Yet she was happy to be in Atlantic City. Here Sarah’s child was protected. For the first time since Sarah’s death she could think of her without weeping. She enjoyed being viewed in public, as in the dining room at the hotel or on the veranda in the evening, or strolling on the boardwalk down to the pavilions and piers and shops. Sometimes they hired a chair in which she and Father sat aside and were slowly pushed along by a porter. They made lazy examination of the occupants of chairs going in the opposite direction, or glanced discreetly at the other riders they happened to pass. Father tipped his straw. The chairs were wicker, with fringed canvas tops that reminded her of the surreys of her childhood. The two side wheels were large, as on a safety bicycle; the small wheel in front swiveled and sometimes squeaked. He son loved these chairs. They could be hired too without a man, and he loved that best of all, for then he pushed the chair with his mother and father seated in it and he could direct it as he would, at whatever speed, without their feeling the need of instructing him. The great hotels stood behind the boardwalk, one next to the other, their awnings flapping in the sea wind, their immaculately painted porches lined with rocking chairs and white wicker settees. Nautical flags flew from the cupolas and at night they were lighted by rows of incandescent bulbs strung along their roof lines.
One night the family stopped at a pavilion where a brass band of Negroes stoutly played a rag, she didn’t know which one, that she remembered ringing from her piano at home under the fine hands of Mr. Coalhouse Walker. She had for days lived not in forgetfulness of the tragedy but in relief from it, as if in this resort city by the sea painful thought were blown off by the prevailing breezes as soon as they formed. Now she was almost overcome by the music which was associated in her mind also with Younger Brother. And immediately her love for her brother, a wave of passionate admiration, broke over her. She felt she had neglected him. An image of his lean moody impetuous being flashed in her mind, somewhat reproachful, somewhat disgusted. It was the way he had looked at her over the dining table at home as Father cleaned his pistol. She felt a slight vertigo, and looking into the lights of the pavilion where the indomitable musicians sat in red and blue uniforms with their shiny trumpets and cornets, tubas and saxophones, she thought she saw under each trim military cap the solemn face of Coalhouse.
After that evening Mother’s joy in the seashore was more tenuous. She had to concentrate on each day as it came. She attempted by sheer resolve to make it serene. She as affectionate to her son, her husband, her invalid father; she was affectionate to her Negro woman and most of all to the still-unchristened and beautiful son of Sarah, who was thriving here and seemed to be growing visibly. She began to consider the attentions that were being paid her by various of the hotel guests. They hovered on the edges of her consciousness, waiting for some consideration from her. For simple occupation she was now prepared to bestow this. There were several impressive Europeans at the hotel. One was a German military attaché to his embassy who wore a monocle and always saluted her with discreet gallantry. He was tall and wore that cropped hair they affected and came to dinner in his formal uniform of white, with black bow tie. He made a great show of ordering wines and then rejecting them. There were no women in his party but three or four men, somewhat coarser-looking, whose rank was apparently inferior to his. Father said he was a Captain von Papen and that he was an engineer. They saw him every day walking the beach and unrolling charts and pointing to sea and speaking to his aides. Usually there was at the time a small craft slowly traversing the horizon. It is some kind of engineering survey, Father said lying on the beach sand with his face to the sun. I can’t imagine why the South Jersey coast should interest Germans. Farther was oblivious to the man’s speculative notice of his wife. Mother was amused by this. She knew from the first careless glance she returned to the officer that he presented to her only the most lascivious intentions focused, as it were, in the imperiousness of his monocled gaze. She decided to ignore him.
There was an elderly French couple with whom she learned to exchange pleasantries; she laughed to recall her schoolgirl French and they very generously complimented her accent. They never appeared in the sun except cocooned in endless swaths of linen and gauze topped with Panama hats. For good measure they carried parasols. The man who was shorter than his wife and quite heavy, had liver spots on his face. He wore thick glasses. He had enormous pendent ear lobes. He carried a butterfly net and jar with a cork stopper and she a picnic hamper so heavy that she could not walked upright with it. Each morning she struggled after him over the dunes and they disappeared in the distant haze where there were no hotels, no boardwalk, only the gulls and sandpipers and the dune grasses, where sat the trembling wings for which he lusted. He was a retired history professor from Lyons.
Mother tried to interest Grandfather in the French couple on the basis of their academic background. The old man would have none of it. He was totally engrossed in his condition and too irritable to engage in civilized discourse. He defeated all the diversions she thought up for him — except one, a daily ride in a boardwalk chair in which he could sit and be wheeled without being thought infirm. But he carried a cane across his lap and whenever the pedestrian traffic did not move fast enough for him he lifted the cane and prodded women and men alike, who would turn and stare, outraged, as he sailed past them.
There were other guest, of course, who where not Europeans: a gigantic stockbroker from New York with a huge wife and three immense children, who spoke not a word when they dined; several family groups from Philadelphia, who could be placed quickly by the nasalities of their speech. But Mother found that the persons who interested her were invariably foreigners. They were not a substantial number but seemed to beam more life than her countrymen. The most fascinating of all was a small, limber man who wore jodhpurs and a white silk shirt open at the neck and a flat white linen cap with a button. He was a flamboyant, excited person whose eyes darted here and there, like a child’s, afraid of what they might miss. He carried on a chain around his neck a rectangular glass framed in metal which he often held up to his face as if to compose for a mental photograph what it was that had captured his attention. One cloudy morning on the hotel porch it turned out to be Mother. Caught in the act he came over and in a thick foreign accent made profuse apologies. He was, he said, the Baron Ashkenazy. He was in the moving-picture business and the glass rectangle was a tool of the trade which he could not forbear using even when on vacation. He laughed sheepishly and Mother was charmed. He had shining black hair and his hands were delicate and small. She saw him next on the beach leaping about some distance away, entertaining a child at the edge of the sea, picking up things, running this way and that, and holding up his peculiar rectangular glass. With the sun behind him he was no more than a silhouette. But she immediately recognized his energetic figure, even at that distance, and she smiled.
The Baron Ashkenazy was the first guest to join Mother and Father at their table. He arrived with a beautiful little girl whom he introduced as his daughter. She was astonishingly lovely, about the same age as the boy. Mother had immediate hopes that they would become friends. Of course they sat there and said nothing and didn’t look at one another. But she was a remarkable creature, with the darkest eyes and thick hair like her father’s and a Mediterranean complexion. She wore a fine white lace dress with a satin bodice shaped by the smallest suggestion of a bosom. Father could not take his eyes off the girl. Through dinner she said nothing, nor did she smile. But the explanation was soon forthcoming, after the appetizer, in fact, when the Baron in a lowered voice, his hand going out to touch his daughter’s hand, explained that her mother had died some years before although he did not say of what. He had never remarried. A moment later he was again his ebullient self. He talked incessantly in his European accent, with malapropisms he himself recognized and laughed over. Life excited him. He dwelled on his own sensations and liked to talk about them: the taste of the wine or the way the candle flames multiplied in the crystal chandeliers. His simple delight in everything was infectious and soon Mother and Father wore constant smiles on their faces. They had forgotten themselves. It was enormously pleasurable to see the world as the Baron did, alive to every moment. He held his rectangular glass aloft, framing Mother and Father, the two children, the waiter walking toward the table and, at the far end of the dining room, a pianist and a fiddler who played for the patrons on a small platform decorated with potted palms. In the movie films, he said, we only look at what is there already. Life shines on the shadow screen, as from the darkness of one’s mind. It is a big business. People want to know what is happening to them. For a few pennies they sit and see their selves in movement, running, racing in motorcars, fighting and, forgive me, embracing one another. This is most important today, in this country, where everybody is so new. There is such a need to understand. The Baron lifted his wineglass. He looked at the wine and tasted. You have of course seen His First Mistake. No? A Daughter’s Innocence. No? He laughed. Don’t embarrass! They are my first two picture plays. One-reelers. I made them for under five hundred dollars and each has brought ten thousand dollars in receipt. Yes, he said laughing, it is true1 Father had coughed and turned red at the mention of specific sums. Misunderstanding, the Baron insisted on explaining to him how this was a good profit but not unusual. The film business was at this time booming and anyone could make money. Now, the Baron said, I have become myself a company in partnership with the Pathé exchange for a story of fifteen reels long! And each reel will be shown, one a week for fifteen weeks, and the customers will come back every week to see what next happens. With a mischievous look he took a shiny coin from his pocket and flipped it into the air. The Baron caught the coin and flattened his hand on the table with a loud smack. The silver jumped. The water shook in the glasses. He lifted his hand, revealing one of the popular new five-cent pieces, a buffalo nickel. Father couldn’t understand why he was doing this. How I named myself, the Baron said with delight. I am the Buffalo Nickel Photoplay, Incorporated!