Isadora

by Amelia Gray

  “Don’t rub your face, Elizabeth, you’ll fold a new wrinkle.”

  “If you’re worried you’re going to miss a party, Dora, maybe you should take your leave.”

  The older woman was quiet, and Elizabeth knew she had gone too far. Motherhood might very well be a gown that fit anybody willing to squeeze into it, but Elizabeth wasn’t without sympathy for her mother, who was more or less trying her best. She leaned over to kiss her hairline, the orange flowers tickling her nose.

  Beside them, Paris watched the stage attentively as if the performance had already begun. “All right,” he said. “I think it’s about to start.”

  As if on cue, the new footlights illuminated like a row of flashlamps. Mother cried out in terror as one of the bulbs burst onto the proscenium stage. The stagehand cursed backstage as the smell of burning hair drifted through the auditorium.

  The stage was thrown into a stark and terrifying contrast that eased only slightly as their eyes adjusted. The bright lights looked all wrong to Elizabeth. They were clearly dangerous, though candlelight had its own hazards; she thought of the time Isadora convinced her to hold a pedestal candle during an impromptu performance behind a restaurant for the man who would finance Prague. Though the candle had burned too quickly and its wax ran rivers down her bare arm, she held it, eyes welling with tears, knowing the trouble she would be in if she stopped.

  Paris remarked half-audibly on the dove-gray velvet curtains that had been installed that morning, saying something about eyes.

  The girls came in from stage left and scurried back and forth, their feet making the same imprecise sounds as a timpanist before the violins begin to tune. But there was no orchestra, and Trella’s piano sat empty beside the stage.

  Elizabeth wondered what her sister had planned. It had been a while since she had seen her perform. She was expecting the usual flirtatious disinterest, her whole false act of quiet gratitude, but was not prepared for the Isadora that emerged.

  She was cradling herself, as if her body were a precious stone. Walking toe to heel, she stopped to turn at the precise center of the stage.

  She moved with a very purposeful subtlety to balance out the obscenity of her body under her thin tunic. Pregnancy had infiltrated areas previously thought to be private property, spreading to her arms and neck, the flesh at the base of her neck, her hands and jawline. She held her head back, breathing through her nostrils like a thoroughbred horse.

  The girls tried to mimic her movement as they walked to their marks, their arms in first position, in line with their navels. They squinted in the light like rabbits on a country road.

  The girls held their positions. Contrasted with their stillness, Elizabeth saw Isadora’s subtle movement. She drew her shoulders down and back, lifting her chin. The tendons in her neck began to lengthen and define themselves, and her chest seemed to broaden. Her jaw lifted as if the room was filling with water. Her feet charged evenly from the points of her hips. It was a full reversal of the curving pregnant posture that had defined her only a moment before. Her belly eased upward to fortify her breast. She transformed from the raw materials that comprised her to an elegant effigy, an idol poised and ready for their worship.

  Paris worries for a moment that Isadora might injure herself in the rafters before he realizes that she is not actually ascending

  He would never admit it to a soul, but attending years of Isadora’s performances had the effect of blending them all together. He was no scholar of the arts, and found the dances pleasant but largely indistinguishable. Before the accident he had actually gotten a little bored of the whole venture and had taken to working out anagrams among the program names. But this, Paris knew at once, was something else entirely.

  He followed the vector of her lifted arms as they reached for the rafters and stretched above her full height, growing before his eyes as the girls rushed about her in a circle. They were working without music, and their padding bare feet was the only accompaniment. Isadora in the center lowered her arms to mid-shoulder and stretched them wide, bent slightly at the elbows. The pose made Paris wonder if the ancient Greeks had practiced crucifixion with the same gusto as the Romans, and he was just making a note to check when he heard a whining noise generated in the back of Elizabeth’s throat. She was rigid, her breathing shallow, and when he touched her shoulder he found it cold as porcelain. He worried that a pin snuck into the new seats had jabbed her into a state of shock, and he shook her arm to rouse her until she slapped his hand away.

  “That’s enough now,” he whispered. “We’ll get you some air shortly.”

  Isadora pushed her arms slowly upward, pleading with the gods or lifting some physical element of the sky. The girls began humming “Ave Maria” in a breathless, strange way, more or less in unison. They broke into a run as Isadora took one step forward and then turned a slow circle before sinking to her knees.

  She unfastened her tunic to expose her right breast and then wound the cloth of her garment around her body to shroud herself. She lay down on the floor and covered herself with the cloth, head to foot. The girls, running faster, made a melodized groan.

  Paris looked to his companions. Dora was fussing with her program notes and looking around as if she meant to leave but needed to sort out one small idea first. Elizabeth was gripping both sides of her seat so hard that her fingernails were ripping diamond-shaped holes into the armrests. He had shipped the material just the other week from London, choosing the plush velvet over the standard variety on the recommendation of the shopgirl, who had pressed it against his cheek.

  “All right,” he said, lifting her hand. He tried to keep his tone agreeable, though Elizabeth never listened, none of them did.

  At that moment the girls ceased their singing, froze in position, and dropped to the stage. Paris was struck by the sight of the six small collapsed forms, their teacher shrouded at center. From under her shroud, Isadora cleared her throat to speak.

  Isadora speaks

  “All men are my brothers, all women my sisters, and all the little children on Earth are my very own. What flimsy thing is art in a world where children die? My babies were brought to me holding hands.

  “To slip the river’s grip I had to thank it for what it gave me and ask for more. It gave me all of life just as it appeared to be taking life away. Death taught me that there is no malice in a river. And so I learned, as a child learns, word by word: the world doesn’t take a thing from us, only holds what we hand it. When the children died I learned that all the rivers on earth are my children.

  “Life is a glorious beast, the sea its Leviathan eye. I stand worse for wear before you, wearing the world, having done battle with this animal, but now I know to ride it. I pull myself as close as I can, I take its fur by the root as it runs and hold my head up as we go, because life is a beast bucking mad to crush its cargo, the journey’s only purpose caught in glimpses along the way.”

  Paris is obliged to take his leave

  After the performance Isadora refused to see anyone but him, and only if he brought her some seltzer. He always knew it was time to go when he started doing her bidding.

  He found her backstage, squatting with her back pressed to the wall by the low table where the girls kept their ribbons.

  “There you are,” she said, reaching for the glass. “I hope you put some whiskey in it.”

  Handing it to her, he lit a cigarette. “You must hate getting backaches. How mortal of you, how deeply ordinary.”

  “It’s my hips,” she said. “I’m dizzy. Will you put that out?”

  The blisters on her bandaged feet had taken to weeping, making her look like even more of a martyr than she intended.

  “Max forgot an old package of tobacco in his room,” he said. “I would guess it’s twenty years old. The maid brought it to me after he went away, she found it in the armoire. The lid was stuck, but I had the boys pry it open. It was still wrapped in wax inside, totally untouched. Twenty years old at least. Can
you imagine?” He picked a thread of tobacco from his tongue, examining it before flicking it to the floor. “It’s awfully stale.”

  She eased off the wall. “Mind where you put the cherry, they just painted the stage.”

  “I won’t insult by suggesting you should rest, but you should go and talk to the girls. I can hear them crying in the hallway. I think they’re quite exhausted.”

  “They ought to be. If they don’t leave every ounce of themselves on that stage, people will wonder why they’re on the bill at all. At this point I’d do better rolling six handsome potted plants around on casters.”

  “Show them a little kindness.”

  “You cannot even imagine what I am forced to go through for this performance. At the very least, they could hit their marks.”

  He smiled from one side of his mouth. “I can imagine it, though surely not as well as you, my dear.”

  “You know, Gus made the same face for months after he fell asleep next to an open window.”

  “If you’re looking for forgiveness,” Paris said, “you won’t find it from me.”

  “Forgiveness? Why, whatever for?”

  “All that you said about the river. You really are a heartless thing. The rest of us were sick with misery, we quarantined ourselves for months. Meanwhile you took a trip to Greece. You had a grand old time. Family in Albania, intrigue in Turkey. A right proper Italian holiday. You met new friends.”

  “You’re being ludicrous.”

  “The river gave you a gift, it seems. It gave you your life back and your freedom. All it took from you was your work, and now you’ve got that back as well.”

  She swirled her drink, and he thought for a moment that she might throw it in his face. “You fear life and shrink from it,” she said. “You come to me in witness of experience, having forfeited your own.”

  “All right,” he said, standing. “All you want is an argument, and I won’t give it to you, so you might as well leave me be.”

  “You would be so lucky to ever possess even a handful of what I want,” she said.

  “Some sense of legacy? The invisible result of your invented ideals?”

  They smiled at each other, sharp enough to crack each other’s ribs.

  “At least I have a legacy,” she said.

  “Woman, my legacy was established before you were born, with a product that ushered in the age. Every garment in the modern world bears my mark.”

  She stood, bearing full scorn upon him, and he stood to match her.

  “But you didn’t invent the sewing machine,” she said.

  “And you didn’t invent the goddamn concept of dance.”

  He threw down his cigarette and left her to sort it out. For all he cared, the whole place could burn to the ground.

  15 July 1914

  Romano Romanelli

  Viale Alfredo Belluomini, Viareggio

  Romano,

  Progress comes all at once! Mother took a week to mind the schedule of crossings, discussing the merits of each ship before deciding on the Adriatic’s first class from Liverpool. And then, surprising us all, she allowed Paris to fit her in a toque and goggles before serving rather poorly as his flight navigator across the Channel. He wrote to say that he turned back to check on her after they landed and found her grinning like a girl and slapping herself on both cheeks and calling out the landmarks and major roads.

  Max sent me a birthday card three months too early, noting that all was well in Darmstadt and that I “should stay and help with Isadora’s delivery.” It wasn’t clear if he meant her child or her artistic method, but I doubt he reserves any tenderness toward either one.

  Lately I feel more urgently that the girls and I should leave. I feel a tingling at the back of my neck, the feeling before an electrical storm. Paris offered us a place to stay at Oldway before we prepare to go to New York. Isadora insists on staying on here, so I’ll leave her to work out the delivery herself.

  She came and found me in my room this morning. She seemed as pleased as a summer cat, and despite her bodily resplendence leaned gracefully down to kiss my cheek, frowning at the clippings I had spread across my dressing table. This week I’ve started pasting selections together, favoring full-page images of violent events juxtaposed with mannered portraits of the living. More interesting stories are covered by different papers, making it possible to collect images and ideas in order to create a fuller picture from it all. For this method I find the larger and more violent events the most attractive, as there is the best chance of total understanding simply from the sheer volume of information. Or that’s how it feels, anyway.

  Tragedy is a comfort to me now. The stories remind me of the small earthquakes we felt every now and then in California, when Mother said the earth was finding relief. Build enough tension and the fault lines come to crave it; survive enough upheaval and even the children lose their fear.

  Isadora arrived just as I was finishing my work on the assassination of the Archduke and his wife. I’ve had more to work with on the topic than anything yet. There are my favorite pieces: a photograph from Sophie’s younger days, the pearls cinched tight around her thin throat; an official portrait from the same time, where she appears to be rising head and shoulders above a taffeta cloud; a picture of her in a garden, her lap piled with a spray of buttercups and whitebells, her gaze serious and intelligent; one with a tiara on her heaps of auburn hair like the sugar trellis of a cake; another official portrait with the children, Franz in the background like a museum docent. For the backdrop, I used a large image of the mourners at their funeral and affixed the whole thing to a pegboard I found out behind the kitchen.

  Isadora skimmed a piece from the scraps about conflict with Germany before setting it aside. She frowned over the artistic rendering I found of the assassination itself: a furious-looking Sophie holding on to the side of the car, glaring at Ferdinand’s ludicrous feathered general’s hat as if it were the reason for the pinprick bullet on its fateful path toward thin lace making a pathetic shield across her breast. Our womanhood won’t protect us, no matter what they say!

  She leaned into the side of the desk to work its corner into her hip. I suffer her, if not gladly, then with the knowledge that the suffering is mutual. I know for a fact that she didn’t keep any of the articles covering the children’s accident, preferring to draw her lessons from her own mind rather than outside expertise. I hear her through the walls at night, talking to the river.

  She turned a picture of Sophie to examine an advertisement on the verso, a woman wreathed in flowers over an article on the uses and benefits of cold cream. Looking up, we met each other’s eyes in the mirror, the two of us appearing in the low light as young girls. We stayed like that for a while, and I found myself afraid to speak.

  At last she went away, but before she did, she said one thing: that this is an essential labor, and that I play an essential part.

  I said nothing in response. I’ve never meant a thing to her.

  Isadora finds herself alone, though she is never alone for long

  The simple strangeness of pregnancy carries me through. With Deirdre, I became a tree, carved out and filled with black sand. With Patrick, I was a quarried stone shot through with champagne bubbles. Today my body is a birdcage tucked too high into the rafters, old news lining my arching ribs.

  Mother and Paris have gone away, failing even to say goodbye. Soon enough, Elizabeth will take the girls while I pursue our next iteration of glory alone.

  I went looking for the girls, wandering Bellevue like a ghost, burst blisters leaving a trail behind me. I’m too tender lately, out of practice, but I’m glad to lend my blood to the revolution which bears my name.

  The girls aren’t in their rooms or backstage or in the rehearsal room, aren’t outside playing badminton or sunning themselves. Finally from the lawn I spot them standing in a line on the highest balcony, four stories up, shading their eyes to see something far away.

  It’s so unbearably
warm inside and out and now they send their poor teacher up four flights of stairs to see them. The baby saves his strength, making small and subtle movements.

  The heat gets me so dizzy I have to clutch the rail on the final flight, easing myself closer to the cool stone wall until I’m strong enough to walk again.

  A trail through the dust of a shuttered ballroom leads to the girls on the balcony. Outside, the iron slats groan gently underfoot. All six of them hold the rail, as if inviting a lightning strike. They’re looking at the dark clouds over the city, far enough away that we’ve felt nothing of the storm except this sticky heat.

  I wish they would stay here in France with me through August, and I nearly say so, but it’s too late. Everyone took such care to ensure they wouldn’t be involved in the next grand movement in our artistic lives; Paris arranged a doctor and two nurses to stay on with me at Bellevue, and Elizabeth is making preparations to take the girls to New York via Torquay by the end of the month, staying a while at Oldway while she gathers their supplies. I don’t have the energy to fight any of them.

  The girls make room for me on the balcony. “You don’t belong up here,” I say, cupping my hand at the nape of Margot’s neck. It’s possible to span the curve of her skull with my palm. “It’s not safe.”

  “We will miss you,” Irma says. The others murmur their agreement. A bit of cool air blows in from the storm, and I lift my chin to feel it.

  “We’ll be together again soon. And if you haven’t kept up your drills, I’ll see to it you won’t miss me after that. Now let’s go inside, we’re about to catch a real storm.”

  “It’s war,” says Margot.

  “That was over months ago,” I say, remembering the man lighting Catherine wheels in the strait.