“Leaves us crazed with happiness!” Marie interrupted, laughing.
Pandora took Marie’s hand and squeezed it as though trying to bring her back down to earth.
“I was going to say, and before we know what’s happened we’re flat on our backs. Be careful, Marie! They can talk all they like about free love and the emancipation of women—but in the end we women are the ones who are left with a bun in the oven and no husband to show for it.”
Marie laughed. “Is this really you speaking? I would have expected something like that from my sisters. But never mind.” She leaned in closer to Pandora. “I haven’t exactly lived like a nun up till now, and I’ve never been pregnant yet. I might not even be able to have children!”
Magnus had been downcast about that, at least in the early years. “Why don’t we have a little bundle of joy?” he would often ask when her period came again, as it always did. Marie always felt he wanted an explanation from her. But she didn’t miss having a child. He eventually stopped saying anything but went around with a long-suffering look on his face.
Magnus . . . Marie found that she had almost forgotten him. She shook herself like a dog shaking burrs from her coat.
She would have to write to him, at some point, and explain everything.
“You might be surprised at what changes when you have a new lover,” Pandora said dryly. “Anyway, tell me, what was it like?”
Marie swallowed. Should she really tell? She felt a sort of superstitious dread, as though simply talking about how much she loved Franco might make her love vanish into air. But she was so happy she couldn’t keep quiet about it.
“It was wonderful! I’ve never felt anything like it. Franco and I . . . I felt the whole time that we belonged together all along and our moment had finally come. Does that make sense?”
“Whether it does or not, you’ve got it bad!” Pandora replied with a knowing look in her eyes.
Now that she was drawing again, Marie saw the people and the street scenes around her with new eyes. A paving slab laid in some unusual pattern, the fire-eaters at a street party, the silhouettes of the ships in the morning mist over the harbor—all at once she found herself surrounded by dozens of ideas, and all she had to do was pick out the finest images and put them down on paper.
“Haven’t I always said that your talent will come back to life of its own accord?” Franco said triumphantly. He was quite convinced that it was his love that had awoken Marie’s creativity. She didn’t have the heart to tell him that she had started drawing again the night before they made love for the first time. She too liked the idea that Franco’s love could work such a change.
When she sent her designs back to Lauscha, Johanna and the others were so delighted that they sent a telegram bubbling over with words of praise. Reading between the lines, she could see that they were all very pleased with themselves for having had the idea of sending Marie off to Ruth for new inspiration. None of them knew that it wasn’t New York itself that made Marie so happy, but rather being in love. Nor did they know anything about the drama that had taken place in the Miles household. Ruth had decided it best not to mention it in the letter that accompanied the drawings.
Although Marie had apologized a dozen times over for her faux pas, Ruth hadn’t forgiven her. The sisters were still cool and distant toward one another despite Steven’s best efforts at reconciliation. Wanda, too, had gone back into her shell and rarely wanted to see anybody.
Not wanting to stay in the apartment amid such tension, Marie had no choice but to go out on her own.
“I’ll walk along the streets of New York, and I’ll be just a woman out having fun! A woman like any other.” As she recalled Georgie’s words from the ship more loudly than ever, she felt guilty that she still hadn’t paid her a visit. But there was simply no time for that; there was so much to do each day.
When she wasn’t with Franco, Marie usually headed to Greenwich Village. She was still convinced that she had to drink in every impression, that she mustn’t miss anything. And she was finally beginning to understand all the connections that had passed her by before: the Naturalists and the Symbolists, the apostles of fin de siècle decadence who had traveled in Europe, Pandora’s expressive dance and Sherlain’s expressionist poetry, and even the Art Nouveau artists who made Ruth’s costly jewelry—they were all pieces of a puzzle, part of something greater that still had no name. This was a new creation, made not by God’s hand but by man, and there was no single style to it. Everything was allowed here, and styles flourished and multiplied. Though Marie had been in America for months, she still found this astonishing variety confusing, almost humbling. She wondered yet again where she fit into the daring leaps of thought, the protests, the new discoveries about the subconscious, the emancipation of women. She had to admit that her idea of art was rather more commercial than what people liked here, yet she was nonetheless part of the greater whole. The sketchbook she carried around with her, its pages bursting with images, was all the proof she needed. And there was further proof as well; the other artists all treated her with respect, especially after a conversation in which she could give as good as she got in discussing matters of art.