Isadora Read online

  The children and their nurse had been riding in the back of the car when it stalled. There was some trouble with the engine, an issue Paris had known about and should have had fixed; he and the driver had briefly spoken of it the week before, passing the time.

  And so when the car stalled that afternoon, the driver thought nothing of it. He left it in gear when he got out to crank, and it wasn’t long before the engine roared to life. The car lurched forward; he had failed to block the tire or account for the angle of the road. The driver leapt away in terror as the whole cursed thing rolled its three screaming passengers across the street, lurched over the thin ridge of curb, and tipped face-first into the river, where it bobbed once and sank like a fat stone, ten meters down.

  The officer told him all this on the walk between office and flat, having taken the report from the driver. He seemed particularly pleased about the fat stone bit, the officer did, and opined that the whole automotive craze was perhaps too dangerous for women and children.

  They arrived at the flat to find that half the city had come to gather and were walking from room to room in their street shoes. Someone set out a plate of hasty sandwiches, and Paris watched in humiliation as everyone took appraisal of the place. To distract himself from their judgment, he tried to remember the old catalog of fears he had once felt for the children’s safety. The bag of broken plates, for example; he always thought one of them would turn it over their heads, ceramic shards working into their eyes. He was certain that Patrick would squeeze himself through the open window or that Deirdre would choke on a button in the back of the closet where she liked to hide. When they went off with their nurse to the park, he thought of the mangling lower branches of the trees, of steep drops from rocky ledges, and he was never fully soothed even when they returned home as safely as they always had. Isadora always teased him for his concern, but in the end it was as if he had known all along.

  The room’s nervous conversation dwindled to silence. Isadora had arrived on the arm of one of the neighbor ladies to find twenty strangers staring back at her. She put her bag down by the door and looked around, uncertain why everyone was there, and why they all seemed to be waiting for her to speak.

  “But where did they go?” she asked.

  The women around her collapsed into hysterical tears, and she reached for them, confused. Paris thought she had lost her mind entirely, but it turned out that her question was only natural; the neighbor who brought her said only that the children had gone.

  Finally, someone told her, whispering in her ear as she brought her hands to her face. She stared at Paris as though he were a stranger to her, and in that moment, she was a stranger to him as well.

  The room started up again, as if everyone felt ashamed by their own witness. Paris was swept away by the details of the coming days. There was the official inquest, the coroner’s report. The press had a particular interest. And then the public events; there would be a viewing, a ceremony, an interment.

  A downstairs neighbor kept trying to get Isadora to eat something, and though they all had lunched not an hour before, it seemed crucial to the woman, who came to Paris in tears, pleading with him. He added it to his list of things to do, along with selecting the music for the funeral program and setting up a meeting with the coroner. The neighbor insisted on following him into the children’s room and watched while he dug among the dolls and books until he found a cup from Deirdre’s tea set, rubbing the soot from it with the corner of her bedspread and leaving a black mark on the quilt. This further upset the neighbor, who fussed over the mark, spitting on it and rubbing it onto itself, which only served to set the stain.

  Defeated, the neighbor turned her attention to the little cup, remarking that confronting Madam with the child’s things so soon might damage her in a permanent way. Paris dismissed the idea. Miss Duncan would be all right, he said, careful to stress her unmarried name as he always did with people he didn’t trust. The formality inspired a comfortable decorum. And anyway, he reasoned to himself, Isadora was far too strong to be felled by a symbol.

  Finally the woman left, taking the teacup with her and leaving the quilt behind for the maids. He heard her calling for Isadora in the other room, employing a tone of voice as if she were trying her best to coax the other woman into a cage.

  The press report arrived with the late edition, and someone read it aloud: The three victims could be heard screaming pitifully for just a moment before they went silent, and though a number of men dove in after the car at their own peril—Paris knew this to be true, having personally shaken the wet hands of those would-be heroes—their actions came with no result. The current was too strong, the water dark and cold.

  Hours passed. Women poured wine into Isadora’s teacup, and she drank it daintily, asking for more. They presented her with tarts from the shop below, which she mostly ignored. When she refused food on the second day, they mixed a little melted butter into her wine and she took it just the same.

  While she was turning up her nose at cheese and charcuterie, Paris dealt with the inquest against the driver. He thought that learning more about the mechanical failure behind the accident would bring him some peace, but it only troubled him more. He returned again and again to their casual conversations about the engine, and remembered saying nothing on other occasions when he saw the driver leave the car in gear. He pitied the man, who was no doubt grieving in a lonelier room, his children looking up at him with wide and wondering eyes that would soon enough hold the knowledge of what their father had done.

  Through it all, the flowers. They came by the cartload, and visitors arriving with their own bouquets were instantly shamed to silence by the cut garden that greeted them, every countertop and closet in full bloom. Isadora made a path through a pile of white lilies on the floor, calling for more wine in her little cup, though she knew full well where it was kept and could pour it herself if she wanted. It disturbed Paris to see her so obedient, but it did give him the freedom to arrange things without her looking over his shoulder.

  The days bled together. He thought pleasantly of an hour draining into a surgical tray as he prepared himself for the coroner’s early report, which arrived in a crisp ivory envelope. Inside, he found a description of the water in the children’s lungs and the fact that they were discovered clutching Annie, which Paris took to mean they had learned enough of death to fear it. It wasn’t specified in the report, but he heard from the coroner’s assistant that the strength of the nurse’s grip in death was such that two men had to use an iron bar to pry her off the children, that the prying broke both her arms, and though she had been dead for twelve hours, the coroner still set them in splints as if they might somehow mend.

  Paris wanted to keep Isadora from all this, and so he saw to it that she spent her days writing letters and taking a series of luxurious baths, which seemed just fine with her. The women kept her teacup filled until she was quite well tippled, and soon enough she took on the affect of a lesser monarch receiving dignitaries, propped up in an overstuffed armchair, to hear condolences from friends and neighbors, gossips and well-wishers, officers, and aspiring members of the artistic community, everyone coming through to say their piece and touch her hand. She entertained them all, swaying a bit as she fingered a golden tassel affixed to the hem of her robe. He watched her from a distance as she smiled gently at her guests, speaking of the children in a low voice, as if they were only asleep in the other room.

  19 April 1913

  Teatro della Pergola

  Ted Craig, Direttore

  Caduto dalle Nuvole

  Firenze

  Teddy—

  They won’t let me leave but I realized I’m free to write to whomever I like and nobody else will do, my dear. All men are my brothers and you always were, even in those early days when you snuck into my bed, like a brother so sweetly you did lay your hand, and so I must ask you to make a study for me from a few simple materials.

  This favor is something I ask mos
t seriously of you, most reverently and relevantly as Deirdre’s father, which makes you a brother greater than blood to me; brother of my heart, which governs my blood. I hope you will return a full report care of Paris Singer at our flat in Neuilly. Only write his name and they’ll find it. Nothing is too much for the afternoon mail, Teddy, you know that as well as the postman.

  I assumed you’re working late and so addressed this to your office. I suppose you’re arranging Rosmersholm as an Egyptian temple, Eleonora Duse your kohl-lined Rebecca; so much to enjoy in Italy, the whole population of Florence are actors and one gets to watch these lovely scenes in shopwindows all day long. I hope you’re having fun and not in too much trouble. I’m sure May keeps you in clean cuffs and hot meals, bringing lunch to the theater herself; something thin, a broth, which you’ll pour on a plant behind the building the moment she goes. Now your image is clear to me—wrapped in a light coat, fumbling for your cigarettes. Hello, my dear. I hope to send you some stagings I have been working out in my mind, which you should find highly appropriate once word arrives of what happened. Condolences given and received, you need not mention, I’m so tired of hearing them!

  Keep this letter and consult it on your way home; you’ll have to make a quick stop. On the tram you could perhaps meditate on the idea that we are dear friends now and owe much to one another, and I have not lately asked anything of you. I can remember the last time we spoke, over lunch, when Paris and I were passing through and you focused sullenly on his vest as if you had just ordered one for yourself in precisely that color, and May was there, happy to drink our champagne and curse us quietly—do send my regards—and at that pleasant lunch I could have allowed Paris to continue his interrogation on our early years, forcing you to speak of those nights in Belgrade, but I kept conversation blithe and lively, on some silly subject—that’s right, the preparation of eggs, regarding which I am sadly ignorant—and while May went on about warm coddling you touched the tip of your shoe to my ankle and I knew it was in thanks. But you see, I would never force you to suffer a thing I would not readily suffer myself, and so you must realize the importance of this letter and its simple but essential requests.

  When you arrive home, drop your bags in the hall and sort out your folios in a way that will ensure you won’t be thinking of them for a few hours at least. If May inquires, say you’re clearing your mind with an afternoon stroll. You might have some pet name for her, Lump or Dolly, which you should employ so that she returns to her book on benign nettles of the East Indies.

  Before you go, however, you’ll need to sneak upstairs and find one of her heavy woolen dresses in the old style, which surely she packs in paper in a trunk at the base of her bed or perhaps hangs in an armoire—search your memory to recall when you’ve seen her lifting the lid on a long box, the kind you might use to ship long-stemmed roses. Remember the ones you brought to the Tavaszi? In a box with precisely those dimensions but not quite as nice, you’ll find a dress—take the whole box if you like and your mackintosh if you fear a storm. (No, no of course, not a single fear! Sans limites!) And a pair of her shoes, any will do but ideally something at the back of the closet; she keeps the ones that pinch her feet, and when she sees they’re gone she will be secretly relieved. Some people are only truly glad when the course has been changed for them, so they can complain all day long and wonder how life spins so swiftly out of their grasp. Perhaps you could leave the house now, as you read this. I cannot bear the thought that you would be delayed even a moment, even to the end of the paragraph, to the end of this line.

  The trick then, once you’ve gathered these items and brought them to the riverside—sorry, yes, all the way to the Arno—is to find a place somewhat secluded, perhaps up a bit from the Vespucci bridge, where those sweet trees overhang the water and there’s a bit of shore. I never thought I would have time or reason to sit and think of every river I have ever known, but here we are and I’ve found I remember a surprising lot of bridges walked in love and solitude, waterways discovered in those sweet brief moments when I first arrive in a new city and try to take it in before it fades into my memory of every other place. Hopefully you brought your mackintosh; it’s possible, now that I think about it, you’ll be out there for a while and you might like to take a seat on the wet ground. I remember your mack hanging flanklike in the Moscow flat, proper soaked after one of those nights, ho-hum. We were so young! Though you brooded too much to ever be truly.

  I trust you’re at the river. You can imagine my jealousy; all we have of nature here are flowers. When the man tried to deliver more we begged him to take some away, to drop them on doorsteps down the street or perhaps to other towns if he could, but he returned, his load untouched. Nobody wants the curse of them. They were a comfort before every room was packed with dahlias and creeping vines, white roses and tulips in jam jars, chamomile stinking up every corner, mums balancing on the sills, an entire bedroom packed with lilies I can’t bear to witness. The table is set so tight with peonies it appears to have elevated three feet and grown thick enough to make a fine funeral bed, needless to say this has ruined peonies conceptually. We’ve run out of space for gifted condolences and can only accept simple words which, as everyone has swiftly found, are not enough.

  The stain of death sets at once. I thought at first that if I could only keep too many people from knowing, perhaps the few of us who did know could will it out of being, as if the whole thing was my own anxious invention, an illness I spread to others, a curse that knowledge had borne and only ignorance could reverse. Now it’s too late, of course. The florists, finding their entire stock depleted, began to bind dandelions and breadbox poppies from their window boxes with leftover twine, pasting calligraphic sentiment on wooden cards, Praying for You in the Storm, My Dear and similar, soil flaking from the stems, a clutch of weeds wilting in newsprint—one thing the papers are good for lately, to wrap a junk bouquet. The man refused to take them back so we pried a board loose in the ironing cabinet and started shoving them behind the wall, and once that space was full we backed a dresser up against it and commenced to filling the drawers with gifts of food, which I personally plan to forget. Three weeks from now, the caretaker will hopefully smell it.

  Thinking of You at the Arno. What a lovely postcard you would make! Never mind the circumstances, I’m sure you’d think of me all the same in such a pretty place. The bank is low and grassy, its small stones washed over. Earlier I drew cold water for a bath and observed it both lying in it and resting beside for some time but could not get the same sense as the actual rushing thing. Of course they pried open the door once I really got to splashing.

  This powerless ignorance is making me feeble. I hope you will forgive me for involving you in all of this. My questions are as follows:

  1. How heavy does the dress become when soaked in the water and would it be quite impossible to move while submerged and thus saddled?

  2. Of the shoes, do they shield against the shocking cold or do they only sink like stones?

  3. What is the quality of vision underwater? Does the sunlight find some straining use?

  4. What is it like to be fully submerged? Does the rushing aspect lull the senses, or do you panic when you lose the surface?

  Use your senses in roles both protective and investigative to explore the environment as best you can. I wonder about the reeds and the rocks, the sense and sound of the current, and the quality of the dress, if it would snag on things underwater or ward off hazards like a woolen shield. There’s so much I don’t understand, you see, it becomes impossible to sleep even with a strong sedative. That old dress will see some destruction in the process, in case you were wondering why I enclosed the money. She won’t miss the shoes.

  Paris is meeting with the men from the cemetery now, sorting everything out. A very convincing act of practical diligence. But if there is anyone out there who might understand me without pity, it is you, Ted! If you were here, you would help me escape, and we would run to the rive
r to find the answers for ourselves. There is so much we must learn!

  Paris manages the mourning and generally keeps himself occupied

  The condolences would need to be organized. There were six hundred cards and letters by his estimation and counting, from old friends and dignitaries, patrons of the arts and former lovers, and the mothers of students. Propriety demanded that each one receive a response, and Paris estimated that it would require forty-four hours of work from an assistant he would need to hire for the purpose. He began to price it out, idly, on a notepad, while his guests talked. The assistant would need skills in both penmanship and composition, which would mean a surcharge over the rate he paid his usual secretary, who would take down shorthand all day but couldn’t compose an original sentence to save her life.

  Isadora’s sweet sister, Elizabeth, arrived and stood quite still by the door, as if instead of coming in, she would very much rather be tasked with holding everyone’s coat and hat. She was taller than Isadora and nearly as lovely, though she had a loping limp and a bad habit of averting her eyes that made her seem to hold hidden judgment on any group. She was a fine teacher, and Paris was impressed with her work managing the Elizabeth Duncan School in Darmstadt, a program that was nominally hers though it was funded by him and supported ideologically by Isadora. Her man Max Merz was with her, looking very much like a coat and hat himself. They huddled together as Paris approached.

  “Darmstadt weeps with you,” she said, taking a quick step forward to embrace him. The strength of the Duncan women was always a surprise; Paris was not a small man, but he felt squeezed like a bellows through every one of their embraces. After a while she released him, and he caught his breath while she frowned with the same expression she might direct toward a particularly complex jigsaw puzzle.