Blue Angel

by Francine Prose

  Laughter is impossible. Every motion’s a strain: waking, cooking, opening the mail are like acting-class exercises. Their sense of being on stage persists even when they’re alone. Sherrie—the confrontational one—is obviously trying to get through this without open antagonism, which means not bringing up his affair with Angela or the upcoming hearing. But there is no other subject, everything is about that.

  This is why God made alcohol. Though plenty of people, the guests at Bentham’s, maybe Len—and Sherrie, for all he knows—probably think Swenson has had a drinking problem for quite some time, Swenson disagrees. But now is when a drinking problem would solve a lot of more serious problems. This is the moment for which God created drinking problems. Swenson watches the cases of wine empty, wrapping the world around him in Styrofoam, cushioning voices and objects as if for the shock of a move, a spongy buffer zone between Swenson and his life. Alcohol keeps him numb and paradoxically energized with an oddly pleasurable anger: white noise that drowns out the dangerous whispers of pain and fear and sorrow.

  So he’s not paying quite the attention he might when Sherrie comes home and tells him that she’d gone to the library, and there’d been a rally on the steps, the Faculty-Student Women’s Alliance with their placards demanding that Euston be made a safe place for women. In preparation for that happy day, they’ve started redecorating. Banners drape the women’s dorms. STOP SEXUAL HARASSMENT NOW. NO WHITEWASH FOR SEXUAL HARASSERS. It’s given the bleak, wintry quad a splash of Mardi Gras color.

  Poor Sherrie had to walk right by the demonstration. She stood and watched the speakers ranting in that shrill, strained warble that she says could make you understand why guys hate women. Swenson wonders, Was Angela there? When Sherrie passed the demonstrators—they were blocking the steps—Lauren Healy invited her to come up and speak, and the other women cheered.

  Sherrie says, “I couldn’t get up there and argue with them as if I was on your side. But I’ve been on your side for so long, I’ve had so much practice being on your side, I couldn’t figure out which side I was on, or how to be on anyone else’s.”

  Wine or no wine, Swenson hears Sherrie say that. He’s still reeling, he hasn’t quite caught his breath, when Sherrie tells him she’s had it, she’s leaving, she’s going to stay in the large farmhouse that Arlene Shurley has lived in alone ever since her husband quit knocking her around long enough to miss a curve in the road and plow into a cinderblock shed.

  Sherrie’s right. You can live with someone forever and not know them at all. Personally, he’s astonished to discover that the woman with whom he’s spent his life prefers Arlene to him. If, as Sherrie said, guys always turn out to be guys, maybe women turn out to be women, with their Jane Eyre and their covens.

  On the night after Sherrie moves out, Swenson’s a little looped when Ruby calls. But he distinctly hears her say, “I think it sucks, what you did to Mom.”

  Then she tells him she didn’t call to talk about that. She called to say she won’t be coming home for Christmas. She’s decided to spend the holidays with Sherrie at Arlene Shurley’s. Fine. They can have their own private battered women’s shelter. Ruby can do an internship with her mom and her mom’s weepy friend. Besides, he knows that Ruby is the last person on earth whose mind he would attempt to change with logic or persuasion.

  For a few nights, Swenson tries cooking something Sherrie would have made, a simple omelet, or spaghetti carbonara. But the sauce refuses to coat the pasta and sticks in the pan, grainy lumps of butter and cheese, a thick coating of bacon grease. Each culinary attempt involves at least one moment of panic—he can’t find the pasta server, the butter’s smoking under the omelet—and eventually he gives up. Why not live like the rest of the world? Frozen microwave dinners. Actually, they’re not so bad. He and Sherrie should have done this before, instead of making such a production of their middleclass gourmet life. But the exotic charm of the freezer section wears off, and after a while he stops eating, though from time to time he heats up a can of baked beans or creamed corn, healthy vegetarian stuff.

  Most afternoons, he doesn’t drink till five, though sometimes it’s closer to four. During the day he reads. Engrossed in his book, he forgets to listen for Sherrie’s car, for the noises that will announce she’s had second thoughts and come back. He stops waiting for Magda to call and assure him she’s still his friend even though it was stupid to get involved with a kid. He stops dreading that Magda will hear about the tape—or worse, that she’ll find out he tried to give Angela’s manuscript to Len Currie.

  Swept along by some plot turn or revelation of character, he can forget his grief over Sherrie and what he’d foolishly thought was his life, and almost convince himself that this apparent curse is really a blessing. He can read as much as he wants, he doesn’t have to teach, he is filling up the cup that will spill all over his writing! Meanwhile, he can’t help noticing that he’s reading the great classics of adultery, or, depending on one’s personal interpretation, the great classics of inappropriate, tragic, ennobling, life-changing love. He dips into Anna Karenina, rereading his favorite scenes, looks at Madame Bovary, tries The Scarlet Letter—which he can’t get through at all. Passion and its punishments: poison, prison, a train. Not much slack for the sinners. Tolstoy would say that Swenson should find the nearest train to jump under. Which may not be a bad idea. But Swenson won’t let himself go there—where his father went.

  No one forgives the liars, the cheaters. Except for Chekhov, of course. That’s what Swenson wants: the end of “The Lady with the Pet Dog,” Gurov and Anna deceiving their mates, neither of them perfect despite their great transformation by love, the love that has lifted them out of the shallow pond in which they’d dog-paddled all their lives. Gurov is still a delusional poseur, Anna still passive and whiny, but they’re not just small and ridiculous in their low-rent lusts, but humans, acting out of their mortal desires and dreams and fears, and therefore lovable and forgivable. The hardest part is still before them. Swenson has no trouble believing the hardest part’s in front of him.

  Maybe Tolstoy and Flaubert are right, he should be diving under the train or drinking some poison that will make him swell up and turn blue. But when he lets himself imagine that all of this is being observed and forgiven because he’s only human, with all his flaws and imperfections, well, then he can actually get himself up off the couch and make some token attempt to wrest control of his day from the suicidal kamikaze who most times seems to be driving.

  During one such attempt to act like an adult whose future is at risk, Swenson returns Angela’s book of poems to the library. He doesn’t know or care, really, if this will help or hurt his case. His instinct is purely expulsive. He wants it out of the house. He goes at eight, when the library opens, an hour when no self-respecting Euston student would be studying, when even the members of the Women’s Alliance are still snuggled in their beds, dreaming of Amazon utopia. Not even Betty Hester has come to work, but is home trying to dislodge those half-dozen children from their nest under her skirts.

  Amazingly, no one’s at the desk. The sanctuary is unguarded. Anyone could steal anything from the magazine rack. Swenson rushes out of the library, so energized by the ease with which he’s aced this dangerous mission that he feels emboldened to attempt a trip down Main Street. Since Sherrie left, he’s avoided town, not for fear of meeting someone he knows, but rather from an irrational terror of Christmas decorations. If he stays home, avoids the radio and TV, and confines himself to books whose authors are dead, he can generally manage not to notice what season it is. Not that he’s ever had a particular attachment to the holidays—quite the opposite, in fact—but he’s sure that his already low spirits will dip further if he remembers that his wife and daughter have left him just in time for Christmas.

  Once again, Euston comes through. His dear little country town! What was he imagining—the gaudy splendor of Fifth Avenue department store displays? A string of lights flickers weakly around the edge o
f the awning at the convenience store. On the napkin of frozen grass in front of the Congregational Church, the Adoration of the Magi is being enacted by a group of store-window mannequins in golden crowns and purple terrycloth bathrobes. It’s hardly a scene to bring tears to one’s eyes, and Swenson passes by unscathed, so heartened by this that he decides to stop at Video Village. Miraculously—this is his lucky day—the store is open early, possibly for stay-at-home moms who have dropped off the kids at day care and are facing the gloomy hours ahead.

  Swenson evades the glittery enticements of the new arrivals, sails past the siren song of the depressing romantic comedies, and heads for the classics section. Brief Encounter, Rules of the Game—his principles of selection seem to be roughly similar to those that currently govern his choice of reading material. He takes The Blue Angel off the shelf and considers renting it, then puts it back with a sort of shudder, not of distaste but attraction. He tells himself he’ll save that for when he really needs it, for when he needs to see another pitiful self-abasing slob transformed by the magic of art into a tragic hero.

  And yet for all the care that Swenson takes to cushion his fragile psyche from the shock of holiday cheer and the grim reality of family celebration, he knows, he would know in outer space, when it’s Christmas Eve. He buys a gallon of good rum and several cartons of supermarket eggnog, which he mixes together in a crystal punch bowl—if he’s going to do this, he might as well do it right—but then, unable to find the ladle, dips his coffee mug into the eggy mess. After several cups, he finds himself thinking with amusement of all the terrible Christmases, strung out like some freakish popcorn-and-cranberry chain, reaching back to his boyhood. The Christmas when his father gave him, as his only gift, an impressive selection of nasty old bottles containing specimens of algae from the coastal waters; the Christmas that Ruby’s brand-new doll came broken from the store and refused to talk or wet itself or perform in any way, and Ruby spent the day wailing that she wanted a new one right now.

  How much better this is! Privacy, peace and quiet, enough eggnog to make himself puke, a library of comforting, suitable books. It’s been years since he’s looked at A Christmas Carol. So why is he sitting so near the telephone, in case Sherrie or Ruby decides to call to wish him a happy holiday and better luck for the coming year? He lets himself imagine that Angela will phone to tell him she’s thinking about him. What else has she got to think about, stuck home with her parents in New Jersey? Of course she’s thinking about him—about testifying against him. Even the eggnog reminds him of Angela’s book.

  The time begins to drag again. Swenson feels like some lovelorn high school girl waiting to hear from a boy. He has turned into the heroine of Angela Argo’s novel. Before the eggnog’s worked its magic—he’s on the cusp of still being able to drive—Swenson heads out on the icy, deserted road between his house and the video store.

  The rum has mercifully blurred the edges of his peripheral vision, allowing him not to register the Christmas Eve lonely guys edging their way to the curtained-off “adult” area. Though he himself could be looking for child porn, that’s how guilty he feels as he slinks down the aisles of the classics section. The Blue Angel isn’t in, isn’t anywhere. He frantically searches the shelves. Who could have taken the goddamn film? No one’s borrowed it for years—except for Angela Argo. Maybe she’s brought it home for vacation and is watching it over and over, thinking of him, of…Oh, what has he done to deserve this? He helped her with her work.

  He rushes to the cash register, behind which a pretty girl with long blond hair and blue eyes, a Botticelli cherub, is secretively nibbling potato chips from a bag hidden beneath the counter. If he had to get involved with a student, why not some sweetie like this instead of a shark with facial piercing and an eye on mainstream publication?

  Swenson says, “Is The Blue Angel in?”

  “Gee, I don’t know,” says the cherub. “The Blue Angel…Hey, what about It’s a Wonderful Life? Have you seen that? It’s the best angel movie there is. We’ve got ten copies just for Christmas Eve. And they all went out. But someone brought one back already. I guess they couldn’t wait.”

  And now Swenson remembers: why Angela and not this girl. He says, “It’s German. From the thirties.” It is very important to think of himself as someone who wants to see The Blue Angel and who would never ever watch It’s a Wonderful Life. But what difference does that make? Who cares what movies he likes? He’s ruined everything, over nothing, because of some embarrassing, pointless obsession with a difficult, dull girl, an amoral, ambitious child, literally scrambling over his body—

  The girl says, “I read in the papers where ninety percent of Americans believe in their personal guardian angels.”

  “That seems awfully high,” Swenson says. “I mean, a high percentage.”

  “I know I do,” says the girl. “Years ago I had this boyfriend who got mean when he was drunk? And one night he was coming for me with this two-by-four? And I saw this angel with a long white robe fly into the trailer and squeeze his hand till he dropped it.”

  “That’s amazing,” says Swenson. Where was the angel with the flaming sword barring the door to Angela Argo’s dorm room? “So…is the tape in?”

  “It should be there,” says the cherub. “I looked it up on the computer.”

  Swenson nearly runs back to the classics shelves, and this time finds the tape at once, hiding from him, in its unglamorous black-and-white melamine case, too venerable and distinguished to stoop to selling itself with a sexy photo of Marlene Dietrich.

  “Enjoy!” says Miss Botticelli. Neither she nor Swenson can hide their relief and pleasure in this transaction, which so easily could have gone the other way, the angel having to disappoint a stranger on Christmas Eve, perhaps with dire consequences.

  “Merry Christmas,” says the girl.

  “You, too,” Swenson mumbles.

  But first, a good deal more eggnog. A toast to Sherrie, Ruby, Angela, Magda, and while he’s being Christlike, to Dean Bentham and Lauren Healy and all his students. It’s proof of God’s existence that not only isn’t he kneeling on the bathroom floor with his head over the toilet, but he’s even capable of working the VCR. And now come the trembly, hand-lettered credits that last forever. He could fast-forward through them, but he needs to prepare for that first scene: the geese and ducks squawking in their cages. Then comes the cut to the classroom, the riotous students snapping to attention when Herr Professor Rath walks in (Swenson wishes he got that response), then the confiscated dirty postcards of Lola Lola with her feathered skirt, that downy slip of erotic couture that inspires the professor to seek out its wearer at that petri dish of vice, that snakepit, the Blue Angel Club.

  Swenson settles into his chair, dips another mugful of eggnog in preparation for that backstage meeting between Rath, who introduces himself, “I am a professor at the gymnasium,” and Marlene Dietrich, aka Lola Lola, who appraises him coolly—so what if he’s in a topcoat and she’s in frilly bloomers?—and says, “In that case you should know enough to remove your hat.” And that’s it for Herr Professor. That tiny power reversal, that tiny tweak of S&M, and he’s a goner before she says, “Behave…and you can stay,” all of which is being observed (Swenson can hardly bear this part) by the professor’s students, hiding in Lola Lola’s room.

  Nor does he find it much easier to witness Lola’s refusal to sell her favors to a customer for money. “I’m an artist!” she says. And he watches through spread fingers as she sings her famous song, in English “Falling in Love Again,” a song of helpless passion from a woman obviously in control, but still it makes the whole audience fall for her—the professor and Swenson, too. What a sucker Swenson is for these women and their…art. And now it seems—has he missed something?—Rath and Lola Lola have spent the night together, and even the preposterous, blustery, unsexy professor appears to have made it through a night of love without totaling a molar. So Swenson should quit feeling so knowing, so superior.
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br />   When Lola Lola tells Rath, “You’re really sweet,” Swenson grabs for the remote and replays the scene, searching for some clue. To what? Does Lola love the professor? Is her tenderness real? It’s as if the vulgar, graceless, boyish, sexy Lola were the boyish, graceless, sexy Angela, and the film—that is, Swenson’s ability to replay it—can somehow solve the mystery of his so-called real life, which passed too fast, and only once, and now he will never know.

  The twisted path down which he chased Angela seems to have veered away from the route that Professor Rath and Lola Lola—who have gotten married—are taking together. Soon enough the professor is selling those spicy postcards of the singer. Is that so different from trying to get Len Currie to look at Angela’s novel? Yes, it’s completely different! What is Swenson thinking? He was never down on his knees, putting on Lola’s stockings, in that gesture of self-abasement, intimacy, and surrender, never crowing like a rooster, never playing the clown, letting the magician crack eggs on his head.

  He thinks, with grief, of the broken eggs in Angela’s novel. Oh, wasn’t he, wasn’t he playing the clown, and isn’t he, isn’t he still? That’s why he’s going through with this hearing instead of gracefully resigning. He knows there’s no chance of winning, of proving his innocence. He wants that public humiliation, that one-man orgy of shame and repentance. He needs his fifteen minutes of playing Hester Prynne or Professor Immanuel Rath, the tragic figure of grotesque, masochistic self-debasement. And this is what the movie has done, this is the power of art, to make him recognize himself, understand and forgive. He never knew he was a masochist, but apparently he is one. He never really thought much about the way that Angela dressed, but maybe some secret part of him was attracted to all that hardware. He never saw himself as a clown. The world is full of surprises.