One
PERHAPS IT WAS the slap she received from Gabriela Ebert a few minutes past five oclock in the afternoon (Id not witnessed that) which made something, no, everything (I couldnt have known this either) a little clearer. Arriving at the theatre, inflexibly punctual, two hours before curtain, Maryna had gone directly to her stars lair, been stripped to her chemise and corset and helped into a fur-lined robe and slippers by her dresser, Zofia, whom she dispatched to iron her costume in an adjoining room, had pushed the candles nearer both sides of the mirror, had leaned forward over the jumbled palette of already uncapped jars and vials of makeup for a closer scrutiny of that all too familiar mask, her real face, the actresss under-face, when behind her the door seemed to break open and in front of her, sharing the mirror, hurtling toward her, she saw her august rivals reddened, baleful face shouting the absurd insult, threw herself back in her chair, turned, glimpsed the arm descending just before an involuntary grimace of her own brought down her eyelids at the same instant it bared her upper teeth and shortened her nose, and felt the shove and sting of a large beringed hand against her face.
It all happened so rapidly and noisilyher eyes stayed closed, the door banged shutand the shadow-flecked room with
its hissing gas jets had gone so silent now, it might have been a bad dream: shed been having bad dreams. Maryna clapped her palm to her offended face.
"Zofia? Zofia!"
Sound of the door being opened softly. And some anxious babble from Bogdan. "What the devil did she want? If I hadnt been down the corridor with Jan, I would have stopped her, how dare she burst in on you like that!"
"Its nothing," Maryna said, opening her eyes, dropping her hand. "Nothing." Meaning: the buzz of pain in her cheek. And the migraine now looming on the other side of her head, which she intended to keep at bay by a much-practiced exercise of will until the end of the evening. She bent forward to tie her hair in a towel, then stood and moved to the washstand, where she vigorously soaped and scrubbed her face and neck, and patted the skin dry with a soft cloth.
"I knew all along she wouldnt"
"Its all right," said Maryna. Not to him. To Zofia, hesitating at the half-open door, holding the costume aloft in her outstretched arms.
Waving her in, Bogdan shut the door a bit harder than he intended. Maryna stepped out of her robe and into the burgundy gown with gold braiding ("No, no, leave the back unbuttoned!"), rotated slowly once, twice, before the cheval glass, nodded to herself, sent Zofia away to repair the loose buckle on her shoe and heat the curling iron, then sat at the dressing table again.
"What did Gabriela want?"
"Nothing."
"Maryna!"
She took a tuft of down and spread a thick layer of Pearl Powder on her face and throat.
"She came by to wish me the best for tonight."
"Really?"
"Quite generous of her, wouldnt you agree, since shed thought the role was to be hers."
"Very generous," he said. And, he thought, very unlike Gabriela.
He watched as three times she redid the powder, applied the rouge with a hares foot well up on her cheekbones and under her eyes and on her chin, and blackened her eyelids, and three times took it all off with a sponge.
"Maryna?"
"Sometimes I think theres no point to any of this," she said tonelessly, starting again on her eyelids with the charcoal stick.
"This?"
She dipped a fine camels-hair brush into the dish of burnt umber and traced a line under her lower eyelashes.
It seemed to Bogdan she was using too much kohl, which made her beautiful eyes look sorrowful, or merely old. "Maryna, look at me!"
"Dear Bogdan, Im not going to look at you." She was dabbing more kohl on her brows. "And youre not going to listen to me. You should be inured by now to my attacks of nerves. Actors nerves. A little worse than usual, but this is a first night. Dont pay any attention to me."
As if that were possible! He bent over and touched his lips to the nape of her neck. "Maryna . . ."
"What?"
"You remember that Ive taken the room at the Saski for a few of us afterward to celebrate"
"Call Zofia for me, will you?" She had started to mix the henna.
"Forgive me for bringing up a dinner while youre preparing for a performance. But it should be called off if youre feeling too . . ."
"Dont," she murmured. She was blending a little Dutch pink and powdered antimony with the Prepared Whiting to powder her hands and arms. "Bogdan?"
He didnt answer.
"Im looking forward to the party," she said and reached behind for a gloved hand to lay on her shoulder.
"Youre upset about something."
"Im upset about everything," she said dryly. "And youll be so kind as to let me wallow in it. The old stager has need of a little stimulation to go on doing her best!"
MARYNA DID NOT RELISH lying to Bogdan, the only person among all those who loved her, or claimed to love her, whom she did in fact trust. But she had no place for his indignation or his eagerness to console. She thought it might do her good to keep this astonishing incident to herself.
Sometimes one needs a real slap in the face to make what one is feeling real.
When life cuffs you about, you say, Thats life.
You feel strong. You want to feel strong. The important thing is to go forward.
As she had, single-mindedly, or almost: there had been much to ignore. But if you are of a stoical temperament, and have a talent for self-respect, and have worked hard with another talent God gave you, and have been rewarded exactly as you had dared to hope for your diligence and persistence, indeed, your success arrived more promptly than you expected (or perhaps, you secretly think, merited), you might then consider it petty to remember the slights and nurture the grievances. To be offended was to be weaklike worrying about whether one was happy or not.
Now you have an unexpected pain, around which the muffled feelings can crystallize.
You have to float your ideals a little off the ground, to keep them from being profaned. And cut loose the misfortunes and insults, too, lest they take root and strangle your soul.
Take the slap for what it was, a jealous rivals frantic comment on her impregnable successthat would have been something to share with Bogdan, and soon put out of mind. Take it as an emblem, a summons to respond to the whispery needs shed been harboring for monthsthis would be worth keeping to herself, even cherishing. Yes, she would cherish poor Gabrielas slap. If that slap were a babys smile, she would smile at the recollection of it, if it were a picture, she would have it framed and kept on her dressing table, if it were hair, she would order a wig made from it . . . Oh I see, she thought, Im going mad. Could it be as simple as that? Shed laughed to herself then, but saw with distaste that the hand applying henna to her lips was trembling. Misery is wrong, she said to herself, mine no less than Gabrielas, and she only wants what I have. Misery is always wrong.
Crisis in the life of an actress. Acting was emulating other actors and then, to ones surprise (actually, not at all to ones surprise), finding oneself better than any of them wereincluding the pathetic bestower of that slap. Wasnt that enough? No. Not anymore.
She had loved being an actress because the theatre seemed to her