I was ridiculously happy, grateful for this strange gift Robert had given me, but I was not in love. Beneath everything, I felt it, the falseness.
Our lovemaking was infrequent. There were no truly tender moments; there was no lingering. Robert seemed awfully childish, somehow. We never talked about anything important, like what we really thought about love or art or family or any of the problems of the world. He was quixotic, chasing after anything that sparkled, dropping it when it lost its luster. He liked trotting me around, liked telling people who I was. I knew all this, but I did not like to admit it to myself. I wanted to hold on to the brightness— the lightness—as long as I could. To Robert, I was a grand sparkler, and I basked in his idea of me. It was good, a relief, to be happy in this new and frothy sort of way.
I did not obsess over Robert, I just let things go on as they were. After all, I had Italy. Italy was my true obsession. God—to be on my own, free to paint whatever I wished, whenever I wished! To find an Italian lover with soulful eyes. A man who wanted to be with me always. He would come to my studio, and we would make passionate love. He would stand in the morning light, admiring my paintings. Then he would turn to me. Straordinario . . . splendido— come sei, Pamela. No, I was not in love with Robert.
So what happened next makes no sense, I realize.
Of course I should have stopped it, but it seemed to have a life of its own. Robert formed an idea he couldn’t let go. He kept talking about marrying me. Well, more about a wedding. He said, “Wouldn’t it be grand?” We’d have a ceremony in Harlem. He said he’d talked it all over with Gumby, who was eager to host it at his salon. They’d stayed up late one night, planning the whole thing, the music, the decorations. They decided Bruce Nugent (“Brother Bruce” they called him) would be the best man. They made up a guest list. It would be the social event of Harlem that season.
It wasn’t real, I told myself. He didn’t mean any of it. I never thought it was real. Marry Robert? It was crazy. He wasn’t the “right” one, I knew that. And really, we’d only just met.
Anyway, he never actually proposed, he just started talking, talking. I never objected to his plans, I just laughed a lot, and kept telling him he was crazy.
“I’ve found the dress!” Robert said to me one day, dragging me away all the way down to Broome Street and, in his usual exuberant fashion—just for the thrill of it—farther south to Chinatown crammed with red and yellow and green buildings hung with banners and glittering with gilt. And the horrible stench!—a sort of awful stew of raw sewage, roasting meat, bitter herbs, raw fish, and incense.
We made our way back up to Little Italy, to Mulberry Street, overrun with hundreds of pushcart vendors. The dress was in a tailor’s shop. Robert had seen it in the window when he’d gone to see about taking in a pair of trousers. When he asked about the dress, the tailor had shrugged and said it was just for decoration, that he’d be happy to sell it. It was a fancy Italian peasant dress, white, with a low square neck and fitted bodice and layers of lace over white cotton. The neckline was embroidered with gold and emerald thread. The dress was nothing like the ivory silks and pearls I saw every Sunday in the New York Times wedding portraits. But Robert had a knack for that sort of thing—it turned out to be just the right dress for me. I went into a cramped little closet to try it on and when I emerged the tailor beamed. “Bella! Sarà una bella sposa! You will be a beautiful bride!”
Robert looked quite pleased with himself. “I knew it. It’s absolutely the perfect dress for you!”
I shrugged and smiled sheepishly.
I let myself be propelled forward, bit by bit. This little ceremony that Robert had concocted hardly counted as a real wedding, did it? It was as if we were acting out a fairy tale, or a silly play. I was just playing the role he’d handed me. Robert would tire of it soon, I thought, go on to the next thing.
But he kept insisting, and I kept going along. I ignored the rational—horrified—voice inside that was lecturing to me all along. I simply turned myself over, as I had from the beginning, to the make-believe joy that Robert Schlick had brought into my life.
I told no one about the upcoming event. Not even Mam and Daddy. I don’t know if they would have made me see how foolish I was being. Cecco had married his longtime love, Barbara, the year before. They had gone about it in all the right ways—a long courtship, a year’s engagement (Cecco had saved up, bought a small but perfect diamond), and a beautiful wedding at St. Bartholomew’s. There was no question that they were a well-matched pair, little question that it would be a good marriage. And here I was, running around in secret, planning to marry a man I barely knew. But I was sure of two things: that when it was a fait accompli Mam would accept it graciously, and Daddy would be happy not to have to pay for a wedding. Besides, Robert said he wasn’t telling his parents, either, not till later.
On June 21, 1930, about thirty people assembled in Gumby’s parlor. A crowd stood outside. Word had spread fast that something big was happening at Gumby’s. It was warm, and windows were open. All the people in the street were making a racket. Brother Bruce stuck his head out and yelled, “Y’all shut up till you hear de ladies start singing de saints marching in song. Den you kin do what you lak. You got dat?” Then he turned to us, pulled down the corners of his vest, and spoke as if he were a professor in a lecture hall. “I believe, my friends, that the crowd is tamed. You may proceed.”
The altar was a podium Gumby had borrowed from the neighborhood elementary school and decorated with a garland of white carnations. To the left of the altar stood the chorus: six ladies dressed in jewel-colored silk dresses, feathered hats, and high-heeled shoes. To the right was Gumby’s prized piano. Robert’s friend Teo Hernandez played his own jazzy version of Wagner for my entrance, followed by a slow and quiet “Rock of Ages.” The chorus hummed while Gumby raised his baritone voice, and said a few things about Robert and me that I don’t remember. Robert slid the little gold filigree ring we’d found at a pawnshop on my finger. Gumby theatrically pronounced us man and wife. Teo began to pound on the piano, and the chorus sang joyously:
We are trav’ling in the footsteps
Of those who’ve gone before,
And we’ll all be reunited
On a new and sunlit shore.
Oh, when the saints go marching in,
Oh, when the saints go marching in,
Lord, how I want to be in that number,
When the saints go marching in.
The people inside and out on the street clapped and sang and danced. Bruce, in his yellow silk shirt and white linen jacket, worked the crowds as if he were the host, kissing everyone on both cheeks while holding out his cigarette in a long ivory holder set with green and red enamel.
My wedding.
The social event of the season.
pamela