The Saint Louisans

by Steven Clark

  I tried to be helpful. “That’s a lot of spiritual karma.”

  Pierre shrugged. “She’s also Polish. I’m not sure about that karma.”

  Saul smiled. “Copernicus. Chopin. You can’t go wrong with them.”

  Pierre looked down at his shoes. “We separated because she wants a family, and with all this muck over the estate … all this family drama … I was afraid of having children.”

  I took his hand and pressed it. “We don’t have to repeat our parents’ mistakes. I think that, with all that spiritual karma,” I said with a smile, “you’ll make the right decisions. As long as you’re together.”

  “I hope you’re right.” Pierre said. He shook Saul’s hand, turned and walked to Terri, Phoebe, and the other mourners.

  “Mrs. Bridger.” There was Rainer, erect and stoic as ever. He gestured for Saul and I to walk with him. “I have been provided for, and leave for Germany soon.”

  “You’re certain?”

  “The will hasn’t been read, but I know its contents. I know of your plans to turn the mansion into a hospice. Madame and I discussed them, and she very much approved.”

  “You could stay and help.”

  “My life was serving Mrs. Desouche. It is time for new visions, no? Pierre and his western paradise. Terri will use Phoebe to rebuild her family. War will continue,” he said, almost confidently.

  We stopped at Tennessee William’s grave. Tom was buried next to his sad, mad sister Rose. Poor Tom. All he wanted was to be made into ashes and returned to the sea, a splendid reversal of evolutionary theory. When he lived in his hated St. Louis, the one pleasure he had was going to a natatorium in the neighborhood. It was called the Lorelei. Water, like writing, was his relaxation from family and dislocation. A happiness my patient Dotie Winders had experienced when she called me Lethe.

  Hands behind his back, Rainer studied the grave as if Tom failed to pass inspection. “You and Mr. Lowenstein will marry?”

  “That’s really none of your business,” Saul warned kindly.

  “But it’s a good maybe.” I took Saul’s hand.

  Rainer only sighed. “You and I are servants, Mrs. Bridger. In German, one makes a difference between one’s work and one’s calling. Arbeit means mere labor. Beruf is what one is called to do. My beruf was serving the finest lady in St. Louis. Yours,” Rainer hardly paused, “is being the angel of death. Be true to your heart, Mrs. Bridger.”

  Taking this as a very backhanded compliment, I nodded, then winced at stab of pain in my head. Rainer reached into his pocket, and from his palm offered a plastic cylinder.

  “I’ve noticed your headaches. These pills are German. They relieve the pain much better than your American brands.”

  “Thanks.”

  Rainer turned and walked to his car, not even nodding to Terri and Pierre. He stopped and looked back to me and Saul.

  “One thing I admired about you. You chose duty over happiness.” Then he left.

  I drew closer to Saul. “Rainer’s like Karl Weimer. Two Germans served another’s vision of death.”

  Saul put his arm around my shoulder and pulled me close. “So? Happy ending?”

  “The omens are favorable.”

  I took the pill.

  32

  The Gateway Ashes

  Today was my day.

  Early June in St. Louis; the best time. Soft, sweet air sailed through the open French doors. Not a drop of humidity. Opera season had just started. The Muny was revving up more musicals in Forest Park. The Cards may pull it off this year. There was a new plan to save the north side. This time, for sure. In the drawing room of the mansion, guests clustered and chattered beneath me as I stood at the top of the stairs. The smell of curry and spinach souffle tingled the nose as it drifted from the caterer’s table. My white frock lightened my complexion, matching new drapes that replaced Margot’s relics. Kelly looked up, two steps below me. In her crown and silk voice, she was Queen, her public self.

  “Lee. This is your day!”

  Her dress was cocktail formal, like that of the other ladies. An enormous mauve bow was tied around her waist, as if she was a present waiting to be unwrapped.

  “Everyone,” Kelly announced in cozy regality to the guests, “we’re so glad you could make it to this new opening of the mansion. All the work hasn’t been completed, but the Desouche Mansion and Hospice is a wonderful revival of an old, precious jewel in our city. We have Lee Bridger to thank.”

  Applause pattered as I nodded. Kelly motioned to a younger girl, who hid something in a velvet box. A surprise. It would be nothing compared to mine.

  “Lee,” Kelly said, “you always said being Veiled Prophet Queen was your dream. Today, that dream’s come true. None of this would be possible without you.” She took a crown from the box. “I crown you Veiled Prophet Queen for a day. Step forward.”

  I did, and among the crowd, Saul winced. I feel your pain, his face said, but I wasn’t in that kind of pain. It was my movie. My TV show. It was forty years late, but making movies takes time. Eyes raised to a trumpeter as he played the march from Aida, just like in the old days of the televised VP balls. I stepped forward and bowed.

  Kelly placed the crown on my head, a tiara of zircons whose sparkle complimented the just re-cleaned chandelier, the one whose light was hollow when I first visited Margot. The single feather bowed as I did to the good-natured applause. Cameras flashed. Everyone went back to merrymaking. Kelly’s arm entwined in mine, the other in Saul’s.

  We strolled to the patio. Musicians sat in the green velvet lawn and played. Kelly admired the crown.

  “That’s super. Lee?”

  “I was admiring the guests. If Rainer had been here, he’d have turned the dogs loose.”

  Saul reached for a glass of wine. “Nasty, pricey ones. No expense would have been spared.”

  I listened to the ensemble. Its jauntiness perfect for June.

  Kelly spoke. “So how’s it feel being a grandmother?”

  “It’s wonderful. I’m delighted.”

  My grandson, Richard, was now a month old. On the computer screen he’s blonde, blue-eyed, eyes already scanning, probing. Kelly glanced at the musicians.

  “I hope the music is okay?”

  “It’s wonderful. You say it’s by Telemann?”

  A sour pucker from Kelly. “Yeah. I mean, I’m so not classical, but they’re all students from WashU and cheap.” Saul and I smiled to each other. Kelly kept dreams within budget. She should run for Congress. Her arm waved as she spoke. “The music is really perky. Especially this bit.”

  “Gavotte,” Saul corrected gently. Kelly didn’t miss a beat.

  “Like you said, it’s all ours. Like Saul told me. It’s so fascinating.” She meant the music, Telemann’s suite “La Bourse” … The Stock Market. Composed in 1720, it was his musical comment on speculation. The last movement, the one that thrilled us, was “L’Espérance de Mississippi” … hopes of investing in the Mississippi markets … the first piece of music about our river, a gavotte in bouncy 4/4 time. Obviously a bull market. I pictured the hieroglyphics of the score as my ears soaked in the notes. I want to remember this day. Its music. Gentle air. Faces. Stories. My day.

  Kelly was right. The music was fascinating, this first music about our river, our goddess. She smiled to a pair of guests who nodded back, then spoke.

  “The mansion’s just like I remember when I visited Margot. Almost, anyway. The smell is gone. All of that new wood and ventilation. I see things as they were, but not when I smell it.”

  “My crew just cleaned it up,” Saul said, “and the new hospice rooms. New materials. But down here and the building itself … it’s timeless.”

  Timeless. I sipped my wine. What does that even mean?

  “I’m delighted the study will be the center of the Veiled Prophet Association.” Kelly puffed up as she spoke. “I want to inspire girls. Like Margot did with me. They’ll learn … corny as this sounds … about the be
auty of VP. Since Khorassan is in the news, the website’s gotten swamped with hits.” She took a dainty sip. “That name … Khorassan … it gets to you.”

  Khorassan, the Veiled Prophet’s old kingdom, was indeed back in the news. The former province in northeast Iran had rebels sniping at the government. Smelling the coffee boiling, our jets flew above the tip of old Khorassan ‘to assert free air space in the region.’ In high school, we called it playing chicken. US and Iranian jets buzzed each other. Iran wasn’t shooting back. Yet. I saw not the Veiled Prophet, but Rasheed. And my father. I thought about Dad. How he played chicken. Officially ordered chicken that got him shot down. Making war seemed like the last industry America was good at. That and making movies. But no one sees making war, only fighting terrorism. As Garrison Keillor said, “I believe in looking reality straight in the eye and denying it.” Another thing Americans are good at. While Khorassan made Kelly poetically inclined and I geopolitical, Saul’s smirk offered a third and more immediate option.

  There was polite applause as dancers in Jane Austen-era costumes entered and began a quadrille. They performed dances from the Lewis and Clark era. We were still celebrating the Year of Discovery. Kelly smiled proudly. “They’re going around the area and sites where Lewis and Clark appeared. They were in St. Charles last week.” She licked her lips. “And they’re really cheap.”

  Saul and I smiled. The queen knows her stuff.

  The dancers skipped, turned, and jigged to a very bouncy, familiar tune.

  “I know that.” Kelly frowned like she was on Jeopardy. “‘The Bear Came over the Mountain.’ We sang it at camp.”

  “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow,” said Saul, “but actually, it’s French. Marlbrouk.” Saul pattered. “‘Marlbrouk se’ taen de la guerre …’ probably danced in old St. Louis.”

  Kelly tapped his arm. “You just know everything.”

  “Yeah. The encyclopedia Lowenstein.” He smiled. “You heard about Sonia?”

  Kelly waved to a trio of friends. “That French archaeologist? Who got that Corn Mother thing rolling?”

  “Ta-da.” Saul shrugged. “She was searching for a lost ziggurat that she claimed was an altar to the goddess Ishtar. She found ruins in Khorassan.”

  Kelly’s eyes widened. “Oh, my gosh.”

  Saul’s eyes twinkled. “She forgot to say, ‘May I?’ when she crossed the border from Iraq to Iran. She’s in jail.”

  Marlbrouk ended. The dancers circled in a new piece. The smile across Saul’s face countered the horror in Kelly’s.

  “Good Lord. What will they do to her?”

  “She’ll survive. It’ll be The Ransom of Red Chief. In the meantime, she has her choice of chador and all the Farsi home cooking she can take.”

  “That’s so awful. A woman in one of their jails.” More friends waved to Kelly. Rich friends with open checkbooks. She smiled. “Excuse me, but I’ve some catching up to do. Lee, enjoy.”

  Saul and I smiled as Kelly moved to potential donors at ramming speed. Giggles and hugs meant a successful boarding. I sipped my wine. “She’s really hard-core VP now.”

  “True.” Saul leaned back. “She’s cracking the books and studying grant writing. A regular Grantzilla.”

  A waiter offered hors d’oeuvres. We snacked on shrimp puffs and curry topped crackers. Delightful. Sunlight glowed to a high lime on the lawn. Kelly and her chums raised their glasses to us. We raised back. I turned to Saul.

  I look at you and think: do I tell you now? In our intimacy, among this splendid evening, isn’t now the time for my surprise? I love your face, the assurance you breathe like the fresh flowers around. Your perfume is masculinity.

  Saul motioned toward Kelly and leaned forward. “She’s actually having a study group reading Lallah Rookh. You know, the poem where they dug up the Veiled Prophet. Try to imagine a circle of debs reading: ‘By the stream’s side, where still at close of day The Prophet of the veil retired to pray …’”

  He enjoyed quoting in his Eli Wallach voice, and dropped it to continue as Saul. “‘Rows of porphyry pillars’ and ‘haram’s curtained galleries.’ All of that cloaking romanticism.” Saul blew out his cheeks and drank. “Oy.”

  So Moore’s hoary verse tickles yet and still entertains, but not in the way intended. Like relatives when they try to be profound. “I heard there’s a movie coming out.” I sipped, enjoying the suspense. “Lallah Rookh.”

  Saul turned and stared. “You’re kidding.”

  “Jama sent an email. She blocked enough doorways, slept on enough couches. Some producer had an elephant movie all lined up but it wasn’t the right elephant. Jama made the mother of all pitches, and her script got green lighted.” I paused. “She’ll be playing Clementine. Of course, it was the part Jama was born to play. They start shooting in a month.”

  Saul and I turned our heads at a burst of laughter. Lanterns scattered about the lawn winked on. The dancers did a slow waltz.

  “Wow. She finally made it.”

  “It’s considered a fine historical film about an elephant on the frontier of a vibrant, struggling America.”

  “Early America, huh? So that means they’re filming it in Canada?”

  I smiled. “Ontario.”

  Was it time for my secret? Almost.

  I look around. Guests are leaving. The dancers take a final bow. I see Kelly through a window, on her cell phone, pacing and gesturing. Boyfriend trouble? Was he supposed to be here? Her private drama framed by light and dark, like an Edward Hopper painting.

  Saul kissed me, and a breeze made the leaves sing. “Lee, I love you. Let’s talk about that.”

  I look into Saul’s eyes, always wanting to remember this moment, their contentment.

  “There’s a problem.”

  “What kind?”

  “My headaches.”

  “Look, this whole thing would give anyone a migraine. We need to get away.”

  I enjoyed the sedation of wine, its blanket softening my nerves. “I went to the doctor. Had a CT scan.”

  Saul blinked. “What?”

  “It’s not a migraine. It’s a tumor.” I sighed, relaxed as the oboe’s notes halted. “A gliomablastoma in the left parietal lobe. Surgery’s not an option.”

  He swallowed. “Lee? Are you sure?”

  I nodded. “I had cancer before. I always suspected there’d be round two.”

  You look at me with horror. My surprise is out, and it releases me. I defy gravity. I look at you, but also see, feel, absorb this June night. A thousand June nights. The way they always seduce. As if it was not round two, but a beginning, as summer always is. But it’s farewell.

  “Can it be cured? Please tell me it can. Tell me you’re going to fight it.”

  “I start chemo tomorrow.”

  You listen. I talk of battle plans, treatments. You swear never to give up. Yet, after chemo, all words are like the zircons of my crown, glittering from the borrowed light of the chandelier, the lanterns, and a world of once upon a time. Yes, we must fight. But we also owe God a death.

  And today was my day.

  Morphine is the escape hatch from pain, the last call as my Titanic begins to sink. But there are no lifeboats in the endless, immaterial liquid.

  I want you to have a face, you the cancer who destroys me. I want to say ‘This is stupid. You’re winning, but you’ll kill the body. It goes, and where are you then? You’re a dead cancer. Is that reasonable? What kind of future is that?’ I think of the old story. The scorpion and the frog who ferries the scorpion across the river and gets stung anyway. Because it’s what a scorpion does. But you’re not one for stories. You’re not a scorpion. You’re a bear, ready to take me over the mountain. Like the dance, and we’re dancing together. Totentanz. Now it means something.

  Thinking shifts to all tenses. Can’t be helped. All the poetry, recollections, and brilliance are reduced to single lines, flashes of what was. Sara Teasdale: When life has had enough of me / These are the grasses that w
ill blow / Above me like a living sea. I think that. Over and over. Planks to be hugged in the darkening waters. I’m like St. Louis, a city whose body fails, decays, its promise never fulfilled.

  Memories are pictures in an immense, empty gallery. Canvasses drift and float. It’s closing time. Pick one. One last moment.

  I wait for my angel. Who will send me on? Not Saul. Nor those visitors I peer up at in the scuba world of morphine. Who will crouch like a jackal and lead me down the river? I think: ned angli sed angeli. Why?

  I begin to see life outside me, outside the glass box I’m now shut up in. I’m Bessie in her shadow box, inside the TV, and all I see is mists, clouding, and hard glass against the light.

  My body, our bodies, are everything, and mine is letting me down. I drown without suffocating. No more weight. Gravity. But angeli? It’s a skeleton key, like the one to the room where the Seven Dwarfs locked me in that night, where they whispered what to do, how to get rid of me.

  Not that memory. Pick a better one.

  Your body shuts down organ by organ, your heart and brains the last ones to keep the light on. They’re blips on the screen of your heartbeat, going to 2/4 time. You become a theory: time and mass are relative, and no mass leaves only time. You focus, but there’s too much going on in each picture. All buzz and minuteness. You want an essence. One last, good memory. The funeral. Hello, Tom. A picnic. Delivering your first baby. Supernurse. No. Something better.

  Light. Music. Midsummer.

  The church is in the South side. Its lawn smells of a recent mowing, pinstripes of green line its body. The opulent odor of peonies drift in through open windows. An austere brick and stone church of Lutheran dignity, now almost devoid of parishioners, its pews fill with playgoers. Concertgoers.

  “It’s called ‘The Bladder-Stone Operation’,” Pierce whispers as applause patters to the arriving musicians. “It’s kind of weird. By Marais.”