The Chaperone (36 page)

Alan drummed his fingers on the ink blotter. “You’re going to tell people you’re German?” He squinted. “Are you German? Did you find that out? Did you learn anything about your parents?”

“Nothing that matters.” She shrugged. “Let’s say my father was German. My mother, too. She died in childbirth in New York. But they were married. I was legitimate.” She looked at him evenly. If she was going to invent a story, why not invent one that would make things easier, not just for herself, but for Joseph and Greta, and keep things easy for Howard and Earle? “Let’s say that when I was a baby, I was left in the care of a relative, and my father took my older brother back to Germany. Joseph immigrated back before the war, and I tracked him down in New York.”

She watched Alan’s face. She could see he was turning the story over, shaking it out. If there were any holes, he would find them first, as a good lawyer and a practiced liar.

“So how did you come to live with the Kaufmanns? What will you say?”

“The relative in New York died. I came to Kansas on an orphan train.” She sighed. “I don’t care if people know about that. It’s the least of my concerns.”

Alan blinked. “I’ll say.” He appeared dumbfounded, his lips parted, his gaze searching her face as if he wasn’t quite sure who she was. She understood. Their life, his life, had required so much careful planning on his part, every decision calculated for secrecy and survival, every argument and justification rehearsed well in advance. And now she’d gone and ambushed him, coming at him with her own desires and plans. He would need some time to get his bearings, to comprehend that yes, this mutiny was real. But she couldn’t help but feel they’d reached an understanding, or at least the beginning of one. She would force him to help her if she had to, but she would rather keep his love. She was quiet, but she looked back at him in such a way that he might know this for himself. She was careful not to smile. She didn’t want him to hit the desk again. But really, she was just so happy to see him, so happy to finally be home.

•   •   •

Within the week,
Joseph was working a press at Coleman Lanterns, where Alan had put in a good word to a former client. His shift started well before dawn, and so on a muggy morning in early September, it was Cora who walked Greta to school on her first day. Greta wore the pretty blue dress that Cora had bought for her at Innes Department Store, and her blond hair was clean and combed. Cora assured her that she would like school, that her teachers would be friendly, and that many of the other girls would be nice. “If anyone isn’t, ignore them,” she said. Greta looked up at her with somber eyes, and Cora worried she’d made the child nervous for no reason. After all, in her pretty new dress, Greta might simply blend in. She was shy and unsure, but she had no accent, and even if other parents had heard that her father was German and that she’d just come in from New York, there was a chance no one would care. People were more open-minded than they’d been when Cora was young, and Wichita was a good-sized town, with people coming and going all the time. Greta might make friends. Besides, even if she didn’t, she would be all right. She’d survived her mother’s death, after all, and her years at the orphanage. If the other children did isolate her, she would be able to bear it, just as Cora had.

Still, when they got to the school yard, which was already full of laughing, running children, and Cora caught sight of Greta’s young teacher standing in the shade and waving to them, she felt her heart flutter. It was so strange—she didn’t remember feeling so much worry with Howard and Earle, even when they were young. Perhaps she’d just known her own boys would do well, buoyed by each other and their comfortable years at home. Greta, still so thin, just seemed more vulnerable. She didn’t know if this was how the Kaufmanns had felt, why they tried so hard.

“When will I see my papa?” Greta asked. “When will he come to get me?”

Cora, hearing the fear in the girl’s voice, crouched as low as she could and smiled. “Your father works until five tonight, and you’ll be home by then. We’ll all have dinner together. Uncle Alan is picking up a special dessert, because you’re being so brave. And I’ll be standing here at three o’clock, right when you get out. If you like, we could get a pop on the way home. You can tell me all about your day.”

She kissed the hot top of Greta’s head and nudged her toward the gate. It was the best she could do. There was no sense in assuring her that she would have a good day, or, for that matter, a hard one; Cora didn’t know what lay in store, for this day or any other. She could only promise to be there at three, to console, to celebrate, or to strategize, to help this child as best she could, to hold her hand and lead her home.

In late October,
the first cool night, Joseph came to her room, knocking softly, saying nothing, only looking at her, waiting; but she’d been awake, turning in her bed, and when he reached for her hand, she pulled him to her. By then, he was paying rent to Alan and helping with groceries and household expenses. He didn’t make anywhere near what Alan did, and his contributions would not have been missed. But he had not touched her, or even tried, until he had money of his own. So by the time he did, she was both comforted and thrilled, knowing that when he came to her, it was out of pure and genuine desire. Her want for him was as pure. They wanted nothing from each other but each other—no children, no security, no social approbation. What was between them mattered to no one else. No one else, besides Alan, and likely Raymond, even knew.

Still, it astounded her sometimes, the madness of what she’d done. She kept thinking they would all be found out, or that she and Joseph would become disenchanted with each other, or that Greta would decide not to love her, or that Alan would refuse to go on.

But none of these things happened. No one in town voiced suspicions. Viola Hammond only chided Cora for never mentioning her being born in New York, and she praised her for doing the Christian thing and taking in her niece. Alan’s mood improved after Joseph tinkered with the car’s engine until it no longer made a worrisome ticking sound, and it further improved when Raymond finally accepted one of Cora’s many invitations to dinner. Raymond, who had by this time lost most of his red hair, was quiet at first, watchful—especially with Cora. But he got along well with Greta, and after a while, their evenings settled into an easy routine: Alan had, in fact, purchased a radio over the summer, and after dinner they would all go to the parlor to listen to a show or music. Cora noticed that Alan and Raymond rarely looked at each other or spoke to each other directly, and Cora perceived this as a well-honed strategy she and Joseph might borrow. When there was dancing, she danced with Alan. Never Joseph. (And never Raymond—that seemed a mutual understanding.) They kept up the act even in the house, so as not to confuse Greta. Still, it was enough just to have Joseph nearby, to hear his voice, even when she didn’t look at him.

And they managed. The child slept soundly, and there was a lock on Cora’s door. Even after Joseph had to get up and go back to his room, leaning over to kiss her good night, Cora would lie with her eyes open, content, and listen to the quiet house. In time, she would decide what she’d done wasn’t madness at all. Was it mad to at least try to live as one wished, or as close to it as possible?
This life is mine,
she would think sometimes.
This life is mine because of good luck. And because I reached out and took it.

•   •   •

Alan advised
that there was little point in telling anyone what Louise had said about Edward Vincent. He agreed it was worrisome that Vincent was still teaching Sunday school, but if Louise refused to attach her name to the complaint, then Cora could only go to the church leaders with a vague accusation. Vincent wasn’t likely to be let go over the matter, and if Cora confronted him directly, she would only succeed in making an angry enemy.

“Given our domestic arrangement,” Alan added, “we might choose our enemies with care.”

But Cora had to do something. Feeling cowardly, she sent an anonymous letter to Vincent’s office. She used plain stationery, and wrote the words with her left hand:

Stay away from the girls in your Sunday school class.

We are watching you.

She didn’t know what would come of this attempt, and it didn’t seem like enough. But the following Sunday, the minister announced that Edward Vincent had decided to focus on business matters and spend more time with his family, and the church was looking for a volunteer to instruct young people on moral matters. For a moment, Cora considered raising her hand. Since her return from New York, she had been giving a great deal of thought to moral matters, and she would have liked the opportunity to share some of these thoughts, not to mention a few questions, with the young Presbyterians of Wichita. But she knew this wasn’t the kind of instruction the minister expected. She doubted she could do as he wished. Given how she was living, if she taught the hard rules and fearful stories that she herself had been taught as a child, she would be as big a hypocrite as Edward Vincent. So when the minister looked down at her, sitting in the pew between Alan and Joseph, she politely averted her eyes.

In 1926,
a nineteen-year-old Louise Brooks, still a relatively unknown actress, was cast as the leading lady in
A Social Celebrity
, opposite the well-loved Adolphe Menjou. When the film opened in Wichita, Cora and Joseph went to see it, and they brought along Greta, who at ten was almost as tall as Cora’s shoulders, her hair even blonder from so many summers in the Kansas sun. But she insisted, to both her father and Cora, that she had a clear memory of the pretty black-haired girl she’d met briefly in New York when she was six. She’d been eating toast and jam, she said, and she’d hidden under a table when the pretty girl came in, and the girl had been laughing about something. As if those details weren’t proof enough, in the theater, the moment Louise appeared on the screen, Greta breathed in, sharp and quick, clutching Cora’s arm. “That’s her!” she whispered. “Aunt Cora, I remember! She looks just the same!”

Joseph gently shushed her. Cora couldn’t respond. She stared, open-mouthed, up at the screen. There was Louise, the dark eyes flashing under the bangs, and then the bright, familiar smile. Cora was not at all surprised that Louise had found success, but it was still so thrilling, so startling, to see a person she knew in a real movie. But Greta was wrong—Louise didn’t look exactly as she had that summer. Her hair was cut even shorter than it had been, and her face had grown slightly more angular, thinner, more like her mother’s. Her eyes were heavily lined, and shadow darkened her lids. She played a flapper, a plucky girl who wanted to go to New York to become a dancer. That was hardly a stretch, of course, but her acting, in Cora’s opinion, was solid. And no matter which way she turned, no matter what her expression, her luminous face beckoned to the eye. When she was in a scene, it was hard to look at anything else. She wore simple outfits at the beginning of the movie, and at the end, a low-cut beaded gown, her pale neck unadorned.

The next day, a gloating
Wichita Eagle
quoted a New York critic’s review: “There is a girl in this picture by the name of Louise Brooks. Perhaps you’ve never heard of her. If not, don’t worry. You will.”

All at once,
it seemed, her picture and her name were everywhere. Her posed portraits appeared in
Photoplay
,
Variety
, and
Motion Picture Classic
. Sometimes she stared sultrily at the camera, and sometimes she smiled sweetly, her hair and pale skin always showing up so well in black and white. Even before her next film came out, the professional gossips started to track her. There were reports of her dining at expensive restaurants, dancing in clubs, and then there were rumors of her being seen around New York with Charlie Chaplin, who, the articles frequently noted, was not only married, but twice her age. The magazines also reported that just a few years earlier, Louise had been a Denishawn dancer until she was kicked out because of a bad attitude. She’d quickly become a Ziegfeld girl, still underage but living high and free at the Algonquin Hotel until the Algonquin kicked her out for lewd behavior. Of all the bob-haired, knee-showing flappers on the screen that year, it seemed Louise Brooks was the one, in real life at least, who was truly wild and rebellious. Howard wrote to Cora that he’d impressed his new classmates at law school by telling them he’d not only gone to school with Louise Brooks—his dear mother had chaperoned her for an entire summer. “The fellows were all jealous of me,” he added. “But none could say they envied you!”

As well they shouldn’t, Cora thought. She saw it even more clearly now—that summer in New York, she may as well have been charged with trying to hold back the wind, or time itself. Even then, Louise had been a force. But when they were sharing that hot little apartment and Cora had made Louise scrub the paint from her face, she’d truly believed she was not just doing the right thing, but the only thing she could do. And like a well-trained parrot, over and over, she’d warned Louise of the dire consequences of a sullied reputation. Just a few years later, Louise’s reputation had been soundly sullied by the popular press, yet the only consequence, as far as Cora could tell, was more movie roles and greater fame.

Still, she couldn’t shake a feeling of worry, that same hesitant concern that had nagged her that summer in New York. Had Louise been happy to leave Denishawn? If not, what had she done to get herself kicked out? Had she gone out drinking? Was Louise satisfied being Chaplin’s newest young mistress, or did she hope for something more? She was being silly, she told herself. Louise didn’t need her concern, and likely wouldn’t want it. In every magazine photograph, she appeared confident, with a savvy glint in her eyes. Cora supposed it was just as likely that Mr. Chaplin would be left feeling used—or that they would leave each other, unharmed. As young as Louise was, she was a grown woman, a modern woman, smart and fearless of judgment, a lovely sparkle on the blade of her generation as it slashed at the old conventions.