Mrs. Beast (21 page)

    
"What happened to Johann?" Beauty asks.

    
"Some say he joined the Crusades; others say he went to sea," Scheherazade answers.
 
"One of Rapunzel's sailor friends said he saw him in a brothel in Tunis."

    
"I wonder where Mother is tonight,” Omar murmurs, and his melancholy is contagious.
 
No one speaks; the room has grown so silent, Beauty can hear a cricket chirping a quarter mile away in the church graveyard.

    
"I have an idea," Beauty says. "Let's ask my magic mirror to find her."

    
She knows she's taking a risk; Rapunzel could be in the throes of passion, or she could be halfway to Timbuktu, which would be a disastrous development.
 
However, the twins' expressions have turned so hopeful, Beauty opens her satchel and draws out the mirror.

     
"Magic mirror,

       these children

       
are distressed.

       
Show us their

       mother, the

       former princess."

    
Beauty looks in the mirror and sees Rapunzel nursing baby Kurt beside a campfire.
 
The flames form an aureole around mother and child; Rapunzel's green eyes sparkle, her hair a golden bunting for Otto whose pink cheeks are dimpled with contentment.

    
"I know that place," Omar says, "it's Grimm Glen.
 
She'll be home by tomorrow noon."

*
     
*
     
*

    
"What they don't know, chuckle head, is that she's crooning to two babies: the one in her arms and the zygote in her belly.
 
She'll name him Guido."
 
Elora sets her crystal ball on the maroon velvet seat to her right.
 
She and Croesus had been eating from large tubs of buttered popcorn and watching
Camille
in the Deco Theater when the crystal ball flashed white.
 
Garbo is freeze-framed at the moment of death.

    
"Never a dry eye in the house.
 
Nothing cleanses the judgmental soul like crying over a prostitute who pays for her sins by croaking.
 
Curious how the ole bouncy-bouncy provokes such ambivalence.
 
Some say it's a necessary burden, others the greatest joy, the swooning sense of flux overtaking the spirit as rapture
 
. . ."

    
Croesus chokes on a popcorn kernel suppressing his doggy chortles.

    
"Go ahead and laugh your furry face off.
 
What do you know of passion?
  
You simply trail the scent of a bitch in heat and jump her bones.
 
No hearts and flowers.
 
By the time the pups are born, you're dog gone long gone.
 
Does anybody blame you? No, but the consequence for a promiscuous Grimm woman is, well, grim.
 
If Rapunzel were a man, she'd be called a merry reveler.
Hasn't changed much on the outside either, at least for beauties.
 
If the women who championed the sexual revolution and those who have benefited from it met Rapunzel on the street, nine out of ten would give her that hair-to-shoes once over and march on by.
  
It would be a different story if she would sing or act or write a biography."

    
Elora snaps her fingers and transforms herself into the Grimm psychologist.
 
She strokes her white goatee, crosses her trousered legs, and whips off her pince-nez.
 
"Rapunzel is a case study in my new book,
Promiscuous Beauties: The Sickness of Shame.
 
Good Grimm girls are raised with the knowledge that sex without marital love is verboten.
 
A complete lack of discrimination, as with Rapunzel, is extremely rare.
 
It is symptomatic of some severe disturbance, probably from childhood."

    
Elora draws three circles over Croesus' head.
 
His eyes fill with silver flecks.
 
He opens his jaws and speaks in Elora's husky voice: "No shit, Sherlock."

    
Elora taps the eyeglasses on her palm.
 
"There are overwhelming feelings of discontent in the promiscuous beauty that cause her to flaunt her sexuality, drift from man to man, using sexual favors to provide shelter, food and clothing instead of enjoying the sanctified union of marriage. Sexual intercourse for her acts like a powerful drug to which she becomes addicted so she is unable to appreciate real love when it appears."

    
Croesus cocks his head, opens his mouth and Elora's voice drips with sarcasm from the hound's lips:
 
"Is it possible, Herr Doktor, that Rapunzel has never had the facility or the opportunity to experience real emotional commitment?
 
What about the skills she's passed to her children: acceptance of people regardless of race or social position, the pleasure in giving and enabling others to give?
 
Did she not give joy to the men other women scorned and rejected: the hunchbacks, the cripples, the old and impotent for example?"

    
Elora strokes her white beard again. "Was she doing them a favor or simply using them for her own pleasure?"

    
Croesus snarls with his mistress's voice: "When you play chess with the Burgomeister, are you using him to provide you with stimulation? Or do you both derive mutual enjoyment from the game?"

    
"This--is not--a game!"
 
Elora growls with the controlled sarcasm of the Grimm psychologist.
 
"Rapunzel is a beauty and a princess; she should be living happily ever after in the palace with her prince instead of populating Grimm Land with illegitimate half-breeds!"

    
Croesus cowers, his eyes huge with fright.

    
Elora quickly snaps her fingers and breaks the spells. She hugs Croesus' head to her breast.
 
"I'm sorry, my darling dog.
 
Charade's over.
 
How can I make you feel better?
 
I know."

    
She snaps her fingers and
The Wizard of Oz
appears on the screen.

    
"That goes for your little dog too!" Elora screeches and tosses Croesus a box of jujubes.

*
     
*
     
*

Beauty's Diary

1 June        Page Thirty

    
I write this entry by the light of an oil lamp, an hour before dawn.
 
I wear the caftan given to me by the dwarf women. This morning I'm embarking on a new leg of my quest and the change of garment seems fitting.
 
The caftan is soft as a baby's cheek, and the profusion of flowers makes me feel rounded with the bloom of creation.

    
I need to depart before Rapunzel returns.
 
It's not that I wish to avoid her, I simply don't want to intrude on the family's reunion.
 
Seeing the loving
image of Rapunzel nursing baby Kurt renewed my urgency to move on.
    
Was my baby conceived in love?
 
I don't know, nor do I now believe it matters.
 
Why is romantic love seen as pure and sexual desire as unclean?
 
It seems to me romantic love, which is the only kind of love beauties are offered, elevates the desire to be in love above the beloved himself.

    
Through the perspective of Rapunzel's life, I have learned that romantic love makes unreasonable demands: I love you, therefore you are mine and accountable, which leads to jealousy, as with Johann.
 
Or, I love you, but I love my family
 
more, so I'll marry another out of duty, as with Fazel.

    
Rapunzel is responsible to no one, her lovers, her family, even her brilliant, wonderful children.
 

    
Beauty closes her diary and places it, along with the mirror, a pear, two apples, a loaf of bread, a wineskin of water, a wedge of cheddar, and a chunk of chocolate into her satchel. Soundlessly, her boar skin shoes move across the threshold, through Stromberg's cobblestone streets, and out past Leopold snoring in the gatehouse.

    
At daybreak, Beauty pauses before the entrance to the Black Forest and removes the mirror from her satchel.

    
"This time," she says aloud, "I'll choose best over shortest."
 
This time,
she says to herself,
should I look in on Runyon?
 
She bites her cherry pink lip with indecision.
 
No, I'll check on Blockhead. Perhaps Runyon sent him searching for me.

    
 "Runyon's visage

       may
shock me red.

      
Show me instead the

      
gentle Blockhead."

    
Beauty is amazed by the appearance of the Great Hall.
 
Gone are the performing ring, fish-scale-suited divers, golden statues, wall of mirrors, and throngs of people.
 
Canvases hang where the mirrors once were and line the walls where golden nude statues once glinted.
 
Finally she settles on a familiar object: Runyon’s brocade divan swathed in yellow silk.
 
Lying upon the divan with an expression of utter torment is Blockhead, also draped in yellow silk.
 
Runyon stands a few feet away before an easel.
 
He's dressed in black silk pants, black silk shirt, and a black beret is cocked sideways on his head.
 
His yellow hair hangs down his back in a braid.

    
"Do stop wiggwing!
 
This is my best yet, the juxtaposition of brute strength and dewicate vuwnerabiwity.
 
Come have a wook," Runyon flaps his hand, beckoning Blockhead.

    
Blockhead wraps the silk around his body and shuffles to the easel. "Your highness, I ain't no judge of art."

    
Runyon groans over his palette, "Beauty would understand my vision.
 
Bwockhead, you should go fetch her.”

    
"Pardon me, your highness, but she's been gone over three months.
 
I wouldn't know where to start lookin."
 
He snuffles, "Besides, my new bride won't take kindly to me traipsing off after Princess Beauty."

Runyon knocks the canvas off the easel, picks up a blank one, and poises his brush.
 
"I'll wite her a wetter for you to dewiver."

    
Dear Beauty,

    
I have come to realize that these months apart were prerequisite for my artistic comprehension.
 
Come home and I shall strew the Great Hall with flowers, we shall shed all encumbrances for a dram of eminent lunacy.
 
Can you see the real me?