they had before and she was grateful. Conversation was not difficult
when the music was soft. In fact, the music seemed to underline many
things, made emotional statements dramatic. Unfortunately, with George
_Robert_ Lewis sitting at the table there was no opportunity
to make emotional statements. He would have to leave. She began to
concentrate on this as they talked now of trivial things. Finally he
received her subconscious message. He stood up.
“I hope you’ll excuse me a moment but I have to go backstage. I’ll only
be gone a minute.” He left quickly, going around the stage and behind
the crimson curtain.
“He’s a funny little queer, isn’t he?” commented Holton.
“He’s one of the great aesthetes. You’re glad you came tonight?”
“It’s interesting,” he said. He was defending himself now.
“This is a very ...” she paused, trying to think of the right word,
“trivial world. I don’t think you’ll like it.”
“Perhaps I will. I used to be something of a sculptor.” He said this
laughing, and she could see that he was quite serious.
“Then why don’t you do it?”
“I wasn’t good enough. I haven’t done any since I was in college.”
“Would you like to do it?”
“I don’t think so.” She couldn’t tell whether he meant this or not.
The waiter came and put their glasses down on the table with a look of
boredom; in fact, he yawned slightly as he did it. He tried to catch
Holton’s eye but failed. Sulkily he walked away.
“I don’t want this,” said Carla, pointing to the glass.
“I’ll take it,” said Holton and he began to drink his own, his teeth
making clicking sounds as the ice bobbed against them.
“You like what you’re doing now?” asked Carla.
He put the glass down and frowned. “I suppose I do. I have to do it and
so I figure I might as well like it.”
“Perhaps you might find something you like better.”
“What?”
“You might be a sculptor again.”
He laughed. “I’m really no good. I can’t do anything else but this. I
don’t see anything wrong with what I’m doing, anyway.”
“There’s nothing wrong with it if you’re happy; are you?” He didn’t
answer for a moment. Then he said, “I suppose I am.”
“But you’re not in love?”
“What has that to do with it?”
“So many things,” said Carla, and she did not look at him; she avoided
his eyes. He did not understand. She could see that now. The desire,
however, to make him destroy his barriers, to come alive, was becoming
an obsession with her. And then, of course, he had been the first man
she had known and that made him important to her. She had never lost
her feeling for him and she was sad to see him confused; Carla thought
of herself as Joan of Arc: helping the king to his throne. She was not
yet sure, however, that the king wished to reign.
The music was becoming soft and sentimental. Full round chords gushed
around them and people danced on the stage. Men danced with women and
women with men for there was not really much courage among these people.
“Would you like to dance?” asked Holton.
“Not right now.”
He was not disappointed. She watched him as he watched the other people
in the room. This was something new for him. She guessed that he was
shocked by the people he saw at the different tables. He showed nothing
in his face, though. Perhaps he did not recognize them, did not know
them the way she did: she who had married one of them.
“It’s been quite a while, hasn’t it?” said Holton finally.
“Yes, but I haven’t forgotten any of it, have you?”
“Of course not. Naturally I didn’t know whether you wanted to talk
about it. I figured that ... well, after you married Bankton you
wouldn’t want to think about what we did.”
“I don’t,” said Carla, “love Bankton.”
He was shocked and she knew that she had said the right thing if in the
wrong manner.
“But you got married,” said Holton.
She nodded. “I’m afraid I didn’t know very much about him then. I went
to London after the war was over and I stayed with some artists there.
I met him and he made love to me. I thought he was very wonderful. I
had heard stories about him: that he was ... was like these people
here.” She gestured to include the room. “I didn’t believe the stories.
I married him. I found he wanted me for camouflage.”
“Why don’t you divorce him then?”
“Perhaps I shall someday. It seems so much trouble, though. He’s really
a very nice person.”
Holton shook his head, confused. “I don’t see ... I don’t see why he
married you in the first place if he was....”
“He could still like me, Bob.”
“I don’t see how.”
She smiled. “It _is_ hard to explain but anyway you know now that
I don’t feel too deeply about him. You understand this?”
“I suppose so,” said Robert Holton. He _is_ beginning to
understand, thought Carla, happy now: her words had begun to build the
bridge between them. Soon they would meet again.
“You’ve certainly had a funny life,” said Holton, smiling.
“Sometimes I think so but then the most important thing is making
a freedom for oneself. When that’s done nothing is strange because
everything is natural. You know what I mean?”
He nodded. “Sometimes I know.”
She picked up a fork and drew pictures on the white tablecloth. “I want
you to be free,” she said.
“Free from what?”
“You know. From your routine and morals: the things you don’t want.”
He laughed. “You know pretty well what my set of morals is and I don’t
mind the routine so much.”
“I think you do.”
“Why?”
“Why did you want to come here with Lewis tonight? Why are you with me
now?”
He smiled. “Perhaps you’re partly right. I was curious and I do get
bored and....”
“And you’re alone.” She spoke for him.
He finished his drink and did not answer her; there was no need to
answer her.
“Are you glad,” she asked at last, “are you glad to see me again?”
He said that he was. He declared that he was. He made an issue of
it. He was still not at ease with her and she felt desperate. It was
like a battle between them; first one side retreating and the other
advancing.... Or perhaps a hunt. She was the hunter and her memories
the pursued. She knew that beneath his many assumed faces there was the
person she had known in Florence. Deliberately Carla began to smash the
faces.
* * * * *
George _Robert_ Lewis had a very pleasant interview with de
Bianca, the star; after a half-hour, though, he was beginning to get
restless. Dancers seldom talked about anything interesting. Finally he
excused himself, saying that his guests were waiting for him.
They were talking quietly and intimately when he got back to the table.
He took a secret pleasure in interrupting them. Lewis had already
decided that they were lovers.
“I’m so dreadfully sorry that I went off and left you the way I did. It
was stupid of me but I got so involved with Hermes and his amours: he
tells me all about them and though they’re really quite dull I have to
be polite and listen. Have you ordered yet?”
They said that they had not. Lewis immediately became noisily
efficient. He ordered the languid waiter about, gave him careful
instructions and ignored his glances and meaningful gestures. Lewis
never had liked this type at all. The ones like this waiter never
seemed to have any respect for him. They couldn’t understand the
principles for which he stood. They were not artists.
The dinner finally ordered, he turned toward his guests, a
white-toothed smile on his slightly rouged lips (Hermes had lent him
rouge).
“Are you adoring the atmosphere, my dear Mrs Bankton? It’s nothing to
compare with Paris, of course, but you must admit that it’s a lot gayer
than Rome. I love Rome and usually have a marvelous time there but
somehow one never seems to find the same easy atmosphere that we have
here.”
“No, it is not like Rome,” agreed Carla. What wonderful golden skin she
has, thought Lewis, enjoying her aesthetically. He didn’t dislike women
the way many of his friends did. He felt, in fact, most compatible with
them.
“Are there many places like this in New York?” asked Holton. Lewis was
pleased that he had caught on. Lewis, always optimistic, wondered if it
might not be possible to make some sort of an arrangement.... It was
not impossible, certainly.
“Oh, quite a few, quite a few. They _are_ rather charming from
time to time. I enjoy visiting them and I do feel that the atmosphere
is not uncongenial.” He wondered if perhaps he hadn’t been using the
word “atmosphere” too much.
“I’ve heard about these places,” said Holton without much expression.
“Surely you don’t disapprove?” Lewis was intent on discovering this
now. He could see that Carla was uneasy. Holton was unsatisfactory,
though.
“I don’t care much one way or the other,” he said and he turned to
Carla and began to talk to her again. Lewis, disappointed, listened to
them as they talked of Fiesole.
Lewis was not quite sure what their relationship was. As they talked he
gathered that she was more interested than he in continuing it. That
was usually the case, however. Young men like Holton were apt to be a
little unfeeling, a little stuffy. George _Robert_ Lewis thought
pleasantly of young men.
When he felt that they had talked too long without him, he interrupted.
“When were you last in Fiesole?” He looked at Carla, intending the
question for her; it was difficult not having a name to call her.
She looked at him as though she had forgotten him completely. “In
Fiesole? I was there just a year ago.”
“I suppose it’s pretty well recovered from the war. I told you how I
used to love visiting there before the war. I hope it will always be
pleasant.”
“I think it will,” said Carla.
“Europe must’ve been very nice before the war,” said Holton.
George _Robert_ Lewis made an elaborate motion to show just what
it had been before the war; as he was finishing his movement the waiter
brought them their dinner: a number of dishes with filet of sole at the
center.
“I hope you enjoy it,” said the waiter spitefully, putting the dishes
down loudly and angrily. He walked away, his duty done.
Lewis sighed. “These dreadful waiters, they presume so. I suppose that
it’s all a part of the American dream. Shall we begin?” Like a priest
of a pagan cult he began to perform the ritual of arranging plates, of
removing covers, of neatly moving food from plate to plate, and finally
of eating. The others imitated him.
“When,” asked Robert Holton, after the main part of the dinner had been
eaten, “will the show start?”
Lewis put down his fork carefully, swallowed, and said, “Very soon,
I think. What time is it?” There was an examination of watches:
ten-fifteen. “The show starts at ten-thirty. I hope you’re not
impatient. The audience is very often as interesting as the show. But I
must say that de Bianca’s dance is in another world and that we mustn’t
miss it. I’ll be very curious to know how you react.”
“There used to be a place in Paris like this where they had a wonderful
dancer of the same type. I suppose he’s the type of dancer I think he
is?” said Carla.
“He is quite probably the sort of dancer you think he is,” said Lewis,
smiling, excluding Holton from his words. “The only difference is
that he is a great artist, interpretive artist, I mean. I know you’ll
appreciate him.”
A group of people who knew Lewis came over to their table. They acted
most respectfully and he hoped that Carla and Holton were noticing what
an important person he was. He spoke nicely to them, shook hands with
them, and let them know that he was busy. They left him then, smiling.
Smiling himself, he turned to Carla and Holton and he was disappointed
to find them talking together again. Holton had taken Carla’s hand in
his and Lewis felt a strange anguish, felt an inward betrayal. He did
not know what had been betrayed, however.
“I’m sorry, my dear, that I didn’t introduce you to those people. It
was rude of me because they _all_ admire your husband’s work.”
“That’s perfectly all right,” said Carla. “I know so little about his
work. I’m only a layman, you know.”
“I can hardly believe that. You must’ve been an artist yourself at one
time.”
She shook her head. “No, I was never an artist at anything. Except at
living, perhaps.” Trumpets sounded loudly from the band, giving her
statement an absurd grandeur. She sensed this and laughed. “I wish to
say that I try to make my life a complete thing.”
“But what a marvelous thing to want to do! All of us try that but when
we fail at it (and alas we most of us fail) then we must find ourselves
a medium to guard our egos, to protect our fears.”
“That’s for the talented, Mr Lewis, but for the rest of us, the
majority, only our lives count. We must make them natural.”
“And that,” said Robert Holton suddenly, “is for the rich to do. The
rest of us can’t even do that.”
“How delightful!” exclaimed Lewis. “We have here the three
representatives of humanity: the rich and ... free? the poor and
trapped, and the artist who is finding both freedom and an opiate. But
how wonderfully symbolic! We’re practically an allegory. I suppose we
can reach some understanding.”
“How?” asked Holton and Lewis could see that he was asking Carla, not
him. “How can you get what you want without money? I don’t see how you
can ever do what you want if you aren’t free.”
“I think,” said Carla, “that you can become free. You can get free in
art and you can get free in love. Money hasn’t much to do with it. You
can’t go anywhere alone. I don’t think it’s possible to be sane alone,
without love.”
“I think you’re right,” said Lewis sincerely and sadly, allowing
the now soft music to dissolve his mind into an emotional waste out
of which, of course, came art. “I think you have explained all the
tragedies in the world.”
“And all the happiness,” murmured Carla, looking at Holton. Holton
smiled then. It was the first time that Lewis had seen him smile and he
was struck by the gentleness and beauty of his face. He was beginning
to see the person under the rather rigid mask and he understood now
why this quite wonderful woman was in love. Holton was about to say
something when the band made a crescendo and the lights on the stage
went up. The show was about to begin.
* * * * *
A slender little man, ineptly painted, appeared on the stage and
welcomed the audience to the night club.
He then motioned and the lights in the room went out leaving only the
stage with its curtain backdrop lighted. The band began to play a
current song and the master of ceremonies proceeded to sing, using new
dirty lyrics which made the audience laugh. He then told a joke about
fairies. The audience laughed loudly at this, reveling in exposure;
often their masks became too tight, too heavy. He removed them.
Finished with his joke, he bowed and several persons came onto the
stage. They were probably men. They wore dresses and several of them
had faces of great beauty. They danced, parodying women, transcending
the single sex. And in the audience people looked at one another and
nodded and looked again at the stage, smiles on their faces.
When their dance was finished they left. There was much noise from the
audience.
Then a thin young man swayed onto the stage, took the microphone in his
hands and sang a sexual funny song.
“Who is that?” asked Carla, turning to Lewis.
“Our waiter, darling,” whispered Lewis; “all the performers are
waiters, too. Isn’t it exciting?”
Carla said nothing. Lewis looked at Holton. There was little light in
the room and he couldn’t make out his expression. Holton was sitting
motionless, one hand on the table, one hand touching Carla’s.
Their waiter was so well received that he sang another song.
More dancers appeared. This time they were real women and the men who
came out with them were dressed as men. They did a serious near-ballet
but, because they didn’t know how to dance very well and because they
didn’t particularly care, the dance was funny and Holton laughed. Lewis
and Carla didn’t laugh: for different reasons.
Suddenly in the middle of the dance a voice off stage announced loudly,
“Jerry!” and a girl dressed in a fake tiger skin ran onto the stage.
The audience whistled and stamped and a table of girls near the stage
applauded hysterically. The girl’s face was square and smooth and hard,
without expression. Her body was strong and slim and startlingly white.
One shoulder and most of one breast were bare.
She moved in a stylized jungle fashion among the other dancers who
ran from her, simulating fear as they did. Finally she was left alone
on the stage. She danced then, showing as much of her hard white body
as she could. Her face never changed expression, however. She always
looked straight ahead without smiling, her square face rigid.
And, at last, as a climax, she unfastened the tiger skin and with a
quick gesture pulled it off and for a moment let the audience see her
white hard body. Then the lights went off and she disappeared as the
women in the audience shrieked their delight and the men, catching some
of the hysteria, applauded loudly.
The lights came on again and the stage was empty. The band played
uncompelling music. “What,” asked Lewis, turning to Holton, “did you
think of her? Isn’t she a perfect savage?”
“No, I don’t think she is,” said Holton seriously. “I don’t think she
was good at all, did you?”
“Why, yes, I thought she had something. A certain ... how shall I say
... banked fire?”
“I agree with Bob,” said Carla. “I don’t think she’s a savage; I don’t
think she’s natural.”
“Just prejudice,” said Lewis lightly, gesturing with his hand. “Just
prejudice; anyway, the girls here love her.” He pointed to a table of
women. The dancer, wearing a dressing gown now, was sitting on the lap
of one.
Holton chuckled.
“What amuses you?” asked Lewis but Holton wouldn’t answer him.
Carla told them of a dancer in Paris, like this dancer, and as she
talked the lights went off in the room and the band began to play.
Suddenly a spotlight was turned upon the stage and the room became
quiet as the people waited to see the thing they had heard of, the
thing they had come to see.
Softly the orchestra played.
A boy with blond curling hair and a smooth white face walked onto
the stage, turned his back to the audience, and hung a round silver
moon from a hook attached to the low ceiling. He stood back a moment,
looking at the moon, and then, satisfied that it was right, he stepped
off the small stage and sat down on a bench near the wings.
The silver moon shone dully, dominating the stage and the room. In the
middle of the moon there was a mask: a painted mask, enticing, sexual,
ambiguous, a youth or a woman. From this mask long veils of pink and
blue silk quivered gently, stirred by the now-excited breathing of the
audience. They watched this mask and, watching, waited for the dance to
begin.
A voice came startlingly into the room from a loud-speaker. Said the
voice: “We take great pride in introducing the star of our show, the
one and only Hermes de Bianca. To the music of a Tschaikovsky concerto
he will do a dance symbolic of the struggle between the material and
the spiritual natures of man. Introducing MR HERMES DE BIANCA!”
The band began to play the concerto. More lights, multicolored lights,
were turned upon the stage. The veils of the moon fluttered and Hermes
de Bianca entered.
A long sigh came from the audience as he appeared and began to dance.
He wore a thin silk costume, mysterious and black, with flowing
sleeves. He was fat, not grossly fat like a man, but rather the plump
voluptuousness of an old belle; his skin shone white through the
semi-transparent costume.
His hips were heavy and feminine. His hands and feet were tiny; he was
very proud of them, for he gestured with his hands and pirouetted on
the tips of his dainty feet. His breasts were the breasts of a woman.
Methodically he danced. With an obscene grace he moved about the stage,
moved like a yielding woman exulting in her passivity.
His face:
There are the faces of men and there are the faces of women and there
are also the faces of children, but this was yet another face.
The skin was smooth and silken-looking. The face was beautiful;
his eyes were widened with paint and across the upper eyelids rows
of shining, diamond-like stones were glued, making his slightest
expression glitter in the light.
As he danced he would touch his hair from time to time, using the most
common of feminine gestures. His hair was dark and oiled, with an
artificial peak over the forehead. And, most striking of all, streaks
of gray had been painted at the temples.
The music then became sad and, as it did, his dance became slower,
more sensual. His wide painted mouth was never still, always working,
always moist, the lips never without expression; now parted, showing
desire, now petulant, now commanding, always enticing young men to love.
He moved with great lightness, handling his heaviness gracefully as he
advanced upon the moon, making love to the mask.
Then, as the music became louder, more compelling, he whirled and
twisted among the veils of the moon, wrapping himself in them,
surrendering to the mask, approaching and retreating, always attracted
to the painted mask.
But, finally, he was the one conquered, the one who surrendered, the
passive one. And he stood there, the sounds of music all about him,
engulfing him, his back arched, his head thrown back and his plump
white stomach shuddering beneath the dark material of his costume.
And then, as the music reached a climax, he whirled in the center of
the stage, violent, obscene in a desire to be possessed.
The music stopped.
There was silence in the room--no sound save the unheard thundering
of many quick-beating hearts. The ones who understood were too moved
to speak and the ones who did not understand were embarrassed and
sickened, aware of their danger, and afraid.
He bowed to the audience now, his moist red mouth smiling brilliantly,
the mouth of an actress awaiting applause. The applause came,
destroying the silence in the room, creating another less frightening
mood, replenishing his ego.
Smiling, he walked in triumph off the stage.
The lights were turned on at last and the orchestra played a popular
song.
The boy took down the silver moon and the painted mask and as he walked
away he took the reality of the dream with him and couples began to
dance on the stage where Hermes de Bianca had danced. Yet as they
danced, close to one another, there was a certain fear within each of
them, an uncertainty and a dread.
* * * * *
“What do you think of that?” asked Lewis.
He was breathing quickly, Carla noticed. His face was flushed and he
was excited, more excited than she had thought he could possibly be.
“It is very ... erotic,” she said, knowing how inadequate that word was.
Holton was sweating when she turned to ask him what he thought. He
looked angry.
“Did you like it, Bob?” she asked.
“No, I didn’t,” he said. He took out his handkerchief and dried his
face. “Christ, but it’s hot in here. Why don’t we go?”
“In a moment,” said Lewis, now recovered. “You must meet dear Hermes.
I’ll go back stage and get him.” He stood up, looked around the room to
see if he were being watched; then, satisfied that he was, he went back
stage.
“You don’t care for this?” Carla asked.
“I guess I don’t. I never saw anything like this before. I used to hear
a lot of stories but I didn’t think there were really such places.”
“There are many a lot worse, said Carla. Of course I’m used to it. You
see my husband is....”
He smiled. “I guess you were right about not coming here.”
“You don’t regret it?”
“It’s interesting.”
“I think it was a very good idea for you to see something of this
world. Perhaps you can understand me better now, knowing that I’m
living with people like these, married to a person like Lewis.”
He frowned and looked very serious and she was happy to see him
concerned. “Can’t you leave him, can’t you leave Bankton?”
“Where would I go? He’s a charming person and I like him. I’d have to
find someone else before I could leave.”
“Yes,” he said, not understanding her, “I see what you mean.”
George _Robert_ Lewis returned leading Hermes, still in costume,
by the hand.
Everyone was polite. Hermes lisped that he was glad to meet them and he
shook hands squashily with both Holton and Carla. Then they sat down at
the table.
Lewis was excited. “You know Hermes has made the most dreadfully big
decision? He’s going to Rome!” Trumpets did not blow at that moment in
the band; they should have, though.
Carla was puzzled. “You mean he’s going to Italy?”
“No, darling, he’s becoming a Roman Catholic. Isn’t it the most
thrilling thing!”
“I suppose so,” she said. “I used to be a Catholic myself.”
“What happened?” asked Hermes in a lisping little girl’s voice.