by Paula Byrne
Onstage, she is more radiant and poised than ever before, breaking hearts with that voice: a voice that sounds like midnight; like cigarette smoke and perfume and brandy, and amber lighting.
And still they come, in droves, wanting an intimate glimpse of a goddess; waiting for the moment when she would cease to be a statue and become flesh and motion. And when she finishes, she raises her arms above her golden head and bows, and the flowers rain upon her like manna from heaven.
Dishonored
Mother bought me a brick house that could never be blown down by the big bad wolf, but I paid a large price. She summoned me to the rented house in Brentwood to help her pack for Vegas. I was expected to be there, always at the end of the telephone, forever at her beck and call. Before leaving, she pressed her body against my husband in a suggestive way and kissed the baby, carrying away a soiled bib as a reminder.
Mother loved being rich again. She bestowed lavish presents on my little boy, whom she loved because he had inherited her thin, elegant bones. When she saw him reading a book of fairy tales, she arranged a surprise. On her next visit, she arrived dressed in a gown of layered pink chiffon. A rose rested in her bosom. She even tried to find real glass slippers, but had to make do with plastic. He was enchanted by the ‘pwetty lady’.
She purchased yards and yards of silver-tipped Russian sable to make a fur stole – a ten-foot runner of skins that wrapped around her body like a second skin. She called it ‘The Animal’ and later grew to hate it. It cost her a fortune to insure, so she decided to lose it. She left it under her seat at the theatre, but it was returned. She left it in taxis, but it was returned. When she was shopping in Bloomingdale’s, she let it slide off – somehow it found its way back to her and she was forced to smile graciously and offer a reward.
Finally, on a boat to Europe she had had enough, so during a storm she went to the upper deck and threw it over into the sea. Finally, rid of The Animal, she called Papi to call the insurance company. Two hours later, the captain returned it to her, beaming with pride. It had flown off the edge and landed on the head of a third-class passenger. She said that the day she cancelled the insurance someone would steal it.
When she discovered that I was to have another baby, she smiled her thin smile.
‘Doesn’t he let you douche? And he still expects you to work?’
That evening we dined with Mother and her friend, the little French sparrow with the spectacular voice. The sparrow turned to my husband and asked him how it felt to live off his mother-in-law. He asked her to repeat the question. She did. We rose, without a word, and left the table.
‘You see,’ Mother said accusingly, ‘I brought her up to have perfect manners, and now look at her. Why does she need a second child when she already has a perfect son? I told you, women’s brains are too small, they can’t think straight.’
The next day, she telephoned as though nothing had happened. There were many times over the years that I banished her from the house. The first time was just after my first baby. When I looked at him, so perfect, so innocent, I felt a rush of protection, so fierce it was frightening. And then I felt a rush of hatred for my mother. I didn’t want her near my child. And then always something would happen to change my mind.
One day, a veteran came to see me. He pressed a coin in my hand and told me a story. He was just a boy in the war and he was afraid of dying. Mother gave him a coin and put it in his hand. She had told him that as long as he had her coin he’d be fine.
He told me that he was fine, and that he had made it home, and that he wanted to return his charm. He told me that he wanted to say to her as long as you have this coin, you will be fine. And then I felt a sudden rush of love for her as strong and swift as I had felt the rush of anger.
Tonight is Ours
When she least expects it, she falls in love. He is her last great love; twenty years younger, and virile. She has many names for him. Gypsy King is her favourite. When she is feeling ill-disposed towards him, he becomes ‘Curly’ – a joke about his premature baldness. To the world, he is the king of a successful Broadway show. To me, he is a mediocre musical star who treats her shoddily. When her first Vegas tour is over, she follows him to New York and rents an apartment on Park Avenue to be close to him. Her rooms are furnished in Siam red and gold; it looks like a brothel. She makes sure that the lamps are always dimmed, installs fluorescent lights underneath the huge king-size bed, and fills the rooms with mirrors. In her apartment, she will always look beautiful in the low light.
She stocks the fridge with his favourite food and drink, champagne and Russian caviar, and showers him with presents. He arrives late at night, after the show, often drunk, and they tumble into bed like teenagers. She is thrilled to see how her crisp white linen is streaked with his stage body make-up. In the morning, he remembers little of his professions of love.
Sometimes she stays with him at her daughter’s house. She tells Curly that they can ‘put the babies to bed as if they were ours’. She doesn’t see that he doesn’t want to play house with her, he can do that with his wife. He leaves again without making plans to see her again, and she is desperate, depressed. She sits waiting for his phone calls.
When friends call, she asks them to get off the line, so she doesn’t miss his call. Sometimes, he only has thirty minutes to spare. She can see that he is checking the time in the gold Philippe Patek watch she has given to him. Tick tock, tick tock, hickory dickory dock. She makes a telephone call to her daughter.
‘Sweetheart, I think I might be pregnant. I haven’t bled for ages. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have his baby?’
‘Mutti, did you speak to the doctor, like I asked you to?’ asks the daughter. I note that she doesn’t dare say that it might be the menopause.
‘No, I don’t need to see a doctor. Why would I need to see a doctor? I told you, I’m pregnant, I’m not sick. He needs an excuse to get rid of his mad wife. Did I tell you about Orson? An intelligent man like that! Falls for a Mexican hoofer. Why? Does he like orange hair underarms?’
She never liked Rita Hayworth.
She is having trouble sleeping. She has begun taking suppositories to send her off. They enter the bloodstream quicker than pills. She calls her suppositories her ‘Fernando Lamas’ – ‘You know, sweetheart, the most boring man in Hollywood. He could always send me to sleep.’
‘Mutti, don’t mix the pills with champagne. It’s dangerous. Please don’t do that,’ says the nagging daughter.
‘Nebbish. I don’t drink. Besides, these pills don’t touch me. Anyway, the King is adorable. He told me that he had loved me ever since he was a boy. I know he has other women, but he loves me better than anyone else. And you know what I told you: once a woman has forgiven a man, don’t reheat his sins for breakfast.’
But when she is alone, she suddenly looks tired. She takes her pills and washes them down with a mug of champagne. The maid will think that she’s drinking coffee. She drifts into sleep, waiting for a phone call that never comes. I watch over her. Mirrors never sleep, just as mirrors never lie.
I Lift up My Lamp
While Mother was wowing the crowds around the globe, I was becoming famous too, on a much smaller scale and a smaller screen: television. I loved watching television and appearing on it. Mother was scathing about it and predicted that it was a fad and would never last. For her, it was just too small a screen. For me, there was a special relationship between a television actor and the audience who invited her into their homes. The actor must seem grateful for the invitation, and, if you succeed, you become a friend. You mustn’t make a fool of someone in their own home. There’s a special kind of intimacy – the kind that terrified my mother. She would scream at me: ‘Do you think anyone on their deathbed wished they’d watched more television?’
She changed her mind when her King disagreed with her about the small screen. He had been a TV director, before Br
oadway, and it was he who convinced her of television’s huge potential. He told her that I was part of the development of the medium, and that she should encourage her daughter. Oh, my! How I wished he hadn’t taken my side.
She marched into the TV studio.
‘Don’t let me disturb your important work. I’m only here to support my wonderful daughter. I don’t want to be in the way.’
Then, in the darkness of the studio a voice would boom: ‘The light needs to be higher on her face, her nose looks too long. That hat is throwing a shadow on her face.’
And so it went on, until I forbade her entrance, after having apologised profusely to the staff, who, were, of course, charmed and enchanted by her interest.
I became something of a household name, and Life magazine requested a lead feature. Of course, they also wanted my mother on the cover. The image was Narcissus looking into the pond. I was photographed on the top of the page, looking down at the reverse image of my mother below. Her blonde hair was streaming behind her in a mass of curls, her arm outstretched, as she looked upwards towards my reflection. Mother told everyone, ‘It was my idea that I should be at the bottom and my beautiful daughter at the top. She is the star. Not me. Besides, my hair looks better spread down. No, no, no. I must be at the bottom.’
There was another person who saw the potential of television: Jack Kennedy. On the ‘Tonight Show’, he impressed viewers with his good looks and charm. He talked not only politics, but about his love of football and his wife. She was beautiful, and stylish, just like Jack’s mother, who was so kind to me. I remember in Antibes, Papa Joe saying ‘image is reality’. They were always ahead of the curve.
Then I saw on television that Jack was president. It should have been his brother Joe, but his plane exploded over the cold English Channel, and there were no bits to bury, no grave to visit. So now it was skinny Jack, who had danced with me in Antibes, and taken me to tea and for hamburgers, and who always made me feel pretty. It was Jack who rescued me from the Rhino, who saw exactly who she was because he recognised the fear in my eyes.
I wished Jack could see that I had turned out to be OK. I had shed the rolls of fat, developed cheekbones you could slice cheese with, and had legs as long and slender as my mother’s. Now when I looked into the mirror, I liked my reflection. I marvelled at the smoothness of my skin, my silky blonde hair that flicked across one hooded eye, the curve of the Cupid’s bow. My old enemy winked back at me: ‘More than passable, my dear girl. Really quite charming.’
Mother, at the age of sixty, looked like my sister. Every year, she seemed to look younger. She convinced herself it was the apple vinegar that she sipped religiously that kept her skin so fresh, her tummy so taut, that maintained her superhuman energy levels. Her bathroom cabinets revealed a different story: cortisone, Butazolidin, phenobarbital, codeine, belladonna, Nembutal, Seconal, Librium, Darvon. Who were the ‘Dr Feelgoods’ prescribing this stuff?
I refused her offers of ‘help’ for my own depleted energy levels.
‘You always needed your sleep, dear. Just like your father. Why don’t you try a little of this,’ and she passed me one of her tiny bottles, which I declined.
I helped her to pack for her world tour, and told her that I would meet her in New York where I would resume my duties. I made her promise to give my love to Aunt Birgitte when she saw her in Berlin. Mother glared when I mentioned her sister’s name, but said nothing. When we said our goodbyes, she made a parting shot: ‘You know I’m dragging myself around the world like this for you and the children, and for Papi. How else can you afford to live in luxury as you do? And who else pays the bills for Papi’s ranch? And Sofi’s crazy doctors?’
I didn’t dare remind her that Papi’s ‘ranch’ was a tiny shack in the middle of nowhere, out in the dusty San Fernando valley where he bred chickens to try to earn a living, trying to claw back some shreds of dignity. Or that my poor Sofi had been driven crazy by the many abortions my mother had forced upon her so that the secret of my parents’ dead marriage was never revealed.
I breathed a sigh of relief when her car came and she slipped into the back seat, elegant in her tailored suit and fur stole. As I watched her car drive away, I wondered how it was possible that she could still frighten me so much. I was a wife and mother and a successful TV star, but she still had the capacity to turn my knees to jelly, without ever raising her voice.
The Party’s Over Now
‘You’re embarrassing yourself again, Joan. What was it you once said about knowing the moment when love has flown out of the window?’
‘When you arrive two hours late, and he hasn’t called the police.’
‘He only comes to you when he’s drunk.’
‘Don’t be pert.’
‘And the new baby.’
‘As ugly as a hairless monkey. She does it on purpose to humiliate me. More headlines about the most glamorous granny in the world. Do you want to know what she said to me? She said she wants to live a normal life. I told her that I think that very few people are normal, deep down in their private lives. What a thing to aspire to. Normality!’
‘Now where do we go? London?’
‘Ah wonderful London; the higher the buildings, the lower the morals. Yes, and then Berlin.’
‘Are you really ready for Berlin, Joan, dear. Is it wise?’
‘I’ve told you, I never hated Germany. I hated the Nazis. I have Burt to protect me. It’s his idea.’
Burt tells her she will perform at the Titania-Palast theatre in Berlin. She will return triumphant and it will be a test of character for Germany after fifteen years of shame. I wonder just how they will react to their erstwhile Fairy Queen. It was Hitler she despised, never the German people. Let them spit in her face, if they dare.
Madou wants a new gown for her show. It must be a sensation. She is addicted to the gasp of wonder when she is first seen by her adoring audience. She is reading the poetry of Gunnar Ekelof. Her thoughts drift to Boni and the goddess that stands at the head of the sweeping Daru staircase of the Louvre. Boni always saw beauty in her motion and her stillness because he knew the concentration it required.
She studies pictures of ‘The Winged Victory of Samothrace’. The gown so artfully draped around the voluptuous torso, clinging to the right leg that strides forward in motion. Nike, descended from the skies and guarding the ship’s prow, fighting the wind, proclaiming victory. Madou is struck by the paradox of violent motion and stillness. The gown is rippling in the strong sea breeze. She studies the striking feather pattern on her wings. How can she recreate this look?
She needs a wind machine. She needs silk chiffon to ripple in the breeze. Strips of silk strategically draped across her breasts and hips. Instead of wings, she will have her swan’s-down coat.
Before she faces the press in Berlin, she looks at me and tweaks her wide-brimmed hat. She wears a black, well-cut dress, a mink coat, high-heeled shoes, and white gloves. Her only adornment is the small French Légion d’honneur ribbon. There is something monkish about her, so severe, and yet she has a cool, polished eroticism.
The press conference is full, and they shout her name as she enters the room. She speaks in a soft voice, answering questions from Der Tagesspiegel.
No, she has not been to the Tiergarten section of town. She recognises the zoo where she had played marbles as a child. No, she does not have mixed feelings about being back in Berlin. You don’t go to a city to be sad just because you were once a child there. She is here to make money.
The only indication that she is less than confident is her chain-smoking, though she smokes slowly, and with precision. She refrains from speaking in Berlin dialect. Her world tour will start in Berlin and will end in Washington DC.
How does she stay so slim? She eats veal steak and green salad, and drinks tea with honey. She thanks the press and retires to her suite at the Hilton. When they ask
questions about her sister, she is shocked and says, ‘I have no sister.’ She leaves in a sea of flashing light bulbs.
When she performs at the Titania-Palast theatre, she is dignified and poised. She never sheds a tear or betrays a shred of sentimentality. The crowd is respectful after the last song (she never gives an encore). Thunderous applause erupts. She takes a deep, low bow in her swan’s-down coat, looking for all the world like a swan in human form. When she has sung her final song, ‘My Blondest Baby’, the audience delight her by throwing flowers onto the stage.
She encounters a less positive reception in Bad Kissingen, where she is booed by a throng of teenagers, who hold up a banner saying ‘Traitor’ in black spidery writing. In Dusseldorf, a young girl spits in her face. Madou wipes her face, calmly, and carries on. When someone in the audience hurls an egg onto the stage, the crowd erupts and gives her a standing ovation for refusing to be driven out by a Nazi.
She flies to Israel, where she’s told she can’t sing one song in German. She says, ‘No I won’t sing one, I will sing nine.’ She does and the audience cheers. When she sings Richard Tauber’s ‘Frag’ Nicht Warum Ich Gehe’, the audience weeps. Have they lost their minds, one wonders? She donates all the proceeds of her first concert in Tel Aviv to a rehabilitation centre for the Israeli army. Later, she insists on performing for the army, whose applause brings her to tears. She asks Burt to make a sound recording of the applause.
Back in her suite, she is exhausted, and pale. These days, she always seems to find herself alone. She is painfully thin, and seems to have lost her appetite. She tells no one of the pains in her abdomen. The excruciating pain in her right leg. She will carry on. No complaints. Always the soldier.