Max walked Kinney to the side exit, a narrow hallway where they stood before the closed door. It smelled of damp night. Max tapped his shoes heel-toe, kicking the edge of the wall.
“I assume the theater is satisfactory?” Kinney asked.
“Still under review. We’ll leave her here a while. Madame has to grab hold of it.”
“She shouldn’t be left alone. Reporters are crawling on their bellies looking for quotes. I think that yesterday’s little stunt should be warning enough. It made every paper except one. If you don’t give them head-on controversy here, then they will always go for the strange. A little more of her classic fire would probably help to offset the event.”
“For the future, please do not arrange any public events without first going through me. Otherwise, Madame prefers to handle things her own way.”
“Her troubles with the Comédie-Française have been well documented. Seems she has been known to be a little fiery.”
“You couldn’t possibly know the potentials.”
Kinney smiled. “My only real concern is that Madame Bernhardt is comfortable with her surroundings.” He ran his hands through his pockets, crumpling the tan linen trousers. “But she must be careful. She can’t just go around performing for reporters every time she sees something she doesn’t like. They will eventually kill her in this town for that, especially considering the new bloodletting craze the papers have here, and the conservative plague that’s been killing us here. And you think the fucking Catholics are crazy…She got off lucky. I think our better strategy is to go back to her old verbal sparring. It’s safer but is still likely to keep us newsworthy.” He pushed the door open. A flash of light burst over the hall, rolling in like a welcome mat. He peered his head out, looking side to side, then stepped back in, leaving the door open. “Fresh cool sea air.”
“Yesterday will not happen again if you leave her to me.”
“It’s just that I know how this town runs. I know what to do for Madame Bernhardt.”
She appeared behind them. A rainbow shadow outlined her figure. “Please tell, I would very much like to know.” Golden sunlight glowed through the strands of lightened hair piled atop her head. “Please continue. I’m dying to know.” Her eyes looked glassy, larger than usual. Her stare seemed to take in the whole room without any of the detail. “Do tell all,” she said. “And make it saucier than a dime-store novel. Perhaps a church can wage war on our heroine, with everybody in the village knowing about it except for her. Imagine the dramatic irony. The tension, and the pity.” Then she laughed. Purely for herself. “But how would it end?”
Max jumped back in alarm. He grabbed Sarah by the arm and quickly whisked her out the door. “Let’s continue this in just a moment,” he muttered to Kinney. “We’ll meet you in your office.” He slammed the exit door shut. Max noticed Kinney taking notes with his eyes, scribbling every last detail to memory.
Max held on to her arm and pulled her to an inlet on the pier between the building entrances. They stepped over a strip of sunlight into the shadows. A wave broke beneath their feet, echoing far below the weathered slats. There was a rancid smell, like something had curled up and died in the corner. It was an overwhelmingly bitter and foul pungency that slowly turned sweet as fresh fruit. Max hardly noticed. He was still gripping Sarah’s arm. To a passerby it might have looked like a quarrel, or even a shakedown.
Sarah shook her arm free. “But I wanted to hear what he had to say.”
Max clenched his fists, and then unclenched them. Eventually he settled on shoving his agitated hands into his pockets. He bit down on his lip, and looked her in the eye. Then looked away as quickly to the thin view of ocean beneath his feet.
“Are you ready to work out the final scene with me? That room cannot handle it.”
He didn’t respond.
“Right now it is almost as though Marguerite is responsible for the disease. As if the tuberculosis is the knife guided by her own hand. As though she has brought on the disease only to create this tragedy of love.”
Max chewed on his lip while grinding his toe between a space in the slats.
“Max, you are not listening. You are upset about something. Why is my Molly upset?”
“You think this all just comes so easily, don’t you?” His voice was trembling. “Just wave a magic wand and poof.”
“Are we bringing you into it now?” She smiled. Her eyes crinkled at the corners, without tears. “Do they still say poof? Or is queer the in slang?”
“Sarah, you are supposed to be preparing for the show. Not off in your dreamland.”
She leaned forward and threw her arms around him, leaning her full weight against his chest. She touched her lips to his ear. “I love my Max so much. How he looks out for me. And sometimes I wish I could have all of my Max. But then, I suppose, I probably wouldn’t love you anymore.”
He felt the dryness of her breath tumbling down his neck. He didn’t push her away. Instead he hugged her and held tight, listening to the breaking waves and the distant carnival sounds. The boa tickled. He massaged his knuckle beneath her shoulder blade, a sharp hand-sculpted fin. “Sarah, the hop will destroy your career,” he whispered. “And you.”
“The hop. Listen to you. Hop. You become so pedestrian when you come to America. Say its right name, Max. For me.”
“If saying opium will make you stop, then there I’ve said it. Please.” He rubbed her shoulder a little harder.
“Your touch is always perfect. That’s why I love my Molly. He always cares for me.”
“We won’t have to worry about the Catholics if the newspapers get hold of this. You’ll be run out of America in a matter of minutes. And I’ll remind you that you cannot afford that in the least.”
“It’s not illegal.”
“In fact it is here. Very illegal. Laws have changed.”
“Then just tell them I have a cough. Or that I’m teething.” She laughed. “Tell anybody who wonders that I’ve just had a nip of Godfrey’s Cordial. Or Coke-Cola.”
“You can’t let Kinney suspect. He’s the type who will look for any advantage to grab control of this situation…Good god, we need to air you out. That smoke smell can last for hours. I wish you had never married Jacques Damala.”
“It was only for a year, my sweet.”
“A year that introduced you to a culture of drugs.”
“Do you remember New York, Max?”
He heard footsteps milling down the pier behind them. A woman’s deep voice moaning and talking. Max held Sarah tighter to shelter her from view until they passed.
“Don’t tell me you don’t remember New York? And that was long before the Greek Damala.”
“There have been many New York trips,” he answered dismissively, hoping not to engage her. “Abbot Kinney can’t even suspect, Sarah. He’ll turn us into one of his junk heap circus rides. It will make a mockery of your career.”