In America Read Online Free

gesture, but who could reproach him for falling out of type, for being happy, for becoming confident, simply because he was standing near her. Ryszard, a little apart, had taken out his notebook again. She looked up and said, What are you writing? Hastily pocketing the notebook, he murmured, A description of you. I shall put it in a novel —he shook his head— if I ever find time, with all we have now to do, to write a novel. The man I’d decided was a drama critic clapped him on the back. One more reason, young man, not to embark on this foolishness, he said jovially. But Maryna had already lowered her gaze. She was addressing the impresario with a controlling calm. Oh, that’s not good enough at all, she said. More and more I saw the imperious woman, who did not have to persuade, whose word was law. I remember the first time I ever saw a diva up close: it was more than thirty years ago, I was new in New York and seriously poor and a rich suitor took me to lunch at Lutèce, where, shortly after the first delicacies had materialized on my plate, my attention was galvanized by the (come to think of it) familiar-looking woman with high cheekbones, raven-black hair, and full, red-painted mouth eating at the next table with an elderly man to whom she said loudly: “Mr. Bing. [Pause.] Either we do things the Callas way or we do not do them at all.” And the Mr. Bing in question fell silent for some minutes—as did I. Now I knew that Maryna, my Maryna, must have had her Callas-like moments, if she was what I thought she was, though not tonight, I supposed, when she was among friends, when she would have preferred to cajole. But I could see her blue-grey eyes widen with irritation. How she must have longed, I was getting to know her, I think, how she must have longed to rise from the chair, upsetting everyone, and walk out of the room. To escape; to make an exit; not merely to get some fresh air, as I wanted to do. For I wouldn’t have minded ducking out for a quarter of an hour, even to be hailed on—though I usually do mind the cold (I grew up in southern Arizona and southern California). But I didn’t dare leave, for fear of missing something said the moment I’d quit the room that would have made everything clear to me. And, I saw, this was hardly the moment to descend into the snowy street. On the far side of the long table the headwaiter was making a discreet signal to Bogdan, as his four underlings bent over almost in unison to light the four triple-branched silver candelabra. Maryna rose, smoothing down the front of her sage-green robe with one hand while extinguishing her cigarette with the other. Dear friends, she began. You have waited so long. You have been so patient. She glanced slyly at Bogdan. Yes, he said. Adding something slothful as well as tender to the play of husbandly expressions crossing his face, he took her arm. How glad I was that I hadn’t copped out when I’d wanted to but had remained at my station. My hope was that, once the guests were at dinner, the bits of overheard conversation would unite, and I would finally grasp what was absorbing them. For I thought it even possible that everyone turning, rising, tarrying, sidling toward the long table at one end of the room on the hotel’s first floor (in my country it’s the second floor) was privy to this deed or plan whose rightness or wrongness was still being disputed, keeping in mind that however many I might eventually discover were in on it, in anything undertaken by as few as two, one person is more responsible than another (though no one is entirely without responsibility, wherever there is consent there is responsibility), and with, say, twenty—actually I’d counted, there were twenty-seven people in the room—not only would one person be more responsible than the others, but someone would have been at the helm, however much that person, if a woman, would probably, in that