by Ed Ifkovic
I was starting to like Martha since I judged people on their response to my obscure early novel. But the contrast between Martha and her famous sister was startling, if oddly expected. A sour-looking woman, nearly sixty, matronly, thick in the waist, Martha had a down-home, homespun look, with her drab, ill-fitting housedress, a peculiar canary yellow, splattered with autumnal asters. She wore her hair in an upswept pompadour-style bird’s nest, totally unflattering and dated—I thought of Jenny Lind crooning “I’m Only a Bird in a Gilded Cage”—but a look curiously drawing attention to itself. A ghostly face without powder, lipstick, without natural color. A winter face, a stark landscape. But when she smiled, you felt warmth seep out. Genuineness, I thought, kindness there.
“A real pleasure,” she whispered to me as she turned away and fiddled with some stacked dinner dishes on a side table. Carlotta, pouring more tea, began chatting animatedly about a recent encounter with Noel Coward, a chance meeting on Forty-second Street that ended with his acerbic commentary on some haughty, lionizing party thrower—”a woman of high social stranding,” he had termed her. I laughed. Coward was a favorite of mine. So for a few minutes we exchanged droll Noel Coward stories, and I remembered why I enjoyed Carlotta’s company in New York: rich, vital gossip, the best kind, chatty and hilarious. Martha, meanwhile, never looked over, never commented, nor did she seem to relish, as Carlotta and I did, the sophisticated patter that a Noel Coward could bring to a passing moment on a busy street corner.
Eben Travers had placed my bags in the hallway, and he’d left. Now, reappearing and standing in the doorway, hat in hand, he seemed to wait for orders. Martha, smiling, asked him to bring my bags to the upstairs bedroom at the back of the house. “The one with the view.” Eben nodded.
“Come,” Carlotta said, “a quick tour, then we’ll settle you in. Come.”
I was hustled out of the old kitchen and into a dimly-lit hallway, narrow and book-lined. “The Inn. One of the original from the Revolutionary War period.” She grinned and waved her hand around the room. “The one George Washington did not sleep in.” She ushered me into a spacious front parlor, connected with a large dining area with a built-in china hutch that covered most of one wall, where the low ceilings and dark stained walls gave the rooms a cavernous feel, a play of creeping shadow and feeble light. The floors were uneven, I noted, and, in fact, sloped and dipped. “The Inn functioned as a working inn for a century, almost up through the Civil War, steadily deteriorating, its original paintings and decorations sold off for this debt or that, its elegant wall sconces and fireplace mantels stolen away by greedy souls. The small travelers’ rooms were broken into larger bedrooms. Mine’s back there, first floor. The second floor has three bedrooms. My family were founding fathers in town, but across the river off the town green, because this part of town was too isolated back then. But my great-grandfather purchased the Inn in the 1860s when he married, made it our family homestead, and it’s been in the family ever since. He was a rum importer. And spices like cinnamon. Owned whaling and sealing ships out of Stonington harbor. A cutthroat man of money, really. We’re still living, Martha and me, on his fortune, though it’s steadily dwindling thanks to that villainous federal income tax and my desire to deny myself absolutely nothing.”
“And the Crash last year?” I probed.
“Simply moved us farther along the path to utter and unpleasant subsistence. But,” she paused, “after I die, I don’t care. I really don’t.”
At that moment Eben descended the stairs into the hallway, looked into the parlor, doffed his cap, and asked if she needed anything more from him. “Miss Ferber’s bags are in the room,” he muttered in a gravelly voice.
“No, thank you, Eben, you’ve been a dear.” Carlotta grinned coyly. “An absolute dear.” She inclined her head in some chorus girl provocative tilt, and Eben turned away, shaking his head. If Carlotta noticed or cared, she said nothing, the smile set and wide.
He left, not by the front door, but shuffled through the kitchen and out the back door. I heard a door close.
Carlotta was motioning toward a large oil painting, hung over the parlor fireplace. “My great-grandfather. Doesn’t he look imperious?”
I glanced at the painting that dominated that wall, at the bourgeois-looking gentleman who vaguely reminded me of portraits of U. S. Grant, hirsute and thick, mutton-chops, but, in this gentleman’s case, with a look more gout-ridden and bilious than noble. A country squire and self-made financial baron who liked his wine and apple fritters and believed an expanding waistline bespoke superiority. I wondered if he ever had a moment of real awareness.
I interrupted. “Eben said something bizarre in the automobile, something about the Inn being his.”
Carlotta laughed, a full guffaw that ended with her gagging, smoker’s dry cough. “That old story. He tells it to everyone. You see, great-grandfather Small”—she pointed to the august gentleman on the wall—“bought the Inn from Eben’s impoverished and ne’er-do-well ancestors. Like the Smalls, the Travers clan were pioneers, but they’d, well, lost their vinegar and spit. Drunkards, wastrels, bounders, lazy souls. And Eben, the last of a line of dissipated and probably slightly enfeebled descendants of the pioneers who settled the region, well, he thinks it should be his. Property should stay in the family. Fortunately, there are laws . . .”
“And so he works for you now?”
“He lives in the tenant house out back. Lord, Edna, he needs a job. He’s a drinker and a failed womanizer and a man whose touch turns enterprise to dust. He’s thankful for the work.”
“And you don’t question his being around you?”
“What for?” she wondered, her eyebrows raised. “It’s either handyman and part-time chauffeur or the poor house in Danbury.”
Carlotta turned away, pointedly ending the conversation. “Unpack, Edna, rest a bit, and then there’s time for historic and sentimental tours. I fully expect my house to be in your book.”
At that moment I decided . . . no, impossible. This bone-weary and faded Inn, this once-serviceable way station for second-rate itinerant drummers and dirt farmers who’d lost their way off the Old Post Road, was too pedestrian, too drab. A relic of its once Puritan quaintness, now its roof sagged, the brick chimneys buckled, and swallows doubtless nested in the eaves. For my fictional family, the patrician Oakes, I needed utter splendor, regal appointments, some modified vision of British grandeur transplanted to the rocky desolate Connecticut soil, reborn among the Indians and dark wilderness. Sir Christopher Wren, the inspiration. A New England cathedral hewn out of the primeval, Indian-menaced forests.
The telephone in the hallway rang, and I heard Martha answer it. There was a sudden rush of laughter, a surprisingly girlish giggle, almost childlike. “Jason,” she exclaimed, gleeful, and I saw Carlotta rest her hand against her throat and incline her head, listening. “Carlotta’s busy, Jason. I’ll have her call you later. Edna Ferber’s here. Of course. Tomorrow. Dinner. It’s all set. Everyone wants to meet her.”
Carlotta was staring at me, breathing deeply. “I’m sorry, but everyone does want to meet you. It’s your fault. You wrote Show Boat.” Then, by way of explanation, “Jason Fargo, my second and most intrusive ex-husband. You’ve heard me cursing his very existence, years back. Now he’s back in my life.” Carlotta’s breathing intensified, disturbed by the overheard conversation in the hallway.
Something had happened. Some unspoken sisterly tension, palpable as hot wind. Martha’s voice stopped, save for a few intermittent giggles, a few ha ha ha’s, almost artificial, and Jason seemed to be entertaining her.
Almost trancelike, her lips drawn into a thin line, Carlotta walked me up the stairs, pointed me to the bedroom, almost absentmindedly, and I turned away, ready to unpack, perhaps to lie down for a moment. But when I went to close the door, I was aware of a dim shadow on the hallway wall, and glancing back out, I spotted Carlotta poised at the head of the stairway, her body rigid. She didn’t even glance in my d
irection. Obvious of anything but her eavesdropping on the still-continuing conversation of Jason and Martha, Carlotta froze there, her face beneath the showy makeup now ashy and pale, the veins prominent in her neck, her knuckles white as she gripped the railing. I called to her. “Carlotta.” But she either didn’t hear me or chose not to. Her mind was elsewhere and not, I assumed, in a good place.
Behind my closed door, I hastily unpacked, set my typewriter on the small oak writing table conveniently placed before the window that looked out over the vast backyard, beyond Eben’s tenant house, to the river beyond and the mountains that swept up to the blue sky. I turned it around: no view for me when I’d be typing in the morning. If, indeed, I’d be able to do any writing in such an ancient, musty room. The spectacular view would distract, especially with the orgy of autumn colors in abundance. I’d save that view for late afternoon, perhaps with a cigarette and an illegal martini.
But sitting on the edge of the canopied, four-poster sleigh bed, closed in by the room with dull, peeling wallpaper and faded wood paneling, with the lingering scent of centuries-old itinerant sleepers, with the sweet residue of burnt cedar in the narrow fireplace, I suddenly experienced an unexpected wave of melancholy. I knew in that moment, to the core of my soul, that my coming to the Inn was a mistake, that my embryonic American Beauty would not be served well by this stay in the country, that any soaking up of local color, so desperately needed in my prose, would be futile. I tried to shake myself free of the sensation of doom and decay, to no avail. Carlotta bothered me, and strangely so did Martha. And Eben, too, that tobacco-spitting anachronism, Cotton Mather in tacky homespun, with a driver’s license. The energy, frankly, was all wrong here, the air suffused with distrust, fear—and something else.
Why had I left New York? That’s where I wrote, lived, played. Sighing, I told myself I knew why. Because I was hiding from the controversy surrounding Cimarron, out the previous spring, my romantic (and satiric, though no one noticed that) venture into rough-and-tumble territorial Oklahoma, my sunbonnet symphony, feisty Sabra Cravat and her rapscallion and dashing husband Yancey. A success on the book lists, as expected, but now the abuse and vitriol from locals—all Oklahoma seemingly taking potshots at me for this depiction, that fact. That generation of madcap Sooners now filled with anger and venom. Oklahoma was livid. What did I do to deserve that? Would Connecticut turn on me when my new novel appeared?
If it appeared . . .
If . . .
I closed my eyes and waited for a flash of dizziness to pass. I opened a window to let in fresh air, then cracked my bedroom door. The room felt too tight, too coffin-like. Immediately I heard raised voices from downstairs, spitfire anger in the kitchen. Carlotta and Martha, feuding, speaking over each other’s words, women quarreling through clinched teeth. Echoes off the stairwell, the upstairs hallway.
Carlotta, her voice slurred, was furious. “Was that necessary?”
Martha, timorous, tentative. “Lotta, please. Upstairs.”
“She’s napping after the trip. Didn’t you see how haggard the woman looks? Like a sack of battered beans.”
“Lotta!”
“Martha, why that performance? When Jason calls here, when he calls me, do you need to revert to a dizzy kitten?”
“I was just being polite.”
“You think I don’t know about you two. Do you think I don’t know why he’s suddenly popping up at the Inn with the frequency of a summer shower? It certainly isn’t to renew old romantic ties with me. Our divorce was so venomous I feared I’d have to take a serum.”
“You’re the one working on a book with him, Lotta.”
“That’s just his excuse.”
“Well, he comes here to see you.”
“How odd that he’s here when I’m in New York.”
“Lotta, you’re being melodramatic again.”
“I’m an actress.” Sarcastic.
Martha made a dismissive sound.
Then there was silence. I heard movement through the downstairs rooms. I heard a cupboard door slam, the rattling of crockery, the dragging of a chair. “You were an actress,” Martha snarled, icy cold, and I almost couldn’t hear her, so even and low her spat-out words. A cruel line, I thought, though on target.
Carlotta’s voice suddenly boomed, as though she were entering the hallway at the foot of the stairs where I now hovered at the top of the landing, having slowly inched my way there. I now backed up. “Martha, the only reason I’ve allowed him around here, as you know, is his . . . memory. He’s helping me recall my years on Broadway, people and events I’ve forgotten. You know I’m desperate to finish my memoirs.”
“That damn book . . .” Exasperated.
“Yes, that book. Jason and I discuss . . .”
For a while there was muttering, voices pitched high, then low, drifting in and then out, voices lost in dead air. And I thought the matter ended. But then, like a slap from an intruder in the dark, I heard Carlotta’s furious, quivering whine. “Do I have to go through this all again? I know the two of you had that sordid little affair just after our divorce. Now, again? So tactless, Martha. So cheap.”
Silence in the rooms.
Carlotta, again. “Silence is very loud and telling, Martha. You don’t think I don’t see what’s going on under my very nose?”
“Lotta,” hissed Martha, “you’re just being stupid.”
“Well, I’m not making this up.”
“And I’m telling you . . .”
A pause. “Some things are sacred, Martha. And I think it’s poor taste and personally insulting to me for you to—to—cavort with my ex-husband, no matter how persistent and randy the fool is.”
“God, Lotta, enough of this.”
“You have to win, don’t you, Martha?”
“You’re the one who allows him in the house. If you’re so suspicious, tell him to stay away.”
An audible sigh. “But do you have to fawn and giggle like some lovestruck Pollyanna?”
The breaking of a piece of glassware, the dragging of a pulled-out drawer, the slamming of a kitchen door, the muttered curses of one of the sisters, so low I couldn’t tell which one swore. Then awful silence.
All of a sudden I recalled George Kaufman gossiping about the feuding Small sisters. What were his words? “Their battles are royal . . . but also small.”
Back in my room I napped, bathed, but entertained fierce, maddened late-afternoon nightmares: pursuit by rabid dogs, sleek borzoi, nipping and panting, and nearby old women howled and caterwauled like fishwives on the Hudson. I woke with a start. A discreet knock on my door, followed by a gentle but persistent voice. “Miss Ferber, excuse me.”
I was being called to dinner.
I opened the door and came face to face with a slender, wispy young woman dressed in a simple white smock, covered with a flowered apron and a ratty sweater, but a woman with intense blue eyes, so wide they alarmed. And long cascading blonde hair, so pale it could be snowdrift.
“I’m Julia.” She half-bowed.
Entering the dining room, I caught the last moment the sisters’ bitter words. One spoke in evenly-spaced angry words. “You were always jealous of my life.” But I couldn’t fathom which one said it, though of course I assumed it was Carlotta, a woman notorious for both the brevity of her Broadway career—her sudden mysterious departure at the height of her fame—as well as the scandalous and highly publicized brief marriages that titillated the pages of The Daily News and Dramatic Mirror. But both women smiled as I entered and became silent. I was uncomfortable and awkward, traits I disliked in myself.
“You’ve met Julia,” Carlotta said. “It’s her food you’ll be savoring tonight. You’ll discover a hint of Old World Polish favoring in the Anglo-Saxon cuisine, I must warn you. Pickled red beets at war with a roast that Martha Washington might have served. A gastronomical delight, I assure you.”
So the first part of the dinner was spent in relative silence, quietly exchanged pleasantri
es about travel and weather, but the food occupied my attention. And sumptuous it was: a generous loin roast so succulent the pieces fell off the fork like shorn lamb’s down, mashed potatoes laced with bits of parsley and sprigs of mint, smothered in golden butter, so aromatic and mouth-watering. A mountain of forest-green string beans harvested from the garden out back, choked with garlic and ground pepper and rosemary, smothered in rich country butter. A side dish of tangy cabbage, with diced sausage. I smiled at Julia, who served. I valued a person who understood that food is an art form, as precious as a Da Vinci.
But the casual supper was a disaster, food notwithstanding. In the silence that descended halfway through the meal, Carlotta attempted a humorous conversation about Broadway, an anecdote about Dorothy Parker (whom she despised) and Gertie Lawrence (whom she adored), the current economic woes of the nation (which she couldn’t fathom), the summer drought that blighted the tomatoes, the early autumn rains that drenched the asters. An outpouring of random, staccato commentary, difficult to follow. And so I merely nodded or idly commented, waiting for the meal to end. Martha picked at her food with the interest of someone appalled by what was before her, lest it be fatal nightshade, and scarcely looked up. Worse, Carlotta smoked throughout the meal, something I found disagreeable at a dinner, gesturing with a fork in one hand, a Lucky Strike in another, expelling smoke across the exquisite table while chomping on a string bean.
Both women wore pinched faces and I realized that phone call from Jason Fargo was not cause but symptom of something larger—and more insidious. I wanted no part of it, none. Folks’ domestic woes, no matter how complicated, were best kept under gauze and bandage. No one wants to see the open wound, the pus, the odious scab. No one. And Carlotta kept helping herself to increasingly sloppy glasses of red wine, one tumbler after the other, the bottle positioned near her plate. Now I knew—what habitué of Broadway in the Roaring Twenties, from producer to stage-door Johnny, did not?—that Carlotta Small drank to excess. It was rumored to be one of the reasons she disappeared from the Broadway stage so precipitously. And I was no temperance prude in these Prohibition years, no Midwestern Carrie Nation ruing the curse of drink in the nation. But women who drank to excess were not attractive, I always proclaimed. Martha sipped a barely touched glass of wine. I refused any. Ice-cold spring water, for me. This was a working vacation.