Seed on the Wind

Behind it Lora removed her coat and hat and placed them on a chair. Then her dress, and her shoes and stockings. Then she stopped. What did he mean anyway? She called out:

“All my clothes?”

“Of course, Madame.”

A minute later she called:

“All right, I’m ready.”

He appeared at the edge of the screen, turning it back a little. “Good. Come where I can see you.”

She didn’t mind the men, but she wished the girls weren’t there. Oh, well, to the devil with them. She stepped out, away from the screen, into the window’s direct light. She looked boldly at the girls and saw only mild curiosity, then admiration in their eyes; the man with the beard had turned on the stool, with his elbow on the keyboard and his chin in his hand, his other hand dancing on the treble, his eyes carefully appraising her; Palichak stood away, gazing at her with a frown. Suddenly his teeth gleamed in a smile and he clapped his hands.

“Hair!” he exclaimed. “Hair too! What do you think, yes?”

“She’s perfect,” said one of the girls.

“Wonderful, marvelous,” said the other.

“Laissez tomber les cheveux,” demanded Palichak.

“Let your hair down,” the man with the beard translated.

She pulled out the pins and shook her head, and the red-brown curtain fell below her waist, covering her shoulders and back; a strand hung sinuous through the valley between her breasts. She stood natural and straight, creamy-white curves and columns glowing with life even in the shadows, unmindful of them, entirely at ease to their businesslike appraisal.

“She will do, eh?” Palichak beamed.

The man with the beard left the piano and strolled towards her.

“You know what this is,” he said. “Pally is doing some murals for the Institute Building at Detroit, and he wants a model for Fertility. He wouldn’t explain, he can’t talk you know. Thought you might fear it was for a barroom idyll.”

She returned to the screen and dressed herself, overhearing meanwhile their unanimous agreement on her perfections. When she came out again Palichak hurried over.

“You can begin tomorrow?”

“How much do I get?” she demanded.

“Three dollars is usual.”

“Three dollars a day!”

The man with the beard spoke up. “Three dollars an hour. Some days one hour, some two, some three if you can stand it. You may rest of course.”

Lora hesitated, looking from one to the other.

“I’ll have to have five,” she said.

Palichak glared at her, and let out a flood of Russian. The man with the beard shook his head at him and grinned.

“It’s extortion,” he said, “but of course you’ll get it.”

“I can’t help it, I need the money,” said Lora.

That evening she ate at Mrs. Crosby’s tea-room, a dollar and a quarter. I can’t do this every day, she thought, but I can afford to celebrate.

It was upstairs at Number Seven that Palichak worked. Lora stood on a velvet mat on a little wooden platform, her right arm upraised with the hand back of her head, her hair flowing loosely over her left shoulder, and a filmy strip of silk gauze draped from her right shoulder to her left thigh and thence to the platform. Behind her, from ceiling to floor, were the rich folds of a purple curtain. Palichak never talked. He frowned sometimes and swore often, always in Russian, and did not address her except to announce a rest period. He was considerate about resting, except occasionally he would forget, and then when Lora could stand it no longer she would drop her arm, he would frown and then grin at her, and she would step down. They were nearly always alone, but now and then someone would drop in for a moment. The most frequent visitor was the man with the beard, who would enter without knocking, look critically at the picture, glance at Lora with a nod, settle himself in the big leather chair near the window, and remain there an hour or more without speaking.

One day he brought a stranger with him, a tall blond blue-eyed man in his early thirties, with his suit unpressed and his necktie under his right ear.

“You know Scher,” said the man with the beard. “Albert Scher of the Star.”

Palichak nodded, not offering to shake hands, and went on working. The blond man looked at the picture and said nothing. Then he looked at Lora, and he looked so long and his blue eyes seemed so friendly that, feeling she must do something, she winked at him.

“Venus vulgaris, you ought to be ashamed of yourself,” he said, and rejoined the man with the beard.

A week later she was dining with Albert Scher at the Brevoort. He was careful to explain that this would probably prove to be unique, not by any means a precedent. “I eat here,” he said, “every time I find a woman more beautiful than any woman I have ever seen. If possible, with the woman, but it doesn’t often turn out that way. Though I should say you aren’t even a woman, you’re just a girl — how old are you?”

Lora, tasting for the first time the devilish and irresistible savour of clams à l’ancienne, said simply, “Twenty-one.”

“You’re not married.”

“No.”