“Oh, it’s you, it’s all right then. Come here, I’ll show you something.”
When I got close, he took me by the shoulders and turned me so that I was facing the building he’d been staring at. The Cadillac Hotel, it said on the marquee. At first I thought maybe it was the hotel Agnes had told us about once, where Gene had stayed drunk for days. I was afraid he was going to tell me his version of the story. But this didn’t look like the kind of place Agnes had described, it looked quite respectable.
“Up there . . . third floor . . . left side . . .”
I looked but saw nothing but a row of double windows. What did he want me to see?
“Right there—you see? I was born up there.”
“You were?” I said stupidly.
“Yes, I was. It was the Barrett House back then. Damned nice apartment, my father always said. My mother hated it; she wanted a real house, out in the country, but of course my old man had to be near the theatre.” He pulled a pack of Camels from his jacket. His hand trembled a bit as he took out a cigarette. He started to put it in his mouth, then looked at me. “Care for one?”
I nodded. “Thanks . . . yes.”
Gene laughed, and then his eyes were black diamonds. “Thought you might—you’re all cut from the same cloth, you Boulton and Bianco women!”
I juggled Narcissus, all wrapped up in a moth-eaten scarf, holding him close to my chest with my left arm so that I could hold the cigarette Gene was lighting for me. He never said a word about Narcissus, he acted like it was an everyday occurrence to have a smoke with a fifteen-year-old girl who was holding a white rat.
“Your father, he was . . .” I started to say, but Gene had just looked at his watch and he cut me off. He was the Count of Monte Cristo, wasn’t he? I’d been about to ask, though I knew the answer— Agnes had told me of Mr. O’Neill’s fame in that role, and how he could never escape it.
“Good Christ, I’m hours late, Hopkins’ll never forgive me.” He hesitated briefly, then kissed me quickly on the forehead. “Glad you stopped by my corner, Pamela,” he said, and walked away towards the theater.
I stayed there, enjoying my cigarette. The smoke rose, delicate blue wisps spiraling into the mist. I took Gene’s place, leaning against the lamppost, looking up at the Cadillac Hotel, and thought of what Agnes had told us about how Gene fought with his father all the time, how he blamed himself for his mother’s illness—and how it was soon after his birth that she had begun to drug herself. I pictured a sad and ghostly woman moving past the third floor window, a baby crying.
I walked home thinking about Gene, about his unhappy childhood with an angry father and a mother quite removed from reality. I liked Gene a little better that day, felt a bit more kindly toward him.
It wouldn’t last, though. After the divorce . . . deserting his children the way he did. . . . Well, I never did forgive him then.
I didn’t want to talk about Anna Christie, but I did want to get out of the studio and into the sun, get something to eat. And so I dawdled about, cleaning my brushes and neatening things up, then returned to the window to eavesdrop. Mr. Hoffman, who owned the music store near the Brevoort, was telling one of his long-winded jokes. The coast was clear. I stepped outside.
“Pamela! Over here!”
There was a small group of people off to the left that I hadn’t been able to see from my studio window. The sculptor Gaston Lachaise and his wife, Isabel, had set up camp just down from No. 17, Gertrude’s studio. Isabel had tossed some brightly colored Indian fabric over a low iron table and set out a feast: a colorful array of crudités, wedges of white cheese, loaves of round bread, and bowls of olives and nuts. There were two young men with the Lachaises. I didn’t recognize either of them.
“Help yourself!” said Isabel, gesturing to the food, her round face all jolly as I approached. She held out a glass of wine.
“Lovely. Thank you. How can I say no? And I was just absolutely starving, I must say.” The gaiety in my voice took me by surprise.
“This is Frederick Schlick, Pamela, and his brother Robert. Fred’s got a play about to go on across the street—no doubt you’ve heard. The Joy of the Serpents?”
“Oh, yes. Fantastic.”
I had, in fact, heard about the play. It was impossible not to know everything that was happening in the Village.
Robert was the younger brother. He was handsome, in a very boyish way. There was an open, naive look about him. At first glance he seemed from another century, another world—he wore a Russian cassock shirt, and his wavy dark hair, unfashionably long and parted in the middle, seemed awfully daring. But his speech belied his exotic look. He looked up at me with frank surprise and admiration.
“You’re Pamela Bianco? Gosh . . . it’s . . . it’s just such an honor to meet you.”
I laughed. It had been a long while since I’d heard anything like that.
I stayed for a second glass of wine, and then one more. It was so nice there in the warm spring air. And Robert seemed so fascinated by me, I couldn’t help but feel flattered. When Frederick excused himself, saying he still had some tinkering to do with his play, Robert looked at me.
“C’mon,” he said to me in what I would come to know was his characteristically impulsive way. “Let’s go—I’ll show you Harlem!”
Surprising myself utterly—who was this carefree girl?—I agreed without hesitation. We caught the express train on Fourteenth Street. We sat side by side on the rattan seats, the fan whirring overhead, the train vibrating and shrieking as we sped north. We talked and talked. I remember that I fretted over my painter’s overalls. Robert said they were absolutely perfect. He said he liked the way I wore my hair in braids wound around my ears.
“It’s pretty, Pamela, and so . . . unusual. Shows that you’re not just one of the pack, cutting your hair in a bob like every other girl in the world.”
He looked at me expectantly as he talked. I thought of Diccon’s eyes, sometimes marble cold, sometimes flaming with passion, and how so often they had made me tremble with unease. Robert’s brown eyes were as innocent and curious as a toddler’s. They made me relax, made me unselfconscious. He seemed so eager to know about me.
He told me of growing up in Oregon. A beautiful place, he said, but so rainy and dull. He’d longed to follow his brother to the excitement and glamour of New York.
I told him of growing up in Italy and how I was going back there soon.
“I shall eat lots of risotto and tortelli di zucca, and wash it down with lots and lots of wine. And chocolate . . . only in Turin can you find the most delicious, the very best chocolate. I’ll bring you back some of my favorite from Cioccolato Stratta.”
“You will?”
“Well, I shall try! If you’re still here.”
“Oh, I plan to be here forever.”
pamela