“You are my protector, Max.”
“This is serious.”
“Booth’s Theater. Does that ring a bell?”
“Sarah. Not now.”
“New York. Booth’s Theater. What was that, about ’eighty? Down in the Tenderloin.”
“Not long enough ago,” Max sneered.
“Oh please, Molly. We took that ship over that bounced up and down the entire way. We couldn’t walk straight. That was the ship that Lincoln’s widow was on board. She looked tragically horrible. Gray skin. Her eyes sunken and pale. Almost a vagabond. She would have died if I hadn’t grabbed her arm. The stairs were that steep. She knew it. She said it would have been a blessing to die. I still feel the buzz that went through me while holding her hand. Life and death all around her at the hands of actors. I didn’t tell her my name. I couldn’t even look her in the eye. We didn’t see her the rest of the trip, did we?”
Max laughed. “Not for trying, Sarah. You spent the rest of the days trying to point her out to me until we landed at New York Harbor with all those WELCOME THE BERNHARDT signs.”
“That promoter Jarrett was such an embarrassment to me. An ass.”
“But he paid us well for that, Sarah. And ensured that you were the toast of the town.”
She brushed him off with a wave of her hand. “The reporters all wanted to know what religion I was. Here I thought that they would be asking questions about Dumas writing L’Etrangère especially for me. About bringing the French craft to the United States. Or if I’d be starting off the tour with Phèdre or Hernani. No, puritan America just wanted to make sure I had some religion. I should have just copped to something. Then maybe I wouldn’t have seemed so immoral to them.”
“Things haven’t changed much.”
“But Booth’s Theater. Do you remember?”
“All the customs men waiting at the theater hoping to levy a tax on the stage production.” Of course he remembered. It had been his first trip to America. Every moment had seemed important. “They looked at the dresses. Each and every one. Admiring the beads and jewels.”
“And you were such a frightened Molly. Just like you are now. Afraid that they would find my little canister of opium. Almost one hundred dollars’ worth on that trip. You were ghostly in the corner. Couldn’t even enjoy the sight of all these burly government men holding dresses up to their barrel chests.”
“A different kind of fear.”
“And you told me to get rid of it. As soon as they left, you said we had to get rid of it.”
He grinned. She had successfully, as always, brought him into her world. Pretty soon Max was likely to completely forget the volatility of the current situation and participate in its explosion, until somebody (undoubtedly him) inevitably cleaned it up on hands and knees in the final hour. “That was a different time, Sarah. The world was a different place then.”
“It was you who said that we had to smoke it. You didn’t suggest throwing it over the Brooklyn Bridge or dropping it into the toilet. You said we should smoke it. And you were the one who figured out how to get us into Chinatown.”
“Something like that. But Sarah let’s not lose track of where we are now.”
“Whatever we do, you said, don’t waste it.”
It was true. Max had ordered that directive. He got directions from one of the stagehands, who asked him why they would want to go down there, and Max had said it was for the food. The stagehand said he would go with them, he’d probably be down there anyway. Max told him not to bother. He then dragged Sarah along Forty-second Street past the hobos and the destitute. Her fur coat like a shield. Whores lined the streets, stationed like soldiers, jockeying position to be closer to casino doors. Through the muck of the street, and the rotten smell of the gutters, where each open doorway smelled of either liquor or vomit. He held her tight. Protecting her. But her gait was soft and easy, and she wasn’t bothered at all. Max had thanked god that they were not in Paris or London because there the diva would have been instantly recognized, and while he would have insisted on a cat-and-mouse escape, she would have stopped and bathed in the celebrity, touching hands and thanking them until she stumbled home drunk from adulation. But here, a month before opening night on her first American tour, she was just another faceless shadow, without the incessant publicity of the promoter. They took the Second Avenue El as instructed, rising high above the city in a tremolo of steel industry, the rattling vibrating his nerves while she peered out the window in excitement at the city below her. They got off at Canal Street lost and feeling especially foreign. He held her can of dope. She held his hand. Feeling exclusively endangered, they walked up past Centre Street. Max flagged down a motorized taxi and crawled into the buggy, shouting directions to the driver seated above them. “Take us somewhere where we can eat,” Max said, leaving it at that. The hack tooled around until he stopped abruptly and called out, “Mott Street. Can’t do better than this,” knowing full well what two poshees were doing in Chinatown after sunset. He wished them good luck as he accepted the fare and reminded them of the tip. Once out of the car they were surrounded by the bustle of Chinatown. Overwhelmed by the sweet greasy smell of roasted duck, spent tobacco, and the bitterness of burning opium. Two Europeans spotlighted against the blackened street, oblivious to the gang wars and yellow peril that the newspapers warned about. They walked aimlessly up the sidewalks, pushing through the hordes of Chinese, looking for someplace to sneak into and smoke down their stash in peace. Coming around the corner Max saw the stagehand, who waved when he greeted them. “If this isn’t a coincidence,” the young boy said. “Something tells me you’re not here to eat.”
Sarah smiled from habit.
Max took him by the arm and pulled the boy in closer for a whisper. “And neither do you. Especially judging by your bloodshot eyes. Did you follow us here?”
“I was hoping I would run into you. I can set you up. I know enough China talk.”
“Sarah?” Max inquired. “Do you trust him?”
By now she was in awe of her surroundings. Inhaling the dirty sidewalks; glittering in the gilded Cantonese characters that hung from the storefront above them. Sarah twirled in place, entranced by the mysticism and by her foreignness. “Sure,” she replied. “He’s one of us, isn’t he?”
On the sidewalk, the stagehand introduced himself as Nick Brown. A native New Yorker and a regular Booth man. And while he had never known Booth, Mr. Booth’s wife and daughter would know him by face and certainly vouch for his character. He wasn’t some kind of vagabond theater hand. He was loyal, he said. Deeply committed to art. Plus, he added, he couldn’t imagine a greater honor than “to take out the eighth wonder of the world.”
Sarah said he was a darling. But she was hardly paying attention, spinning, her spirit being whisked away by the street parade.
Max let Nick lead the way, for the first time taking notice of the boy’s slim hips and smooth shoulders.
Nick took them into Hsing’s Laundry. A known regular, he guided them into the back room where the air clouded in thick smoke. Three couches lined the room. Only one was occupied, by a white couple. Middle-aged louts slouched with spread legs, and heads dropped against the back of the couch. Vacant eyes staring at the ceiling. A yellow light lit the room, cast from the soft glow of the opium lamps set on trays throughout the space. They were made of brass and set low. The side engravings of poppy plants slithered like ghostly shadows.
A young petite Chinese girl with firm posture greeted Nick. She motioned him and his guests to go behind a partition to a private room. Her face carried the seriousness of a craftsman with a newly mastered art. Once behind the divider, she looked at all three clients at once and motioned them to sit on the couch. Despite no obvious authoritative presence in the room, there was the eerie sensation that the girl herself was being watched. “Tell her we have our own,” Max instructed Nick.