I Cannot Get You Close Enough (5 page)

I woke at three in the afternoon, feeling rested, glad to be in my own bed. I snuggled deep down into my own sheets, my own blankets, my own pillows, one of which was so old it had actually been on my bed in my mother's house in Charlotte, a small down pillow from a bed I had shared with my sister Helen. I arranged it behind my head and reached out an arm and picked up the phone and called Celestine.

“What are you up to now?” I asked when she answered the phone. “I just got off the plane. What are all these messages?”

“Adrian's here, darling. Adrian Moss, who did the costumes for me all those years at Spoletto. You have to meet him. He's dying to know you. He's such a fan. We have tickets to
Nine
. Can you go?”

“If I can get my hair done. I flew in with Arthur. I think we got drunk on the plane.”

“Bad girl.”

“Well, I couldn't find out anything — about Sheila, I mean.”

“Adrian's only here for one more day. Then he's off to Japan to do costumes for that Mike Nichols thing. Please come. Have you had any sleep?”

“Some. All right. What time?”

“Come by here at six-thirty and we'll have dinner first. Oh, I'm so glad you're back. I have so much to tell you. Shall I send a driver for you? Say six-fifteen?”

“That would help. I'll meet him in the lobby.” I hung up and got out of bed, thinking about Celestine. She lived in a world so far away from anything I had known. A world of agents and museum boards, the people who make things possible for artists. Celestine made things happen. Broadway plays had been born in her living room. Movies created at her dinner table. She had conceived the idea for
Playhouse 90
on a trip to Rome. There was no resisting her and no reason to resist. If Sheila was at one end of a spectrum, Celestine was at the other. I got into the shower and began to wash my hair. Let Sheila lay for the night, I decided. Go out and get sucked into one of Celestine's scenarios. I had heard her talk of Adrian for years. The two of them had run around Italy with Coco and Schapparelli and had lived in Venice at the Gritti Palace. Fuck Sheila, I decided. Here I am, where I always dreamed of being. I have cast my lot with the gypsies and I have never regretted it either.

I fell in love with Adrian. Not love love where you take off your clothes and lie down and start to devour each other. Love where your eyes meet and your souls dance and you love every word each other says. He had read all my books and wanted to make the costumes for all the characters in all the movies Celestine would probably never find a way to make except in her head.

Adrian was the perfect artist and the perfect Englishman. He had won three Academy Awards on this side of the Atlantic and everything there was to win in Italy and England. He met me at the door quoting from my books and we nestled down into a corner sofa and talked for hours.

“What were you doing in London?” he asked at last. “Celestine said you were setting a novel there.”

“Oh, no. I was looking for my sister-in-law.”

“Have you lost her then?”

“I wish we could lose her, down a dark black hole. She's this terrible bitch who's ruined my brother's life. She's trying to take his child away. She's a terrible mother, a terrible person, and she's been gone for several years. Now she's back in the States trying to get the child. This gorgeous child, oh, Adrian, we're afraid she'll try to make the child into a film star. I don't know what I was trying to do over there to tell the truth. I wanted to get the goods on her. Something we could use in the custody suit.”

“What is her name?”

“Sheila Hand. She married a young Rothschild for a while. Peter, the youngest one. It didn't last long. Why do you ask?”

He looked quizzical. “I think I must have met her, last year at a hunting party in Scotland. Oh, it couldn't be the one.”

“What couldn't?” I sat up, put my glass down. He was shaking his head.

“Is she a small blond woman, very tailored? Wears dark green and black. She had on an enormous ring with several rubies.”

“And a small face and almost no makeup and her hair very perfect and in a pageboy and nothing anyone could ever do would ever please her, that's Sheila. Where did you see her?”

“Oh, this is too much. She was with a crowd of Turks. They were off to Istanbul to some political meeting. It might be the one.”

“Was she unpleasant?”

“That's the word.”

“Adrian, listen, I hate this woman. Tell me everything you remember. My God, this is too much.”

“It was all about politics. They were some sort of communists. The man she was with was a Cypriot. David Marchman, our host for the weekend, had invited them. It was some business thing but they showed up with four extra people and there wasn't room for everyone. It was a hunting party. We were after grouse. Anyway, they only stayed one night and everyone was quite relieved when they left. I got the impression she was in love with the Cypriot. They were on their way to Istanbul. Yes, I'm sure they were. That was several years ago. Over a year ago.”

“Can you find out any of their names? The ones she was with? Could you ask the man you were visiting?”

“I'll call tomorrow morning if you like. If I can find him. No one ever knows where David is. He goes all over. I'm spending the spring and summer here. Did Celestine tell you? As soon as we're back from Japan. The rest of the film will be shot here. In New York City.”

“This is too much. This is too lucky.” I snuggled down into the sofa. “Oh God, Adrian. This is wonderful. If she was with communists that's all we'd need for Charlotte. A communist would definitely do the trick.”

 

I called Daniel that night and told him the news. “I think we have a lead,” I told him. “If it pans out we might not even have to have a trial.”

“What is it?”

“She's been hanging out with communists. You know how nuts Big Ed is on that subject. If it's true we can get him to call her off. I'll have to get some proof though. He won't take our word for this.”

“Can I help? What can I do to help you?”

“Nothing. Just take care of Jessie. Is she there?”

“She's right here. You want to talk to her?”

“Of course I do. Put her on.” Jessie came to the phone and spoke to me. Her beautiful little voice like a violin, like a song, like a bell.

“Aunt Anna, when are you coming down here? When will you come see us? We have a new pony. She's a palomino. Dad says you like them best. We might name her Anna. We might name her for you.”

“I'll come when I can. I just got home from Europe. I have to write my book now. I have so much work to do.”

“You could come down here and work. We'd be quiet and let you do it here.”

“I'll be there soon. As soon as I can get away.”

When I hung up, I was sad again. I walked around the rooms of my apartment. What was I doing so far away from all the people I love? What was I doing so cold and lonely and alone?

Adrian called just as I was feeling sorry for myself and said he had failed to find David Marchman but that he would keep trying. “When I come back to New York we must be friends,” he said. “We must have lunch once a week and go to movies. I spend afternoons seeing movies, do you do that too?”

“Not yet,” I answered, “but I'm ready to learn.”

During the next month I finished a draft of a book. It was the best writing experience of my life. Long mornings alone with the phone off the hook and New York City outside my windows going about its business, paying me no mind. I needed to write that winter, needed a world where dragons could be slain. It was going to be the worst book I had ever written, but the writing of it was an exotic thing. I knew all along the book would not be good but I was in a strange mood and went on writing.

Adrian returned from Japan and took me out to dinner. He had found David Marchman and David was making inquiries about Sheila. What Adrian reported was not encouraging. Sheila had pretty much ruined herself with reputable people in and around the London theater world. David Marchman remembered the Turks but couldn't recall their names. It turned out it had been Sheila he had invited up to Scotland and she had brought the others along. I reported all this to Daniel and probably drove him mad with worry. Meanwhile, Jessie turned eleven and was taking ballet lessons from our old ballet teacher in Charlotte. Miss Caroline Prince, who had taught Helen and me and all our friends and Sheila and maybe the Virgin Mary. If I heard Caroline's name I immediately sat up straight and pulled in my stomach and tucked my chin.

“How is Jessie doing as a dancer?” I asked, when I called to check on her progress.

“She is exquisite,” Miss Caroline answered. “This child shall not be wasted, Anna, as you were. Her music is a gift. You must come and see her dance, you must hear her play. Have you heard her play?”

“I heard it last time I was home. It's amazing, isn't it? The things she composes.”

“She dances as well as she plays. Like a spirit she moves, like a dream. When will you come home?”

“I don't know. I'm writing a book. I have to finish it first. You know how that is. I'm so happy you are there to teach her, Caroline. So happy to think of her with you.”

“Oh, my darling. I am not the teacher now. I only oversee. Lily is the teacher now. My precious Lily. You must come and meet her. You must see the child dance her dance of jonquils in her yellow tutu. Yes, you must come soon. The air is wrong for you up there. It will ruin your complexion. Why does it matter where you are to write?”

“It doesn't.” I laughed. “But I have to stay away from my family or I get too excited. They take up all my brain if I stay in Charlotte. So it's quieter here.”

“Come at Christmas and see the recital.”

“I'll try,” I told her. “And I'll be home to live before too long. Not to Charlotte, perhaps, but near there, in the mountains. We'll see each other soon. I'll try to come at Christmas. I'd love to see the recital. Imagine the recital still going on.”

“Stay warm, my darling,” she ordered and hung up. I imagined her, her hands raised to begin the music, bringing high civilization and high art to Charlotte.

In many ways Adrian Moss reminded me of Caroline. He demanded a certain level of civilization every minute of the day. I could not imagine him taking off his shoes until it was time for bed or refusing to save a drowning man or being late for dinner. Adrian was a godsend that year but he was not an Englishman after all. For all his British manners and British ways it turned out he was Polish and even his name was an assumed one. His real name was Tadeusz Rozwadowski and he was the last surviving male of a line that included statesmen and generals and a famous writer of aphorisms. When he was fourteen years old he had walked out of Poland to escape the invading Russian army. With his twelve-year-old sister, Dubravka, and sixty gold coins wrapped in a leather purse around his waist, he had walked for five days and nights and arrived finally at an American air force base on the German border. He and his sister both spoke enough English to make themselves understood.

“My father has sent me,” Adrian said to the first American soldier that he met. “I am to go to the land of freedom. Would you please assist me in any way you can.”

The Americans kept them for a while, then turned them over to the International Red Cross, which sent them to England, to relatives outside of London. A cousin worked for a designer and with her help Adrian had found his way into the world of haute couture, then into costume design. He might have been a general in another world. Instead he had taken what was offered and spun it into gold. It was a hero's tale, and when I heard the story it changed him in my eyes.

“And where is Dubravka now?” I asked.

“She is married and the mother of two sons. She lives in London. She is more in contact with Poland than I am. She is also sad more than I.”

“For your country?”

“She writes to them. Our parents are dead but we have kinsmen still alive and friends she remembers. She writes many letters and goes to marches in Hyde Park. She thinks she can change history. Well, perhaps she can. I am more resigned. When she gets stirred up I remember how brave she was when we left our mother. How straight and uncomplaining she was and how she walked holding my hand and never asked questions. We were in woods five days and nights. Sleeping on the forest floor like Hansel and Gretel. I kept trying to wipe off her face and brush leaves from her sweater. I wanted her to be clean when we arrived in the free countries so they would be kind to us.”

“Adrian,” I said. “Would you mind if I fell in love with you?”

Man attains enlightenment only in flashes. If I hadn't liked him so much perhaps I would have fallen in love with him. He would have welcomed it, I think. There were moments when we almost came near enough to admit that we desired each other, but something held me back. I think now it was a lack of courage. I was too old by then to plunge myself into a world where I would have to meet Dubravka, to be involved with the lost intellectuals of Eastern Europe. For all his gaiety and art, all the brilliance of his costumes, all his exuberance and life, the other thing was always there, waiting to cross his face at the strangest moments, a Poland he could not return to, parents he had not seen grow old and die. A stillness would come over him and I would think, He is truly disinherited. What could I offer this man to make up for that?

 

It made the problems my mother conveyed to me by phone from Charlotte seem like celluloid illusions. Little Putty didn't get into Tri-Delt or DeDe was still throwing up in Memphis or Young James was stuffing cocaine up his nose at the University of Virginia and don't send him a cent of money no matter what he says it's for. These may have seemed like huge problems in Charlotte but they were still the free choices of free men. At any moment our children could change their minds, decide to be ambitious and useful. They could repent, go to law school, study biology, resolve to save the environment, get married, have babies, settle down.