Divine Sarah

by Adam Braver

  By 5:00 A.M. he figured he repeated that same routine at least four times over the course of the night. No wonder his dreams were not evidence enough to convince him that he had actually had some sleep.

  Baker gingerly lifted the covers to slide himself out. He parted the checked yellow curtains, the stained insides faded by sunlight, the dust rising, swirling, and twinkling in a strange mixture of fairy dust and filth.

  He couldn’t imagine the day extending any further than this moment. Maybe that’s what suicides think before they actually turn out the lights. Perhaps their demise was not always due to a deep dark desperation that masked any inkling of hope, but instead a rational realization that they have hopped into the last possible square and it is literally impossible to imagine stepping anywhere beyond where they stand. He’d covered one suicide. A woman made memorable only by the fact that they shared the same last name was found slumped at the side of her bed in a nightly prayer posture, only her face had been crushed into a white duvet, stained red like a tissue from a bloodied nose. A small black gun rested nonchalantly at her side, as if it were supposed to be there, and when the detective gripped her hair and pulled her head up, there was a clean black hole through her right temple. A simple cease-fire message to the brain. Everybody knew that the female Baker had been pissed at G. G. Johnson and had intended to say something publicly. The problem was nobody knew what, and whatever it was had leaked out that little passage in her skull and spread thin across a bed that everybody knew Johnson had not-so-secretly shared. The LAPD reluctantly ruled it a suicide. Baker’s story was boiled down to something resembling an obit that only ended up running in the Saturday bulldog edition. Both of the Bakers’ story.

  Today he just couldn’t imagine going into the newsroom. The same musty smell, ragged smiles, and temporary pressures. It was a job that was practically impossible if you didn’t submit to the illusion of it. Because once you faced that mirror, and for just one moment caught a glimpse of yourself, the ridiculousness of your righteousness and determination became laughable. Another living, breathing cliché. It was the deadlines with the intense pressure that kept the treadmill going. The sense that the moments were ticking away faster than you could keep up with them, daring you to fall behind and become completely lost and obsolete. Your snout had to sniff the ground at all times, tracking every scent, digging up every bone just in case one of them turned out to be something other than a butcher’s scrap.

  Baker’s chest sank.

  He couldn’t imagine it. Not today.

  He regretted not talking to Bernhardt last night. He could have accomplished two things: killed the story, and found out what the goddamn fascination was.

  He crawled back into bed and curled up beside Fay. Holding on into the morning. Or at least until the next time he woke, almost screaming.

  FOLLOWING A BATH that seemed merely functional, Sarah walked out of the lobby, past the sleepy-eyed desk clerk who between yawns probably only noticed the shadows, into a crisp morning whose breeze seemingly lifted right off the whitecaps. A pause held the pier.

  She was alone.

  Quietly and momentarily.

  Her crew was due to arrive in the late morning, and Max would make sure the set was constructed to a workable phase in order that run-throughs could begin as soon as tonight. He was such a priss about things like this. They needed rehearsals, not run-throughs. They had done this play a hundred times already, and she had already meticulously blocked every movement and nuance down to the number of breaths per beat long before they had opened the tour. Everybody knew where they were supposed to be. But on a dramatic level the play was not quite working. After she talked it out with Max, the cast would need to work the changes through, scene by scene.

  Marguerite Gautier was flat and the play was lifeless.

  Yet the audiences didn’t seem to care. They cheered because it was her. She could stand there speechless for three hours straight and they would still give her a minimum of ten curtain calls. Her presence had overshadowed her art. Why bother? She should just put it on celluloid for the Americans and forget about it. But until then the Sarah Bernhardt Company needed an organized and back-to-basics rehearsal. But Max would insist on a quick run-through instead. Just enough to make sure the set was comfortable for all. He would tell Sarah not to confuse the actors with her search for interpretations, that it was her approach that mattered, and that the actors would undoubtedly play their parts the same, only making the occasional emotional adjustment when necessary. But to concern them in a theoretical and philosophical discussion on the motives of Marguerite would only serve to confuse them and throw everything off-kilter. There were obligations to be met, and time did not allow for full-blown rehearsals. Max’s rule was that everybody needed to be present at the run-through, even her dresser, Sophie, as though some siren wail of a costume emergency might sound, causing a needle and scissors resuscitation (along with the hairdresser, Ibé—which for him was no chore, as he literally spent every other night sleeping backstage on top of the wigs to protect them from lord knows what). But she knew Max was doing more than watching the crew, he was watching her, as well. Keeping sure that she didn’t slip away. That’s probably why he wanted her private railcar parked right down there on the pier. Always best to expose the hiding places.

  This was her final bout of freedom. Bring on the crew by noon, and the wide-eyed cast by four. The first run-through starts at 5:00 P.M. sharp. It will go until 7:30 P.M., where they will break for dinner, customarily banquet style on the first night, where she is inevitably seated at the center table surrounded by Max and Sophie and the area promoter—in this case Abbot Kinney. A sense of unity is created at the dinners, where a group of stratified travelers are transformed into a single-mindedly focused acting troupe. Then Max stands up after the main course and welcomes everybody and introduces the promoter, who gushes with starstruck jealousy about the chills that shiver down his spine at just being in the room with such talent and brilliance, promising that packed houses and everything else you will need to ensure a first-class show is at your command. She can practically mouth the speeches along with their orators. (At least they are a little further and few between this time. On her first American tour she sometimes played four cities in five days. Four dinners. Four promoters giving four speeches.) Then the dinner breaks up around 9:30 P.M. and the actors all go off to discuss their concerns, and the production crew meets to resolve its problems with the latest theater. By the next morning, everything is in full swing again, as if they had been doing this every minute of their endless lives. She had traversed the United States several times now, pulled by a three-car train loaded with more than thirty of the best actors and crew that Europe had to offer, and she was certainly not lacking in confidence that the quality was pristine and perfect—without the promoter’s benediction and blessing. The problem was these modern financiers who had figured out how to turn art into a slipshod celebrity commodity barely held together by the manipulation of the press, advertising, and rumor. They never once thought about quality or talent or innovation. There was no suggestion of nuance and subtlety—in fact, more the opposite: where only the biggest loudest bang could stretch the pockets deeper. The promoters had managed to put a fear of God into Max that created the illusion that profit margin was equivalent to quality. Almost always leaving poor Molly to run around after the show, balancing reviews against the ledgers to determine the night’s success. It usually took the train ride with the crew to slap the perspective back into him.

  For this she gives up a rehearsal.

  Sarah sat down on a bench that faced Kinney’s Chautauqua Theater, the stage door far off to the right, almost hanging over the Pacific. By the closing curtain that entrance surely would be mobbed with people climbing over one another to get a look at her and have her scribble her name in a diary or any other keepsake they could muster. They would enunciate their words in loud English to translate fully their adoration, and then inevitably pa
rt with some canned wisdom like don’t let them get you down or don’t worry you’ll always be great. Those moments of adulation after the performance tended to be her loneliest. There she stood in grace and charm, her smile radiating something larger than life, reaching her hands over to delicately touch fingertips and palms. Her lips repeatedly mouthed merci with no sound vibrating her throat, driven by the insatiable need not to stop. She rarely enjoyed it though because she was always so hyperaware that it would eventually end with Molly breaking it up. She could stay out there all night in a mechanical rhythm if he didn’t always announce very loudly, “Thank you very much, but Madame Bernhardt needs her rest,” keenly aware of the perception of maintaining a demand. Then she would walk away, having blown kisses, mouthing more silent mercis, and delivering a final wave. Then the loneliness and ennui would set in predictably, burrowing deep into her chest. Raising smiles seemed impossible when she finally joined the cast in a throwaway suite or private dining room for the after-performance party. Drugs. Booze. Sex. The usual remedies to see an actor through until morning. She really had become too old for that nonsense. Just lead her to the railcar and let her be.

  A few people started to appear in the distance. Probably heading for work. Not far from Sarah, a wide woman passed. She walked low to the ground in short, terse steps, unaware that there was another person around her. And by the Ferris wheel a stoop-shouldered man trailed by his long narrow shadow dragged slowly and disinterestedly. Sarah heard the sounds of morning. The cackles of electricity opening the stores and offices. The seagulls barking and howling as they glided in first flight over the pier. And she looked back at the hotel, the bright orange sun hitting the windows in the middle—maybe her window even—and splashing the entire front in a blaze that transformed it into a strange beacon that called Sarah Bernhardt to duty.

  She didn’t want to go back.

  She didn’t want to wait for Max’s predictable tap on the door at 8:30 A.M. to escort her to the breakfast room.

  She didn’t want to hear about Catholics and their boycotts.

  She didn’t want to have to smile and greet Abbot Kinney and feign gratitude.

  She didn’t want to go over and over all the necessary preparations with Max and the crew.

  She didn’t want to struggle to understand Marguerite Gautier.

  She wanted to walk with some purpose. Have her shadow drag reluctantly behind. Uncertain of what the day would bring, but definite that it wouldn’t leave her chest hollow. These few days on her own had made her appreciative of having no commitment to time. And she wished that she were going to set herself at the edge of the pier with a fishing rod in hand, ready to catch her breakfast. But no doubt that would never happen here again. Maybe if Kinney had just left her alone that morning everything would have been as peaceful and personal as she had intended. But he had wanted to make a show of it, so she had given him a show.

  Instead she walked back. In honor of duty. Head hung low. Her body slumped nearly unrecognizable. She moved straight toward the orange light. Guided into the beacon. Driven by the knowledge that once she walked through those doors she would be Sarah Bernhardt again. And she would rise to the occasion. Square her shoulders, adjust her stature, and open herself up wide to take all the shit that could possibly be hurled—along with all the adulation that would keep her whole.

  Max was standing in the lobby as she walked through the doors. His expression crossed between irritation and relief. “Do you know what time it is?” he asked, parentally.

  She smiled and clutched his shoulders, pulling herself up to give him a peck on the cheek. “Was my Molly getting a little hungry? Such a temper when you’re hungry.” (Frightening how she can become “Sarah” so quickly and on demand.)

  “The train arrives in less than an hour and a half.”

  “And…? I think this Abbot Kinney has you dreaming about him and his ledgers.”

  The lobby was beginning to fill, mostly with workers, a few tourists, and the privileged trend-setting indigents who called this glamour hotel their home. The foyer moved at a vacation pace, lazy and deliberate, with slow smiles of recognition between familiar faces and casual greetings with loosely knit plans. Quite in contrast to Max Klein. He and Sarah stood in the center of the room in an inert pause—the frantic eye to an otherwise calm storm, both daring each other to say another word. She sensed a shift in the room’s mood, the familiar sudden breathlessness when all eyes have convergently focused on her. And instinctively, with grace and demur, she inflated her presence to three times her petite size. The fluidity of her gestures and expressions turned artful as she leaned in closer to Max, aware of the exact volume of her movements as though it were a mathematical equation (size of room × proximity of people ÷ distance of audience = projected volume) and kicked her back leg up in a natural gesture that carried the understated exaggeration of comedy—just enough to let the audience find her both sophisticated and charming. She spoke in a stage whisper an inch before his ear, “I am positively famished. Should we retire to the dining room”—she pulled in closer to complete the line for only him to hear—“before these gawkers eat me alive?” And Max, being Max, announced in what would have been seen as an overdone and overcompensating voice to anybody other than a starstruck room, “But of course, Madame. To the dining room.” And the crowd parted with the nonchalance of eavesdroppers, knowingly letting her pass, leading the way a step behind Max Klein, who was undoubtedly waiting for her to stop at any moment and say she only had a few minutes for autographs and questions. For the next half hour until he made the customary announcement.

  “THE EGGS ARE COLD,” she said. “They have only been on my plate for what, a minute or two? They are cold. Are yours cold too, Molly?”

  Max finished chewing what had been his first bite. Masticating with increased effort until he could force the food down his throat. “Mine are fine,” he finally was able to answer. The same scrambled eggs, shining lemon yellow, spread generously along the plate next to three strips of thick, sizzling bacon with the white fatty part puffed at the ends, and two thick slices of a dense brown bread (she had called it an Irish breakfast at first sight). “They are fine.”

  “But you always say that.”

  “Because it’s true.”

  “Because you are afraid.”

  “Afraid?”

  “Of offending.”

  “Whom? Surely not you.”

  “Hardly.” She smiled. “But the waiters.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “That you would rather eat cold eggs than complain. You don’t want to upset the waiters.”

  “Sarah, that is not true at all. I happen to think that they are at an ideal temperature for consumption.”

  “The lengths you’ll go to convince yourself.”

  “When the food comes out burning hot you can’t eat it anyway. You have to let it cool down, right? Well, this is the ideal eating temperature. There are no issues of embarrassment or apprehension. In fact, there are no issues at all.”

  “Well, it causes you to have to eat faster.”

  Max had just taken another bite and was chewing with a slower, more deliberate determination.

  “There is only a finite amount of time when the temperature is ideal. Do you follow?”

  Max nodded without commitment.

  “When it comes out too hot then you can savor it. A little breath to cool it down. Talk. Enjoy. Then another bite. Still hot. Again a little less breath to cool it down. But the way you like it, one has to devour it almost immediately or else it becomes impossible to enjoy. It’s a matter of something being able to stay around for a long time to be enjoyed, and something else being garbled and mangled because its moment of satisfaction is so visibly temporary.”

  He swallowed. “I get it,” he said. “Do you want me to order you another dish? Send it back to the kitchen?”

  “It’s just that this is ludicrous. Does their Chef Louis find this acceptable?”
/>   “I will try to get the waiter’s attention.”

  “It shouldn’t be hard. He has been staring at us unremittingly since we sat down.”

  “He is in awe of you.”

  “Or he knows that the eggs are cold.”

  Max turned around to survey the room. “I will try to get his attention.”

  “And when you do, explain to him what I have told you. Or tell him that it’s just like sex. You want the passion to keep burning so you can continue to take little bites and tastes along the night. Or is that how it works with you boys, Molly? Perhaps you men-to-men are the epitome of male aggression, baring your teeth in full savagery, grunting for pleasure and mounting each other in pure ready-to-eat convection. Gnaw and destroy in a matter of moments. Is that how it is? In a way it all makes perfect sense. At least sexually, almost all men believe that women think just like men. That the pleasures are uniformly shared and that everybody wants the same thing. So perhaps it does follow that men would do better with men. They are actually choosing the right partner to fulfill their suppositions and expectations. In a way that is beauty in an aesthetic of logic. Does that sound right to you? Is that how it is?”

  Max chose to ignore her. “I see him coming out of the kitchen now. I think…” He waved his hand politely.

  “Of course,” she continued, “all the queer men I have been with, and I had a few—some before they were willing to admit it, others who wanted to believe I was a man, and others who would do anything at any time—they seemed to like their food served hot. They wanted to dine. What is the answer, Molly? What is the truth?”