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Authors: Bette Midler

Tags: #Actress, #Biography & Autobiography, #Entertainment & Performing Arts, #Movie Star, #Nonfiction, #Performing Arts, #Retail

A View From a Broad (9 page)

BOOK: A View From a Broad
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The airport was a shock. As modern and civilized as any I’d ever seen: poured concrete and recessed lighting, the latest in contemporary graphics, an architectural non sequitur delightful in its total inappropriateness to its surroundings. Actually, the
airport did have one thing in common with its environment: there was not a human being in sight. Maybe the promoter had said I was going to play for six thousand raccoons; maybe this was all a gigantic mistake, due, no doubt, to some faulty transatlantic cable or the lilting peculiarities of the Swedish accent. Discouraged, but still determined, I kicked a possum off my luggage and walked through towering blue spruces to the bus that was waiting to take us to the theatre, smiling bravely on my way at my troupe, all of whom seemed as astonished as I to have landed in Siberia.

But eventually, as we drove toward the town that had to be there somewhere, the pines began to give way to farms, then to small clumps of houses, until from the knoll of a hill I could see something totally unexpected: the North Sea. And there, stretched out along its edge, like a rampart between the forest and the ocean, was a city.

Well, not exactly a city. But it was too late to be choosy.

“Jutebory . . . was the Swedish equivalent of Des Moines.”

Jutebory, or Gothenburg, or Goteborg—everyone pronounced it differently and every sign spelled it differently—was the Swedish equivalent, it turned out, of Des Moines. My manager had decided to kick off the Continental portion of my tour here so that if we bombed miserably at least we could hide our heads in a compost heap and maybe fix up the act before we got to the big burgs.

But even as we started to drive into what was, thank God, quite a large town, I found it hard to believe that anyone in Jutebory would lay down good money to see some demented American in a dog dress do a two-bit impression of Shelley Winters. I felt yet another loss of heart coming on when suddenly we turned onto the main drag of town and, amazingly enough, into a sea of teen-agers who, like so many of their rural or small-town counterparts in America, seemed to have nothing to do with the staid, conservative territory around them.

Yet there they were—greased-back hair, tight tight jeans, black leather jackets—and the motorcycles to go with them. When we
arrived on Friday evening, bikeloads of Sha-na-na look-alikes were cruising up and down, shouting what I took to be obscenities and/or traffic reports at the girls, who were also in motorcycle jackets and evidently loving every minute of the abuse. Well, maybe my Jutebory engagement wouldn’t be a disaster after all.

My breast swelled with hope and curiosity. As soon as the bus pulled up to the hotel I hopped right out, and before anyone could stop me, I went for a walk on my own.

I didn’t get very far. Right across the street was a brightly colored food stall, with the legend M. S
venson
emblazoned on a big yellow-and-blue umbrella. Famished after the pathetic little
-pâté en croûte
Air France considered
déjeuner,
I looked both ways in the wrong direction and dashed through the traffic, my mouth watering.

“Hello,” I said cheerily to the neat little man behind the counter.

“Goddag. Det skall bli ett nöje,”
he replied, tipping his hat and making a little bow,
“att hjälpa er.”

“Oh,” I replied charmed by the vendor’s Continental politeness. “Do you speak English?”

“Nej, nej. Vad önskar ni?”

Well, at least I could tell he had asked a question. Remembering Miss Frank’s adage that a pointing finger is worth a month at Berlitz, I smiled and pointed to a tray of chopped herring that looked irresistible.

“Nej! Nej!”
Mr. Svenson cried.
“Ni måste välja!”

And then
he
began to point. Up in the air. I couldn’t figure out what he was pointing at. Then I saw it: above the stall was a large sign picturing all the various herring combinations available. There were little drawings of plain herring, herring with onions, herring with cucumbers, herring with carrots; of chopped herring, of chopped herring with apples, chopped herring with mustard, chopped herring with garlic and mustard. Faced with those forty-odd pictures, that waving finger and my innate fear of vendors, all I could do was quiver dumbly in my new caribou boots and stand there, dazed with the possibilities of herring.

“Ni måste välja!”
Mr. Svenson repeated, snapping me out of my reverie.

Throwing caution to the wind, I decided on No. 36—chopped herring with onions and cucumbers on some kind of bread—and pointed firmly at the appropriate drawing.

Unfortunately, as his rolling eyes told me, Mr. Svenson couldn’t
see
the sign. It was too high and too far back. Oh, well, I thought, I’ll simply point at each tray, and with my stomach grumbling wildly, I began to do so.

“Remembering Miss Frank’s adage that a pointing finger is worth a month at Berlitz . . .”

Mr. Svenson became more hopped up than ever.
“Ni måste bli precis!”
he exclaimed practically in tears, as he feverishly pointed upward once again.

“But why?
Why
can’t I point at the
trays?”
I whined almost in tears.

“Amerikanare är förryckt!”
was all the vendor muttered, as he threw down his spoon in a frigid display of Nordic disgust.

“You know,” I said in that calm tone which sounds like a truce but is really a declaration of war, “here I am, newly arrived in your country, anxious only to think the best of your fair land, eager to praise the Swedish mind, the Swedish heart. But I am not only open-minded. I am also starving. So I come to you in friendship and I ask you, as one human being to another,
WHY CAN’T I POINT AT THE TRAYS, YOU MISERABLE LITTLE . . .”

At this strategic point, I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned around to look into the eyes of Max von Sydow. At least, I thought it was Max. He sure looked stern enough.

“Young lady,” the stranger said, “you wish to know why you cannot just point at the trays?”

“Well,” I mumbled incoherently, eyeballing his
sensational
fur coat, “yes.”

“Then I tell you. You see, you didn’t come to just any fish stall. You have come to the most famous fish stall in all of Jutebory. In
all of Sweden perhaps. Mr. Svenson here is a man of pride, of genius. He would never serve you anything that was not perfect. And of course in food, as in life, order is everything.”

It is? I thought, remembering some of the chow I had thrown together in the past.

“Now, what combination did you want?” the stranger asked me.

“Number 36.”

“All right, then, you were pointing at the cucumbers, were you not?”

I had to admit that I was.

“Well, if Mr. Svenson had put the cucumbers on the bread
before
the onions, the result would have been a soggy mess. Unthinkable. You see, to prepare a dish properly, the chef must know what
all
the ingredients are going to be. Mr. Svenson was only acting out of a sense of duty. To his reputation and the continuing education of your palate. And now, if you will allow me . . .”

My well-dressed friend spoke to Mr. Svenson, who rapidly began putting together a platter.

“Here,” the stranger said when Mr. Svenson was done. “Number 36. Chopped herring with cucumbers and onions.”

“Why, thank you,” I said quite touched. “May I pay you for—”

“Of course not,” the man said. “I hope you enjoy Scandinavia. I know you’ll enjoy the fish.”

And with that he was off. Savoring the concoction, I looked back at Mr. Svenson, who was already tipping his hat to another customer.

“In food, as in life, order is everything.”

The Most Famous Fish Stall in all of Jutebory. Well, go know. I finished my herring rapt in thought and resolved thenceforth to bear in mind while traveling that it is best to always assume, until proved otherwise, that the fish stall you are in is the most famous of them all, and the man you are speaking to, a hero.

• THE CONTINENTAL DIVINE •

I
had always wanted to see the Scandanavian countries. But not from the middle of an ice rink. Yet that’s what I was playing in Jutebory, and there I was, teeth chattering, in the locker room of the hometown hockey team. Miss Frank, whose fingers were too numb to sew, had given up the needle and resorted to glue. She sat huddled in a corner, trying to paste some renegade sequins onto Dolores’ tail, while I sat staring into my dressing-room mirror, not only shivering, but terrified at what I was about to face: my first non-English-speaking audience. I could see it all before me—hordes of thundering reindeer-chomping Swedes rising up as one and walking out, impatient with and/or repelled by what they could not understand. The vision was enough to drive even the strongest of divas to drink or worse. Unfortunately, since we had to cross a different border every day, I had neither drink nor worse at hand.

What was I to do? Running away seemed like a pretty good idea, but I was in my bathrobe and loath to ask Miss Frank for anything in her present state. Lately, she had been even stranger than usual. I think 86-ing the hot dog really got to her. What with all those hours of relish sewing and mustard patching, I suspect the poor woman had developed an intense attachment to the wiener and was, consequently, bummed out when the old skinless bit the dust. And after all, her name was Frank, so that might have had something to do with it too.

I have learned to discard no possibilities in my efforts to discover what’s really going on.

But let’s face it: the hot dog had to go. In fact, I was still recovering from that indelible moment during my third performance in London when I stepped out to sing “Lullaby of Broadway” and, without warning, my buns fell off. Right on top of the Duke of B. . . . How could I ever chance that sausage suit again? We left its remains in London, crumpled up and unrecognizable in an alley near the theater, to the deep disappointment of some and the great relief of others.

I, of course, had my own special reaction to the frankfurter’s demise. In what I’m sure was some sort of psychological counterattack, I felt compelled to eat every wurst I saw. And in Sweden,
you see a lot of wursts. In fact, they have as many different kinds of wursts as they do herring: fat wursts, skinny wursts, wursts with sauerkraut and wursts with potatoes, wursts with cucumbers and wursts with herring. Cold wursts and hot wursts, long wursts and short wursts, the best wursts and the worst wursts, I consumed them all.

So it is not surprising that as I sat there in Jutebory, in that room redolent with jockism, terrified, freezing, and gnawing on the last wurst in town, I desperately needed something to lighten my spirits. But I could think of only one thing that might help: A victim. Someone, anyone, on whom I could vent my misery. But who?

My musical director seemed an excellent target. His skin was as thick as a rhino’s. I was certain he could stand a bombardment that would send any normal human being fleeing for his life.

. . the best wursts and the worst wursts, I consumed them all.”

Unfortunately, as soon as I called him in, I saw that his right arm was in a sling and his left eye was covered with a large square of gauze which he had attached to his forehead with a length of black electrical tape. Clearly, he and his
petite amie
had had another row. Even for me, he was too lame a target to make any further injury enjoyable. “Do you want to go over some tunes?” he asked through a pair of extraordinarily swollen lips.

“I want to kill,” I responded.

He understood. “But I am already dead,” he said. And then, laying my music down before me, out he ran, bellyaching, into the frigid hallway.

And still I had no outlet for my pent-up emotions. I tried singing my scales, brushing my hair, even running through stage one of my semi—classical semi-dance movements. Nothing helped. I
had
to have a victim. Just then my manager walked smiling into the room.

One look into my eyes and he knew that his best move was a quick exit. But I had him. “Why an ice rink?” I screamed. “Why this town I never heard of? Why must my dresser and I be made to freeze like match girls in the snow?” I hurled each question at him like a knife, but he didn’t even flinch.

“I’m going to go out there and turn that ice rink into a wading pool!”

Clearly, words were not enough. Crazed with the need to do damage, I reached behind me for something to throw at that face of tempered steel.

• • •

When I came to, about fifteen minutes later, they told me I was lucky to be alive. I had somehow managed, in reaching behind me for a weapon, to stick my finger directly into the electrical converter that was lying on my table, waiting to receive my hair dryer. At first, as I lay sprawled out over the rouge and depilatories, everyone thought I was dead. Now they were concerned that I felt no ill effects.

Ill effects? One look in the mirror and I felt terrific. The shock had lent a certain becoming color to my cheeks, curled my hair, and left me with a warm, tingling sensation where before there had been only chills and shivering. Furthermore, except for Miss Frank, who stood off to one side mumbling how this was only the beginning, everyone was standing around me, being so solicitous and attentive that every self-absorbed, self-centered fiber of my being was appeased and purring happily.

BOOK: A View From a Broad
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