The Sunken Woman

She Had Been Famous as Lisel--simply "Lisel"--for a period of about 18 months. And then her fame had been primarily a downtown phenomenon: She had done some modeling, she had been interviewed, she had been featured in a number of Myron Falk's "experimental" films. Beyond Manhattan, it was doubtful that anyone had ever heard of her--or that her name was remembered for more than those quick 18 months.

Still, to be "famous" even on those terms--to have been simply Lisel for those months--

Constantine, who knew better, whose entire career (as a playwright, a poet, a critic, a hopeful man of letters) was predicated on his knowing better, nevertheless felt the power of her queer near-mute impassivity. The first time he saw her, at a crowded party in Myron Falk's studio-loft, he had been much taken; and he hadn't even known her name at that time; in fact, she had had no name. She wasn't Lisel yet--she was simply another of Falk's freaks, a discovery he had made off the street (in Lisel's case, it had been Seventh Avenue down around Houston--and although one of the nastier tales made her out to have been soliciting, her activity had really been quite innocent: She had been lost). There was the sweet-faced and highly verbose homosexual dancer Gary; the 6'5" giantess Martha Blount, with her gift for improvised comedy; the street kid Win (who, like Lisel, had drifted to New York from the Midwest but seemed the very quintessence of the Village--and who, like Lisel, had come close to killing himself with drugs): These "stars," these "names," were all discoveries of Myron Falk's. He attracted them. He collected them. They were his "chicks." He did not enlist them for his films so much as he improvised films to contain them. Working (continued on page 318) Sunken Woman (continued from page 238) quickly and with a disdain for technical proficiency (for Falk, of course, claimed to have no interest at all in commercial success), Falk and his assistants could turn out a 16-millimeter film every week--with no sound, no editing, no fussy camerawork and only the most frenetically improvised of scripts. The films were all in black and white; sometimes they were, surprisingly, very beautiful.

Lisel's first film was called The Victim--18 minutes of a girl's beautiful empty face while the camera moves slowly back and it becomes increasingly clear--though never graphically or visually clear--that something very strange is being done to her. Dear God, Constantine had thought, staring at that face. He had never, he liked to say, he had never sat through anything so excruciating.

Within a few weeks, Lisel's face was known to everyone in the city with pretensions of keeping up with avant-garde art--which is to say, many thousands. There were interviews with Falk in respectable middle-class publications. He was on television, accompanied by a mute--and starkly beautiful--"Lisel." The face was beautiful enough, but not very human; it was acclaimed as beautiful, perhaps, because it wasn't human. The sharp cheekbones and the prominent ridge of bone above the eyes ... the unplucked eyebrows ... the impassive, almost babyish mouth ... the childlike gaze that absorbed everything but did not judge. This was Lisel, Falk's chick.

Later, when Falk had dropped her and Lisel was taken up (though only for a few months; she hadn't the discipline or the ambition) by a modeling agency, she had struck Constantine as far more conventionally beautiful. Tall and near emaciated, her long red hair alternately frizzed and braided and worn loose, dressed in the most fashionable of clothes, her eyes meticulously painted, her three-inch fingernails polished bronze--even her mood (bright, quick, nervous from amphetamines, but usually wordless) stylish and programed--Lisel had seemed to Constantine a creature of the media, a manufactured product. She made a great deal of money modeling for Vogue and Harper's Bazaar, but even in those magazines, the emphasis (and Constantine, who studied the chic lurid tableaux with extreme interest, saw this clearly) was on her fragility, her deathly pallor, her exalted status as victim. Lisel--simply Lisel--with no last name and no history. And no future.

•

Constantine was between lovers--he self-pityingly considered himself purged of love--when he first saw Myron Falk's Lisel. She was close beside Falk, who was usually touching her; it was quite clear that she was his prize of the season, and while he was willing to exhibit her to others (and that was one of the points, surely, of the party--Lisel's "coming out" in So-ho), he was not willing that anyone draw her away and speak to her in private. She looked, people thought, like a freaky daughter of his: at 5'9", taller than Myron, docile, obedient, tranquil, skinny, a high school girl to whom things are done--and the delicious part was, of course, that she appeared to be too young, too innocent, perhaps even too stupid, to know the names of these things, or to care greatly.

Constantine was between lovers. Although he had made up his mind--the poor man, at the age of 35, he was forever making up his mind--not to open himself again to humiliation, even to the most exciting kind of humiliation.

When he saw Lisel--who was not yet Lisel--standing with Falk that night some years ago, he had thought immediately: That one isn't for me--she's entirely out of reach. And the insight had warmed him, had made him feel positively cheerful.

Then, later, having seen her on film--in The Victim, in Street, in Lisel itself--having seen her in the company of lesser members of Falk's entourage, he had discovered himself contemplating strategies of approaching her. Not her--not the girl herself--but the trashy phenomenon she represented. Lisel who was only Lisel, after all; a girl who had to have come from somewhere, just as Myron Falk had come from a not-extraordinary background: born in Buffalo, New York--attended public schools--and then a state teachers' college in Buffalo, where he had taken art courses before transferring to a commercial art school. Constantine knew all about Falk and the rise of trash art in the Sixties and Seventies, he certainly knew the bankruptcy of spirit that informed all that Falk or his imitators (and he had many imitators--he has them still) attempted--and yet, still--and yet--there was this peculiar fascination--there was this arresting of attention by the most foolish of images: the 17-foot-high lime Popsicle Falk had fashioned out of real Popsicle sugar-ice, for example; and the most degrading of "events" (the tireless copulations of Falk's later films, which were languid and self-mocking and never normal--as if normal were a word with any significance!--the artwork, in an expensive midtown gallery, that consisted of a girl--had it been Lisel? It surely might have been Lisel--wallowing in white plasterish muck, naked, in a trough a foot or so beneath the level of the floor, a living sculpture of Falk's called The Sunken Woman about which innumerable jokes were made, not all of them angry or even unsympathetic). Like many writers and artists who imagine themselves experimentalists, and even among the avant-garde, Constantine Reinhart deeply resented the wildly disproportionate media attention two or three or four of his contemporaries enjoyed; he deeply resented (and was he envious as well?) Myron Falk's notoriety and the fact that Falk, after a few weeks of interest, of fairly intense interest, had seemed to forget all about Constantine Reinhart.

"The man who broke into that apartment--the man who did the beating--was he a friend of Falk's?" Constantine was to ask Lisel, as she lay shivering in his bed, in his stained cashmere robe. She did not reply; she was too exhausted even to pretend not to hear. But Constantine knew the probable answer--she did not remember.

"Was he an enemy?" Constantine asked.

And then, finally, raising his voice: "Did he have a name?"

Lisel's face tightened in sleep. She did not turn away from him, but she did not respond.

•

Later, of course, she was to become quite dangerous. But that day she had been helpless as a small child. Lying against him in the taxi, allowing him to undress her for her bath, sleeping in his bed, in his robe, for 15 hours.

Constantine stood in the doorway, watching as she slept. Her small pale face expressed more emotion in sleep than it did while she was awake. Her eyelids fluttered, her nose twitched, she appeared to be mouthing words, she squirmed and twisted beneath the covers, and kicked, and rolled her head from side to side. Yet she never woke: She slept sunken deep beneath the surface of the waves of consciousness, where no one could touch her.

How easy, Constantine thought, to become sentimental over Lisel.

Over Lisel--who felt no sentiment for herself.

She slept while Constantine watched. He might have embraced her--might have slipped beneath the covers and made love to her--certainly she would not have resisted, would probably not even have troubled to wake. They had done such things to her, such wild extravagant whimsical deadpan things, down in Myron Falk's Spring Street studio--! Some of the antics had been filmed; some had not been filmed. Constantine had heard rumors, of course. But as he watched Lisel sleep, he found it difficult to believe that she, that girl, had actually participated; he found it difficult to believe that she had been involved in violence of any kind, though he had, only a few hours previously, walked into a room in which one of her lovers lay unconscious. It was so easy to forget. To let things slip through one's mind. Lisel was not burdened by memory, and so, perhaps, in her presence, besotted with love for her, one ought to forget everything ... everything that was not immediately visible.

He walked quietly about the apartment. He was a bridegroom, an eager young husband. He was not in love, but the symptoms of love distracted him: an irrational fear that someone would run upstairs and pound on his door and demand that he surrender Lisel. He had no right to her, after all.

And wasn't she now wanted by the police? As a witness to an attempted murder? Or would it be called aggravated assault?

Constantine made telephone calls, speaking softly. He listened to the radio. He hurried down to the corner to buy a newspaper. But the beating on 13th Street was not very important, evidently. The victim's name was not available. And, of course, no one knew about Lisel--no one except a few people, who would never give her name to the police.

•

Lisel was sleeping. So he slipped out to do some shopping.

But even as he wheeled his cart to the cashier, Lisel, three blocks away, was stepping into her long soiled black skirt, adjusting the cheap red belt around her waist, stepping into her shoes. The heels were quite high; she sometimes staggered in them. But they gave her a startling modish look.

She found her rabbit-fur jacket in Constantine's clothes closet.

She prowled about the apartment--an apartment she had never seen before--humming under her breath. After 15 hours' sleep, she felt wonderfully refreshed. Her soul had been given back to her--she was eager to return to the street.

And so she slipped away--hurrying downstairs in her high heels--leaning on the railing. She was very weak; she hadn't eaten for two days. Her bridegroom was gaily paying for a hefty shopping bag of groceries, but Lisel hadn't any interest in food. Her eyes were slightly puffy from so many hours of sleep--it was time, it was more than time, for her to escape.

She was a child, Constantine told himself afterward. When his hurt wasn't so fresh. When it might even be interpreted as bemusement.

Which makes us--? Constantine asked.

•

Lisel disappeared from Constantine's life and he heard nothing of her for many months. Then there were rumors: She had surfaced again in the city, far downtown, as a kind of "wife" to two homosexual men, one of whom ran a fairly well-known bookstore in the Village called Peddlers.

Other rumors, from time to time, surfacing in casual conversations or relayed to him through his tight little network of friends: that Lisel had been seen once again in the company of Myron Falk, at a wild day-and-a-night-and-a-day party on Fire Island; she had been glimpsed in a limousine (though a rather second-rate sort of limousine) hurtling along lower Fifth Avenue, seated beside a person (whether male or female was unclear) in a tuxedo; she had sat for a life-drawing class at NYU but after 20 minutes rose from her seat and retired behind the screen and dressed and walked out, giving no explanation, hardly listening to the instructor's surprised questions; she had tried to commit suicide in a typically inept manner--having swallowed two dozen barbiturates, she descended into the subway to ride about but soon collapsed and was discovered and taken to a hospital far, far away in Queens. There was a rumor that she had left New York City and returned to Omaha; there was a rumor, which Constantine found dismayingly credible, that she had gone on the street again--she was living with a man, a pimp, on the Lower East Side.

•

And then one morning in midsummer, he saw in the paper a headline on page three: "Myron Falk Attacked, in Critical Condition."

Martha Blount had had the weapon; the two others--Lisel and "Marcus"--had merely tried to hold him down. Eleven stab wounds, with an ice pick. Surprised in his studio on Spring Street. Nine-thirty at night. No warning. Falk had answered the door and three "former members of his entourage" had attacked him, throwing him to the floor. A 37-year-old woman, Martha Blount, had stabbed him repeatedly with an ice pick, and had even tried--a gesture Constantine winced at, it was so Falkish, so fey and allusive--to pierce his forehead with the point of the pick, leaning on it with both hands, throwing her considerable weight on it--! But the point slipped. And by then, Falk's terrified screams had brought help.

The next day, a follow-up story on the assault would include a quote from Martha Blount (her co-assailants having remained mute): "It was his time."

•

As the years pass, Constantine will allude to his "brief acquaintance with violence and madness," but his anecdotes (he is a consummate teller of anecdotes--sometimes he believes it is his single talent) will focus not upon Lisel Bier but upon Myron Falk. (For Falk, after all, is "famous." People are interested in Falk.) Only with very close friends will Constantine speak of Lisel, and then with an air of sardonic bemusement. Whatever became of her after Bellevue--whatever became of the three of them, those three maniacs!--is it even worth while to imagine likely fates?

Everyone was a little crazy then, he says, alluding to that era--that span of time in his life and in the life of the city. Not everyone survived.

But you survived, Constantine--? he is asked.

Oh, yes, he says, laughing, running his hand through his hair as if embarrassed, oh, yes--in a manner of speaking.

•

One May afternoon, far uptown at West 155th Street, Constantine is threading his way through an immense chattering crowd, in search of Myron Falk.

Years have passed. Myron Falk has just been inducted, along with 15 other persons (artists, composers, writers), into the American Academy-Institute. The ceremony lasted two and a half hours, and now everyone--members of the Academy-Institute and their guests and journalists and photographers and innumerable hangers-on--is crowding onto the terrace beneath the canopy, for cocktails. Constantine Reinhart, with his major work still (still!) before him, has not yet been invited to join the Academy-Institute; he is only a guest this afternoon.

However, Constantine is interested in only one thing at the present moment: hunting down Myron Falk.

Of course, there is something amusing and melancholy about Falk's induction into the academy. For it certainly means--it all but insists--that the avant-garde is dead; the outrageous "underground" art of Falk's prime is dead. Although Falk himself did not die eight years ago, a death of some kind did occur. The rebel, the bad boy, the criminal poseur, the mock dandy, the controversial Myron Falk has now become another establishment artist ... just another aging bore. He even dresses normally now. Or almost normally. It has been years since he smeared suntan make-up on his face, or wore yellow-and-black-checked sports coats, or oxford shoes; it has been years since he released his last film--a clumsy attempt at a "real" feature film that failed to acquire national distribution, and that no one, not even the most scholarly experts of the cinema, felt obliged to see.

Constantine moves gracefully through the crowd, which consists of tight little knots of celebrities talking earnestly to one another, while others gaze upon them hopefully, or edge toward them; it is deathly to be stuck with the wrong people at such a gathering, as Constantine well knows; so he keeps in motion.

There is Myron Falk, at the very end of the bar. Half-hidden behind a small group of well-wishers whom, in ordinary circumstances, Constantine would make every effort to avoid.

But Falk has seen him approaching. And, after a moment's hesitation (is he trying to place Constantine? or does he remember him all too clearly?), he steps forward to meet him, extending his beefy hand.

Constantine congratulates him on his election. Falk shrugs and grimaces, as if embarrassed, or suspecting mockery. He cannot fail to understand the symbolic meaning of his election, but, at the same time, he cannot fail to feel pride: Now that his years of "artistic" adventuring are behind him, what can remain apart from such rewards, falling like overripe plums ...? One need only survive.

Finally, Constantine says, in a voice not nearly so level as he would like: "That girl--You know--The one who--"

Falk makes a hissing sound, as if laughing.

"Lisel," he says flatly.

"Yes--her--the one who--" Constantine murmurs.

"You know her name perfectly well, so say it," Falk says. His head is lowered; his gaze is fixed at their feet. Constantine cannot avoid looking at the scar on his forehead. A tiny purple worm that shifts and writhes, as if with the strain of Falk's thinking.

"I've been wondering-- It's been so long since-- Do you know if she's still hospitalized? Or where she is?" Constantine asks quickly.

"Still hospitalized? Of course not," Falk says. He pauses, edging still nearer to Constantine. Is it possible that he fears the autograph seekers, or is he merely toying with them? He stares at the terrace and will not raise his eyes. They are hovering a few yards away, not knowing what to do. "Lisel. You want to know about Lisel. Well, she was in Bellevue for a while, and then I arranged to have her transferred to a private hospital out on Long Island. Don't look surprised: It was only Lisel I did that for. As for the others--I didn't care whether they lived or died, whether they rotted in Bellevue or somewhere else. But Lisel was different. You and I know she was different. She spent a year out on Long Island and by then an aunt of hers had come forward, a very nice middle-aged woman who was a high school principal somewhere out in the Midwest--not Nebraska, it wasn't Nebraska--maybe Iowa--Davenport, Iowa--and my lawyer dealt with her--I talked with her only once, myself--and Lisel went out there to live and met someone and got married. And that is what happened to Lisel."

Constantine opened his mouth to protest. But it was a moment before he said, "Well--but--Do you mean--Lisel is married?"

"Married."

"But who is her husband? Who would marry her?" Constantine asks.

"Someone in Davenport, Iowa. A doctor, maybe. I don't know. The aunt told me--sent me a snapshot, even--Lisel and her husband and their baby, but I misplaced it. I forget the details."

"But who would marry Lisel--?" Constantine says numbly.

Falk grunts. He makes a gesture Constantine cannot interpret, and turns roughly aside, as if to greet the autograph hunters--and rebuff them at the same time.

"I don't understand," Constantine says, "I mean--you've seen a snapshot--Lisel is married and has had a baby? She's living in Iowa--she isn't dead, or hospitalized--"

Falk laughs softly, and closes his fingers over Constantine's hand as it grips his arm. He says, in a voice so low and intimate Constantine must lean forward to hear: "Yes, she escaped us after all."

"Tall and near emaciated, long red hair, three-inch fingernails. This was Lisle."