American Decameron

by Mark Dunn

  “Let it be known to each of them what bilked our poor mother, let alone her three innocent children,” Dodge went on in a comical voice, “that we have come to town with a vast fortune to spend in hopes of recovering our long lost—our long lost what, my brother and sister?”

  “I saw the loveliest vase in the window of the flower shop where I bought Ma that bouquet of roses,” squealed Violet.

  “A vase? A simple vase?” Porter rolled his eyes. It was the most tempered among his arsenal of contemptuous looks for those less clever than himself. “There isn’t a counterfeit psychic in the world who couldn’t by dumb luck direct us to a vase, there being only, perhaps, five million in this city. What makes this particular vase unique?”

  “It had the most beautiful poppies in it.”

  “So our challenge then, if I am to understand you, sister,” said Dodge with exasperated indulgence, “is to have our psychics, upon pain of death or career disfigurement, tell us the location in the city of a vase containing poppies. I must agree with Porter, Sis, that your obsession with the floral has produced a challenge that doesn’t seem to be very challenging at all.”

  Violet’s look turned suddenly murderous. “Poppies do not grow in February as a rule. You know nothing of poppies!” With that, the severely offended Violet retreated back into the house to sniff her mother’s fresh bouquet of hothouse roses and to mutter foul blasphemies against her two brothers.

  “Sister has a short fuse,” chuckled Dodge.

  Porter nodded as he scratched his nose musingly. “Of course, if it is truly an oddity to find poppies for sale out of season, then perhaps it isn’t such a bad test for our snared charlatans. Poppies in a vase—I cast my vote for it. Do you vote likewise?”

  “Vase of poppies it is. Let’s make Sis happy.”

  Sis was indeed made happy. She could hardly contain her joy at seeing the four mediums gathered in the hotel room the three siblings had secured for the purpose of exposing their frequent shams against the trio’s overly trusting mother. Each seer seemed completely unsuspecting of Dodge and Porter and Violet’s true motive (sufficient reason in and of itself to impugn their psychic bona fides).

  There were two men and two women who had avariciously answered the call. Each had been visited on numerous occasions by Mrs. Cramford, to whom advice was proffered, matters of concern instantaneously resolved, conversations held with the dead (the late Mr. Cramford often conversing with his extant wife through a variety of unseen human “controls,” who wailed and swayed and brought all the trappings of the afterlife into Mrs. Cramford’s present life). And even when the various results were incompatible, the old woman agreed with the psychics (who could only have had her very best interests at heart!) that in the spiritual world all was fluid and transitory and so it was necessary to confer even more often with those human Baedekers of that land of mystery to get its fullest lay. Porter and his brother and sister had no doubt that the network of fortune tellers in New York City often spoke insultingly of their mother in their private conclaves and shared information with one another of communal value, expressing all the while the great joy they felt at having at their disposal such a dependable and lucrative pigeon to dupe and cash cow to milk.

  The older man’s name was the Great Belcazzadar. He wore a loose-fitting and slightly tattered black frock coat mantling an excessive amount of avoirdupois. The younger of the two women went by the moniker Madame Cassandriana. Her face was overly rouged, her costume a simple but sprawling red cloak. Her female companion was Countess Nadia, Mystic of the East. She was turbaned on top and draped and looped with strings of clinquant paste beads.

  The last of the four looked nothing at all like a medium. His name was Edward Reese. He was young and handsome and came dressed as if he had just stepped from Dodge’s own men’s clothing shop, his rig crisp and exquisitely tailored. There was even a carnation under his lapel.

  “That one’s slick,” observed Porter in an underbreath.

  “And smug. The worse kind,” replied Dodge, who still could not get over the young man’s lack of circus theatrics, both in the manner of his dress and in his demeanor, which was disarmingly casual, almost indifferent.

  Porter quickly got down to business: “We have a proposition for you all. There is a vase of poppies somewhere in this great polis. Our poor, memory-deficient sister saw it yesterday in the window of one of our city’s many flower shops. Alas, she has forgotten the name of the shop as well as its location. And yet she wishes now to go there to purchase the vase and flowers, to bring some morsel of joy to her sad, prematurely senile life. It’s a beautiful vase and the poppies are quite dramatic in their claret petals. Are they not, sister?”

  “If that’s what you say. But my memory is so deficient I can scarcely remember my own name. Is it Rose?”

  “No, it’s Violet.”

  “Is this a joke?” wheezed the pursy Great Belcazzadar, who apparently found little humor in the presentation. “Because we are far too busy to endure it.”

  The two female mediums nodded in vociferous agreement.

  “It is no joke,” said Dodge with sudden clarion authority. “You are, no doubt, on close terms with our mother, Mrs. Cramford?”

  There were shrugs and half-nods. It wasn’t clear to the quartet at this early point in the interview if events set presently to transpire were to redound positively or negatively on them. But all became clear in the next moment as Porter produced his gun and the terms of the challenge were laid out. There was shock and some fear on the part of the two women and the Great Belcazzadar, though Mr. Reese remained calm and collected. It was almost as if he were pleased with the sudden turn of events.

  It was the garishly beaded Countess Nadia of the East (or, rather, Lower East Side) who surrendered first. Her patrician accent fell quickly away, leaving Delancey Street in its wake. “I’ll sign d’Goddamned paper. Just take the gun outta my face, yoose—yoose hooligans!”

  And she was gone.

  At least Madame Cassandriana gave it the ol’ college try: “I’m getting an image. Yes, yes, it’s coming to me now.” The madame’s eyes were squeezed tight, her lips pursed in intense concentration. “I’m seeing the window of Amorelli’s Florist Shop on Mulberry. The vase is there, is it not?”

  Dodge shook his head and handed her the pen. Madame Cassandriana scribbled her signature at the bottom of the document that was to end her prognosticating career in the city of New York, while regretting aloud everything she would miss about the city—a berg in which she’d made herself quite a nice living predicting things that on rare occasions actually did come true (because even a stopped clock gives the correct time twice a day).

  As for the Great Belcazzadar, he bristled and blustered and held to his contention that he was a legitimate seer, but there were times when the spiritual world was inconveniently opaque and it couldn’t be helped, and then he swept a tear from his cheek, signed the document, and left in a Patchouli-scented pique.

  “Well?” said Porter, looking now at the chisel-jawed and sartorially spruce Mr. Edward Reese. Porter glanced knowingly at his brother and sister and then bore down upon Reese with deep ocular penetration. “What will it be?”

  “Neither the gun nor professional disgrace for me, sir,” answered Reese, smiling sedately. “Because I happen to know exactly where your vase is.”

  “Do you really?” asked Violet, her voice suddenly devoid of all skepticism.

  Edward Reese nodded.

  “Bull’s balls,” croaked Porter.

  “I second the sentiment,” added Dodge, and then, because he could not help himself: “Say, where did you get those swell threads?”

  “I’ll take you there,” replied Reese, his grin remaining fixed.

  “To the place where you buy your clothes?” asked Dodge.

  Shaking his head: “To the place where you’ll find the vase with the poppies. It isn’t, ahem, a flower shop.”

  The three siblings traded looks of intrigu
ed interest. “Lead on,” said Porter. He put the gun away. Perhaps the young man might take it to mind to flee. But then again, where would he go? He certainly couldn’t ply his trade in secret. They would eventually track him down; it went without saying.

  Edward Reese was right; it wasn’t a flower shop. It was the 69th Regiment Armory on Lexington Avenue, site of the popular International Exhibition of Modern Art. “It turns out,” said Reese to his companions as he led them into the large Beaux-Arts building, “that your sister didn’t see the vase of poppies in the window of a flower shop at all. But perhaps van Gogh did. My friends, I give you ‘Vase with Poppies.’ It’s quite lovely, isn’t it?” The four now found themselves standing before that very oil painting, one of the artist’s later works.

  “You’ve always known it was here?” asked Dodge through a grimace of defeat.

  The young man shook his head. “I was told that I would find it here.”

  “By whom?” asked Violet, not taking her eyes off the rubrical painting, though she was constantly being jostled by other attendees to the exhibition, “Vase with Poppies” apparently a favorite.

  “By one who converses with me from the spirit world: by the painter himself.” Suddenly, the self-confident young man’s tone changed from brazen cocksureness to gentle, even charming solicitude. “My dear woman.” Taking Violet’s hand: “Did you on your last visit here have the chance to see van Gogh’s ‘Mademoiselle Ravoux’? It’s just around the corner. I ask because she happens to bear a striking resemblance to you.”

  “Is that your studied opinion or just a glancing impression?” asked Violet with accompanying erubescence.

  “I’ll let you be the judge.”

  After the two had glided away arm in arm, brother turned to brother and acknowledged the disappointing reversal without exchanging a word. A moment passed. Porter released a sigh, and then wondered aloud if young Mr. Edward Reese had, in fact, known that the painting was there all along.

  “Well, of course he did,” said Dodge huffily. “And wasn’t he lucky?”

  “Some psychics are very lucky, my brother. It’s almost as if someone’s watching over him.”

  Porter nodded as he ground his teeth.

  “Say,” said Dodge, brightening. “Duchamp’s ‘Nude Descending a Staircase’ is around here somewhere. Let’s see if Comstock has swooped in and covered the poor woman up, although I would challenge him to point out the naughty parts from among all those shanks and planks.”

  The two brothers laughed.

  Perhaps the brothers would have taken things less in stride had they known the truth of what had actually occurred: that Mrs. Cramford, having overheard her children’s plan and the item with beautiful claret petals that was to be the principal part of it, had promptly telephoned her favorite psychic to let him know what to expect when he arrived at the hotel the next day. As it so happened, Mrs. Cramford had attended the exhibition only a week before and was quite taken with the van Gogh floral still life. It was she who had told Mr. Reese exactly where it was to be found. The ulterior motive at play here had everything to do with her daughter, who was a perfect match for the young bachelor-mystic. Reese had impressed the old woman with his fine looks, his innate charisma and charm, and his financial success in a profession that rarely brought great wealth. There was only one thing left for Carlotta to do to secure the deal: encourage Violet to divorce that lout of a husband of hers. It should prove very easy. One of the psychics she had been secretly seeing in Hoboken, New Jersey, had told her so.

  1914

  DEVOTIONAL IN ILLINOIS

  Saturday, June 27

  I used to enjoy what Papa calls our “Chautauqua summers.” It’s all so old fashioned, I know, and half the folks who come here walk around the place with their Methodist noses stuck up in the air like they’re trying to sniff God, but I did used to have fun. I learned to swim and dive and to play croquet and tennis. We went on hikes through the woods on the bluff, and picked wildflowers along the Jerseyville Road, and Miss Dawson, who conducted the girls’ classes, was warm and kind and funny, and I’ll miss her now that I’ve outgrown her.

  I’ve outgrown everything I used to do here. I don’t even think I should like to take a swim in the pool because it’s either filled with the little ones splashing around like otters or those older than me who, truth be told, also splash around like otters. I just turned eighteen last month. I am between worlds. I am dreading my nearly summer-long stay here with Mother and my Aunt Carolyn, and glimpses of Father as he motors in from St. Louis on occasional weekends.

  I am going to die of boredom here. I absolutely know I am.

  Monday, June 29

  Today I climbed the bluff unattended (to Mother’s consternation) and watched the sun go down in all of its violent color and still wished that I were anyplace else on Earth. All the girls I knew from summers gone by have stayed in the city where it is hot, but where they are not minding the heat in the least because they’re seeing boys and going to dances. They have dances here but there are few boys around my age who aren’t in the employ of the New Piasa Chautauqua or who don’t go to Lover’s Bridge and drink corn liquor or smoke behind the Pavilion, and I absolutely hate them. I hate all boys, to tell you the truth. Why did I look forward to growing up?

  I am adrift.

  Saturday, July 4

  It is Independence Day and my boredom is made almost bearable by the celebratory events of the day. There was a concert band performance and a bicycle race and the funny Fat Man races. (Papa was here and I begged him to enter, but he found my request to be an affront to his efforts to reduce.) After supper we all gathered at the riverfront for a fine display of fireworks. The sound—like small cannons going off—frightened Aunt Carolyn (who frightens easily, I must say), but the shapes and colors were beautiful. And there was no one who enjoyed the show more than I—except, perhaps, the young woman who stood next to me. She said her name was M.K. (which stands for Mary Katherine) and she told me she works as a chambermaid at the Inn. Mother and Aunt Carolyn and I have lodgings in the Piasa Springs Hotel, for which I must consider myself lucky as Aunt Carolyn tried to secure a room for the three of us at the Women’s Christian Temperance Union Cottage, which would have been simply unbearable, as the women who stay there are far too prim and proper, and they pray far more than is customary here at this Methodist outpost on the river, where people already pray too much in my heathen, hell-worthy opinion. But Mother—thank God!—would not have it, for where would Papa stay when he came for his visits?

  Anyway, M.K. was funny and very gay. I am hoping that I have another opportunity to see her.

  Saturday, July 11

  A very good day, I must say. I watched the girls playing basket ball in the afternoon and there was a diving contest at the swimming pool. Mother wanted me to enter, but I couldn’t remember all that I’d been taught and feared I would make a fool of myself. At supper tonight, Mother took me aside and said that she would have no more of my maundering about in a non-participatory manner and that I would have to start attending some of the lectures with Aunt Carolyn and her, especially those having to do with the cooking arts, since every girl my age needs to know her way around a kitchen.

  Ugh!

  But the day ended on a very good note because Mother and Aunt Carolyn and Papa, who was visiting this weekend (two weekends in a row, callooh callay!), and I all went to hear the world-famous Miss Maude Willis read from various works of fiction and drama. And I thought that she was very good, especially when she read a couple of passages from A Girl of the Limberlost (which I had read myself when I was sixteen) pertaining to Elnora’s tristful rambles through the swamp, collecting moths and wishing that her mother would not hate her for trying to be born while her father was busy dying in the swamp. As I was being moved nearly to tears, who should suddenly appear but M.K., who opined in a rough whisper that Miss Maude Willis was a fraud and a theatrical poseur and New Piasa Chautauqua would have been better served
by having the “Divine” Sarah Bernhardt sitting on stage and belching for an hour instead. I burst out laughing and earned a glare of displeasure from my aunt, who was sitting nearby.

  Before we parted, M.K. whispered that I was downright “adorable” and that she would like to spend some more time with me. She said she had tomorrow afternoon off, and asked would I meet her at the Pagoda and perhaps we could go rowing together?

  She gave me a little kiss on the cheek in parting and I kissed her back. I was giddy to have made a new friend, though Aunt Carolyn looked at me oddly.

  Sunday, July 12

  I did not meet M.K. at the appointed hour (2:00) because Papa had decided to stay until tomorrow morning and Mother and Papa and Aunt Carolyn and I were to have a picnic. I stole away after the service to try to find M.K. and tell her that I would have to break our engagement, but I could find her nowhere about, and I regret not asking the name of the boardinghouse where she was staying.

  I felt miserable, but I didn’t tell Mother the reason. Papa thought it was because I was not seeing enough of him and I pretended he was correct in this assumption and hugged him tight while holding back tears, which seemed quite incongruous since M.K. was nothing more to me than just a friend.

  Thursday, July 16

  I finally caught a glimpse of M.K. this afternoon upon the verandah of the Inn, sweeping among the rocking chairs. I know she saw me, but she pretended that she didn’t. I don’t blame her. I wondered how long she must have waited for me at the Pagoda before concluding I’d changed my mind. I would have gone to her and explained everything, but Aunt Carolyn and Mother and I were on our way to hear a lecture by Mrs. E. F. Ford on beautiful houses—their location, arrangement, furnishings, and sanitation.

  Early this evening I noticed M.K. again. She was sitting on the other side of the auditorium attending, as was I, a performance of “fantastical legerdemain” by Mr. Dana Walden, “Magician Extraordinaire.” Again, M.K. pretended not to see me, and my chagrin was hardly dispelled by the droll occurrence of a small white rabbit hopping over my shoe.