The Women (14 page)
“Yes, I’m here.”
The papers. She was in the papers.
The papers. She was in the papers.
He was saying something about meeting with her—soon, as soon as she was able, because time was of the essence, strike while the iron is hot, that sort of thing, but she wasn’t listening. There was more, his voice pinched with the strain of talking through the crack of the door, and she didn’t catch much of it, not that it mattered.
She was in the papers.
And then he came clear again, his parting words, stirring, redemptive, vengeful: “Because we’re going to go after separate maintenance and full payment of legal fees and there isn’t a doubt in my mind that we’ll win. Not after this. Not after the show you’ve put on.”
She was in the papers.
And then he came clear again, his parting words, stirring, redemptive, vengeful: “Because we’re going to go after separate maintenance and full payment of legal fees and there isn’t a doubt in my mind that we’ll win. Not after this. Not after the show you’ve put on.”
When he’d gone—footsteps fading down the hallway like the tread of an angel taking flight, her angel, Mr. Harold Jackson, Attorney at Law—she pushed herself up and went to the door. She looked through the peep-hole, listened a moment to be sure no one was present, then unlatched the door and bent to snatch up the newspapers. And it was all there, just as he’d said. She read through each of the articles twice and for a long while stared at her photograph—she did look charming and sad and
trés chic
too, and she’d have to clip it out and send it to Leora—and then she ordered up breakfast and began to think about what she might wear for her next press conference.
trés chic
too, and she’d have to clip it out and send it to Leora—and then she ordered up breakfast and began to think about what she might wear for her next press conference.
Five days later the newspapers ran another sort of article altogether, a simple birth announcement that had somehow been transmuted into the stuff of headlines, and she didn’t even know about it, didn’t even see it till late in the afternoon and then only because Leora called her long distance from Los Angeles. And then her daughter Norma called. And then Mr. Jackson. And then a man from the press, wanting her reaction, but by that time she’d got hold of the
Tribune
and the
Daily News
both and she cut the connection and left the phone off the hook.
Tribune
and the
Daily News
both and she cut the connection and left the phone off the hook.
She’d been eating a late lunch or early dinner or whatever you wanted to call it when Leora phoned and she’d been out earlier for a walk in the frozen air hoping the exercise would clear her head, but as it happened she’d felt utterly drained when she got back to the hotel and laid her cheek down on the pillow for a nap that must have stretched on for hours. She was exhausted, run-down, miserable. Because she wasn’t sleeping well at night. Wasn’t eating well either. And so she was in her rooms, staring numbly at a plate of
suprême de volaille
and stewed carrots when Leora’s call came through.
suprême de volaille
and stewed carrots when Leora’s call came through.
“Oh, hon,” Leora blurted without waiting for any of the usual blandishments, and it was as if she were right there in the room with her. “I’m so sorry.”
“Sorry? For what? What’s happened?”
A pause, just to let her heart skip a beat. “Haven’t you seen the newspapers? ”
“No. Not today. Not yet. I was out walking and then I, well, I—why, what did they say?”
What they’d said was burned into her brain now, in eighteen-point type: DANCER GIVES BIRTH TO WRIGHT’S LOVE CHILD.
38
Gives birth. Love child. Frank’s love child.
Six pounds, seven ounces. A girl. They’d named her Iovanna. And what kind of name was that? Iovanna, Olgivanna, Russian names, names with treacly little foreign suffixes as if this were some suburb of Moscow—but this wasn’t Moscow, not the last time she’d looked. This was Chicago, in the U.S.A. There was no Volga here, no windblown steppes and Bolshevik revolutions—and what was he thinking? What was Frank thinking?
38
Gives birth. Love child. Frank’s love child.
Six pounds, seven ounces. A girl. They’d named her Iovanna. And what kind of name was that? Iovanna, Olgivanna, Russian names, names with treacly little foreign suffixes as if this were some suburb of Moscow—but this wasn’t Moscow, not the last time she’d looked. This was Chicago, in the U.S.A. There was no Volga here, no windblown steppes and Bolshevik revolutions—and what was he thinking? What was Frank thinking?
Oh, she’d known it was coming—she’d been bracing for it since that weasel of a detective called to annihilate her afternoon, her holiday, her autumn, her winter, her year—and yet she’d never dreamed it would come to this, cheap headlines, cheap sensation, a mockery of everything she was in her deepest self. Everyone she knew would be laughing at her now, Maude Miriam Noel, wife of the adulterer, the woman who couldn’t satisfy the great architect or even appease him, who couldn’t give him a child because she was too old, because she was broken down, over the hill, cast out and abandoned. She was dirt. Lower than dirt. She was nothing.
Even as she flung the papers across the room and took up the first thing to hand—a vase, a hotel vase with an arrangement of dried flowers that infuriated her, that made her feel as if she were dried up and dead too—just for the satisfaction of seeing it explode against the near wall, she knew that the pravaz would give her no release, not today, not the way she was feeling. It took her no more than five minutes to see to her face in the mirror and wrap herself in her furs, and then she was downstairs and out on the street in the air that hit her like a dose of smelling salts. The whole world opened up then. The doorman. The cabbie. Streets, pigeons, a crust of snow. And where to? The hospital. The one named in the paper, where mother and child were reported to be doing well. And resting. Resting comfortably.
She’d show them rest, oh, yes, she would, and already she could picture it, another scene like the one in the hotel lobby, and let them come, let the reporters come.
I want to see the baby!,
she would scream until there was no one in all that towering edifice with its gleaming corridors and sheltered rooms who couldn’t hear her loud and clear,
I want to see my husband’s baby!
I want to see the baby!,
she would scream until there was no one in all that towering edifice with its gleaming corridors and sheltered rooms who couldn’t hear her loud and clear,
I want to see my husband’s baby!
CHAPTER 5: THE RICHARDSONS
T
here was a taint of antiseptic—of carbolic acid or rubbing alcohol or whatever it was—emanating from every corner of the room, suffusing the air, choking her till she felt she could barely breathe. The shades were drawn. There was a dull hum of electricity, lights flickering and brightening and flickering again. Infants mewled, trays rattled, someone somewhere was stewing tomatoes, beets, cabbage. And meat. Meat that stank of the pan and the icebox and the slaughterhouse. She kept asking the nurse to open the window and the nurse kept telling her to lie back and rest and not to worry herself—rest, that was what she needed. “Just close your eyes now,” the nurse whispered in her liminal tones. “You want to regain your strength, don’t you? For the sake of your baby? And your husband?”
here was a taint of antiseptic—of carbolic acid or rubbing alcohol or whatever it was—emanating from every corner of the room, suffusing the air, choking her till she felt she could barely breathe. The shades were drawn. There was a dull hum of electricity, lights flickering and brightening and flickering again. Infants mewled, trays rattled, someone somewhere was stewing tomatoes, beets, cabbage. And meat. Meat that stank of the pan and the icebox and the slaughterhouse. She kept asking the nurse to open the window and the nurse kept telling her to lie back and rest and not to worry herself—rest, that was what she needed. “Just close your eyes now,” the nurse whispered in her liminal tones. “You want to regain your strength, don’t you? For the sake of your baby? And your husband?”
Olgivanna couldn’t help smiling. Her husband was the last person she wanted to see, but how would the nurse know that? Unless she read the papers. But of course she did read the papers. They all did and they all knew that Iovanna—Pussy, her Pussy
39
—the most perfect and exquisite infant in the world, in the history of the world, was born out of wedlock, an illegitimate child, a bastard, a bastard for people to sneer at and revile. Olgivanna didn’t read the papers. And she didn’t want her husband. Her
ex
-husband. She wanted Frank, but Frank was working in his studio and he’d promised to be back to see her in the evening, yet wasn’t it evening now? And why was it so stifling in here and why, why, why couldn’t anyone throw open the window or even raise it an inch, half an inch, anything—anything to dissipate the staleness of the air? “Nurse!” she called out, and she tried to sit up but felt nauseous, felt weak, and let her head sink back into the pillow.
39
—the most perfect and exquisite infant in the world, in the history of the world, was born out of wedlock, an illegitimate child, a bastard, a bastard for people to sneer at and revile. Olgivanna didn’t read the papers. And she didn’t want her husband. Her
ex
-husband. She wanted Frank, but Frank was working in his studio and he’d promised to be back to see her in the evening, yet wasn’t it evening now? And why was it so stifling in here and why, why, why couldn’t anyone throw open the window or even raise it an inch, half an inch, anything—anything to dissipate the staleness of the air? “Nurse!” she called out, and she tried to sit up but felt nauseous, felt weak, and let her head sink back into the pillow.
Later—how much later she couldn’t say, but it seemed to be darker now, didn’t it?—the nurse appeared at the door with Iovanna. Her daughter. Her newborn. The light of her life, the reason for all of this, for this room with the flowers Frank had sent over, a private room with a window and a reek of carbolic acid, and the weakness she felt too. She could barely lift her arms to accept the baby, the bundle of her, light as a thought and yet heavy suddenly, impossibly heavy, miniature hands clenching and flying open again, and then the feel of the suction at her breast, a long sweet release that brought her up out of the bed and the room and out into the ambient night, soaring.
In her dream she flew high over the embracing roofs of Taliesin, the baby clutched in her arms, and there was Frank, dwindling below her, and he was shouting to her, his hands cupped to his mouth,
Look out, watch out, be careful . . .
And then there was a noise, a sudden sharp thump and rattle, something clattering in the hall, a woman’s voice rising up out of a confusion of voices, and what was it? “I’m sorry, ma’am”—her nurse, Alice, straining against a whisper—“but visiting hours are over.”
Look out, watch out, be careful . . .
And then there was a noise, a sudden sharp thump and rattle, something clattering in the hall, a woman’s voice rising up out of a confusion of voices, and what was it? “I’m sorry, ma’am”—her nurse, Alice, straining against a whisper—“but visiting hours are over.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Get out of my way!”
“I’m sorry, but—Dinah, Dinah, would you come here, please?”
“Which room? I insist you tell me which room—”
“Please, please, ma’am, won’t you hold your voice down? The infants are—Dinah, will you please tell this lady that we just cannot accept—”
Pussy began to stir, kicking out her legs in a spasm even as her eyes flashed open, two pinpoints of light in the muted darkness of the room. She wasn’t fussing, not yet, just lying there orienting herself, awakening to the world once again. Olgivanna’s eyes went to the door. Which stood ajar—or half-open, actually, because the nurses liked to be within earshot in the event of an emergency, but this wasn’t an emergency, was it?
The voices rose, tangled, fell back again. There was a brief tap dance of heels on the linoleum flooring, renewed protests, and then the sounds receded down the hall in the opposite direction. Though she wasn’t feeling particularly alert—it was as if she’d been drugged, and why couldn’t she regain her strength, what was wrong with her?—she had a moment of clarity that allowed a single pulse of alarm to flash through her. What if it was Miriam? Frank’s wife. Miriam. The madwoman. He’d warned her about how irrational Miriam could be, how violent and unpredictable.
40
And she could still hear the tortured cry that had come at her over the telephone wire, that choked mad searing expostulation that was like no human sound she’d ever heard. She drew Iovanna to her and held her breath.
40
And she could still hear the tortured cry that had come at her over the telephone wire, that choked mad searing expostulation that was like no human sound she’d ever heard. She drew Iovanna to her and held her breath.
Suddenly there was a clatter of footsteps, bold and rapid, hurrying down the hall toward her. She heard Alice cry out “Stop!” in a breathless gasp and then there were more footsteps and a man’s voice was repeating the injunction even as the door of the room across from hers was flung open and a woman entered her line of vision, all skirts and hat and angry flailing shoulders. A thought darted in and out of her head—should she try to hide the baby, tuck her in under the bedclothes, the pillows, slip her down on the floor beneath the bed?—and then the door flew back and there she was, Miriam, her face bloated and red, her eyes set close as an animal’s, Miriam in the flesh, her mouth twisting round the only word she could summon: “You!” she shouted. “You!”
By the time Frank arrived—out of breath, his hair windblown, his face drained—the danger had passed, or the immediate danger, at any rate. The orderly had seen to that. Miriam was gone now, long gone, ushered out the door in a whirlwind of threats and insults, and the corridors were hushed as in the aftermath of some natural disaster, but Olgivanna could see her still. Feel her. Feel her hate and envy and fear radiating out of the very atmosphere itself. There’d been a moment of suspended time as the door struck the wall and rebounded in slow motion, this woman, Frank’s
wife,
poised on the threshold of the room, her features working through the shadings of her emotions, a moment in which Olgivanna, as weak as she was, as terrified and humiliated, could see into her, the abandoned wife come face-to-face with her successor, her bugbear, the succubus that had stolen her husband away. She felt something move inside her. Not aggression or the will to defend herself—though there was that if it came to it—but something akin to pity.
wife,
poised on the threshold of the room, her features working through the shadings of her emotions, a moment in which Olgivanna, as weak as she was, as terrified and humiliated, could see into her, the abandoned wife come face-to-face with her successor, her bugbear, the succubus that had stolen her husband away. She felt something move inside her. Not aggression or the will to defend herself—though there was that if it came to it—but something akin to pity.
It was short-lived.
Because even as the orderly vaulted into the frame, even as he seized Miriam by the arm and Miriam turned on him like a cat tossed in a bag, the vile words began to spew out. “Slut!” she shrieked, jerking away from him and thrusting her face back into the room. “Vampire! Whore! You leave my husband alone!” But then Alice was there, slipping past them to secure the door and press her weight against the impervious slab of oak while Iovanna, compromised on the third day of her inchoate life, began to cry with a sharp sudden intake of breath, her face suffused with blood and her hands grasping at the air as if she could possess it.
“I know you’re weak,” Frank was saying. He was pacing the room, five steps to the right and pivot, five steps to the left and pivot again. “It was a difficult birth. You need your rest. But I can’t let this sort of thing go on—it’s just too risky. And the newspapers—”
“She has frightened me. And the baby. The baby has started crying.”
“Damn her. Damn that woman.”
The bedclothes pressed down on her like the lid of a tomb. She’d never felt wearier in her life. “She is your wife, Frank. But how could she be? How could you have
loved
her?”
loved
her?”
He didn’t come to her, didn’t take her hand or put his arm around her or smooth her hair away from her face—he just kept pacing, and the question, the question of love, then and now, went unanswered. All at once the room seemed to shrink, dwindling before her eyes. She felt as if she were in a prison cell, and who was the jailer? He was. Frank was. “She’s vengeful,” he said, “that’s all. A spurned woman—and she was the one who left me, let me remind you . . . But we’ve got to get you out of here, which is why I telephoned to your brother.”
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