Bravado's House of Blues Read online

  “Champagne, Miss?”

  Agnes turned to the server with his tray of fluted glasses, smiled and shook her head. “No, thank you.”

  He moved on and she watched him go, then watched the crowded room, eyes moving over the gowns and tuxedoes as New York’s upper crust mingled with the intellectuals. Her father had insisted she attend though she would’ve preferred remaining in Boston for the holiday.

  She stood at the edge of the party now, listening to a string quartet playing Mozart. A few couples danced. Most split off to gather in small groups, clusters of men and clusters of women scattered about the ballroom.

  Agnes walked the room, picking up bits of conversation. The widespread devastation in Europe, the latest Chaplin film, the new Nash 681 touring car on the streets. Nothing here for her.

  A voice rose above the others and she gravitated towards it for some reason that she could not fully grasp.

  “Russia,” the voice said, “is just the beginning.” She moved towards it. “Certainly it’s not perfect. But the idea is there. By God, I hope they pull it off. I hope it spreads like a fire. We could all use some idealism that works for a change.”

  Agnes reached the edge of the conversation. She saw a plain suit, dark hands, but a small knot of men obscured the speaker’s face.

  “Not ‘by God’ if your Marx is correct about religion.”

  “Being the opiate of the masses, Father Reynolds?” the voice asked. “Mark my words, inside thirty years cinema will replace it as such.”

  The group laughed. Even Agnes stifled a chuckle. The heads moved and she nearly didn’t recognize him with his neatly trimmed beard and his short curly hair. The eyes and smile gave him away. He looked up at her, surprise registering on his face. “Miss Barnham?”

  She took a step back, a sudden heat rising to her cheeks.

  “Miss Agnes Barnham?” He stepped toward her, nodding to the priest. “Please excuse me, Father Reynolds.”

  “Ah,” she said, “So I see you’ve turned up again.” She smiled and offered her hand. “Mister . . .?”

  “Schonfeld,” he said. “Jacob.” He grinned. “What a nice surprise.”

  “Indeed,” she said, recovering. “You quite vanished, you know.”

  “Mysterious of me, yes? Unfortunately, my visa ran out rather . . . unexpectedly.” His eyes smiled. “But I’m glad you looked for me.”

  She snorted. “You flatter yourself, Mr. Schonfeld. I merely wanted to thank you for returning me home safe and sound.”

  “Ah,” he said. “That’s all?”

  She nodded, eyes tracking the waiter with his bobbing tray of glasses. She needed a drink. Quickly. “How’s the painting?”

  He shrugged. “It passes the time suitably. Annoys the parents adequately. And the poetry?”

  She felt her cheeks grow even hotter, remembering that spontaneous stanza so many months before. “Poetry?” The waiter dodged by. Her hand snaked out and grabbed a drink as he passed.

  “It’s quite good,” he said. He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out the last issue of the New England Poet. It had been only out two weeks; how could he possibly know? Her knees went to water. Then she remembered the rest of the poem, scribbled out furiously in a cafe near the cathedral in the weeks that followed.

  No, she thought. Not this; anything but this. Involuntarily, she started looking for an escape route.

  “I was hoping,” he said, as he opened the digest to a dog-eared page, “that you would grace me with an autograph.”

  Those flecks of gold in his eyes danced with amusement. She swallowed. “How in the world did you—”

  He interrupted. “Actually, it really is quite good. Especially this bit.” His finger traced a path down the text and he cleared his throat:

  “Arms strong to save and eyes to pierce

  A smudge of sky on olive cheek

  The Virgin’s Son in Mexico my

  Lost soul to seek.”

  He looked up from reading. “I’ve never been in a poem before.”

  That trapped feeling of embarrassment took on sharpness that spilled over into her voice. “Again, you flatter yourself.”

  He held out the digest and a pen. “As a Marxist and a Jew I was terribly offended,” he continued, grinning. “But as a man, I was quite captivated.”

  She took the pen, scribbled a few words across the page and handed it back to him.

  He read it and laughed. “‘You’re an ass, Affectionately, Agnes Barnham.’” He bowed his head. “Thank you.”

  She curtsied and tried not to look smug. “You’re quite welcome.”

  He shifted now to stand beside her. “So what brings you out tonight?”

  “Why, Mr. Schonfeld,” she said, “haven’t you heard it’s New Year’s Eve?”

  “Not for me. Again, Jewish.”

  “So perhaps the real question is what brings you out tonight.”

  “Why, my calling of course.”

  “To embarrass young women with your own pomposity?”

  His sudden laugh tingled down her spine. He cocked his head. “That’s an added benefit. But actually, the ideological potential for embarrassing the folks is astounding.”

  She didn’t want to ask but had to. The coincidence weighed on her. “And the poem?”

  “Ah. That.” He started looking around the room. “That was quite a happy accident. I have a friend who spends a lot of time down at the library reading up on strange occurrences, fanciful events, lights in the sky and what-not. We’d been talking about the visitation in Mexico City, he did a bit of looking and your poem got clipped.”

  “I find that highly unlikely. It came out, not two weeks ago.”

  “It is his work,” he said. “He’s here tonight. You can ask him.”

  “Sounds like a bit of a crank to me.”

  “Ah, but a well-connected crank to be sure. He’s here as the guest of Theodore Dreiser.” He took her elbow and warmth fled out as his fingers brushed her skin. “You’ll love him. Full of all kinds of amazing information. Besides, he’s actually responsible for me finding you.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “Mr. Schonfeld, you seem to be mistaken. I found you. Twice now.”

  He shrugged. “Believe what you will.” Then he patted the pocket with the concealed journal. “’Miss Agnes Barnham,’” he quoted from memory, “’daughter of preeminent architect John Barnham, currently makes her home in Boston, Massachusetts, with her family and her cat, Hezekiah. This is her first professional publication.’”

  He smiled at her, slipped his hand into his pocket and withdrew it. A single train ticket to Boston. “I was leaving tomorrow.”

  She opened her mouth to say something, then closed it. She felt something odd moving from her stomach toward her throat, as if she’d swallowed a moth that now wanted out.

  He put the ticket away. “Still,” he said, “it’s a hell of a coincidence.”

  She blinked. “You’re telling me that you were coming to Boston tomorrow to find me?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Why?”

  He cleared his throat, looking around the room at everything but her. “Well. That’s a damned good question.”

  “And?”

  Jacob shrugged. “I think it was the poem. I’d never felt so . . . Messianic . . . before.”

  Agnes felt a giggle rise but fought it down. She wanted to be annoyed. “So it’s really his fault, then,” she said.

  “Whose?”

  “This friend of yours who spends his days in the library studying poems about unexplained phenomena.”

  “Oh, not just poems. Newspapers, magazines, the works. But yes. His fault.” He grinned and offered her his arm. “Do you think,” he asked, “that all of these coincidences are...coincidental?”

  She rolled her eyes, letting him steer her through the crowd. “Are all Marxists this funny, or are you an exciting new prototype?”

  “Just the Jewish ones,” he said. “Let’s meet
my friend.”

  Agnes couldn’t help but smile. “Let’s,” she said. “I’m really quite cross with him.”

  They navigated the room in silence now. With his free hand he waved to a group of men huddled in the corner. “There he is.”

  A tall, heavy-set man wearing a gray tweed suit who seemed out of place laughed loudly. He looked a bit like Teddy Roosevelt, Agnes thought. He swept off his glasses and rubbed them clean with a cloth. “—and I suspect only four or five people will actually pick it up,” the man was saying.

  “Going on about that again?” Jacob asked as they approached. “Charles Fort, may I present to you Miss Agnes Barnham.”

  “Ah,” Fort said. “The Mystery Poetess of Boston I’ve heard so much about.”

  “Nantucket, originally,” she said, extending her hand. “Mr. Fort. A pleasure to meet you.” He took her hand, squeezed it.

  “Nantucket?” Jacob asked. “Really?”

  She nodded slightly. “Born and raised.” She turned to Fort. “So what were you going on about?”

  “His book,” said another of the men. “And he’d best stop, considering the limb I’ve climbed out on for him.”

  Fort released her hand. “I told you, Dreiser, you needn’t bother.”

  A bespectacled man with a greasy comb-over and wide lips inserted himself between them, taking her hand. “Miss Barnham.”

  “Mr. Dreiser,” she said, a smile playing at the corners of her mouth. The fingers of his other hand lingered a bit long on her wrist. She gently pulled away, craning her neck to see around Dreiser. “What’s it called?”

  He stepped aside. “The Book of the Damned.”

  “Fantastical or spiritual?” she asked.

  “Neither, actually,” Fort said. “Or perhaps both, I suppose.”

  “Fort here chases down the unusual and extraordinary,” Dreiser said.

  “Yes, Mr. Schonfeld told me as much,” Agnes said. “Do tell me a bit about it.”

  Fort’s smile widened. “I’d be happy to, Miss Barnham. What strikes your fancy? Strange markings on meteorites that have fallen from the sky? Artifacts found within rocks? A rain of fishes in a cornfield?”

  Agnes shrugged. “Anything, really. Just tell me the most amazing thing you’ve seen.”

  Dreiser laughed. The others in the group chuckled as well, except Jacob. Jacob stared at her, a strange look on his face. Charles Fort blushed.

  “Fort here hasn’t actually seen any of the amazing things in his book,” Dreiser said, clapping the man on the back. “He gathers them up from the library.”

  “Not so, Dreiser,” Fort said. “I’ve seen the most amazing of the amazing.”

  “Pray tell,” Agnes said.

  Fort put his hand on her shoulder, turning Agnes slightly. “Do you see the piano there?”

  She nodded. The group became quiet.

  “Are you watching carefully?”

  She nodded again, squinting intently.

  “Now . . . move just to the left. The woman there, in the blue dress? Do you see her?”

  “Yes.” She was a short middle-aged woman talking with a group of matrons. She glanced over, smiled and gave a subdued wave.

  “That woman is my wife, Annie Fort, and she is the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen.” He chuckled and dropped his hand from her shoulder to glance back at his friend. “What do you think of that, Dreiser?”

  “Fort, you devil, I’m speechless,” Dreiser said.

  “And that,” Charles Fort said to the group, “is the second most amazing thing I’ve ever seen.”

  The conversation moved on around her, but Agnes couldn’t hear anything. It was as if someone had stuffed cotton into her ears. The music faded. The voices drifted and the room slowed down. She watched as Jacob talked with his friends, watched his hands move, watched his eyes move. Light came from him and suddenly he seemed very much the same larger than life figure that stood against the sky in her memories of that plaza in Mexico City.

  Maybe, she thought, visitations happen every day. She opened her mouth to say so, to somehow add something to all of the words she could no longer hear. Then Agnes realized suddenly that Jacob’s eyes were fixed on hers, his lips forming a surprised and nervous smile, his hands limp at his sides with no further point to make.

  A quiet miracle rustled but refused quite yet to be born.

  *

  On a rather dreary Friday evening in late May, the phone rang unexpectedly. Her father answered, grumpily thrusting the phone toward her after a few minutes of listening. “Some editor.” He screwed his face into a twist, as if he smelled something foul. “Wants to talk to you about your poem.”

  They’d never phoned before; usually corresponded by mail. Agnes accepted the phone, took a quiet breath and held one hand against her breast. “This is Agnes Barnham.”

  A familiar voice, tinny and distant, filled her ear. “Miss Barnham, lovely to hear your voice.”

  She glanced at her father, one hand covering the phone, eyebrows raised.

  Mr. Barnham rolled his eyes and shambled out of the parlor, mumbling.

  Agnes grinned. “Mr. Schonfeld, how nice of you to call. You’re buying poetry these days?”

  “Listen, I haven’t much time,” he said. His words tumbled fast. “Do you fancy snakes?”

  “Not so much,” she said. She paused, waiting for him to continue but he didn’t. “Why do you ask?”

  She heard other voices in the background, equally excited. She heard Jacob’s muffled voice as his hand covered the receiver. “Please, can you keep it down? I’m on the line with Boston here.” Clearer now as he answered her question: “A chap up in Maine rang Fort to say there’s been a snake-fall near Portland. Would you like to see it?”

  She wasn’t sure she’d heard correctly. “A what?”

  “A snake-fall. A rain of snakes. Would you like to see it with me?”

  She looked around to make sure no one was in earshot. “Where are you?”

  More voices. “Oh. I’m in New York. But I’m leaving in a few minutes and wondered if I could swing by and pick you up.”

  Formality slipped her mind. “Jacob, you’re over two hundred miles away. Portland is at least another hundred miles from here.” Her mouth wanted to smile. She fought it back as if somehow he’d be able to hear it in her voice. “You’re just going to swing by?”

  He seemed embarrassed now. “Well, only if you want to see it.”

  “Mr. Schonfeld,” she said in her sweetest voice, “you’re either batty or drunk or both.”

  He ignored her comment. “I should hit Boston easily by morning. Shall I pick you up at eight?”

  She thought for a moment. “Oh, I should think eight-thirty at the earliest. At the train station, please.”

  “At the train station?”

  “It’s easier that way. Trust me.”

  “I’ll see you then,” he said and rang off.

  Agnes stood for a moment, holding the phone in her hands. A snake-fall in Maine. For a moment she wondered if this was some odd courtship she’d happened across, then wondered if calling it a courtship presumed too much and wondered exactly why some part of her felt afraid and hopeful all at once as memories of his eyes, his hands, his mouth flashed silently past.

  Last, she wondered what lie she’d tell her father about tomorrow.

  *

  The field of snakes stretched on and on before them. Agnes poked at one with her foot, ready to jump back if it moved. It didn’t; it seemed all the snakes were dead. “You do this often?”

  Jacob looked up from unloading the Model T. He smiled, pulling out a collapsible chair. “When I can.” He unfolded the chair and steadied it.

  Agnes shielded her eyes from the late morning sun. “This must explain why there is no Mrs. Schonfeld.”

  He laughed. The sound of it still made her feel warm. “I suppose it does.” He unfolded a second chair and set it up near—but not too near—the other. Then he worked the easel free.


  She sharpened her pencil while Jacob set up his easel and squeezed paint onto his palette. She sat down and drew her notepad from her satchel. She scribbled:

  Caught up, cast down in a courtship of snakes

  A carpet of corpses unmoving, unliving

  Untethered at last from past mistakes

  Free from the unloving and unforgiving.

  She lined it out and stole a glance at Jacob. His eyes flashed merriment and his mouth twitched into a grin. She fell back into the last several hours and returned his smile.

  The jostling of the car and the easiness of his voice had drawn her out. They’d talked about everything. Movies and music. Last week’s vote in the House to approve the new amendment, the one that would finally expand America’s democracy to her and millions of other women. (“If we’re going to drink to that,” he had said, “We’d better do it quickly.”) Eliot, Frost, Van Gogh, Marx, Sanger, and the surprising popularity of Fort’s book—they moved from subject to subject, eventually settling into their childhoods, their fears, their frustrations and even a bit of their dreams.

  His brush darted now from palette to canvas, his eyes wandering over the field.

  After an hour of more random scribbling, more random lines to somehow capture this time, she looked up at him. “Why do you do this again?”

  He glanced at her, his brush never losing its stroke. “Bored so soon?”

  She chuckled. “Not bored. Curious.”

  He smiled, his white teeth gleaming in the light. “It awes me. I like how that feels. So I paint that feeling.”

  “You do this a lot?”

  “What? Lure young women into fields of dead snakes?”

  Now her chuckle became a laugh. “No. Paint oddities.”

  His brows furrowed. “Not oddities, Agnes. Unexplained and unexpected wonders.” For a moment, he paused, his brush hanging in the dead space between paint and painting. Then he remembered her question. “I paint what I see.”

  She looked at the field of dead snakes. “But always after the fact? You’d said in Mexico City that you’d arrived after the visitation. And these—” she waved at the snakes—” they fell yesterday . . . maybe even the day before.”