Fallen Beauty by Robuck Erika

Author:Robuck, Erika [Robuck, Erika]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2014-03-04T00:00:00+00:00

VINCENT

Eugen has decided that we should go to New York City. He thinks a change of atmosphere will blow away the disturbances between us. I hope he is right.

We’re lately in love with the Vanderbilt Hotel, on Thirty-fourth and Park Avenue, an impressive three-towered monument in gray brick. As we drive up to the valet, I inhale. Sometimes one needs the fumes and mists of motorcars, subways, and speakeasy gin to dull the senses. Smartly dressed men and women walk in and out of the terra-cotta-framed doors with energy and authority. Here, for a hundred a night, I can enjoy the city in perfect comfort and intoxication, and that is exactly what I plan to do.

“Let’s ring Deems and Mary,” I say. “We need partners in crime.”

“Perfect,” says Eugen.

He walks to the desk to check in, and I stand in the middle of the foyer, gazing at this spectacle of stone and earthen material. The architects of the Vanderbilt understood that gaudy ornament wasn’t necessary for opulence, and that crude material often yields the most impressive transformations.

Eugen escorts me to our rooms, and produces a bottle of 1921 Lanson Champagne. The cork pops. We drink the whole of it in less than an hour. There is another bottle. We take a taxi to Deems Taylor’s place.

“Edna! Gene!” he says, opening the door. He wears his black framed glasses and a huge smile, and we embrace. Mary comes from the kitchen. She is smiling out of politeness instead of joy, which really doesn’t concern me at all. I wave her off, and the three of us recline in the sitting room around the piano, recalling that glorious night in ’twenty-seven when we were at our collective summit.

It was February. Deems and I had nearly worked ourselves to death on a commission from the Metropolitan Opera Company to produce a great American opera. My headaches and poor vision had reached a terrible low, but in my writing shack, I had managed to create a most impressive libretto. The story of The King’s Henchman was one I knew well. It was a tale of love and betrayal among friends. It was the story of my heart.

That night, drowning in a gown of red velvet, I was escorted by Eugen, my sisters, and my mother. A young and open Gladys Ficke was there. Elinor Wylie was too, though I barely knew her at the time. I could hardly breathe in the sold-out auditorium, where even standing room had been filled to capacity.

At eight o’clock sharp, the harp began playing, announcing this tragedy of tenth-century England. I watched the very cells of my imagination take full form through the performers onstage, and felt as if I were living a dream. My elation did not cease until the last of the seventeen curtain calls, and the ending of twenty consecutive minutes of applause. No, it lasted even beyond that.

“You sold ten thousand copies of that libretto in twenty days,” says Deems.

“I beat the sales of that shit Hemingway,” I say.

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