Divine Sarah

by Adam Braver

  Sarah smiled from habit.

  Max took him by the arm and pulled the boy in closer for a whisper. “And neither do you. Especially judging by your bloodshot eyes. Did you follow us here?”

  “I was hoping I would run into you. I can set you up. I know enough China talk.”

  “Sarah?” Max inquired. “Do you trust him?”

  By now she was in awe of her surroundings. Inhaling the dirty sidewalks; glittering in the gilded Cantonese characters that hung from the storefront above them. Sarah twirled in place, entranced by the mysticism and by her foreignness. “Sure,” she replied. “He’s one of us, isn’t he?”

  On the sidewalk, the stagehand introduced himself as Nick Brown. A native New Yorker and a regular Booth man. And while he had never known Booth, Mr. Booth’s wife and daughter would know him by face and certainly vouch for his character. He wasn’t some kind of vagabond theater hand. He was loyal, he said. Deeply committed to art. Plus, he added, he couldn’t imagine a greater honor than “to take out the eighth wonder of the world.”

  Sarah said he was a darling. But she was hardly paying attention, spinning, her spirit being whisked away by the street parade.

  Max let Nick lead the way, for the first time taking notice of the boy’s slim hips and smooth shoulders.

  Nick took them into Hsing’s Laundry. A known regular, he guided them into the back room where the air clouded in thick smoke. Three couches lined the room. Only one was occupied, by a white couple. Middle-aged louts slouched with spread legs, and heads dropped against the back of the couch. Vacant eyes staring at the ceiling. A yellow light lit the room, cast from the soft glow of the opium lamps set on trays throughout the space. They were made of brass and set low. The side engravings of poppy plants slithered like ghostly shadows.

  A young petite Chinese girl with firm posture greeted Nick. She motioned him and his guests to go behind a partition to a private room. Her face carried the seriousness of a craftsman with a newly mastered art. Once behind the divider, she looked at all three clients at once and motioned them to sit on the couch. Despite no obvious authoritative presence in the room, there was the eerie sensation that the girl herself was being watched. “Tell her we have our own,” Max instructed Nick.

  “A little unusual.”

  “We’ll pay anyway.”

  Sarah sat in the middle. The couch springs gave lightly. Dust rose from the knotted wool upholstery, smelling of age. Max had Nick give the girl the canister. “For three, please,” he instructed her in broken Cantonese.

  The girl brought over a large bamboo pipe, ornate like a flute, sealed with ivory plugs at each end, with a wooden bowl set in brass near the top. She made two pills and dropped them into the bowl to cook over the lamp’s rising blue flame. In a dutiful manner she knelt down reticently without eye contact and offered the first pipe to Sarah. A large puff of smoke leaked from the corners of Sarah’s mouth. “Wow.” She sighed, then laid her head back. The girl followed suit with Nick. When Max took his hit, he felt the smoke swallow deep down into his lungs, burning and searing. His head felt light, and for a moment his heart raced like he was coming home to Jesus. Then each of his muscles relaxed in descending order, from scalp to feet. He could feel the sinew and muscle expelling the tension, breathing out the daily cramping, and settling into pure relaxation. His face became very hot and glowed red. Then the warmth washed evenly through his entire body in one magnificent rush, vein by vein.

  Twenty minutes later they did it again, and Hsing’s Laundry on Mott Street became about the sweetest, most peaceful place on earth. For Max, a gangly boy reared back and forth between the North End of London and the seedy Reeperbahn of Hamburg, he had made it. He had endured taunts most of his life. Had had brutal chaps pinch his ass, then slug a fist across his jaw when he turned around. They said that’s what happens to queers around here. At sixteen, his father had caught him bum high, mouth on a dick, and beat the shit out of his boy before tossing him out and reporting to the rest of the Klein family that the boy had run away and been lost at sea. He went to Paris. Mixed-up sad and crazy. Trying to toughen the outside to bury the inside. Dancing in the streets. Finally free from the crap he’d grown up with. That was ten years ago. Met Sarah. She needed someone who could organize. She hired him. He looked out for her. Did everything from read lines with her to pack her clothes to escort her lovers out in the middle of the night to brokering midnight performance deals to ensure that she could pay the next week’s bills. He’d seen some crazy shit. But he was alive and happy. The wounds were healed. And now he sat a graceful bird perched on a couch in almighty America after negotiating $1,000 per performance plus 50 percent of the gross. That along with incidentals would bring in almost $4,000 per night on this golden American tour (as long as they didn’t mess it up with some kind of foolishness like being bagged with illicit narcotics). He had finally landed. Safe. His hand resting on Nick’s knee while remarkably still in adoration of Madame Bernhardt. Warts and all.

  The Chinese girl came around again to check like a good waitress in midmeal. No more than sixteen, her abashed closed-mouth smile made her look twelve. Sweetness and innocence. Sarah smiled and thanked her. “I finally have relaxed for the first time in ages,” she said. “Tell that to the sisters at le Grandchamps convent.”

  The Chinese girl nodded. She clearly had no command of the English language besides thank you or no sir or you like. Mostly she knew how to smile.

  “You know before I came on this trip I went to Elsinore to visit Hamlet’s tomb. I also went to Ophelia’s Spring, and visited some of the castles.”

  Max interrupted her. “She doesn’t know a word that you’re saying, sweetheart. Nor does she really care, I’m sure.”

  “Oh shush, Molly.” She turned her attention back to the girl, who stood respectfully. “I’d played those roles over and over again, and I wanted to see the actual history. Thought that maybe I would understand more about Hamlet. I even hoped that he would speak to me from his tomb.” She started to giggle then erupted into a full-blown laugh that shook the couch.

  The girl stood with the same staid smile, hands at her sides.

  Max tried to interrupt, but Sarah stopped him with a wave of her hand. He sat back and listened to her voice, even in English as pure as gold and silk, without a trace of opiate slur.

  “Ophelia’s Spring was an ordinary creek. Everything was ordinary. And what I learned was that my imagining of Hamlet’s world was far more detailed than what I actually saw. I mean I could maybe give you a handful of bits about the way the plants grew around the grave. Or the architecture of Kronberg Castle. But now if I close my eyes and recite:

  O heart lose not thy nature;

  let not ever the soul of Nero enter this firm bosom.

  Let me be cruel, not unnatural.

  I can smell the must of the castle. The fear that sweats off Hamlet, and the ruthlessness that shames Polonius. Odd-shaped stones and bricks mortar the gray walls, and the floor has a light cover of dust that dulls an otherwise ornate tile. It is cold. Joints ache. Cheeks are flushed. And the moisture hangs heavy in the air.”

  The girl stared, looking down at her feet once. For a moment she appeared nervous, as though still being observed. She scratched her nose, then looked up again to meet Sarah’s eyes. And smiled.

  Nick watched in fascination as he gripped Max’s hand.

  “Sometimes I get bored and start to distrust myself. I feel like a fraud, and I start to become like an accident victim trying to walk again. Where each step is lumbering and nothing is natural…I learned more about myself from that trip. My own eyes are liars. It’s the well inside my head that knows the only truth.”

  The girl politely smiled in response to Sarah’s laugh. She bowed graciously, then backed away, suddenly anxious.

  “Please, one more,” Sarah requested.

  They sat for another hour without speaking. Max held on to Nick’s hand the whole time, melting away, stripped to the vapor essenc
e that was neither Max Klein nor homo nor rectifier nor confidant—just a solitary breath in the room.

  When they finally left, Max said Nick could keep whatever was left over. He gave it to the girl as a tip.

  They shared a taxi uptown. In the hallway of the Albermarle hotel, Nick and Max kissed furiously. Then Nick went into Sarah’s room. An hour later he knocked on Max’s door.

  The next day the cast had rehearsed L’Etrangère at the Booth with more life than it had ever known. At the end of the day, standing backstage, Max hugged Sarah. He wept. “I’m sorry,” he said between sobs. “I just haven’t felt this happy before.”

  ON THE VENICE PIER, Sarah yawned. Still in Max’s arms. “I am too tired to disagree,” she said. “You will still look out for me, right? Never secrets or agendas.”

  Max released his hold. He took her hand and looked her in the eyes. They were sadder than he could remember, drawn back and worn. He squeezed her hand tighter. He never felt as desperate about protecting anybody as he felt for her. He would sit here all night and cradle her if she needed. He would make sure that nothing disrupted her career. She couldn’t afford it financially and emotionally. He would make sure that she didn’t smoke hop just to brighten her eyes and remember her smile. These were different times. The world was not so free and easy anymore. Judgment sat perched with a gavel that was far heavier than it had ever been before. People were stronger. Savvier. They were more vindictive. And the punishments more severe. She didn’t see that; in many respects she was too naive to even understand the critical world surrounding her. But she was not immune to its effects. She was wounded. Her hand clasped against the bruise with no idea why she was struck. It wasn’t her world. She just lived there and performed for it.

  “Can we go back to the hotel now, Max? I am tired.”

  He put his arm around her shoulder and guided her out of the inlet. The length of the pier had become shadowed under a drifting cloud. “First you need to stop by and tell Kinney that the theater looks great. We don’t want him to be concerned about anything.”

  “But, Molly…I’m tired. And we still need to read through the scene.”

  “This stop will only take a necessary minute.”

  “Always looking out for me.”

  Inside Kinney’s office Sarah firmed her posture and spoke confidently about the theater. Good acoustics. Nice stage. When Kinney asked if she was sincere, she merely winked and said in a breathy voice, “Mais oui.” She was first and foremost an actress. Max could always rely on that. When he was finally assured of Kinney’s satisfaction, Max announced that Sarah needed her afternoon nap. Kinney said he would show her the newspapers later. He smiled. He was proud. He thought she should be too. They were defining a new history.

  Sarah and Max left through the front door. The clouds had passed. The pier was bright again. As he closed the door, Max looked back to Kinney. The don of Venice pretended to be relentlessly engaged in his papers.

  VINCE BAKER’S MORNING came too soon, despite the late hour at which he arose. His night had started around midnight at Willie’s with a dame named Muriel who managed to stay one drink ahead of him until closing time. She was tall and brassy. Big hips that swelled from a tiny rib cage. Her hair could have been any color. Everything took on the same hue in the sepia cigar cloud that palled over the room. She laughed with a howl in the raucous moments, and pouted full mommy lips when the scene called for sympathy. By the end of the night Muriel was slumped unapologetically against the bar, her last bit of grace cupping a highball, eyes half closed.

  He woke Muriel to tell her that he needed to go, he was late. She had a pinch of surprise in her eyes, only partially startled, though not so for the situation but for the realization that her prince had turned out to be just another member of the court. They recognized the disappointment in each other’s eyes, and both smiled with the graciousness of a track bettor whose long shot pick didn’t do better than show. Baker walked with her out the door. They shook hands. Forgot to say good-bye.

  Waiting on his desk at the newsroom was a note from Graham Scott, saying that this morning’s story warranted some discussion—as soon as Baker bothered to arrive. Baker sighed while he reached for the morning edition. Normally he would have scoured it front to back by now, discerning the paper’s agenda and projecting where he might be heading for his next story. But with the morning slipping away he had not only failed to see the paper, he had also nearly forgotten to look at it. He kicked his feet up on his desk, straightening the periodical and ironing out the fold. There, front-page bottom left-hand corner, was a photo of Abbot Kinney on his pier. Stately and dignified. One hand tucked into his breast pocket while the other gestured with a punctuated but nonaccusatory forefinger. Below his byline, the cutline read “Kinney’s Cultural Renaissance.” His article began just as he had turned it in, describing Kinney true to form, giving a brief mention of his new Venice development and referring to him as a former tobacco man who had turned his energies and wealth toward promoting a cultural alternative to the ever-growing Los Angeles region. His only mention of Sarah Bernhardt that made the final cut in the article was a pro forma line that said that Bernhardt would be the first major act to perform at Venice, followed by a quote from Kinney that stated “she was having a rather splendid time enjoying this new view of California. And enjoying the fishing.” The end. Baker didn’t write about her mutilating the fish. Although he enjoyed her show from the pier, it was hardly the kind of thing he would bother with. Instead he chose to focus the ending on a recap of the League of Decency and the controversy that led into yesterday, closing with a comment by the bishop’s mouthpiece, Dorothy O’Brien, that said something to the effect that Bernhardt was a public nuisance. An ending that never saw print.

  Baker threw the Herald down and grabbed for the competing editions of the Record, Evening Express, and Examiner. Same shit. All the other articles read like a group of conspiring college freshman plagiarizing the same primary source, only inverting a word or phrase in hoodwinked originality. They all wrote about the incident from the pier as if it were the only news in the world. Detailing the drama and theatrics, clearly not intrigued nor willing to understand, approaching it only as sensational drivel to rile the readership. The Register was the only paper to offer any deeper suggestion of Bernhardt’s exile. But even still, its focus was a page-eight picture of her on the dock next to Kinney, with the caption reading “The French stage star enjoys the California sun.” Like it was part of the goddamned weather forecast. “Sonabitch,” he said to himself.

  Following a summons, he marched back to Graham Scott’s office, brushing past Barb, the secretary, who organized her papers conspicuously while watching him from the corner of her eye.

  His feet felt as if they were pounding the floor and rocking the entire building. He knew that his face was turning red, paling the pouched bags beneath his eyes. He could really use a smoke about now. He repeatedly dried his sweaty hands against his slacks, leaving streaked finger stains.

  Graham Scott rolled his eyes up to greet his visitor. His cheek was cupped in his hand as he studied a pile of feature stories being considered for Sunday’s paper. His eyes were tired and glassy but not unusually so. They always had a watery jaundiced quality about them. He didn’t move when Baker entered his office. Still kept the full weight of his head propped on his right elbow. He had been in the business almost since it first became a business. He had done his time on the streets before settling into his career as a managing editor. There was not much that he hadn’t seen, but still he never did get that one story to hang his hat on. In his day he had covered it all, from politics to crime, all of it being relevant to the times, but he had never managed to capture a defining story like so many of his colleagues had. He saw himself as a good defensive second baseman who made the plays day in and day out but was never the hero of the game. But the guy knew this town. He had really hit his stride when he moved to the editorial side. He had a knack for organizatio
n and, perhaps most importantly, the unique grace to balance between the needs of his reporters and the demands from the upstairs Mahogany Row boys. That was why he liked Vince Baker. With his work everybody looked good.

  Baker didn’t bother to announce himself. “You called?” he said.

  Scott didn’t even need to point to the paper. “Why this shit when there was a real story?”

  “If there is any real story in this nonsense, then the boycott is it.”

  Scott shook his head. “Come on, Vince.”

  “Politics. Manipulation. Greed. All the basic ingredients for cooking up any story.”

  Scott straightened up then leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms over a recently acquired potbelly. “One of the most famous stage actresses smothers a fish over her face, and that’s nothing? Politics. Manipulation. Greed. When the other three idiot papers here report on it, doesn’t that give you a sense of its newsworthiness? Everybody in this town is talking about Sarah-on-the-Pier except for the ignoramuses who subscribe to our paper. Why? Because they don’t know about it. From now on, give me the stories as they happen. If something real comes up again about the boycott, then by all means give it to me. But it appears that the story is elsewhere.”

  Baker sucked in a deep inhalation. The burst of anger had exhausted him, it withdrew the last bit of stamina he had from only fours hours’ worth of sleep. He sat down, leaning forward on Scott’s desk. “Please just take me off the story altogether. Give me something that matters.”

  “Vince.” Scott leaned forward paternally, his old-man breath suggesting a vintage and proof more high-falutin’ than what was being served at Willie’s last night. “Take a look at all the other dailies. This matters…You’re on the assignment until she leaves town.”

  “Why not Seabright? That’s his circle.”

  “Because I don’t want to get scooped again. I want the story no one else has—which I suppose I got this time. From now on, just give me your usual. That’s all I am asking for.”