Mrs. Beast (16 page)

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As Beauty and Rapunzel approach the city gate, a man steps briskly from the guardhouse, thrusting a lantern into the deepening Grimm dusk. His belly hangs two inches below his waist-cut blue jacket.
 
A pheasant feather pokes jauntily from the top of his yellow hat.

    
"Who goes there?" he demands.

    
"Guten nacht, Leopold," Rapunzel purrs.

    
Leopold sucks in his gut and jerks his head in a nod.
 
"Guten nacht, Princess Rapunzel.
 
I trust the lady with you is not a witch or a goblin?"

    
"I can vouch for her. And thank you, Leopold.
 
I'll sleep soundly tonight knowing you're on duty."

    
"You might mention that to Burgomeister Braun," Leopold adds as he opens the gates.
 
They start off down a cobblestone street and Leopold growls in appreciation.
 
Beauty ignores him, but Rapunzel turns and winks.

    
Fairy tale beauties are normally notoriously deaf to blatant sexual overtures.
 
Beauty has observed that a plain woman can retort with a curse and elicit a hearty laugh. However, if a beauty curses a response, she's called a woman of loose morals.
 
Intrigued by Rapunzel's boldness, Beauty asks, "Did I hear him correctly? Are you a princess?"

    
"I was once married to Prince Johann.
  
My two children and I lived with him up there in Kronus Castle, but we left him four years ago."

    
Beauty lifts her gaze to the top of a steep and rock-jagged hill where stands a castle twice as large as Runyon's white wonder. This castle is six stories high with twelve towers, grey as the Grimm mist draping it like a shroud.
 
Unlike Runyon's oriel windows, which throw sunlight into every gold bedecked corner, these hundreds of windows are recessed like hooded serpent eyes
. How horrible it must have been to dwell there
, she thinks.
And how brave of Rapunzel to leave with two children.

    
"Beauty, I know what you're thinking.
 
Why would I want to leave all that?"

    
"Actually, I was wondering how you manage to feed and clothe your children without the help of a husband?"

    
"I get by with help from my friends." Rapunzel winks.

    
"How nice for you," Beauty comments, feeling more intensely than ever her lack of even one friend.

    
"I'll be your friend, Beauty."
 
Rapunzel says brightly.
 
"I don't have any grown-up women friends."

    
Rapunzel's as different from Snow White as winter is from summer: while Snow was cold and guarded, Rapunzel is open and warm; she doesn't hide from fear, but braves the woods with a dagger in her belt.
 
Beauty's naive hopefulness makes her feel girlishly confidential. "I too left my prince."

    
Before Rapunzel can respond, a tomato whizzes by her ear and a voice bawls, "Hure!"

    
"Duck!" Rapunzel warns as three more tomatoes follow in rapid succession.
 
She bobs and weaves and yanks Beauty behind a cast iron statue.
 
Peeking through the lion's legs, Beauty spies the culprit: a fruit vendor selling her wares under the sign of
The Blue Boar
.
 
A red carnation pinned to the bodice of her black dress vibrates with rage, and her lips are a thin white line of contempt.

    
A plump lad scurries with his mop and pail to clean up the mess.
 
After buffing the stones to a gloss, he directs his efforts to the statue. As his fingers ply a cloth between the iron curls, he notices Beauty and Rapunzel hiding, and his face beams with adolescent ardor.
 
"Hello, Liebling," Rapunzel says.

    
The boy grabs the cap from his head and wiggles his ears.
 
A large hand materializes and pinches the boy's left ear. "Ow, Mama, ow," he yelps as the fruit vendor goose-steps him down the street.

    
Rapunzel sighs. "Everyone's jumpy on Walpurgisnacht.
 
Come along, we'd better hurry."

    
Darkness descends on Stromberg. Shopkeepers and haus fraus light glass-blown lamps on doorways, casting amber circles on criss-crossed timber facades, illuminating green shutters and window boxes brimming with geraniums.
 
Storks with their long legs dangling settle awkwardly into chimney-top nests. Rapunzel guides Beauty through the narrow cobblestone streets, and as they pass, the sausage maker lowers his shade; the parson, half-way down the church steps, executes an about-face; the shoe maker hustles outside, hands a pair of red, high heeled shoes to Rapunzel and scurries back inside his shop.

    
Rapunzel kicks off her cloth sandals and steps into the red shoes.
  
She raises one foot and slowly rotates her ankle. Her admiration is cut short by the Stromberg stoop fraus who have set their dachshunds yapping at her heels.
 
The women raise their skirts as if side-stepping cow dung, thumb their noses and yell, "Schwarz fichen, Juden liebhaber."
 
Beauty is mystified and Rapunzel urges her onward.

    
Rapunzel finally stops at the entrance to a long dark alley. "My house is there at the dead end."

    
Beauty peers through the Grimm darkness. A brief glimpse tells her this is the low end of town: the cobblestones are cracked and broken, no lanterns light doorways, no flowers spill from window boxes.
 
The houses slump with neglect.
 
  
"Welcome to Storyendburg," Rapunzel says. "Here dwell the undesirable: servants, beggars, lepers, cripples, the illegitimate, people of various races and creeds, and people whose livelihoods are despised by the good citizens of Stromberg.
 
Like my neighbors; on the right lives Helmut the hangman, and on the left is Dumkopf the gravedigger."

    
Standing on the doorstep of a small stone house, Rapunzel takes a silver key from her pocket and opens the door.
 
The scent of Sweet Cicely and the mellifluous tones of a flute accompanying an unbearably beautiful soprano voice greet Beauty as she steps inside.
 
The interior resembles a setting from
Arabian Nights
.
 
There are no walls; ceiling hooks suspending yards of fine netting that separates sleeping quarters.
 
Silk and satin pillows glimmer like precious stones.
 
Rugs of black cashmere, deep as desert pools, soften the stone floor.
 
Finely carved boxes overflow with scarves, jewelry, and gold coins.
 
Beside the glowing hearth, a girl sings over a cradle while a boy plays a flute.

    
"Aren't they precious dolls?"

    
At the sound of Rapunzel's voice, the boy stops playing, the girl stops singing, and an unholy squall rises from the cradle. Rapunzel dives onto a large purple pillow and the children scurry to her arms.
 
Their hazel eyes are ringed in saffron, their hair and skin are the shade of ripe walnuts, their foreheads are high and round and their lips are like ripe raspberries.
 
Rapunzel hugs them tightly, caresses their cheeks, and the squall increases in volume.
 
"Scheherazade, fetch me the changeling," Rapunzel sighs heavily.

    
Beauty is aghast as the girl lifts an infant boy from the cradle: his head is twice normal size, convex black eyes cover half the face, and his skin has a greenish cast.
 
Rapunzel bears her breast, and the infant latches onto her rosy nipple.

    
"Princess Beauty, meet my twins, Omar and Scheherazade, born twelve years ago in a desert far, far away."

    
The twin's bow their heads in greeting, and the baby's stomach gurgles obscenely.
 
Rapunzel switches him to her other breast.
 
"This child is a changeling.
 
I have to hunt down the elves who switched him for my baby Kurt," she murmurs and closes her eyes.

    
Unaccustomed to family intimacy, Beauty modestly concentrates on the grapes and almonds Omar has fetched.
 
She eats slowly, forming the questions she'll ask when she has finished eating: Was
she in the forest when the elves stole her baby?
 
Why did she leave her prince?
 
How did she get to a desert and back again?

    
When Beauty finally lifts her head, Rapunzel is asleep, as are the twins, wrapped in her golden locks.
 
The wide-awake changeling stares at Beauty's cleavage and licks his lips.

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Chapter Seven

Desert Serenade

    
Elora the Enchantress reposes on a white aspen bench in the Deco sauna, her alabaster body glistening. Croesus mouths a sponge from a nearby bowl and squeezes it over a bed of black granite stones.
 
The rocks sizzle and emit a cloud of steam.
 
He slinks to Elora's side and lays his wet jowls on her stomach.

    
"Yeah, yeah, I'll tell you the rest of Rapunzel’s tale if you'll kindly remove your slobber."

    
Croesus snarks with satisfaction and flops to the floor.

    
"One day, while riding through the Grimm forest, Prince Johann heard Rapunzel's loony warbling. He was captivated and followed the song to Gothel's tower.
 
He searched round and round, but couldn't find a door because there wasn't one, so he rode home.
 
However, the prince couldn't get the song out of his head.
 
He returned every day for a week, hiding in the bushes, listening and watching the window."

    
Croesus barks three times.

    
"Why didn't he call her out?
 
He was a slacker.
 
Then, on the seventh day, Gothel showed up and yelled,
Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair!
 
Johann saw golden hair tumble out the window and old Gothel grunt her way to the top.
 
So the next day at dusk, he stood under the tower window and called,
Rapunzel, Rapunzel let down her hair
.
 
She tossed it down and Johann climbed up.
 
Rapunzel about threw a clot; she'd never seen a man, and Gothel had told her they were savage, hairy, flesh-rending monsters. But Johann was no Iron John."

    
Croesus cocks his head inquisitively.

    
"Iron John--the hairy wild man living at the bottom of Black Forest Bog, the inspiration for hordes of naked he-men banging drums in suburban wood lots.
  
Johann was more like Johnny Depp: smoky eyes, sensitive mouth, a rebel without a clue.
 
He said her singing had entered his heart and asked if she'd take him for her husband.
 
Rapunzel had no idea what a husband was, but she put her little hand in his and whammo--high-voltage. Although she had never been kissed, by her parents or by goat-faced Gothel, when Johann pressed his lips to hers, she worked his mouth over until his knees turned to jelly.
 
Then she said,
Sure, I'll go with you, sugar lips.
 
Each night when you come here, bring a piece of rope.
 
I'll make a ladder, and when it's long enough, I'll climb down out of the tower, and we'll ride away together.