William Kennedy - The Flaming Corsage

THE HUSBAND: I’m convinced she’s walled in behind the energy of her derangement, sane as anyone alive, mad as the queen of Bedlam — the stigmata, the sickness, the lesions visible in her eyes and the clutch of her hand. Such a marvel of womanhood, as pure and as fated as Eve before the serpent.

“A bit overstated, Edward,” Katrina said aloud.

Then she closed the manuscript, laid it flat in the deposit box, arranged the diaries atop it, then put in the jewels wrapped in their scarves. She folded Pyramus and Thisbe into her leather bag, closed the box, and rang the buzzer for Archie. He was waiting outside the door. Together they reentered the vault, secured the box in its place, and left the vault.

“I saw my father last night at the house,” Katrina said as they went out.

Archie stopped, looked at her, took off his pince-nez.

“I was standing in his office,” she said, “and I realized he was in the cellar. I went down with a candle and found him sitting on a stool by the pipe where the city water comes in. The pipe was dripping water onto his shoulder. He was wearing his small spectacles and an old overcoat, which was quite wet. He was hunched over and looked very pitiful. We stared at each other until I summoned the courage to say, ‘I would take you upstairs, Father, but there’s nothing up there now.’ He continued to stare at me, and the water dripped onto his unruly hair.”

Archie looked away from Katrina, spoke to the floor.

“You know, Katrina, of course you know, that your father is dead. You were at his burial.”

“Of course I was, of course I know that.”

“I suppose these things can happen.”

“Father blamed Edward for Adelaide’s death, but I was the one. Edward was only doing what he knew I wanted.”

“You can’t blame yourself for such things, Katrina. You seem a bit skewed today, frankly. You should see a doctor.”

“I’m very clear on it, Archie. I truly am.”

Her voice was as bright as morning.

“If I hadn’t been what I was, Edward and I wouldn’t have needed to make peace with the family. If we all hadn’t gone to that dinner of reconciliation, Adelaide and my father wouldn’t have died, and you wouldn’t have ruined your career with drink.”

“I have hardly done that, Katrina. You are ill.”

“It’s you who are ill, Archie, and I’m sorry I had a hand in it.”

“You’ll soon be taking blame for the weather.”

“Perhaps I shall. It’s quite uncanny what one sets in motion by being oneself.”

She stood up and extended her hand.

“Thank you so much, Archie. I must go up to the Hall now and see a bit of the dress rehearsal of Edward’s play.”

“Yes, I saw a notice in the paper.”

“I believe he’s written the tragedy of our lives. And do stop drinking, Archie. You’re such a good man without it.”

“You should learn to mind your own business, Katrina.”

“Yes, I suppose I should. But I have so very little business to mind.”

She sits alone at the rear of the orchestra

In Harmanus Bleecker Hall,

Albany’s premier

Theater

She sees only Act Four, Scene One

The text of the scene:

The City Club Tea Room on Elk Street (ladies only), summer, 1910. One round white wicker table, two matching chairs, one potted palm tree in white pot.

MARINA and CLARISSA are seated at table with white lamp with white shade, a pot of tea, two cups and saucers, spoons, two small plates, and, in the center of the table, a plate of small sandwiches made from white bread with crusts removed.

Both women are elegantly dressed in long, white dresses with colossal hats. marina’s hat is a garden of puffy white ostrich plumes. Clarissa’s hat is a circular fountain of long, narrow white feathers.

MARINA: Will you have tea?

CLARISSA: If you please.

(Marina pours tea into both cups.)

You must wonder about my letter.

MARINA: Not at all.

CLARISSA: I thought it important to write you.

MARINA: Did you? Why was that?

CLARISSA: I thought we should discuss Miles.

MARINA: Did you? Why was that?

CLARISSA: He was so odd.

MARINA: You’re absolutely right. Shooting his wife that way. Then shooting himself. Odd.

(Marina sips her tea, holds cup in air.)

Miles suffered from an excess of fastidiousness.

(She sips tea again, puts cup down.)

He was appalled by its absence in others.

CLARISSA: Miles was quite wrong about one thing. He thought his wife and your husband were paramours.

MARINA: But it was you and my husband who were paramours.

CLARISSA: We were the best of friends.

MARINA: And now that’s all past. Now Miles is dead and my husband considers you a well-poisoner.

CLARISSA: I understand your anger.

MARINA: My anger faded long ago, replaced by other emotions.

CLARISSA: I won’t ask what they are.

MARINA: I’m not sure I could say what they are. They’re quite mysterious.

CLARISSA: Your husband thinks me a well-poisoner?

MARINA: He blames himself, but thinks you spawned the disaster.

CLARISSA: How does he think I did that?

MARINA: Through Mangan, who conceived the plot to expose your love nest, the most successful creative act of his life.

(She sips her tea.)

CLARISSA: Mangan never forgave Miles for the fireman’s-wife joke.

MARINA: Nonsense.

CLARISSA: He was so humiliated.

MARINA: Mangan is unhumiliatible.

CLARISSA: Mangan is really quite sensitive.

MARINA: Mangan lacks fastidiousness.

(Pause.)

He told me you were his constant paramour, even when you were seeing my husband. Dreadful to reveal such things.

CLARISSA: Did Mangan say that?

(She sips her tea.)

He’s such a liar.

MARINA: He did not seem to be lying.

(She proffers plate of sandwiches.)

Sandwich?

CLARISSA: Thank you.

(Clarissa takes sandwich, bites it.)

Delicious.

(Marina takes sandwich from plate and smells it.)

MARINA: Raw fish. How repellent.

(She puts sandwich on her own plate, wipes her fingers with napkin.)

Mangan has always envied my husband. They were like brothers once, but he envied my husband’s social position, envied his marrying me, envied his success in the theater, envied his self-possession.

(Pause.)

My husband was the true target in the love-nest conspiracy, not poor, simple Miles.

(She lifts teapot.)

Tea?

CLARISSA: If you please.

(Marina pours tea.)

Mangan told me he once had Miles’s wife. In a Pullman compartment on the train from Albany to New York.

MARINA: I did say Mangan lacked fastidiousness, did I not?

CLARISSA: But he does seem to know things.

(Pause.)

He told me you took a seventeen-year-old neighbor boy as the light of your life.

(She sips her tea.)

He believes there is no such thing as fidelity. “The fidelity fallacy,” he calls it.

MARINA: He stole that phrase from a speech in my husband’s unfinished play. Do you know the rest of that speech? “No one understands the disease of infidelity until it’s upon you. And then you are transfigured. Of course you have your reasons for what you do, but they are generally misleading.”

(She sips her tea.)

Quite an accurate speech, wouldn’t you say?

CLARISSA: I’m sure you know better than I. Mangan also told me he had you , two days after the shooting.

MARINA: He tried often with me, but never succeeded. I’m not as diverse as you in these matters.