If You Are There Page 14

She stopped at the top of the steps and turned on him, her lips compressed into a line of wounded indignation. “Are you accusing me?” she said in her bad French. What she really said was, “Are you amusing me?” Est-ce que vous m’amusez? But Arlington knew what she meant.

  “You know what alcohol does to your powers,” he said, while they waited on the curb for the taxi. “These are important men of science. Their opinion matters.”

  “Cannot I ever be happy? Even for one night?”

  “If you had a drink, even a sip—” He clutched her arm and helped her into the taxi. He wanted to say something about Cambridge, but thought better of it. Instead he gave the address to the driver and climbed in beside her.

  “Are doubting me, Arlington? Are you accusing me of the sabotage?”

  “That’s a little theatrical.”

  “I do not like it,” she pouted. “It is not right. You hurt my feelings and now I do not know what about tonight. You know how these uprisings affect my powers. How shall I be tonight with your black energy around my head? You make angry at me and that makes more harm than any drop of wine.”

  Arlington sighed heavily and kept his eyes on the passing scene outside the window. It had begun to rain and a waiter was dragging a table in from the sidewalk. Of course it was up to him to make it right. It was always up to him. If she hadn’t been so remarkable, he would never have put up with her, with her demands and her mercurial temperament, with the hysterical telegrams and the late-night tantrums. Unfortunately, he never met another medium as talented as Eusapia Palladino and probably never would.

  Even so, he refused to chalk up his success or the success of the Society for Psychical Research to just one medium. The society sponsored many—and many of them had achieved relative success. It was true that none enjoyed an international reputation, but he certainly wouldn’t say that the tenfold increase in funding and the growing membership was due solely to Eusapia Palladino.

  “It is just that you are such a marvel, Sapia. You have such a gift. A marvel of nature. Une merveille de la nature.” He probably said it wrong, but she wouldn’t have noticed. “I want the whole world to see you as I do. I want you to shine.” He laid it on thick until she began to relax, her expression softened, and she patted his hand. Fortunately, she was easily managed with a little flattery.

  That evening they gathered in Professor Charles Richet’s apartment for a light supper in the dining room. Eight of them were seated around the carved oak table, including a journalist, a disagreeable fella, whom Arlington distrusted on sight.

  Arlington had a hard and fast rule about journalists. They were never invited to the sittings. In fact, he tried to keep them away from Sapia altogether, although that was not always possible. Experience told him that the press had a deleterious effect on clairvoyants. Journalists tended to weaken and confuse them, ruffling the Geist in the room, causing psychic torpor, and generally making it harder for them to contact those on the other side. Unfortunately, there was nothing to be done about this one. He happened to be Professor Richet’s younger brother and so he would stay.

  At the first opportunity Arlington took Sapia aside to warn her. She was in high spirits, seated at the table surrounded by men, happy to be the center of attention. She waved him off and told him to stop worrying and, moreover, to stop bothering her, she was having fun. She had been flirting with the scientists at the table all evening, seemingly unaware that not one had flirted back, that their interest in her was strictly professional. She told her stories, the ones Arlington had heard many times before: the train breaking down in the snowbank outside of Heidelberg, the séance in Petersburg, her audience with the Danish queen. She laughed too loudly, ate too eagerly, wetly smacking her lips, until he wanted to clamp his hand over her mouth. He tried telling himself as he had done a dozen times before: Her behavior was no reflection on him. They were not related. She was as much a foreigner to him as she was to the others. He had found her and brought her to the attention of the scientific community, but that did not make him responsible for her behavior.

  He sat there in a cloud of humiliation waiting for the séance to begin. Once that happened he hoped to be home free. He had little doubt that when they saw what she could do they would understand why he had brought her here. They would see that there was more to the great Eusapia Palladino than her table manners.

  He wondered if they viewed him as a gentleman and not as a foreigner, if they recognized that he had a legitimate place among them. He knew that as president of the Society for Psychical Research he had a claim to their respect. The movement—for it had become a movement under his leadership—had spread across the United States and had grown threefold since he took the helm. At home he was well known, a celebrity in the psychic world, but here in Europe his standing was less certain. He kept looking for an opening to insert this information naturally, but none came up. He didn’t want to force it and look bigheaded or worse, like some kind of boob.

  The company moved to the séance room and began to take their seats. At the sitters’ table Arlington directed Charles Richet to sit on Sapia’s right while he took his customary place on her left. At the last minute, when the photographer called Professor Richet over to ask him a question, the younger Richet, the journalist, who had been watching Arlington orchestrate the seating, took advantage of his brother’s absence and stole his seat.

  Arlington was surprised but decided not to say anything. He didn’t think it was necessary. He assumed that once the elder Richet returned he would take his rightful place. Instead, the man merely noted that his brother had taken his seat and found another. Before Arlington could object, or more precisely had time to think about the consequences of objecting, Sapia appeared at the door accompanied by the trusted maidservant, who had examined her. After the maid testified she had found nothing and was dismissed, Sapia took her place at the head of the table in front of the medium’s cabinet. The gas was lowered and the candles were lit. She took young Richet’s hand in hers and reached out for Arlington’s. Then she slipped her foot under Arlington’s boot and presumably under the journalist’s, lowered her head, and began.

  The stenographer for the evening was Professor Pierre Curie, who was sitting at his own table by the window. Curie lit a candle and by the light of it began writing down the time in the laboratory notebook. He added the temperature in the room, the humidity, and made a note of the rain outside the window. Then he sat back and absently combed his fingers through his beard while he waited for the next entry.

  Arlington knew that nothing would happen until Sapia’s breathing changed. Her quickening breath was the signal that contact had been made between her and John King, her spirit guide on the other side. He listened to her breathing, waiting for it to grow heavy, for the groans and whimpering to begin. Outside the rain thrummed against the windows. Thunder rumbled off in the distance or perhaps it was just a passing carriage. Sapia’s head lowered slowly, until her chin came to rest on the cameo at her throat—still her breathing remained even and regular.

  They all heard a faint screech of alarm, but no one reacted to it. Professor Curie made a note of it. “We have mice,” Professor Richet remarked somewhat apologetically. Curie wrote Mice and added a question mark as an afterthought. Minutes passed and when Professor Curie’s candle began to gutter, Arlington thought it was probably a draft from the windows and said as much. Curie noted draft in the book.

  Nearly an hour passed and the séance remained uneventful, yet Arlington had been fully engaged the whole time, his attention divided between Sapia and the journalist. Young Richet sat with his back to the window, silhouetted by the frail light seeping in through the curtains. Arlington could see that the young man kept a close watch on Sapia. He imagined the journalist’s crafty eyes fixed on her every move—suspicious, superior, and remote; his boot on her shoe; his hand clasping hers. He told himself to relax, that this was Paris, not Cambridge, and he had nothing to fear.

  Another quarter o
f an hour and still nothing happened. The rain had stopped, and now and again, the clamor of a passing carriage broke the silence. The house was so quiet Arlington surmised that the family and servants had been given an order to keep it that way. At one point he heard a door close quietly and footsteps retreat down the hall.

  “John?” Sapia had lifted her head and appeared to be listening. “John, is that you?” Giovanni, è che voi?

  Arlington couldn’t be sure, but he thought he heard a male voice muttering in the darkness. He didn’t know if it was one of the sitters or perhaps something else. “Did you hear that?” he whispered.

  “What?” his host wanted to know.

  “I thought I—” he broke off to listen. “That. Did you hear that?” It was only a word or two, unintelligible, but it sounded complaining and impatient.

  Professor Richet said, “Professor Arlington and I heard a male voice in the room.” Curie noted it with the time and temperature.

  “John, wait. Wait!” Sapia spoke in Italian. She wasn’t shouting, but against the silence in the room her voice boomed loud and demanding. Giovanni, attendere, prego. She went on a bit, pleading and cajoling, but apparently it made no difference. “He will not listen,” she said in Italian. Egli non vuole ascoltare. Then in French she added: “I do not know. I do not know what I do? He says I have been bad. How was I bad?” she asked the air.

  Suddenly there was a loud slap and her head jerked to one side. She cried out as if in pain. Her hand flew to her cheek. “Did you see that? How he treats me. He is so cruel. Look what he did.” She took her hand away and showed her cheek to the men around the table.

  Curie wrote: Red cheek consistent with a slap and noted the time and temperature.

  After another half hour or so, it was apparent that the sitting was a blank. Sapia was exhausted and dejected. She couldn’t understand what had happened. With what little French was available to her she tried to explain about John King.

  “He refuses to stay. He will not say why. He is angry with me for something I do. I do not know what. I tried to reason with him, but he would not listen. He flies into these hot angers and there is nothing I can do.”

  Richet tried to reassure Eusapia. “If you knew how many blanks we’ve had in this room, you wouldn’t think twice about it.”

  “He only does this to torture me. He is so hard and cruel.” Her voice was soggy with self-pity. She eyed a corner of the ceiling. “You are not a nice man, John King. Tu non sei un uomo gentile. And I don’t care if you are angry with me.”

  There were more reassurances at the door. No one seemed to be bothered by the blank, only Sapia. Arlington noticed that the reporter watched them get into the cab. He stood there after the others had gone inside. It was probably this fella’s fault that the night had been a failure. Arlington knew his kind—the spoilers. How their energy could taint the room.

  “You were right, Arlington,” Sapia said. She pronounced it Ar-lean-ton. “I did take a sip of wine. Perhaps two. I did not think it would matter.”

  She wanted reassurance from him, to be petted and fussed over. She wanted to hear the words that would once again make her feel safe and calm. Unfortunately, he was too tired for that. It was not the usual fatigue that came from the late hour or from the rigors of a long journey. It was a crushing weariness that came from the steady necessity of holding himself back, of having to become someone else: the patient father, the kindly counselor, the forgiving impresario. There was no room for him in this arrangement. He was the planet orbiting her bright star, subjugating his own health and happiness to her moods, her fears, and her constant needs.

  Now, for the first time in their long association, he wondered if it was all worth it. There were American mediums of equal stature, or if not equal, then at least good enough to be developed. They wouldn’t be difficult to find. He had a reputation and a steady stream of applicants. All he had to do was look.

  He gazed out the window at the tumult on the boulevard. They had just passed the park and were approaching the Odéon where the taxis were already lined up at the curb waiting for the audience to let out. The drivers stood nearby hunkered down in their great coats, the horses shifting their weight from one foot to another, shaking the water from their backs, and marking the air with their patient breath.

  Sapia looked miserable huddled under a mound of carriage blankets, watching the café society pageant out on the street. He knew he had to pull himself together. If the séance had any hope of success, he had to give her what strength he had, nourish her, and bring her back from the dark place. Her powers were so fragile, so mercurial. He had to guard them closely. When she faltered, he had to hold her up. He had to keep her away from the shoals, the fearful places that drove her to take desperate measures.

  “Don’t let this little setback bother you,” he said, taking Sapia’s hand. “You’ve had a blank before. It means nothing. You know that. John will be back. He always comes back.”

  She looked over at him with grateful tears. “Do you really mean that?”

  “Of course. I have no doubt you will be miraculous tomorrow. How could you be anything less?”

  She smiled at him through her tears and brought his hand up to her lips. He patted her hand before returning it to her lap. Out on the sidewalk several young men in evening clothes emerged from a café. Their leader in a top hat and overcoat waved a glove at their taxi, but then seeing that it was occupied yelled something that Arlington couldn’t quite hear. He sat back in his seat, closed his eyes, and smiled at the one happy thought he had held all evening. Tomorrow Sapia would be sleeping until two, which meant he would have the whole morning to himself.

  The next evening Arlington took Sapia out for an early supper at Café Tortoni. He knew she would like it because it was only a few blocks from the opera and she enjoyed watching the fancy carriages drive by while she ate. She sat in the chair opposite, not bothering to keep up her end of the conversation, watching the parade of plumed horses trot by with their liveried footmen standing on the footboards or riding in the rumble. Once the food came she ate mechanically and afterward ordered her customary ice.

  “I know it will be fine, Arlington. I am not to worry.”

  “Of course, you’ll be wonderful. You’re always wonderful.”

  “Yes. I know that. And John assures me that all will be well. I contacted him last night before I went to bed. Did I tell you?”

  He nodded and took a sip of wine. It was the third time she mentioned it.

  “He said that he has it all arranged. I will be as usual. Of course, I will be wonderful. When am I not, eh?”

  Arlington told her that he was not worried, not one bit, and that everything would be fine. He managed to sound convincing, even though in truth he had a bad case of the jitters and for a good reason. Cambridge started out this way, with a blank, then assurances and denials, and finally the withering fear of another blank. He couldn’t go through that again, the mortification, the derisive looks, and later the formal accusations in the journals. He remembered, after the humiliating event, standing by the front door. No one to see them off—only the parlor maid, who handed them their coats and sent them out into the night to find their own way home. No, he was never going through that again.

  Arlington didn’t know how the professor’s brother secured the seat on Sapia’s right for a second night. He told Sapia to request that someone else sit there, but when the time came and the brother took the seat, she was distracted and did nothing to stop him. Now the journalist held her hand and was watching her every move, alert, predacious—a danger to everything Arlington held dear in his life: his reputation, the society, his livelihood. Even in the murky light Arlington could see that she had the man’s full attention. Once he even peered under the tablecloth, no doubt to verify that her other foot was being properly controlled.

  Arlington sat on her left, gripping her hand, keeping a steady pressure on it, and finding some comfort in the fact that he knew for sur
e he had it all to himself. Her hands had always been slightly repugnant to him. The short, pudgy fingers, pale and moist, reminded him of something he might find under the house. Even so he would not let go, even when her palm grew slippery with sweat. Then he simply moved his grip up to her wrist and held on with his thumb and fingers, giving his palm a good airing out.

  It was not Sapia’s habit to sit still during a sitting. She often thrust her hands into the air without warning, first one, then the other, writhing right and left as if trying to escape. On this night at first nothing happened. They sat for a while listening to the crowds in the street. At some point she became restless and began shifting about as if she were trying to get comfortable.

  A few minutes after that she began to whimper like an animal.

  The whimper turned into groaning, her breath quickened, and then, without warning, she arched her back and thrust her breasts out as if she were in the throes of carnal passion. She stabbed the air with her left hand, then her right, then her left again, while Arlington held on.

  The table began to rise in minute increments, stopping, hanging there, and then rising again. Magnesium flashes exploded, one, two, three, illuminating Sapia, a corner in the room, and the mantelpiece. The bright flashes blinded Arlington and for a moment he couldn’t see anything but spots. He began to panic. He had no idea what she was doing. She could have been up to anything and he wouldn’t have been able to stop her. He gripped her wrist and fought down the urge to yell Cambridge!

  Someone shouted in the room. It was a loud bark and everyone jumped. The door slammed shut and then it sounded as if it were raining, right there in the room, as if there was a downpour inside the very house. Water seemed to be sheeting down from the ceiling, a deluge from every corner, and yet nothing was wet.

  The sitters called out their impressions to Professor Curie, who wrote them down with rapid efficiency. At 10:55 Professor Richet shouted that the door had slammed on its own. Arlington added that he had control of the medium’s right hand and that his left boot was on top of her right shoe. “Her head is resting on my shoulder and she seems to be asleep.” The phantom rain was louder. “It’s all around us,” Richet shouted out. “Note the temperature, Curie. It could be important.”