Pinkerton's Sister

by Peter Rushforth

  It would begin close to home. From her elevated perch above Madison Square Gardens, the figure of Diana would grin above the pleasure-seeking crowds. Liberty Enlightening the World would grin an identical grin from Bedloe’s Island, beaming out across New York Harbor with teeth large enough to construct spacious and affordable homes, gleamingly lighthousing ships packed with awed, pointing immigrants. The huddled masses would visibly unhuddle at the sight of such cheerfulness, such beaming transcendental dental-work, toothsomely welcoming them – Grin! Grin! Grin! – to the Land of the Grin.

  Then it would spread, its pace increasing. After the activities of Mrs. Albert Comstock, compulsorily inserted Schiffendecken Grins would be as nothing to international statuary. Good heavens, the statues needed something about which to grin after she’d been snipping.

  David, The Discus Thrower, The Kiss (the two heads swinging together, the teeth meeting with an audible clunk, like the thick-lensed spectacles of shortsighted lovers colliding as they abandoned themselves to passion), Venus de Milo, Laocoön (the Trojan priest and his sons demonstrating remarkable good humor as they wrestled with the giant sea serpents that were devouring them), The Dying Gladiator … All of them would grin, grin, grin – as if caught by a Kodak – with the same maniacal rictus grin, the grin of Mrs. Albert Comstock, the grin of Mrs. Goodchild, the grin of the Reverend Goodchild, the grin of half of Longfellow Park, and the Schiffendecken conquest of the world would have begun.

  46

  G. G. Schiffendecken wouldn’t be the only one to hurl himself head first upon David. Mrs. Albert Comstock would be there, hot on his heels, panting slightly, scissors snip-snappily activated. For once, the Grin had beaten the snip-snap, and Mrs. Albert Comstock would snarl with the outraged righteousness of the unjustly forestalled. She’d soon make up for lost time. There’d be an extra-vigorous snip, an extra-crunchy snap. Her energy for avengement was fairly sizzling out of her. David was grinning. Grinning. There he was, as if proud of himself, standing there. In public. Flaunting his – ahem – person. Look what I’ve got! Look what I’ve got! That’s what he was saying, and he was not making a reference to his grin. She couldn’t possibly ignore the challenge of his vulgarly exhibitionist flaunting, his obscene absence of drawers. His grin. She’d soon wipe that off his face!

  Mrs. Albert Comstock in front of Michael Angelo’s statue of David in Florence, Italy.

  That was how the photograph would be labeled, and there she would be, leaning back, scowling, aghast, her head and shoulders heaped with telltale white dust, as if snow were falling upon her.

  Filth!

  That was what her face was saying.

  Filth!

  She held her scissors defiantly in front of her, like a fierce-faced warrior photographed with his well-used weapon, threateningly flourished, or a boxer holding his gloved hands high in triumph after a first round knockout. With these she had done what had to be done. She was not a sloppy lopper, but snipped and snapped with surgical precision, and the white dust fell upon her from the mistreated marble.

  “One!” she had counted. She had no need of a referee.

  “Two!” she had counted.

  She had counted all the way up to ten – with scarcely any pauses for calculation – and her enemy had remained floored, out for the count, and still counting.

  “Seventeen!”

  “Er … Er …”

  “Eighteen!”

  “Er … Er … Er …”

  She faltered slightly at the approach of more advanced mathematics.

  I have not stood idly by. I have done what had to be done. I am the irresistible force of niceness. Nothing nasty flourishes in my vicinity.

  Her scissors had swung into action.

  Niceness gave her power.

  First there was Snip-snap! Snip-snap! Snip-snap!

  Then there was Tinkle! Tinkle! Tinkle!

  David’s new grin – it hadn’t been wiped off his face; it hadn’t faltered once – appeared ever braver, a breathtaking display of insouciance as he stood ankle-deep in the wreckage of his Gentlemen’s District, gazed upon by astonished Florentines. The smooth white remnants were heaped upon the plinth, and scattered down the steps in front of the Palazzo Vecchio, like the debris left behind by a recently retreated glacier.

  Mrs. Albert Comstock was waddling off triumphantly back across the Piazza della Signoria, her shadow squat before her. She held her scissors high in the air, snipping them and snapping them, as if to demonstrate how she had defeated her loathed enemy, an Old Testament champion dancing challengingly between opposing camps. She saith among the trumpets, Ha, ha, ha, ha; and she smelleth the battle afar off, the thunder of the captains, and the shouting. She had been too busy snip-snapping David to have noticed the nearby statue of Judith and Holofernes, but her pose (though it would require far more bronze: mass meltings would be mandatory; the faces of gods and goddesses would dissolve and flow) was an exact copy of Judith’s, the weapon held aloft in the right hand. After the snips, came the snaps, and after the snaps the tinkles. Verily.

  I am the irresistible force of niceness. Tremble, the not very nice! Panic, the forces of nastiness!

  David flexed his sling speculatively.

  She was well within range, a gargantuan Goliath impossible to miss with a well-slung stone, the champion of the Philistines.

  Smiting time had arrived in Florence.

  Her width was six cubits and a span. And she had an helmet of brass upon her head, and she was armed with a coat of mail; and the weight of the coat was five thousand shekels of brass. And she had greaves of brass upon her legs, and a target of brass between her shoulders. David was but a youth and ruddy, and of a fair countenance, but any moment now there was going to be the most tremendous clanging, like the collapse of a fully laden bell tower in mid-peal, as – with considerable enthusiasm – he unleashed his smite.

  This day the LORD had delivered her into his hand; and he would smite her, and take her head from her; and he would give the carcasses of the host of the Philistines this day unto the fowls of the air, and to the wild beasts of the earth. There was no sword in the hand of David. Therefore David would run, and stand upon the Philistine, and take her scissors and draw them out of the hands thereof, and slay her, and cut off her head therewith.

  The decapitated head in the statue of Judith and Holofernes should have been a warning unto her, though – in an intriguing variation of the original story – it was Judith who was about to be beheaded. David would quite enjoy doing this. He’d been rather bored standing there for all those years, and this was quite like old times again. It would serve her right for making his eyes water.

  She had herself provided the ammunition that would destroy her. David looked down, and there – conveniently close to hand – were the smooth stones for smiting with, far more than five. Mrs. Albert Comstock had lived by the snip-snap, and would die with what it was she had snip-snapped. There was a certain rough poetry in this symmetry of slaughter. David sorted five stones of the largest size, and picked out the largest of the lot. She wouldn’t like this. She wouldn’t like this at all. He would prevail over the Philistine with a sling and with a – ahem – stone, and smite the Philistine, and slay her.

  “You killed me with what?”

  Aghast could not be aghaster.

  Good.

  “With what?”

  Whirrr! Whirrr!

  He began to whirl the sling around his head. My word, it was heavy.

  (An expression of quiet pride came across his face.)

  The grin – it had appeared at just the right moment, and he put it to full use – reemerged and broadened.

  Whirrr! Whirrr!

  Leonardo da Vinci would be so thrilled to hear that sound, to see that blurred cyclonic whirling. He had waited centuries to see it take shape, but at last his sketch for a helicopter had leaped out of his notebooks and soared whirrr-whirrringly into the sky. He’d known it would work! Pshaw! to the pooh-poohers! Admitted
ly, it was distinctly annoying that he’d had to rely on Michael Angelo for technical assistance (he would have liked to have slung that sling), but – and this was the most important thing – his vision had finally taken flight.

  The best bit about killing Goliath had been when the stone had hit the Philistine in his forehead, and the stone sunk into his forehead. David had really enjoyed that “sunk into.” Goliath had swayed there for a moment, like a three-eyed creature on the point of death – his third eye spouting blood – and then he fell upon his face to the earth with a ground-shuddering thud. It was just as well that they were away from Jericho, or the walls would have crashed down all over again, just after they’d spent all that money rebuilding them, even stronger than before. They were guaranteed proof against the most sonorous of rams’ horn trumpets, but damage caused by demolished Goliaths was not covered by the insurance policy.

  He had to get her to turn around. Only by doing this could he sink the stone into her forehead; only by doing this could he see her crash to earth upon her face. He wanted the women to come out of all cities of Israel again, singing and dancing, to meet King Saul, with tabrets, with joy, and with instruments of musick, saying, Saul hath slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands. He’d enjoyed making Saul very wroth, all jealous and sulky. The eternal sleepiness of tending sheep had long lost its allure.

  He had to get Mrs. Albert Comstock to turn around.

  (Sunk into! Sunk into!)

  What could he do to delay her? What could he say to have the necessary effect? Should he tell her that he was only a copy of Michael Angelo’s David, and that the provocatively unlopped original stood in the Galleria dell’Accademia? Would that make her turn around? No, that wouldn’t do. He could do better than that.

  She wasn’t too far away from him, and he had to act before she became small in the distance. No, on second thoughts, the Piazza della Signoria was nowhere near big enough for her ever to appear small in it, no matter how far away within it she was. She wouldn’t look small in the Sahara Desert, the Great Plains, or the Steppes of Central Asia, humming an appropriate air from Aleksandr Borodin. Pigeons whirred into the air to both sides of her as she Juggernauted through them, and it was as if her hat were given life beyond her control, activated into a bid for freedom.

  Might it be worth waiting to see if she ambled across the piazza and accidentally stood for a moment on the plaque that marked the place where Savonarola had been hanged as a heretic and burned, and unleash his – ahem – unusually shaped stone upon her there? There could be no better place for a second execution. It appealed to his sense of symmetry. After the beheading there would be a bonfire of the vanities – it would burn for weeks – which would surpass anything that had been seen there in the fifteenth century.

  George Eliot came dashing down from the Casa Guida, arm in arm with Elizabeth Barrett Browning – great writers could scorn chronology; they lived in the same moment, whatever the time – eager to take notes for her new version of Romola, one, this time, that people could read and survive. This would be so useful for her research! The Reverend H. P. Goodchild (she ever yearned to equal the achievement of his oeuvre) had kindly condescended – she’d been so grateful – to give her numerous helpful hints on how she might improve her novel writing. Romola: The Fury of the Florentines would be a literary sensation! Under his tutelage, all her novels could be wondrously transformed! The Curse of Casaubon! The Sins of St. Ogg’s! The Sorrows of Silas! If she listened in a true spirit of humility, she might learn how to be as good as Marie Corelli.

  Scribble, scribble, scribble!

  Mrs. Albert Comstock was alongside the Loggia dei Lanzi, just in front of him, and reared suddenly away from it, a distinct list to starboard, as she caught sight of more statuary uninhibitedly glorying in its nudity, automatically activating her scissors. David could hear the Snip-snap! Snip-snap! distinctly, like the jaws of a hungry animal sensing the nearness of food. Like Stendahl in Florence she was overwhelmed and whimpering (though for rather different reasons), unable to cope with the excessive richness assailing her from all sides.

  So much to snip!

  So much to snap!

  So little time!

  Her work would never be done!

  The first sideways rear was for Perseus.

  She lingered, speculatively snip-snapping, definitely tempted.

  David’s grin was positively wolfish. The shepherd was about to leap upon the lamb and devour it utterly. No, he wouldn’t wait to see if she stood on Savonarola’s plaque. He couldn’t wait. He did not need a Shoot here! target to focus his aim; he wanted to smite, and smite mightily, now. There would be no clang on the brass of the helmet, no clang on the brass of the coat of mail, no clang on the brass of the legs. All there would be would be the smiting of the forehead – sunk into! sunk into! – and then the thunderous bell-tower collapse. The fowls of the air and the wild beasts of the earth would be gathering.

  He’d do it now.

  All that Mrs. Albert Comstock saw in Perseus was his nudity. What she failed to see was that Perseus was holding the severed head of Medusa, a warning – if she could but see it – as to her future fate. Hers was the head and hers would be the scissors with which David would cut it off.

  He had to get her to turn around.

  What was her first name again?

  All he could remember – ouch! – was the snip-snap of her scissors.

  Then he recollected. It was not “Mrs. Albert.” It was Sibyl.

  The grin appeared once more, and Schiffendecken’s handiwork shone out upon the land. He’d lure her into turning around, with the use of the grin and her first name. She’d find it impossible to spurn his seductive use of a Sibyl.

  Whirrr! Whirrr!

  The helicopter began its ponderous ascent.

  “Theebyl!” David called enticingly. “Theebyl Comthtock!”

  Because of the newly acquired false teeth he spoke with a lisp, unexpected, but not unattractive.

  “Theebyl!” he cooed with a Siren-like allure. He spoke with the voice of Carlo Fiorelli after several glasses of wine too many. It was the voice of the waiter in a Staten Island summer hotel.

  Mrs. Albert Comstock – hearing the rare sound of “Sibyl” (all senses were on full alert: it was “Sibyl,” wasn’t it?) – paused, lingered …

  Whirrr! Whirrr!

  “Theebyl! Oh, Theebyl!”

  She hesitated a little, but then the waddle away from him continued, and with a more determined step. It was as if a malodorous beggar was importuning her, a beggar deficient in underwear, and she had firmly decided to withdraw herself from this lack of drawers. She knew who it was calling out to her in that shamefully enticing manner. You’d have thought that the skillfully employed scissors would have put paid to that sort of thing. She hadn’t forgotten that ghastly sight, the shamefully ebullient beefiness of that Florentine “meat flasher.” (“Meat flasher” – thank heaven for quotation marks! – was a term she’d learned from Mrs. Alexander Diddecott, who had a nephew of seventeen, and so – shudder – knew all about slang. It was the sort of expression that Roland Birtle probably employed on a daily basis, flagrantly discarding the necessary punctuation.) She wasn’t going to look at that again.

  Well, if she wouldn’t come to that – David decided – then that would hurtle toward her, and for that to finish her off in the most enjoyable manner possible, it was necessary for her to turn around.

  “Theebyl! Oh, Theebyl Comthtock!”

  There was another dramatic list to starboard.

  Mrs. Albert Comstock had just caught sight (Aaaaghhhh!) of The Rape of the Sabine Women, another of the statues in the Loggia dei Lanzi. Hither and thither Theebyl dithered, ahemmed in on all sides by aggressive unsuitabilities, dubious danglinesses. Was she stunned à la Stendahl (and, possibly, flummoxed à la Flaubert)? Had she lost her sense of direction? Was she going to find herself – in attempting to seek refuge – heading (awful thought) toward the Duomo i
n her confused and vulnerable condition, blundering straight into the very heart of candles, incense, confessionals, loitering, leering priests seductively swinging their thuribles as if in an attempt at hypnosis?

  “Eek!” she’d shriek. “Eek!”

  She wouldn’t eke out her eeks; she’d litter them lavishly.

  “Theebyl!”

  Whirrr! Whirrr!

  The seductive voice behind her called again.

  “Theebyl!”

  Mrs. Albert Comstock began to turn around …

  Choosing what appeared to be the perfect moment, and just the right sort of song for the occasion, Judith and Holofernes, Perseus and Medusa, and all the Sabine Women, launched themselves encouragingly into the chorus of “Throw Him Down, McCluskey,” showing an impressive knowledge of one of the rowdier of contemporary American compositions. Any excuse to flash their new gnashers. It’d be “Down Went McGinty (Dressed in His Best Suit of Clothes)” next. The severed heads sang with an unexpected resonance, swaying from side to side in time to the rhythm. The Sabine Women had been members of a well-rehearsed amateur choir, dragged off in mid-recitation, and even included hand movements (“Throw Her Down, David!” they’d be singing. “Down Went Mrs. Comstock!”)

  The stone – it was the right size and shape – would (Thwunk!) protrude from the middle of her forehead. For one brief, fairytale moment – just before she crashed to earth with a discordant clang (“Gracious!”) – a unicorn would be seen on earth again, and dreams could come true.

  The stone would have sunk into, and Mrs. Albert Comstock would be sunk.

  (“This is a child! We only found it today. It’s as large as life, and twice as natural!”

  (“I always thought they were fabulous monsters!” said the Unicorn. “Is it alive?”

  (“It can talk,” said Haigha solemnly.

  (The Unicorn looked dreamily at Alice, and said, “Talk, child.”

  (Alice began: “Do you know, I always thought Unicorns were fabulous monsters, too? I never saw one alive before!”)