Love in the Loire

by David Leddick

  “He does. But he doesn’t seem to want to do them.” “Imagine being God and being besieged with all those prayers about wanting to get a passing grade in chemistry. And that your daughter will find a husband. And your husband will get a raise. If you were God, you’d have to get very dismissive,” I said.

  “So you think we’re going to slip under God’s radar with this conversation?” Toca said.

  “I feel quite sure of it. I would just like Graham to come home from his run before he gets struck by lightning. I have to ask him about his teenage amours. And what types he likes now,” I said.

  “Well, darling, I feel quite sure that you are the type he likes now, no matter what he’s been up to in the past. Here’s another thought. Maybe homosexuals are attracted to young men because they represent some kind of ideal. You know, God made man in his own image. So as we get older and become more and more aware of our frailty and perishability we want to merge with these young ideal beings. It brings us closer to heaven.”

  “Merge?” I said.

  “Actually, I think it’s a pretty good definition of what homosexuals like to do. Heterosexuals don’t have that merge motivation in the same way because they have such obvious sexual equipment. His thing goes into her thing, so pressing your bodies together, fondling sexual parts, all that kind of thing can play a lesser role. The varieties of ways that homosexuals have sexual pleasure must vary a lot more than heterosexuals, don’t you think?”

  “Are you talking about S&M and those kinds of things?” I said.

  “Oh, no. That’s just for people who’ve gotten bored. Or don’t want to let go of themselves enough to fall in love. If you’re not going to open up enough to fall in love and suffer rejection and loss, then you go on to whipping people and shoving your fist up their butt and scat and that kind of stuff,” Toca said.

  “Scat?”

  “Should we really be having this conversation, Nina?” Toca said. “Perhaps these are things you don’t need to know. Or perhaps not yet.”

  “Not yet? Good Lord, Toca, why would I want to run around in a state of innocence? I’m married to a former porn star. I can always just ask him. I’m sure he knows,” I said.

  “I’m sure he does.” Toca got up and walked to the window. “Something is brewing. The sky is turning very dark.” We both saw a crack of lightning beyond the Abbey’s flying buttresses. “I hope that boy takes off his dark glasses and pulls out his earplugs and comes back,” Toca said. “I know Graham is smart enough not to be out running across some vast open space with lightning cracking down here and there. I’m not sure Danny is smart enough to take cover.” Turning to me he said, “Scat is when someone lies down under a glass coffee table and someone else takes a big dump on it, right over their face.”

  “What an image,” I said. “You’re sure you don’t want to stay for lunch?”

  “It does sort of take away your appetite, doesn’t it?” Toca said.

  “And people pee on each other, too, don’t they?” I said.

  “Golden showers. I had an uncle that when he was a child someone complimented him on his white hands and he replied, ‘I pee on them.’ That may be a side benefit of being urinated upon. Your skin may become whiter,” Toca said.

  “Messy,” I said. “It seems a long way from romance. Cuddle, cuddle, cuddle. Kiss, kiss. That kind of stuff. So what do you want? What’s the plan, Toca?”

  Toca came back and sat down in the lavender plaid armchair. “I guess I’m just a hopeless romantic. I believe in some kind of chemistry striking between two people, and then they stay together because of the chemistry having struck once. It’s like Swann in Swann’s Way. Proust. You’ve read all that, I’m sure.”

  “Once,” I said. “I didn’t understand a thing.”

  “You must read it again. Start with The Captive. That’s the most comprehensible. And then go back to the beginning and work your way through all six volumes. It’s worth it. I think Proust and Gertrude Stein will be the two big names remembered in literature in our era. They were the only writers in the twentieth century who didn’t have themselves as the leading characters. Nobody is going to read Hemingway and Fitzgerald and Philip Roth and all the big names. All that writing has the author as the hero. And who cares? No, Proust really captured a slice of society in the early part of the century. I don’t think anyone else has really done that. There’s no story. It’s just people behaving. I love it.

  “Anyway, Proust has Swann proposing to his mistress Odile when he no longer is in love with her. When he loved her he would go to her home and stand outside in the street and wonder who was inside with her and eat his heart out. Once he no longer loved her, he realized their marriage would be a kind of monument to the love that he once had for her. He knew that he never wanted to be in love like that again. Once was enough for a lifetime. Of course, homosexuals have a more complicated time as they don’t really have the concept of marriage as a monument, even though they are marrying at quite a rate. The embarrassing part will show up later when they begin to divorce at the same rate. Who wants to impose an unhappy relationship on anyone? Anyway, what you do after the relationship ends its burning bright phase is your own business. I just see the idea of marriage as a monument as being a desirable concept. And workable.”

  “So. Any ideas about who that monument of yours is going to be set down upon?” I said.

  “I have been quite infatuated with Hugo Bianchi,” Toca said.

  “Well, who wouldn’t be?” I said. “A very beautiful guy. A smart guy. A star from the cradle, I’m sure. And not at all caught up with himself. He doesn’t swan around, waiting for people to adore him. He seems to be making a real effort to get something going with Steve. The two beauties. I’m not at all a voyeur, but I’d rather like to see them making love. It must be beautiful.” I rather surprised myself with that last statement.

  “Stop it, Nina. Don’t get me excited,” Toca said. “Not to mention breaking my heart. I must now redirect myself to finding some over-the-hill redhead who will not only find me attractive but my whole theatrical milieu also. And hopefully will want to involve himself with my lifestyle as well as me. Is that too much to ask?”

  “Not at all,” I said. “You’re a very amusing person, Toca. Who wouldn’t want to spend their life with you? But I think you are going to have to love that other person very much. That washedout redhead may not be capable of a lot of passion. You’re going to have to provide that.”

  “I can be an animal in bed,” Toca said. “I’m just concerned now that my theatrical milieu may be on the wane. Suddenly Cranston Muller is back. He taking over The Red Mill and will certainly want to direct Tea and Sympathy. He’s doing a movie. He has a protégé in tow, E. L. Losada, who is certainly a dashing and good-looking talent. Where does that leave me exactly? There is something very weird going on there, Nina.”

  We both looked out the window. The sky had turned a leaden color, and the Abbey across the way looked like a photograph of itself in black and white. Toca went out into the street as I stood in the open window.

  “We’re having an eclipse of the sun,” he called back. “Did anyone tell you that we were going to have an eclipse?”

  “Not a word,” I said. There was no one about. There was no sound. The birds had fallen silent. There was no sound of cars passing in the main street. I came out of the house, too, and stood beside Toca, looking up at the sun. A bright sliver showed at one side of a black disk. The light that surrounded us in the street was a metallic gray shifting to a slightly darker tone as the disk in the sky became completely dark with a bright edge of light around it.

  “What is it? What is between us and the sun? Or are we between the sun and the moon? What’s going on?” Toca said.

  “Since we revolve around the sun, that has to be the moon between us and the sun,” I said. “As far as I know they are the only three things orbiting around each other out here. Oh, Toca, what am I going to do about Graham?” The sun was al
ready moving out from behind the blocking moon. A bright edge was beginning to show on the other side. The gray metal cast that had settled over every leaf and stone and iron railing that surrounded us was brightening, although there was still a dead silence. There seemed to be no wind either. Nothing stirred.

  Toca turned and hugged me. “What do you mean, what are you going to do about Graham?” he said. “What is there to do?”

  Standing there in the gray light in the middle of the street between our large stone house and the looming Abbey across the way I said, “He’s not going to be able to go on like this. It’s wonderful for me. I have a job I like in Paris. I have a beautiful child. I’m about to have another. I have a handsome, loving husband who doesn’t have a job. Whose life is limited to the world of a wife and child. He’s not going to find work in France as an actor. He’s done a few little modeling jobs, but that’s really beneath him. This is all going to blow up right in my face, and I don’t know what to do. I feel as though I am in a boat drifting toward Niagara Falls. It’s lovely and idyllic, but I can hear the falls roar in the distance and I can’t get to shore.”

  “Well, let’s see,” Toca said in a calming parental voice. One I have never heard before. “Let’s see if I climb into your drifting boat if the two of us can’t steer the damn thing to shore, shall we? Let’s go back in the house and discuss this.” Just then, a little girl appeared at the Abbey gates. The air was only faintly gray now. She had a mysterious air. As though she had not walked up but somehow had materialized there.

  “Mr. Sacar,” she said. “I want to talk to you.”

  “Yes, Henrietta,” he said. “Come here.”

  The sun was back to normal now, and the mystery child now ventured forth from the gates as a very thin little girl dressed in brilliant pink shorts and tee-shirt. She also had on pink slip-on plastic shoes with miniature high heels. Pink was not her color.

  “We little kids have nothing to do,” she said. “There are no parts for us in The Red Mill. And there certainly won’t be in Tea and Sympathy. What in the hell does the management of this school think the younger students are supposed to do? I want to get on with my career.”

  Toca ignored her and turning to me said, “Do you know the novella The Light in the Piazza? It’s just opening in New York this summer as a musical. It’s supposed to be great. The plot revolves around a young woman who has been kicked in the head at ten and never developed further mentally, although she is a ravishing beauty as an adult. Her mother is torn between letting her marry a young man in Italy or not. I always thought the plot was stupid because a ten-year-old has plenty of brains. I offer you Henrietta as an example.” He then asked Henrietta, “How old are you?”

  Henrietta said, “Ten.”

  Toca said, “I rest my case.”

  To the child he said, “Henrietta, what would you like to perform in if we were to do a special show for the kids?”

  “I’d like to do Ten Little Indians,” she said. “Not so much for myself. I’d rather sing and dance. I have great legs.” She pulled up her shorts to show us a pair of knobby knees. “But I think we should include everyone. I think there are about fifteen in the cast. There are fifteen of us. It has all different kinds of character parts. It’s a murder mystery. It would be big box office here in the boondocks.”

  Toca said, “Where did you ever hear of Agatha Christie and this play?”

  Henrietta said dismissively, “I can read.”

  “Where are you from, Henrietta?” Toca said.

  “New York,” she said. “And Paris.”

  “It figures. Henrietta, I think we’ll do this. I don’t have to direct The Red Mill,” Toca said.

  “Yeah, we heard that,” Henrietta said. She was turning back toward the gate. I realized that Henrietta was probably smarter than anyone else in town. She had nailed Toca exactly at the right moment.

  Just then, Graham came puffing up around the corner from the church, covered in sweat and looking worried. “Did you see the eclipse?” he said, pulling up to a halt beside us. His body looked magnificent. Even sweaty, he put his arm around me. “I was worried about you and ran back as fast as I could. Where’s Theo?”

  “Snoring away upstairs. He decided he wanted a morning nap,” I said.

  “And Graham can be my assistant director,” Toca said. “Do you think you’ll have time to help me with a new project? We’re going to do a children’s production of Ten Little Indians starring Henrietta . . . what’s your last name?” He reached out and pulled Henrietta to him. She didn’t mind a bit and threw her skinny arms around his waist. Looking up she said, “Rothschild.”

  “That figures, too,” Toca said, looking down at her.

  “I’ll order up some scripts,” he went on.

  “I’ve got one,” Henrietta said. “Can’t we copy it and get started right away?”

  “You’re a very prepared little girl,” I said.

  “You have to be in this life if you are going to have any kind of success,” she said as she darted away through the gate. “I’ll tell everybody we’re going to do it. I’ll start casting,” she called back. Then to me. “I’m glad your husband is helping. He’s so sexy.”

  “There,” said Toca, “out of the gloom of an eclipse comes a change in all our lives. I’m going to get her script and run into Charlestour to make some copies. Then I’m going to blackmail Cranston Muller into letting this happen.”

  “What have you got on him?” Graham said.

  “He takes my shows away from me. He brings in one more leading man which we don’t need. And now he’s got his eye on Hugo. I have nothing left. He has to let me do this kid’s play.” He turned and walked toward his car parked in front of our house.

  Graham said, “Now I have another new career as an assistant director. I guess I can fit it in.”

  “I think Cranston Muller wants you to do the husband in Tea and Sympathy,” I said.

  “I’m sure I can do both things. Who thought we’d have to come to the end of the world for me to find acting work? How’d you like to go upstairs while Theo is still sleeping?”

  “Only if you don’t take a shower first. How do you feel about making bamboola with pregnant women?” I said.

  “Well, I’m not going to get you pregnant. There’s that. And I think there’s room enough in there for all of us.”

  “I don’t know if I should take that as a compliment or not.”

  “Take it as a compliment. Definitely take it as a compliment.”

  I could see that things were rising in his shorts. We went in the house.

  The Red Mill Turns

  We were behind schedule with The Red Mill. The casting was done. Steve and I were to play Con Kidder and Kid Conner, the two Americans touring Europe. Steve’s foot was much better, and he didn’t have to move around much. E. L. Losada got the Burgomaster part mainly because it really required his voice. The women were cast from the school. Bertha, the leading role that Kitty Carlisle Hart had played originally, was taken by Leslie Myriam, who really was ready to go to Broadway even if she was only seventeen. Tina, the sidekick role, went to the American girl who was a vegetarian. She had no sense of humor at all in person but was quite funny on stage. The love interest went to Danny Fandom, who was always wandering around with earphones plugged into his head. He only has one duet and was stalwart looking on stage and would do fine. Did I mention that his character’s name is Doris Van Damm? Not Horace. Doris. Hmm.

  Estelle Anderson was playing the Countess de la Fère, a small part which involved her being an automobile enthusiast. Could a woman driving an automobile have been amusing in the 1930s? I wouldn’t have thought so but live and learn.

  What was slowing us up was that Kitty and Cranston had completely different techniques in handling actors. I think Kitty felt there were many different ways to perform a role, and it was all about the audience being captivated by the performer.

  Cranston Muller was of another school altogether. He
had the role in his head, and he wanted it played in a very precise way. He gave line readings, which I had been trained to think was an absolute no-no. If I have any talent at all it is in playing against another actor. I can get a lot of laughs and audience attention from my reactions to what the other actor is saying. This is something no director ever seems to want to pay attention to. They only direct the speaker. And my role is kind of a silly one. Steve and I as Con and Kid just knock about the stage and by rehearsing together got a kind of comedy thing going. Steve was the handsome one, and I was the sort of goofball. Abbott and Costello. Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. There’s a lot of precedent for this in American theater.

  I wonder who wrote librettos for Victor Herbert? The plot line in this show has to do with a young girl in a Dutch village being married off to the local Burgomaster. She is really in love with Captain Doris van Damm. Could that name have been another joke, lost in the mists of the 1930s? The two Americans try to skip out on their hotel bill because they are broke, are put in jail, and then made to work off their bill in the hotel, which is The Red Mill. Then they try to help the girl, Gretchen, escape and marry Captain Doris. This is some plot, right? No wonder Oklahoma did so well.

  I think Cranston wanted to play it in a sort of silly, “we’re all so perky” kind of period manner. And Kitty was really trying to help the performers develop some stage presence. What Kitty thought of Cranston’s directing she kept mum about. And Cranston could have killed her for making his cast less malleable for his “do it my way” directing technique, I’m sure.

  I have to admit that were I to direct, I’d probably want to do it more like Cranston. Particularly with some of the student cast, who weren’t remarkably talented and needed to be handled like puppets on a string.

  Cranston was extremely good, however, at moving people around the stage. This was important for this show with a lot of jolly villagers. He knew exactly how to get them on and off and circle here and stand there. I learned a lot just by watching him do this. And it was fine as long as we were on stage in the riding arena. But this show requires a large mill center stage. With big turning sails. And the production was planned to be done outdoors. There was the remains of an old stone defensive tower out at the very edge of the Abbey grounds. Cranston decided we would convert that into the mill. The fact that there was no light, no sound, no seating did not deter him. He kept shouting, “I’ll pay for it myself. I’ll pay for it myself!”