The Marble Quilt

by David Leavitt

  “I’m sure it was on the left. And not too far back.”

  “You didn’t happen to write down the row number, did you?”

  “I didn’t think I needed to. Because I’d tied the whatchamacallit to the antenna. The whosiwhatsit. And I thought … Oh, look! Yes, I remember now, it was a dog toy. A little rubber blowfish, with spikes all over—look, there’s one!”

  “But, Minna, that’s a Toyota. You drive a Ford.”

  They turned right. To Rose’s surprise, practically every car in the parking lot had something tied to its antenna: stuffed dolls, balloons, brightly tinted clothespins. It was inevitable that there should be repetition, which was why so many anxious-looking old men and women were now pushing their carts through the heat, eyes open for signs of home, trying to stave off the terror of being lost. None of them was as lucky as Minna, with Rose at the ready to rescue her.

  “Honey, forgive me for asking, but you do have your keys, don’t you?”

  “Yes, of course. That’s the first thing I checked.”

  “Good. And you did lock up—”

  “Of course I locked up! What do you take me for?”

  “Nothing, darling, I just thought it was worth making sure—” Suddenly Rose braked. “There,” she said. “There it is.”

  “Oh, thank God!” Tears welled in Minna’s old eyes. “I didn’t want to say anything, but the truth was, I was scared.”

  “I know,” said Rose. For Minna’s car had been stolen before. It had been stolen because she had left the keys in the ignition and forgotten to lock the door. Another time she had locked the door, but left the engine running. Both times Rose was summoned.

  With a great effort, Minna climbed out of her sister’s car and got into her own.

  Minna’s progress was glacial. It took them nearly twenty minutes to get back to her apartment building, which was three quarters of a mile from the Publix. “Thanks, honey,” she said when they finally pulled into the parking lot. “Say, you want to come in for a minute? Have a cup of coffee?”

  “Of course I’ll come in.” Rose popped the trunk. She got out of the car, picked up a bag of groceries.

  “Be careful. Don’t hurt yourself.”

  “What choice do I have? I can’t leave this stuff to rot.”

  The apartment was on the ground floor. “Sit down,” Minna said once they were inside, and she was easing herself into the lounger in front of the television. “Take a load off. You want some ice cream?”

  “No thanks.” Rose unpacked.

  “I got chocolate marshmallow. Your favorite.”

  “No, I wouldn’t care—Minna, what on earth do you need with three gallons of ice cream?”

  “Someone might drop by.”

  “But no one ever drops by! When was the last time in twenty years that anyone dropped by? And look—you’ve got three in the freezer already. That’s six gallons.”

  “But Georgie loves ice cream.”

  “Georgie lives in New York now. He only comes down twice a year.” She put the ice cream away. “Honey, you’ve really got to start using your head, otherwise—”

  “Or that Audrey. Lily’s girl. What if she drops by? You said she was coming this week.”

  Rose closed the freezer. “Yes, Audrey might. It’s interesting, she’s doing a medical history of the family. For her thesis. She seems very bright.”

  “Lily’s always been a strange one, hasn’t she?”

  “Takes after Harriet.”

  “Momma was very hard on Harriet. Especially after she got thrown out of nursing school.”

  “Momma always seemed to resent all of us girls for being girls.”

  “You can say that again.”

  Rose sat down across from Minna. “You know, Audrey’s dug up the most incredible stuff for her study,” she said. “For instance, in Harriet’s attic, she found some old ledgers where Momma wrote down every time one of us got sick. Plus all the medical reports, the doctors’ bills …”

  “Momma was very organized. It’s a pity women couldn’t go to work in those days. She would have made a great CEO. She was much smarter than Poppa. Poor Poppa. Without her, he would have run the store into the ground.”

  “Yes, Minna, but as I was saying, Audrey found all the old medical bills, even from Cape May.”

  “You mean when you were born?”

  “I’ve always wanted to know more about that summer.”

  “Well, Momma was sick. She had terrible morning sickness to start with, plus she had bleeding, so the doctor said she needed to stay in bed until it was time. And with all the kids, and the heat—it was murderous that summer—there was no use in her staying home. So we went to Cape May.”

  “To a hotel.”

  “Not much fun for me, I can tell you! Just a girl, and cooped up in that room all day with Momma.”

  “And was Poppa there?”

  “He came when he could. But basically it was just the two of us. Momma and me, I tell you, we sure got on each other’s nerves! Talk about cabin fever. And of course she was nervous, knowing that Poppa was running the store by himself. He couldn’t keep books very well, not to mention the women coming in all the time. Momma was never easy in the head when she couldn’t keep an eye on him.”

  “And then she had me?”

  “We stayed on a few days more so she could recuperate. Then we went home.”

  “But, Minna, honey”—Rose leaned closer—“those bills that Audrey dug up, there’s something funny about them. The name on them isn’t Momma’s, it’s yours.”

  “Mine?”

  “I mean, you’re listed as the patient.”

  “Oh, then they must be bills from a different doctor. I remember I had a terrible flu—”

  “No, they’re from the obstetrician. Dr. Homer Hayes.”

  “Then he must have gotten our names mixed up.”

  Rose blinked. Minna’s eyes were focused on the switched-off television, the gray amplitude of which reflected only her own face. She stared at herself as if she were a program.

  Rose got up. She walked to the kitchen, where she pulled some bowls out of the cupboard.

  “If you don’t mind, I think I will have that ice cream now,” she said.

  “Have all you want. There’s loads.”

  “And you?”

  “Sure I will. Chocolate marshmallow.”

  The ice cream hadn’t been in the freezer long enough to harden up after the wait at the supermarket. With a wet plopping noise it fell from the spoon into the dishes, which were chipped at the edges, patterned with butterflies. Rose carried them back into the living room.

  “Minna—” She handed her the ice cream. “What Audrey said, it doesn’t make any difference. Once, maybe. Not now.”

  “I did have the worst flu that summer. I could hardly get out of bed.”

  “We’re none the worse for it,” Rose said. “None the better, but none the worse.” Then she sat down with her ice cream, and they ate. The sun was warm, until a cloud blocked it, throwing shadows against the television. And how curious—in that darkened moment, Minna looked to Rose like no one so much as Dinah, when she had picked her up by the scruff of the neck. Eyes wide, she gazed at Rose, helpless and inscrutable and oddly tranquil. Then the cloud passed. Light returned, revealing a greasy fingerprint on the edge of the screen, a fissure of thread where one of the curtains had been mended.

  “Oh, honey, your hair’s a mess. Let me brush it.”

  “It’s all right.”

  “No, let me brush it,” Rose insisted. And she picked up a brush from the tray table by the television; pulled her chair alongside Minna’s lounger. “You used to do this for me, when I was little.”

  “Ow!”

  “Sorry, did I pull too hard?”

  “It’s O.K. I did, didn’t I? Whenever Harriet made you cry.”

  White hairs, long and fine, collected on the bristles. “You know, I always wanted to have a little girl,” Rose said. “Just my luck I s
hould end up with three boys.”

  “Momma was hoping for a boy,” Minna said. “She was always hoping for a boy. But I wanted a little girl, too.”

  The List

  SUBJ: The List

  DATE: Monday, July 17, 2000, 2:43:51 PM

  FROM: ivorystuds@entropy.net

  TO: jkwitt@wellspring.edu

  Dear Jeff,

  I thought you might get a kick out of the attached list of gay/lesbian pianists from the past two centuries, which Willard Pearson and I have been putting together in our spare time. Do you know Willard, by the way? Since 1995 he’s directed the piano program at St. Blaise College in New Hampshire; he’s also the former president of the Paderewski Society, and editor of the society’s journal. The list began as a simple exchange of gossip but gradually grew to epic proportions as each of us added names and solicited information from friends. You’ll notice at the bottom there’s a section called “On the Fence,” featuring pianists about whom we’ve heard rumors but received no corroborating evidence. Any additions you might like to make would be most welcome.

  Re your biography of Bulthaup: although I continue to read and enjoy the ms., I feel I must warn you that by emphasizing the sexual side of his relationship with his manager, you risk an upheaval of negative response. Many orthodox admirers will accuse you of “outing” B. just to sell copies, claiming that his sexuality was irrelevant to his playing etc. My feeling so far (I’m on Chapter 11) is that in Chapter 9 you tread on particularly shaky ground by suggesting that B.’s sexual confusion influenced his performance style. Are you trying to appease the “queer studies” crowd here? Or has your publisher been pressuring you to give the book a “gay” angle, in order to guarantee review attention?

  While I know that you need my collection of photos, programs, etc., for research purposes and to reproduce, I’m sure you’ll understand that I could not possibly permit you to use this precious archival material if I did not feel that the project was one with which I was in unwavering accord—i.e., one that presents B. in the proper light. We’ll have to wait until I’ve seen your revisions before I make a decision. Please remember that I have a responsibility to B.’s heirs as well as to history.

  Hugs,

  Tim

  P.S. Am I ever going to get to hear your voice? Or see your face? Do you ever come up to San Francisco? :)

  SUBJ: Re: The List

  DATE: Monday, July 17, 2000, 4:41:32 PM

  FROM:jkwitt@wellspring.edu

  TO: ivorystuds@entropy.net

  Dear Tim,

  Thanks very much for your e-mail of earlier this afternoon, as well as for “the list,” which (not surprisingly) I’ve spent the last several minutes perusing. You and Pearson (whom I don’t know personally but who once published a letter of mine in the Paderewski Journal) have certainly done your homework! Let’s get Bulthaup out of the way before I proceed, however.

  First of all, I want to say that I really appreciate your warnings about the risks implicit in my frank discussion of B.’s homosexuality. As I’m sure you know, one of the great difficulties inherent in any biographical project is that of balancing the short view with the long view. It’s all too easy to lose perspective, until you can no longer tell what you might have overstated. And, as I’m not one of those writers who balks at the possibility that his ideas might ever be less than perfectly worked out, might I ask you a favor? As you read, could you note in the margins those passages where you feel I overdo the gay thing? I can then use your suggestions as a guideline in editing the book.

  Let me state from the outset, however, that if I lay stress here to the “gay angle,” as you call it, it is for none of the reasons you propose. Indeed, I bristle at the implication that I would ever write to appease anyone, queer studies professors or publishers or even you. On the contrary, I’m simply doing the biographer’s job, which is to portray the subject’s life as it was lived, and not as other people (including Bulthaup himself) might want it to be portrayed. Bear in mind that if Fabia Bulthaup were still alive, she’d have lawyers breathing down my neck to stop me from even mentioning his affair with Cesare, though this was common knowledge not only in New York and Paris, but in the Bulthaup household.

  Now, an important question: I know you well enough to know that you would never advocate the suppression of material that would be crucial to an accurate rendering of the man’s life and career. And yet you express worry lest my book should fail to show B. in the “proper light.” Well, what is the proper light? If what bothers you is my referring to the possibility of a homosexual aesthetic of performance, as epitomized by Bulthaup’s playing, please remember that it was Bulthaup himself who first suggested that idea, in a letter to Cesare (now published). If I take my cue from anyone, it’s from him. Believe me, I’ve labored for many hours over this point, and have really come to believe in my argument: not only Bulthaup’s interpretations, but his choice of music, program organization, obsession with lighting, etc., reveal what he himself called (I did not invent this) an “invert’s preoccupations.” If this part of the book provokes controversy, well, what interesting argument doesn’t provoke controversy? And I would rather be attacked for saying something challenging than cosseted for having been a good boy.

  As for the photos, programs, etc.—obviously I realize that you own this material, and that it is yours to do with it as you see fit. I also understand that to a great degree, your livelihood depends on the material maintaining its value on the antiquarian market. And yet I hope you will bear in mind as you make your decision that in asking you to let me reproduce some of this stuff, my motive is neither to reduce its commercial value nor to misrepresent Bulthaup; instead it is simply to make B. the human being more accessible—more “real,” if you will—to an audience of admirers that has rarely seen his private side. (In this regard the photos are of far greater value than the programs.) What I’m saying is that I want to use the photos in order to show Bulthaup in the proper light, and that, though I hope and trust we can come to an agreement, I’m not prepared to betray my instincts in order to obtain them.

  On to the list: what a curious document! Although many of the names came as no surprise to me, some, in particular [omission], quite took me aback. I mean, so far as [omission] is concerned, all you ever hear is that she’s always been something of a femme fatale, with many (male) lovers. What I find hard to believe, in other words, is not that she had a taste for lesbianism, but that she had time for it.

  For your “On the Fence” section, let me add two names. Years ago the horrible Crispin Fishwick told me that [omission] made eyes at him backstage during the Levintritt competition. He is hardly reliable, however. (Did I mention that he has the lowest body temperature of any human being with whom I’ve ever had the misfortune to share a bed? Literally a “cold Fishwick.” Ha-ha.) The second name I would suggest is that of [omission]—this based on nothing except an intuition I felt when I heard him play Szymanowski last year.

  All best,

  Jeff

  SUBJ: Re: Re: The List

  DATE:Wednesday, July 19, 2000, 7:12:02 AM

  FROM:ivorystuds@entropy.net

  TO: jkwitt@wellspring.edu

  Dear Jeff,

  Thanks for your thorough reply to my earlier e-mail. You’ve given me a lot of food for thought, and it will take me several days to digest it all! For the moment, though, rest assured that of course I will note in the margins of the ms. those moments where you overdo “the gay thing,” as you call it.

  Re [omission]: back in the late seventies when I was living with Andy Mangold in New York City, and she was married to [omission], they were part of that swinging Studio 54 crowd. Andy and I were sort of on the fringe of all that. In those days both she and [omission] were pretty AC/DC (you’ll see that he’s on the list too), and I know for a fact that she had an affair with [omission], who was just starting her film career then. After that ended she took up with [omission], had a child, etc. But for a while there she w
as a card-carrying glamour-dyke.

  I can’t write much as I’m just back from a music memorabilia swap meet in Montreal, where I picked up a nice autographed Bulthaup program from 1932. On the way back I stopped off at St. Blaise to have lunch with Willard Pearson. I’m afraid that when I told him I’d shared the list with you he went into an absolute tizzy, as apparently he’s just finished reading the manuscript of your book, which he got from Greg Samuels when he was visiting the Meerschaum Institute last week, and has concluded that you are a relentless gossip, not to be trusted, etc. Now his demented worry is that out of some zealous desire to “out” everyone on the list, you’ll not only distribute it far and wide but make sure everyone you show it to knows that he was responsible for it, resulting in the ruin of his career, blah-blah-blah. I wouldn’t worry about this too much. Willard is an hysterical queen of the old school, which means it doesn’t take much to get his panties into a wad. And as he gets older, he just gets worse. In any event, by the end of lunch I’d managed to calm him down, reassure him that you would never send the list to anyone, and restore at least a little of his trust in me.

  Better run—I have to take the dog for a walk.

  Hugs,

  Tim

  SUBJ: Re: Re: Re: The List

  DATE: Wednesday, July 19, 2000, 9:43:22 AM

  FROM:jkwitt@wellspring.edu

  TO: ivorystuds@entropy.net

  Dear Tim,

  I can’t pretend it doesn’t disturb me that Willard Pearson has formed such a low opinion of me. Please reassure him that I have no intention—indeed, have never had any intention—of sharing his list with anyone. In fact I’ve already erased it from my hard disk.

  I must also confess that his attitude toward the list itself perplexes me almost as much as his attitude toward my book. I mean, why is this such a big deal to him? Does he really imagine that if the list got out, it would provoke anything more than a yawn? Things like this circulate all the time. Nor is the world of the piano one in which news of this sort would “ruin” a career—not anymore. Maybe it’s generational, but I simply fail to see why the matter has assumed, in his mind, such epic proportions, or why, if he’s so worried about his professional colleagues finding out that he’s queer, he put the list together in the first place.