The Red Daughter

by John Burnham Schwartz

  I climb a set of stairs to a room that is indoors but feels out, raised up yet sunk down, with walls made from native rock and sand and countless meters of window placed high on the body, where it is harder for the light to get in. Here on a deep settee with strange triangular armrests the Widow has framed herself. Her uniform is singular: artificially black straight hair, white Greek tunic of fine muslin, heavy silver and turquoise jewelry, and at her feet a black Great Dane the size of a baby horse.

  She extends a thin, parchment-skinned hand in my direction. Does not speak my name but sings it: Svetlana!

  Incanted in this voice, I feel myself a rare golden bird.

  Svetlana! Come sit by me. Gideon, for God’s sake, move!

  The Great Dane lifts its bullock head, yawns as if to swallow me whole. On splayed coltish legs it turns twice in a tight circle and, thump, collapses again on the far side of the settee. I approach. The Widow’s papery hands reach out for mine with an iron grip. Svetlana! An ancient singing voice that could draw tears from stone.

  I am so glad to finally meet you, I say.

  Mother. You must call me Mother.

  Oh…

  Tell me everything, she sings.

  And I would. I swear. I might. Everything.

  But there is a problem. From her letters, I only now realize, I have come expecting my mother’s velvet-dark Georgian eyes. My mother’s face. The Widow’s eyes, however, are light brown, each with a streak of yellow. There is something feral in them. My father’s eyes, not my mother’s. They sparkle restlessly but do not shine with heart. They speak but do not listen. They are ready to act but not to wait. Shallows rather than depths. I can find in them none of my mother’s shy humility or rigorous conviction, her fierce sense of sacrifice.

  I stand before the Widow with the smile of a stunned child on my face, trying to hide my disappointment. Of course, it would be pathetic of me to believe whatever rhetoric about cosmically substituted daughters and the magic of rarely found names.

  But instead of answers, I am left now with the wrong set of eyes. The wrong face. A feeling, looking into this older woman’s voracious gaze, of meeting, out in a wilderness I did not realize I was wandering into, a very sophisticated predator in camouflage.

  What would it mean to tell her everything? How would I begin?

  But she is talking, not listening.

  We are special here, different from others. Abiding by shared principles of aesthetics and mutual obligations. Seeing what we do and how we live as inseparable from nature. It was my husband’s belief that not all nature is architecture, but all architecture should be nature. This place you have come to, this community, is the living embodiment of his vision. My role is essentially that of humble messenger, guiding protectress, spiritual den mother. I do what I can to teach our ways to those who choose to be a part of what we do, to keep energies flowing, to ensure that nothing vital gets lost.

  You will meet everyone of importance at dinner this evening. I am seating you next to Sid. He was my husband’s very first apprentice here. There is nothing about this place or our sister home in Wisconsin that Sid does not know. Quite simply, we are his life and family. He could not be fulfilled without his work here, nor would he wish to be. You could not be in better or more considerate hands. You may trust him completely.

  So she instructs me, when I fail to attempt to tell her everything. When I smile and am silent. She takes my silence as a vessel to be filled, and fills it. And I let this be done.

  17 March

  A brief respite before drinks are to start again, day number two, in the main structure, past the triangular pool and the stone Buddha and the Japanese lanterns that do not feel like what I imagine Japan feels like. Everything, even recognizable objects and shapes, has an imprint upon it, bears the watermark of the Artist, who, like God, decided that all aspects of his world would be like this. And it is like this. He had this place built out of the desert rock. Tens of strapping young apprentices brought across the country from green Wisconsin, some hardly more than beautiful boys who wanted to learn from him and one day be like him, and he set them to work in the rock with shovels and pickaxes and levels.

  There are other young apprentices here now. Last night at dinner they stood behind us as we ate, dressed in theatrical finery, serving us course after course of rich, spicy Mexican food prepared by yet more apprentices toiling unseen in the kitchen. A willing army of architect cooks and waiters, constantly refilling our plates and wineglasses with abundance.

  Is there something wrong with your back? the Widow hisses to one handsome fellow, carrying a bowl of mole chicken from the kitchen.

  No.

  Then stand up straight.

  We are eight people, including the Widow, her daughter, and Sid Evans—the innermost circle, it is called. Sid in his late fifties, tall and imposing, with a masculine square American face. Other tablemates hold various positions of significance within the Fellowship and architectural practice. But there is only one true authority among us, of this there can be no doubt. From her seat at the head of the table, the Widow directs all conversation. It is she who doles out topics, observes us as we speak, listens to us as in the ancient days of the gods oracles once listened to the poor, believing mortals. Will our prayers and beseechments be heard? What will our futures be? A red cloak draped over her shoulders. The table too, red and polished, centered by an elaborate floral arrangement, gleaming with golden cutlery and crystal goblets.

  Have you tasted the pico de gallo? Our cooks make their salsa the way the Mayans did, with mortar and pestle. I insist on the traditional method. I used to teach them the proper technique myself, but by now my lessons are so ingrained they are absorbed without direct intervention.

  Which doesn’t keep Mother from sending dishes back all the time, Vanna says.

  Work must be done correctly. Standards upheld. Or the point of the labor is lost and there is no surrender and no enlightenment, the Widow says. I am sure Svetlana knows what I’m talking about.

  My father’s table was like this. He sat at the head and watched and listened. He pronounced and declared. He rarely laughed and never alone, for there were always others ready to join in at the first sign of bitter amusement in his eye.

  What do you think, Sid? the Widow demands.

  Seated on my other side from her, he has said almost nothing throughout the meal. Not rude, but kept within himself. Even without much conversation, however, he has managed to suggest a certain attentiveness. Several times I have found him watching me from quite close with a gentle sorrowful expression, as if regretting his laconic qualities but helpless before them. Sid’s a real westerner, Vanna said during our wild ride from the airport. Taller than John Wayne and better looking. Some kind of cowboy, then? Not with his gaudy evening attire, I would say, the sand-colored tuxedo and lavender shirt ruffled down the front, which he seems to relish wearing, and the golden owl pendant with sapphire eyes hanging from a long gold chain around his neck (all the other men at the table proudly exhibiting the same ornament, like winking members of a secret guild), and the nugget-size silver-and-turquoise ring on the small finger of his left hand.

  The salsa, the Widow prompts, beginning to sound put out.

  Perfectly authentic, Sid assures her.

  She smiles and turns to the rest of us. I am so glad that Sid and Svetlana have finally met!

  * * *

  —

  At the end of dinner, as we are to proceed into the living room to hear a recorder concert performed by some of the same apprentices who have been serving us at table, Sid stands first and helps me from my chair. His hand on my arm surprisingly soft and smooth; I see half-moon, carefully tended fingernails and knuckles like buffed marbles. His powerful height, unfurled now, and those bereft eyes move me, I confess. The air of loneliness about him all the more acute for persisting in the midst of
such communal self-regard, heightened rather than relieved by the excessive displays of costume.

  Has Sid offered to give you a tour in the morning? The Widow is suddenly beside us, fingering her red cloak.

  I was just about to, he says.

  You’ll want to show her Scottsdale too.

  Yes, I’ll take her shopping.

  Her gaze fixes on him a moment longer, a hardening lacquer over some fluid, private dialogue between them. As you can see, Svetlana, Sid adores beautiful things. And he loves to be generous with others, regardless of cost. He’s like my husband that way. She reaches out and firmly grasps my hand. Come, let us hear some music. If we’re lucky, perhaps Vanna will dance for us.

  21 March

  Sid is silent all the twenty-minute drive to Scottsdale in his Cadillac Eldorado, strong hands resting lightly on the steering wheel. (I think of Gus Seward, my Don Quixote of Locust Valley, whistling Elvis Presley under moonlight. Dear old Gus: he died last year of a stroke while playing his usual doubles game of tennis at his club.) The land to both sides of the Arizona highway is flat and prickly, perfume of oranges mixed with carburetor exhaust. My guide appears relaxed and in no hurry. Trucks roar by us. A packed tour bus of men in brimmed caps (one with price tag still attached) and a sign stuck in the rear window: DREAM GOLF VACATIONS, INC. A band of motorcycle riders dressed head-to-toe in leather, women grappled to the backs of their hairy men like baby koalas to their mothers. A gas station materializes out of the desert like a Shangri-la.

  There are times, still after nearly three years, when to inhabit this country’s landscape is to feel myself on the distant side of the moon, the part I was raised not to see or believe in. We move through it now with impunity, in broadest daylight. Sid’s automobile drinks twenty-two gallons of fuel at a meal, I am told.

  The outskirts of Scottsdale are a spreading accumulation of low buildings the shade of sunset. A Mexican feeling, Spanish names on many street signs and food halls, and Native Indian people with their creased solemn faces standing like carved figurines on corners under multicolored blankets despite the dry withering heat. They seldom move, as if they have been waiting in the same spots for centuries.

  It is the Indians who make the most beautiful jewelry, Sid tells me, conversational now as he maneuvers the Cadillac past Scottsdale’s oldest mall and into the Old Town. They are artisans and connoisseurs of turquoise, coral, silver, delicate beads, and to wear the finest of their designs is to feel imbued with the spiritual powers of their ancestors who once roamed these lands on foot and horseback.

  My guide is more than polite, sincere, never garrulous, tall and reassuring in his presence, handsome in some iconic American way that I have never before experienced in person. From the passenger seat I have him in profile, his high-browed head, which Vanna in histrionic tones called Lincolnesque, relating him to that great but brooding American murdered by his own people. With his robust hair only partially tinged with gray, Sid could be a decade younger than his fifty-seven years. I find that I’m happy just sitting and looking at him as the minutes pass.

  We arrive too soon. He docks his gorgeous yacht on wheels, asks me to wait, comes around and opens my door. This sort of old-fashioned gallantry means less to me than he thinks it does, but then he is not a flirt. On the contrary, the melancholy in his eyes that I noticed the first time we met may be his permanent condition, I am beginning to sense. He has known terrible loss, and twenty-five years later the memory of it seems undiluted, giving him the stubborn myopic frankness of a boy. I want very much to put my arms around him.

  He leads me across Main Street to a shop window in which a female mannequin stands in coquettish tête-à-tête with a male counterpart. We pause before this exaggerated human mock-up. Her long dress appears sewn from some native cloth, no doubt highly expensive. A hand on her hip, elbow cocked, expresses her sexual availability, while the plastic-bodied male, dressed in a wide-collared suit and lizard cowboy boots, leans toward her, a lipless smile on his artificial face, helpless before her charms. Sid informs me that this is his favorite clothing shop in all Scottsdale. Would I care to go in and have a look?

  We walk inside, setting off a light-toned Mexican bell of some kind—loud-seeming because there are no other customers. A middle-aged man in a more conservative suit than the window display would suggest steps out from a back room, hands cupping each other in enthusiasm. His sideburns are two adolescent beards running down his cheeks to the bottom of his jaw. He smiles, looking every bit like a sturgeon eyeing a school of smelt.

  Mr. Evans! Wonderful to see you again!

  Carter, I’d like you to meet Miss Alliluyeva—did I pronounce that right, I hope?—a very important guest of ours.

  Then an important guest of ours as well. Very pleased to meet you, ma’am. I hope you’ll make yourself comfortable and let me know how I can be of assistance. Mr. Evans is one of our very best customers. Are you in the market for anything particular today?

  Nothing particular, I answer, and then stand almost unnoticed, beside the point, as one after another dresses are brought out on hanging racks, and skirts, and a pantsuit in the color desert rose. I already know what I like and do not, what I intend to buy or not. But mostly what I am doing is watching Sid. His childlike pleasure in the clothes illuminates his eyes, dispelling all depression. It is he and not Mr. Carter who does the choosing. He moves purposefully among the racks and shelves. Before handing me one of his selections, he holds it up. He rubs the material between his fingers and nods if he approves, as though it were telling him a secret. Beautifully made…Feel this linen…This pattern is exquisite…When he is certain, a more intense focus hones his gaze, a gleam of covetousness that seeks to include me in its thrill. In this way, five, seven, ten garments of different styles are gathered and the three of us, plus a tailor called Jesús, who materializes out of what appears to be a back closet, retreat to a changing area, little more than a hanging curtain rod in front of a standing mirror, rather cheap for all this finery. I step inside and pull the curtain as much closed as it will go, which is not entirely: a glance through the gap shows me a sliver of Sid’s shoulder and the hand over the elbow where his arms are crossed.

  I unzip and step out of my dress. The dress I step into is the same as on the window mannequin; for all I know, it is the very one, pulled from the poor plastic girl’s back, leaving her naked and shamed before all Scottsdale. Though God knows, she is not shy and never was.

  Through the thin curtain I hear Mr. Carter’s So how’s the fit? And the sound of Jesús the tailor rolling his soft measuring ribbon back into its leather case. Only Sid is silent, stock-still: I can feel him there breathing, waiting, separated but so close, hand on elbow, icon of some kind of want I do not yet understand.

  * * *

  —

  Mr. Carter wraps my two purchases in fine tissue paper, hands me a shocking bill, brightly inquiring if I will be paying with cash or by check.

  Retrieving my Bank of Princeton checkbook from my purse, I notice him discreetly slide a separate paper, with rows of prices totaled at the bottom, across the counter to Sid, who with cursory glance and vague air replies, I’ll be back in a week or two and we’ll settle up then, Carter, if you don’t mind. Which by the merchant’s suddenly deflated optimism—it has been a good day of business after all, has it not, for how often does one sell the dress right off the back of the plastic sexpot in the window?—I take to mean that now is perhaps not the first time this fruitless economic dialogue has been attempted or played out. I think over my five days in Arizona thus far and realize that I have yet to see Sid wear the same piece of clothing twice. He must be what they call a clotheshorse. Though these clothes are not free, not in America, just ask my new friend Jesús the tailor, they must be paid for sooner or later, by someone.

  And seeing this weakness in this big strong man, I wish to help him. To protect him from his ow
n generous instincts, under which he is clearly rather helpless.

  With hardly a sigh, Mr. Carter retracts the record of ongoing credit until next time. Of course, Mr. Evans. He slips this in a leather binder with other such credits—the Widow’s among them, I am beginning to imagine, and a whopper it must be—and turns to me in time to receive, with a flash of capitalist gratitude, the large check I have just written him for my new clothes.

  * * *

  —

  My father never had a bank account. The State paid for everything, and the head of that State of course incurred no expenses of his own. He was the State, and anything he wanted he would simply order, and it would arrive or be done. He liked to keep a bit of petty cash in his pockets for appearances’ sake, but he had no conception of money’s true worth. He received a salary, but he did not know its value as currency, did not know what to do with it on any significant scale. So he did nothing. Every month a large packet filled with money was delivered to his home office, and there on his desk the unopened packets would accumulate, month after month after month, until with time they grew into a hazardous mountain that could be neither climbed nor ignored, at which point he ordered his bodyguard, Vlasik (who kept him supplied with the little trifles of cash that he liked to carry on his person), to unpile the large packets and move them to a storeroom, where they would be piled again and begin the wait to be joined by more large packets in the years to follow. Some of these disappeared into the trunk of Vlasik’s car or into the dachas of commandants and generals. My father sensed these thefts but for all his suspicions could never prove them because every single item of the bookkeeping was faked anyway, lies upon lies without a trace, but mostly because he did not understand money in personal terms. This was the man, after all, who in the late 1940s, after the Soviet Union had won the war, as he was fond of saying, still mentally ascribed to the ruble its prerevolutionary value, when a hundred rubles might be considered a fortune, and wore the same musty, tobacco-smelling tunics as when my mother had believed him, in the glory days of the Party, a savior and hero of the people.