“The weaver’s bride was slow to answer, which surprised the weaver because she had always been happy to do all that he had asked. Finally she answered, ‘I do not think you understand, my husband, what you ask of me. The work takes so much out of me. I was glad to do it as my dowry, as a gift from my heart, just as your dance was a gift from your heart. But if you want me to do this, I will do it for you this once.’
“The weaver was ashamed by her words and he didn’t like to feel ashamed. ‘Yes, wife,’ he answered, ‘I want you to do this for me.’
“So she went into the weaving room and locked the door and for two days and two nights the weaver heard the sound of the shuttle knocking against the loom without stop or rest. Finally his wife called from inside that the work was done. When the weaver came inside he found his bride leaning against the loom, her poor hands still clutched around the shuttle like birds’ claws. On the floor by her side was the sail, as flawless and light as the last one.
“The weaver sold this sail for twice again what he sold the last one for and they were able to live two years from the money, but at the end of those two years the money was gone again. When he went to his bride she knew what he was going to ask, before he spoke.
“ ‘Do not ask this of me, husband,’ she said. ‘You ask me to give all of myself.’ Again the weaver felt ashamed and he did not like feeling ashamed. ‘As a good wife should,’ he answered her and showed her to the loom. This time she worked three days and three nights without rest or stop. The weaver waited for her call to come inside but when it did not come he began to grow worried, and then afraid, and then angry. ‘What is so hard about her weaving that she makes such a fuss,’ he said to himself. ‘I will see.’
“When he forced the door open he saw a sight that he would never forget for as long as he lived. Trapped inside the loom stood a huge crane. In its claws it held the shuttle. Its long neck bent down to pull a feather from its wing and then the bird used its beak to feed the feather to the shuttle, weaving the cloth out of the downy white feathers. The silk that fell from the loom shook with the rocking of the bird, trembling like feathers in the wind. As he stood in the doorway, his mouth wide open, the bird turned to him and he saw his wife’s sad black eyes looking at him. When she saw him she dropped the shuttle and flew out the window.
“The weaver called her name and followed her but although she flew slowly and close to the ground he could not keep up with her. Even after he lost sight of her he followed the path of bloody feathers she left behind her but he never found her.”
Mr. Nagamora lowers the papers. Suddenly he looks as tired and worn out as the dying crane. Gone is the youthful man who danced a moment ago; now he looks old and bewildered, looking out at this little group of strangers. I get up from my perch on the edge of one of the student’s desks to relieve him of the spotlight, but he holds up his paper and waves me away.
“When I was a boy I thought this a very sad story,” he says. Several of the students nod. “But now when I tell it what I remember most is my father dancing. And I’m glad I have this story to remember him by.”
Mr. Nagamora gives a little bow and the class begins to applaud—I think it’s Aidan who starts it—as he walks back to his desk.
I haven’t a clue how to follow up his performance—no pithy, teacherly comment to bring closure to the lesson. And so I suggest we adjourn to The Art School to see what my other students have done with this assignment I’ve given—an assignment that seems to have taken on a queer life of its own.
We walk across town in a straggling clump. I notice that Amelie and Mrs. Rivera walk protectively on either side of Mr. Nagamora as if he were one of the young children they nanny for their livelihoods. I’m glad to see him in good hands. Aidan Barry gravitates to my side and tells me about his work-release job at the printing press. He doesn’t really like it, he says, and he’s afraid he’s not learning the trade fast enough. If he loses the job, he tells me, it won’t look good to the parole board.
“What did you do before . . .” Before I’m forced to say before prison he answers, “I worked at a hotel in Midtown. First as a doorman, then a desk clerk. I liked it. Hotels are classy. If my family had a hotel like yours I’d definitely work there, learn the business, maybe run it someday.”
“My family doesn’t own the Hotel Equinox,” I remind him. “My father was the manager, but he died last year, and my aunt Sophie’s just the bookkeeper—although she tends to put her hand in everywhere. Besides, it’s up for sale and if no one buys it it’ll probably get torn down.”
“That’s a shame,” he says. “Maybe you could find someone to buy it.”
I laugh. “I don’t know anyone that rich, and even if I did, who’d want it? It would cost millions to renovate and even though the setting is really spectacular it’s not exactly in a prime tourist location. No one goes to the Catskills anymore.”
Aidan shakes his head. “You shouldn’t give up so easily on the family business.”
“It’s not the family business . . .” I begin, but he doesn’t hear me. We’ve come to The Art School’s student gallery and he springs ahead of me to open the door, a gesture that amuses the crowd of slouching smokers lounging on the front steps. Unfortunately I prolong the embarrassment by freezing at the entrance.
The student gallery is a long stretch of glass-fronted, stark white space facing Fifth Avenue. It’s a venue that can make even the most mild-mannered of student efforts striking. The tableau mounted at its center tonight doesn’t need any help. My first reaction is that Mr. Nagamora’s story has come eerily to life, at least that last part when the crane flies away leaving a trail of bloody feathers. There’s a lot of feathers and a lot of blood. Well, red paint, no doubt, but still . . . it looks as if there’s been a lethal pillow fight—the My Lai of pillow fights. Giant white birds are suspended from the ceiling, white feathers drifting from their ruptured bellies like candy from piñatas. The feathers drift steadily—how Gretchen has engineered this part is a mystery—onto a scene of bizarre carnage. Eleven—I know it’s eleven without having to count—baby dolls sit in a circle around a pyre of wood. In the center of the pyre a mannequin in a torn Disney princess nightgown sits cross-legged, knitting. Even from out here on the sidewalk I can see the bloodied bandages on her hands. She’s knitting a shirt made up of prickly green leaves—the nettles, no doubt—and, more disturbingly, barbed wire. Ten of the eleven dolls wear shirts made of this strange fiber. The eleventh doll is standing reaching its one chubby baby fist up toward the girl on the pyre. Its other arm has been ripped off. Feathers and blood pour out of the little gaping hole.
The fact that attractively dressed people—mostly in black—are standing around this scene, gesturing toward it with their plastic tumblers of wine, only makes the whole thing more unsettling.
My little crew of Grace students have come up beside me. We’ve lost a few in transit—but here are Mrs. Rivera and Amelie and Mr. Nagamora. What in the world will they make of this?
I would like to flee the scene, but how would I possibly explain that to my students? Besides, as I stand here, foolishly keeping Aidan holding the door, Gretchen Lu spies me from inside and comes running out to get me.
“Oh, Professor Greenfeder, thank God you’re here. It’s turned into a real circus. The board of trustees was invited, and there are some reporters, and everyone’s asking me what my inspiration was? So now that you’re here you can explain everything, right?”
Chapter Eight
Gretchen Lu takes me by the hand—even if I wanted to resist, the blunted shape of her bandaged hand, soft as a kitten’s paw, totally disarms me—and leads me to a small group standing next to her project. I recognize a few of the teachers—full-timers for the most part—and the head of the English Department, Gene Delbert. Gene, in black jeans and leather jacket, is nervously swirling red wine in his tumbler while talking to a small group of older men and women whom I guess to be trustees. I notice there’s a feather sticking out of Gene’s ha
ir and resist the temptation to pluck it loose. Several of the men and women standing around have feathers in their hair or clinging to their clothing. As a result their serious expressions seem feigned, like children who’ve been surprised in a pillow fight, pretending innocence.
“Oh good,” Gene says when he sees Gretchen leading me forward. “Here’s the instructor who gave the assignment. I’m sure she can make clear her intent.”
Gene says intent the way a lawyer might use the word in phrases like with harmful intent. I also notice that he’s called me an instructor, not professor, making clear, I’m sure, to the college trustees that I am an expendable part-timer. There’ll be no sticky tenure issues to cope with when they fire me for inspiring this scene of feathery carnage.
I take a deep breath and, dropping Gretchen’s hand, gesture toward Elisa on her pyre. I notice, now that I’m closer, that the mannequin’s mouth is sealed with silver electrical tape. I open my mouth to speak but the voice that I hear isn’t my own.
“ ‘The Wild Swans’ is yet another allegory of the silencing of women’s creativity,” the voice explains much more eloquently than I could have hoped to. “While Elisa works she is sworn to silence, just as the woman artist is forced to give up her true voice in order to produce in a man’s marketplace.”
I turn around and find Phoebe Nix behind me, one hand on my shoulder, the other gesturing toward the tableau. I’m so relieved to have her explaining the piece that I forget for a moment to wonder what she’s doing here.
“But what does the woman artist produce without artistic freedom?”
Phoebe pauses while we all consider this question and Gretchen’s work. I notice that the little shirts worn by the baby dolls are not just knitted in stocking stitch, but in alternating cables of nettles and barbed wire. If I’m not mistaken, Gretchen has even managed to work in a blackberry stitch within the cables. What attention to detail! Even if she’s gotten me fired, I’ll have to give Gretchen an A+.
“Bad clothes?” I hear Mark Silverstein mutter his answer to Phoebe’s question somewhere behind me. I try, out of the corner of my eye, to see Mark’s piece on “The Emperor’s New Clothes” but his unprepossessing assemblage of naked mannequins has been crowded into a corner like uninvited guests. No wonder he’s pissed off at Gretchen.
Phoebe ignores Mark’s comment and answers her own question. “She creates a prison for her offspring, crafting a garb of barbed wire for her daughters out of the old myths and collusion of silence.”
I’m tempted to correct Phoebe’s version of the fairy tale. The baby dolls in their barbed wire and nettle shirts aren’t Elisa’s daughters, they’re her brothers. But then I notice that several of the older trustees and most of the full-time professors are nodding eagerly. Only one man—a much older man in a beautiful charcoal gray suit—is not nodding along with the others. Instead he is staring at me as if challenging me to unmask Phoebe’s mistake. But there’s no way I’m going to turn back the tide of acceptance and approval that sweeps over the crowd. I can feel the tension in the room dissipating. Conversation resumes, the crowd breaks into groups of twos and threes, again happily swirling the wine in their tumblers and picking feathers out of their hair like friendly chimps picking out each other’s nits. I notice Aidan Barry chumming up to Natalie Baehr and smile and then think Oh my God, should I tell Natalie he’s an ex-con? and then, once again, I catch the old man in the gray suit staring at me.
I turn away from him and find Phoebe at my elbow.
“Thanks for that speech,” I tell her. “I’m lucky you turned up here.”
Phoebe doesn’t shrug or smile or even lift an eyebrow. She is one of the most gesture-free people I’ve ever met.
“I came with my uncle Harry; he’s on the board. I thought it would be a good venue to give away some copies of the journal. If you had told me you were involved in the show I would’ve planned a tie-in with this month’s issue.”
“You mean it’s out?”
“Yes, we got to press a little early. There’s a stack by the door.” I turn toward the entrance and suddenly notice that several of the people in the gallery are leafing through a pale lavender magazine. The thought that some of them might be already reading my piece makes me feel strangely queasy.
Misreading my wave of nausea as excitement—I suppose a person who doesn’t use facial expressions can be excused for misreading them—Phoebe says, “I’ve got some copies for you in my bag, but first I want you to meet my uncle. He’s an imperialistic fossil, but he’s rich as Croesus and a great patron of the arts, so you might as well know him.”
Phoebe takes me by the hand, her grip surprisingly firm, and pulls me over to the man in the gray suit who is facing away from us.
“Uncle Harry, I want you to meet Iris Greenfeder, one of the writers in this month’s issue of Caffeine.”
The man turns toward us, his blue eyes vague but not unkind. I can see him assembling his features into an expression of polite interest. For a moment I feel sorry for him. He’s older than I thought at first, my father’s age at least—or the age my father would be if he were still alive. I remember how, as my father got older, his feet would bother him if he had to stand still for any length of time and how he hated being in a crowded room with lots of people talking; he said he found it hard to hear what people were saying. I imagine the effort it takes for this man to feign interest in his niece’s half-baked writers. To his credit, though, I see his vague over-the-shoulder look resolve into something unexpected—perhaps to him as much as to me: genuine interest.
“I’m afraid I didn’t catch your name,” he says.
I tell him—trying to pitch my voice loud enough for him to hear but not so loud as to seem to be shouting—and he repeats it, taking a sip of red wine from his tumbler and wincing. He is, no doubt, used to a better vintage.
“Iris is writing a memoir about her mother who was a fantasy writer,” Phoebe says.
I am?
“Well, I’ve just gotten started.”
“Who was your mother?” he asks me so avidly that I’m a little taken back.
“She wrote under the name K. R. LaFleur,” I tell him. “You probably wouldn’t have heard of her.”
“LaFleur.” Phoebe’s uncle swishes his cheeks back and forth as if he’s at a wine tasting. I half expect him to spit. “The flower. Perhaps her first name was a flower name?”
“No, her name was Katherine, but everyone called her Kay. I don’t know why she chose LaFleur . . .” One more thing I don’t know about my mother, I think. Perhaps sensing my confusion Harry Kron comes to my rescue.
“I’m sure she had her own reasons. My name for instance, Kron, means ‘crown’ in German and so that is what I named my first hotel.”
He pauses—a little pause like an orator who’s penciled in the spaces for applause or laughter—and I realize that I’m supposed to recognize the name. The name Harry Kron doesn’t register at first, but then the words crown and hotel do.
“The Crown Hotel,” I say, “near Grand Central? My father always said it was the best-run hotel in New York. He admired the whole chain. He modeled our hotel’s management on the Crown Hotels.”
I notice Harry Kron grimace at the word chain and realize I’ve blundered. Holiday Inn is a chain, Hilton even, but the Crown Hotels, a dozen gemlike establishments known for their luxury and exclusivity, are more like a line, as in a line of purebred racehorses or the descendants of royalty. “Jewels in the Crown,” they’re called, all listed in the blue Michelin guides my father kept on the shelf above his desk in the front office. I feel an ache in my throat. The sight of old men sometimes does this to me. This is what my father would have looked like if he were still alive. (Curiously, the sight of old women never has this effect on me; I can never picture my mother as old.) But this man has not only attained an age my father never will, he is everything my father always wanted to be—the quintessential hotelier.
“Ah, your father ran a hotel and yo
ur mother wrote . . . what an intriguing combination. Perhaps I knew your parents . . .”
“Oh no, I doubt it. It’s a small hotel upstate—the Hotel Equinox. My father was the manager for almost fifty years. He died last year.”
“I’m so sorry. And your mother?”
“My mother died in 1973, when I was ten.”
“Ah, like my sister-in-law, perhaps, Phoebe’s poor mother, too sensitive to live in this world.”
“She died in a hotel fire—not ours—I mean she was staying at another hotel. The Dreamland in Coney Island.”
Something like distaste passes over Harry Kron’s face and I’m not sure if it’s the mention of such a déclassé hotel or the idea of a hotel fire—every hotelier’s worst nightmare.
“Yes,” he says, “I remember the incident. So tragic. Fire is a hotel’s greatest danger and fire regulations were once quite lax. Even now not all managers are as scrupulous as they ought to be in fire prevention. The Crown Hotels have been leaders in fire prevention in the field. We installed emergency exits and sprinkler systems long before we were required to.”
“Yes, I know,” I say excitedly, “my father told me that. He installed pumps to draw water from the lake and trained the waiters in fire-fighting procedures. My mother was especially terrified of the idea of a fire . . .”
I stop, interrupted by an image of my mother, a picture of her I didn’t know I possessed, walking the hotel halls with her hands on the walls, like a blind person, feeling for electrical fires in the wiring.
Seeing the emotion on my face, Harry Kron gallantly rescues me. “How doubly tragic, then, for her to die in one. What was your mother’s maiden name?”
“Morrissey,” I say. “Katherine Morrissey.”
“Ah,” Harry says, “I thought I saw a touch of Irish in you. You must look like your mother.”
I smile. I’d like to think I look like my mother because she was beautiful. It’s true I have my mother’s dark hair and pale green eyes, but I’m built more solidly than she, more like my father’s sturdy eastern European stock, and I’ve got a touch of his sallowness in my skin.