Pilgrims

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  observe a seediness he had never known. He learned little out of

  those first two experiences, however, except that the smell of

  tobacco smoke clings stubbornly to hair and clothing. He had

  higher hopes for this evening.

  The nightclub he found was considerably darker inside than

  the street outside had been. It was an early show, a weekday

  show, but the place had already filled with a shifting, smoking

  audience of men. The few lights around the orchestra dimmed

  just as he entered, and he was forced to feel his way to a seat,

  stepping over feet and knees in the aisle. He tried not to touch

  people, but brushed nonetheless against wool and skin with

  every move until he found an empty seat and took it.

  “Time?” a voice beside him demanded. My grandfather

  tensed, but did not answer.

  “The time?” the voice questioned again. My grandfather

  asked quietly, “Are you talking to me?”

  There was a sudden spotlight on the stage, and the question

  was forgotten. Babette began to sing, although at that time, of

  course, he did not know her name. When his eyes adjusted to

  the glaring white light, it was only the color of her dress that he

  saw — a vivid green that today we call lime. It is a color decid-

  edly not found in nature but is now manufactured artificially for

  the dying of paint, clothing, and food. It cannot shock us any-

  more; we are too familiar with it. In 1919, however, there were

  not yet cars to be found in that shade, or small houses in the

  suburbs, or, one would suspect, fabric.

  Nonetheless, Babette wore it, sleeveless and short. My

  grandfather did not at first even notice that she was singing, on

  account of that vivid lime-green dress. She was not a gifted

  singer, but it is almost petty to say so, as musical ability was

  clearly not required for her job. What she did, and did well, was

  move in swaying, dancing steps on very pleasant legs. Novelists

  writing only a decade before that night still referred to beautiful

  women as having “rounded, well-shaped arms.” By the end of

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  World War I, however, fashion had changed such that other

  features were now visible, and arms got considerably less atten-

  tion than they once had. This was unfortunate, for Babette’s

  arms were lovely, perhaps even her best feature. My grandfather,

  however, was not very modern, even as a young man, and he

  noticed Babette’s arms appreciatively.

  The lights at the back of the stage had risen, and there

  were several dancing couples now behind Babette. They were

  adequate, efficient dancers — the men slender and dark, the

  women in short swinging dresses. The nature of the lighting

  muted the shades of their clothing into uniform browns and

  grays, and my grandfather could do little more than note their

  presence and then resume staring at Babette.

  He was not familiar enough with show business to know that

  what he was watching was the insignificant opening act of what

  would be a long bawdy night of performance. This particular

  number was no more than an excuse to open the curtain on

  something other than an empty stage, to warm up the small

  orchestra, and to alert the audience that the evening was com-

  mencing. There was nothing risqué about Babette except the

  length of her hemline, and it is likely that my grandfather was

  the only member of the audience who felt any excitement at

  what he was watching. It is almost certain that none of the

  other men around him were clutching at their trousers with

  damp hands or moving their lips, silently searching for words to

  describe that dress, those arms, that startling red hair and lip-

  stick. Most of the audience had already heard the song on a

  recording made by a prettier, more talented girl than Babette,

  but my grandfather knew very little of popular music or of

  pretty girls.

  When the performers bowed and the lights dimmed, he

  jumped from his seat and moved quickly back over the men in

  his row, stepping on feet, stumbling, apologizing for his clumsi-

  ness in a low murmur. He felt his way up the center aisle and to

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  the heavy doors, which threw quick triangles of light on the

  floor behind him as he pushed them open. He ran into the

  lobby and caught an usher by the arm.

  “I need to speak with the singer,” he said.

  The usher, my grandfather’s age but a veteran of the war,

  asked, “Who?”

  “The singer. The one with the red, the red — ” He pulled at

  his own hair in frustration.

  “The redhead,” the usher finished.

  “Yes.”

  “She’s with the visiting troupe.”

  “Yes, good, good,” my grandfather said, nodding foolishly.

  “Wonderful!”

  “What do you need with her?”

  “I need to speak with her,” he repeated.

  Perhaps the usher, seeing that my grandfather was sober and

  young, thought that he was a messenger boy, or perhaps he only

  wanted to be left alone. In any case, he led him to Babette’s room, which was under the stage in a dark, door-lined hall.

  “Someone here to see you, miss,” he said, knocking twice and

  leaving before she answered.

  Babette opened the door and looked down the hall at the

  departing usher, and then at my grandfather. She wore a slip

  and had a large pink towel wrapped around her shoulders like a

  shawl.

  “Yes?” she asked, lifting her high, arched eyebrows even

  higher.

  “I need to speak with you,” my grandfather said.

  She looked him over. He was tall and pale, in a clean, inex-

  pensive suit, and he carried his folded overcoat under one arm

  as if it were a football. He had a bad habit of stooping, but now,

  out of nervousness, was standing perfectly straight. This posture

  helped his appearance somewhat, forcing his chin out and lend-

  ing his shoulders a width they did not generally seem to have.

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  There was nothing about him that would have compelled Ba-

  bette to shut the door in his face, so she remained there before

  him in her slip and towel.

  “Yes?” she asked again.

  “I want to paint you,” he said, and she frowned and took a

  step back. My grandfather thought with alarm that she had

  misunderstood him to mean that he wanted to apply paint to

  her body, as one would paint a wall, and, horrified, he explained,

  “I meant that I would like to paint a picture of you, a portrait

  of you!”

  “Right now?” she asked, and he answered quickly, “No, no,

  not now. But I would like to, you see. I would love to.”

  “You’re a painter?” she asked.

  “Oh, I’m terrible,” my grandfather said. “I’m a terrible

  painter, I’m ghastly.”

  She laughed at him. “I’ve already had my picture painted
by

  several artists,” she lied.

  “Certainly you have,” he said.

  “You saw me sing?” she asked, and he said that he had indeed.

  “You aren’t staying for the rest of the show?” she asked, and

  he paused before answering, realizing only then that there was a

  show other than what he had seen.

  “No,” he said. “I didn’t want to miss you. I was afraid you

  might leave right away.”

  She shrugged. “I don’t let men into my dressing room.”

  “Of course you don’t!” he said, hoping he had not insinuated

  that he expected an invitation. “I had no intention of that.”

  “But I’m not going to stand in this hallway and talk to you,”

  she continued.

  My grandfather said, “I’m sorry that I disturbed you,” and

  unfolded his overcoat to put it on.

  “What I mean is that if you want to talk to me, you’re just

  going to have to come inside,” Babette explained.

  “I couldn’t; I didn’t mean to —”

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  But she had already stepped back into the small, poorly lit

  room and was holding the door open for him. He followed her

  in, and when she shut the door, he leaned against it, anxious to

  intrude as little as possible. Babette pulled an old piano stool

  over to the sink and looked at herself in a silver hand mirror.

  She ran the water until it was hot, dampened two fingers, and

  pressed a curl just behind her ear back into shape. Then she

  looked at my grandfather over her shoulder.

  “Now why don’t you tell me just what it was that you

  wanted.”

  “I wanted to draw you, to paint you.”

  “But you say you’re no good.”

  “Yes.”

  “You shouldn’t say that,” Babette said. “If you’re going to be

  something, if you’re going to be someone, you’ve got to start

  telling people that you’re good.”

  “I can’t,” he said. “I’m not.”

  “Well, it’s easy enough to say that you are. Go on, say it. Say,

  ‘I am a good artist.’ Go on.”

  “I can’t,” he repeated. “I’m not one.”

  She picked up an eyebrow pencil off the edge of the sink and

  tossed it to him.

  “Draw something,” she said.

  “Where?”

  “Anywhere. On this wall, on that wall, anywhere. Doesn’t

  matter to me.”

  He hesitated.

  “Go on,” she said. “It’s not as if you could make this room

  look any worse, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  He found a spot next to the sink where the paint wasn’t too

  badly chipped or marked with graffiti. Slowly, he began to draw

  a hand holding a fork. Babette stood behind him, leaning for-

  ward, watching over his shoulder.

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  “It’s not a good angle for me,” he said, but she did not answer,

  so he continued. He added a man’s forearm and wristwatch.

  “It’s smudging like that because the pencil is so soft,” he

  apologized, and she said, “Stop talking about it. Just finish it.”

  “It is finished.” He stepped back. “It’s already finished.”

  She looked at him, and then at the sketch. “But that’s just a

  hand. There’s no person, no face.”

  “See, I’m no good. I told you I was no good.”

  “No.” Babette said. “I think you’re very good. I think this is

  an excellent hand and fork. From just this I’d let you paint my

  portrait. It’s just that it’s a queer thing to draw on a wall, don’t

  you think?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I never drew on a wall before.”

  “Well, it’s a nice drawing,” Babette decided. “I think you’re a

  good artist.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You should tell me that I’m a good singer now.”

  “But you are!” he said. “You’re wonderful.”

  “Aren’t you sweet to say so.” Babette smiled graciously. “But

  I’m really not. There are no good singers in places like this.

  There are some fine dancers, and I’m not a bad dancer, but I’m a

  terrible singer.”

  He didn’t know what to say to this, but she was looking at

  him as if it was his turn to speak, so he asked, “What’s your

  name?”

  “Babette,” she said. “And when a girl criticizes herself, you

  really should crawl to the ends of the earth to contradict her,

  you know.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t know.”

  She looked at herself in the mirror again. “So do you want to

  only paint my hand?” she asked. “I haven’t got a fork with me.”

  “No,” he said. “I want to paint you, all of you, surrounded by

  black, surrounded by a whole crowd of black. But there will be a

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  white light, and you in the center” — he lifted his hands to

  show placement in an imaginary frame — “in the center in

  green and red.” He dropped his hands. “You should’ve seen that

  green and that red.”

  “Well, it’s just the dress you like, then,” she said. “Just the

  dress and the hair.”

  And your arms, he thought, but only nodded.

  “None of that is really me, though,” Babette said. “Even my

  hair is fake.”

  “Fake?”

  “Yes. Fake. Dyed. Please don’t look so shocked. Really, you

  can’t have ever seen this color hair before.”

  “No!” my grandfather almost shouted. “I never had. I think

  that’s exciting, that you can make it that way if you like. I

  wondered about it, but I didn’t think, of course, that it had been

  dyed. I think that there are so many colors I’ve never seen —

  could I touch it?”

  “No,” Babette said. She reached for a comb from the sink and

  pulled a single red hair from its teeth. She handed it to him.

  “You can have this one piece. I’m sure that I don’t know you well

  enough to let you drag your hands all over my head.”

  He carried the strand to the lamp and stretched it taut under

  the bulb, frowning in concentration.

  “It’s brown at one end,” he said.

  “That’s the new growth,” she explained.

  “Your real hair?”

  “The whole thing is my real hair. That brown is my real

  color.”

  “Just like mine,” he said in surprise. “But you’d never know it

  to see you onstage. I tell you, you’d never imagine we two would

  have the same sort of hair. Isn’t that remarkable?”

  Babette shrugged. “I wouldn’t say it was remarkable. But I

  suppose I’m used to my hair.”

  “Yes, I suppose you are.”

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  “You’re not from New York City, are you?” she asked.

  “Yes, I am. I’ve always lived here.”

  “Well, you don’t act like it. You act just like a little boy from

  the country. Don’t be put off by that, now. It’s not a bad thing.”

  “I think it is. I think it’s awful. It comes of no
t talking to

  enough people.”

  “What do you do all day, then?”

  “I work in the back of a print shop sometimes. And I live

  with my great-aunt.”

  “And she’s very old,” Babette said.

  “Yes. And senile. All she can remember anymore are the

  names of flowers and girls.”

  “What?”

  “The names of flowers and girls. I don’t know why, but that’s

  how it’s become. If I ask her a question, she thinks and thinks,

  but then finally she’ll say something like, ‘Queen Anne’s Lace,

  Daisy, Emily, Iris, Violet . . .’”

  “No!” Babette said. “I think that’s remarkable. She must be

  very pretty to listen to.”

  “Sometimes. Sometimes it’s just sad, because I can see how

  frustrated she is. Other times she just lets herself talk and

  strings them all together: ‘Ivy-Buttercup-Catherine-Pearl-

  Poppy-Lily-Rose.’ Then it’s pretty to listen to.”

  “I’m sure that it is,” Babette said. “You forget how many

  flowers’ names are girls’ names, too.”

  “Yes.” My grandfather nodded. “I’ve noticed that.”

  “She used to take care of you, didn’t she?”

  “Yes,” he said. “When I was young.”

  “You still are young.” Babette laughed. “I’m even young, and

  I think I’m much older than you.”

  “I couldn’t imagine how old you are. I hadn’t even thought

  about it.”

  “I can see why you wouldn’t.” Babette lifted her mirror again

  and looked at herself. “All this makeup covers everything. It’s

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  hard to tell what I look like at all. I think I’m pretty, anyway, but I only realized this week that I’m not going to age well. Some

  women I know look like girls their whole lives, and I suspect

  that it’s on account of their skin. From a distance I still look

  fine, and onstage I’ll look wonderful for years, but if you come

  close to me, you’ll see the change already.”

  She jumped up and ran in two steps to the opposite corner of

  the room from my grandfather.

  “You see, I’m just heavenly from here,” she said, and then

  leaped right up to him so that their noses almost touched. “But

  now look at me. See the little lines here and here?” She pointed

  to the outer corner of each eye. My grandfather saw nothing

  like lines, only quickly blinking lashes and makeup. He noticed

  that her breath smelled of cigarettes and oranges, and then he