John Schwartz - The Red Daughter

I point out that they come well prepared for what is apparently a surprise visit.

That’s a pretty good description of my job, Dick says with a wink.

I put the tulips in a vase with water and a touch of sugar. I make tea for my guests. Russian tea with fruit jam, and some heavy oat biscuits given me by my neighbor the Jungian psychiatrist. We sit at the table in the kitchen, Dick unconsciously rubbing his deficient leg now and again. (According to Peter, it is shorter than the good one for some unfortunate reason.) I have already noticed his eyes cataloging my shelves of plates, cups, glasses, to say nothing of my jars of flour, sugar, bread crumbs, baking soda, brown sticks of vanilla.

You see my secret? I say with a mischievous smile. I am just another middle-aged housewife without a husband.

Peter chews a biscuit, staring at the table, and I use the silence to ask Dick whether the American government is aware that the copyright for my books was granted to my translator, thus depriving me of financial rights and valuable income?

Not my area of expertise, I’m afraid, Dick replies with a sideways glance at Peter. I’m sure Peter is handling that.

Svetlana, Peter changes the subject, I was telling Dick about the letters you’ve been receiving from Taliesin. That you’re planning a trip there.

I explain to Dick about the Widow of the famous Architect who believes I am a cosmic substitute for her dead daughter.

Interesting perspective, Dick remarks.

Dick thought you should be aware of the reputation the institution has in certain circles, Peter says.

My CIA man rubs his poor leg. The result of an old bullet wound? I have to wonder. Some intelligent people consider the place something of a cult, he observes.

What do you mean, cult ?

A situation where everyone is more or less compelled to believe the same power and follow its directives, Peter says.

Russians invented this, I tell him. More, not less .

Dick Thompson smiles.

I ask him, So you do not consider Frank Lloyd Wright a genius?

No, no, he was truly brilliant. A great artist. A tax-evading spendthrift egomaniac, but the real deal.

So I will spend a week viewing his Arizona residence, then travel out West a bit and come home. Everyone already knows I have my own mind about life and politics, government, freedom. Everybody knows this.

Very true. Using the table for support, Dick gets to his feet. Hell, maybe I just wanted to bring you flowers .

I smile. Next time yellow?

Next time it is.

I watch Dick Thompson make his way down the brick steps and out to the sidewalk and his government sedan. It is obvious that in the time since last I saw him something in his leg has grown worse.

He never complains, Peter says quietly. He has lingered behind in my kitchen, still buttoning his coat.

I touch his arm. How is little Jean?

He peers at me as if the question is pregnant with other questions. Jean’s decided she wants to be a writer when she grows up .

Then you must send her over to me when I return from my trip. I will give her an interview.

I’ll tell her. He opens the door. A gust of cold air makes the house shiver to its bones.

Peter, I will call you if I need anything?

When he looks back, his gaze has turned lawyerly. Of course. Have a good trip, Svetlana.

16 March

In the Phoenix airport, a woman I know only by hearsay steps forward and embraces me. Roughly my own age, attractive, dark curly shoulder-length hair cut straight across her forehead over painted and shaped eyebrows. Rather dramatic use of black eye shadow for a desert airport afternoon. She calls herself Vanna and declares her hope that I will be her sister. I return the hope, adding that I have never had a sister, not in Russia and not in America.

But such is the locked past and not to be spoken of in Phoenix, Arizona, where the sun shines nonstop over mountainless land. My new sister leads me by the arm through the air-conditioned terminal to the luggage. Her pretty turquoise dress ends at her thighs, muscular and shapely from daily hours of sacred dance. Her chatter as bright and unignorable as her dress, even if the rampant energy behind it feels like overflow from a dammed-up performance going on elsewhere.

Here is what I know: she is half sister of the other, previous Svetlana and the only full offspring of the famous Architect and his Widow. And here is what I learn, once we are in her cherry red sports car out on the interstate highway between Phoenix and Scottsdale: she is a casually reckless driver. At high speed, the engine of her Volkswagen Karmann Ghia produces a deep-throated German ruckus that she conducts with one hand while steering the vehicle with the other at seventy and eighty miles per hour. Hot wind buffeting us through half-open windows adding to the maelstrom. She is an anxious bossy talker, though with the noise and the wind I catch only half of what she’s saying:

…Mother first… so eager to see you… fairy tale… bigger than… tonight you’ll meet… tall handsome hugely… sad too… stoical… gentleman… dinners we all… everyone puts a lot… going to wear… performance of the very best… Saturdays… black tie… evening dresses.

The Karmann Ghia swerves from one lane to another. Far out in the countryside hammered flat by sunlight, the odd cactus passes with such slowness that I wonder if they are perhaps desert mirages. I explain to my new sister that I have not brought a single evening dress to Arizona. In fact, do not own one.

No worries! she shouts back at me with happy certainty. You’ll wear one of mine! Chiffon and silk! You will be a princess!

I am led by a handsome young man in work clothes down a tiled walkway through a gallery of bougainvillea in full pink bloom. Scents of orange blossom, lavender, sunbaked dirt. The sound of a fountain burbling somewhere nearby. The overall property far too extensive to be absorbed in a single view, even from on high. Rather, one already suspects, it is a series of heavily framed and curated tableaux that, while indicating Nature at every turn, is laid out so as to never let one forget the Genius who designed it all. Or perhaps, the woman who reigns over it now.

I climb a set of stairs to a room that is indoors but feels out, raised up yet sunk down, with walls made from native rock and sand and countless meters of window placed high on the body, where it is harder for the light to get in. Here on a deep settee with strange triangular armrests the Widow has framed herself. Her uniform is singular: artificially black straight hair, white Greek tunic of fine muslin, heavy silver and turquoise jewelry, and at her feet a black Great Dane the size of a baby horse.

She extends a thin, parchment-skinned hand in my direction. Does not speak my name but sings it: Svetlana!

Incanted in this voice, I feel myself a rare golden bird.

Svetlana! Come sit by me. Gideon, for God’s sake, move!

The Great Dane lifts its bullock head, yawns as if to swallow me whole. On splayed coltish legs it turns twice in a tight circle and, thump, collapses again on the far side of the settee. I approach. The Widow’s papery hands reach out for mine with an iron grip. Svetlana! An ancient singing voice that could draw tears from stone.

I am so glad to finally meet you, I say.

Mother. You must call me Mother.

Oh…

Tell me everything, she sings.