Read Online Visions of Isabelle by William Bayer - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: William Bayer
Tags: Historical fiction
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sweetie!"
"Get out!" Isabelle cried, but the girl only settled back and broadened her smile.
"Get her out!" she shouted at Archivir, but he neither moved nor said a word.
The girl was staring at the ceiling, bored. Isabelle saw an expression on Archivir's face that reminded her of Vava on Christmas day. Craftiness and shameâshe recognized the combination and felt a terrible disgust well up.
She stood there for a moment waiting for something to change. Nothing changedâthe three of them were riveted in a tableau vivant. After that there was nothing to say. She left.
O n the first of May, heartbroken but unbowed, Isabelle Eberhardt went back by herself to the photographer's studio near the Cathedral St. Pierre. In the dressing room she pieced together an eclectic costume from odds and ends: Russian short jacket, Bulgarian blouse, Hindu cummerbund, Bedouin cape. She snatched up a string of Moslem prayer beads and tapped onto her head a ratty Turkish tarboosh. While the photographer set his lamps and prepared the slide, she suddenly jolted him with a stream of oaths in a mélange of all the languages she knew.
"Deceiving bastard! Stinking Turkish swine! Cocksucker! Assfucker! Cuntlicking Levantine worm! Monster! Wretch! Hideous piece of shit!"
The insults toppled out in a venomous stream. When she was done, she pursed her lips, cocked her head and stared off into space with cold derision. She pretended that she was facing a firing squad, determined to go down with honor intact. The moment she heard the shutter click, she waved about at the powder of the flash and instructed Jacques to send the photo to Rehid Bey.
"When you deliver it," she said, "tell him I spit in his eye."
A week later there was delivered to Villa Neuve a huge box of chocolates bound in ribbons and bows. On a card she found the following words written in a familiar Arabic script: "You are magnificent and I shall always remember you well. Conquer the world! Your admiring Archivir."
She laughed; and then, much later, she wept.
ESCAPE
Â
I n June 1895, depressed by Vava's latest gardening initiatives and still dazed by her adventure with Archivir, Isabelle bought a magazine filled with columns in which lonely persons advertised for lovers and friends. Over a weekend she wrote a score of letters under a variety of assumed names (Sasha, Vera, Eunice, Nadia) and within a month received back her first replies:
Dear Sasha,
I am a middle-aged banker in Hamburg, in an excellent position to give substantial security to an attractive young lady willing to relocate and share her life with me.
It is best to tell you from the start that marriage is out of the question, since I am already married and the father of seven children, including one son who is a certified engineer.
It will be necessary to arrange an interview, someplace equidistant between our residences. May I suggest Darmstadt, which I shall be visiting on a business trip in July? I know a hotel there that provides excellent lodgings. You will, of course, have to travel at your own expense...
Most of the others seemed to follow this line, though some, with bizarre variations, gave Isabelle a chill. An English viscount was searching for a young woman with the manner of a governess and "a strong hand." A fireman in Milan who'd lost his sight in an accident begged her to be his nurse. There was a sailor in the Romanian navy who wanted to learn how to cut women's hair, and a Chinese girl in Warsaw who solicited news of Geneva's "theatrical life." The oddest of them all was from the representative of a group of Bulgarian deaf-mutes who were raising money to establish a Utopian community in Wisconsin in the United States. It seemed to Isabelle that they had been badly misinformed, since they spoke of a tropical climate and of friendly Indians who would take their handicrafts in exchange for food.
These letters gave her the feeling of being a scavenger, a dustman rifling through the garbage
"Get out!" Isabelle cried, but the girl only settled back and broadened her smile.
"Get her out!" she shouted at Archivir, but he neither moved nor said a word.
The girl was staring at the ceiling, bored. Isabelle saw an expression on Archivir's face that reminded her of Vava on Christmas day. Craftiness and shameâshe recognized the combination and felt a terrible disgust well up.
She stood there for a moment waiting for something to change. Nothing changedâthe three of them were riveted in a tableau vivant. After that there was nothing to say. She left.
O n the first of May, heartbroken but unbowed, Isabelle Eberhardt went back by herself to the photographer's studio near the Cathedral St. Pierre. In the dressing room she pieced together an eclectic costume from odds and ends: Russian short jacket, Bulgarian blouse, Hindu cummerbund, Bedouin cape. She snatched up a string of Moslem prayer beads and tapped onto her head a ratty Turkish tarboosh. While the photographer set his lamps and prepared the slide, she suddenly jolted him with a stream of oaths in a mélange of all the languages she knew.
"Deceiving bastard! Stinking Turkish swine! Cocksucker! Assfucker! Cuntlicking Levantine worm! Monster! Wretch! Hideous piece of shit!"
The insults toppled out in a venomous stream. When she was done, she pursed her lips, cocked her head and stared off into space with cold derision. She pretended that she was facing a firing squad, determined to go down with honor intact. The moment she heard the shutter click, she waved about at the powder of the flash and instructed Jacques to send the photo to Rehid Bey.
"When you deliver it," she said, "tell him I spit in his eye."
A week later there was delivered to Villa Neuve a huge box of chocolates bound in ribbons and bows. On a card she found the following words written in a familiar Arabic script: "You are magnificent and I shall always remember you well. Conquer the world! Your admiring Archivir."
She laughed; and then, much later, she wept.
ESCAPE
Â
I n June 1895, depressed by Vava's latest gardening initiatives and still dazed by her adventure with Archivir, Isabelle bought a magazine filled with columns in which lonely persons advertised for lovers and friends. Over a weekend she wrote a score of letters under a variety of assumed names (Sasha, Vera, Eunice, Nadia) and within a month received back her first replies:
Dear Sasha,
I am a middle-aged banker in Hamburg, in an excellent position to give substantial security to an attractive young lady willing to relocate and share her life with me.
It is best to tell you from the start that marriage is out of the question, since I am already married and the father of seven children, including one son who is a certified engineer.
It will be necessary to arrange an interview, someplace equidistant between our residences. May I suggest Darmstadt, which I shall be visiting on a business trip in July? I know a hotel there that provides excellent lodgings. You will, of course, have to travel at your own expense...
Most of the others seemed to follow this line, though some, with bizarre variations, gave Isabelle a chill. An English viscount was searching for a young woman with the manner of a governess and "a strong hand." A fireman in Milan who'd lost his sight in an accident begged her to be his nurse. There was a sailor in the Romanian navy who wanted to learn how to cut women's hair, and a Chinese girl in Warsaw who solicited news of Geneva's "theatrical life." The oddest of them all was from the representative of a group of Bulgarian deaf-mutes who were raising money to establish a Utopian community in Wisconsin in the United States. It seemed to Isabelle that they had been badly misinformed, since they spoke of a tropical climate and of friendly Indians who would take their handicrafts in exchange for food.
These letters gave her the feeling of being a scavenger, a dustman rifling through the garbage
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