The LeBaron Secret

by Birmingham, Stephen;

  Later, she would learn more about this wondrous house. The mirror gloss of the mahogany of the dining-room table was achieved by its being rubbed daily by the palms of the hands of Negro servants. (“White people’s hands can’t do it,” Joanna said.) The creamy luster of the heavy silver chandeliers and tea sets could be maintained only by daily polishing. On a sandwich plate, there appeared to be a rosebud, but when Sari picked it up it unraveled into a thin strip of tomato peel that had been artfully fashioned to resemble a flower. (“Only decoration, silly! Not to eat it.” Only decoration!) In this house, real flowers were never permitted to die. Unseen hands replaced them. Candles were not permitted to burn down to stubs, but were replaced at each new occasion for lighting them. Nothing was permitted to wear out, or to break or to disappear or to grow old or to lose its gleam, in this wondrous house, run by elves and magicians.

  Order—that was what it was. It was order that arranged everything here, order that moved automatically about this house like shuttles across a loom, establishing precedence, sequence, consequence, giving every symbol of the house its place, and making all the symbols coherent and interrelated, smooth and finished. This, Sari decided, was what luxury meant—order, order everywhere. If the coverlet of a bed were to be turned down, it inevitably revealed a monogrammed satin blanket cover, and clean white linen sheets and pillow slips with deep embroidered hems. In this house, with its order, rude surprises were ruled out.

  That first day, Joanna had taken her into the portrait gallery, with all the LeBarons, in order, painted as they looked, or may have wished that they had looked, when in their early teens. In front of one portrait of a strikingly handsome youth, Joanna had paused. “That’s Peter,” she whispered. “Isn’t he just the cat’s pajamas?”

  In that other gallery, too, was the same wine barrel that now reposes in Sari’s house on Washington Street, and Joanna had read the inscription on it, and explained its significance to her. “My grandfather’s,” she said. “They say if you were to drink it now it would blow your head off.”

  Then Sari was led into the red-plush drawing room, to be introduced to Joanna’s parents—to Constance, a short, plumpish woman with a wide poitrine and blonde, marcelled hair, wearing a black dress and pearls, and to Julius LeBaron, a tall, pleasant-looking man with a high, balding forehead, who wore an open shirt with an ascot and a tweed Norfolk jacket. Immediately Sari decided that she liked the father better than the mother, who seemed a little nervous and distracted, and sat stiffly in her gilt chair, twisting and untwisting her long rope of pearls, and touching her hair. “Joanna tells us you are Jewish,” she said. “How very interesting.”

  “It’s true that my parents were Jews,” Sari answered very carefully. “But I remember very little about them, and I’ve never had any religious training. I’ve never been inside a church or synagogue.”

  “And this man who is your guardian, this Mr. Pollack. I gather that he is also Jewish?”

  “No,” she said in the same careful voice. “Gabe Pollack is an atheist.”

  “And not a socialist, too, I hope! So many of them are, you know.”

  “No,” she lied, for Gabe still spouted vaguely socialist ideas.

  “How interesting. We, of course, are Romans.”

  At first, Sari thought Joanna’s mother was saying that they were from Rome, but then she understood. “I see,” she said.

  “Well, I’ve always said that we in San Francisco are terribly fortunate to have such a nice class of Hebrew people. The Haases and the Koshlands, and the Fleishhackers and the Zellerbachs are all of the Hebrew persuasion, and we visit them. Are you by any chance related to those families, my dear?”

  “No, I don’t believe so,” Sari said.

  “Mother, I always thought you said it wasn’t nice to talk about politics or religion,” Joanna said.

  “I’m just trying to draw your young friend out, Joanna dear.”

  “Well, I say it’s hogwash. Have a piece of cake, Sari. It’s a Lady Baltimore cake. Our cook makes it.”

  “And Joanna tells us you live on Howard Street,” Constance LeBaron said, relentlessly pursuing the same conversational theme. “How interesting.”

  “Yes.”

  “South of Market.”

  “Yes, very historic,” Sari said.

  “Really? I’ve never heard south of Market described quite that way. Historic?”

  “Now, Mother,” Joanna’s father said again.

  “I’m only making small talk,” Constance LeBaron said. And then, “Next year will be Joanna’s debutante year.”

  “Yes, so she told me.”

  “It will be upon us before we know it, a very important time in a young girl’s life. There will be many functions that she will be called on to attend. Important functions. The Bachelors’ Ball, for instance. Have you heard of the Bachelors’ Ball?”

  “No, I haven’t.”

  “It’s very important. All the finest young men from all the finest families in the city put it on. To be invited is a great honor, and of course Joanna will be invited. There will also be many other functions, all of them important. Joanna will need many pretty new dresses for her debutante year.”

  “Personally, I think it’s all hogwash,” Joanna said. “I’m only doing it because my parents want me to. Most of the bachelors are fairies. Which is why they’re still bachelors.”

  “Now, Joanna, don’t be coarse,” her mother said, and to Assaria she said, “I’m only mentioning all these things because Joanna tells us that you have become her best friend. And I think it’s sometimes … helpful … if best friends come from the same … well … world.”

  “I think,” Sari said, “that one reason why Jo and I have become good friends is that our worlds, as you put it, are different. We both have a lot to learn from each other.”

  “Hear, hear,” said Julius LeBaron.

  “Joanna tells us that you work as an usher in a movie house. How interesting.”

  “Yes. Isn’t that what America is supposed to be about? Working to improve oneself and get ahead?”

  “Hear, hear.”

  “Well, I suppose you have a point,” Joanna’s mother said, making a small face and twisting her pearls.

  “Mother, I think we should leave the young people to their own devices,” Julius LeBaron said. “I think you’ve done enough drawing out of Joanna’s young friend. There’s an opera on the wireless that I want to hear.”

  “Very well,” Constance LeBaron said, rising stiffly from her chair. She extended a plump hand to Sari, and Sari noticed that two fingers on which she wore jeweled rings had grown to such a fleshy size that surely the rings could no longer be removed. “It’s a pleasure to have met you,” she said. “I hope you’ll enjoy your afternoon.”

  “Now,” Joanna said when her parents had left, “let’s get out of here.”

  “Where shall we go?”

  “Down to the cellar. Follow me.”

  She led Sari out of the drawing room, across a hallway to a door under the main staircase, and unlocked it with a key. “My parents don’t know I have this key,” she said. “Peter borrowed it from Daddy’s key chain one day, and had two copies made, one for him and one for me.” The doorway opened onto a steep staircase, leading downward. “Watch your step,” she said. “Some of the steps are uneven.” Down they descended into the darkness, as though into the belly of a ship, but instead of the smell of soiled humanity and seawater Sari remembered from years ago there was a smell of vinous sweetness in the air. “Isn’t my mother an absolute screech? Don’t pay any attention to any of the things she says. Nobody does, not even Daddy. Daddy liked you, I could tell, and Daddy’s the only one who counts around this family. I could tell he thought you were the cat’s pajamas.” At the foot of the flight of stairs, now, there was illumination as Joanna screwed in a single light bulb. They were in a large room with a concrete floor, and on all sides, from floor to ceiling, the walls were lined with row upon row of dusty
wine bottles, reposing in diamond-patterned racks. And there were also several pieces of furniture scattered about, furniture that had seen better days—an ancient, butt-sprung sofa, and a pair of overstuffed club chairs with springs dangling loosely from beneath their fringed bottoms. A number of empty, overturned wine cases had been placed around the room to serve as tables, and empty wine bottles had been put to use as candlesticks. In the dim light, the room managed to create the shabby illusion of a formal parlor.

  “The wine cellar,” Joanna explained. “This is one of Peter’s and my secret places. This is our clubhouse. Peter and I brought all this furniture down from the attic. Isn’t this the cat’s pajamas? Mother and Daddy never come down here. When they want wine, they send MacDonald down for it. MacDonald is our but-lah. That’s the way Mother pronounces it—but-lah. MacDonald is the only one who knows our secret, and MacDonald won’t tell because we know a secret about MacDonald. Want to know what it is? MacDonald sneaks ladies of the evening—I mean real ladies of the evening—into his room at night. Sometimes he sneaks in more than one at a time. We caught him at it, so we’re blackmailing him, because if Mother or Daddy found out about it they’d can him, just like that. Now, first we light the candles—then we have our tea.”

  “Tea?”

  Studying the rows of bottles, Joanna said, “Today, I think champagne, don’t you? Since this is your first visit here. Of course, you can have whatever you want. Peter and I thought of opening our own speakeasy down here, but that might be too risky. Want a fag?”

  “A fag?”

  “A cheroot. We keep a pack of Camels hidden under the sofa cushion, here. Not even MacDonald knows about that …”

  Sari declined the cigarette, but decided she was not going to decline the wine, and Joanna was now expertly twisting the cork from the champagne bottle. It came out with a surprising pop. “Of course, this really should be iced, but we have no ice. This room stays about sixty-two degrees, though, which is cool enough, and we have everything else we need. Glasses,” she said, lifting up one of the wine cases, “are kept under here.” She produced two wineglasses, and filled a glass for each of them. Then, sitting on the old sofa, she tapped a cigarette from the pack, lighted it from a candle, sat back, inhaled, and blew out smoke, rather the way Sari had watched Lois Moran smoke a cigarette in Stella Dallas. Then she had lifted her glass and said, “Chug-a-lug. To friendship.”

  “To friendship.” And Sari had her first taste of champagne.

  “Isn’t this the cat’s pajamas?” Joanna said.

  Later, after they had both had two glasses, and Joanna was pouring them a third, Joanna said, “But seriously, what do you think I ought to do with my life? I mean, you’re all set. You’re an actress, and you’re going to go off to Hollywood and become a rich and famous movie star, but what’s going to happen to me? Oh, I know what’s supposed to happen. After my debutante year, I’m supposed to marry some rich man—preferably a Crocker or a deYoung—and settle down in Burlingame, and start having babies. But I don’t want to do that, and I’m not going to do that. I don’t want to just be a flapper. I know some girls at school who all they want to be is flappers. But I don’t want to be that. What could I be?”

  “Let’s see,” Sari said, trying to concentrate. “What could you be …” The champagne was beginning to fill her head with the most wonderful warm glow, and she could feel tiny beads of perspiration forming on her brow, even in this somewhat chilly room. “Let’s see … let’s see …”

  “It has to be something exciting, and it has to be something glamorous, and it has to be something important. Like a poet, like Edna Saint Vincent Millay. Could I be a poet, do you think?”

  “Or …” Sari said. “Let me think. Or—how about a famous newspaperwoman? Chasing down exciting stories every day. Meeting all the important people who come through town—the President of the United States, the Queen of Rumania! Or—how about a famous lady novelist? I can see you writing the most beautiful romantic novels, Jo. You know all about love—”

  “Love—and passion!”

  “Or—no, wait, I have the best idea of all,” she said, draining her glass.

  “What’s that?”

  “A lady pilot! You could learn to fly a plane—they say it isn’t hard. You could learn to fly a plane, and fly it all over the world! You could be the first woman to fly from here to Mexico! There are some airplanes, you know, that can land on water, and you could fly to the Amazon jungle, in South America, and land on the river—you could explore—you could discover lost Inca cities—”

  “Oh, I love that idea!”

  “And I love this champagne!”

  “Oops—we’re ready for another bottle.”

  “Whee!” Sari said, as another cork popped. “Think of it! Flying! Up in the air, over the mountains. Up where no one has ever been before! Whee! Chug-a-lug!” A little champagne sloshed from her glass onto her wrist, but she barely noticed it.

  “Chug-a-lug.”

  “Up in the zither. I mean up in the ether. Oh, dear, I seem to be spilling—”

  “Here, let me fill you up again. Don’t worry, there’s plenty more. And don’t worry, champagne doesn’t stain.”

  “Up!” Sari said. “High! And have you seen those airplanes that can write messages in the sky? You could write your poems in the sky!”

  “And let them be blown away on the wind.”

  “But after you’d given them to the world. After the Queen of Rumania had—”

  “Like putting a message in a bottle, and throwing the bottle into the sea …”

  “But with a poem …”

  “Gemini.”

  “This is the cat’s pajamas,” Sari said. “I feel like the Queen of wherever it is. Whee! We come from different worlds! But we’re—”

  “We should have music,” Joanna said. And, from under another empty wine case, she produced a small wind-up Victrola and a stack of disks, and presently the room was filled with the strains of someone singing “I Want to Be Happy.”

  “I am happy!” Sari said. “I’ve never been so happy in my life! Is this what champagne always does?” And she had all at once started to laugh, and presently the laughter turned to hiccups. “Oh—dear,” she had gasped. “Do you—really think—we should open another bottle?”

  “Why not? This club caters to its members’ every need.”

  “Chug-a-lug. Chug-a-lug-lug-lug. Here’s to your debutante year!”

  And then, a little later, after the Victrola had wound down and the music had stopped, a silence had fallen between them. Joanna, her feet tucked up underneath her, sat at one end of the big sofa, staring up at the dark, cobwebby ceiling. She had lighted another cigarette, and was blowing smoke upward into the air. Sari sat at the opposite end, staring into her half-empty glass. And why, suddenly, had a tear appeared in the corner of one eye, and coursed quickly down her cheek? She brushed it aside with the back of her hand, grateful that Joanna had not seen it.

  “A penny for your thoughts,” Joanna said.

  “I was thinking—” she began. I am thinking, she thought, that I do not really belong here, in this strange household, where the mother treats her daughter’s friend as though she were some unwanted germ, or insect. And I am thinking that if I don’t belong here, then where do I belong? In Hollywood? Or on a mountaintop in Katmandu? And I am thinking, why did she feel it was necessary to tell her mother that I am Jewish, that I am poor, that I live on Howard Street, and work as an usher in a movie theatre—all facts that were guaranteed to displease her mother? Unless … unless …

  “All Geminis have the two sides, the bright side and the dark side,” Joanna said. “I’m sure you’re like me. You like the high life, but you also like the low life.”

  Am I part of your adventures with the low life? she thought. Is that it? Is that why I was brought here, where I was immediately made to feel out of place? Or am I being used as a tool, an instrument, a weapon in this girl’s private arsenal, from which
she fights some mysterious, private battle with her parents? But she didn’t say any of these things, and instead she said, “I was thinking how lucky you are to have two parents who love you. I hardly remember my parents at all.” Two more unbidden tears came. She brushed at them.

  “Parents can be a mixed blessing, believe me. Having parents isn’t always the cat’s pajamas. Don’t be sad, Sari.”

  “And I was also thinking we should stop saying everything is, or isn’t, the cat’s pajamas,” she said, with a small sniffle.

  “Oh, you’re right!” Joanna said, setting down her glass and clapping her hands. “It’s such a cliché. I don’t want to be a cliché. You see, that’s why you’re good for me! My parents have been trying to turn me into a cliché for years, and until I met you they’d damn near succeeded.” She raised her right hand, and pressed the other across her bosom. “I, Joanna LeBaron, do hereby solemnly swear never to use that ghastly expression again. And as for you—”

  “Yes?”

  “You must promise to learn to smoke a cigarette!”

  “Quick. Toss me the pack.” She had caught it and, with some care and no small amount of trepidation, tapped out a cigarette and lighted it from the candle’s flame, the way she had watched Joanna do. Now they were giggling again. “Besides,” Sari said, “it is a scientifically known fact that cats don’t wear pajamas.”

  “Neither do I. I always sleep in the nude.”

  “Not even Jewish cats who live on Howard Street.”

  “Oh … oh … oh!” They were rocking back and forth in their seats with laughter. “Why is that so funny?”

  “I don’t know! But it is!”

  “We must always tell each other anything we don’t like about the other. That’s part of the pact,” Joanna said.