Loving Frank

by Nancy Horan

  Inside one belvedere, an artist standing on scaffolding was putting the first brushes of color on the dreaded mural. She could see lines sketched out on the wall above her but could not discern in them the disaster Frank envisioned. She walked on, down a long hallway and into the soaring indoor winter garden, where tiers multiplied into more tiers as her eyes went up and around.

  A concrete mixer in the middle of the room made the space rumble. Fumes from wet mortar floated in the afternoon light pouring through the windows. A spry old deliveryman tipped his hat as he whizzed past her with a cartful of flowers and green plants. “Ain’t this something?” he called out.

  She tried to imagine what the tiers would look like tomorrow night. Diners would be sitting at tables, looking down on the checkerboard dance floor at the center of the room. All the balconies would eventually trail ivy. The place did bring to mind the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. Frank had said some people thought it looked like Aztec pyramids.

  She saw those things and more—the beer gardens she and Frank had visited in Berlin and Potsdam; the terraces they’d walked in Italy. The statues of women Frank had used to line the sunken gardens brought to mind the rectangular stone pillars topped with carved human heads that she’d seen in Italian gardens. But they reminded her of Japan, too—their angular headdresses like abstract geisha wigs. Frank had fused what he’d experienced and seen into something entirely new: a waking fantasy.

  More than anything, what struck Mamah was the absolute joy he had expressed at Midway Gardens. After all its changes, the structure had turned out to be as playful as the sprites at the front door. This was a “good times place.” It would bring delight to so many people.

  Everywhere she looked, she saw him at play. Up at the top of the walls, in a frieze of stained-glass windows, scattered red-glass kites trailed black tails against the sky outside. She imagined Frank holding the strings to each of them, keeping them all afloat at once, his heart as full as any kite flyer’s ever was.

  “May-mah!” John Vogelsang was flying through the winter garden when he spotted her and bent down to buss her on the cheek. “How are you? Does Frank know you’re here?”

  “No, I sneaked out here to taste the excitement.”

  “Don’t talk to me about tasting. I have tasted so much today, my tongue hurts.”

  “Are you ready?”

  He shrugged. “If the waiters show up. If the cooks show up. If the people come.”

  “The people will come,” she said.

  “Say, how are the Carltons working out?”

  “They’re wonderful, though I think Gertrude is a little lonely out in the country. She confessed as I left that she wished she were going into the city.”

  “She can cook, can’t she?”

  “It’s a miracle.”

  “Have her prepare callalloo. We couldn’t get enough of it in our house. She can’t get real callalloo in these parts, so she uses spinach.” A worried-looking man approached Vogelsang then, and the restaurateur made his apologies to her. “Okra and crab meat,” he called as he waved goodbye. “You won’t believe it.”

  Mamah walked out to a balcony overlooking the summer garden. The orchestra was rehearsing in the pavilion, and she listened closely. They were playing Saint-Saëns, and it sounded exquisite. She understood what Frank had done—created a symphony hall with these receding terraces and balconies. Cars might be rumbling down Cottage Grove Avenue, but from where she stood, the music was as clear as if she were in the first balcony of the Berlin Opera House.

  She caught sight of him below, going over some drawings with a bearded man, probably Paul Mueller. Out in the vast open-air square, chairs and tables were lined up in perfect rows. The sight of them sent a pleasant shiver of anticipation down her arms. Lord, how long had it been since she’d gone to a party? How she loved them! She thought of the beaded dress and the frightening prospect of people staring at her tomorrow night, eager to get a gander at Frank’s “affinity.” She turned and hurried out the front door to the train stop.

  A HALF HOUR LATER, Mamah sat in a barber’s chair in the hair salon at the Palmer House. Once before, when she was staying there during a visit with the children, a sweet woman had trimmed her long hair. But that woman was nowhere in sight. A young man stood before her now, holding the picture she’d seen displayed in the window. She had come to the salon not knowing what she wanted done to her hair, only something miraculous that would make her feel pretty and young again. When she’d seen the picture in the window, she’d stopped in her tracks. The illustration showed a woman with short hair cropped at the jawline. It was Else’s haircut.

  “It’s called the Curtain, madam,” the hairdresser said. The man had a solemn demeanor at odds with the name embroidered on his barber coat—Curly. His fiercely wavy hair, which he had chosen to celebrate rather than fight, was clearly the source of his nickname. Parted on the left, his hair rose up and out from the right side of his head in a mass of miniature waves that shaped themselves into a tilted cone, the point of which was a good eight inches from his scalp.

  Mamah shifted on the red leather seat of the barber chair. Looking at the man’s outlandish hair, she regretted the impulse that had propelled her in here. Damn vanity! She wondered if his haircut had a name, too.

  The barber wrapped paper tape around her neck and threw a cape over her. Mamah breathed in and pointed to the picture of the Curtain. “I’ll have that,” she said.

  “But madam, your hair is not straight,” he protested.

  “Straight enough,” she said. “I’ll take my chances.”

  He began chopping her hair off in chunks a foot long, then worked to get the thick mop even. It shocked her to see mounds of dark brown hair piled like hay on the floor. The man had a low stool on wheels and rolled around on the thing, circling her, snipping her hair from underneath. The whole experience seemed bizarre, yet she found herself confiding to the barber about the opening and what she planned to wear.

  When he stood up, he took a tapered comb from a jar of alcohol, rinsed and dried it in the sink, then neatened the part down the middle of her head. In the mirror, a woman not unlike Else stared back at her. A smile spread across Mamah’s face. The haircut was wonderful—stark, unconventional, and pretty all at once.

  “Very European,” the hairdresser said, pleased with himself. “Tip your head down.”

  She obeyed, and the hair fell forward. “You see how the Curtain works? Now lift up your face.” The barber beamed. “And there you are,” he said triumphantly. “Unveiled.”

  CHAPTER 49

  There were things she wanted to remember from the opening night of Midway Gardens. The music, to be sure. The smells of corsages and wet cement. The feeling everyone seemed to have that they were the lucky ones—to be here at this moment in this magical place.

  Some things she would not be able to forget even if she wanted to. The lights in particular. Midway Gardens was a fairyland at night. Inside the winter garden, globes hung like bunched balloons in corners around the dance floor. Outside, poles studded with small white lights soared upward from the tops of walls like glittering needles. Candle flames flickered along the tiered balconies.

  Frank called Midway Gardens his “city by the sea.” It was not a city, and it was not by the sea. But if one squinted just right, as Mamah did that night without her spectacles, the candlelight on the terraces brought to mind vistas she had seen from the deck of a ship—villages flung across the sides of mountains, their cottage window lamps glowing in the distance.

  She would never forget the warmth of people toward her that night. Frank stood by her side, his cheeks high with color, gallantly introducing her to one person after another. Among them was Margaret Anderson, the owner of the Little Review.

  “Frank showed me a little while ago the Goethe poem you translated.” The towering beauty drew on a short cigarette and winked at Frank. “Quite an impressive find.”

  Mamah laughed. “He’s rather proud of
it. Carries it in his pocket.”

  “I’d like to publish ‘Hymn to Nature.’ We’re scheduled up for another six months, but sometime after the first of the year.” Her keen gray eyes panned the room as she talked. “What do you think?”

  Frank beamed. Mamah summoned some presence. “That would be lovely,” she said. As the woman walked away, Mamah whispered excitedly to Frank, “She publishes Sandburg and Amy Lowell, for God’s sake. I can’t imagine…”

  “She knows a comer when she sees one.”

  He took her hand and walked her into the winter garden. The scene was a blur of color and motion, evening gowns swirling. It had been so long since she had danced with Frank, she’d forgotten how graceful he was on his feet. They waltzed through several songs. “I love the haircut with your dress,” he said at one point, burying his nose near her ear. “Have I told you that you are the most beautiful woman in this place?”

  Mamah laughed. “‘In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure dome decree…’ How does that poem go? ‘With walls and towers…and gardens bright…’”

  “Did you hear me?”

  She drew back to look at his face. Earlier, when he was talking to journalists, he’d lifted his chin and literally looked down his nose at them; later, there’d been a wicked glee in his eyes as he shared some inside joke with Ed Waller, one of the partners in the Gardens. Now there was a familiar tenderness on his face.

  “Yes,” she said. “Thank you.”

  More than anything, she would remember John Wright that night. He’d been working tirelessly next to his father during the construction of the Gardens. He had to be as exhausted as Frank, but across the room, he looked ebullient as he laughed with his friends. This was his night, too.

  She had not seen him since he was a boy of perhaps sixteen. He was a handsome young man, with Catherine’s coloring. When he caught her watching him from across the room, he didn’t hesitate. He walked immediately to her.

  “How are you this evening, Mamah?” He took her hand into both of his.

  They stood talking for a few moments. It was warm but small talk, nothing that veered close to the wounds.

  John Wright was flaunting his mother’s rule by even standing in the same room with Mamah. But he was a man now, his own man, evidently, for she found him gracious and seemingly unruffled by her physical presence two feet away, or by the glances their nearness attracted from others. When he took his leave, his eyes lingered for a moment on hers.

  “My father is happy,” he said.

  Mamah struggled to keep tears from spilling over.

  CHAPTER 50

  My name is Mamah Borthwick. Mamah is a nickname for Martha, and is pronounced “May-muh.” It’s a name that puzzles when first encountered. People ask, “Is that ‘Mama,’ like ‘Mother’?” Most new acquaintances begin, as this one does, with an explanation.

  My parents did not pluck Mamah out of the Bible, nor did they name me after a beloved aunt. I’m the only Mamah I have ever heard of. I wish there were a great heroine from history who inspired the choice, but there isn’t. It is simply a loving sobriquet bestowed by my grandmother.

  There may be a handful of readers for whom the name will prompt a memory, though. It’s possible that they will recall reading the scandalous headlines about a woman named Mamah whose affair with a married man was the stuff that “news” editors dream of. I am that woman, and this book includes my own account of the events that led to those painful headlines.

  I have traveled a harrowing path since the yellow journals put me on their front pages. Yet in my darkest hour of humiliation, I found hope in the words of a wonderful Swedish philosopher. I have translated her work so that others can benefit from her wisdom. But I’ve come to understand that many women throughout my life have eased my journey. To all of them, I am deeply indebted.

  In the following pages you will find the stories of women who are struggling to live true, to make honest and meaningful lives for themselves despite the fact that, as a gender, we do not share full voter enfranchisement, equal pay, or the freedom of personality men take as their right. This book is an attempt to name those struggles. As a group, too often we talk of the vote when we speak of the Woman Question. But there are many other aspects to realizing one’s selfhood.

  Women are storytellers. It is how we bring one another comfort and illumination. Thus the format of this book. There are those of you who will read my own account looking for the comeuppances. You will find plenty. I hope you will also recognize the moments of love and grace. If I can cast a little light on someone else’s path, if another woman can take courage for her own struggles from the true stories in this volume, then they will have been worth the telling.

  MAMAH LEANED CLOSE to her typewriter to reread the introduction she’d just written for her book. She changed a few words, then stretched her arms and arched her back. Not so bad for a first swing at it, she thought.

  Outside, Lucky set to barking as horses clip-clopped into the courtyard. The children were back from the Bartons’ house. Since their arrival at Taliesin a week earlier, they had been mostly on horseback, riding either to the Porters’ or back and forth to the next farm over. Out the window, Mamah could see four children, her own plus Emma Barton and Frankie, Jennie and Andrew’s son. When the four of them weren’t out riding, they were in the barn hanging around, helping Tom Brunker groom the horses. Tom was a tender mark—a widower, with young children of his own over in Milwaukee. There was another draw for Martha and John in the barn, too: the imminent birth of a foal.

  “See that belly?” Tom said when Mamah came into the barn. “She’s bagged up good. Her teats has been waxed over for a week.”

  John pointed to a crusty discharge on her nipples. “The wax keeps the milk in till her baby’s ready to suck,” he said. He turned to his mother with a look of pride at being the bearer of that information.

  The mare nipped from time to time at her distended belly.

  “Won’t be long now,” Tom said, chewing on his pipe.

  “Today?” Martha asked. She was crouched down with her bottom resting on the back of her boots, peering through a space in the middle of the gate.

  “Could be today.”

  The children went back to the barn at intervals throughout the morning. They were excited and restless, racing through the house and into the studio, where they were chased out by the draftsmen.

  That afternoon Gertrude made sliced-beef sandwiches for all of them. The kitchen was the other room where they’d figured out they were welcome, and they often hung about the cook as she worked.

  Listening to Gertrude recite a funny Bajan rhyme, Mamah recalled a conversation she’d had in Italy with Frank about moving to Wisconsin. “How will I survive without art galleries and opera?” she’d asked him wryly.

  “We’ll bring culture to the farm,” he’d promised her, and he had kept his word. There had been plenty of music and poetry at Taliesin. But Mamah thought the Carltons, in their own way, also brought a connection to the bigger world outside Spring Green, and she was pleased that the children were getting a dose of it.

  Mamah tagged along with them as they headed down to the river with their poles. She lay back on a flat rock and covered her face with her hat.

  The children had developed their own rhythm at the farm this summer. John came in from Waukesha full of good humor after a visit with the Belknaps, though Martha had started off anxious. Mamah thought it was because Lizzie had brought her up from Oak Park and was taut as a spring when they’d arrived. Thankfully, Frank was away. Lizzie commented very little about the house or farm, though Mamah caught her inspecting everything closely.

  Mamah longed for the old familiarity she’d shared with her sister, the times when they’d stayed up past midnight talking about so many things—their parents, Jessie, love, life, a woman’s ambitions in a man’s world. Now Lizzie was cool. She was warm with the children, though. They loved her, and over the days they seemed to soften her
. A couple of times when Mamah said, “Do you remember…,” Lizzie went back with her into childhood, where they both felt safe.

  There was an uneasy peace between them by the time Lizzie left. Mamah was afraid to hope for too much too soon. And she worried about what the future held for her sister. She’d come to realize how much Lizzie’s world had been torn apart when she left.

  When Mamah married Edwin and brought her sister into the household, Lizzie had reveled in being the quirky auntie living in the basement. That was long over. She had already moved out of her apartment downstairs in deference to the new Mrs. Cheney. A single professional woman like Lizzie could keep her social standing though she was not part of a larger household; old friends would still include her in their dinner parties. And she would always be adored by the children. But Mamah could not deny to herself the obvious: Something irretrievable had been lost to her sister.

  WHEN MAMAH AND the children returned from the river a couple of hours later, the commotion around the barn caused all the kids to break into a run. She hurried behind them through the barn door.

  “Got a foal!” Tom hollered when they neared the stall.

  A colt lay on the straw. The mother horse licked its eyes and nostrils. Tom stood in the corner of the stall. They watched as the foal wobbled to her feet, then found her mother’s milk.

  “Didn’t have to do nothin’,” he said. He patted the mare’s hindquarter. “Mama took care of everything.”

  Huddled together with John and Martha at the stall’s gate, Mamah savored their closeness. The smell of their heated little bodies, mixed with the odor of hay, was sweet indeed. She watched with them for a good while before going back to the house.