Waiting for Sappho
Dolores Klaich
“After all, what is reality anyway? Nothin’ but a collective hunch.”
-Jane Wagner, The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe
Summer, late afternoon, the present
The Hampton Jitney whooshed its way out of New York City’s Lincoln Tunnel, with Djuna slumped in a window seat in the middle of the bus. At the boarding in Manhattan she had glared at anyone wanting to sit next to her, and so no one did. Initially she had said no to Natalie’s invitation, as she said no to everything these days, but she had changed her mind when told that Greta was coming. Djuna secretly loved being called the Greta of Letters, and did not want to die without meeting a confederate loner. She rummaged in her bag for her flask of cognac and a croissant she had picked up at the Jefferson Market and opened the paperback book Andreas had given her for the bus trip when he had seen her off. She had simply tossed the paperback into her bag, knowing that Andreas’ taste was hers and had been for years. Now, as she read the title of the book, Lesbians at Midlife: The Creative Transition, her guffaw made her spill cognac all over her black cape.
In the front of the bus, in the very first seats, sat Radclyffe and Una. Una had her monocle in place and had carefully surveyed the other passengers as they boarded. “So much denim,” she had said to Radclyffe in a whisper. “What a singularly unaesthetic fabric.” She herself was dressed in satin tails, which she wore everywhere these days since giving up her frilly femme gowns after the obscenity trial. Radclyffe sported her usual black fedora with a sprig of white heather tucked into its band. If one looked closely, one could see any number of dog hairs on both women’s clothing. They had pleaded with Natalie to let them bring their dachshunds, but Natalie had been adamant. So they had reluctantly left them behind, hugging them dearly as they left.
Radclyffe’s right hand was heavily bandaged. The obscenity trial had taken its toll. Now that she was in the midst of writing a new book, a deeply felt religious work about a carpenter’s son in Provence, she had begun to experience excruciating pain in the palm of her hand. Una, in her deepening Catholicism, was convinced it was the stigmata.
* * *
“Do you know these broads?” Rosie said, ripping open a giant-sized bag of miniature Snickers bars and offering one to Lily.
Refusing the candy, Lily said, “They are our foremothers. Our host ran a fabulous salon in Paris at the turn of the century. Show a little respect.”
Rosie shrugged. “Yeah, sure, why not? But what the hell is Sagaponack?”
“A hamlet in the Hamptons. Once it was all quiet potato fields. Now it’s all attitude.”
They were on the Long Island Expressway, seated in Rosie’s limo, the floor of which was strewn with kids’ toys, magazines, and discarded candy wrappers.
“So,” Lily asked, “how are your many many many kids.
“Thriving. I have pictures.”
“And Kelli?”
“Very pregnant.”
Rosie tore open another candy bar and asked after Jane.
“Busy writing . . . as usual.”
“She is too brilliant. How’s it going?”
“I think she has a title . . . The Search for Intelligent Life in the Universe.”
Rosie shook her head. “Too long?”
Both were silent for a bit, Lily pondering the length of Jane’s working title and Rosie pondering the length of Kelli’s pregnancy. As they approached exit 70 of the expressway Rosie asked, “So what do you think it’ll be like?”
“The weekend?”
“Duh.”
Lily swept her hair aside and pursed her lips. “Well, for one thing, I am dying to meet Vita. I hope she wears her jodhpurs.”
Rosie looked at Lily quizzically. “So,” she said. “You’re a femme?”
Lily smiled slyly. “On occasion.”
Rosie grinned. “How cool is that?”
* * *
Martina, who had just broken up with Rita Mae, was in the passing lane of the expressway. Her purple vintage convertible Porsche was going 80 and the car stereo was blasting k.d. Lang’s “Constant Craving.” She had no idea who Natalie, her weekend host, was, but she was accepting all social invitations offered these days. As exit 70 approached she left the passing lane and swore in Czech at the driver of the silver Bentley who seemed determined not to let her in the exit lane. She did manage to push herself in, but once there she slowed down in spite, at which point the Bentley, obviously up for the fight, accelerated, passed her, and cut in front of her, affording Martina a glimpse of the passenger, a very thin woman whose eyes, which were turned toward her, seemed to go on forever. At the wheel of the Bentley was another woman who looked, in the fleeting moment Martina saw her, like one of the gypsy women she used to see in the countryside near Prague.
The Bentley turned right at the bottom of the exit ramp and sped away. Martina also turned, then slowed, looked around, and when she saw that no one was on the road, she pulled into a McDonald’s. She braked before she reached the electronic ordering site, donned a babushka and dark glasses, and then proceeded to order a huge combo special that came with a soda the size of a magnum of Champagne. She had been allowing herself one McDonald’s a month, but since her breakup with Rita Mae she had broken that vow a number of times. Now she ate greedily.
Meanwhile, in the Bentley down the road a piece, Virginia was deep in thought. A new book idea was brewing, but she could not get a hold of it. It kept slipping away. At first the main character was a woman, then a man, then back again and so forth. And time! Time would not stand still. First it was one century, then another. She glanced over at Vita, whose eyes, eyes like drenched violets, were seriously on the road, and thought, Am I in love with her? These Sapphists love women! She is a pagan creature stamping out the hops in a great vat in Kent--stark naked, brown as a satyr and very beautiful. . . . Yet, there is something that doesn’t vibrate . . . . [T]he grapes are ripe; & not reflective. No. In brain & insight she is not as highly organized as I am.
Vita was also deep in thought, thinking that there was something terrifying about being under Virginia’s intellectual and moral scrutiny. And yet at the same time, she is a ragamuffin. Just look at her, her hairpins constantly falling and that dress: orange and black, with a hat to match, a sort of top hat made of straw with two orange feathers like Mercury’s wings. Should I sleep with her? She inspires a feeling of tenderness which I suppose is because of her funny mixture of hardness and softness--the hardness of her mind, and her terror of going mad again.
That’s it! Virginia thought. The book. It will begin with an act of violence . . . what shall I call him, or is it her? What name? Orlando? Yes, of course, that’s it . . . Orlando . . . slicing at the head of a Moor. And . . . it will cover 300 years, and . . . during the Great Frost he . . . or perhaps she . . . will ice skate endlessly on the Thames. Yes, that’s it, Orlando . . . a love letter to Vita.
* * *
Meanwhile, at the Sagaponack estate, Natalie and the weekend guests who had already arrived awaited the travelers . . .
Alice, from her wicker armchair in the day room, said, “Enough with the castanets, Emma.” She turned to Renée and whispered, “You know, just because she was the most famous Carmen of her time . . .”
Alice was a string bean of a woman, tall, gawky, and famously mustached. Renée, who was dressed in layer upon layer of chiffon, all pale peach and lavender, nodded and said nothing, but smiled a most ethereal smile. The laudanum had begun to do its work.
Emma, with a click of a castanet in Alice’s direction, strode from the day room and made her way to the vast sun porch with its vast ocean view. There she found Natalie. She sat down next to her and kissed her passionately. Natalie, who had been putting together a dinner-seating plan for her weekend guests, dropped her note pad, kissed Emma back and said, “Sing for me, darling.” Emma did not have to be coaxed. She rose, walked to the middle of the porch, pulled a fan from her pocket and burst into song. Moments later a deep voice from the doorway said, “Brava.”
Emma stopped in mid-note.
“Ah,” Natalie said, without looking to the doorway. “It’s Janet.” She rose and walked to embrace her old friend. “How marvelous that you came. What would our Sagaponack weekend be without your signature cynicism?”
Janet frowned. “All I said was, ‘brava’.”
Natalie smiled. “Ah, but it’s the tone, darling . . . the tone. And Natalia?” she added, looking over Janet’s shoulder.
“She had business in Rome.”
Janet’s customary stern look, on a face that resembled a stevedore’s, lightened as she spoke of her lover Natalia who was one of the great beauties of her day. Natalia was called feminine, but, in essence she was Italian intellectual feminine, which was quite different from general arm candy.
“So,” Janet asked, walking to a wicker loveseat to sit. “Who’s coming this weekend? Have you again outdone yourself?”
With eyes sparkling, Natalie answered, “I just may have, my darling, I just may have.”
“Even better than a naked Mata Hari arriving in your garden on a horse?”
Natalie’s smile was wide. “Weren’t those the days!” Her eyes moved past Janet to the porch screening and the ocean beyond, but rested there only a moment. “Ah, well . . . that was Paris . . . and belle époque Paris at that.” She reached for her note pad. “And this,” she said, waving the note pad, “this . . . is now.”
“Thus,” Janet said. “I ask again. Who’s coming?”
Natalie flipped pages to where she had begun to form her dinner-seating plan.
“Well,” she began, “Vita and Virginia, of course, and Gertrude and Alice, who have already arrived. And Djuna, can you imagine? She goes nowhere. And, so that Djuna will have a dark familiar, . . . my dear Romaine. And . . . Lily, Martina, Rosie, and Olga.”
“Who?”
“Youngsters. You’ll like them. Lily is brilliant, as are you. Rosie is blunt, as are you. Martina has magnificent upper body strength . . .”
“As I do not.”
“And Olga is a poet who glides about naked from the waist up.”
Janet raised her considerable eyebrows.
“Oh . . . and . . . Radclyffe and Una.”
“Those bores,” Janet said. “Not with dogs one hopes.”
“No, no!” Emma said, speaking for the first time from the sofa where she had come to sit next to Natalie. “There will be no dogs at this weekend gathering.”
Natalie nodded. “If everyone brought their dogs we’d have to rent another house. This summer rental is costing quite enough, thank you.”
“How much?” Janet asked.
“Do you never stop ferreting for facts, my love? Let’s just say . . . a bundle. We needed so many bedrooms. But, to continue. Greta and Mercedes may come, but you know how last minute they are.”
“I want to know who said no.”
“Well . . . Tallulah, Lorena, Queen Christina, and my biggest disappointment, alas, Colette. But Renée is here; did you see her when you arrived? Poor darling. And, last . . . there should be a drum roll here. You will never guess who I bagged.”
“I wouldn’t presume to venture.”
Natalie, wanting to stretch out the marvel of her coup, did not immediately answer.
“Well?”
“What would you say if I told you it was Sappho.”
Janet, never at a loss for words, never astonished, sat astonished, and said nothing.
“Her very self,” Natalie said, beaming. She paused, enjoying Janet’s silence. “Just think what a dream profile she will make for your New Yorker. If anyone can pull it off, it is you, my darling. It will be a classic.”
“Yes,” Emma echoed, “a classic.”
“A dance!” Natalie said, looking to Emma. “This calls for a dance.”
Emma, with bangle bracelets crashing, walked to the middle of the porch and began to stamp her feet, launching into the seguidilla from Carmen. With a huge smile, Natalie clapped her hands in rhythm and now and then issued forth with a loud ole.
Janet slipped down low in the loveseat. Anticipating preciousness, she almost had not come for the weekend. But Natalia had flown off to Rome, and she found herself lonely. And now, here was Natalie going on about Sappho. All too much, as usual. Well, I’m here now, she thought, beginning to get up from the loveseat. As she did so, a young woman, naked from the waist up, entered the porch and when she saw Emma dancing away she joined her, improvising as she moved. Transfixed by the young woman’s breasts, Janet sat back down, thinking she had never seen such beautiful breasts. Natalie, noticing, leaned forward and said, “Her name is Olga, darling. She is a poet. A startling poet. Aren’t you glad you came?”
Janet said nothing, but sat taller on the loveseat, straightening her necktie as she did so.
* * *
The next day, late morning
In her room, Djuna was sulking. Greta had telephoned. She and Mercedes were not coming. Romaine also sent word that she would not attend. Djuna thought, I will have to handle the darkness alone. Fuck it, she said aloud. Fuck them all.
Outside, on the deck of the swimming pool, Rosie, in baggy shorts and a long white T-shirt, was belly-flopping into the pool. Olga, naked, floated on her back, her young breasts sticking up like water wings. Martina, in a skintight tank suit, was executing perfect swan dives, one after another. Alice knitted under an umbrella at a table, Gertrude at her side. Of late, Gertrude had been striking poses to look exactly like Picasso’s portrait of her.
Vita, wearing jodhpurs (much to Lily’s delight), was languorously stretched out on a lounge chair, flirting with Lily, who sat next to her, upright and amazed at how she was fluttering.
Nearby, Janet, cigarette smoke encircling her, was buried in The New York Times. Every few minutes her eyes shifted to the pool where Olga was floating, breasts at attention.
Radclyffe and Una, with elaborately carved walking sticks, had left at dawn and had not yet returned. As for Renée, she was still asleep and would not wake to the day until the noon hour.
The hosts, Natalie and Emma, had gone off with Madrigal, the Salvadoran maid, to Loaves and Fishes on Sagg Road where they would shop for seventeen-dollar baguettes and assorted amuse-bouches, stopping at the nearby farm stand for just-picked salad fixings, also extravagantly priced.
And Virginia? Where was Virginia?
“I think I saw her heading for the beach,” Rosie said, emerging from the pool.
Vita broke off flirting with Lily. “Which way?” she asked.
“Straight toward the water,” Rosie said, walking toward Lily, who had not moved from her chair. Rosie leaned over Lily, dripping water. “What’s with her?” she asked, nodding toward Vita, who was hurrying off toward the water. Lily’s eyes were following Vita. Then she turned to Rosie. “I’ve been fluttering,” she said. “It’s amazing. I have never fluttered in my life. Tell no one.”
Janet looked up from her newspaper.
Rosie sidled over to her and said. “So, Janet. When’s Sappho coming?”
Janet looked at Rosie with hooded eyes and did not smile. She said, “Why would you think I would know the time of Sappho’s arrival?”
“You’re a journalist. You guys know everything, or at least you pretend to. You’ve printed so many lies about me you’d think you’d stumble on at least one truth due to mere volume.”
“I have not written a word about you, young woman. In fact, until yesterday I had no idea who you were.”
“But I know who you are. I read The New Yorker. People think I don’t read. They are very mistaken. It’s my shtick, to play raucous--it’s made me millions. I myself am writing a book. Maybe you’d like to read it?”
Janet’s lips curved into a withering Cabaret-like smile, but she couldn’t keep her eyes from shifting to the pool. Rosie laughed. “Cute breasts,” she said, nodding at Olga.
Janet lifted her Times to hide her face.
What a pill, Rosie thought. But what a fab writer. Oh well. She rushed to the pool and jumped in, splashing next to Olga. Olga grinned and Rosie said, “You have an admirer.”
“I know,” Olga said. “Imagine such a sophisticate getting all gaga over a poor poet’s breasts. I love it.”
“Well, they’re not bad breasts,” Rosie said. “For a poet,” she added, swimming away. “Catch you later.”
Olga, feeling Janet’s eyes upon her, waved. Janet immediately lowered her eyes. Olga smiled and backstroked to a pool ladder, emerging just as Natalie, with Emma in tow, strode through the French doors to the pool’s deck.
“Hello, hello,” Natalie trilled. “I can’t believe they had no arugula. Craig, who was at the farm stand as well, was equally aghast. Whatever will we do without arugula?”
“What?” Rosie whispered to Lily.
“Shush,” Lily said.
“Oh, well,” Natalie said. “I wonder if Sappho likes frisée.”
Rosie elbowed Lily and said, “This a world of which I know nothing.”
“Pretend,” Lily said. At which point Vita, arm-in-arm with Virginia, appeared over a sand dune.
“Thank goodness,” Alice said to Gertrude. “That would have been messy.” Gertrude nodded.
“So,” Rosie said to Natalie in a loud voice, “When’s Sappho due?”
Natalie smiled. “Rosie, darling, one does not ask when Sappho is coming. One simply waits.”
“Waiting for Sappho,” Rosie said. “Catchy.”
Janet frowned behind her Times. Catchy, indeed. No one would ever know that, however much she downplayed Natalie’s announced coup, she was incredibly excited about the possibility of doing a profile of Sappho of Lesbos for The New Yorker. Sophisticated journalists did not get excited, at least not in public. But secretly she thought it would be the culmination of her long career. She had been thinking lately of retiring, and what a way to go--a profile of première dyke. Do let it happen.
“And Djuna?” Natalie asked. “Where is dear Djuna?”
Dear Djuna, Alice thought. That is not a correct adjective.
* * *
That evening
Seven o’clock and still no Sappho. The women were gathered on the deck. Madrigal, the Salvadoran maid, her husband Paco, and a bevy of young gay men were busy serving drinks and passing interesting appetizers.
“Jesus,” Rosie said. “What’s this?” She held up an octopus tentacle that was wrapped in a dark purple leaf.
“Just eat it,” Lily said, her eyes riveted on Vita, who was talking with Martina.
“No way,” Rosie said, wrapping the tentacle and its leaf in a napkin and putting the napkin into a pocket of her cargo shorts. “Later for that,” she said, as she made her way to the bar where she addressed one of the bartenders, a young man with spiked orange hair. “Great hair,” she said. “I’ll have a coke.”
“Diet?”
“You’re kidding.”
“You’re Rosie ____, aren’t you?” the young man said.
“Yup.”
“So you are gay. I knew it.”
“Did you? Well, the entire world will know it next week”
“No way!”
“Yup.”
“Well, brava for you!” He handed her the coke. “Lemon? Lime?”
“Diane Sawyer is doing me.”
“You’re kidding.”
“A girl can wish,” Rosie said, high-fiving the young man as she made her way back to Lily.
Off in the shadows, Martina was holding forth with Vita.
“You know,” she was saying, “I lost my ancestral property, too.”
“Yes? And where was that?” Vita asked.
“Near Prague. An apple orchard.”
“Ah, Prague,” Vita said. “My mother was a gypsy, you know. Knole was in my father’s family.”
“Yes, I know. A friend of mine, Rita Mae, told me about it. It was not fair.”
Vita was paying only slight attention to Martina, her eyes shifting to where Lily stood, fluttering. She was also preoccupied with worry about Virginia. Why was it one always worried about Virginia? Vita felt that Virginia, as Mrs. Dalloway, had the feeling that it was very, very dangerous to live even one day. Preoccupied as she was, she was extremely polite to Martina, but what she really wanted to do was walk over to Lily to continue with the flirting that she had begun earlier in the day.
Martina said, “I have pictures of the apple orchard. Maybe you’d like to see them?”
Vita smiled and said yes, she would, sometime.
“Good. I’ll get them.” She was gone in a flash and Vita headed straight for Lily at the other end of the deck.
Meanwhile, Olga, still bare from the waist up but wearing a filmy floor-length, rose-colored skirt, was trying to talk to Djuna, who finally had left her room and joined the others on the deck. As Olga spoke, Djuna kept backing away, but since she had reached the edge of the swimming pool she had nowhere left to go.
Olga was saying, “My friend Bertha keeps leaving flowers at your gate on Patchin Place. Do you ever get them?”
Just as Djuna was about to utter something terribly ugly, Natalie arrived, saying, “Ah, Djuna. I see you’ve met our Olga. She is the Renée of today, darling; you will be impressed.”
Djuna frowned.
Natalie turned to Olga. “Would you be first tonight, sweetheart?”
“I would love to,” Olga said.
“Sweet, sweet girl,” Natalie said, walking to kiss Olga fully on the lips. Djuna recoiled, but did not leave. Natalie turned to Djuna. “Darling, I would be ever so thrilled, everyone would, if you would reconsider. I have a first edition from which you could read.”
Djuna gave Natalie a withering look. “Never,” she said.
Olga interrupted, addressing Djuna. “You’re going to hate this,” she said. “But you are one of my heroes. I have read ____ a dozen times. The darkness compels me. Your work . . .”
Djuna interrupted in a loud voice. “I am not a lesbian! I just loved Thelma!” And off she stalked.
Olga and Natalie raised eyebrows at the same time. Then Olga smiled and felt someone’s eyes boring into her. They belonged to Janet, of course, from across the deck. Olga noticed that Janet had donned a flowered necktie for the evening. Walking a straight line into those boring eyes, Olga said to herself, All right, Ms. New Yorker, here I come.
As she made her way to Janet, Olga passed the foursome of Gertrude and Alice and Radclyffe and Una seated at a poolside table. Gertrude and Radclyfffe sat Buddha-still, as befitted their iconic status, while Alice and Una talked up a storm.
Even young boar is put in a marinade, Alice was saying.
“Quite,” Una replied, adjusting her monocle.
“And one must baste every 12 minutes.”
“Of course.”
“And then there was the Bass for Picasso.”
“I say.”
“Yes. A short time before serving it I covered the fish with an ordinary mayonnaise and, using a pastry tube, decorated it with a red mayonnaise, not coloured with catsup – horror of horrors—but with tomato paste. Then I made a design with sieved hard-boiled eggs, the whites and the yolks apart, with truffles and with finely chopped fines herbes.”
“Splendid,” Una said.
“Picasso exclaimed at its beauty. But, said he, should it not rather have been made in honour of Matisse than of me.”
Una was all smiles. “You know, Alice,” she said, “You really should gather all of your marvelous recipes into a book.”
“As a matter of fact . . .”
“No!”
“Yes. Gertrude’s been after me for years. I already have some section titles. What do you think of Beautiful Soup? Or, Food to Which Aunt Pauline and Lady Godiva Led Us?”
“Marvelous,” Una said. “Truly marvelous.”
“Too bad Mercedes isn’t here. She gave me her Stuffed Artichokes Stravinsky to include. And then, of course, there is . . .”
Olga had reached Janet’s side. “Hello,” she said.
Janet attempted an imperial nod, but, having been in the process of swallowing one of the octopus tentacles, found herself choking.
Olga took her arm and asked if she’d like to sit down. Janet nodded her head and meekly (!) let herself be led to a table.
While she recovered from her choking spell, Janet found her attraction to the young poet escalating. She could not take her eyes off her breasts. When fully recovered she said, “Tell me, why do you go around with exposed breasts?”
Olga laughed. “You sound just like the reporter you are. I can just read your interview now: The young poet Olga ____, a winner of the esteemed Yale Series of Younger Poets award, walks about with her breasts bared. When asked why, she said, ‘I don’t know. I just do.’”
Janet managed a small smile and said, “Natalie tells me you write startling poems.”
“Hmm, startling. I like that.”
“Do you have any of your work with you?”
“Actually, Natalie asked me to kick off the entertainment tonight. You’ll hear something then. Poetry should be heard.”
“Well, yes . . .”
“As opposed to journalism. I love reading your work. You are such a genius.”
Janet did not blush.
Nor did Olga. “Tell me,” Olga said. “What has it been like living in Paris all these years? I’m going there in a couple of months. A French feminist press is bringing out my last volume. I thought it would be a good time to visit.”
“Ah,” Janet said, her voice softer than usual. “Much has changed, of course, but it’s still the most splendid walking city on earth, if only to visit the food markets.”
Now that they were having a conversation, Janet no longer looked at Olga with eyes that bored. Olga, in turn, decided not to flirt. She wondered if they could meet on level ground. Could a friendship ensue? Does it only have to be about lust? And yet . . . I wonder what it would be like to go to bed with Janet ____! Lots of red wine, I’m sure. But those cigarettes. . .
And Janet thought, I have not been to bed with anyone but Natalia for years. Too long. An affair. Just an affair. As in the past. I would never leave Natalia. But would the fact that this young woman is a startling poet and not just a young thing with gorgeous breasts complicate matters? I knew I should not have come this weekend. Natalie’s gatherings often end up upsetting the status quo—and usually not for the better.
* * *
Nine-thirty, and still no Sappho. Inside the house Olga stood in front of the fireplace with a slim beige volume of her poems while the rest of the guests found seats. Dinner had been scrumptious, lobsters all around with white wine chilled to perfection. No one had missed the arugula. During dessert, which was the lightest lemon mousse ever, an ocean breeze had developed and a few drops of rain had fallen. Natalie had quickly shepherded the women inside and Madrigal, Paco, and the gay boys had cleared the deck in the rain in no time and then had retired to the kitchen area. The gay boy with the orange spiked hair had said to Paco, “Rosie’s going to come out on the Diane Sawyer show next week. Isn’t that just fab?” Paco said, “Fab? Come out from where?”
Now Natalie walked to the fireplace to stand next to Olga. “All right everyone. Let us come together. As you know, I fashioned tonight’s readings to be by poets, thinking that the most revered of our persuasion would be in attendance. And . . . well, be that as it may. I give you Olga, our most recent literary light. Sappho, darling, we dedicate this evening to you.”
“Right, wherever the hell you are,” Rosie whispered to Lily.
As Olga lifted her volume of poems, she noticed that Janet was not in attendance. Janet was in fact in the entertainment room glued to CNN, news junkie that she was. Every half-hour during cocktails and then dinner she had disappeared to catch the latest headlines. She would return in full indignation at the latest foreign policy absurdity, eat a little, drink a little, and then back she went. Olga shrugged now, and opened her book, just as Janet came into the room. Olga smiled. Janet nodded. Olga read.
I’ve gathered the women like talismans, one // by one. They first came for tarot card // gossip, mystified // by my hands, by offers // cut with escape. They came // undone in my studio, sailing long eyes, heavy // with smoke and wet // with the force of dream: a vagina // folding mandala- like // out of herself, in full bloom.
“Oh my,” Una said, turning to Alice.
Alice grinned.
Janet coughed.
Natalie beamed.
Olga continued.
Manita’s Love // opens herself to me, my sharp // Jester’s tongue, my // cartwheels of pleasure. The Queen’s own pearl // at my fingertips, and Manita pealing // my Jester’s bells on our four // small steeples, as Sunday dawns // clear in February, and God claps and claps // her one hand . . .
“I say,” said Radclyffe.
“Too cool,” said Rosie.
Djuna glared.
Olga read on and when she finished, Lily began the clapping. Olga bowed and walked from the fireplace to where Janet was standing. “So?”
“Startling, indeed,” Janet said. “Come with me, I need to check the headlines.” As Olga walked out of the room with Janet she grinned at Rosie who was giving her the thumbs up sign.
Natalie motioned to Renée, who was lounging in diaphanous raiment on one of the sofas. Renée smiled at her, waved, and closed her eyes. Natalie walked to her. “You’re on, kid, come on, you can do it.” Startled, Renée rose and slowly walked to the fireplace. In a trance, she poured forth the beginning of one of her poems.
Under your gown, which glides like a wing’s caress // I fathom your body,--the eager lilies of your breasts // The pale gold of your underarm // Your flanks gentle and flushed, your legs, those of a goddess // The velvet smoothness of your belly and the fullness of your loins.
When she finished, Rosie turned to Lily. “Talk about old-timey.”
Lily grimaced. “Considering that she wrote that around 1900, it’s pretty brave stuff. She and Natalie were totally outrageous then. They ran around Paris and Lesbos being really brash. They even tried to set up a colony of dyke poets on Lesbos.”
“You jest.”
“Not,” Lily said. “I keep telling you you need to read our history.”
“I guess. Got a recommendation?”
“Yup. Woman Plus Woman.”
“Who wrote it?”
“Some woman with an ethnic name. Damn good writer, though.”
“Is Renée on Quaaludes?”
“No, laudanum.”
“Never heard of it. New?”
“Actually, quite old. Opium of a sort.”
* * *
By 11 o’clock even the most optimistic of the women, gathered now on the vast sun porch listening to the vast ocean, realized that Sappho was not coming. Their wait for her was over. The young poet Olga, herself of Greek heritage, was especially disappointed. She wondered how in the world she would have greeted Sappho had she come. She pondered this, then said . . .
“I would have bowed my head, put my palms together over my heart, my thumbs against my chest, and said, very softly, Namaste.”
After a pause, the rest of the women spoke. Janet first:
“I would have asked her how she felt when the nineteenth-century English translators of her work turned the female lovers in her poems into men.”
“I could have cooked her my Giant Squab in Pyjamas and for dessert, Flaming Peaches!”
“I wonder if she knows my work.”
“Since I know she adores flowers, I would have invited her to Sissinghurst.”
“To have met the original Sapphist!”
“Maybe she would have liked to be on my TV talk show?”
“God, I hope I wouldn’t have fluttered. Maybe I would have met her incognito, perhaps as Trudy, the bag lady. I think she would have liked Trudy.”
“Perhaps she plays tennis?”
“I wonder, does she believe in the stigmata?”
“I am certain she would have loved our dachshunds. But then again, do they have dachshunds on Lesbos? In the sixth-century B.C.?”
“I would have danced for her, with castanets of course.”
“I would have kissed her. And more -- if she had been interested.”
And, finally . . . Djuna:
“Such stupidity. Of course she never intended to come.”
At which point Renée entered the room. “Nothing you can do about it,” she said.
“Yes,” Virginia said. “Nothing to be done.”
“Right,” Lily added. “Nothing we can do about it.”
“Well,” Natalie said, moving to embrace Renée with one arm and Emma with the other. “Perhaps another year?”
# # #
Author’s note: Kudos to those who identified the full names of the dramatis personae (even those only mentioned in passing -- female or male). Send me your list:
.
I will reply. Sources for italicized quotes include:
The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas
Beginning With O
The Diary of Virginia Woolf
The Letters of Virginia Woolf
The Letters of Vita Sackville-West to Virginia Woolf
A l’Heure des mains jointes
Mrs. Dalloway
Vita and Harold
working notes
One day, for reasons unknown, an image of Sappho sitting on a motorcycle, dressed head to toe in leather, appeared before me on a country road in Sagaponack where I was walking my dog. That same week, while reading biographical sketches of opera divas, I came across a description of “the most famous Carmen of her time,” she who, I knew from earlier research, had serenaded (in drag), with Natalie Clifford Barney, Renée Vivien under one of Vivien’s belle époque Paris apartment windows.
I decided that the two should meet.
I had great fun writing this magical piece, frustrated only by the need to limit the number of weekend guests, whether dead or alive. I could have gone on and on.
It should be said that I had every intention of having Sappho arrive at the country house (with or without motorcycle and leather gear) but, somehow, for reasons unknown, she just didn’t show up.
about the author
Dolores Klaich is the author of Woman Plus Woman: Attitudes Toward Lesbianism, Heavy Gilt (a spoof of a mystery whose theme is internalized heterosexism), short fiction, essays, and articles. She recently fled Sagaponack and now lives quietly in southern Vermont next door to a wonderful ancient graveyard.
