Authors: Thomas Tryon
“Claire, why not open your presents now, while it’s still light enough to see?” the doctor suggested. She smiled and shook her head; she wanted to wait until after the concert. I caught Hazel’s quick glance; if she managed to stay awake until the end, she meant.
We sat talking companionably, Claire and this loosely constructed “family” she had gathered around her. There were intense currents abroad in the air; I definitely felt them—currents composed of warm spirits and bonhomie and the clink of ice in glasses, of Claire’s festive appearance, as well as the fact of her birthday and the small pile of gifts.
As the sun dropped from sight and the twilight turned to full dark, the lights came on and down in the park we could see the musicians moving onto the stage. They tuned their instruments, and presently Zubin Mehta appeared in his white coat, coming center stage to bow in the spotlight. Then, addressing the podium, he raised his baton and gave the downbeat. Two seconds later the music reached our ears as he began the Beethoven
Pastorale
, a fitting selection on so beautiful an evening. We settled back in our chairs to enjoy the concert.
The orchestra was only partway through the first movement when the telephone rang.
“Don’t answer it,” Claire said as Ivarene moved to pick up the receiver.
“You’d better,” I said apologetically. Ivarene was permitted to see who it was; then with a look to her mistress she waved the receiver at me. It was Felix Pass calling from Los Angeles about the film negotiations we were currently involved in. I ducked into the library and shut the door; Ivarene hung up outside. It was nearly closing time in Los Angeles and Felix came on the phone with a lot of legal mumbojumbo. I had to jot down notes and figures and pay close attention to every word, and all the while, through the closed terrace door I could hear the distant strains of the concert.
The phone call, while of considerable importance, irked me because I missed almost all of the last movement of the
Pastorale.
A twenty-minute intermission followed, during which Claire’s guests chatted amiably, agreeing that she was looking very well for her birthday celebration. While Ivarene and Rosalie passed plates of food, Dr. Sadikichi told a bad joke and was admonished by Mrs. Sadikichi, Rosalie reported something amusing that Liz Smith had written in her column, which made us all laugh, and everyone seemed to have reached a tacit agreement to make the most of the evening; who knew when another like it might come?
When the orchestra had reassembled, Mehta again resumed the podium and after a moment his baton drew forth the initial strains of Tchaikovsky’s
1812
Overture. The music rose into the air and was carried in waves across the darkness to our ears, faintly blurred by distance. Before we realized it the climax was at hand, and when the cannon sounded in the kettle drums, the first rockets were fired into the sky. It was a moment to be remembered, if not for Tchaikovsky or the Philharmonic, then for Claire Regrett, whose life it seemed to celebrate: seven decades and a hundred rites of passage.
Maybe it was merely the way we were viewing them, but tonight’s display of pyrotechnics seemed, at least to my eye, the most marvelous I’d ever seen. They rose in blazing galaxies behind the dark trees, up into the sky in starry sprays of brilliant pink and blue and yellow light, showering down in fiery arcs, rockets bursting and blazing, creating an effect of extraordinary enchantment. From down in the Sheep Meadow came appreciative cheers and the sounds of distant applause.
From time to time I found myself glancing at Claire, who reclined with her head back against the pillow-rest, her eyes shining from the reflected light. The display ended, the sky fell dark again, and all applauded their gratitude, to be surprised and delighted by one final gorgeous burst of light, and then everything was over.
After a moment’s pause during which she’d remained frozen in position, Claire sat up, applauding energetically. “Wonderful! Wonderful!” she exclaimed. I saw on her face the most childlike expression. For the fraction of an instant, by the merest trick of light, an old woman was magically rendered youthful again, became a young girl. In another moment the illusion had fled and she became herself as she leaned back against the chaise, hugging her drawn-up knees.
“Did you enjoy it?” asked Hazel.
Claire nodded with enthusiasm. “But now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to go in, I’m rather tired.”
Easier said than done; when she swung her legs to the tiling and tried to stand, she found she could not. “Let me help you,” I volunteered. This time she offered no objection. I picked her up and carried her inside. Her body felt surprisingly light; she was nothing but skin and the armature of bonework underneath. The disease that was eating at her was little by little hollowing her out inside, burning up her innards, and I realized how soon she would be dust.
“Thank you,” she breathed with a grateful look. “Too much birthday, I guess. Well, it’s the last of those.”
Everyone pretended not to have heard her as I carried her into the bedroom and deposited her carefully on the bed.
“Don’t treat me so fragile, I’m not glass.” She gave me a look of mock reproach, then brightened as the others came in to say good night, the Steins followed by the Sadikichis, throwing goodbye kisses as they went out again.
“Don’t go,” Claire whispered to me, and I nodded. Then Rosalie came in with Ivarene, who was on her way to her sister’s for the night. Mrs. Conklin, who would sleepover in one of the spare rooms, went to see them out.
Claire put out her hand and wriggled her fingers at me. “Stay a little, can you? Maybe I’ll feel sleepy and then you can let yourself out.”
These days I was happy to oblige her in such small things—how different from when we’d begun all that time ago. When I suggested reading to her, she willingly handed me the book from the table on the opposite side of her bed. “Rosalie didn’t give me my dose of Tolstoy today. I don’t suppose I’ll ever get through it at the rate we’re going.”
I sat the book on my lap and opened it to its marker, then briefly scanned the page to get my bearings. Rosalie had left off at the place in which Prince André returns home to discover that his affianced Natasha has been having a clandestine romance with the wastrel Anatole. When I wondered how Rosalie could have stopped in the middle of all this palpitating intrigue, Claire waved a negligent hand.
“I must have fallen asleep. I often do when Rosalie’s reading. I really don’t remember.”
I put on my glasses, then, taking up the book, recapped the scene for her. Just as I started in, Hazel Conklin slipped in and took the chair in the corner. I hadn’t got very far when Claire interrupted. Had Ivarene finished up in the kitchen? Was everything put away, the lights turned off? Hazel said yes to all. At her nod, I resumed. As I read, trying to maintain a detached voice, I glanced across the top of the page to the bed where Claire lay, still in her party outfit, her head propped against the extravagant pile of pillows that she always liked. She looked utterly spent and her gaze seemed especially unfocused.
My eyes jumped forward from the lines I’d been reading to a passage I recognized, one of my favorite passages in the book, and I hurried to get to it before Claire fell asleep, for her lids were drooping. I looked at her once again and she gave me a little nod and smile of encouragement, as if to say she was enjoying it, though I wasn’t sure she was. I had come to the place where Pierre, also in love with Natasha, has gone to return André’s love letters to Natasha, and after a painful scene in which he speaks to her of his love, he leaves in his sledge, driving through the snowy streets of Moscow.
“‘It was clear and frosty. Above the dirty ill-lit streets, above the black roofs, stretched the dark starry sky. Only as he gazed up at the heavens did Pierre cease to feel the humiliating pettiness of all earthly things compared with the heights to which his soul had just been raised. As he drove out onto Arbatsky Square his eyes were met with a vast expanse of starry black sky. Almost in the center of this sky, above the Prichistensky Boulevard, surrounded and convoyed on every side by stars but distinguished from them all by its nearness to the earth, its white light and its long uplifted tail, shone the huge, brilliant comet of the year 1812—the comet which was said to portend all manner of horrors and the end of the world. But that bright comet with its long luminous tail aroused no feeling of fear in Pierre’s heart. On the contrary, with rapture and his eyes wet with tears, he contemplated the radiant star which, after travelling in its orbit with inconceivable velocity through infinite space, seemed suddenly—like an arrow piercing the earth—to remain fast in one chosen spot in the black firmament, vigorously tossing up its tail, shining and playing with its white light amid the countless other scintillating stars. It seemed to Pierre that this comet spoke in full harmony with all that filled his own softened and uplifted soul, now blossoming into a new life.’”
I paused and glanced over at Claire, who sat waiting, her eyes wide open. “Well, that’s the chapter; what say we call it a night?” I suggested, leaning toward her. Whatever reply I may have expected was not forthcoming; she said nothing.
From the corner of my eye I saw Mrs. Conklin rise from her chair and approach the bed. She stood close at my side and in another moment her hand came to rest on my shoulder. She had never touched me like that before. Then she took her hand away, went around me, and leaned down to Claire, using her hands to make some minute adjustment. When she straightened again, Claire’s eyes were closed.
I put the book down, neglecting to replace the mark. That was no matter, I knew; Rosalie would have no need to find her place. When Claire met up with Crispin Antrim, she’d have to confess she never finished the book, but she could always say she’d tried.
War and Peace
was no easy job of work.
“It’s all right, you know,” Hazel was saying in her calm, soft voice, as together we regarded the still face against the pillows. “It’s just like walking through a door. Passing from one room to another, so easily. She has gone into the other room now, that’s all. It will be nice.”
When I started to draw the sheet up over the face, Hazel said quickly, “No, don’t do that. There’s nothing to be ashamed of, we don’t have to shut her away under a sheet.”
I looked at Hazel’s kind, expressive face. “Kiss her forehead,” she said in a low voice; I got up and leaned to do as she asked. “And she never opened her presents.” She glanced ruefully at the tray of gifts that Ivarene had carried in from the terrace.
Together we moved away from the bedside and spoke in whispers, talking over what was to happen now. Since the necessary preparations had all been previously made, there was nothing to do but let the proper functionaries take over their allotted duties. When we finished, she sent me along; she would stay in the room until morning, when final arrangements could be made.
“Miss Regrett’s up late tonight,” the elevator man observed as he took me down. It wasn’t my task to inform him of what had happened upstairs, but I knew he was fond of Claire so I told him that she’d just died. He crossed himself reverently and dug inside his shirt to pull out a gold medal and kissed it.
“Dead. My gosh, that’s a hard thing to believe.” He shook his head to prove his point. “I guess she’s the last of ’em, isn’t she? The really big ones—why, she was the biggest of them all, I guess.”
At that moment I felt inclined to agree. Back in my apartment I tried to reach Viola in California as I’d promised, when the need arose; she was out, the maid said she wasn’t expected until late. Then I called Belinda, who was home. I told her what had happened and she was as distressed as I was—more, perhaps, since she hadn’t been a witness to Claire’s newfound serenity.
After a while I walked out onto the terrace and stood at the corner of the parapet, gazing across town to the same spot where we’d gathered earlier. There the bottom penthouse in the south tower lay dark; no light showed. By now the mistress of that household had traveled elsewhere. Her remains would meet their assigned end, but the spirit—that plucky spirit—was gone from the premises. To go where, I wondered?
I turned my head, looking southeast, past the bridge that had taken us to Bensonhurst that day. With only a slight degree of effort I could see from the spot where she’d been born clear to the spot where she’d died. I gauged the distance at some six miles. Not far on the odometer, but light-years away.
The rippling currents of night air made the stars glimmer and glitter the more intensely, and though I was no astronomer, I could pick out a few of the more recognizable constellations—the two Dippers, Orion’s Belt, Cassiopeia. Shadowy clouds rode the Milky Way. And, gazing up at the star-strewn sky, I thought again of that sweet Brooklyn fairy tale she’d told me about the little girl with the Dutch bob and the scabbed-over knees sitting on the steps of the rusty fire escape, gazing up at the stars and believing they came down to earth to be movie stars. I’d thought about it so many times that by now it had almost become a part of my own dreaming. With no trouble at all I could picture the tent, all the “stars” in their cubicles waiting to be called upon to make a movie, the hard work followed by socializing, the music and the dancing, the languorous lovemaking among the stars, all having fun, drinking champagne from long-stemmed glasses, tasting the sweet nectar of life, the glittering stars of Hollywood grouped in constellation, their own spangled universe, that sweet movie-star heaven. Little Cora Sue had decidedly grown up to live in the big tent and swim in the pool and dance and drink bubbly until the clock struck one and the tired cows came home.
It was late, I, too, was tired; I yawned without covering my mouth. Who was there to see? The buildings were dark; lights were turned off all through the midtown canyon; even the silhouette of the Empire State Building loomed in the smoky darkness like a cardboard sentinel. The dark shapes of apartments with their silhouetted water towers looked dramatically cinematic, the cardboard cut-out set Busby Berkeley used in a Gold Diggers movie. “The hip-hooray and ballyhoo, the Lullaby of Broadway…”