Radiance

Just before suppertime, in every room of the White Peony Waldorf, the telephones begin to ring. As the primrose and cornflower shadows of Venus whirl like leaves into gold, in every room of the White Peony Waldorf, hands pick up the polished brass receivers on the second ring. Lights come on like an advancing army of fireflies all over the Station, and in every room of the White Peony Waldorf, a lovely, lilting lady’s voice pours out of the telephone:

“If you would be so good as to assemble in the Myrtle Lounge in a quarter of an hour, Mr St. John will present the evening’s entertainment. Refreshments will be provided.”

Adjust the lens: What do the windows see when they look into the rooms?

Dresses come out of closets; steam unwrinkles dinner jackets; shoes and hats are hurriedly located. Just as the supper bell rings, out of every room in the White Peony Waldorf, people emerge—hesitant, pensive, nerves and necklines sparkling. One by one they take their seats on the couches, armchairs, chaises, and barstools of the Myrtle Lounge, velvet on velvet on velvet; gowns and trousers crushing that ash-pale, fruiting moss into the thick upholstery. A gramophone plays some dainty old tune. Murmured conversations dapple the room, introductions are made—many of the guests have not met each other before tonight. Hands fiddle with cigars and cigarettes and atomizers—many of the guests have vices that prefer not to wait on the host. There is perfume, there is sweat, there is talc, there is fear—many of the guests wear all four.

Adjust the lens again. Abandon the impersonal perspective and smash it underfoot like a wedding glass. What do the players see?

Anchises St. John and Cythera Brass sweep into the lounge. The air bursts with a flurry of snapping photographs. She wears a sleek strapless number that rustles silver in the popping lights. Flashes of the palest pink feathers flutter in the hem; a slim triangle of dyed crocodile scales soars up to a daring rosette of amethyst and alarming croc teeth at the point of the gown’s plunging, bare back. He wears a raisin-dark smoking jacket over dove-grey trousers and a shirtfront so white you’d think angels ran textile mills. A deep rose cravat blossoms at his throat, with a tiny tiger’s eye pin to hold it in place, and his buttery-yellow leather gloves shine in the low light. Cythera beams, her posture soft as a shimmy in the dark. Anchises is a picture of health, ruddy, his dark hair glossed and thick, a beard coming in nicely, his eyes bright as the sun glinting on a magnifying glass.

Anchises and Cythera hoist up platters of cocktails from the bar and serve them with smiles.

“Good evening!” Anchises cries, his rich, full voice, a leading man’s voice, bouncing off the moss-drenched walls. “Good evening, and welcome to my little party. I’m so pleased you all could make it! I know some of you have had a long journey, but you have, at long last, come to the end! Welcome to the end! Make yourself at home! Relax, put up your feet, and have a well-deserved drink!”

Zoom in again. Adjust the lens. Tighter. Tighter.

What does Anchises St. John see?

“A pink lady for you, Dad,” the great detective says, and, with a flourish, presents a flute to Erasmo St. John, the man who raised him, still strong and broad as a painting of Hercules, his bright black skin free of wrinkles, of the papery thinness of his last days on Mars; as he was on the seventeenth of November, 1944: twenty-eight years old, in love, well laid, and well paid. “Real gin, all the way from London. And a gimlet with muddled mint and French lavender for you, Mum—now, now, I insist. It’s my party, I get to spoil you.” He places a crystal glass in the slim hand of Severin Unck, sitting cross-legged in a black silk evening gown, trimmed in raven feathers and slit up to her hip. Her aviator jacket drapes over her shoulders; she smokes a cigar. One dark, pencilled eyebrow arches up in amusement.

Erasmo leans over to kiss her. She touches the tip of his nose with her finger. Her skin flickers, crackles where it touches his; she is black and white, a film in flesh. “Thanks, sweetheart,” she says. “You shouldn’t have.”

Cythera plops down in a dashing fellow’s lap. He kisses her cheek. Thirty-seven and in his prime, with blistering black eyes and El Greco cheekbones, he looks just as he did the night before a certain silver basket landed on his doorstep. Two women share his couch. Cythera hands out the goods. “That’s an aviator for Unck Senior, a Bellini for the lovely Mary P, and an old-fashioned for Madame? You’ve got honest-to-Betsy Madrid lemons there, Percy; real Creek Nation peaches in your bubbly, Miss P; Hawaiian sugar and California orange peel in your extremely stiff drink, Maxine.”