by Howard Fast
“Well, not really now, my dear,” Braderman interrupted. “Now it’s cults, Expressionism and Cubism, and the Philistines say that Fauvism is over. That’s like saying that Impressionism is over and sunlight is a thing of the past.”
“You are so right, Mr. Braderman. I declare myself a Fauvist–I love it. And the next time anyone asks whether I am a feminist, I shall reply, no indeed, a Fauvist. And that one,” she said to Dan, “is a composition of dancing nymphs–one of Mr. Braderman’s. You know,” she confided to Braderman, “we inherited two Frederic Remingtons. Daddy adores him, and I never dared even intimate that I don’t like cowboys, and we do need paintings so. What do you think of them?” she asked Dan.
Dan stared at the paintings without replying.
“Well, I must be running along,” Braderman said. “A thousand thanks. Enjoy them. Delighted to have met you, Mr. Lavette.”
Jean took him to the door. When she returned, Dan was still staring at the paintings, his face set grimly.
“Oh, you’re so angry because I laughed at you.”
“God damn it, I’m not! I was so happy to hear you laugh that I raced downstairs. Do you know how long it is since I heard you laugh?”
“I know.”
“Who is he?”
“He’s a brilliant young painter. He’s been in Paris for the past five years. Studying.”
“Where did you meet him?”
“I don’t see why you’re questioning me like this. I met him at the opening. Marcy Callan introduced us.”
“And he calls you ‘my dear.’”
“Danny, it’s only a way of talking that artists have. Of course I’m excited. I bought two paintings that are my very own. Aren’t they beautiful?”
“What did you pay for them?”
“What difference does it make? It’s my own money. If you must know, I paid a thousand for the Vlaminck and five hundred for the other one.”
“I don’t think they’re wonderful. I think they’re ridiculous,” Dan said. “And if that’s the best that fop can do, he ought to get out and find some honest work.”
“What a rotten thing to say!”
“You asked me.”
“And he’s a fop. Because he isn’t a brawling hoodlum?”
“Meaning that I am?”
“Dan, I don’t want this to degenerate into a quarrel,” she said coldly. “I don’t think we ought to discuss it further.”
“Christ Almighty,” he whispered, “I love you so much–I love you so much, I want you so much it burns in my gut. I don’t want to fight with you. You can buy a hundred paintings–what the hell do I know about paintings? I got sore because you were both laughing at me and the way he patronized me.”
“Dan, we weren’t laughing at you.”
“O.K.–sure. It’s all right.” He moved toward her, embracing her clumsily, pressing her to his body. First she stiffened; then she relaxed; when he tried to kiss her, his lips parted, she said, “Don’t, Dan. Don’t force it, please. Not now.”
“When?” he yelled, pushing her away from him. “When?”
“When I’m ready.”
Jean felt that Manya Vladavich was the most fascinating and interesting woman she had ever met. Miss Vladavich, whose age was somewhere between thirty and forty, was dark, full-breasted, and, as Marcy Callan described her, totally outrageous. In Paris, she had modeled for Matisse and Manguin–and by her own testimony engaged in affairs with both of them–and now modeled for and lived with Calvin Braderman. She wore dotted veils, flowing crêpe de Chine, and feather boas; and Jean, lunching with her and with Marcy Callan at the Fairmont, found her a little frightening and totally enchanting.
“Darling,” Manya said to her–she pronounced it dollink–“one does not buy art, like you buy a dress or a dish. One relates. One becomes a part of it. You are beautiful woman. You are art alive. You buy a canvas, it becomes a part of what is inside you. You understand?”
Jean nodded.
“She bought the Dancing Nymphs, you know,” Marcy said. “It’s so lovely.”
“Ah, yes, yes,” Manya shrugged. “Pretty. When Braderman paints without passion, he is pretty. When he paints with passion, he is magnificent. You saw a painting called Orgasm?”
Jean glanced at Marcy.
“Obviously no,” said Manya, watching Jean intently. “You know what is orgasm?”
“I think I remember it,” Jean said.
“You think,” Manya said gently, and Jean felt she had sinned in some way she only vaguely comprehended. “So tell me the truth, beautiful woman that you are, you know what is orgasm?”
Marcy giggled.
“I don’t really know what you mean,” Jean said.
Manya looked from one to the other and sighed. “Ah, American woman–so young, so beautiful, so innocent. Orgasm, my darlings, is what happens when a man and a woman make love.”
“You mean–when the man–” Marcy began tremulously.
Jean felt a curious surge of excitement. She had never talked about these things before, never used the words. She was titillated, alive suddenly. She had never known a woman like this, so intense and so open at the same time.
“No, foolish girl,” Manya said. “Not when the man, when the man like you say. What is with the man? An ejaculation, and then it is over, like a monkey. Orgasm is what happens with the woman, not with one little part of her but with the whole body and soul.”
Marcy was blushing. Jean could see the flush creeping into her cheeks, and then she realized that her own cheeks were burning. She was frightened and embarrassed, and she fought an impulse to flee, to excuse herself, to find sanctuary in the powder room. She felt that everyone in the restaurant was watching her, the waiters, the people dining at the other tables.
“Poor, innocent children,” Manya said. “Enough. I make you uncomfortable. We talk of other things. We talk about this beautiful city of yours. It is inspiring, no? Day and night it inspires me. I think I never go away from it.” She turned to Jean. “You are in new house. Braderman says is beautiful, on top of Russian Hill. I am born in Saint Petersburg, so Russian Hill pluck chord inside me.”
“It was designed by Arthur Brown,” Jean said, her words sounding inane to her. “He’s very talented. Have you heard of him?” She felt stupid.
“Who has not?”
“You should see it,” Marcy said. “If you like Russian Hill, you must see it.”
“Yes, sometime. You must come.”
“Now is best time. I have whole afternoon free.”
Marcy left them to meet her mother and shop for a bridal gown. It was a beautiful, cool afternoon, and Manya spread her arms, as if she were embracing the whole city, filling her lungs with air. “You do not breathe, you Americans. The air is so clean and sweet but you do not breathe.”
Watching her was like watching some lissome animal. Jean, trying to think of some reason why Manya should not accompany her home, was confused and troubled, not by fear, but by her own fascination. She found herself wanting to reach out and touch the other woman, and again she felt her cheeks burning.
“With color, you are divine,” Manya said. “You pretend to be made of–what is it, like the snow in Saint Petersburg? But in flesh and blood, you show the truth.”
At the house, Manya took over, prowling through room after room, exclaiming, praising, criticizing. She wanted to see the children. Jean explained that at this hour they were outside with the nurse. Then she must see the rooms upstairs. “A room is like a costume you wear. I see the room with the ships and the pictures of ships–so I know your husband. It is his room, no?” They went upstairs, into the nursery, the guest rooms, and then her bedroom. She crooned over the flowered wallpaper and the lush pink bedspread.
“So feminine–you pour out passion on things, things! But inside, you do not allow it. Am I wrong?” Suddenly, she stretched out on the bed, stretching her arms above her. Then she pulled off hat and veil, smiling at Jean. “I frighten you, snow l
ady, don’t I? Why are you frightened?”
“I’m not frightened,” Jean said slowly, feeling that she was in a dream, feeling drunk. But on a single glass of sherry. What’s wrong with me, she wondered.
“Sit here by me.” She sat down on the bed, and Manya took her hand. “You’re trembling. Why?” Manya stroked her hand, and then dropped her own hand to Jean’s thigh and began to stroke it, very gently, very softly, her fingers like feathers, yet every touch of them sending chills through her body. Jean closed her eyes and sat motionless, while Manya’s fingers continued their featherlike dance, higher and now touching her Venus mound and resting there.
No, Jean told herself, this is not real, this is not happening to me, this is insane and impossible. Still, she did not move as Manya’s hand slid up her body and cupped around one breast, gently again, feeling, exploring, raising to life the hard point of her nipple. She felt her nostrils close, her breath come pantingly through her open lips, her body beginning to burn in a way that she had never experienced before.
And then she heard the door downstairs open and close, the squeal of two-year-old Thomas’ anger, and the spell broke. She leaped to her feet, her whole body trembling, while Manya lay there, watching her and laughing lightly.
“Poor snow lady.”
“You must go. Now. Please.”
She went down the stairs swinging her veil and hat, humming to herself and throwing sidelong glances at Jean. “Such beautiful children!” she cried. “Oh, such beautiful children!” Miss Jones, the English nurse–or nanny, as Jean liked to think of her–frowned in disapproval and hustled the children to the stairs. Jean opened the door.
“When do we meet again, snow lady?” Manya asked.
“Never!” Jean exclaimed. “I have forgotten what happened! I have forgotten it completely! I trust you will too.”
“Perhaps. Who knows?” Manya said.
Dan Lavette was leaving his office, earlier on the same day, when Feng Wo stopped him. “Please, could I have a word with you, Mr. Lavette?”
“A quick word. I’m walking into a den of lions, so don’t say anything that will rattle me.”
“Only a moment. My wife, who has heard me speak of you for so long now, begs me to extend an invitation to you and Mrs. Lavette. We humbly ask you to take dinner with us at our home on this Friday next. However, I must add that I will understand if there are circumstances that prevent your accepting.”
“Is your wife a good cook?”
“I would say so. Yes.”
“Then I’ll be there–with bells on. You count on that.”
“But Mrs. Lavette may have accepted another engagement.”
“I don’t think so.”
But a few minutes later, walking toward the Seldon Bank Building, Dan realized that an invitation for Jean to come to a Chinese household for dinner was by no means a simple matter. Well, there would be time to worry about that; meanwhile, it was more important that he be clear in his mind as to what he would say to Seldon and Seldon’s board of directors. He had made a few notes and rehearsed the facts and figures in his mind at least a dozen times, and his arguments appeared, to him at least, to be reasonable and cogent. A few minutes later he reached Montgomery Street, walked past the modest front of the Bank of Sonoma, and entered the impressive eight-story Seldon Building. A hydraulic elevator brought him smoothly to the eighth floor and the board room. He was a few minutes early.
Five of them faced him around the big mahogany table, Thomas Seldon, Alvin Sommers and Martin Clancy, both of them vice presidents, Rustin Jones, who was president of Sierra Insurance, and Grant Whittier of California Shipping. They were all of them men past fifty, solid, substantial men, with a net worth of many millions among them.
As Seldon introduced him to those he had not met, Dan realized that they were all watching him, studying him as if he were a particularly interesting form of life they had not encountered before. Their faces were impassive and controlled; he remembered such faces from poker games, not on the wharf where the fishermen played poker loose and easy with each other but in the Tenderloin where the pros sat around the tables in their shirt-sleeves and vests with eyes as cold as hard steel. Well, he had not come here to be wined and dined and to be told what a brilliant young man he was. He had come here to ask for a million dollars.
“You gentlemen know what the situation is,” he began, standing at one end of the table. “England, France, Germany, Belgium, the Austrian Empire, Italy, Russia–damn near every country in Europe is at war. It’s the worst, bloodiest war this world ever saw, and it’s only beginning. England is an island with the biggest empire in history, and most of that empire is at our back door, if you think of the Pacific Ocean as our back door. Now already Germany’s submarine fleet is nibbling away at British ships. They’re going to sink every damn ship they sight, and the British colonies are going to live or die with what we ship over to them out of the West Coast. Now I know that the Panama Canal is going to change things, but chiefly in lower rates from the East Coast to here. As far as the Pacific passage is concerned, rates are going to go up and the sky’s the limit. Mark Levy, my partner, and I have been operating a fleet of ships four years now, and I know what kind of money there is in shipping–just as I’m sure Mr. Whittier knows. I’m here to ask for a loan of a million dollars, to underwrite the purchase of five ships of five to six thousand tons each. I know where the ships are and I know they can be bought. They’re cargo carriers in first-rate condition. So I think that such loan as I propose is reasonable and secure.”
“I think I know the ships you’re talking about,” Whittier said. “Your figures are off. A million’s not enough.”
“We’re aware of that,” Dan agreed. “We intend to liquidate all our holdings, our ships, our fishing boats, and our factory. We have an equity of almost a million.”
“I know your holdings,” Sommers said. “You’re heavily mortgaged.”
“We have equity,” Dan argued. “I’m talking about a good market. I should have said at least a half-million and possibly a million.”
“That’s quite a spread,” Clancy observed, smiling slightly.
“How old are you, Lavette?” Rustin Jones asked him.
“Oh, I don’t think that’s to the point,” Seldon put in.
“Twenty-six,” Dan replied, pushing it on to the coming year. “If you’re looking for age, I can go out on the street and bring you a dozen men over fifty.”
“Take it easy, Dan,” Seldon said. “Tell me something about those ships.”
“They’re steel ships, turbine engines, twin screws, none of them more than three years old, four of them made in England, one in Holland, good condition.”
“You see the war only in terms of profit?” Whittier asked.
“I see the war for what it is–a bloody, stupid game they’re playing. We didn’t make it. It ain’t our war. But that’s no reason not to carry cargo and take a profit. If I don’t do it, a hundred others will.”
“May I read you something, Mr. Lavette,” Rustin Jones said, his voice a calm contrast to Dan’s heated assertions. “This is from President Wilson’s message to the Senate. I quote, ‘The effect of the war upon the United States will depend upon what American citizens say and do. Every man who really loves America will act and speak in the true spirit of neutrality, which is the spirit of impartiality and fairness and friendliness to all concerned.’ So speaks the President, Mr. Lavette, yet you propose a very considerable loan primarily for trade with the British colonies.”
Dan shook his head and tried to contain his temper. “We’re a Pacific port. Do you want me to trade with Germany? Just tell me how, and I’ll be happy to oblige.”
“Mr. Lavette,” Clancy said, “Mr. Jones made reference to your age. We have children still at school and not a great deal younger than you. Not too long ago, the newspapers carried an account of a shotgun attack you personally made upon what you claimed was some sort of fish pirate. You took upon your
self the responsibility of sinking a boat. Fortunately, the people on the boat survived, but it might have been a disaster. Now you ask us to entrust a million dollars to your judgment.”
“I’ve said my piece,” Dan told them, and, taking a sheaf of papers from his pocket, he threw it on the table. “There are the facts and figures, gentlemen. As for fishing, I’m not asking for your instruction. I’m here for a loan, and you can grant it or not, just as you please.”
With that, he pushed back his chair and stalked out of the room. Seldon followed him.
“Dan!”
Dan paused in the outer office, the secretaries and bookkeepers watching curiously. Seldon walked with him into the corridor. “You’re being unreasonable,” he said. “You can’t blow your stack that way.”
“I will not be treated like some hoodlum kid from the Tenderloin.”
“No one is treating you that way. We’re a bank. We have our ways. Now give this some time.”
“I’ve given it some time,” Dan said.
Jean was changing her clothes when Dan got home that evening. He had time before dinner to play with his son, Thomas, and he rolled on the floor with him, swung him high in his arms, and growled at him, while Miss Wendy Jones looked on without approval. Miss Jones was a shapely, plump Welsh lady of thirty-five who rarely smiled and who never ceased to regard her present circumstances as those of one cast into a primitive wilderness. She had lied about her antecedents, having worked in London at several homes as a housemaid and not as a nursemaid, but she came to realize that such distinctions were not terribly important among the elite of San Francisco. Her present employer fascinated and frightened her–this enormous, impulsive young man, who walked with a rolling gait and whose manners, to her way of thinking, left much to be desired–an odd match for the beautiful young woman who was his wife. On the other hand, Dan, who still could not comprehend the role of servants, treated her with easy good nature and slapped her behind occasionally, if only to enjoy the outraged reaction it elicited. His periods of sexual abstinence were increasing, and he toyed with the notion of seducing Miss Jones. But the opportunities were few and he was still romantically and adolescently in love with Jean.
