Those Harper Women

by Stephen Birmingham

  “Charming predinner conversation, sweetie. Just charming.”

  “But don’t you see, Sibbie? When I was young, I was just like that. Always trying to leave hostages, parts of myself, with other people. But my poor hostages were always being murdered, and I was always charging out red-eyed for my revenge.”

  “And being left with a pile of bones,” Sibbie says. “Sure, I know what you mean. You mean never trust a cannibal.”

  “The Harpers were cannibals. But don’t you think—in three generations—some tiny inch of progress has been made? We don’t always have to be headhunters, do we, Sibbie? Isn’t it time we became civilized? Isn’t it time? We’ll always be a tribe, I suppose, but can’t we be a civilized one at last? Can’t I try to explain this to Leona?”

  “Isn’t Leona civilized? Does she eat people?”

  “Three marriages? Sibbie, don’t you see? She’s following the old pattern, the same pattern as the rest of us—rushing out, full of fury, with blood in her eye, trying to get even with life.”

  “Oh, balls!”

  And now there is considerable disconcernment between the two women because, almost exactly coincident with Sibbie’s last explosive comment, Leona has appeared in the doorway, all in white, smiling, her hair brushed shiny. “Well, Leona!” Edith says. “You remember Sibbie Sanderson?”

  “Of course. Hello, Miss Sanderson.” And then, “Don’t get up, Granny. I’ll fix myself a drink.” She goes to the cellaret and drops ice cubes into a glass. “You know,” she says, “I could have sworn that when I came through the door I heard someone say, ‘Oh, balls.’” She turns and smiles at Edith.

  “Your grandmother was debating whether to tell you about her Frenchman,” Sibbie says.

  This, of course, is hardly the remark Edith was hoping Sibbie would make, nor is it quite true. “We were having a little argument, Sibbie and I,” she says, with a glare at Sibbie.

  Leona sits down sideways on a sofa opposite them.

  “I wasn’t sure you’d be joining us, Leona,” Edith says.

  Leona gives her a private look. “I was looking forward to it, Granny.”

  “A little package came in the mail for you. Did you find it?”

  Sipping her drink, Leona nods. “Yes. Shall I show you what was in it? I’m terribly excited, Granny, because I’ve been waiting for these for weeks.” She puts down her glass and jumps to her feet. Reaching in the pocket of her skirt, she pulls out a number of small black cellophane squares. “Just look, Granny!” she says, handing them to Edith.

  “What in the world are these?”

  “Hold them up to the light!”

  Edith sees that they are transparencies of colored photographs and, as she holds the first one up to the lamplight, sees that it contains a colored design of some sort, small blotches and blobs of different shades. She starts to remove the transparency from its cellophane jacket, but Leona cries, “Oh, don’t do that! You’ll get greasy fingerprints all over it!”

  “My fingers aren’t greasy. What are these photographs of, anyway?”

  “That’s Rovensky,” Leona says eagerly. “Martin Rovensky. And now look at this one. Try to imagine it as it is—huge! Ten feet tall and nine feet wide.”

  “You mean these are paintings, Leona?”

  “Oh, such paintings, Granny! Rovensky is the most exciting painter working in New York today, I think! And he’s only beginning to come into his own. He’s only twenty-four.”

  She hands Edith another, of green and blue. “Well!” Edith says.

  “Now, there are three painters here,” Leona says, sorting out the thirty or forty photographs into three small piles. “Rovensky, Hans Knecht, and Suzy Kirkpatrick. Kirkpatrick I’m not sure about, frankly. She’s too—fluffy, somehow. A little pretentious? But Rovensky! And Knecht! Here’s Knecht, Granny—this is a very tiny picture, but, oh God, look what he’s got going on inside it!”

  Edith looks and sees more or less a spiral of yellow, orange, and white.

  “And here’s Knecht working big. Knecht works either very big or very small. Isn’t that interesting? Tell me what you think of this.”

  “Leona, this sort of thing just isn’t my cup of tea.”

  “Now here—no, sorry, that’s Kirkpatrick. Here’s the one I wanted—Rovensky being really explosive. Look at that. Isn’t that a wonderful big goddamn burst of joy?”

  “It means nothing to me. I don’t understand it.”

  She shows Edith a large brown concoction. “And here he is again—in a somber mood.”

  “At least it won’t show the dirt.”

  “They laughed at the Impressionists too, Granny.”

  “The Impressionists? Why, there’s no comparison, Leona. The Impressionists created things of beauty—things of loveliness and light. A Renoir, a Monet, a Degas—they painted pictures that shimmered, that lifted the soul. Isn’t that what art is, Leona—something that exalts? Not just blobs. It seems strange to me that you, of all people—”

  Leona’s eyes are thoughtful. “I may look to you like Degas,” she says, “but inside I’m a pure abstraction, Granny.”

  “I can’t believe that inside you look like one of your funny-named people. Like Mr. Picasso.”

  Leona laughs. “Picasso? Oh, Granny!”

  “Well, isn’t he one of your people?”

  “I’ll just have to educate you.”

  Sibbie Sanderson has been so silent through all this that Edith has almost forgotten she is there. She turns to her now and says, “Sibbie, you’re a painter. What do you think?”

  Slowly Sibbie lifts her lorgnette from where it hangs hidden, suspended on a chain in the cleavage of her breasts, and snaps it open. Adjusting the glasses to her eyes, she examines first one transparency, then another, frowning. Finally she says, “Well, of course.” And then, “It’s the neo-objectivist thing again, you see. I’m afraid—well, one has seen so much of this stuff before. One almost wishes—”

  Leona has sat down, rather abruptly, on the small sofa again. She holds her cocktail glass tightly pressed between her hands, staring at it. “One almost wishes what, Miss Sanderson?” she says in a quiet voice.

  “Oh, one wonders,” Sibbie says, with a disparaging little laugh and wave of her hand, “how long these queer little fads will last.”

  Leona sits very still. “These three painters,” she says, “are important. Vital. Many people feel that they represent the best of the current New York School.”

  “Of course!” Sibbie says, warming to the argument. “A school. When one has schools of painting, one has comformity. No individuality. Sameness.”

  “School is simply a term.”

  “Well, I’m afraid,” Sibbie begins. She lowers her lorgnette and gives Leona a fond smile. “No, my dear.”

  Leona slowly looks up at Sibbie. “What sort of things do you think an artist should paint, Miss Sanderson?” she asks.

  “Beauty!” Sibbie cries. “The sea! The sun in the palm trees! Nature! Life!”

  “Life,” Leona echoes.

  The silence then becomes triangular, each of them at a point of it. It is broken, mercifully, by Nellie announcing dinner.

  “Come!” Edith says in her most cheerful voice. “Bring your drinks to table if you’d like,” standing up, urging them into the dining room.

  At tables as elaborate as Edith Blakewell’s, in a dining room as imposing as hers, it is difficult to rescue a dinner party once it has begun to sink. The sinking parallel is almost too exact, Edith thinks, because certainly her party tonight has struck an uncharted iceberg, and is going down with Titanic inexorability. As captain, at the head of her table, she has thus far refused to abandon ship, but her two guests have already betaken themselves to separate lifeboats where they seem to have nothing at all to do but watch as the huge mahogany board, glittering with the false gaiety of polished silver, china, glassware, and fresh flowers, continues on its doomed course.

  Finally, Edith says to Leona, “Are these pa
intings you’re thinking of buying, dear?”

  “No. They’re paintings I’m thinking of selling, Granny. I’m going to open an art gallery.”

  “An art gallery? And deal in paintings like those?”

  “Yes. And don’t say paintings like those so sniffily, Granny. Remember—” and her eyes move briefly to Sibbie, “—that you haven’t had your education.”

  “Well, I think it’s a—a very interesting idea.”

  Softly Leona says, “I have the basis here for my first two one-man shows, Rovensky and Knecht. Suzy Kirkpatrick I think I’m going to turn down.” Looking up at Edith she says, “It’s going to be a wonderful gallery, Granny! You see, I’ve got to do something. I can’t just—exist.”

  “Forgive me if I don’t understand the paintings. But I do understand what you want.” And then, to try to bring Sibbie back into the conversation, Edith says, “And just think—some day you may be showing Sibbie’s paintings in your gallery!”

  The minute the words are out, Edith knows they were a mistake. There is another heavy silence in which Leona cuts into her pear with her spoon, and the conversational ship sinks a few feet further, listing badly.

  Edith says, “Sibbie’s had shows in some of the best galleries in the world, haven’t you, Sibbie?”

  Sibbie now, finished with food, is puckering over a cigarette. “Actually, no.” She clears her throat. “I’ve never believed that galleries were good for the artist, you see. I’ve never prostituted my art by turning it over to the flesh-peddlers. I believe that if my art is good, it will find its audience naturally.”

  Leona folds her napkin beside her plate, and the silence now seems both unbearable and unbreakable.

  “Sibbie means—” Edith tries to begin, but it is hopeless, and she leaves the sentence unfinished. At least the dinner is over.

  Leona pushes back her chair. “I have to make a phone call,” she says. “Granny, would you mind if I went out for a little while? There’s someone I want to see.”

  “Of course not, dear,” Edith says, almost with relief.

  “I won’t be late. Good night, Granny. Good night, Miss Sanderson.” She moves toward the door. “It’s been so nice …” Then Edith and Sibbie are left staring at each other across the table and the candles and the wreckage of empty plates.

  “It was my fault, sweetie,” Sibbie murmurs. “I’m sorry.”

  Edith rings for Nellie to clear. “It was equally mine.”

  Sibbie blows out a sharp stream of smoke. “Rovensky!” she says. “Knecht! I just couldn’t help it.”

  “Were any of them any good, do you think?”

  “Crap. Absolute and utter crap. If there’s one thing I know about, it’s art, and I know crap when I see it. The only one who had an ounce of talent was the one she didn’t like—the woman. But that was still crap.”

  “I’m inclined to agree.” Edith sighs. “But this, you see, is exactly the way things have been going lately.”

  “Don’t try to understand the younger generation, sweetie. It’s enough to do to know your own.”

  “I don’t know my own generation, Sibbie. I just know some people my own age.”

  In the drawing room again, over the coffee cups and brandy glasses, Sibbie’s voice takes on the faintly querulous note it always assumes when she talks about her own career. “All the greatest painters were discovered after they were dead,” she says. “Botticelli … Titian … Leonardo. But I’ll be discovered one day, wait and see. My pictures will be valuable some day—except I won’t be around to see it happen. Oh, the awful thing about these people, sweetie—these whats-their-names Leona was showing us—the criminal thing is the prices they’re probably getting for their crap. What do you suppose? One thousand—two thousand—for a single picture? Imagine it! Two thousand dollars for a smear of brown paint—while I, while I.… Oh, I just don’t know where my money goes. I save and save, make my own clothes, don’t spend a cent! And what have I got to show for it? A stack of bills. The electrician, the plumber—that’s who I’m painting for these days.”

  “I want to give you a little check before you go,” Edith says.

  “Just a loan, sweetie, just a loan. You’ll get it all back. I’ve been keeping track. There’s a man in New York right now, very interested in me. Oh, he’s many times a millionaire, and I’ve got him nibbling at the hook. He’s a great collector. If I mentioned his name, you’d know it right away … It’s so much better to be in a good collection than in someone’s funny gallery.”

  “Let me give you the check right now before I forget.”

  Edith goes to her desk, takes out fountain pen and checkbook, and writes out a check while Sibbie continues talking. “I expect to hear from him any day now,” Sibbie says, “maybe even tomorrow.…” Sibbie takes the check and folds it in half without looking at the amount, and puts it in the pocket of her peasant blouse. “Just a loan, just a loan, sweetie. And, as security, I’m going to bring you over my newest picture tomorrow.”

  “Oh, Sibbie, please don’t bother. I’ve got so many of your pictures already—I just don’t have the wall space to hang them.”

  “It doesn’t matter. They’ll be worth something some day—after I’m gone. You just hang on to them.” She stands up. “This new one may not be my Arbeit, but it’s good. It says all it needs to say.”

  “What’s the subject this time, Sibbie?”

  Sibbie smiles, a little ruefully. “The sea. The sun in the palm trees. Life,” she says, and laughs.

  They both laugh. And, taking Sibbie’s comfortable arm, the two women walk out onto the veranda. It is enough, for Edith, to have this woman as her only woman friend in St. Thomas, and it doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter at all, that the relationship is based on a continuing series of exchanges, loans of money for loans of pictures. Isn’t there in every human relationship a trade involved, something for something else? None of us gives of ourselves freely. Besides, it is their secret.

  All the lights of Charlotte Amalie glitter at their feet from the veranda, cascading down the hill in little drops and clusters, ending in a crescent of lights at the harbor’s edge. Some are moving, in slow roller-coaster curves, as auto headlights move slowly along the winding roads. Others are fixed stars. There is something about the air here, a texture, that makes the farthest lights seem to wink; on the most distant hills now, the tiny lights wink, wink, wink at them as though some lunatic electrician were flipping hundreds of little switches off and on, on and off, and there is a glittering carnival quality about the night view that makes Edith think that this is what she would prescribe if she were put in charge of the design of heaven.

  “Wait Disney couldn’t do it better, could he?” Sibbie says. And then, opening her arms wide, with considerable drama, she says, “Your father’s island!”

  “Oh, stop it, Sibbie. You know it wasn’t my father’s island at all. He was just as much an outcast here as—as he was anywhere else, and as I am now.”

  “Oh, pish-tush.” She kisses Edith lightly on the cheek. “Good night, sweetie. And don’t worry about the younger generation.”

  She turns and goes slowly down the steps into the winking darkness, and Edith watches her out the gate, hearing the retreating sandaled footsteps slap-slap-slapping down the hill. Instantly she has an idea, and makes a mental note to call her lawyer about it in the morning. She will add another codicil to her will, and leave Sibbie her Chrysler.

  The lights from the town wink their congratulations to her on the niceness of this thought.

  Once a woman tourist, eating a sandwich, walked past Edith Blakewell’s house and dropped a crumpled travel folder in the street which Edith spotted, fetched, and read. “The city of Charlotte Amalie,” she read with amusement and some surprise (city indeed!), “has taken the cosmopolitan atmosphere of Algiers, the gaiety of Paris, and the El Greco coloring of Spain, and rolled them into one. At night, from the fashionable hills above the town, the string of lights around the harbor rese
mbles nothing so much as a string of pearls.…”

  Nine

  Pearls. Edith’s meeting Charles Blakewell began with the pearls. And so, in a sense, did the whole Louis Bertin occurrence. (Because that was what Louis was, really—not a lover but an occurrence.) The pearls, a triple strand with a diamond clasp, had been presented to her by her father, that summer of 1908, on their return trip from Paris, the second day out. Why he should have suddenly decided to give her an expensive necklace, following his behavior toward her during those Paris months after Andreas, was a mystery—unless, as she instantly supposed, he was trying to buy his way back into her good graces.

  All through the Paris months there had been her punishment. The first thing he had done was cancel her checking account, removing any chance of her running away. As a little girl, she had been punished by being locked in a closet. Now, in effect, she was locked in the Paris house because she had no money with which to take herself anywhere else. When her father was home, he refused to speak to her. She had tried demanding of him “Where is Andreas? What did you do?” He would not answer. Or, sarcastically, she would say to him, “My sunburn is gone. Where are the drawing rooms of Paris that I was going to be laughed out of?” There was no reply, and there were no drawing rooms for her. It was easily the loneliest, most desperate time of her life, and every avenue of escape seemed closed. Her nineteenth birthday came and passed. And her father’s most painful reprisal of all, perhaps, was to take away from her her duties of caring for her mother. An Englishwoman, Miss Mary Miles, had been hired as a nurse and companion for Dolly Harper. (And, to Miss Miles’ credit, some headway was made, through constant surveillance, toward controlling the drinking.) There were no more little card games. “What do you want me to do?” she had begged of her father. “What reason have I got to exist? Tell me!” And then, “Do I exist? Do I exist at all?” But if he knew, at the time, the answers to these questions, he did not tell her.