Jacob's Folly (28 page)

“In honor of the great old biblical times,” babbled the count, “when an eye was an eye and a man was a man and God ruled the world, I am naming this small building ‘Jacob's Folly.' I shall have it etched in the lintel above the doorway. So that, for all time, as long as these stones stand, people passing will think of Jacob, and the past, and the Egyptians …” He looked at me and raised his glass. It was strange to hear myself called Jacob. I had nearly forgotten my name. The ribbon was severed. Champagne was poured. Fireworks ripped across the sky. The count disappeared and was found some hours later, passed out on a mossy rock.

L
eslie kept working on the boat alone. Most days, Masha joined him, when she didn't have anything else to do. She found him reassuring. He couldn't admit it to himself, but the real reason he wasn't putting any other guys on the Coe job was: he needed to be near this girl. He could have stayed in the workshop—at least part of the time—and sent Segundo, or Pete, or Mike Diggis to do the initial work on
Sweet Helga
. But he made out to Vera that eccentric, deeply rich Mr. Coe wanted only Leslie on the job. Leslie implied this without actually stating it—a slanted lie. He couldn't help it. He needed to be near Masha.

I confess I had some input. In a metaphysical tour de force, I managed to funnel some old memories I had lying around—of Masha standing naked by the bathtub, for example—directly into Leslie's brain, ruining an afternoon of his work and causing him to nearly buckle with desire during one of their little tête-à-têtes over bottled Coca-Cola. But even without my help, Masha caused the very atmosphere around her to shift. You couldn't be near her and not sense the animal, alien power that drifted from her innocent body like perfume. Three weeks into my experiment, Leslie fell easy as a rotten tree pushed over by a toddler.

W
hen we returned to Paris after my baptism, I hid my portion of the bet money, one hundred gold louis, in a dirty sack at the bottom of my linen chest. My employment continued as before, though the count no longer bothered to tutor me, now that he'd won the bet. A Christian man in a Christian country, with papers to prove it and money in my pocket, I moved through the world with new ease. Le Jumeau even had a degree of respect for me, and I no longer felt inferior to him.

In addition to my secretarial duties, I accompanied the count on some of his outings in Paris. He always sent me with messages to Mlle Giardina at the Comédie-Italienne or at her home, which was near the theater.

One morning, when I arrived at her apartment with a note from the count, she greeted me in a dressing gown the color of whipped cream, fastened by a flock of crisp blue-green ribbons just at the point where her décolleté became most interesting. Her honey-colored hair tumbling down her back, she led me through several rooms into an octagonal study. The eight paneled walls were painted with tableaux of wildlife: ducks, otters, a fox gamboling in the reeds were rendered in a playful, realistic style. The room was densely furnished with a
clavichord, a chaise longue, a small round library table with a few folios of plays spread out on it, and a charming little desk. I walked into the room bewitched. Eventually my fluttering gaze settled on a small inlaid music box decorated with enamel birds. Mlle Giardina saw me looking at the box and opened it; a little tune piped up.

“Sit there,” she said, indicating the chaise longue.

I perched at the end of it. Closing the music box, the little actress sat down and placed her elbows on the table, folding her hands in a neat cradle under her chin. The lace of her sleeves flopped back from her arms like exhausted lily petals, revealing the firm pale flesh near her elbows. Oil-starved flames struggled behind the tortoiseshell sconces, conjuring copper strands from the coils of her hair. The light on her full face was most flattering, which, I believe, was no accident.

“Were you born in Italy?” I asked nervously.

“No. My father is Italian,” she said. “Though I never met him.”

“Fathers can be tiresome,” I ventured.

“Or protective,” she mused, sliding one slippered foot out from under the creamy folds of her dressing gown like a gangster revealing a tiny weapon sheathed in a silk holster. “My talent is the only thing my father ever gave me,” she added. “He was a singer.”

“I would love to be able to sing,” I said.

“I could teach you,” she said. “If you have an ear.”

She went to the clavichord and sat down. “Repeat after me,” she said, playing a tune, singing a string of notes. I did my best to mimic the sounds she was making. She laughed, and let herself fall back a bit, so that she was leaning against my side. I stood very still. Eventually our notes fell apart; the sweet tyrant led me back to the chaise longue.

Kneeling, she unbuttoned my britches and gently peeled the cloth away, as if unwrapping a delicate pastry. When she had uncovered me, she took in a little gasp. I lay back on my elbows, nearly weeping with shame at the long, wrinkled member with its bald head—the clue, I
knew, of my provenance. The traitorous fellow moved a little, as if shrugging insolently at my humiliation.

“Gebeck!” exclaimed Mademoiselle Giardina delightedly. “You're a Jew!” She leaned down and blew a little stream of warm air onto my sex in a matter-of-fact way, as if she were stoking a fire. Slowly my member inflated, staggering up into the air and weaving back and forth like a drunk. She marveled at it; I was filled with pride.

“Magic!” she whispered, darting out a pointy tongue to lick it.

From this point, all was delirium. When I was sent to deliver a message to Mademoiselle Giardina at her home, we paddled through each other's bodies with the crazed will of drowning souls, reaching our respective pleasures in record time, then parting, sweaty and disheveled. Occasionally, if the count was out for the evening, I was able to spend a part of the night in her apartments.

Yet, my favorite way of seeing Antonia was during the day, at the Comédie-Italienne. I loved everything about the place. The smell of burning wax wafting through the theater from the candle-making room; the pong of rabbit-skin glue sizing, boiling in great pots in the scenery department; the rich dusty red velvet of the seats, the red damask walls. This internal-organ color scheme made the place feel cozy as a womb; fallopian passages led to the stage, which I often walked across when unobserved. Each chair, every footstool of a set seemed haunted, special. I could feel the ghost of the play that had been uttered there last, I could hear the music sung by Antonia. A set was more than a real place to me. This was, perhaps, the closest thing I have ever felt to a true metaphysical frisson. It beat my sputtering attempts at religiosity with Cousin Gimpel, hands down.

Masha's meetings with the casting directors began, instigating a tumble of botched auditions for TV shows, a play, a couple of movies.
Masha was almost paralyzed by nervousness, embarrassed by her scanty clothing, and still uncertain of her accent, despite Doris van Hoff's palsied ministrations. Bridget Mooney coached her nearly every day now, traveling to the Coe manse by Surinder-mobile and sometimes spending the night (!) in the guesthouse with Nevsky. Looking a little less tightly wound these days, her blond coif loosely curled, the citadels of puff around her eyes powdered with care, Bridget lounged by the Coe pool and encouraged Masha to enjoy the power of her allure; it would be gone soon enough.

Masha was shedding her customs one by one. Eating what she fancied, shaking hands with male strangers, exposing her limbs, singing before menfolk, ignoring the Shabbos, neglecting to bless her food: all of this had happened. She began to wear her body as if it were a beautiful new dress.

Yet there were still times, as Masha woke in the morning, when she felt terror rush through her. She'd put her hand to her mouth, sure she had just done something awful, something unforgivable, and lay waiting to be punished. The only cure for this malaise was a trip to Shelley's room. Finding her friend asleep in bed, or reading, or sipping a cup of tea, reassured her. Shelley lived as though nothing were wrong with the way she lived.

Pearl sat at the edge of her bed, before dawn, staring sightlessly out the window. Every morning these days she was dredged urgently from sleep, as if by pulleys, only to remember that her daughter was gone. The last text she'd received was still saved on her phone:
I love you Mommy. Don't look for me. Will call soon. Masha
. There was no calling the police after that. Masha hadn't been abducted. She wasn't a minor. She had simply left.

The baby cried out from Estie's room. Tucking her long, soft hair
into a terry-cloth turban, Pearl hurried down the hall. Quietly, she walked into the younger girls' room. Estie was asleep in her bed; Leah was standing up gripping the high bars of her crib, bouncing up and down. Pearl lifted her out. The plump, strong baby hugged her mother, burying her face in her neck. Pearl loved that feeling. She kissed Leah's cheek, setting her on her hip. The twins' alarm clock went off then, and Pearl, on her way down the stairs, whispered to the boys not to hit the snooze button. Mordecai could sleep for another hour if he needed to.

Pearl set out the breakfast things, warmed the baby's bottle, and sat down cradling Leah. Rocking back and forth, breathing in the scent of her baby's silky scalp, she prayed to Hashem to keep Masha safe. That was all she could do.

One Saturday, Leslie came by Masha's Victorian towing his old motorboat behind the truck. Deirdre was away with Stevie that weekend, visiting friends in the South. It was the first Saturday Leslie had had to himself in a long time, a fine, hot day.

He rang the buzzer at ten o'clock, as he had told Masha he might, if the weather was clear. Masha looked out the window, took in a sharp breath when she saw the wooden boat, so neat and pretty with its turqoise leather seats and polished wooden decks. She had forgotten Leslie's invitation.

Hugh was asleep on the couch. She woke him and Shelley, and the three of them filed out of the building and got into Leslie's big truck, the two girls in front, Hugh folded into the narrow backseat with Stevie's baseball bat, mitt, and other items.

It was embarrassing, Leslie thought, chauffering these three younger people for a day of recreation, his big hands turning the wheel as he barked out absurdly cheerful remarks. He felt like an idiot. He had
expected Masha to emerge alone. Nothing to be done about it now. He drove to the marina, his chest imploded with disappointment. Masha was beside him in a long dress of fine cotton. He could feel the warmth of her thigh against his.

Once the boat was smacking the water, Masha seemed to come alive. She knelt at the bucking prow, hands clutching the rail, her dark mane whipping in the breeze, yelling at him to go faster, faster! The gusting wind, tearing at her loose white dress, churned a foaming wake of cloth toward him. Reflexively, he opened the throttle, as if to close the distance between them. She turned to him once, her face striped with strands of black hair, her mouth open, smiling, drinking the wind. The other two huddled together in the passenger bench, sleepy, looking out to sea. He drove them to a strip of beach on Fire Island that was almost always clean of people.

She lay on her belly, the orange bikini brilliant against her tanned skin, the golden hairs glistening on her back, one leg bent, the foot flexing and pointing idly toward the sky. Her scarlet-tipped hands clawed the hot sand, playing with it, her face toward him, half smashed into the towel he'd brought for her, one eye peeking through that river of blue-black hair.

“You got sunscreen on?” he asked her.

“No,” she said.

“You better put some on. You'll get broiled.” Shelley and Hugh were wading in the water down the beach, talking.

“Okay,” said Masha, not moving. Leslie reached a big hand into his canvas bag and took out the tube of suncreen.

“You want me to do your back?” he asked. She nodded. He could feel muscle and ribs through the warm young skin. He was lost now. He didn't care anymore. He lay down on his belly beside her, his face close to hers. He looked into her night eyes. She stared back boldly. He wondered where the other two were. He could hear their voices
growing fainter. Her hand was close to his, almost touching. He linked his pinkie with hers. She didn't move away, but looked at the twined fingers, curious. He drew the hand toward him, drew the girl toward him, her towel wrinkling in the sand, his big hand against the small of her back. She felt tiny. He could feel her breath on his face.

With a brief smile, she put a small palm against his chest, pressed him back. A spray of sand caught the light as she launched herself down the beach. Her bathing suit was a flicker of orange against the opal sea.

She waded out to Shelley and Hugh. The shadow from Shelley's straw hat made a polka-dot light pattern on her cheeks. Her body was like a young boy's, her chest flat, hips narrow.

“What's going on there?” she asked, nodding her head at Leslie.

“Nothin',” said Masha. She couldn't kiss him. His callused hand felt good against her skin. She could feel his desire and she liked it, but. What if she would only ever want Eli in all her life? What then? Reflexively, she turned to Hugh, who was already looking at her, his baggy trunks wet, hand shading his eyes. She couldn't make out his expression in the glare. Letting his arm fall, he turned, wading up to his slim waist in water, and dove into the sea. The two young women watched him cut through the water expertly with his long arms.

Shelley took Masha's hand and squeezed it. “Hugh's going back to L.A.,” she said. “I hope he's gonna be okay.”

Masha felt a pang of loss. Hugh had become part of her life with Shelley in the free rental. She wanted things to remain as they were. She looked at her friend. The quirky landscape of Shelley's face had become dear and essential to her: the soft, nearly weak chin, pert nose, surprised blue eyes, charming little overbite. Masha loved that face.

After a month of rejections, a casting director, a thin lady with the manner of a somnambulist, assessed Masha with greedy eyes.

“I have someone I want you to meet,” she intoned.

The ensuing audition, for an off-off-Broadway musical: Masha walked onto a bare stage surrounded by empty bleachers. The director was a hunched man in a wheelchair with a wide torso and slender, hairless arms emerging from a short-sleeved Hawaiian shirt; the composer, a mournful-looking pale woman draped in a black shawl. They sat side by side in the front row of the empty theater. Coincidentally, each of them had a walleye; his right iris favored the right-hand corner, her left eye was frozen on the left. Masha couldn't tell if either of them was looking at her or not. I was reminded fondly of dear Cousin Gimpel, with his rolling eyeball that seemed trained on the heavenly spheres.

As Masha sang the song she'd prepared with the singing coach Nevsky had found her, under the grinding scrutiny of these two am-blyopics, she was so frightened, she felt her chest, her innards being compressed by some invisible weight. Yet it was thrilling too, to expose herself this way. There she was, an observant Jewish girl, revealing her deepest nakedness to a bunch of strangers. I was euphoric. And they loved her! She got the part.

Titled
Charcot's Women
, the piece was about Dr. Jean-Martin Charcot, the famous nineteenth-century French neurologist, and the group of female hysterics he used to demonstrate his theories with. Medical students, fellow physicians—including Sigmund Freud—and curious members of the public used to cram themselves into the medical theater in the Salpêtrière Hospital in Paris to watch the bizarre act unfold. Every Tuesday Dr. Charcot would hypnotize his patients one by one and they would duly act out childhood traumas,
have fits, suffer temporary paralysis—in a manner and order precisely reflecting Charcot's theories of hysteria. The question of suggestion, of how much of these acts were real symptoms brought out by hypnosis and how much were fabricated to please the great professor and keep up the women's star status, loomed large over the story.