always with a puckish smile. Nobody worried about anything. If she ran into trouble she would just make something up to cause it to go away. She had always been the master of weaving her own reality. She knew that. Most of the people around her thought she was impossible. That she was unable to see the truth in the world around her. She would take adversity and pretend it never happened. She would make up stories to explain away the bad past. She knew they whispered that she would have to open her eyes one day, that life is not an ongoing production with her as its director. And many in her circle treated her as though she were delusional, unable to distinguish between the stage and reality. But wasn’t that right where she wanted them? Keeping them off balance. Never being able to fully read her, and always relying on her to navigate the latest reality. In truth it was power. The unstable are always the most powerful. Unpredictability is a dangerous weapon. And even more so when it is being handled by puppet strings with a nod and a wink. She had used it to rule over everyone—her crew, the newspapers, the promoters. And the audiences loved her for it. Everywhere she went in the world, they gathered around her and waited for her to do
But somewhere along the line the act became routine, and she stopped fully trusting herself and her motive. She questioned her own versions of events. Her attempts at unpredictability seemed contrived and rehearsed. She had started to lose control. And once she lost the ability to control, the outside events that she was trying to deflect began to creep in and overwhelm her. Break her down. And those imbeciles around her who had whispered behind her back would never have once considered that she had only been protecting them. Instead they stripped her of her battle armor and sent her to the Coliseum to face the black-veiled gladiators, still leaving her there today. Even out on that pier, reaching into her arsenal for one last single shot, her interior demons had overwhelmed her capability to ward off the conservative reactionaries. The stunt on the pier may have brought on a wave of nostalgia for some (
Sarah cinched the covers around her neck. She couldn’t shake the chill that vibrated her bones.
The hands on the clock faced her at 3:11 P.M., leaning to the right with arms outstretched for an awkward embrace. She wanted to yank the covers over her head and not come out until it was after 4:00 P.M., with the rehearsal well under way without her. And there would be Max, nervously twitching, ready to ingest himself until he could disappear and leave nothing but a small spot of saliva where he had just stood. Kinney’s fury would rage though the theater while the actors paced not too far from their blocking marks, wondering if indeed the show does go on. Maybe a reporter would be there calmly taking notes, never moving from his seat, bowing his pen like Nero while the whole theater burned down. And his story would run the next day, and the bishop would tack it up on the announcements board in the cathedral where it would take on a shrine quality, a memorial to victory and perseverance—the trophy for decency. And then the bishop will go on and fight the next battle, realizing somewhere down the line how little effect executing Sarah Bernhardt had on the wages of morality.
She looked up at the clock once more. That minute hand wouldn’t move if she hit it with a chisel.
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 risque 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
