Masha woke, confused, logy, coughing. Leslie heaved her up, walked her down the stairs, crouching low. He had to get her out. He could hear the sirens now, faintly. They were on their way. It was pitch-black on the stairs. He felt his way along the wall. It seemed as though he was creeping down those blackened stairs forever. Her body was so heavy, slung over his shoulder. The heat and smoke were hellish. He thought he would pass out. At last he saw the open front door, a faint rectangle in the evil dark.
The trucks were on the lawn as he knelt at the doorway, set Masha down on the porch gently. She flopped like a rubber mannequin. She was barely conscious, but her eyes focused on him. She knew he was the one. There were men crawling by him, carrying a hose into the building. They would have the fire out out in minutes. Curious to see the firemen at work, I flew up to the second floor and peered in a window. I could see a fireman crawling up the stairs, the light on his helmet the only illumination as he felt his way through the darkness, looking for victims. I could have told him no one else was there. I looked into Shelley’s room, to see what was left of it. A lick of light from one of the flashing trucks illuminated a hand. I stared in horror. Leslie and I had both assumed Shelley would be in the city, having gotten back together with her boyfriend. I dive-bombed down toward Leslie, screaming.
Unaware, Leslie walked to the ambulance where they had Masha on a stretcher, oxygen up to her face. The paramedic set him down on the bench and gave him some as well. I buzzed around his face frantically. He waved me away. I kept bashing myself against his mask, yelling into his mind, but he was deaf to me, swatted at me. Masha looked up at him.
“I was driving toward another fire,” he explained to her. “I saw smoke coming out of your basement window.” She nodded, then drew the mask from her face. Asked him:
“Did they get Shelley out?”
Leslie ripped the oxygen mask off his face and stood, suffocated by fear. He grabbed his helmet, tore actross the lawn, his eyes only on the blackened door of the house, running over crisscrossed hoses, through beams of colored light pulsing from the trucks. When he reached the door, Tony stepped out of the house and blocked Leslie’s path. His fire hat was set far back on his head; sweat streamed down his face.
“What’s up?” he asked Leslie.
“There’s another victim up there.”
“McCauley’s got her,” said Tony.
“Did she make it?” asked Leslie.
Tony unclipped his walkie-talkie from his vest pocket, legs spread wide. “Hey, Jim. Do you read me?” There was a pause. “Come in, Jim McCauley.”
The walkie-talkie let out a hiss. “I’m comin’ down.”
“What’s the status of the victim?”
“She’s conscious. Looks like she burned her hand.”
At this, Tony looked up at Leslie, his flat mouth turned down at the corners. “Okay, Les?”
“Okay,” said Leslie.
Tony stepped to the side, away from the door, putting his hand on Leslie’s arm. Leslie turned to face him. “The fire’s out, Les,” he said. “Nothin’ left to do. You …”
“What?” Leslie said.
“Take a load off. You gotta stop worrying about everybody so much. You’re just … too good a guy, sometimes.”
Leslie crossed his lawn. The birds were chirping. The dawn was fine and clear. He walked into the open garage, unlocked the green metal cabinet in the back, and pulled the gun from behind the motor oil. He couldn’t remember where the bullets were. He always hid them so carefully so Stevie wouldn’t find them, now he couldn’t remember where they were.
He walked into the silent house, sat down at the kitchen table, the handgun balanced on his long, splayed fingers. He looked around him, at his place, this kitchen he had built with his own hands. It seemed like a kitchen in a commercial now; nothing to do with him. What had happened? It all seemed like a dream, and now he had nearly murdered that girl. He would never see Masha again. He didn’t even want to. The shame of what he had done was unbearable.
The solution to the problem was obvious. They say it runs in families. In all the world, Leslie thought himself the least likely to. Mr. Positive. Yet here he was, bowing his head to the symmetry. Where were the bullets? He didn’t feel sad, only determined to remove himself. He still wondered at it, though, how he had been ruined so quickly. Maybe it had been coming on a long time.
For the first time, I wished I had left Leslie alone.
There was a shuffling on the stairs. Leslie felt afraid. He didn’t want to see her. It was Stevie. Tiny blond boy. Leslie was holding the gun under the table. He shoved it into the loose pocket of his sweatpants.
Stevie signed: “There was a fire?”
“Yes,” signed Leslie.
“Did you save anybody?”
“Yes.”
Stevie walked over to him, climbed up on his big lap, put his head against Leslie’s chest. In his toneless, too-loud voice, he proclaimed, “I wanna watch cartoons!”
“Is that why you came down here?” Leslie signed.
Stevie nodded. He slid off Leslie’s lap and pulled at his hand. Leslie stood up, led, shuffling, into the living room. He slumped into the soft leather couch, pulling the boy up on his knee. Stevie switched on the TV. It was on mute. The bright colors on the screen flashed and whizzed and popped. Leslie took the remote and turned on the sound. He held the little boy very close and watched the cartoon, the empty gun in his pocket. Deirdre entered. She was wearing her fluffy peach robe. She sat beside Leslie, squeezed his limp fingers.
“I didn’t hear the pager last night,” she said.
He stared at the TV. A tear made its crooked way down the crags of his face. My poor man. He had fallen, crashed into pieces, and I got no pleasure from it, after all. Stevie watched the cartoon, nestled into Leslie’s lap, oblivious.
“Did something happen?” Deirdre asked.
He turned to her. It was Deirdre’s face again, her dear face. He tried to move his arm to touch her, but it felt too heavy.
“I need you to help me, Deirdre,” he whispered.
“Of course I’ll help you,” she said, infused with sudden, startling gratitude for all she had not quite lost. Leslie stared into her, his eyes fierce, clear globes.
40
I went on with my life in the Comédie-Française. As to the boy playing somewhere in the Jewish quarter, my blood in his veins: I tried to think of Ethiop as a dream, fag end of the hallucination that was my life before I became a Frenchman. For the most part, I succeeded. Aside from a persistent cough, nasty reminder of damp nights spent trawling the Tuileries for sodomites, I remained one hundred percent carefree.
I had exchanged several letters with Solange over the years. She knew I had gone onstage. One morning she appeared at my door, her eyes glassy.
“The Comte de Villars has been arrested,” she said. I brought her inside, struck by her solemn beauty. Her face was fuller now, and there were steel-gray streaks in her dark hair. I gave her a cup of tea, and she explained that the count had lost control of his finances. Le Jumeau having disappeared with my portion of the winnings from the bet, Villars seemed at a loss, adrift in his life, and began to gamble compulsively, mounting up huge debts. The countess was furious that he was spending her dowry. She called him a child, a lunatic. She began to work day and night to have him arrested. She wanted him to be judged insane. This was a solution of desperation among aristocratic families, for inveterate profligates: they were simply put into prisons and kept there. The families bypassed the regular judicial system by virtue of something called a lettre de cachet—a sealed letter from the king, demanding the arrest of the person in question. With a lettre de cachet, anyone could be disposed of, and released only at the pleasure of the king. Some noblemen incarcerated in this way were never released at all. Now the grand Comte de Villars was in prison at the Château de Vincennes, the holding pen for aristocrats! As my old nemesis, Inspector Buhot, once said, “Nobody can predict his own fate.”
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Solange became my housekeeper that afternoon, having unwrapped my porcelain candelabra, memento from the count, and set it proudly on my dining table. I could not afford to keep her as the count had done, but she was satisfied with the wage I offered. Going to the country to live with her husband did not seem to be an option she favored.
Immediately, my life improved. Solange thought of everything: menus to please my palate and ease my digestion; softer bedding to promote sleep; fragrant potted narcissus to create peace of mind and please the eye. She led the two servants with a firm but gentle hand. It was as if I had a wife, and yet I was completely free. Heaven.
I loved Solange. She swished through my house with her light step, her intent expression. I drew comfort from her orderly mind. I think Solange was really a secret nun. She had the private radiance of a truly spiritual being. She was sister, mother, friend to me; for kicks I had almost any actress in Paris, and a few society ladies besides. I was never short of company. I had become a cold person, filled with sour quips and unkind ironies. I was amusing, though. People feared me and were drawn to me because of it. I trusted only Solange, who knew my original self.
My lungs hadn’t been right for years. One day, after a violent coughing spasm, I drew my handkerchief from my mouth and saw that it was stippled with blood. Instead of taking it easy, as Solange bade me, I took on more work, and stirred myself into a social whirl. I invited groups of people I didn’t particularly like over to my house and entertained them compulsively, never satisfied unless I had them weeping with laughter. The improvisatory skills I had learned at the Spectacle des Grands Danseurs never left me; in fact, I now had a need to speak in paragraphs. I plied my guests with the best drink, sending poor Solange down to the cellar for more and more champagne. Many of the actresses in those days were also courtesans, as Antonia had been; it wasn’t uncommon to see a pair of nipples poking out from the top of a loosened bodice. After each such grotesque evening, when the guests had stayed till dawn and the rouge on the women’s faces was smudged and formless, the false hair on their heads coming apart like old sofa stuffing, the men’s faces gray, I was filled with sadness. Without even saying goodbye to the last of my guests, I would trudge up to my room and lie on my bed. Sometimes I wept without expression, my face a blank. Solange always came in at those times, brought me chamomile tea and some buttered bread. She sat on the chair beside my bed, doing needlepoint or reading a book. She listened if I wanted to talk, but mostly she was just present. Eventually I fell asleep.
The coughing seizures got worse and worse. There were sudden fevers. The theater doctor prescribed all sorts of remedies, including mustard plaster and being bled by leeches. For a time I thought I was getting better. I played Argan in Le Malade imaginaire, of all things, hoping not to expire on the stage like Molière himself. I felt myself growing stronger. Gripped by a sudden lust for extreme enjoyment, I held a dinner every night for a week, inviting all the most entertaining people I knew. Antonia herself made an appearance. It was a small world, ours; we were bound to run into each other. She was over thirty now, and no longer commanded the huge sums as a courtesan that she once had. But she was still a fine singer, spritely and fun, and loved a romp. I didn’t mind that she knew of my origins. Many people did, by now, know I was a Jew. No one much cared in that society. Players were outcasts, in a way, just like Jews. So that made me a double outcast.
The morning of the final party, I had one of my fevers. I played onstage anyway, and came home slick with sweat. I thought half a bottle of champagne would raise my spirits, and it did, for a while, but by the time dinner was served I was shivering violently. I took to my bed, raising my glass to all present and commanding them to stay until dawn if they wished. Solange divided her time between the guests and me. She wished she could ask them all to go home, but I wouldn’t let her.
She placed the count’s candelabrum next to my bed. I stared at it, listening to the aggressive laughter downstairs, and remembered how as a child I had gazed at the Shabbos candles with such wonder. Now my eyes, drained of their credulity, stared, empty as two dry buckets, at the mesmerizing flames that crouched, reared up, and swayed from side to side in the breeze leaking through the loose windowpanes like six charmed snakes.
41
Masha’s hand was sandwiched between her mother’s palms as Pearl sat gazing out the hospital window. Masha stared at her mother’s hands, waiting for time to pass so the drug they’d given her would kick in. The pain in her chest was deep, as though a spade were digging into her with every heartbeat. They had done all sorts of tests, but, again, they’d come up with nothing. Ghost pain, they said. Something was stalking her from the inside. She felt helpless. How strange that Leslie was the one to rescue me, she thought. She remembered seeing the massive figure coming at her through the smoke. She had thought she was about to be murdered. For the first time, Masha missed Leslie, and imagined him charging into this hospital room and taking her away with him. She would gladly go. She wanted him to come get her. The rescue had opened her up.
Pearl cleared her throat, shifted in her seat, but she didn’t let go of Masha’s hand. A muted knock at the open door, and Derbhan Nevsky tottered in, his skinny legs looking almost too frail to keep him up. He was carrying a bunch of flowers and a stuffed plastic bag.
“Masha,” he whispered. His face had gone slack, deflated. Pearl looked up at him.
“I’m Derbhan Nevsky, Masha’s personal manager,” said Nevsky, bowing, the flowers behind his back. “I am so sorry about this.” Nevsky slumped onto an orange plastic chair, his back curved.
“Is Shelley okay?” asked Masha.
“They’ve already released her.”
“She was supposed to be in the city,” she said. “She stayed ’cause I was scared.”
“She’s fine, though. Don’t question it,” said Pearl. “You’ll drive yourself crazy.”
“You mean I’m supposed to believe this all happened for a reason? It’s in the plan?” Masha spoke in a hoarse whisper. “Please just leave me alone with that stuff, Mommy.” Pearl let go of her daughter’s hand, smoothed her skirt.
“The Coes are on their way to their boat in Greece,” said Nevsky. “I think the best thing—and Mrs. Edelman, I’m sure you agree with me—is for Masha to go home. You need to recover.”
He swung a full plastic bag onto the bed. “You left some clothes at the Coes’, I thought you might like to have them,” he said. “Plus your cell is in there.”
Back in her own bed again, Masha stared down at the dish of melting chocolate ice cream, the only food she could get past her gullet without gagging. Pearl had brought it on a tray. Masha drank a spoonful of the sweet, cold soup at the bottom of the bowl, thought of Shelley, how she loved ice cream. She might be licking a cone now, out in the sunshine. Masha felt a great chasm opening up between her and her friend. The pain had led her back home. She would never live in the story machine now, nor be a part of that magic world. It occurred to her that she might not live very long.
Masha hadn’t spoken since she got home. Pearl, Yehudis, Miriam, and the others came into the room many times a day, filled with worry and consolations. Masha sat, wordless, wild-haired, with dark circles around her great glittering eyes, her catatonia turning each family visit to awkward cajoling. She was beginning to frighten them. Her thoughts were muddled. Bundles of memory exploded in her mind and radiated outward. She stared into the still-fresh images, marveling at what had been her life such a short time ago: the view she had of the marina from her bathroom window as she brushed her teeth, boats bobbing in the glittering sea; her customary black chair in the now-charred free rental, where she would sit with her feet tucked under her every morning, planning her day with Shelley, filled with a sense of possibility, her destiny mounting; her bare limbs gliding through the Coe pool, the warmth on her face as she turned it toward the sun, eyes closed … and, though she tried to avoid it, there was another, darker recollection: a few hours after Nevs
ky left the hospital, the Coes had made a surprise visit. Shiny-faced Ross appeared bearing a huge bunch of roses in his manicured hands. Ancient Helga clacked in after him, tight beige trousers tucked into black boots, low-cut top revealing deep creases in her overbaked breastplate. She struck a pose of exaggerated sympathy, thin lips turned down in a clownish pout, head tilted to one side.
“Oh, my beauty!” she whined. “You poor thing.”
Masha smiled up at them. “I thought you’d gone,” she said, taking the cellophane-swaddled roses from Ross and holding them in her arms like a baby.
“We’re on our way to the airport,” said Ross.
“How could we leave without saying goodbye?” effused Helga. “You look so like a Klimt, with your marvelous eyes and your hair …”
Coe drew a photograph from his inside blazer pocket. “We’re going to have Leslie keep working on Sweet Helga while we’re gone,” said Coe, handing her an image of the black boat. Masha looked at the photograph. In it, she was standing at the prow of Sweet Helga in a T-shirt and shorts, an electric sander in her hand. Leslie was beside her, had his ear mufflers on. “Thought you’d like a picture of her, you did so much work on that boat.”
“Thanks,” said Masha. The picture seemed as though it had been taken a long time ago. Two people, high up on a big boat, fuzzy with overexposure, nearly pulverized by light. She felt like weeping. It was then that Pearl walked into the room, her wig neat and shining, stockings thick, sleeves long. Helga turned—saw Pearl—froze. I watched as a blush boiled up under Helga’s skin, mottling her chest, her neck, climbing up to her cheeks. Her capped smile appeared swiftly, bravely. I couldn’t tell if it was panic or embarrassment that was affecting her so deeply. Masha witnessed the sanguine tide rising beneath the epidermis of Helga Coe. Her dark night eyes traveled to her mother. She knew these people wouldn’t help her anymore.
Jacob's Folly Page 33
