The First of July(53)

Back in New York, the majority view—and Harry sympathized with it—was that America should stay out of a purely European war. But among their friends, there were different levels of sympathy. They could discuss it intelligently, although at times it seemed obscene to reduce the suffering of a continent to the level of a Harvard debate.

Among those with German or British roots and interests, there were certain conversations one avoided at dinner. Once, when he was in the company of friends complacent about America’s geographical distance and political wisdom, he had made some observation about war sometimes coming to find you even if you didn’t choose to go to it. A man had turned to him and said “Well, of course, you’re British; you would say that,” and he’d retorted “Personally, I thought Britain should have stayed neutral” and realized from Marina’s face that he had spoken too sharply. They went out less, by tacit agreement. Over a decade ago he had remade himself as a content, forward-looking American; now, through no choice of his own, he was being unmade again.

Britain was blockading German ports; Germany had declared British waters a war zone. Harry’s business was booming as imports from Europe dried up, but it could only be a matter of time, he thought, until the markets he sold to faltered. He started buying the London papers and reading them each day. The situation in Europe was grim and relentless. After a quiet Thanksgiving, Christmas was upon them; they exchanged modest presents. Marina let him make love to her, but he was left with the feeling that, even in her pleasure, she was self-contained; the moments of abandon they’d once shared had been left behind in Europe. They saw the Ballets Russes and heard Caruso sing in Carmen at the Met. Meanwhile, uncertain of his own motives, Harry interviewed three men for the job of managing his business.

News came of setbacks in the Dardanelles so severe that even the British papers couldn’t disguise the strategic miscalculations. Walking unwillingly to a concert later that day, one that Marina had told him excitedly would be the talk of New York, he knew he was increasingly acting a part, but he had no idea how to break free. He owed so much to Marina that her interests had to be paramount.

Yet the evening turned into something extraordinary. Carnegie Hall was crammed, the atmosphere electric, the audience curious or preparing to be shocked. The music was by Alexander Scriabin, but included what he called a clavier of light, an instrument of his own imagination. Even at the Moscow première, they had not attempted to provide such a fantastic instrument; but now, here in New York, a machine had been constructed that projected color onto fine screens in harmony with the notes. Harry understood none of it but had a sense of music escaping into another kind of expression, a new world of possibility; even the name of the piece, Prometheus: The Poem of Fire, seemed right for the music and the times. Listening, he knew that where once he had been grateful to escape the conflict, now merely to watch was becoming impossible.

A Christmas card arrived from Isabelle in late January 1915, enclosing a letter from her and one from Teddy. It had taken ten weeks to reach them. The autumn colors at Abbotsgate had been wonderful, she wrote, but high winds made the house cold and the roof needed repairing. The father of one of Teddy’s closest friends had been killed in Flanders, and Teddy was very troubled by it. Jeremy Hope, the estate agent, was having trouble replacing young workers on the estate as they left to join the local regiment.

Teddy had sent a photograph of himself on his pony, Venables. His letter was short—an account of rugger scores, his Common Entrance examination for Eton, and a talk they’d had at school on diamond farming in Bechuanaland.

Harry had come home tired that day, forgetting that they were expected at a soirée, and was irritable as he dressed in a hurry. A harpist, wearing a spangled green gown and looking, he thought, like a rather stout lizard, played at one end of a fine drawing room. At dinner he sat next to an almost silent and blotchy debutante; he found himself hoping that she was accompanied by a large fortune. On his other side was the considerably more interesting wife of the editor of a leading Boston newspaper. She was, he had been told, a cousin of Andrew Carnegie.

Amid all the small talk, she was refreshingly frank. “It must be hard,” she said, “watching your country suffer from so far away.”

“Yes.”

“I hear that your government will bring in conscription within months at this rate—my husband has heard that the losses have made this inevitable. Do you think it will apply to you?”

While he considered this matter, which had been hovering just outside his consciousness for days, she added “I mean, would you want it to?”