The Fountain of St. James Court; Or, Portrait of the Artist as an Old Woman

by Sena Jeter Naslund

  Ryn had quickly and awkwardly interjected, “Age did not wither her,” semi-quoting Shakespeare on Cleopatra.

  Leslie had finished that conversation by remarking, “At least we’ve learned not to discount ourselves.” Placing her hands behind herself, on the small of her slender back, Leslie took a breath and stretched tall. Her posture seemed self-contained, relaxed.

  “I know you both have things to do,” Daisy had continued to Leslie. “I just didn’t want to miss the opportunity to say hello. Your apartment is lovely, Leslie.” As she turned to leave the condo, Daisy added, “I’ll invite you both to afternoon tea on Belgravia, one day soon.”

  WHAT LESLIE HAD SAID WAS TRUE. Yes, women had learned, were learning, not to discount themselves because of age. Most of the time Ryn loved her space; she felt curious and happy doing what she wanted to do when she wanted to do it. Wasn’t it a relief not to be in the presence of a spouse who discounted her value in dozens of ways? How could a brain surgeon have envied the success of a writer?

  She thought of Mrs. Dalloway and the woman she most admired, Lady Bexborough, opening a bazaar with the telegram in her hand saying that John, her favorite, had been killed in the war. Automatically, Ryn prayed for the safety of Humphrey. Was not an ardent wish almost the same as a prayer?

  It was going to rain again.

  LESLIE SIGHED AND LOOKED AROUND her condo: it was beautiful and beautifully located. The two marshmallow chairs seemed particularly satisfactory. No stable shape for the marshmallows, always comfortable, impressively perfect, without smudge or blemish. She was here. Her time was her own. She would play the cello when she wanted to. She would take a walk if she liked. She would read her friend’s book and try to help her with it. She could write tales in honor of Bach, or not. Flexing her fingers, Leslie felt rich with the indeterminate nature of much of her time. Probably she had ten good years left ahead of her. Before first frost, she would plant tulip bulbs and daffodils in the concrete containers on her balcony, for spring color.

  Lightning split the sky, then a crack of thunder, and a second torrential rain poured down.

  Leslie would create happiness for herself—she swore it. No matter what happened next. But what was it Leslie had left unfinished in her jolly conversation with Ryn? There was a question Leslie hadn’t asked. Not about a day being a metaphor for a life. Something else; unfinished. About Joyce or Woolf ?

  About how sometimes a literary artist felt compelled to write against the prejudices, or simply the mores, of his time. Melville against religious bigotry, Leslie should have mentioned that—how Ishmael had worshipped with Queequeg his little wooden idol. Certainly Twain, in Huckleberry Finn; how Huck bucked the institution of slavery: he would burn in hell before he betrayed his friend Jim, a slave. The rain had a determined edge to it now and was gusting into the balcony. Leslie closed the French doors.

  What made for happiness for women? For anyone?

  It was the institution of marriage Ryn should question, Leslie realized. Not just its bonds: its necessity, its desirability, its legitimacy in an evolving society.

  FROM THE FAR SIDE OF THE PARK, Ryn, without umbrella, ran for her house through the long pergola. Its rafters and the wisteria vines strained and softened the deluge, she thought. It was exciting to run between the columns. She had not run for a long time, and it made her feel like a goddess, as though she could whiz through time and space, leap into mythology, a female Mercury.

  Once outside the pergola, Ryn was immediately drenched and cold. Wind blew the rain through the trees in huge gusts, and from a distance the trio of tulip poplars bent and tossed, their yellow and gold leaves thrashing in the torrent. She would not run that way, but down the side of the park past the gnarled Tolkien trees.

  Before crossing Magnolia, she waited impatiently at the curb for cars to pass—too slowly moving now—their wipers dashing the water from the windshields. Couldn’t they see she was without protection in the storm, then pause long enough for her to cross? No. But here was a break in the procession.

  She considered running up onto the porch of the Conrad-Caldwell historical mansion and waiting within its ornately carved arches (Richardsonian Romanesque), but if she stopped moving she would simply get colder, so she panted past, slowing to a fast walk with a hand clutching her side, as she had done as a child when she ran too fast for too long.

  All down the grassy median of St. James Court the gaslights flared and wavered encouragingly inside their glass lanterns.

  Ahead, Ryn saw the fountain waters caught up in the wind, distorted, lifted away from the receptive pool, and blown askew over the iron railing. Venus stood dark green and unperturbed, the color of a dark olive. Self-contained and single, she rose. A drenching meant nothing to her bronze skin. Wind caught the water spurting upward from the putti’s conch shells and twirled it away into spume.

  Underfoot, the sidewalk became slippery, and Ryn dreaded the idea of falling and lying unseen, broken, and unconscious at the base of one of the easement trees. Lightning zagged down the sky, and she thought of the old scar down one side of her cottonwood, and how it had once been struck. She thought of Captain Ahab with a zaggy mark down one cheek. She began to run again as fast as she dared, her shoes squishing water, till she reached the three steps, which were now hosting a minor waterfall, bridging down from her walkway to the public sidewalk.

  She forced herself to progress more slowly. On the steps, water gushed around her walking shoes and poured down the walkway. From above—a defective gutter—water pounded the curved steps to her porch. She took particular care on the wet limestone porch steps, and even more caution crossing the water-glazed tiles of the porch floor. Here in her damp pocket was the faithful key.

  All that was left was to insert it into the door keyhole, and then turn: inside. Immediately she stepped over the hardwood onto the rug. She silenced the security alarm, while the house echoed with thunder.

  She took large, careful steps, trying not to drip water from her clothing over the foyer carpet or the polished hardwood leading through the living room. Her shoes squeaking, she passed between the piano and the clock to the bath. Once on the tiles, she began to shed her wet shoes and garments, intending to wrap in a robe she kept here for guests. While removing her shoes, she paused to listen. There was an unusual interior sound, no wind, but the noise of rushing and dripping water, as though the rain or the fountain had followed her inside.

  Glancing up, she saw water flowing down the wall between the bath and the kitchen. Water? Inside? She grabbed a towel and quickly rubbed it over her head and down the arms of her corduroy shirt. Raining inside the house? Not stopping to remove her soaked socks, she thrust her feet into the rubber sandals beside the tub. At least she wouldn’t squeeze out water with every step; their soles were dry.

  In the kitchen, water gushed down around the chandelier and through cracks leading to the chandelier onto the Alabama table. From the kitchen cabinets, she grabbed pots, the cookie tray-pans, and the big rectangular Pyrex baking pans and tried to center them under the leaks. How could this be? The back bedroom was over the kitchen. Was the water coming through the third-floor deck into the second-floor back bedroom, through the floor or down the insides of walls, and emerging in the kitchen at its ceiling’s low place, the chandelier?

  When she ran upstairs, she felt compelled first to check the library at the front of the house, her computer and the books. Water was falling fast through the ceiling of the library, near the floor-to-ceiling bookcase, but her white desk, an island in the center of the room, was dry and safe. She darted into her bedroom, past the high, giant bed, into the adjacent bathroom for an armload of clean towels. Before mopping up the library oak floor, she must struggle to roll back the area rug and its pad. None of the floors in a house over a hundred years old was perfectly level and water had seeped under the rug, but the towels were thick and wonderfully absorbent, once applied. She hated to think of the trouble it would be to launder, dry, fold, a
nd shelve them all again.

  Into the hall. Stored in the basement, she recalled, was a large rubber tray she’d used once a year as insurance against floor damage when placed under the water reservoir for a Christmas tree, but before she ran all the way down to the basement, she looked up.

  No! The ceiling of the second-floor hallway was oozing water, but she sped down the carpeted stairs back to the first floor, grateful for how speedy and bold she’d seemed to become. Hurrying through the foyer and the living room to the kitchen, she noted water still dripped rapidly, almost a stream, from around the chandelier and when it hit the vessels on the table, much of it was splattering out. She clattered down to the basement anyway to fetch the rubber tray for the library.

  Hadn’t she bought a second tray when she’d considered having an upstairs Christmas tree in the bay window? Yes, there they both were, standing upright, their navy blue labels still pasted against the white rubber. They had been manufactured to go under washing machines. She snatched up the wide trays, light as foam though cumbersome, and maneuvered their width around the tight angles of the cellar stairs. What a nightmare! And it was entirely up to her to do something about it, as best she could. But exciting, too.

  She ran all the way back to the second floor, placed a tray under the library ceiling leak—how could it leak in the library with Janie’s apartment on the third floor, directly above? And then to the back bedroom, with the second tray.

  Worst of all. Above the bed and beyond, near the fireplace, the drywall ceiling was bloated with water and leaking vigorously. It was impossible to pull up the floor-size rug there, with the heavy bed standing on it, so she placed the second tray in the wettest place on top of the blue satin bedspread.

  When the trays filled with water, she’d have to bail them out, for they couldn’t be lifted without spilling, but they could hold a lot, wide and flat as they were, with nearly a two-inch lip. While she stood still, she heard tree limbs wrenched from their sockets. But where were Janie and Tide in this deluge? Were they outside or in? Surely he was trained to seek shelter, somebody’s porch, if a storm blew up. Her whole house was leaking!

  She heard what was surely the sound of a tree falling, or trees, and she ran past the bed to the window to look south. All in an instant, looking down the backyards, she saw a mature pine fall into another pine, and that second tall pine, next door, swoosh down toward her cottonwood, which caught the two trees in its arms, shuddered and stood. She gasped at the wonder of its strength. She never considered running away; the cottonwood had persevered. The fallen pine trees slanting over the house next door did not touch its roof. They rested, caught on the diagonal, on the thick limbs of the cottonwood. Noble old tree, she thought of her giant cottonwood. Her eyes filled with tears of joy; the giant cottonwood had saved her. Her house. The former neighbor had wanted to cut it down, but it had saved that house, too, from a crushing blow. Behind her, water splashed into the shallow tray she’d placed on the bed, and also onto the carpeted floor.

  No more giant rubber trays, but that large pot she had bought when Humphrey wanted to boil crab legs? It had been stowed under the back stairs and she was off to fetch it.

  When she returned, she saw that the waterfall through the back bedroom ceiling was now only an intermittent spurt. She could lift the carpet, prop it up with footstools, crawl under and dry the floor. She did these things, but she was getting tired.

  She hurried to check the library tray; while it was holding water, just a fast leak from the ceiling now, she needed more towels to catch the splattering. She dried the library floor again and spread two big pool towels that had been on the bottom of the stack, waiting for next summer.

  She must turn off the pool heater. Really, she hoped Yves wasn’t coming. A total mess. He’d have no place to sleep with the leaks in both spare bedrooms. It was ridiculous to think of a whole swimming pool full of water, warm as a bath but receiving a cold October rain. She shook her head in disapproval: too eager to please, she had always been. Leaving the pool heater on was the kind of spendthrift behavior that could leave her bankrupt.

  Sodden and weary, beginning to feel the cold again, she went downstairs and looked out the front windows at the fountain. The downpour was becoming an ordinary rain, abating. The fountain waters had resumed their shape: the circular skirt fell straight down from the chalice with only a slight ruffling or an occasional wind-shifted slant; the skyward plumes had resumed their arcs.

  Bronze Venus was gleaming emerald; she seemed pleased to be so thoroughly wet. Impervious. Perhaps someday she would slip back into the waters of the sea from whence she came, and earthlings such as Ryn would have to find a new way to embody beauty.

  AS THE RAIN STOPPED, night quickly descended, and the residents of St. James Court began to come outside to assess and discuss the damage. Gas lamps still flickered all down the sides of the two grassy lozenges. The floodlights under the waters of the wide pool came on. There were Keith and Todd, always ready to help out and to comfort, from the flats. Ryn could see a heavy limb that had fallen from one of the east-side sentinel oaks onto the top of a car. Through the leaded glass sidelights beside her front door, Ryn watched Sandy patrolling the sidewalk to see if she needed to send for equipment from the nursery she owned. There was Judith, with her little deaf dog caught up in her arms, surveying the sky and chatting with Marilyn.

  Could anyone have had as many ceilings leaking as Ryn? Inventory time: downstairs, there was the kitchen and bathroom; on the second floor, the library, the hall, the back bedroom. The slate roof on the baronial house to the south? Rolla’s red tile roof to the north? She hoped at least they were intact. Insurance? She knew she had the best insurance company in town, but what about her neighbors?

  Some sort of container under each of the leaks now, she reassured herself. Should she check again, more thoroughly before she abandoned ship? And weren’t the house lights out all down the row, across the Court? Before she could go outside to compare notes, her cell phone rang from within her damp pocket. She had forgotten about it. Thank goodness, it hadn’t been ruined.

  Janie’s voice said she believed there must be a leak. (Janie! All right! Safe in her apartment.) Janie said she didn’t hear any dripping, but her rug was wet to the bare foot. Ryn said she’d come right up the back stairs.

  AS ALWAYS, JANIE GREETED Ryn cheerfully. “The wind was fierce,” Janie said, “and Tide didn’t like the thunder one bit. I could feel him shiver against my legs. He’s okay now. I told him not to be afraid.”

  Tide looked up almost apologetically at Ryn and wagged his tail slowly in the dim room. Janie had forgotten to turn the light on for Ryn.

  “I was out walking,” Ryn said, “way over by the tennis court when the second storm came up. It’s taken down a lot of trees.” She heard Janie’s radio playing classical music softly: WUOL. A pianist was racing up and down the keyboard with Chopin’s “Winter Wind” étude.

  “Appropriate music,” Janie commented as though she were following the path of Ryn’s thinking. “Let me get you some light.” With perfect aim, she touched the light switch and turned it on. “Did I hear trees falling nearby, Ryn?” she asked tentatively.

  “Two big pines in the backyard next door, to the south. Our cottonwood caught them. I guess they won’t be after me to have it cut down now.”

  “Sweet,” Janie said, and Tide looked vaguely pleased.

  “The ceiling above you has stopped leaking now, but it’s discolored. I can see a few drops still clinging up there. I’ll put the area rug up over a chair to dry out. Shall I put a pan under the place in case it starts again in the night?”

  “There’s a roasting pan in the drawer under the oven.”

  “You won’t forget and trip on it?”

  “No, we’ll check out exactly where it is. Have you heard from Yves?”

  “If I were him, I’d check into a motel. It’s probably stormed all the way along I-65.”

  “Maybe he left a message o
n your house phone.”

  After positioning the roaster pan, Ryn said she’d go down and compare notes with the neighbors. Janie thanked Ryn for coming up, said she was glad her refrigerator was still humming.

  ALTHOUGH RYN FELT SKEPTICAL about a phone message from Yves, when she returned to her part of the house, she checked the house line. And yes, Yves had left a message during the afternoon, perhaps while she had been napping.

  His not coming had nothing to do with the weather. He’d cut his hand while loading the car, he said. Had to have stitches. Had to wait in the emergency room. Ryn was sorry, but she also felt defeated and rather angry about his absence, her neglect of the phone. It was her own fault for not checking the house line. She’d prefer that the disappointment not have been deferred. Her cell phone chimed: Daisy, calling to see if she was all right.

  “On the east side of St. James, all the power’s off,” Daisy explained. “I called Leslie and invited her down to have a glass of wine with Daniel and me. She’s coming. Would you like to come down?”

  As they spoke Ryn looked across the Court: dark as the river Styx over there. No, she said to Daisy, but thank you. She was glad Daisy had invited Leslie and glad Leslie had accepted. She imagined Daniel was probably starting a small fire in their fireplace. He was a master at creating coziness. Kind and thoughtful. Daisy’s Rock of Gibraltar. Ryn paced around her house, checking again and again, admiring the makeshift measures she’d quickly taken. The ceilings were still leaking in three places on the second floor, especially under the third-floor deck and dripping down the wall in the downstairs bathroom under the second-floor deck. But she was containing it as best she could.

  Something about the deck construction in those instances had probably allowed the leaking, she speculated. It could be corrected. But the house roof had leaked, too, into Janie’s apartment, the library, and the hall; that wasn’t a deck problem. Ryn felt despondent. The rain must have come from an unusual direction, with unusual force.