Eddying Currents

Mina Loy in Mexico

In some ways she was fortune's favorite—intelligent, tall, beautiful, endowedwith charm and talent for poetryand painting. But such gifts exact a price,it seems: misfortune and unhappiness.She'd trained for art in Munich, then returnedto London, studied with Augustus John,gone next to Paris with a pastor's son,

Haweis, an ugly man, who may have rapedher once. They married nonetheless—an actof protest or escape. In France they movedamong expatriates—knew Gertrude Stein,Brancusi, Futurists. She showed her workin the salons—dark pencil or gouache,slim female figures, almost mannerist—and changed her name from Lowy in '04

to hide her Jewishness, or show dislikeof parents and constraints, or to suggestthat she would be a law unto herself.She left for Florence next, met Mabel Dodge,lived giddily in that aesthetic sphere,loved Marinetti, then Papini, leftHaweis, abandoning her children, too.She traveled to New York and followed all

its eddying currents—drama, politics,and painting—meeting some of Mabel's crowdagain—utopians, Wobblies, Socialists.Then Arthur Cravan, really Fabian Lloyd, a cosmopolitan of six-feet-fourwhose aunt had married Oscar Wilde, becameher lover. He had been a Dadaistin France. A pugilist and writer too,

he'd won respect for vanguard poetryand brawls; he'd lasted several rounds, it's said,against Jack Johnson. He had documents,but mostly forged; in wartime, Mexicounder Carranza sounded promising—a land where such irregulars as hecould flourish with deserters, rustlers, thieves,and Pancho Villa. "Gertrude Stein as man,"

in Mabel's words. Divorced now, Mina tooka train, alone, got past the border, reachedthe capital where Arthur had arrivedbefore her. Politics were fiery—Red Russians, Indian rebels, Japanese—but she was poor and cold. The two survivedon boxing matches, stratagems, and friends.She wanted to get married to offset

her early loveless choice; and they adoredeach other. Hurdles fell after a farceor two. The Mexicans, now reconciledwith Washington, were keen on seeking outdeserters from all armies; Cravan knewhe might be caught, shipped to New York, and sentto prison or to war. They hid and ranand nearly starved; and Mina was with child.

With others they went down to Veracruzto sail for Buenos Aires; but policewere searching vessels there. They met againon the Pacific, in Salina Cruz.With money from his boxing, Arthur boughta leaky boat. He stroked it like a girl and patched it; Mina cooked and mended sailsand watched him work. Impatient he took off

for Puerto Ángel, to the west; he'd tradethe craft for something larger and they'd leavefor Chile. Mina stood, her stomach ripe,and gestured wildly as he tacked and turned,and disappeared onto the lustrous mirrorof sea. It was forever. Mina hoped—a torch—and waited on the beach for days,till her companions wrested her away and sent

her on a ship to South America.She later searched for him obsessively.There were reports and sightings—all mirageor flashes of marsh fire. At night she dreamthim into being, catching words in windsthat carried him; she saw him fly, an erneabove the sea, or rising from the troughsand coming toward her, bloody sails for hands.

Fortune's Choice

Her mother later told her how they'd lefttheir flat and their possessions, everything,in minutes, when her father realizedthe Nazis would invade. Her mother cried,"We can't go! With new velvet curtains!" Still,they went—good rats of sinking Belgium, signsthat it was doomed. From Antwerp they set outfor France, reached Paris, headed for the south,

where farmers sheltered them in the Basses-Alpes,away from towns and the Milice. They livedlike beetles in a carapace. The hillswere sweet with lavender in '43while Feldgrau swarmed, polite but deadly, armed and making Fortune's random choices. Jeannewas sent—an innocent at play—to countthe German...