She rubbed her feet together to warm them. The bones and calluses only added to the discomfort.
She really had no problem with her career ending. She just couldn’t stand to see it end this way. The more she pictured her absence in the theater, the more she felt a certain cowardice. Maybe that is how Henriette-Rosine would exit, by never taking the stage at all, but Sarah Bernhardt commanded the boards. The theater only came to life when she entered it, and when she exited she sucked out the life in a trailing tornado’s tail. She should be giving a farewell speech to her company, for all the times they had stood behind her. She owed it them, especially to Constant and Edouard. A dramatic recitation that rivaled the best of Shakespeare, and then leave with the footlights in her fists, keeping the power and the victory for herself.
But getting out of bed felt impossible.
She expected Max would knock one more time. He didn’t believe her. He never believed her dramatics. He was the one who usually saw through her. That was what made him such a good manager. Only this time he should be seeing her seriousness. Not trying to convince her with some imbecilic speech that this is some kind of pattern. That kind of insulting talk suggested that her fits and starts were unruly, and that perhaps there was some delusion about her realities. She should have told him that it must have been a true miracle that she became the most successful woman in the whole world. A real miracle. Maybe that would buy her a seat in Bishop Conaty’s house.
She slid off the bed and went into the bathroom. If she submerged her body into the pool, the water would initially burn the skin surface in an almost sensual manner, a thin clear line singeing its way over her stomach and breasts before it settled at her neck. And the heat would relax her muscles, slowing down her heartbeat and draining out a final restless breath until she felt completely relaxed in wombed comfort.
Sarah turned around with force, almost falling into the tub headfirst (and wouldn’t that make a headline ending). She was not going to get in the bath. Not going to give Max the satisfaction of honoring his routine.
Nor would she ever drain the bath.
She went back to her bed, pulling the covers up, while the edges burned across her stomach and breasts, before settling comfortably at her neck.
The light was growing dim. It could get cold so quickly once the sun considered sinking. And she wished it were tomorrow already. By then there would only be bruises. The blows long ago forgotten and turned to myth.
WITH WHAT SHE EXPECTED was Max’s knock, Sarah opened the door to see instead the desk clerk. “Pardon me, Madame,” he said. “But I have a message I have been asked to personally deliver.” He handed it to her and stood there as she read it, as was customary in case a reply was warranted (although the reporter had clearly instructed him not to bother). Her face bent into a smile, and tiny fragments of lines burst around her eyes, showing an age that Dolph had not noticed in her before.
She glanced up at him, his skin-and-bones frame willing itself not to twitch from nerves. “This Monsieur Baker is a young man, I would guess. He does not yet know the difference between thinking things and sharing them.”
Dolph shrugged.
“Another ruffian. A bad boy iconoclast. The world produces a new one every five minutes. And that’s the irony now, isn’t it? They’re spitting out duplicates as fast as it takes to walk out the door and to the pier. The real bad boys are the ones who do everything by the book. Clean-cut and in bed by eight. They take an occasional drink at the proper social moment, with barely a fantasy about bending a lady over with a slapping hand held above their heads. They read one or two books a year, nothing controversial, nothing too thought provoking, and then they blush at the suggestion of any risqué parts. Those are the real bad boys. They are the ones who truly face the world alone.”
Dolph moved his heels a little closer together. Adopting a more formal posture, as Mr. Kinney had instructed all his staff. “Do you have a reply, Madame?”
Sarah paused, then drew in a long inhalation. Finally she let it go with an outstretched arm. “Yes,” she said, returning the paper. “Please take the letter back and hold it at the desk. Perhaps he will realize his foolishness, and we can give him the option of retrieving the letter and disposing of it as quickly as he can.”
Dolph bent the message into an uncommitted fold. He nodded and backed away to leave.
“Pardon,” she said. “I am sorry but I do not have any money to offer for your services. I will see that Monsieur Klein takes care of that. And what is your name?”
“Dolph.”
“Dolph,” she repeated. “I wonder if I know your parents. Dolph. Perhaps I have seen your parents marching through the streets of Paris and shooting little babies. Or maybe those were your father’s bullets lodged into the bodies of all those boys who were laid up in my hospital during the war. It is indeed a small world, isn’t it, Dolph?”
“Perhaps I should just leave you to your room now.”
“Perhaps,” she said. “Off with you. And don’t forget to tell your father hello for me. Tell him that Sarah Bernhardt remembers every bullet that shed the skin of every French boy. Now off.” Then she leaned her head through the door frame and yelled down the hallway to Dolph, “There really is no need to worry. Monsieur Klein will see that your efforts are well compensated.”
3:45 P.M. THE CLOCK ACTUALLY HAD MOVED. She was waiting for Max. She had gone to the closet and buttoned up a white chemisette slightly into perfection, the cambric veiling her cleavage and framing her neck. Then she slipped on a white waist shirt, slowly buttoning it to bring the pirate flounces into form. She stepped into her black peau de soie skirt, the plain tailored silk falling naturally against her form. She didn’t bother to look in the mirror. She was dressed to go to her own funeral. She pushed her hair up, bringing life to her pillow-flattened mane.
“My lord, you look sensational.” Max looked relieved upon arrival, as if he had expected to find her buried deep in her bed, black rings circling her eyes, and a weak and frail voice fully dehydrated of spirit. “Let’s find your boots, and I will help you lace them up,” he offered hopefully.
She decided not to fight. Not to toy or tease.
“Sit down beside me,” she said, patting the bed. “Please, before we go.”
He looked at her with his head cocked. His suspicion was getting the better of him.
“You should always trust me.”
Max dug his hands into his pockets, they bulged and crawled as he scratched his thighs. He nodded. Bit his lip. Looked ridiculously young, as though the situation had drawn him back into the awkwardness of a closeted sixteen-year-old boy, tiptoeing across each day, waiting for the wrath of his father’s disappointment, and the violent form it was likely to take. It was ironic that she had become a father figure to him. Wasn’t that one of the things that these puritans hated her for—how she had sometimes played the opposite gender on the stage? (And it often was Hamlet for God’s sake, not some depraved hermaphroditic child molester.) Her naysayers should take hold of this one—acting as a father to a queer man. That would almost certainly give them license to kill.
After shuffling his feet and kicking at the floor, Max finally sat down. His weight barely dented the bed.
Sarah took his hand. “I just want you to know that I love you. You will always be my Molly. In the words of Marguerite: When you saw me spitting blood you took my hand.” And she meant it. She may have despised the way that he puppy-trailed the ass scents of the Kinneys of the world, appearing to straddle the lines of allegiance in some form of arrogant collusion, but still the truth of it was that when the band stopped playing and the last drinks had been served, he came home with her. Night after night.