she has already spoken to you.”

  Max set down his cup. “I’m sorry, which one of them doesn’t like it?”

  “Why, Isadora. She explained it to me. Apparently the balance is all off in their legs. Too much strength takes the power from their solar plexus, rather like weighting an engine at its furthest point. It throws off the whole works, from her perspective.”

  “And what do you think?”

  He frowned. “It’s not my area of expertise.”

  “But you’ve sat through enough performances to stage your own. Surely you have an opinion.”

  “And see, there’s something I’ve been practicing.” Paris lit a cigarette, which he had extracted from a silver box presented by his butler. “You perfectly illustrate it here. The cobbler knows his leather, and so when my shoes are brought in, I trust him to determine the best way to repair a grommet. The machinist knows the works of the engine more intimately than he knows his own body, so if he sees this gasket or that fitting should be recast and replaced, I’m happy to go along with his recommendation. As the head of a number of households—personal, industrial, and fiduciary—I’ve found it’s important to respect expertise. It’s the mark of a good manager. And so when it comes to instructional or artistic matters of dance, I find it’s best to defer to the greatest dancer the world has ever known.”

  “You regard her very highly.”

  His smile vanished. “And you don’t?”

  Max was surprised to realize he hadn’t thought about it. “I mean to say, you must not have seen Nijinsky or Pavlova. Isadora is a fascinating dancer, to be certain. But the greatest? In terms of technical skill or invention? Or are you referring to her lectures or—”

  Paris flew across the room like a shot. Before Max knew what was happening, he had been hauled up to standing, the other man’s big fists balled together to grip the collar of his shirt.

  “She is your employer,” Paris said. His voice was calm, but Max felt the hands against his throat shaking with fury.

  Max squirmed against the man’s knuckles pressing individually to his throat. He smelled scotch and the chocolate trifle they had both enjoyed for dessert just an hour before.

  “Of course—” Max sputtered. “Yes, of course she is.”

  Paris released him and walked to the bar cart as if nothing had happened. He looked like a muscled dog, a bulldog perhaps—Max didn’t well know breeds. The butler was waiting with a fresh glass nestled in a hemstitched napkin. Paris took the drink and used the napkin to dab the spittle from the corners of his mouth. “It’s important to know the hierarchy,” he said.

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Social, physical, spiritual. These are levels at which each of us operate independently and together. An intricate system, if you think about it.”

  “But that’s just what I’m saying—” Max hesitated, making sure that Paris wasn’t going to come and throttle him again. “Our students could stand at the apex of the physical hierarchy, the top of the charts. They could usher in a new age of womanhood, a physical ideal.”

  “But they aren’t women. The Isadorables are little girls.”

  “The Isadorables—I don’t much care for the name.”

  Max crouched protectively when the larger man walked over to him, but Paris only extended his hand.

  “If we’re selling the concept of them dancing in unison, the market demands a charming name,” Paris said as they shook hands. “Members of the press always appreciate when you do some of the work for them.”

  Now that the fight was over, Max wished that he had brought his old tobacco tin into the library, and moreover that he had learned to roll and smoke cigarettes. It would have suited the moment very well indeed. But the moment was over, and Paris walked to the door.

  “Good night,” Max said.

  “You’ll have to broach the issue of strength training with Miss Duncan, though I’m afraid you may have already lost the battle. She is shifting to a method a little more”—he placed his glass lightly on the offered tray—“comprehensive.”

  The butler rolled the cart behind him as they went. Max listened to their footsteps recede along with his hopes of founding a theoretical movement. Once again, the momentum he had carefully gathered around his ideas was stripped away.

  He thought of Isadora’s shoddy teaching theory. She would have the girls lie like corpses on the stage, then send them squealing across the lawn, banners flying from their outstretched arms. They were forced to memorize sequences by watching her repeat them, arguing the moves among themselves while she went off for a nap. There was no method to it, and she was apparently cruel to Trella as well, a woman who deserved only protection and love.

  He knew one thing for certain: Isadora Duncan didn’t care a bit about the girls. When it came to their training, she offered them scraps, as if they were kitchen dogs. Meanwhile Max was laying out a full meal to no notice. Isadora had a career beyond the success of the girls, but the success of the girls was Max’s only interest and the culmination of his life’s work as well.

  He wouldn’t have minded her criticism had she been open to his ideas in the first place. But the moment he had presented a way to improve them in every element of their training—a theory, but a damned good one—the opportunity was taken from him.

  He felt as he did as a boy, standing over Benjamin Franklin’s tiny grave. He had assumed that when he attached his name and talent to the institution, it would mean adding his own voice to its progress. In the end, everyone seemed happy enough to ignore the very world he intended to improve. And Singer was the worst of them. His father would have been ashamed.

  Max picked a volume from the bookended line on the desk, something about merchant figures. Opening it to the center, he poured the last of his tea into it, aiming for the center of the spine. He watched it seep into the binding before he closed the book, used the edge of it to brush the excess liquid onto the floor, and replaced the book on the shelf. In the morning he would speak with his employer.

  Romano Romanelli

  cura di Raffaello Romanelli

  Viale Alfredo Belluomini, Toscana

  R—

  When I think of you, I think of breakfast. I remember how you took your coffee and the distracted way you would read the same paragraph over again, your dog-eared pages, your pastry on a plate. From these crumbs I have created a constellation of ce
rtainties between us. My fantastic mind conjures hours of talk about the world, bloody as it has become and spinning out of control. My mind is charitable enough for joy as well: a home in the country, a dog warming our feet. At times I conjure up a child in a high chair between us, some sexless thing mangling a strawberry in its fat little hands. Are infants allowed to eat strawberries? I don’t care.

  I thought I saw Mother standing in the garden the other day, but it turned out to be a rather large stone vase. Soon enough I suppose she’ll take her things and go, leaving her goodbyes with the maid. She doesn’t have the energy to make a good scene the way she used to, and I think that depresses her. It certainly depresses me.

  As for the others: the girls are well enough, talking often of New York. Paris is having some men in Issy-les-Moulineaux make repairs on his aeroplane, and he threatens to take us up in it sometime, the horror. Isadora reminds me of a priest with the serious way she walks all night through the halls.

  Max had been sitting in on all my classes, watching the girls and taking extensive notes, refusing to remove his street shoes, though he knew I hate it. He was making the girls terribly nervous and put me in a bad mood as well, bringing in photographs of gymnasts for us to study. Finally I banned him after the tension became too great and I couldn’t get the girls to stop crying long enough to listen to me.

  All he wants is a chance to make himself heard. I pity him and want him to have his say, but it’s already too hard to claim a piece of land for ourselves to worry about someone else’s plot. Mother goes on and on about her Oakland acre, but digging into the garden she claims to own would yield the bones of men who laid their own claim in blood long ago. It’s the same way for the rest of us. The earth harbors history’s warbling tide, impossible to chart a reliable course and foreign even to the stars. But I will say this: when he doesn’t get his way, Max is no fun at all.

  Isadora charts her own course

  I took a rare walk to town for some breakfast and met a doorman who told me a woman demanding the vote in London attacked a painting with a cleaver. How strange! I’d prefer to let the men destroy themselves with such games while the women live in peace. To me the vote looks like a passion play of equality, a screen to hide the smoke. But I might feel differently if I was making someone’s dinner.

  The doorman also said a volcano erupted, though he couldn’t remember where, and when I said I hoped it was near enough to see the city covered in ash, he only tipped his hat. The world is just as strange as ever and no darker than before, despite what Elizabeth says. Soft gray ashes, fluttering along the way! The children died a year ago, and last night I swallowed the last of their ashes and licked the pouch that carried them. For the first time, I miss them, though I only have to cradle myself to hold them near.

  After I saw the doorman, I bought a warm bun and a newspaper. The Champs-Élysées will put on Lohengrin in August; by then the child will be born and I should be up and around, and perhaps Paris will join me in seeing the show.

  Walking home, I think of Viareggio, the current there and the man. People must have read that the Duncan sisters were convalescing in Greece and everyone made a wish that the two of us would find many things in common and grow closer than we had ever been. How fortuitous! Now we have Romano.

  * * *

  Back at Bellevue, I take a daily practice alone in my room: I lie on the floor with my legs straight in the air; then, rolling my ankles to keep the blood flowing, I stretch my legs wide. My bones have softened enough to allow this tender pose, legs spread to bear the world, hips arched to kiss the floor.

  This child is kinder than the other two. Patrick at this stage liked very much to huddle up against my spine and kick gleefully at its vertebrae.

  It was during a long performance that he most memorably asserted himself. I was employing my greatest skills as a mother by ignoring him to pose as varied figures on a vase and then creating with my body a sense of the vase itself, so that my audience might feel intimately connected with the antiquated past. Something about my position or the lights or my pride itself must have inspired him, the vengeful little god. He made a brilliant extemporaneous attack on my sciatic nerve, leveraging himself against my ribs to strike the worst of the blows. He seemed to be gnawing on my spine. For the finale, he delivered one sharp kick to my bladder, which released a strong and glorious stream of urine down both my legs. This would have been a terrific scandal if it hadn’t come at the precise moment I was turning the vase as if to upend it over my body. The crowd gasped to see the water flowing down my skirts and slowly across the floor. Such magic happens when the people have a little faith!

  * * *

  Lately our morning rehearsal lasts six hours before we break for lunch, coming together again in the afternoon. I have them bring reams of paper. All of them gather around and spend the first hour sketching me, noting the rise and fall of my costume with my breath. The smallest details make the whole.

  This morning I asked them to bring empty crates from the larder to give me a short platform, an altar. As they sketch, I try to create in my own body the memory of the children laid out in their burial clothes—a vibrating stillness, as if the particles that gave them life felt a common regret in leaving and thus lingered as long as they could. When I have the girls try to create the pose themselves, they mistake it for total stillness, though Irma tries to shiver some at least.

  We work like this for hours, locking the doors against interruption. The scullery maid leaves a pot of tea in the hall and throws pebbles at the outside window when she goes, thinking us overserious.

  When Irma goes to fetch the tea, we’re all surprised to see Max crouching to lift the tray in a sad attempt at gallantry that places him on his knee, in deference to us.

  “Leave it,” I say, from my position on the altar.

  He sets the tray down and goes back for his valise, inviting himself into the room. The girls sit and drink their tea, watching him in silence.

  “Good morning,” he says. “Could I perhaps observe?” He is a small man who wears a suit in the size he wishes he was, making himself appear even smaller in the process.

  “Of course,” I say, hardly able to conceal my annoyance. “Only keep quiet.”

  He makes a strange little salute and goes to one of the corners. I can hear his dress shoes on my floor, and it takes some effort to push away the image of the shallow half-moon shapes they are pressing into the soft wood. At last he is still.

  This is the mourning sequence, which I have blocked as a processional. The idea at first was that their arms would be held in front of them, facing the sky, as if they have brought ghostly branches to lay at my head and feet. In the course of rehearsal I found the girls quickly fatigued holding their arms like that, which I thought at first suited the anguish they should be experiencing and asked them to continue, but then Therese lowered one shaking arm a little and I found I liked the effect, which appeared as if she was carrying a swaddled child. In the course of our study they became spirits laying infants around the altar of the eternal Mother. I knew we were on the right path because their movements began to deepen, as if they had earned some purpose. They cultivate a vibration in me, the sense of a tuning fork pressed to my sternum making an echo in my chest.

  We’re running this very sequence when Max starts coughing.

  How strange it must feel, to lose control of one’s own body! The cough might have begun as a subtle gesture of displeasure or discomfort, but soon enough he can’t stop himself, and hacks away like an old man, pressing his palm to my mirror. The girls stop and stare. On my gestured command, one of them trots over and pats him perfunctorily on the lower back as he gasps for breath. The others hold their pose, arms frozen in place.

  “Forgive me, girls,” he says. “Forgive me. I only hoped to see a little more movement. This is a very slow scene. Is there not typically music?”

  He waits for a response, which does not come, and the discomfort of the silence starts him co
ughing again.

  “Ponderous,” he manages.

  “It’s a funeral,” Irma says.

  “It does seem so, very slow. Not much to it, physically. And then I imagine there will be a rebirth?” Extracting a cloth to hold across his mouth, he points at me on the altar, seizing as he tries to stifle himself.

  “We’re not certain,” says another.

  “You’re not certain?”

  “We haven’t decided.”

  “Teacher hasn’t decided,” says Irma.

  “I see,” he says. “Teacher has the final say on a variety of topics.” He swipes the cloth across his mouth. Would that all his shored-up liquid coalesce and dissolve him.

  The girls watch me, waiting, each of their arms still obediently lifted. Margot holds her pose. Even the child inside me stops his movement. Only Max continues, folding his cloth and placing it in his pocket.

  “Final say,” he repeats. “In fact, Frau Duncan, I came to address this very topic.”

  Lifting myself elegantly from my wooden altar is no small order, but the simple act of placing my feet back on the floor gives me the strength I need to continue. It’s a nice reminder that he walks the same earth as I do, yet he chooses to live this way, as a coward. I raise my chin, regarding him through eyes slightly narrowed by an absolute disdain for his presence.

  “Get out.”

  “Fraulein?” he asks. His face blanches as if I have physically reached into his body and pinched off a vein to his neck.

  The girls look from him to me, eyes wide with anticipation.

  “Go and get your things,” I say. “Collect your books and your lecture notes, gather up your inability to communicate directly with any human, take your chippy pianist, and get the hell out of my school, forever.”

  “But my philosophy—”

  “Watching your piggy lips sputter has been reward enough for months, but now I want you gone. You think I could not see you scheming? How dare you. Take your place in the anal tendon of artistic merit, you disease. You don’t have a bit of philosophy you didn’t scrape off the shoes of greater men, and there is no greater man than me. I am your very own father and mother both, and I am putting you out on your ass.