In America: A Novel - Softcover

Sontag, Susan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0312273207 ISBN 13: 9780312273200

Publisher: Picador, 2001

Synopsis

In America is a kaleidoscopic portrait of America on the cusp of modernity. As she did in her enormously popular novel The Volcano Lover, Susan Sontag casts a story located in the past in a fresh, provocative light to create a fictional world full of contemporary resonance.

In 1876 a group of Poles led by Maryna Zalezowska, Poland's greatest actress, emigrate to the United States and travel to California to found a "utopian commune." When the commune fails, Maryna stays, learns English, and―as Marina Zalenska―forges a new, even more triumphant career on the American stage, becoming a diva on par with Sara Bernhardt.

In America is about many things: a woman's search for self-transformation; the fate of idealism; a life in the theater; the many varieties of love; and, not least of all, stories and storytelling itself. Operatic in the scope and intensity of the emotions it depicts, richly detailed and visionary in its account of America, and peopled with unforgettable characters.

In America is the winner of the 2000 National Book Award for Fiction.

About this title

About the Author

Susan Sontag was the author of four novels, including The Benefactor, Death Kit, The Volcano Lover, and In America, which won the 2000 National Book Award for fiction; a collection of stories, I, etcetera; several plays, including Alice in Bed; and nine works of essays, among them On Photography, which won the National Books Critics Circle Award for criticism. In 2001, Sontag was awarded the Jerusalem Prize for the body of her work. She died in New York City in 2004.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

In America

By Susan Sontag

Picador USA

Copyright ©2001 Susan Sontag
All right reserved.
ISBN: 9780312273200

Chapter One

           PERHAPS IT WAS the slap she received fromGabriela Ebert a few minutes past five o'clock in the afternoon(I'd not witnessed that) which made something, no, everything (Icouldn't have known this either) a little clearer. Arriving at thetheatre, inflexibly punctual, two hours before curtain, Marynahad gone directly to her star's lair, been stripped to her chemiseand corset and helped into a fur-lined robe and slippers by herdresser, Zofia, whom she dispatched to iron her costume in an adjoiningroom, had pushed the candles nearer both sides of themirror, had leaned forward over the jumbled palette of alreadyuncapped jars and vials of makeup for a closer scrutiny of that alltoo familiar mask, her real face, the actress's under-face, whenbehind her the door seemed to break open and in front of her,sharing the mirror, hurtling toward her, she saw her august rival'sreddened, baleful face shouting the absurd insult, threw herselfback in her chair, turned, glimpsed the arm descending just beforean involuntary grimace of her own brought down her eyelidsat the same instant it bared her upper teeth and shortened hernose, and felt the shove and sting of a large beringed handagainst her face.

    It all happened so rapidly and noisily?her eyes stayedclosed, the door banged shut?and the shadow-flecked room withits hissing gas jets had gone so silent now, it might have been abad dream: she'd been having bad dreams. Maryna clapped herpalm to her offended face.

    "Zofia? Zofia!"

    Sound of the door being opened softly. And some anxiousbabble from Bogdan. "What the devil did she want? If I hadn'tbeen down the corridor with Jan, I would have stopped her, howdare she burst in on you like that!"

    "It's nothing," Maryna said, opening her eyes, dropping herhand. "Nothing." Meaning: the buzz of pain in her cheek. Andthe migraine now looming on the other side of her head, whichshe intended to keep at bay by a much-practiced exercise of willuntil the end of the evening. She bent forward to tie her hair in atowel, then stood and moved to the washstand, where she vigorouslysoaped and scrubbed her face and neck, and patted the skindry with a soft cloth.

    "I knew all along she wouldn't?"

    "It's all right," said Maryna. Not to him. To Zofia, hesitatingat the half-open door, holding the costume aloft in her outstretchedarms.

    Waving her in, Bogdan shut the door a bit harder than heintended. Maryna stepped out of her robe and into the burgundygown with gold braiding ("No, no, leave the back unbuttoned!"),rotated slowly once, twice, before the cheval glass, nodded to herself,sent Zofia away to repair the loose buckle on her shoe andheat the curling iron, then sat at the dressing table again.

    "What did Gabriela want?"

    "Nothing."

    "Maryna!"

    She took a tuft of down and spread a thick layer of PearlPowder on her face and throat.

    "She came by to wish me the best for tonight."

    "Really?"

    "Quite generous of her, wouldn't you agree, since she'dthought the role was to be hers."

    "Very generous," he said. And, he thought, very unlikeGabriela.

    He watched as three times she redid the powder, applied therouge with a hare's foot well up on her cheekbones and under hereyes and on her chin, and blackened her eyelids, and three timestook it all off with a sponge.

    "Maryna?"

    "Sometimes I think there's no point to any of this," shesaid tonelessly, starting again on her eyelids with the charcoalstick.

    "This?"

    She dipped a fine camel's-hair brush into the dish of burntumber and traced a line under her lower eyelashes.

    It seemed to Bogdan she was using too much kohl, whichmade her beautiful eyes look sorrowful, or merely old. "Maryna,look at me!"

    "Dear Bogdan, I'm not going to look at you." She was dabbingmore kohl on her brows. "And you're not going to listen tome. You should be inured by now to my attacks of nerves. Actor'snerves. A little worse than usual, but this is a first night. Don'tpay any attention to me."

    As if that were possible! He bent over and touched his lipsto the nape of her neck. "Maryna ..."

    "What?"

    "You remember that I've taken the room at the Saski for afew of us afterward to celebrate?"

    "Call Zofia for me, will you?" She had started to mix thehenna.

    "Forgive me for bringing up a dinner while you're preparingfor a performance. But it should be called off if you're feelingtoo ...

    "Don't," she murmured. She was blending a little Dutchpink and powdered antimony with the Prepared Whiting to powderher hands and arms. "Bogdan?"

    He didn't answer.

    "I'm looking forward to the party," she said and reached behindfor a gloved hand to lay on her shoulder.

    "You're upset about something."

    "I'm upset about everything," she said dryly. "And you'll beso kind as to let me wallow in it. The old stager has need of a littlestimulation to go on doing her best!"

       MARYNA DID NOT RELISH lying to Bogdan, the onlyperson among all those who loved her, or claimed to love her,whom she did in fact trust. But she had no place for his indignationor his eagerness to console. She thought it might do her goodto keep this astonishing incident to herself.

    Sometimes one needs a real slap in the face to make whatone is feeling real.

    When life cuffs you about, you say, That's life.

    You feel strong. You want to feel strong. The importantthing is to go forward.

    As she had, single-mindedly, or almost: there had beenmuch to ignore. But if you are of a stoical temperament, andhave a talent for self-respect, and have worked hard with anothertalent God gave you, and have been rewarded exactly as you haddared to hope for your diligence and persistence, indeed, yoursuccess arrived more promptly than you expected (or perhaps, yousecretly think, merited), you might then consider it petty to rememberthe slights and nurture the grievances. To be offendedwas to be weak?like worrying about whether one was happy ornot.

    Now you have an unexpected pain, around which the muffledfeelings can crystallize.

    You have to float your ideals a little off the ground, to keepthem from being profaned. And cut loose the misfortunes and insults,too, lest they take root and strangle your soul.

    Take the slap for what it was, a jealous rival's frantic commenton her impregnable success?that would have been somethingto share with Bogdan, and soon put out of mind. Take it asan emblem, a summons to respond to the whispery needs she'dbeen harboring for months?this would be worth keeping to herself,even cherishing. Yes, she would cherish poor Gabriela's slap.If that slap were a baby's smile, she would smile at the recollectionof it, if it were a picture, she would have it framed and kepton her dressing table, if it were hair, she would order a wig madefrom it ... Oh I see, she thought, I'm going mad. Could it be assimple as that? She'd laughed to herself then, but saw with distastethat the hand applying henna to her lips was trembling.Misery is wrong, she said to herself, mine no less than Gabriela's,and she only wants what I have. Misery is always wrong.

    Crisis in the life of an actress. Acting was emulating otheractors and then, to one's surprise (actually, not at all to one's surprise),finding oneself better than any of them were?includingthe pathetic bestower of that slap. Wasn't that enough? No. Notanymore.

    She had loved being an actress because the theatre seemedto her nothing less than the truth. A higher truth. Acting in aplay, one of the great plays, you became better than you reallywere. You said only words that were sculpted, necessary, exalting.You always looked as beautiful as you could be, artifice assisting,at your age. Each of your movements had a large, generousmeaning. You could feel yourself being improved by what wasgiven to you, on the stage, to express. Now it would happen that,mid-course in a noble tirade by her beloved Shakespeare orSchiller or Slowacki, pivoting in her unwieldy costume, gesturing,declaiming, sensing the audience bend to her art, she felt nomore than herself. The old self-transfiguring thrill was gone.Even stage fright?that jolt necessary to the true professional?haddeserted her. Gabriela's slap woke her up. An hour laterMaryna put on her wig and papier-mâché crown, gave one lastlook in the mirror, and went out to give a performance that evenshe could have admitted was, by her real standards for herself,not too bad.

    BOGDAN WAS so captivated by Maryna's majesty as shewent to be executed that at the start of the ovation he was stillrooted in the plush-covered chair at the front of his box, handsclenching the rail. Galvanized now, he slipped between his sister,the impresario from Vienna, Ryszard, and the other guests, andby the second curtain call had made his way backstage.

    "Mag-ni-fi-cent," he mouthed as she came off from thethird curtain call to wait beside him in the wings for the volumeof sound to warrant another return to the flower-strewn stage.

    "If you think so, I'm glad."

    "Listen to them!"

    "Them! What do they know if they've never seen anythingbetter than me?"

    After she'd conceded four more curtain calls, Bogdan escortedher to the dressing-room door. She supposed she was startingto allow herself to feel pleased with her performance. Butonce inside, she let out a wordless wail and burst into tears.

    "Oh, Madame!" Zofia seemed about to weep, too.

    Stricken by the anguish on the girl's face and intending tocomfort her, Maryna flung herself into Zofia's arms.

    "There, there," she murmured as Zofia held her tightly,then let go with one arm and delicately patted Maryna's crimped,stiffened mass of hair.

    Maryna released herself reluctantly from the girl's unwaveringgrip and met her stare fondly. "You have a good heart, Zofia."

    "I can't stand to see you sad, Madame."

    "I'm not sad, I'm ... Don't be sad for me."

    "Madame, I was in the wings almost the whole last act, andwhen you went to die, I never saw you die as good as that, youwere so wonderful I just couldn't stop crying."

    "Then that's enough crying for both of us, isn't it?" Marynastarted to laugh. "To work, you silly girl, to work. Why are weboth dawdling?"

    Relieved of her regal costume and reclothed in the fur-linedrobe. Maryna sponged off Mary Stuart's face and swiftly laid onthe discreet mask suitable to the wife of Bogdan Dembowski.Zofia, sniffling a little ("Zofia, enough!"), stood behind her chairembracing the sage-green gown Maryna had chosen that afternoonto wear to the dinner Bogdan was giving at the Hotel Saski.She put the gown on slowly in front of the cheval glass, returnedto the dressing table and undid the curls and brushed and rebrushedher hair, then piled it loosely on her head, looked closerinto the mirror, added a little melted wax to her eyelashes, stoodagain, inspected herself once more, listening to the ascending dinin the corridor, took several loud, rhythmical breaths, and openedthe door to an enveloping wave of shouts and applause.

    Among the admirers well connected enough to be admittedbackstage were some acquaintances but, except for Ryszard,clasping a bouquet of silk flowers to his broad chest, she saw noclose friends: those invited to the party had been asked to go onahead to the hotel. And more than a hundred people were waitingoutside the stage door, despite the foul weather. Bogdanoffered the shelter of his sword-umbrella with the ivory handleso she could linger for fifteen minutes under the falling snow,and she would have lingered another fifteen had he not wavedaway the more timid fans, their programs still unsigned, andshepherded Maryna through the crowd toward the waitingsleigh. Ryszard, finally pressing his bouquet into her hands, saidthe Saski was only seven streets away and that he preferred towalk.

    How strange, in her native city to be receiving friends ina hotel, but for the last five years?her talents having led herinexorably to the summit, an engagement for life at the ImperialTheatre in Warsaw?she no longer had an apartment inKraków.

    "Strange," she said. To Bogdan, to no-one, to herself. Bogdanfrowned.

    A thunderbolt, like the crack of gunfire, as they arrived atthe hotel. A scream, no, only a shout: an angry coachman.

    They walked up the carpeted marble staircase.

    "You're all right?"

    "Of course I'm all right. It's only another entrance."

    "And I have the privilege of opening the door for you."

    Now it was Maryna's turn to frown.

    And how could there not be applause and beaming faces,customary welcome at a first-night party?but she really hadgiven a splendid performance?as Bogdan opened the door (inanswer to her "Bogdan, are you all right?" he had sighed andtaken her hand) and she made her entrance. Piotr ran to herarms. She embraced Bogdan's sister and gave her Ryszard's silkflowers; she let herself be embraced by Krystyna, whose eyes hadfilled with tears. After the guests, gathering closely around her,had each paid tribute to her performance, she looked from face toface, and then sang out gleefully:

May you a better feast never behold,
You knot of mouth friends!

Upon which words everyone laughed, which means, I suppose (Ihad not arrived yet), that she said Timon's lines in Polish, notEnglish, but also means that nobody except Maryna had read Timonof Athens, for the feast in the play is not a happy one, aboveall for its giver. Then the guests spread about the large room andbegan talking among themselves about her performance and,after that, about the larger question afoot (which is more or lesswhen I arrived, chilled and eager to enter the story), whileMaryna had forced herself toward humbler, less sardonicthoughts. No jealous rivals here. These were her friends, thosewho wished her well. Where was her gratitude? She hated herdiscontents. If I can have a new life, she was thinking, I shallnever complain again.

    "MARYNA?"

    No answer.

    "Maryna, what's wrong?"

    "What could be wrong ... doctor?"

    He shook his head. "Oh, I see."

    "Henryk."

    "That's better."

    "I'm disturbing you."

    "Yes"?he smiled?"you disturb me, Maryna. But only inmy dreams, never in my consulting room." Then, before shecould rebuke him for flirting with her: "The splendors of yourperformance last night," he explained.

    He saw her still hesitating. "Come in"?he held out hishand?"Sit"?he waved at a tapestry-covered settee?"Talk to me."Two steps into the room, she leaned against a bookcase. "You'renot going to sit?"

    "You sit. And I'll continue my walk ... here."

    "You came here on foot in this weather? Was that wise?"

    "Henryk, please!"

    He sat on the corner of his desk.

    She began to pace. "I thought I was coming here to besiegeyou with questions about Stefan, if he really?"

    "But I've told you," Henryk interrupted, "that the lungs alreadyshow a remarkable improvement. Against such a mightyenemy, the struggle waged by doctor and patient is bound to belong. But I think we're winning, your brother and I."

    "You talk rubbish, Henryk. Has anyone ever told youthat?"

    "Maryna, what's the matter?"

    "Everyone talks rubbish "

    "Maryna ..."

    "Including me."

    "So"?he sighed?"it isn't Stefan you wanted to consult meabout."

    She shook her head.

    "Then let me guess," he said, venturing a smile.

    "You're making fun of me, my old friend," Maryna saidsomberly. "Women's nerves, you're thinking. Or worse."

    "I?"?he slapped the desk?"I, your old friend, as youacknowledge, and I thank you for that, I not take my Marynaseriously?" He looked at her sharply. "What is it? Yourheadaches?"

    "No, it's not about"---she sat down abruptly?"me. I mean,my headaches."

    "I'm going to take your pulse," he said, standing over her."You're flushed. I wouldn't be surprised if you had a touch offever." After a moment of silence, while he held her wrist thengave it back to her, he looked again at her face. "No fever. You arein excellent health."

    "I told you there was nothing wrong."

    "Ah, that means you want to complain to me. Well, youshall find me the most patient of listeners. Complain, dearMaryna," he cried gaily. He didn't see the tears in her eyes."Complain!"

    "Perhaps it is my brother, after all."

    "But I told you?"

    "Excuse me"---she'd stood?"I'm making a fool of myself."

    "Never! Please don't go." He rose to bar her way to the door."You do have a fever."

    "You said I didn't."

    "The mind can get overheated, just like the body."

    "What do you think of the will, Henryk? The power of thewill."

    "What sort of question is that?"

    "I mean, do you think one can do whatever one wants?"

    "You can do whatever you want, my dear. We are all yourservants and abettors." He took her hand and inclined his head tokiss it.

    "Oh"?she pulled away her hand?"you disgusting man,don't flatter me!"

    He stared for a moment with a gentle, surprised expression."Maryna, dear," he said soothingly. "Hasn't your experiencetaught you anything about how others respond to you?"

    "Experience is a passive teacher, Henryk."

    "But it?"

    "In paradise"?she bore down on him, her grey eyes glittering?"therewill be no experiences. Only bliss. There we will beable to speak the truth to each other. Or not need to speak at all."

    "Since when have you believed in paradise? I envy you."

    "Always. Since I was a child. And the older I get, the more Ibelieve in it, because paradise is something necessary."

    "You don't find it ... difficult to believe in paradise?"

    "Oh," she groaned, "the problem is not paradise. The problemis myself, my wretched self."

    "Spoken like the artist you are. Someone with your temperamentwill always?"

    "I knew you would say that!" She stamped her foot. "I orderyou. I implore you, don't speak of my temperament!"

    (Yes she had been ill. Her nerves. Yes she was still ill, all herfriends except her doctor said among themselves.)

    "So you believe in paradise," he murmured placatingly.

    "Yes, and at the gates of paradise, I would say, Is this yourparadise? These ethereal figures robed in white, drifting amongthe white clouds? Where can I sit? Where is the water?"

    "Maryna ..." Taking her by the hand, he led her back tothe settee. "I'm going to pour you a dram of cognac. It will begood for both of us."

    "You drink too much, Henryk."

    "Here." He handed her one of the glasses and pulled a chairopposite her. "Isn't that better?"

    She sipped the cognac, then leaned back and gazed at himmutely.

    "What is it?"

    "I think I will die very soon, if I don't do something reckless ...grand. I thought I was dying last year, you know."

    "But you didn't."

    "Must one die to prove one's sincerity!"

    FROM A LETTER to nobody, that is, to herself:

    It's not because my brother, my beloved brother, is dyingand I will have no one to revere ... it's not because my mother,our beloved mother, grates on my nerves, oh, how I wish I couldstop her mouth ... it's not because I too am not a good mother(how could I be? I am an actress) ... it's not because my husband,who is not the father of my son, is so kind and will do whatever Iwant ... it's not because everyone applauds me, because they cannotimagine that I could be more vivid or different than I alreadyam ... it's not because I am thirty-five now and because I live inan old country, and I don't want to be old (I do not intend tobecome my mother) ... it's not because some of the criticscondescend, now I am being compared with younger actresses,while the ovations after each performance are no lessthunderous (so what then is the meaning of applause?) ... it'snot because I have been ill (my nerves) and had to stop performingfor three months, only three months (I don't feelwell when I am not working) ... it's not because I believe in paradise... oh, and it's not because the police are still spying andmaking reports on me, though all those reckless statementsand hopes are long past (my God, it's thirteen years since theUprising) ... it's not for any of these reasons that I've decidedto do something that nobody wants me to do, that everyoneregards as folly, and that I want some of them to do with me,though they don't want to; even Bogdan, who always wantswhat I want (as he promised, when we married), doesn't reallywant to. But he must.

       "PERHAPS IT IS a curse to come from anywhere. Theworld, you see," she said, "is very large. I mean," she said, "theworld comes in many parts. The world, like our poor Poland, canalways be divided. And subdivided. You find yourself occupyinga smaller and smaller space. Though you're at home in thatspace?"

    "On that stage," said the friend helpfully.

    "If you will," she said coolly. "That stage." Then shefrowned. "Surely you're not reminding me that all the world's astage?"

    "BUT HOW CAN you leave your place, which is here?"

    "My place, my place," she cried. "I have none!"

    "And you can't abandon your?"

    "Friends?" she hooted.

    "Actually, Irena and I were thinking of your public."

    "Who says I am abandoning my public? Will they forget meif I choose to absent myself? No. Will they welcome me backshould I choose to return? Yes. As for my friends ..."

    "Yes?"

    "You can be sure I have no intention of abandoning myfriends."

       "MY FRIENDS," she repeated, "are much more dangerousthan my enemies. I'm thinking of their approval. Their expectations.They want me to be as I am, and I cannot disabusethem entirely. They might cease to love me.

    "I've explained it to them. But I could have announced it tothem, like a whim. Recently, I thought I was ready to do it. Atdinner in a hotel, the party after a first-night performance. I wasgoing to raise my glass. I am leaving. Soon. Forever. Someonewould have exclaimed, Oh Madame, how can you? And I'd havereplied, I can, I can. But I didn't have the courage. Instead, I offereda toast to our poor dismembered country."

Continues...

Excerpted from In Americaby Susan Sontag Copyright ©2001 by Susan Sontag. Excerpted by permission.
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Edition details

• Publisher: Picador
• Publication date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0312273207
• ISBN 13: 9780312273200
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 398