A View From a Broad (12 page)

It was a heavy book, in every way. However, it wasn’t the reading I minded, it was the carrying that wore me out. I stuffed
Wars
into the satchel I always carry in my right hand. After two weeks of lugging it from country to country, my right arm and breast swelled to such gigantic proportions that I was forced to cut off my sleeves and go without a bra. Not a good idea for a hefty young woman even in her own homeland, (not to mention on foreign soil, where bleached-blond women are traditionally treated as Magdalenes, and a bleached blonde with black roots, a swollen breast over her shoulder, and no baby in sight is likely to be treated even worse). I finally gave the book to Miss Frank to carry and managed to hide my deformity by wearing my Karl Lagerfeld camel’s-hair coat backwards until the offending members returned to their former, nonengorged state.

I was relieved when I finished it and neither Miss Frank nor I had to carry the goddamned book around anymore. In the end we managed to put
Wars
to pretty good use, though. What was not biodegradable can probably still be found floating among the debris of the great sewage systems of the world where toilet paper is just a hope of the future, although chauffeurs, of course, are not.

T
he most amazing thing happened to me while I was in
m
Copenhagen. I wanted very much to lay my eyes on the Little Mermaid, who had, after all, been my inspiration for Dolores.

The Danes had gone simply wild over Dolores, sensing that the nutty fruitcake in the wheelchair was, in some crazy way, a tribute to their national heroine. It seemed only fitting that I pay the little statue a visit.

The day we left on the short drive to the harbor where she sits, gazing out toward Sweden, was gray and gloomy. On the horizon, thunderheads were gathering, threatening rain. Or worse. The weather was so bad, in fact, that Josef suggested we turn back and see the lady some other day.

But there
was
no other day for me. On the morrow I would be leaving for Paris and the French Experience, so it was, quite literally, now or never.

“But she is so much more lovely in the sunlight” Josef insisted. “Perhaps it is better that you don’t see her at all than see her in so unbecoming a light.”

“That’s all right,” I told him. “I know all about unbecoming light.”

So on we drove through the gray-green town. Large drops of rain splattered like broken eggs on the windshield. The sky grew darker and darker as chilly gusts of wind nearly shook the car off the road. I thought of
The Little Match Girl
and
The Red Shoes
and shivering Jews crossing in the night to the haven of Sweden, just a few miles across the Öresund.

By the time we reached the small green slope which leads down to the water’s edge where the Little Mermaid sits so patiently, loud claps of thunder split the black and swirling air.

“We must park here and walk a bit,” Josef said. “Are you sure you want to go?”

“I must,” I told him, gathering up the collar of the same brown coat I had worn backwards and forwards throughout all of Europe.

We climbed out of the car and walked towards the water, our heads bowed against the stinging wind and rain.

“Tell me when we get there,” I shouted at Josef above the breaking thunder.

“All right,” he said. And then, in a moment, “We’re there.”

I stopped walking and lifted my head. Not more than ten feet from where I stood was the Little Mermaid. I hope she’s not angry with me, I mumbled, thinking of that loudmouthed wretch Dolores.

Just then a huge, mean-looking cloud blew in off the sea and hung over the shoreline, enclosing the Little Mermaid and me in a misty envelope of silence and chill. All around the base of the statue green-black waters began to swirl and foam. It became so dark I thought someone had put out the sun. It was eerie.

I was just about to turn and run back to the car when a clap of thunder exploded directly overhead, and at the very same instant, a bolt of lightning as bright and fierce as anything I’ve ever seen struck the defenseless statue right on the noggin. For one incredible, breathtaking moment, the Little Mermaid glowed pure gold.

I turned to Josef, my mouth hanging down to the ground, but in his perfect politeness he had already returned to the car so that the Little Mermaid and I might be alone for a while. He had missed the entire event. In all the world, I was the only one who had seen it.

I suppose there will be other moments in my life as awesome and mysterious, but none, I think, more moving. For there in that little country of cottage cheese and courage, I became a child again, and for the first time since I was six, I felt something we all should feel at least once a year but hardly ever do: the thrilling rush of insignificance.

W
e were travelling at quite a clip down one of those twisting coastal roads that seemed to fill up every other frame of the tackier Nouvelle Vague films of the early sixties. Memories of in-numerable Fiats plunging into the sea kept crowding out of my brain the beauty that lay before me. It was a gorgeous, sunny day. The Kind of day when the English Channel is the color it ought to be, not the dismal gray it usually is. The leaves were falling, the birds were singing and oh, boy, did I have gas!

Not from anything I had eaten, mind you, but from acute aggravation. And who was the cause of my aggravation? You guessed it: Dolores.

I hated to admit it, even to myself, but ever since her triumph in London and on the Continent, Dolores had been getting cockier and cockier. That pushy piece of tail was capable of doing anything. And did.

Everyone was a victim of Dolores’ incredible self-indulgence.
One night she couldn’t get her poi balls to work. So the indefatigable woman stopped and started again. And again. And again. And again. For a good fifteen minutes she stood there, center stage, smashing balls into her eyes, her nose, her lovely set of boom-boom curls. Still she wouldn’t give up until her mastery was proved—as if by then anyone cared. By the time she quit, the drummer’s hands were raw and bloody. The conga player needed oxygen. The trumpet player’s lips had fallen off.

I had created a monster: of that there was no doubt. Then, in Fontainebleau, where we were spending the night after a long but picturesque detour to savor the joys of Brittany’s cuisine, it happened. Without a word of warning, Dolores flew the coop. Took off. On her own. Just like that. It must have been quite a sight: Dolores, dragging her tail behind her, starfish bra bouncing proudly, walking right out of the theater and into the world outside. And she had the gall to take my three yentas with her.

Naturally, she headed for the beach, which is where they finally found her, brazenly drying her scales in the sun like so many pounds of dead fish.

“I will no longer be confined to the stage!” she shouted as they tried to pry her off a rock and into the waiting van. “Why should I be? Hath not a mermaid eyes? Hath she not ears? If you prick me, doth I not bleed?”

Oh, Dolores I thought. Give it a rest.

Still, it really was quite something. My Ladies had never dared to go out on the street before. I don’t think they were brave enough. Or I wasn’t brave enough to let them. Now, strange as it was, there was something about what Dolores did that very much appealed to me. For when I really came to think of it, why were my Ladies chained to the stage? Why shouldn’t they get to go out now and then?

“I had created a monster.”