Mrs. Beast

by Pamela Ditchoff

Croesus wheezes appreciatively.

  "Johann didn't think she was funny. He pinched up his face and said, You must have said or done something more. Did you give them a little squeeze or a promise to meet later?

  "No matter that Rapunzel invited him along on her jaunts and laughed away his accusations. He'd become as possessive as Gothel had been. The more he groused, the more Rapunzel strayed and found amusing company elsewhere. Johann would've strangled her one afternoon if Uele the giant hadn't intervened."

  The hall clock pings twelve times and Croesus salivates like Pavlov's pooch.

  * * *

  Beauty sits on the stoop of Rapunzel's house enjoying the last evening of May. Apple trees in full blossom loom like white balloons in the deepening twilight, lending a festive air to Storyendburg. Through the open door, she hears the voices of Omar and Scheherazade setting the hearth for their nightly warm milk and honey. Lately, they have become increasingly subdued, and Beauty knows they miss their mother. She rises from the stoop and walks to the hearth where Omar has set three mugs of milk and Scheherazade is waiting to continue the story of Rapunzel. Her previous ten installments had given a vivid description of their year with Prince Johann, and Beauty is eager to hear a happy ending.

  "After one year with Prince Johann, Mother had it up to here,” Scheherazade says, snapping her hand over her eyes. "We moved to Storyendburg. End of story."

  "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?

  "Bwockhead! I am a writer! Get rid of these canvases and bring me parchment, wots of parchment!"

  Beauty shoves the mirror back in her satchel. "Oh, my beloved Beast, I miss you so," she laments, then turns and steps into the Black Forest.

  Chapter Nine

  Flowers In The Blood

  Beauty has been walking slowly, savoring the discovery that her additional ten pounds have straightened her spine, rolled her hips forward, and made her steps seem substantial. She has lingered at patches of fragrant wild ginger and woodland forget-me-not that grow in late spring, even in the deep shade of the Black Forest. Now a dull ache in Beauty's sacrum urges her to rest awhile on a fallen oak.

  Beauty opens her satchel and drinks from her wineskin. She has just bitten into a pungent loaf of pumpernickel, when she hears the excited squeals of children. The tree shakes beneath her, pine needles fall like rain, moss beds break and crumble, and she spies them coming, a boy and a girl, four feet tall and three feet wide. They wear stained bed sheets fastened with clothespins: hers at the shoulder, his at the waist. Globes of fat bulge their ruddy cheeks, making their pug noses and tiny ears obscenely disproportionate; shoulders, elbows, and knees undulate with layers of lard; twigs, leaves, dirt and dead bugs collect in the creases. The two move with the surprising speed of startled hippos. Their pendulous lips press together and open in two syllables: "Gim-me, gim-me, gim-me."

  Bearing down on Beauty, their fingers grab the air, and they shove and bump against each another. "I got dibs, Gretel!" the boy bellows.

  It dawns on Beauty that these corpulent children mean to steal her food.

  "Uh-uh, Hansel!" You ate more than half of the last gingerbread house," Gretel screeches and lumbers forward. Her pudgy fingers dig into the sides of the boar skin bag. Beauty hangs on tight.

  "Gimme that, you skinny bitch," Gretel growls and tugs like a terrier on a short leash. In the tussle, out tumble the pear, apples, and cheese. The chunk of chocolate flies through the air and lands on a white pine bough ten feet off the ground. Hansel quickstep jiggles after the sweet and slams his belly against the tree trunk.

  "That's mine!" Gretel wails and waddles after Hansel. Beauty knows from childhood experience with Violet and Daisy that it will take at least ten minutes for the victor to claim the spoils and most likely blood will be drawn. She leaves Hansel and Gretel squaring off over the chocolate and scurries up the path, feeling quite insubstantial.

  * * *

  Onward and upward Beauty walks, for this portion of the path gradually rises to the top of a hill. Upon reaching the summit, she sees the path descend into a deep valley filled with fog. Grimm Land fog is unique; by comparison London fog is translucent and San Francisco fog is flimsy. Well, there's no getting round it and no going back, Beauty concludes. She points her toes outward and duck walks down.

  At the bottom, Beauty confronts a wall of fog so thick that when she tests it, gray-white clots cling to her arm. Undaunted, she wades in and her two-pound passenger paddles its feet. Beauty stops and holds her belly.

  What am I thinking of, plunging headlong into the fog? A root could trip me, a branch could knock me senseless, or an evil doer could emerge, any number of things that could do harm to the baby.

  Beauty pictures Rapunzel in the sandstorm, huddled against the white camel, hugging Scheherazade and Omar, and she decides to sit down and wait.

  "Pardon me," a muffled voice sounds from beneath Beauty's leg. Beauty scoots sideways like a spooked spider, and the voice becomes more clear. "Would you be so kind as to free me from the earth?"

  "Would you do me evil if I release you?" Beauty asks.

  "I'm a piece of wood, a stick in the mud; I have neither arms or legs. How much harm can I do?"

  Beauty runs her hand along the ground and finds a long wooden staff pressed into the forest floor. She considers her options, flings caution to the wind, removes her mirror from the satchel, and uses the handle to pry the staff free.

  "A thousand thanks!" the staff cries. "Sycamore Staff at your service, kind lady. My esteemed profession is to guide travelers through Foggy Forest. A pair of corpulent, unmannerly children used me, then stomped me into the ground. Stay the staff and spoil the child!" Sycamore sputters. "All's right now. Grasp the top of my head, and I will gladly see you through to the other side."

  After an hour of directing Beauty through Foggy Forest, Sycamore tells her to halt. "A few more steps and you will be out of the woods."

  "My destination is Glass Mountain. I have been told that I must pass the Kingdom of Dreams, cross the Lake of Longing, and go on to the Charmed Kingdom in order to reach the mountain. Is this true?"

  "I know nothing of Glass Mountain. However, the Kingdom of Dreams is only three steps away. There is no path to follow. You'll see a field of flowers, but do not walk through them, stay to the edge of the woods, and keep the castle to your right. You'll soon reach the Lake of Longing. Now, please stand me against the white pine to your left so I may be handy for the next traveler."

  "Can you tell me one thing more? Will the King allow me safe passage through his kingdom?" Beauty asks, releasing the staff against the pine tree.

  "There's only one inhabitant of that castle, a princess of great beauty and questionable mind. More than likely, you won't see her. If she's in the fields, she'll take no notice of you, and if she's not in the fields, she's sleeping. If you want to reach the Lake of Longing, I advise you move swiftly past the castle."

  "Thank you for your assistance and advice," Beauty says, then takes three steps forward and enters the Kingdom of Dreams.

  Not since leaving French fairy tale land has she experienced June afternoon sunshine on a field of flowers. She's dazzled by the tapestry stretched before her: poppies of pink, mauve, violet, and red; blossoms with fringed yellow centers bobbing their heads above bluish green foliage, shedding
their petals like milk maids casting off bright bonnets. In the center of the field stands an ancient castle. Its battlements have crumbled away, and ivy covers all but the south wall where swallows nest in deep cracks. A weathered gray drawbridge, its chains broken and dangling, spans a shallow moat. Heads of statues float disembodied here and there among the flowers. Beauty's tempted to gather an armful and weave a garland for her hair. However, Sycamore told her not to walk among the flowers. Perhaps there are sharp thorns or poisonous snakes or elves concealed beneath the blooms.

  The West Wind appears on the horizon, his balloon cheeks propelling him through the sky in starts and hops. Beauty welcomes the fresh air, for breezes rarely penetrate the dense Grimm forests. She turns her face to the wind, crinkles her nose, and sneezes to dispel the acrid, overpowering odor. She covers her mouth, staggers toward the trees and heaves, staggers and heaves. Before slipping into unconsciousness, she sees a human figure amid the flowers, doubled over, crab-walking backward, rolling brown balls between its palms.

  * * *

  "I'll never let you watch The Wizard of Oz again!" Elora the Enchantress wags her finger at Croesus the hound, who has lain in the poppy bed of the Deco gardens.

  "I will not wave a wand over my crystal ball and make it snow in the Kingdom of Dreams. Aren't you the one who didn't want me to use magic when Beauty started this quest? Didn't we agree that she deserves the chance to prove herself?"

  Croesus's ears droop in submission, but he does not move.

  "Listen up, poppy head. There is no Glinda the Good Witch in Baum Land; that squeaky blonde was a Hollywood invention. The real Witch of the North is silver-haired munchkin. The Wicked Witch of the West did not conjure up the poppy field; Dorothy and gang stumbled into it. Tin Man and Scarecrow carried her out because, being made of straw and metal, they weren't zonked by the scent. Neither is Fergus, genus Giant Frogus Imperviosis, the frog who is at this moment hopping through the poppy field to carry Beauty inside the castle."