The Women (6 page)
He was there waiting for her at the Spring Green station, his automobile idling at the curb, the exhaust spectral against the backdrop of the new-fallen snow. There was snow in his hair, snow salting his beret and his coat and his long trailing scarf. “Olgivanna,” was all he said, and then he was embracing her there on the platform for anyone to see while his chauffeur—one of the workmen from Taliesin, Billy Weston—held open the door of the car for her. She felt the floorboards vibrating beneath her, caught a scent of the exhaust mingled with the soap Frank used, and then Billy Weston put the car in gear and they were moving. In a matter of moments the town fell away behind them and they were out in the countryside, trees heavy with snow, the road paved in white, smoke coiling away from farmhouse chimneys and livestock trampling the yards in dumb display. It was as if they’d gone back in time.
She gazed at Frank. Held tight to his hand. He talked the whole while, the words spilling out of him, every turning in the road or glimpse of a barn’s faded red flank a cause for celebration, his voice so melodious and rich it was as if he were singing. She watched his eyes, his lips, the flutter of his tongue against the roof of his mouth: he was singing and she was his audience. She was almost surprised when Taliesin drew into sight, the lake in front of the house capped white atop the ice, and the house itself clinging low to the ground and huddling beneath its own weight of snow and the forest of icicles depending from the eaves. It was like something the ancient Celts might have built, or the barrow men before them: mystical, out of time, as ancient as the dirt it stood upon and the stone pillars that supported it. What did she say as they wound their way up the drive? That it was beautiful, magical? Or no: that it was living art. That was what she called it: living art.
There were introductions—to the Neutras, the Mosers and the Tsuchiuras—and a brisk walk around the courtyard to get a sense of the scope of the place, and all she could think of was a Japanese village set down whole here on the side of a mountain in the hills of Wisconsin. Inside, the place was elaborately decorated for Christmas—wreaths and cuttings and dried flowers, a spangle of silver balls, art everywhere, and cheer, good cheer and tidings of the season.
11
And then she was installed in one of the guest rooms and changing for dinner while he fidgeted outside the door, talking, always talking, one subject bleeding into another, her snowy journey reminding him of the winter excursions he made back and forth from Fiesole to Berlin in the days when he was putting together his portfolio and how the sun had struck the walls of the villas in Italy and how the amber stone of Taliesin reminded him of it, and how
was
her daughter? Would she be all right without her mother for a few days? When she emerged, he handed her a glass of mulled cider and escorted her through the maze of rooms, showing off the fine things he’d collected—Japanese prints by Hiroshige, Hokusai, Sadahide; Ming vases; marble heads dating to the Tang Dynasty; Genroku embroidery and Momoyama screens—all the while discoursing on the cleanliness of the Japanese culture and the simple organic elegance of its architecture. “And their sex practices,” he said, standing before the fire now in the big low-ceilinged room that commanded views of the hills and valley beyond, “very clean, very civilized. And open.”
11
And then she was installed in one of the guest rooms and changing for dinner while he fidgeted outside the door, talking, always talking, one subject bleeding into another, her snowy journey reminding him of the winter excursions he made back and forth from Fiesole to Berlin in the days when he was putting together his portfolio and how the sun had struck the walls of the villas in Italy and how the amber stone of Taliesin reminded him of it, and how
was
her daughter? Would she be all right without her mother for a few days? When she emerged, he handed her a glass of mulled cider and escorted her through the maze of rooms, showing off the fine things he’d collected—Japanese prints by Hiroshige, Hokusai, Sadahide; Ming vases; marble heads dating to the Tang Dynasty; Genroku embroidery and Momoyama screens—all the while discoursing on the cleanliness of the Japanese culture and the simple organic elegance of its architecture. “And their sex practices,” he said, standing before the fire now in the big low-ceilinged room that commanded views of the hills and valley beyond, “very clean, very civilized. And open.”
She wanted to tip her head back, look him in the eye and ask just how he’d managed to acquire his knowledge—there was heat in the air and they’d be together tonight for the first time: that was the unspoken promise that had brought her all the way out here on the train—when the Tsuchiuras entered the room. She’d only had a moment to chat with them when she arrived, an exchange of the formal pleasantries—Kameki was an architect who’d worked with Frank in Japan and Los Angeles both, as she understood it—and now here they were, dressed for dinner and bowing.
“Isn’t that right, Tsuchiura-San?” Frank asked, his expression gone sly.
Another bow. There was a burst, as of gunfire, from a knot in one of the logs laid across the fire. “I am sorry, Wrieto-San, but I haven’t heard you. We are only now here.”
“I was telling Olgivanna of the sexual openness in your country—the clean, healthy view women and men alike take of the amorous functions . . .”
Both the Tsuchiuras—they were young, her age, and the realization came to her in a flash—burst into laughter.
For the first time since she’d met him, Frank seemed at a loss, but he was quick to cover himself. “What I mean is, in contrast to our prudes and puritans, the timid and fearful little people who want to set the rules for everybody else—”
“Like Prohibition, you mean,” Olgivanna put in and she was soaring, already soaring on the heady currents of the place, the company, the conversation.
“Yes, well,” Frank said, leaning over to poke at the fire, “you know that I don’t approve of drinking—I’ve seen too many good men ruined by it, carpenters and draftsmen too—”
Again the Tsuchiuras laughed—and she, giddy, joined in. “A dime a dozen, Wrieto-San,” Kameki said, hardly able to draw breath he was laughing so hard, “all these drunken draftsmen. But not Tsuchiura Kameki, not a good honorable
Japanese
draftsman—”
Japanese
draftsman—”
“And Prohibition isn’t at all such a bad . . .” Frank began, but he looked at the three of them and trailed off, laughing himself now. “But maybe”—he gave a broad wink as he set the poker back down against the unfinished stone of the fireplace—“it’s the Swiss and Austrians we have to watch out for, what do you think, Kameki?”
The Neutras and Mosers had just strolled into the room, talking animatedly in German, and Werner Moser, picking up on the last phrase, said, “And what is this we Austrians and Swiss are being accused of?”
“Sex,” Kameki said. “Good, clean, open—and what was it, Wrieto-San, civilized?—sex.”
More laughter. Laughter all around, though Dione Neutra seemed puzzled until Frank broke in, his expression sober suddenly—or earnest, that was it. Earnest. He’d enjoyed the joke—he was the soul of levity, the single most ebullient man Olgivanna had ever met, and he encouraged jocularity in his associates and apprentices—but now, settling back into the role of the Master, he returned to the point he’d been making. For her benefit. “Now you know perfectly well I was talking of the Japanese—what would you call it?—
freedom
in sexual matters; that is, the acceptance of sex as a vital and necessary function, uncluttered, or, or unencumbered, by the mores of the church and politicians. And so clean. The kimonos, the celebration of beauty and ceremony—the tea ceremony, for instance. And this spills over into all aspects of society.”
freedom
in sexual matters; that is, the acceptance of sex as a vital and necessary function, uncluttered, or, or unencumbered, by the mores of the church and politicians. And so clean. The kimonos, the celebration of beauty and ceremony—the tea ceremony, for instance. And this spills over into all aspects of society.”
“You’re speaking of the geisha,” Olgivanna heard herself say. All around her the room was held in suspension, the fire radiant, the Christmas wreaths capturing the light, the vast planes of the windows opening onto the night and the drifted snow beneath.
Geisha,
she thought. The courtesans with their clogs and kimonos and lacquered hair. Was that what he wanted?
Geisha,
she thought. The courtesans with their clogs and kimonos and lacquered hair. Was that what he wanted?
“Women of the floating world,” Kameki said in a soft voice.
Frank moved into her, put an arm round her waist, the heat of him like a second fire, like a movable furnace. “Yes,” he said, “the geisha. But not one of them—none I’ve ever seen, anyway—could match the beauty and grace of you.”
And then someone said, “Here, here,” and they were all lifting glasses of cider and he was staring her full in the face, swept up in the rapture of the moment. She closed her eyes for the public kiss, the stamp and seal and imprimatur of her new master, and she felt so transported she let the image of Georgei—wizened, pale, sunk into the graying sheets and the fortress of his mind—fade until it was nothing at all.
And then—and then there was dinner, bountiful honest food and the sort of conversation that lifted up the world and all of them but Frank speaking English with an accent, Japanese, German, Montenegrin—and when they gathered round the fire afterward and Dione played her cello and sang Schubert in the voice of an angel descended, she felt so natural, so at home, that she got up and danced for them all. She knew the song
12
only vaguely, but that didn’t matter because there was a deeper rhythm at work here, an enchantment that intoxicated her. She let herself go deep into the spirit, the harmonious movement, the trance of the Sufi mystics, everything Georgei had taught her, and she brought it all to the surface of her being, right there, right there in Taliesin in the big room before the fire that snapped and breathed in the crucible of creation—and not for an audience in a theater somewhere, but for him, for him alone.
12
only vaguely, but that didn’t matter because there was a deeper rhythm at work here, an enchantment that intoxicated her. She let herself go deep into the spirit, the harmonious movement, the trance of the Sufi mystics, everything Georgei had taught her, and she brought it all to the surface of her being, right there, right there in Taliesin in the big room before the fire that snapped and breathed in the crucible of creation—and not for an audience in a theater somewhere, but for him, for him alone.
CHAPTER 2: MIRIAM AGONISTES
N
one of the doctors could help her in Los Angeles or the provincial outpost of San Diego either, little people all of them, sniveling types, handwringers, an army of effete bald-headed men in spectacles who were mortified of the law—as if this law had any more right to exist than Prohibition, because who was the federal government to dictate what people could and couldn’t do with their own bodies, their own minds, their personal needs and wants and compulsions? Were they going to regulate needs, then? Dole them out? Tax them? Miriam
13
was so furious, so burned up and blistered with the outrage of it that she must have been overly severe with the cabman—the driver with his hat cocked back on his head and his trace of a Valentino mustache—because when they got to the border at Tijuana, he stopped the car, turned round in the seat and demanded payment in full. Insolently. Out of insolent little pig’s eyes. “This is as far as I go,” he said, and she couldn’t place his accent.
one of the doctors could help her in Los Angeles or the provincial outpost of San Diego either, little people all of them, sniveling types, handwringers, an army of effete bald-headed men in spectacles who were mortified of the law—as if this law had any more right to exist than Prohibition, because who was the federal government to dictate what people could and couldn’t do with their own bodies, their own minds, their personal needs and wants and compulsions? Were they going to regulate needs, then? Dole them out? Tax them? Miriam
13
was so furious, so burned up and blistered with the outrage of it that she must have been overly severe with the cabman—the driver with his hat cocked back on his head and his trace of a Valentino mustache—because when they got to the border at Tijuana, he stopped the car, turned round in the seat and demanded payment in full. Insolently. Out of insolent little pig’s eyes. “This is as far as I go,” he said, and she couldn’t place his accent.
She was immovable. She felt her face concretize, the pores sealing up, the muscles round her mouth and eyes going to stone. “Nonsense,” she spat. “Drive on.”
There was a customs man standing off to the left of the car, a slouching congenital idiot with a lazy eye and bad teeth, and he’d already showed them his smile and waved them on—no searches here, no passports required—and he was giving her a curious look now. As if he’d seen everything in his day, every sort of indecision and cataclysm, women four and five months gone heading down to
la clínica
for the procedure that would make them right again, rumrunners with their empty trucks, day-trippers and ethnologists and rock collectors, but this, this was a new wrinkle altogether.
la clínica
for the procedure that would make them right again, rumrunners with their empty trucks, day-trippers and ethnologists and rock collectors, but this, this was a new wrinkle altogether.
“No,” he said, “no more,” and he shoved his way out of the car and tried to pull open the back door, but she held fast to the handle. “Get out,” he insisted and it gave her a small pulse of pleasure to hear the tremor in his voice. The war was already won.
“I won’t,” she said just to savor the words on her lips. “Now, I’ve paid you to take me to Tijuana, and I won’t budge until you fulfill your end of the bargain.” She looked round her in growing outrage: the customs man, a river of Mexicans in pajamas and serapes, mules, dogs, Indian eyes, Indian hair, dust, muck, filth, the street vendors and beggars in their cutaway rags—and hanging over it all the heat, the impossible punishing heat that stewed the odor of decay till she could barely breathe. “Move on,” she demanded.
He saw the look in her eyes, saw the way her face had set, and he didn’t even try to Jew her out of an extra two bits, as any of the rest of them would—he just shrugged, climbed back into the cab and put the car in gear. A moment later they were lurching down the rutted streets, the human circus of Mexican poverty unfolding outside the window like a mural in a moving picture. She was uncomfortable, feeling the heat, dizzy from the stench—she’d sweated through her undergarments and the seat of her dress, and her hair was gummy beneath her parrot-green silk caftan, which she’d chosen expressly to bring out the color of her eyes. But there was no one here to care about the color of her eyes. Just peasants—
campesinos,
isn’t that what they called them? And what was pharmacy? A cognate:
farmacia,
wasn’t it? She consulted the Spanish/English phrasebook in her purse and found the term under the heading “Useful Phrases”:
¿Donde está la farmacia?
campesinos,
isn’t that what they called them? And what was pharmacy? A cognate:
farmacia,
wasn’t it? She consulted the Spanish/English phrasebook in her purse and found the term under the heading “Useful Phrases”:
¿Donde está la farmacia?
There was a dog dead beside the road, the carcass swollen beneath a second skin of insects, people strolling by as if it were some sort of monument, as if it had been molded of brass and put there by the town council to honor canine achievement. The cab lurched again, in and out of a rut, and the dog was gone. “The
farmacia,
” she said, the cords tightening in her throat. “Take me to the
farmacia,
the first one you see. Quickly, quickly.”
farmacia,
” she said, the cords tightening in her throat. “Take me to the
farmacia,
the first one you see. Quickly, quickly.”
He didn’t seem to have heard her, so she repeated herself. A scorched minute blistered by. There were birds now, some sort of Mexican birds, exploding up from the road—pigeons, Mexican pigeons. “The
farmacia,
” she said, and she was beginning to feel desperate, all her outrage evaporated in the face of the hopelessness of this place, these peasants, this driver—and he was American, of some sort, a legitimate cabbie from San Diego who’d agreed on a legitimate price here and back, half paid in advance, half when she was restored to her hotel on Coronado Island where the sea breezes stirred themselves each afternoon to neutralize the heat. Peasants she knew. Peasants she’d dealt with in Paris, where they were alternately surly and unctuous, and Tokyo, where they bowed to the floor and laughed behind your back, but these people frightened her. It was dangerous here. She could sense it. See it, see it with her own eyes. Prostitutes. Drunks. That man there—staggering as if he were riding an invisible donkey, his eyes red as some demon’s, staring belligerently through the window at her. And there—another unconscious in the dirt and no more a concern than the dog in his jacket of flies. She was about to open her mouth again, about to say she’d had enough, forget it, he could take her back and away from all this, this chaos and filth and the ungodly stink, when the car abruptly came to a halt. “What?” she said. “What is it?”
farmacia,
” she said, and she was beginning to feel desperate, all her outrage evaporated in the face of the hopelessness of this place, these peasants, this driver—and he was American, of some sort, a legitimate cabbie from San Diego who’d agreed on a legitimate price here and back, half paid in advance, half when she was restored to her hotel on Coronado Island where the sea breezes stirred themselves each afternoon to neutralize the heat. Peasants she knew. Peasants she’d dealt with in Paris, where they were alternately surly and unctuous, and Tokyo, where they bowed to the floor and laughed behind your back, but these people frightened her. It was dangerous here. She could sense it. See it, see it with her own eyes. Prostitutes. Drunks. That man there—staggering as if he were riding an invisible donkey, his eyes red as some demon’s, staring belligerently through the window at her. And there—another unconscious in the dirt and no more a concern than the dog in his jacket of flies. She was about to open her mouth again, about to say she’d had enough, forget it, he could take her back and away from all this, this chaos and filth and the ungodly stink, when the car abruptly came to a halt. “What?” she said. “What is it?”
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