Queenie

by Hortense Calisher

  As the glittering gowns pass Schubert in gobs of perfume, and the scantie-pantie ones, I can see he thinks so too. Faddists show excitement like anybody else, Oscar says later. “In terms of the original sin.” And Schubert is tucking in. Pheasant pâté, quail eggs, bear borscht, glog with goat cheese, and those Bath Oliver biscuits. But it’s me he’s looking at.

  I’m not eating much; I’m feeling too grateful again. And though I’m too old now to have orgasms standing up in crowds, Father, it’s still dangerous. Unless I want to stand up with Schubert…

  I can see everybody’s wondering if he’s it, and resting their opinion.

  He keeps me identifying the food for him.

  I have to admire him, he only founders once. “What’s this I’ve got?”

  I haven’t the heart to tell him. Not directly.

  “Aren’t you eating anything?” he asks, not really caring. He has a small, macrobiotic mouth.

  “No, I feel kind of funny,” I say, watching what’s going down it. Alba gets them from Japan. “Like a bumblebee in chocolate.”

  I do rather. A live one, ready to zoom out of there. Will I let him swallow me—am I that desperate? Every time I think of it, my boundaries come up in me strong. Can’t I go to college the way I am?

  At last Schubert dabs his mouth with a napkin and stares at me. His nails are still clean, but those eyes are actually half-closed. He smiles at me, a bit of bee still sticking to his teeth. A piney-winey voice comes from them, the kind that comes off the soundtrack when maybe after five thousand frames of film the two of them in bed up there have finally had it. “I never knew caviar was gray.”

  But it’s my little beaded breastplates he’s looking at. I suppose some of those beads are gray.

  Father, if you had to pick one pure-girl sentence, what a man would never, what would you?

  I say, “Excuse me, I have to go to the John.”

  But I can’t lose him. He insists on waiting for me in the canary room, which he claims is right next to it. Turns out it is, though I miss one or two other rooms along our way.

  “I have a sense of direction like an animal,” Schubert says at the door. “Comes of a pure bowel. And a natural-foods fed heart.” Then he gives my beads a shake, and says “Hurry up, my little Hapsburg! I expect to lose all three of them tonight.”

  Lying back on the sofa with his eyes closed, where I leave him, he looks quite marvelous. And as if he knows it. All along, is he kidding me? I don’t deny the possibility, even now. I just don’t intend to explore it. Is he that experienced boy the grocers and the girls are always looking for? Or strictly pop-eye? It’s enough that what the moving forefinger will shortly point out to me—goes for both.

  In the harem that Alba’s main powder room always is, most of our inner circle is there, and not just because of the beauty aids which are lined up between the Roman bath and the sauna, in gold wall spouts Alba lets the manufacturers stock for free. This is the time of evening the girls gather to swap stuff like, “I told her, ‘your only room pleases me is the boisserie one,’ and she says, ‘Which is that?’” Or how they miss the bowling alley, and those boys from Notre Dame Alba used to hire to set ’em up. If you stay long enough, you can piece the whole house together, present and past. But not at the moment. Because our hostess is there. That single knot of hers has come undone, and my aunt and a bevy of helpers are retying it.

  “No, not there!” says Alba. “I’m expecting somebody to drop by who is very conservative.”

  I see the stockholders among us shift their chignons.

  Aurine says mildly, “Wear an apron then. Or a bib.”

  Then it’s done—a compromise—and they crowd around me, congratulating. Cautious on Schubert, hoopla for the outfit.

  I see Aurine is very proud of me coming out of hiding.

  “Beautiful, beautiful,” says Alba. “Look at her. Nothing but skin and bones.”

  I say, “Yeah, it’s real funky. Truly rotten, isn’t it?” I don’t talk teenybopper usually. But all this is getting to me; if this is what’s riding first class, should I hop a freight? I have this urge not to communicate.

  But Alba wants to. Like all the girls over forty who still wear size eight, if they can’t kill us they want to join us.

  She puts an arm around my shoulders, since there’s nothing else there. “I don’t care how they say it these days, cara mia. Girls, I want to tell you here is one child who goes with God.” She gets all wound up about it. Aurine doesn’t tell me till later, Candido’s doctor is a papal count. “Remember, Aurine? How her first communion I give her a holy medal, saying ‘Kiss God, honey, kiss God.’ And how she says ‘Will he kiss back?’”

  “Well, will he?” I hate childhood quotes. “You never said.”

  Martyne snorts—she’s a hard-shell fundamentalist.

  Alba turns on her. “I come to this country, with that prize-fighter Pippo, what am I? A fat wop, in curls and fur. I’m not complaining—that’s only God for me in Italy. And now look at me.” She smoothes down the sailor knot. “And—a Rolls-Royce.”

  Everybody stiffens. This is news.

  “Ah-huh,” she says. “And which I already know enough just to call it ‘the Rolls’!” Then she turns to me. “Queenie, with God like he is in America, you have the best chance of all.”

  Another snort from Martyne; Oscar says that sooner or later, these pugnose baby dolls always turn pekinese. “What this foreigner means, Queenie, is underplay it, underdress it. Keep the guy with the purse strings on peanuts. And take a daily workout with a thug.”

  Aurine shifts in her chair. She’s as patriotic as any of them. But she doesn’t like fights.

  “Never mind, Aurine,” Alba breaks in. “For once in Holy Church, this Baptist gravesnatcher is right….Girls, I made special confession today…about Candido.”

  It always fascinates me, how the girls move in waves. Or things move them.

  “Girls,” Alba says, breathing hard. “Candido is not my brother.”

  Will they hit her? Not at all. I see they have faith in her. Which, as her godchild, I share.

  “So I been to the monsignor,” says Alba. “On very conservative advice. Which he don’t answer me right, could make it hot for him.” When her bosom rises I see she has more of it than I thought. “I’m gonna adopt.”

  Aurine breaks the admiring silence. “Watch that knot.”

  Stupid Nila, who’s always on mark, says “So your gentleman farmer, that charley from Maryland, got his, huh? I knew it—the minute the tackroom is gone! Gee—all those lovely ducks.”

  So that’s the room I missed. Well, she still has the canaries. And I have Schubert. Who is either waiting, like men do, or having a second helping. Like men do.

  Alba says softly, “Shut up, Nila.” Then louder, for me and maybe for the Trinity, “I figure if Candy is willing—God ought to be.”

  She is really so radiant, so faithful, that we don’t know what! In which moment she taps the gold wall behind her and a drawer shoots out. I only have time to think maybe for a holy relic, if so too small for a thighbone, maybe a tooth—when I see a little box is being held out to me.

  “That old medal, it’s too weak for your situation,” Alba says shyly. “Here’s one carries the blessing of His Holiness himself, not this one but the one in heaven, it makes a difference. And the chain, it’s from Cartier’s.”

  And from the girls. Who soon are all weeping to one another. And describing my bassinet. And counting the pearls in the chain.

  Nila says, “Queenie, it’s like my pearl rosary! It goes with anything.”

  Alba says, “And before you do anything—kiss God.”

  Unless, after all, He wants to kiss Schubert.

  Let him. I owe the girls a thank-you weep. Soon it isn’t hard. How touching they are, even Martyne! How can I tell them my whole age group underplays it? And that most of us already are thugs.

  But Aurine knows me best. I can’t ever cry without putting in a little
for myself, Father.

  “Queenie, is it that boy?”

  I can lie to the public easier than to her. “Aurine—if he were your first—would you?”

  They and us should never communicate. It knocks us off our own beeline. Even if it’s only four older women in a bathroom, looking back.

  “Thanks all,” I say quick. “Gotta go.”

  But I don’t get off that easy. It’s me made them look.

  What a crooked-cozy smile on them!

  Martyne says, “Hon—his father that kook billionaire won’t do anything?”

  Nila says, “Billionaires can be very high-minded. Even stingy. Bert hates to book them. Sweetie, maybe you should start lower down?”

  Alba says, “She’s young, she’s ambitious, God will watch over her!”

  Aurine has on her cobweb black, which always brings out her happy chestnut coloring. Brightens the world, Oscar says, like a sorrel mare on a dreary Sunday. And takes to autumn’s tarnish better than the brunettes. Her smile is her usual.

  “And I’ll watch Him,” says Aurine.

  Always believe a believer.

  Though as I close the door and lean against it working up my confidence, they’re back to norm. I can hear Nila first moaning the loss of the tackroom, then advising Alba to turn it into billiards, which Bert loves! And I hear Alba’s double reply. “Ducks I can shoot, ducks I can eat, but he kept score in a book they have—we spend the whole afternoon with that book.” And then, “You crazy? You think I want Candido should spend his time shooting pool?”

  Down the hall, there’s a faint little glow from the canary room. In the distance, like in a play of Sam Newber’s, there is the distant throng. While life dawns on Alexandra Dauphine Raphael.

  There could be worse sets for it; I’ve been in them. The park mall at midnight. The backs of Connecticut cars.

  A pajama party at Deirdre’s, on a slightly crowded terrace with a thirty-two-floor drop. Or a guy’s own apartment, hung with those life-size gorilla masks, on Eighth Street.

  When I look back on all my experience that isn’t experience yet—well, I look back. Looking forward, what’s serious? It’s my party, and I’ve already cried at it. And all the doors in Alba’s house lock.

  Besides, my own music is serenading me. Those breastplates, they push what you’ve got. Right back at you. The church is right, dressing seductive is a trap. And I’m not struggling. And here is the door.

  Does anybody notice rooms much, Father, until something happens there? I don’t. What exactly happens anyway, in a room with mirrors all over it, even on top? The pictures are on painted panels between. Risky ones? Sure, but just grotto effects. No Marquis de Sade, or even Forty-Second Street. Nothing modern, nobody even screwing. Just fleeing nymphs peeking back over their own behinds. Fleeing must be about the right aphro for a banker, Father. Disiac.

  I guess the Fishes have some banking blood.

  And it’s my favorite room, I can’t deny.

  All’s quiet there, except in the birdcages. Under their cloths, I can hear them shuffling, in the not quite dark. I’m nearsighted, but I can see Schubert is still sitting there. In a mirrored room there’s always a little light. And I see a candle’s burning in one of those portable shrines Alba has everywhere. It’s on the coffee table, in front of him.

  So he’s sitting there. And at first I think he’s holding another candle between his legs, until my eyes clear. And that’s no candle. It’s Schubert.

  He sees me of course. He’s waiting for me. And that’s the mindblowing shock of it. Eerie. If he’d just’ve taken all his clothes off maybe, or grabbed me Wahoo! any old way. Or torn mine off. I’ve been through all that. But no, he just sits there kind of drawing-room style, with his trousers open, looking down at what he’s got there, kind of doting, like at a rare plant. He knows I’m there of course. Look what I’ve got here, his smile says. For you.

  They say an old-fashioned girl can always find an old-fashioned boy. Or is this God’s will on me, complete with wall-to-wall mirror repeats for my wishing to see the male organ plain?

  Then it dawns on me, like it does on any girl. I’m being exposed to, of course. I’d’ve known at once, Father, if it was some poor old tramp behind a bush in the park. But Schubert is rich—at least he always has cab fare. And this is Sixty-Ninth Street. East.

  A week later, I’m telling Nosey about it. He’s come to declare his love for me, and he’s just so cute. And so scholarly. And so sore at me for bringing Schubert. But he says loyally, “Any other girl it would have turned lesbian.”

  I say “Nosey, if I didn’t know you since you slid down Nila’s drainpipe, I’d call that a very lesbian remark.”

  He laughs haughtily; his laugh’s getting very mature, and of course his nose has always been. He still has to take care his feet don’t dangle, but the buttons saying “Suck!” and “Marcel Proust is a Yenta” are gone from his T-shirt. And it doesn’t smell.

  “No,” I say, “we have to analyze this.” I can’t wait to. “Exposing himself was Schubert’s male pride. Plus all those films we were seeing; on a vegetable background that couldn’t’ve been easy. And on his first real meal.”

  “And with yo-ou,” Nosey muggs it quick so I’ll be sure he means it nasty. “Poking yourself out at that pervert.” He squints at me like an uncle.

  “He wasn’t perverted,” I say. “Not a bit more than any of you, if you could manage it. He was merely being psychological. In his way, Nosey. In his way. If he’d been a great reader like you—Freud, Krafft-Ebing, Playboy—it might’ve been different.”

  Nosey says low, “Queenie…I’m not reading around much, just now.”

  I say kindly, “I suppose getting it up is always a source of worry to all of you. You wait and see. Oscar says, ‘In youth an inconvenience, as age comes on, a pride.’ Nosey dear, what you men do or don’t do can’t be hidden, like with us. So you have to make a thing of it.”

  Nosey says, “Blow that ‘Oscar says’ bit. You think maybe college will cure it?”

  “Oh nuts, it’s just a fucking father-image.”

  With these ten-year-olds, you have to lay it on the line, Father. One nice word about you older people and they’re screaming “Fink” at you.

  “It’s true though,” I say, “I can’t see myself ever saying, ‘Schubert says.’ Anyway, it wasn’t really me that poor boy was—addressing himself to. Not at all.”

  “You’re killing my love,” Nosey says. “Just when I was planning a big surprise.”

  We’re up in my room; maybe even at age ten that isn’t wise. “Don’t you get perverted with me,” I say, “I diapered you, once. You want to hear, or don’t you? Okay. And keep your hands at your sides.”

  He folds his arms and stares out the window. “Addressing. Bullshit, in the key of C. Okay, what was he?”

  “My penis envy, that’s what. What he thinks it is.”

  Nosey says, “Well, isn’t it?”

  “Now lis-sen here,” I say. “Just let me tell you about that envy.”

  I have to tell someone, I have to start somewhere, it’s still like a vision opening out.

  “Nosey, it’s you men who envy penises. The one you never can be sure of is there. Till it’s there. Then of course you admire it. And envy yourself. Because between times, all a man can do is admire his penis-image. And pretend we do. Penis envy is really male.”

  Nosey has his head in his hands, he has a cowlick. I suppose it’s some dose for a ten-year-old; I suppose I could be giving him a trauma, but what can I do?

  I feel awful for him of course. But great. “Honest, Nosey,” I say, “Our feeling is—we just want to borrow it. For where it belongs. But I just can’t locate any feeling in me that wants the silly thing around full-time.”

  By now I know I’m being a prick, Father, but who can blame me?

  “For a personal possession?” I say. “To play with and treasure in private? Nosey darling, what’s a treasure which is neither a secret, no
r sure to be there when you want it—or out in plain sight when you don’t? And what a hell of a nuisance, if I just wanted to take a walk!”

  Nosey says through his fingers, “I walked up here.”

  “Well——” I say, “all I know is, the minute a man is sure of his treasure he has to hide it in mine.”

  And he lifts his head. That’s what he came to tell me, he squawks. “I can get it up! Queenie! I’m not precocious anymore!”

  Here’s where Father begins to say maybe my life and times are gone beyond what a local man can handle. Especially for a girl who ever since her first communion thinks she can bang any time on his study door. And who thinks she can have all the joys of confession without the pain of it. Confidentially, he’s mad at me because I won’t go in the box. I say, the day they let women in on the other side of it, I will. Of course I never talked to a monsignor before.

  Monsignor, where would you go, if a boy got you in a grotto where he’s sitting with a votive light all aglow on his male parts?

  Because from here on in, there are still a lot of religious references…

  First off, only two days before, that boy and I are at the Frick, in front of “The Education of the Virgin,” my favorite picture there. Where the little girl is holding the candle to the book, and the nurse is looking down at her like she already knows all the recipes? It’s a trick one, but it’s really together. The Virgin is like any real girl. Young for what’s coming to her. And the light shines right through her finger making it flesh for you. And, Monsignor, do you suppose that reminded him?

  The second reference, I didn’t tell Father. Some things are more for the laity. But the hierarchy like you probably hears things like this all the time. It’s one of the limericks this other boy Giorgio and I made up, Frigid Brigid.

  No work of art but it says something to a young girl….Frigid Brigid remains quite rigid, Even under her own digit, Breathes there the Man or maybe the Midget…Whocanmakefrigidbridget fidget?

  There. And if you ever think of another rhyme for igid, let me know.