As for the white denizens: a handful of tough-looking Irishmen in fifty-dollar suits with “dames” on their arms. A Jew who brings his barrel of hats into the club with him — he’s a very formal older man who closes his eyes and nods slowly to the music no matter how wild the tune. Tonight there’s also a high society table out for a low time — girls and boys who have no idea where they are and think themselves awfully clever for being there. They probably think the same thing of me.
There are also a few “working girls” of every shade who arrive alone and leave escorted several times throughout the evening under the watchful eye of the game-keeper, who lounges in the corner consulting his solid gold watch. I sometimes wonder, can it be any harder than washing floors? Or having seven babies?
Business must be booming because the management has installed a small stage, footlights and a sparkly purple curtain with “MECCA” written à la Araby in gold sequins against a silhouette of minarets. Ten minutes after we sit down, a man in a tuxedo comes out from behind the curtain and announces, “Ladies and gentlemen, Club Mecca proudly presents ‘Ali Baba and his Forty Follies!’”
The curtain parts on a harem. Light-skinned girls and a very fat dark sultan lounge on striped pillows. The girls dance the seven veils while he sings a song of illicit lust for one of them — the lightest one — and the band plays snaky music. The tent flaps part and handsome Prince Ahmed pokes his turbaned head through and kisses the heroine. Then bingo, you’re in Gay Paree doing the cancan, and then the same young lovers flee the evil sultan all through the world’s capitals while the chorus girls quick-change and outdance Ziegfield’s. We went to Hawaii, Japan, Holland and Canada, where they pretended to be Eskimos and mounties! And although the girls changed costumes and countries every five seconds, they never wore more than half a dozen square inches, even when they were fur-clad in Canada’s frozen wastes.
After the show the band played dance tunes but I couldn’t for the life of me get Rose up on her feet. She did, however, graciously nod when other gentle and not so gentle men requested her permission to dance with me. I danced with the busted-nose Irishman, built like a tree stump but light on his feet, boy. With the Jewish haberdasher, who made a waltz out of everything. With a lily-white boy from Long Island — I asked him if he was acquainted with the Burgesses and he answered importantly that they were his dear friends. I asked him if he knew Jeanne and he got a blank look — then said come to think of it there was a daughter years ago who “died tragically abroad”. I laughed and he didn’t ask for a second dance — just as well, he was like shifting sticks.
All the while, Rose slouched over her beer in that lovely suit. She didn’t bat an eye until I danced with my pal Nico. It bothered her, I could tell, although why it should be any different than with the white fellas I don’t know. Only difference I can see is, except for the stocky Irishman, the Negro men are the best on their feet. When I sat back down at the table while the band took a break, Rose said, “I’ll dance with you if you teach me.”
It was the first thing she’d said for an hour. I realized I had wanted to make her jealous. It bugged me that we had made it all the way to this club with her looking so gorgeous but all she wanted to do was sulk. I asked her how she liked the show.
“Irredeemably puerile.”
“The dancing was great.”
“The outfits are an outrage.”
“Look who’s talking.”
“At least I’m fully clothed.”
I made her take a sip of my whiskey, then I did something crazy — I kissed her on the lips. Just quickly, you know, but we both blushed. She didn’t object, she simply raised her hand for the waiter and demanded two more drinks in a deep voice to make me laugh, then whispered desperately in my ear, “Do you have enough money?” I brushed my ear against her lips. She stayed perfectly still. I kissed her neck between the stiff white collar and her earlobe. I slipped my hand round the back of her head below her hat and stroked that gentle dip at the base of the skull. She turned slightly and kissed my mouth. So softly. I forgot where we were. That we were anywhere. We just looked at each other … so that’s who you are.
The drinks came. And Rose looked away, shy again. What will happen to me if Rose ever ceases to be shy? I will have an attack of all the shyness I’ve been saving up.
Then something happened that I’d never seen before. The place flooded and turned overwhelmingly black, men and women both. I’ll bet if I’d looked hard enough I’d’ve seen the ladies from Rose’s front steps braving the Devil’s music. The word must’ve spread since I’d been here. The house lights dimmed and the footlights shimmered on the minarets of Mecca. Silence fell over the whole joint and the impresario stepped up to invoke the Goddess of Blues, “Ladies and gentlemen, the star of our show: The Empress of the Blues. Cleopatra of Jazz. The Lowest, the Highest, the Holiest, the Sweetest, Miss! Jessie! Hogan!”
Applause and shouts to outdo the bravissimas of a grand finale though the curtain has yet to open. It parts purple and gold to reveal: pearls and peacock-blue. Fourteen carats wink at every compass point. She starts off in a spotlight and emits a single moan. It goes on for minutes — growing, subsiding, exploding, until you’re not sure if she’s praying or cursing. She drags her voice over gravel, then soothes it with silk, she crucifies, dies, buries and rises, it will come again to save the living and the dead. People spontaneously applaud and shout, sometimes all together, sometimes singly. La Hogan is absolutely silent after the opening sacrament while God descends invisibly to investigate. Then, once He’s split and the coast is clear, she spurts like a trumpet till the trumpet can’t take it any more and hits her back — they fight blow for blow till she raises her arms and calls a truce. She takes a step off the stage. The audience yelps, the trombone belts a shocked comment and she bursts into her song without words, quadruple time, strutting to the centre of the hall, dancing, the band following her like obedient treasure-bearers — except for piano — the drummer beats on every passing surface, people start clapping time as The Hogan somehow threads her stuff between the spindly tables and throngs of faithful. At the end of that first number she says, “Welcome and good evening,” just as though she were an ordinary mortal. Sweat streams from her pearl headband and she flashes her ivory and gold smile. I guess she must weigh a good two hundred pounds.
I looked over at Rose. While everyone else in the place was swaying and rocking and beaming, she sat perfectly serious, listening and watching.
Afterwards, you know what she said about the music?
“Crude but compelling.”
High praise indeed.
Under a smoky streetlamp I stood face to face with my beloved and pricked my fingers against the diamond studs of her immaculate shirt front. Being tall, she slipped her hands naturally about my hips and pulled me close. And being bold, I put my mouth on hers and this time went inside and told her all the things I’d been longing to. Dark and sweet, the elixir of love is in her mouth. The more I drink, the more I remember all the things we’ve never done. I was a ghost until I touched you. Never swallowed mortal food until I tasted you, never understood the spoken word until I found your tongue. I’ve been a sleep-walker, sad somnambula, hands outstretched to strike the solid thing that could awaken me to life at last. I have only ever stood here under this lamp, against your body, I’ve missed you all my life.
She kissed my face like fire. And it happened, I grew shy and could only give her the top of my head, which she kissed anyway. She said in a voice I’d never heard before, “I didn’t think you had a scent, but you do.” Which made me laugh because what a thing to say! But she explained, “No. Everyone has a scent and you either like it or you don’t or you’re indifferent. And you had no scent. And I thought that was spooky.”
“You’re easily spooked.”
I love talking with our arms around each other.
“It made you seem not quite human,” she said.
“I’m not —”
&n
bsp; “Don’t —”
“Scaredy-cat.”
She kissed me again and we didn’t stop for a long time, except to lean out of the light when we heard horses coming. We slipped into an alley and I pulled her shirt out from her pants. I pressed my centre into her and she sighed. It made me flood from inside, the sweetest music. We were finally dancing. I slid my hands under and up her smooth sides, I wanted to be slow to savour but we couldn’t, she gripped me and moved under me. I felt her nipples under my palms and I think I died. Rose gasped as though I’d stabbed her and I felt like a savage robbing a sacred tree, her thigh between my legs. I found her hand and led it to a place I know, I kissed it with the mouth that I keep hidden, then took her inside and sucked her like the greedy tide that can’t decide to swallow or disgorge. I lost track of everything. And even after I finally could stop, I knew that I would never be finished.
Oh Rose, it’s not enough until I have all of you inside me, then give you back to the world fresh and new from my belly. She just said softly, “Oh,” for the longest time.
Imagine, in an alley. It’s not very romantic. But somehow it was. Terribly.
Crude but compelling.
The sign says “Lebanon”. Could I really have slept so long? Lily wonders.
“I said out!”
Lily emerges from the gloom of the boxcar and the signalman is remorseful.
“Need some help there?”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Where you going, missy?”
“New York City.”
“Well you’re a bit off course in that case, ain’t ya.”
“I’m in Lebanon. Where’s New York?”
“Eighty or so miles back the way you come, to Portland then turn right, heh heh — hey, where you going?”
“Back.”
“You can’t walk.”
“Yes I can, don’t worry.”
Two hours later:
“Hello again, missy.”
“Hello sir. I forgot my mother’s diary on the train.”
He hand-pumps them over the rails twelve miles to the lumberyards. He climbs into twenty-nine boxcars.
“This it?”
“Yes. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Bye.”
“Here.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Don’t wait too long to eat it, there’s mayo in it.”
“Don’t worry.”
September 6 — Music class every morning. Mecca every night. It’s clear which Rose is in disguise.
Sat. — 7 — Yesterday Jeanne leaned in close to me and said, “You remind me of someone, peaches.”
I bit, I said, “Really, Jeanne? Who?”
And she said with her crooked smile that is, apparently, worth paying for, “Me.”
I didn’t say anything. She took a big drag off her fag, held it in, then exhaled. “I’ll bet your Daddy’s just crazy about you.”
I’ve taken to saying a Hail Mary before I come into the apartment.
Mon — 9 — You have never seen two such professionals. The Kaiser is delighted with my progress. Sometimes he just says to me, “Sing,” and to Rose, “Miss Lacroix, play if you please.” And sits back. How the mighty have mellowed. We’re just gently sculling till November.
I do sometimes get a jolting sensation — no sooner do I take leave of Rose in the afternoon in her ribbons and bows and dead composers, than I meet my lover in the snazzy suit for a night of jazz and jive. We tried it. It’s made from a plant. Lovely aroma. Bought it from the Chinaman. Makes you lose time, makes you hear each note of music from every direction at once. Makes you make love slowly. But I haven’t bought any more because I don’t want my awake senses dulled. If all music is fascinating, then none is. And there’s plenty of time to slow down, there’s the whole rest of our lives.
For three nights we didn’t go to Mecca. I went to Rose’s place and waited while she doctored her mother and changed clothes. (I’ve given her the sash from my new green dress. I wound it round her charcoal hat to remind her. She said she doesn’t require reminding. Then she kissed me in that way that makes me hate time.) We dined and went out. We can’t stay at her place because of Jeanne’s “company”. We passed one of her gentlemen on the stairs the second night. An older light brown man with a paunch and a monocle. “He runs the credit union,” Rose told me. I guess Jeanne does pretty well. Covers her doctor bills, anyhow. Enough men will pay for a blonde princess even if she’s washed up and strung out.
It’s not her job that bothers me, it’s her. What I get from Jeanne is a big echo. Where is she really? She still hasn’t said a word about having seen us. I’m used to being there now when Rose gives her her shot. That’s all she cares about. She still cooks and sets the table for three every night, even though she is always horizontal by suppertime — come to think of it, I have never seen her eat. And I’m used to her sleazy stuck-up manner. The other evening she drawled at me, “I’m a Burgess, you know — I don’t know if Rosie told you — one of the Long Island Burgesses. My father was George Morecombe Burgess.”
And I drawled back, “Oh really. I’m a Piper, one of the Cape Breton Island Pipers. Perhaps you’ve heard of my father, James.”
Her smile is now more sneer than leer, which is how I know she respects me somewhat. She plays cat and mouse: “Kathleen, dear, don’t you have a young man waiting for you in torment somewhere?” And after a few more drinks, “Beware the dark fruit, darling. He’ll leave you high, oh so high, but dry, baby, to the bone.”
How am I different from Jeanne? She is addicted to morphine. I am addicted to Rose. A rose is not a poppy. That is how I am different from Jeanne.
Something happened after Boston. Lily kept to the highway with the water blinking on her left, and all was well until she noticed water on both sides. Then there was no more land. “Is this Manhattan?” It took a while before someone would answer her. A boy whipped a handful of sand and shells, “Fuckin moron.” A clutch of ringletted pre-debs giggled behind their hands and ran away holding their noses. A long open automobile whizzed by.
The sea was very pretty here, so Lily sat down on a wharf to read and wait until things became clear. A lobster fisherman told her where she was and gave her a juicy claw out of his cauldron.
“The water’s so blue,” she said.
“Is this your first time seeing the ocean?”
“No. But my ocean is grey and green.”
“Where you from?”
“Canada.”
“Oh yeah? I have a cousin in Vancouver, maybe you know her.”
“Maybe I do.”
Our first three nights after that first night: We stroll to Central Park. A place near the Pond. Rose brings a blanket and I bring choke-cherry wine. There’s a thicket that you enter like a rabbit. You crawl for ten feet or so, then you can stand up and see the stars. And only the stars can see you back. We spread the blanket, then we always share a glass of wine before we touch. I thought I would get calmer, surer, but each time we come close I feel almost sick at first. As though each time vibrates with the times before. I feel a terrible sorrow coming up my throat, I don’t know why. And it can only be consoled against the length of her body. Lying down with her for the first time — all the pain I didn’t know I had, till at her touch it disappeared like smoke. Is this what purgatory feels like? To burn painlessly? If so, why isn’t it called heaven?
When my fingers slide against beautiful Rose, when they swell her to a sweet unfolding and she puffs out like a sail at my every breath, when they glisten into her and disappear, it’s as though she were a soldier fallen in the field getting healed by me, her head to one side. I take off her uniform and she can finally come home. You don’t know how beautiful she is. Her hair finally released, black foam. Her skin, nocturnal waters worshipped by the moon, her white lover. I fold her clothes carefully and dress her with my tongue, my hands, my wet centre, the true balm of Gilead. Did you know it closes wounds and o
pens hearts?
My pale green silk dress is what they’d call an undergarment at home. I wear only it. It slips like skin and conforms to the slightest caress like the shirt of a Mongol warrior meant to smooth the piercing arrow’s exit from the wound. It casts an arboreal shade when I kneel above Rose and invite her to refresh herself in this cool glade. “Look,” I say. And I can feel the caress of her eyes. “Touch me.” And it’s the closest thing to having no skin. “Kiss me.” She guides my hips, lowering me to her lips as though to sip from a legendary flask. The more you drink the fuller it gets.
Rose was a bit shocked at first. But I have discovered something about modest people. They’re just waiting for the call. Then they are the first over the wall and into the temple. When she’s inside me I sometimes think of her fingers on the piano. Wicked, I know, but I can’t help it. She is endowed with a span of a tenth. I sometimes sing a line of Traviata between her thighs, which scandalizes her because she is as serious about sex as she is about music. Reverent.
When will she discover that I am from a lesser race of immortals? But the high deities have always needed pixies to persuade them down to earth. When she no longer needs an intermediary, will she still love me?
“I love you, Rose.”
“I love you, I love you, love you.”
“Who?”
“Kathleen.”
Then we bathe in the Pond.
When I arrived home on the third night — morning actually — Giles was up already with the coffee perking. I thought, oh no, this is it. She was in her heavy brocade dressing-gown with the Louis IV sheep frolicking — somewhere there is a parlour with a naked armchair. But really, what am I to make of her? She put the marmalade on the table and said wispily, “Kathleen, dear, I’d really rather you brought your friend home nights.”
I’m acting cocky here on paper but I nearly spewed. She said, “I know you two have formed an attachment and naturally friends lose track of time. There just seems to be so much to talk about.”