The Flaming Corsage

Katrina in the Drawing Room Mirror, May 7, 1912

SHE STOOD BEFORE the gilt-framed mirror in the drawing room of her home, primping, reimposing a straying hair, ordering the lines of her solid-gray, V-necked satin dress, its skirt gathered into soft billows at the front to reveal stockinged ankles, the shocking fashion at Auteuil this year. She studied what remained of the forty-seventh year of her beauty. It was persistent, vegetative, clarion. In her own reversed eyes it seemed less fragile now than when she married him and had worried about her too-emphatic cheek-bones, the early lines at the corners of her eyes. Such empty concern. What does all that mean to anyone now? To him? To other men?

The men in the mirror, behind her. At her. Always at her, in memory or dream, or with their need, or their plangent sorrow at the leave-taking, or their eyes that improve with reversal. And their alcoholic breath on your neck.

She has known the joy of beauty. But, he wrote, joy is one of her most vulgar adornments, while melancholy may be called her illustrious spouse, a strain of beauty that has nothing to do with sorrow.

She had begun the day knowing her obligations and desires, an unusual rising, life rarely so orderly for Katrina. She remembered seeing her father, and dreaming of a monkey, knew what Mrs. Squires should make for breakfast: turkey hash, her mother’s favorite, and pumpkin parties, knew the tasks of this consequential morning, knew that revelation would greet her afternoon.

She had bathed, dressed, and, first order, taken down her large black leather shoulder bag and opened it on the bed. From her clothes hamper, where she had put it for safekeeping last night, she took her mother’s jewel case and put it in the bottom of the bag. She walked to the third-floor storeroom and unlocked the steamer trunk her father had bought for her trip to London and presentation at court. She rummaged under that famous dress of white chiffon over white silk in which she had made her deep curtsy before Queen Victoria, and she lifted out the seven identical leather-bound diaries of her life. She dropped the key inside the trunk, closed it.

In her room she put six of the dairies in her bag. The remaining one (1896–98) she opened to the page where lay a newspaper clipping of a baseball player photographed in close-up as he throws a ball. Francis of the excellent face.

She raised her glance to the window and looked out at the maple tree in the garden where she’d seen him perched on a branch, sawing another branch above his head. Her valentine in the tree. And she had immediately, then, dressed herself naked, in sun hat and evening slippers, and walked out onto the back piazza to induct the young man into her life. And didn’t they love each other so well after that induction? Oh they did.

She built shrines to their love: in her bureau, on her dressing table, on the shelf above the bathtub: a piece of paper on which he’d written both their names: Francis Aloysius Phelan and Katrina Selene Taylor, a snippet of the green canvas he’d wrapped around her when he carried her naked in from the piazza, coins he’d held in his hand, a rag of a shirt he’d left with her, a book with the poems she’d read to him, a handkerchief stained with their love. The shrines were palpable proof of time memorious, when love lived in the next house and came to call.

Until one day it did not. And she destroyed the shrines.

She looked at the clipping, his face scowling at the unseen baserunner he is about to throw out at first, scowling at the hidden Katrina he is about to throw out of his life.

She read the open page of the diary:

The end of summer, 1898:

If you saw me plunge a knife into myself would it baffle you? Would you think it a miracle? Do you understand what I mean when I say I have no ability to slide in and out of love? Would you be tempted to pull the knife out of me and cut off my face? Would you kiss me while I bled through my eyes?

She considered ripping the clipping in half, but did not. She put it between pages of the diary, put the diary into the bag, and went downstairs to breakfast.

“I dreamed of pumpkin last night,” she said to Mrs. Squires, who was serving her breakfast. “Does that mean anything?”

“Did you eat the pumpkin?” Mrs. Squires asked.

“No, it was just pulp and I threw it at a monkey.”

“Monkeys could mean sharpers are after you, so watch out, Mrs. D. But pumpkin is nice. Pumpkin means happiness. Unless you eat it, and then I’m afraid it means trouble’s coming.”

“The monkey was a collapsed doll, sitting on a high perch, and I hated it. I hit it with a handful of pumpkin and it came to life.”

“So the monkey ate the pumpkin. You’d best be careful today, Mrs. D.”

“I shall indeed, Mrs. Squires.”

She relished her food, the taste of bygone breakfasts, when her mother shopped and arranged the daily menu. As she swallowed a forkful of the creamy turkey hash the telephone rang in the hallway. She heard Loretta answer, heard her footsteps coming toward the dining room.

“Martin is on the wire from New York, Missus Daugherty,” Loretta said, and Katrina went quickly to the telephone.

“Martin?” she said into the mouthpiece. “This is your mother who loves you. Where are you?”

“A hotel lobby on Fourteenth Street.”

“Are you coming home?”

“I’m thinking about it.”

“You should stop thinking about it and get on the train. Your father’s play opens in four days.”

“I know that, Mother.”

“Are you coming to see it?”

“That’s what I’m thinking about.”

“Martin, my sweet and only child, please stop thinking and make your decision. You no longer hate your father. You told me so yourself.”

“That’s right. I don’t hate him.”

“Then come and be with him for his play. It will be a momentous event.”

“For some people.”

“For more than you suppose. Now you must come, Martin. You can’t hide from the reality of your life. You must confront it and see what it looks like. Your mother insists. Do you hear what she’s saying?”

“I believe I’ll be coming.”

“You surely will?”

“I believe I will.”

“How very, very good that is. Oh how very, very good, Martin. I was afraid you’d fail me. Is there anything else you want to tell me?”

“I’m staying at Father’s apartment in the Village. I’ve just taken over the rental, as he suggested.”

“You’re such a sensible young man. I’m so proud of you, Martin, so proud. Have we finished with our talk?”

“I told you I would call.”

“And so you have. And I told you I would do all in my power to make the rest of your life as harmonious as possible with your father. I do mean that, Martin. I verily do.”

“I believe you do, Mother. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“You’ve made me very happy, Martin.”

“I’m glad for that, Mother.”

“Then goodbye, my sweet boy. Goodbye.”

And she placed the receiver on its hook.

She went back to the table, her mind sprinting into the day ahead of her. She sat down to finish her breakfast, but she could not. She took one forkful of hash for old times’ sake, then went to the drawing room, where she had left her bag and her hat.

She stood before the mirror, primping, reimposing a straying hair. Her eye swept the reflected room behind her, the room she had created in her own image, and she saw herself unbuttoning Francis’s shirt, saw his hand cautiously moving down her shoulder to touch her naked breast for the first time, to touch her scar. Do you like my scar, Francis?

She shook the image away, took her new hat with the ostrich plumes off the table and put it on, pale-gray, wide-brimmed hat that matches her shocking dress. She centered the hat on her head, pinned it to the crown of her hair, which was still the color of the gilded mirror. Maginn, behind her, raised a hand to touch that hair he so worshiped.

“You didn’t deserve to have this happen,” he said.

He touched the shoulder of her dress, moved his face so close that she smelled the liquor on his breath.

“I saw it coming. Why would he do this to you?”

He touched her bare neck. In the mirror she saw the faces of persistent desire, and behind them the will to persistent desire.

“It should be enough for any man to make love to a woman like you. Having you in my arms is worth any amount of mayhem and murder.”

She let him turn her around, and as she did she saw the portraits of her parents staring at her. Why do you allow this slumcrawler to touch you, Katrina? Why do you even allow him in the house? Maginn gripped her arms and kissed her. When she could again see his face he was smiling.

“Shall we sit down?”

They sat on the sofa facing the fireplace and he held her hand in his.

“The anger must be consuming you.”

He put one hand on her thigh.

“I was in New York when it happened. I talked to a chambermaid who went in to clean his rooms one day and they didn’t hear her key. They were all in bed, making peculiar love. And Felicity was there. The maid knew her.”

He moved his hand between her thighs, spreading them, and with one finger began slowly pulling up her skirt.

“There are ways to reciprocate,” he said.

She turned away from the mirror and crossed the room to the fireplace. She picked up the black iron poker and walked back to the mirror and smashed it with the poker. Mrs. Squires came running from the dining room.

“Are you all right, Mrs. D?”

“Perfectly fine, Mrs. Squires. I broke the mirror. Will you tell Loretta to sweep up the glass and throw the mirror in the trash. Then move my father’s portrait into its place.”

“I’ll tell her right away.”

“I have to go to the bank and the theater. I’ll be back this afternoon.”

“Very good, Mrs. D.”

“The turkey hash was excellent, Mrs. Squires.”

“Like your mother made, was it?”

“Exactly like Mother made.”

Katrina looped the strap of her bag over her shoulder and left the house, her ostrich plumes bobbing as she walked.