‘Good, good!’ the director said. ‘Emma, you’ve really come a long way.’
Etienne came in from the wings where he had sat at his table with the script in front of him. ‘You nearly made me cry, Em.’
‘Okay,’ the director said. ‘We’ll break for today. Tomorrow at 10 a.m. We’ll use real props, Etienne.’
Etienne grunted. ‘Eggs. Ugh. Okay.’
They ate dinner at the inn, talking generally until the other actors had left their table.
‘It’s not a terribly good play,’ Etienne said. ‘I don’t think it’ll make it to Broadway, but there are some marvelous scenes, and that one we worked on this afternoon is one of them.’
‘A lot of it might be about Emma and me.’ David Wheaton swirled the ice in his glass of lemonade.
‘Oh, come on, Papa,’ Etienne said. ‘You don’t get drunk, and you’re hardly a failure.’
‘Not in my work, perhaps.’
‘Hey, Papa,’ Emma said, ‘you’ve already taught me more than I’ve ever learned with anybody else. That’s more important to me—learning to be a good actress—than having an ordinary childhood.’
‘Maybe I shouldn’t have let you do all that modeling work when you were little—’
‘Bahama would have put an end to it if it weren’t okay.’
‘Bahama. Not your mother.’
‘Hey, Papa, I have Abby, and Marical,’ She smiled across the table at Etienne. ‘And of course Sophie. A plethora of mothers.’
Etienne spoke to his father through a mouthful of meatloaf and mashed potatoes. ‘We’re not dumping any guilt on you, so don’t take any on yourself. You may be an unusual pa, but your kids love you, and so do several of your wives.’
David put down his glass with a thump. ‘Yes, I’m an unusual pa, indeed.’
‘Unusual pa, indeed,’ Emma repeated, ‘but if you weren’t, I wouldn’t have the brothers and sisters I love.’
David said, rising and stretching out his arms, ‘I haven’t deserved my children, but I’m grateful. I’m off to work on my lines. Don’t be too long, Emma.’
‘Just long enough to finish this gingerbread and milk.’
When he had left the dining room, Emma turned to her brother. ‘Etienne, what is Papa looking for?’
He leaned back in his chair, finished chewing. ‘Someone to understand his art, maybe.’
She looked at him questioningly.
‘Papa’s a fine artist. He wants to be even better, to transform, awe, inspire.’
‘Yes, Etienne, I understand that. But—?’
‘What I said. He’s looking to be understood.’
‘I thought Abby understood him.’
‘I think she did, as much as anybody. The thing is, Em, there’s no tragedy too terrible for Papa to comprehend on stage. Remember his Oedipus? But it has to be transformed. He can’t take it raw.’
‘Abby’s twins?’
‘His twins, too, remember. Abby’s exhaustion. Abby’s grief. Her focus was on the babies. Papa was lost in grief, and there was nothing left for each other.’
‘But—’
‘Those are the facts, Em, facts which carry neither blame nor merit. The fact was that Abby’s twins were born without the strength to survive. We tend to want to blame or praise, but life doesn’t divide itself that neatly. You’re going to be looking for someone to understand you, too.’
‘Papa understands me.’
‘Some. He can shape you as an actress, but you don’t want him to be a Pygmalion.’
‘I want to learn.’
‘You’ll learn. From Papa. From others. But that’s not going to be enough. I’ve worked with a lot of artists, Em, and they all have a need that cannot be met by another human being. That’s why the affairs, the one-night stands. It takes greatness of spirit to understand that the need is not meetable, and just to get on with life.’
‘Who—’ she started, but he shook his head.
‘No one I’ve met, at least not yet. It’s not a good thing to investigate any artist’s private life too closely. Papa has Sophie now, and while she doesn’t understand him, she accepts him, totally.’
‘What about Marical? Did she understand Papa?’
‘My mother? No, Em. She loved him, but had quite reasonable expectations of fidelity.’
‘Harriet. And Jarvis.’
‘Yes. Jarvis.’ Etienne finished his glass of iced tea. ‘Time for bed.’
She asked, ‘Why do we need so terribly to be understood?’
‘Some artists settle for adulation instead. It’s a trap Papa has not fallen into.’
‘Okay, but what about all his wives, Etienne. Isn’t that pretty inordinate? Most people don’t have to have their needs met that way.’
‘You’re angry, aren’t you?’ Etienne asked.
‘I suppose so. He’s made life a lot more complicated for us than if we’d had one mother.’
‘One mother for all of us?’
‘Why not?’
‘Why not, indeed. The fact is, little sister, that we’re stuck with the way Papa is, not the way we’d like him to be, and on the whole I think we’ve come out amazingly well.’
‘A lot of that’s thanks to Sophie. The way she makes friends with the other wives—as much as she can—and pulls us all into one big circle.’
‘Blessed Sophie,’ Etienne agreed. ‘She’s given Papa a wonderful kind of balance. And while he does like admiration and appreciation from his public, he shuns adulation.’
‘I suppose.’
‘What about you, Em? How do you feel?’
‘At school—in college—people thought I was super. Onstage, that is.’
‘And how do you feel about being thought super?’
‘It’s nice. I like it. But then it feels empty.’
‘Good. Don’t let it become addictive.’
‘I’ve figured that out. But I would like to meet someone who understands.’
‘It’s not going to happen. I understand, to some extent, but I’m Papa’s son, I’m your brother. It’s not enough.’
‘What about love?’
‘I’m all for it. But—as you can see from Papa’s record, it’s not enough. Papa wants the moon, and he more or less had it with Abby. On the other hand, Abby didn’t start painting until everything went wrong in her life. Maybe she understands Papa now better than she did then. We weren’t around, so we don’t know. Em, have you been in love?’
‘No. Not yet. I had a crush on one of my professors, but he was married, so it didn’t count.’
‘That doesn’t stop a lot of people. I’m glad it stopped you. You’ve been around the theater all your life. You’ve seen a lot—or maybe you haven’t seen it. Be careful, Em.’
‘Sure.’
‘I mean it. Be careful.’
Zeruiah
And [Samuel] said … I am come to sacrifice unto the Lord: sanctify yourselves, and come with me to the sacrifice. And he sanctified Jesse and his sons, and called them to the sacrifice.
And it came to pass, when they were come, that he looked on Eliab, and said, Surely the Lord’s anointed is before him.
But the Lord said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him: for the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart.
And Samuel said unto Jesse, Are here all thy children? And he said, There remaineth yet the youngest, and behold, he keepeth the sheep. And Samuel said unto Jesse, Send and fetch him …
I SAMUEL 16:5–7, 11
While David was sleeping after lunch, Emma sat on the floor by his bunk, carefully pulling out one of the chart drawers so it wouldn’t disturb him, and lifted one of Nik’s scenes from under a chart. The Portia was anchored. Ben was puttering in the engine room, and Alice had taken the dinghy and gone ashore.
Emma read a scene between David’s older sister, Zeruiah, who had had a hand in bringing him up, and her y
oungest son, Asahel, still a child. Asahel, like Louis, had been curious about Samuel’s anointing of two kings.
Nik had Zeruiah snorting impatiently. “Of course I’m worried. Samuel said God should never have chosen Saul.”
Asahel asked innocently, “God made a mistake?”
Zeruiah was folding linens and she snapped, “God does not make mistakes. It’s just like Samuel to blame it on God. Samuel made the mistake. It will cause nothing but trouble.” And then, with the touch of prescience Nik had given her, Zeruiah shuddered. Asahel would die young.
Zeruiah was a good role for a character actress, Emma thought, acerbic but loving, funny but shrewd.
David stirred slightly, and Emma put the scene away, thinking that for a man who’d professed total disinterest in God, Nik had put a lot of God-talk in the mouths of his characters. She shut the drawer quietly and went to the galley to make David a cup of tea. He was awake, pushed up against the pillows, when she returned. He took the mug and set it down on the small table at the head of his bunk. “I want to see my children, all of them.”
Adair … Etienne … Billy …
Inez …
Everard and Chantal were in Mooréa. Jarvis and Louis were in New York. Emma looked at her father and wondered if he realized how many of his children were no longer alive.
“And Nik,” David said. “I want to see Nik.”
“Papa—”
“Ah, Emma, don’t you see that your old father just wants to fix everything for you?”
“Some things get too broken to be fixed.”
“I would like to see Nik once more before I die. Would it be terribly hard on you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Child,” he probed tenderly, “I don’t know what happened between the two of you.”
Emma interrupted, unsteadily, “I’ll go fix some crab cocktail for us for dinner, if Ben has the crabs ready.”
“Emma, wait. Please.”
She paused in the doorway, turned back toward him.
“Emma. I want to help.”
“It’s okay, Papa.”
“It’s not okay. It’s my fault Nik’s King David play never worked out. I was kidding myself that because the old king and I had many wives I was like him.”
“In some ways you are.”
David sipped at his tea, looking at Emma over the rim of the cup. “David was a man after God’s own heart, the Bible says, specially loved by God, and I, arrogant bastard that I am, felt that I, too, was beloved.”
“You are.” Emma sat at the foot of the bunk and put her hand gently against her father’s foot.
“I couldn’t unite my own kingdom,” David said heavily.
“Neither could David.”
“Ah, Em, I’m just being a foolish old man, suddenly remembering how often I’ve forgotten God. And David never did that. That was something Nik showed beautifully in his play, remember?” He sighed, but lightly. “I can die knowing that you’re going to carry on after me.”
Yes, she would try to carry on. Her return to the theater after eight years out for high school and college had not been easy. She wanted to make it on her own, not on her father’s name and influence. But if directors remembered her from her childhood performances they were suspicious of her ability to be a mature actress. She got a small role in a new play, which reactivated her Actors Equity card. The play was a disaster, panned by all the critics. Emma, rather to her relief, was not even mentioned.
Having her Equity card was, she discovered quickly, both blessing and bane. She was offered several good roles with small, experimental groups, but according to Equity regulations she was not allowed to act with a non-Equity company. She managed to wangle permission to play Viola in Twelfth Night, and she rehearsed with a group once a week; although they were all serious about being professional, it was too much like college workshops for her liking, but better than nothing. She had a small but juicy role in an Off-Broadway production which was liked better by audiences than by critics and lasted only a few weeks. She respected the director, who pushed and prodded her in much the same way that her father did, and she knew that he had been pleased with her performance.
It was through him that she met Nik, the autumn of her second year back in New York. She was called to audition for Nik’s play, which was both witty and deep, and the leading female role seemed to be right for her. She knew the director and that she could do well under his guidance.
But she did not audition well. She read intelligently but not flashily; it took her time to work into a role. She was thin, and her particular beauty did not emerge until she had worked out of herself and into her part. She could tell that Nik had been disinterested, and she did not get a call-back. She liked her one glimpse of Nik, with his undisciplined black curls and sparkling dark eyes. She was deeply disappointed because she knew that, given time, she could have done well in the role. And she needed to work, not only for the money for her rent, but for her self-esteem. She went home and cried and forgot all about it.
Early one morning, a month after the audition, the phone woke Emma up. ‘Emma, love, remember that play of Niklaas Green’s you read for?’ It was the director.
She was groggy with sleep. ‘Um.’
‘Rehearsals have finally started.’
‘Um,’ she grunted again.
‘We hired—’ and he mentioned the name of an actress she knew slightly. ‘She gave a brilliant reading, granted, but she reached her peak with that. She hasn’t grown an inch. We’re exercising the five-day clause and letting her go. Can you come to rehearsal at eleven this morning and give it a try?’
Emma moved tentatively into the role, but it was apparent by the third day that she brought a needed tenderness to it, that she was going to make people cry as well as laugh. She was nervous until those first five days, during which a performer can be dropped, were over. But she knew she was good, and that Nik knew she was good.
‘You’re marvelous,’ Nik said. ‘Why didn’t I see that when you read?’
‘Because I’m not good at first readings. It takes me time.’
‘I’ll give you all the time in the world,’ Nik said.
She loved the rehearsals, once she was confident in her ability to bring life to the part. Even after the successful opening, she continued to look for ways to deepen and brighten her characterization. She had learned from her father never to ‘set’ a play, but to keep it fluid and alive.
Nik came back to her dressing room at the end of the first week. ‘Want to have supper with me, and talk?’
‘Sure. Love to.’ She hoped she sounded calm and sophisticated and as though she was used to going out with rising young playwrights.
He waited while she finished taking off her makeup, carefully covered her tray with a linen towel. It was the first time she had had a dressing room to herself, and she gloried in the privacy. She was tidy about her makeup, placing it carefully on a tray—liners, lipsticks, pencils, neatly aligned. Some of her dressing-room mates had been casual, if not careless, spreading makeup onto Emma’s space, using her mascara, soiling her Albolene.
She put on her coat, turned to Nik.
‘Here.’ He took her dressing-room key and gave it to the stage doorman to put on the board. Then Nik led her to a little restaurant around the corner from the theater and reached across the table in the dark booth to hold her hands. ‘You bring something to my play, a quality of infinite tenderness and longing—it’s not in my lines, Emma, you have written your role even more than I have.’
‘It’s all there, Nik,’ she said. ‘All I had to do was bring it out.’
‘It’s more than that. You have a quality onstage that I can’t explain. I just know how lucky I am to have you in this role which could have seemed merely funny without the dimension of—of loving tolerance you give it.’
‘It’s a good play,’ she said, ‘and a wonderful role. I love the way the audience laughs—’
‘With affection,’ Nik fi
nished for her. ‘And never with derision. They leave the theater feeling good about themselves. That’s what I was hoping for, and that’s what you’ve helped me get.’
Despite her theater background, Emma felt herself to be inexperienced and naïve in ordinary social situations. For the first time she thought it might have been better if she had gone to coed schools. She did not know how to make light conversation, and she was grateful that Nik did not expect it.
She rode home on the subway alone, and a young sailor sitting next to her fell asleep leaning his head on Emma’s shoulder, and she saw that tears were barely dry on his stubby blond lashes. She resolved to go more regularly to the Stage Door Canteen, where players served food to servicemen, danced with them, talked with them.
When she went there after the theater she found that she was able to reach out to their need as she could not with an ordinary date. Sometimes she talked with them about Adair and Etienne, who were both overseas. She was able to forget her shyness in reaching out to men she would see for an evening and probably never again.
On her Canteen nights, Nik often came for her, not wanting her to make her way home alone in the dark and early hours of the morning.
‘No wonder they all love you,’ Nik said, ‘all these guys waiting to be sent overseas. You make each one of them believe that he’s the most important person in the world. That’s a gift.’
Was he flattering her? She was uncomfortable with praise, even when it came spontaneously from Nik and she believed it was heartfelt and not the superficial gushiness she distrusted. She wanted to be a good actress because that was the purpose of her life—not to be praised, but to bring life to her roles and joy to the audiences. She was grateful for Nik’s faith.
He had taken her to their usual small restaurant, and ordered his favorite liverwurst-and-onion sandwich on rye. ‘Em?’ He looked at her questioningly as the waiter put down their plates. ‘I want to show you something.’
‘Okay.’
‘My next project—’ Nik started. ‘Want to hear about it?’
‘Of course.’
‘Well—’ He bent down and picked up his old and battered briefcase and took out a sheaf of typed pages, handing her a couple. ‘Here. Read it. I don’t think it’s the first scene. The first scene will be a huge projection of Goliath with a tiny David standing, his back to the audience.’
Certain Women Page 8
