The Edge of Ruin Read online

  “What?”

  Adam spoke louder. “Where is she?”

  Emily blinked away tears from the cigarette smoke, looked around the room, and shrugged. Vera Zinovia was nowhere to be seen. At the table in front of them a Harvard boy was saying to his stunningly beautiful companion, “What do you mean, you don’t believe in free love? You told me you were a New Woman.”

  The people with the photo magazine were arguing hotly. “But this is against everything the photo-secessionists stand for. Stieglitz says—”

  “Nonsense. He never said that.” The thin woman sat gracelessly with her knees apart, showing her petticoat. She poked her cigarette at the pimply young man she was arguing with. So this was bohemia. Emily reflected that she preferred the society of actors. Their manners were more elegant. She looked around for Vera and her friends.

  A big tall man with one dead eye towered over the mêlée in front of the stove, preaching in a loud voice about labor politics. Emily spotted Vera at last, standing next to him, gazing raptly into his face. Her cheeks were pale, her fiery eyes were ringed with kohl, her lips were like strawberries. Well, not strawberries, strawberries had those little seeds all over them, but they were red and puffy and she made a lovely picture. What a success she would be in the movies.

  “Gompers is dead wrong. We have to have a general strike,” the big man boomed. “And I’ll tell you why.”

  “This way,” Emily said to Adam, making her way among the closely packed tables. “Excuse me.” Her heel had got itself tangled in the end of a blue and white college scarf whose other end was still wrapped around the neck of a youth. The young man glanced at her, tugged the scarf free, and returned his attention to his female companion.

  Next to the stove a short, plain woman toasted her skirts as the big man was holding forth. Emily recognized Emma Goldman, whose talks used to inspire her so.

  “Hear him,” Miss Goldman said. “Without solidarity among workingmen and women we will never defeat the capitalists.”

  “Hell’s fire,” Adam said. “It’s a meeting of the Industrial Workers of the World. I hate unions.”

  “They’re just talking and drinking coffee,” Emily said. “After we speak with Vera we can leave. She promised to introduce us to the finest actor in the northern hemisphere.”

  “Really. He’s here, is he? I suppose he’s in that crowd of Wobblies.”

  The big man thundered on. “Some of you remember the first general strike in Coeur d’Alene, when all the mines were closed down to prevent a reduction of wages. First thing the mine owners did was to bring in thugs carrying six-shooters and rifles. There was a pitched battle between miners and thugs. People died.” Emily scanned the faces turned toward the big man, wondering which face belonged to the finest actor in the northern hemisphere. Many of the faces were dirty and hairy, but perhaps with a shave, some soap, some greasepaint . . .

  Suddenly one face stood out for her, a diamond in a bowl of pebbles. It was an open, honest face, the face of a classic juvenile lead. His lips were perfect, his nose straight and fine, his hair like ripe wheat. Emily took him for a student, until she saw that his hands bore the deeply ingrained grime of hard physical labor; he must be one of these Wobblies.

  “Then the mine owners asked the governor for soldiers, and the soldiers came. Who brought the soldiers? Railroads manned by union men; engines fired with coal mined by union men. Our brother workers. After that came the strike in Bitter Wash, which has become a household word in labor circles throughout the world.”

  The young man looked up suddenly at the name of Bitter Wash, his face illuminated by the flickering light of a candle stuck in a wine bottle. If only it were possible to capture that look on camera. Emily had to have the young man’s face in her movies.

  “In Bitter Wash, five thousand men went out on strike in sympathy with forty-five workers belonging to the mill men’s union in Colorado City. You will recall that those forty-five men were discharged simply because they were trying to improve their standard of living, and replaced with scab mill men by the mine owners, using state troops and the influence of the federal government.

  “The workers in Bitter Wash struck in sympathy. After months of hardship, after sixteen hundred of our men had been arrested, after four hundred of them had been loaded aboard special trains guarded by soldiers, shipped away from their homes, dumped out on the prairies of New Mexico and Kansas, after the women who had taken up the work of distributing strike relief had been placed under arrest—the mine owners were able to man the mines with scabs, the mills running with scabs, the railroads conveying the ore from Bitter Wash to Colorado City run by union men—the connecting link of a proposition that was scabby at both ends!” The big man paused and mopped his brow. “We were not thoroughly organized. There has been no time when there has been a general strike in this country.” The Wobblies gave out murmurs of assent.

  Vera Zinovia squeezed the big man’s hand and broke away from the group to come and see Emily. One of the dark men followed her, his walk almost as sinuous as Vera’s own. This must be the finest actor in the northern hemisphere.

  Sure enough, Vera introduced him as her cousin from the Moscow Art Theater, Boris Ivanovich Levin.

  “How do you do, Mr. Levin,” Emily said. Adam shook his hand and stepped back to look at him.

  The young man struck an attitude. A lock of his greasy dark hair fell into his eyes, eyes of a penetrating brightness, eyes that would look wonderful on screen, but only if Melpomene Moving Picture Studios was planning on filming the story of Rasputin, or Count Dracula, or Blackbeard the pirate. That face would not do for a simple cowboy.

  Levin tilted his chin up and turned his profile toward the Weisses. That clinched it for Emily; he looked enough like Robert Montmorency to be his younger brother. Two faces like that in the same picture would be a disaster. The audience would become confused.

  Maybe later.

  “We’ll call you,” Emily said. Vera had to translate; alas, the finest actor in the northern hemisphere appeared to speak no English. He hunched his shoulders and skulked away toward the coffee bar. “But tell me, Vera, who is that?”

  “Who is what?”

  “The fair-haired young man in the corner. I thought he was with your party.”

  “He is friend of my Edward. Tomorrow he is going back to Finland, maybe organize some workers.”

  “I would very much like to have him in our movies,” Emily said.

  Adam blinked. “Why?”

  “Oh, Adam, look at him. He’s beautiful. The women will come flocking to see him in Melpomene’s pictures.”

  “I bow to your expertise, my dear.” She hated it when he called her “my dear” in that sarcastic tone, but there was no help for it. If Adam was unhappy because she knew a good-looking man when she saw one, it was just too bad. Had he or had he not given her complete authority over the casting decisions? Adam had no cause to be jealous of her admiration for this Finnish boy, for he surely knew himself to be even handsomer in her eyes. Years had passed since the days when Emily was a fool for yellow hair. Months anyway.

  “I will have Edward introduce you to him,” Vera said. At last the big one-eyed man finished gassing about his plans for a general strike. Vera brought Emily and Adam to him and introduced them with a proud smile. “Mr. and Mrs. Weiss, this is Edward Strawfield.”

  The name meant nothing to Emily, but Strawfield seemed to think he was important. Emily shook his hand and declared that she was delighted to meet him.

  “Are you interested in the Movement?” he said.

  “No, actually we’re capitalists, Mr. Strawfield. Melpomene Pictures,” Adam said.

  “Miss Zinovia will be working in our movie company,” Emily said.

  “You’re very lucky. Miss Zinovia is the best.” He put his arm around the actress and squeezed her shoulders.

  “Yes. Well,” Adam said.

  “Mr. Strawfield, I wonder whether you could introduce us to the young man in the corner. The one with the yellow hair,” Emily said. “He would be perfect for one of the parts in our next picture.”

  “Erno Berg? He’s not an actor.”

  “Just the same. I truly think we can use him.”

  They pushed their way through the press of Wobblies, anarchists, artists, and would-be free lovers to the small round table where Erno Berg sat contemplating his grimy knuckles by the light of the dripping candle. “He’s leaving for Finland tomorrow,” Strawfield said. “I don’t think he’ll be interested. Here! Erno! These two nice people want to talk to you.”

  The young man stood up, revealing himself to be tall and well-formed, with broad shoulders and slim hips. He looked at Emily with eyes the color of the sea after a storm has passed—those cheekbones! that mouth!—and said something to Strawfield in Finnish. Strawfield replied in the same language.

  “I don’t know,” the young man said. “I want to go to Finland tomorrow.”

  “Stay for a few weeks longer,” Emily said. “Try it. You can always use more money when you get to Finland. We’ll pay you well.”

  “I don’t act.”

  “You’ll be fine,” Emily said. “It isn’t as though we’re asking you to go on the stage. It’s only a few little movies.”

  “A few little movies,” he repeated. “And the pay is how much?”

  Adam named a figure.

  “All right, then.”

  “We begin shooting tomorrow morning,” Adam said. “In Fort Lee. Meet us at the 128th Street ferry slip at eight. All the other actors will be there.”

  FIVE

  The 128th Street ferry slip smelled like low tide, dead fish, unwashed people, excrement, and garbage, but to Emily Weiss it was all as bracing as some rare perfume. Barely retaining
her huge fashionable hat in the wind that came howling off the Hudson, she snuggled up to Adam in his Norfolk jacket and plus fours (he had assured her that the costume was the only correct thing for a moving picture director to wear) and scanned the crowd for her actors.

  The first to appear was Robert Montmorency, his smart homburg and lowering dark brows coming into view just over the heads of the ordinary people crowding the ferry slip. How furtive he looked. Surely his posture was better than that onstage. He turned up his coat collar against the sting of the wind and gazed all around, searching for her, she supposed. She waved; when he saw her he threw back his shoulders, sucked in his stomach, and pulled himself up very straight. The whites of his eyes were bloodshot. Why, Emily thought, I believe the man is hungover. So the rumors about his drinking are true.

  Emily shivered. She still missed her fur coat. The smile Montmorency gave her was almost warm enough to make up for it, if a trifle forced. When he took her gloved hand and kissed the back of it she could feel her cheeks redden. Continental manners still flustered her. Fighting to appear nonchalant, she introduced him to Adam, who shook his hand and muttered, “Montmorency,” rather coldly.

  Montmorency cleared his throat. “Please understand that for the purposes of moving pictures I call myself Robert Chalmers.”

  “We’ll call you Chalmers, then,” Adam said. “That’s easily done. But I thought you’d never been in pictures before.”

  “As Robert Montmorency, never. Under other names, yes. But after all, ‘What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other word would smell as sweet.’ ” His smile would have been more engaging without the liquor on his breath, or if his teeth were in better shape.

  “What pictures did you appear in?” Adam asked him.

  “I can’t recall.”

  “I guess they must have smelled pretty sweet,” Adam said.

  The actor lifted his shoulders, something between a shrug and a shudder. Emily, too, wondered about the false name. Clearly he was ashamed to appear in moving pictures. A legitimate theater snob. “Never mind, Adam,” Emily said. “Mr. Mon . . . er . . . Chalmers is an extremely competent actor. We’re lucky to have him. Anyone can find himself in a flop. Remember Monkey Days?”

  The actor’s face lit up. Perhaps he was thinking of the lovely Myrtle, who danced in the chorus beside Emily; Myrtle, who had been madly in love with him for a week and a half, although behind his back she called him “Fast-handed Bob.” But, no, he was remembering Emily herself. “Mrs. Weiss! You were in Monkey Days! Emily Daggett, wasn’t it? Back row, third girl from the left. I remember you well.”

  “You have a sharp eye, Mr. Mon—Mr. Chalmers.”

  “I had an engagement in Philadelphia myself at the time, but I saw your show. Miss Myrtle Stirrup was a dear friend of mine. An enchanting creature, Myrtle.” He sighed. “She threw me over for a silver baron.”

  “Tough break,” Adam said.

  “It was all for the best.”

  Adam handed him his copy of the scenario. “You’ll want to look this over before we start.” Montmorency—Chalmers—riffled through the script.

  “You’ll be playing Black Bart,” Emily said.

  “There’s really nothing to it,” Adam said. “Just fool with your mustache.”

  Chalmers turned away and hunched over the script, seemingly lost in the plot of Revenge in the Saddle. His right hand began to twitch, and then it crept toward his pants pocket, where Emily was almost certain she saw a bulge the size and shape of a pint flask. He turned toward them again and said, with a cheery smile, “May I have my ticket? I’d like to go on board the ferry and study this.”

  Go on board the ferry and drink, you mean. Emily shook her head. “Wait for our cameraman. If he’s not there to take the pictures, we can’t afford to take a company of actors to Fort Lee. It would be a pointless waste of money.”

  “But surely we can use the time to rehearse,” Chalmers said.

  Adam and Emily had discussed rehearsals, but Adam had insisted that rehearsals were an unnecessary luxury, given the short time they had to finish the pictures. They were silent movies, after all. The director could simply stand behind the camera and shout at the actors until the desired effect was achieved. Everyone worked that way.

  “No time to rehearse,” Adam said.

  Chalmers searched first one, then the other of their faces, his own face a mask of dismay. “Not rehearse?”

  “Don’t look so pale, Mr. Mon—Chalmers,” Emily said. “At least there will be no lines to learn.”

  “But—”

  Happily the other actors arrived, providing a distraction. First to appear was Erno Berg. “Mr. Berg! Over here,” Emily called. As he approached she realized she had never seen her young pet walking. In motion he was stiff, even awkward. Perhaps with rehearsal he might . . . but, no, there was to be no rehearsal.

  Vera Zinovia stood at the pier entrance embracing Big Ed Strawfield. The two held each other as if for the last time. When he released her the girl turned and came toward the ferry, biting her handkerchief. Her mascara was running.

  “Vera!” Emily called. “Here we are, over here. What’s wrong? Is Mr. Strawfield going away?”

  “We never know. Edward says forces of capitalism could swoop down upon him momentarily. Anything is possible.” She dabbed at her eyes with the blackened scrap of lace. Chalmers winced at her heavily accented English. Emily wanted to kick him. Who cared what the actors sounded like? This was film. Nobody would hear them.

  Adam took the girl’s little hand and shook it. He did not put it to his lips, although he gave Emily a sidelong glance as if to say “How would you like it?”

  “Tell me about your acting experience, Miss Zinovia,” Adam said. She reeled off a number of plays she had starred in with the Moscow Art Theater, Chekhov and Ibsen mostly, but also a part in The Brothers Karamazov.

  “The Moscow Art Theater. I suppose you worked with that rank charlatan, Stanislavsky,” Chalmers said to her.

  “I beg your pardon. Konstantin Sergeyevich is foremost genius of modern theater.”

  “Modern theater. Modern claptrap,” Chalmers said. Miss Zinovia’s little gloved hands became claws. Before she could spring at Chalmers’s face Emily thrust a copy of the scenario at her.

  “This is the script for Revenge in the Saddle,” she said. “Tell them about the plot, Adam.”

  “I see this picture as a modern morality tale,” Adam said.

  Chalmers’s eyes glazed over. “Do tell.”

  “I think you’ll find the artistic quality very high. Our scenario is loosely based on the story of The Virginian.”

  “A dime novel,” Chalmers said.

  “Hardly that, sir, I’m sure I paid at least a dollar for my copy. At any rate, you will be playing Black Bart, the evil rancher. Erno Berg, the noble cowboy, is your enemy; he is infatuated with Miss Zinovia, who plays your daughter, but in truth his heart belongs to the wholesome schoolmarm, Fay Winningly.”

  “Deathless.”

  “Yes, well, that’s the main conflict. You fight with him over cards. Miss Zinovia, your character pretends to try to patch up the quarrel, while in reality . . .”

  Emily’s Indians joined them then, dressed in denim with their long hair tied at the nape of the neck. How beautifully they moved. Perhaps they could give Erno lessons. Then Adam’s cameraman arrived with his apparatus on his shoulder, the signal for them all to board the ferry. And not a moment too soon. The deckhands were casting off the hawsers when little Fay Winningly appeared on the dock, radiant in her honey-colored sausage curls.