Mirror, Mirror

by Paula Byrne

  I held my children close to me and promised I wouldn’t leave them again for a long, long time. It was Friday, and I walked them to school. On days like these, I sometimes wanted to cry with happiness. How had I arrived here, with a husband I adored and four children – thankfully all boys? I don’t know what I would have done with a daughter. I would be worried that she might turn out to be beautiful like my mother, and I never wanted that curse upon my imaginary little girl. That fairy in the tale of Sleeping Beauty who gave the baby the gift of beauty – what a curse that turned out to be! Sometimes I wanted my beautiful mother to sleep for a hundred years. All I had ever wanted was contentment – the Cinderella of emotions.

  I was busy at home and awaited her return from this, the final leg of her tour. She was thrilled when Jack rang her. He had seen her concert and asked her to the White House for drinks. She seemed edgy when she called me on the phone. She disapproved of my childish delight in Thanksgiving. She found it unseemly, too American.

  Bobby had wanted to hear my news, and they had laughed about my girlish crush on Jack. So she had noticed? I truly believed she was too busy sleeping with his father and his older brother to have noticed our special friendship. I thought of us swimming to the island, and seeing the damselflies. The time he crossed the dance floor to ask me to be his partner. Mother’s jealousy at anyone who superseded her place in my affections. How I had tried so hard to conceal my love.

  She returned to New York the next day. She came to our house (the one she had bought with her hard-earned money), and let herself in with her key. She was always exhausted at the end of a tour, but today she was triumphant and flushed. She was looking elegant in a cream tweed suit, and carried a large black leather purse.

  ‘Mutti, you’re back. How was the White House? What can I get you?’

  I remember her face was hard and lovely.

  She looked at me for what seemed a long time, drinking in every detail. Her silence was unnerving.

  ‘How was he, Mutti? The president, Jack. Did you see him?’

  She held out her purse and unlocked the clasp. Then she slowly reached into the lining and took out something silky and sheer, pale pink edged with golden-brown lace. She thrust it under my nose.

  ‘Kater, smell him. It’s the president. He was magnificent.’

  Kater Through the Looking Glass

  Let me tell you a story about a little girl who once upon a time fell down a rabbit hole. She is sitting in a drawing room with her cat. Outside, the snow is falling so gently that it seems to be kissing the windowpanes. Kissing all over. The snow will cover the trees and the fields in a white cosy quilt – go to sleep, darlings, until the summer comes again.

  Above the flickering fireplace is a large looking glass. The cat has been naughty and needs to be punished, so the little girl lifts the cat up to the looking glass and threatens to put her through it. ‘If you’re sulky and not good directly, I’ll put you through into Looking-Glass House. How would you like that? Oh, Kitty Cat, wouldn’t it be nice to be through the looking glass?’

  To the little girl’s astonishment, the glass begins to melt away like a bright, silvery mist. The first thing she sees on the other side is a clock with the face of an old man, grinning at her …

  Later on, in a garden of talking flowers, she bumps into the Red Queen. The Red Queen gives her a biscuit, but it is so dry that the girl thinks that she is being choked. The Red Queen gives advice: ‘Speak in French when you can’t think of the English for a thing – turn out your toes – and remember who you are.’

  ‘Remove the pudding. Remove the pudding.’

  Often the commands are confusing: ‘The rule is jam tomorrow, jam yesterday, but never jam today.’

  The little girl tries to change the subject: ‘May I put your shawl straight for you?’

  Suddenly, she sees the White Queen approaching. The Red Queen takes the White Queen tenderly by the hand and, gently stroking it, speaks: ‘She means well, but as a general rule she can’t help saying foolish things. She never was really well brought up, but it’s amazing how good tempered she is! Pat her on the head and see how pleased she’ll be.’

  The White Queen puts her head on the girl’s shoulder and says, ‘I’m so sleepy.’

  ‘She’s tired, poor thing,’ says the Red Queen. ‘Smooth her hair – lend her your nightcap and sing her a soothing lullaby.’

  ‘I don’t know any lullabies. And why do I have to take care of two queens?’

  The White Queen begins to sing softly:

  First, the fish must be caught

  That is easy: a baby, I think, could have caught it

  Then she suddenly screams and seizes the girl’s hair with both her hands: ‘Take care of yourself! Something’s going to happen!’

  The Red Queen is alarmed by this unsavoury outburst from her rival. She looks at the girl and says coldly: ‘All the ways about here belong to me.’

  The little girl speaks softly: ‘It’s a great huge game of chess that’s being played – all over the world.’

  The Red Queen moves quickly and effortlessly in this game of chess: she is a queen, so she can move anywhere on the board. The young girl is a pawn, but a pawn can morph into a queen if she can navigate her way across the board to the other side, evading the Red Queen.

  But the young girl has had enough of the Red Queen’s games, and cries, ‘I can’t stand this any longer … you, you are the cause of all this mischief.’

  She begins to shake the Red Queen by the shoulders, but the Red Queen has dwindled down to the size of a little doll.

  Why Does Love Get in the Way?

  ‘This refusal to see me is absurd. She ordered me out of my own house. Told me to get out and never come back.’

  ‘Darling, you have the heart of a lion and an utter lack of imagination. Of course she threw you out. Rather a betrayal, don’t you think?’

  ‘But she’s a happily married woman. Why would she begrudge her own mother a bit of harmless fun? Do you know he looked at his watch the whole time, just like Papa Joe. And then when it was over he asked me. “Did you sleep with the old man? Was he better than me?” Of course, I lied.’

  ‘What will you do now?’

  ‘Go back on tour, like in the war. These people need me. I bring so much light, so much happiness. I have bills to pay.’

  She looks tired.

  ‘Billy has called. He wants me to be in his film. How can he expect me to play the wife of a Nazi. Is he nuts? Only Billy would have the nerve to ask me to do this film.’

  ‘Maybe you should. Mr Wilder is a marvellous director.’

  ‘You know Boni got married. To that actress, who wants all his paintings.’

  ‘So another one falls. No matter, you still have me.’

  ‘And Papi. He’s the one that matters. I would never divorce him, and that’s why the others left me. They wanted children and a home. I never wanted another child. I had one perfect daughter. And now she’s gone.’

  The Tragedy of Love

  Don’t look back. Don’t look back. You can’t see the present, you fear the future, and so you look back. It drags at your heart that you can’t do anything but look back.

  I thought it would be easy to cut my mother out of my life. But just try it when she’s as famous as mine. Some ghosts can never be laid to rest. For the sake of my own sanity, I stopped seeing her, and refused to take her calls. The weeks turned into months. But she is everywhere. Her voice softly singing in the elevator of the department store or airport; her image in card shops, television screens, picture frames. People forever ask, ‘How is your wonderful mother?’

  This preoccupation with the famous is hard for those who carry it due to birth. We pay a price. We know that this adulation is not for heroic endeavour or courage or valour, and we know what misery is unleashed on the ones that have only a ringside seat. That
thing that is revered, worshipped almost to the point of canonisation, is so nebulous, so fragile.

  Make your ego porous. Will is of little importance, complaining is nothing; fame is nothing.

  I never knew what it felt like to have a mother that nobody knew, or cared much about. It’s different today; stars are not stars today. They don’t shine so brightly.

  A week before another Thanksgiving. I shopped and returned home alone, switched on the TV set and then suddenly from nowhere – a candy-pink suit … a dark-haired woman scrambling over the back of a car with splodges of red spoiling her lovely clothes. My knees buckled and I sat.

  It couldn’t be true. Not him. Not the man I had loved so dearly. I saw him, tanned and handsome, diving off a cliff, bowing in a white tuxedo asking for a dance, driving me to tea in his red sports car. His smile and those blue, bluest of eyes. Kind to his sister and to me. The most alive young man I had ever met. So sexy, so sure of himself. I would mourn him for all of my life, for the youth he wore so well.

  I Travel Alone

  At the age of seventy, Madou has found a new lover. Her lover never lets her down. Never turns up late to her door with a whisky bottle inside his coat. Her lover is always grateful, worships without complaint, is undemanding, is completely hers to control. Her new lover will never leave her for another, younger lover. Her lover is always punctual. Curtain. 9.30.

  She has her demands. She requires a very large fridge.

  ‘The largest that you can find. It must be completely empty and then I need a second, smaller fridge and you must fill it with champagne and liverwurst. And then, you must pay my daughter to be my assistant. I can’t do this without her. She knows what I need. And I need, what do you call it now? A record player. Don’t forget the record player. Last of all I need a mirror, and it needs to be an eight-foot mirror on castors and with lights.’

  Down slams the phone. Hands tremble as she reaches for a drink. She needs to give up the booze. It’s making her fat. She’s finding it hard to fit into her clothes, and every calorie shows in that tight-fitting dress. But she’s hungry all the time. Her swan’s-down coat is looking shabby and her dresses have seen better days. But it’s all right. No one will see under the lights. Her face is nice and tight. No need for the hair braiding in this day and age. She has a marvellous surgeon. Simply marvellous. Of course, they’re always nervous with that face, even though they pretend not to be.

  Her lovers have gone now. All the better, as she doesn’t have to pretend. She can remove her wig, release her body from the foundation, take off her make-up, pour herself a drink, and play her records. She waits for her daughter. But she doesn’t come.

  Like Lola Lola, her first creation, Madou inhabits two sets: her dressing room and her stage. It has become her world. She couldn’t be happier. Her fridge is full, though she barely eats, just sips champagne from morning until night. It helps the aches in her body. Now she enters the stage to rapturous applause.

  I have been wheeled on so she can check her lighting. I can see that she has had a few drinks just to calm her nerves, but she has smeared her lipstick. Her wig is askew. She forgets the words to some of the songs, but no matter. The crowd don’t seem to mind. She looks old and frail.

  Then something happens. It’s as if a light bulb has suddenly come on inside her and she is transformed. She flirts with her audience, stands erect. The old soldier is back. Then I see what she sees: the King. He is in the audience.

  I Wish You Love

  This time when she called, I told Bill I would speak to her because, despite everything, she was still my mother, and I guess children have a deep capacity for loving their parents, no matter what they have done. But I have made a decision. She will never again be allowed to hurt me. I will do my duty, as she has taught me, but I build an invisible wall around me, and her words will spring off the wall, and rebound, and I will be safe.

  ‘Hello, Mutti. It’s been a long time.’

  She was breathless with excitement. It was as if she had seen me yesterday.

  ‘Angel. It was him. The King. Can you believe it? After all this time. He asked to see me, but I refused. He wanted to come to my room, but, you know, the wig and all that nebbish, so I said no. Besides, I hate him. I gave him everything, everything. He deserves that crazy wife. And that sick kid.’

  ‘Mutti, I heard from Papi. He’s been sick. But he’s OK now.’

  ‘It’s all that ghastly food he eats. Sofi doesn’t feed him properly. I always said, if you can’t cook, don’t cook. Cooking is an art form. Papi, who dined with me in the best restaurants all over the world, and they eat in that greasy diner.’

  ‘Mutti, Sofi died.’

  Silence.

  ‘Well, at least he has that other woman to look after him. You know, the one he sees when Sofi is in the loony bin.’

  She doesn’t ask me how she died. That beautiful, gentle soul who suffered so much at the hands of my parents. I thought of how they had tortured her. Made her wear my mother’s cast-off clothes and shoes. Made her walk behind them every time they went out. Made her kill her babies, over and over again. She was the nearest thing to a real mother I ever had. Flesh and blood, not an icon. And now she is dead. She was stabbed to death by another inmate. And she was all alone.

  Where Have All the Flowers Gone?

  A tall, eight-foot mirror on wheels stands alone on the bare stage, with the sweeping staircase. The vast concert hall is empty, except for one person. A little old lady. She bends to her knees and gathers the flowers that have been strewn over the stage. She takes them back to her dressing room and places them carefully into the huge, empty fridge. She will need them for tomorrow. After all, she has paid for them.

  She puts on a record of one of her concerts, not for her singing, let’s face it, the talent is feeble, but for the applause. Over and over again, she listens to her adoring audience clapping and cheering, and then she smiles. On no, is she going to play the B-side, I wonder?

  So many falls. At a concert in Sydney she stumbles and falls over a cable. In her bedroom in Paris, she falls and breaks her hip. In London, she is drunk and falls forward on her face. She is dragged backstage by her heels. She has broken a leg. Enough is enough.

  Her daughter finally comes and puts her to bed. They talk about the old days. Madou begins: ‘I’m a daughter of the military. You know what that means … I was taught discipline. When I was a child we used to go for long rides into the country in summertime. But I was never allowed to run to the lemonade stand with the other children, I was told, “Control your thirst. Control hunger. Control emotion.” It has served me well.’

  ‘Mutti, remember when we went to Hollywood and we had the blue tree that melted in the sun?’

  ‘We laughed so much. Didn’t we always laugh?’

  ‘We did, Mutti.’

  ‘The emeralds, and the grey coffins and the Normandie. It was another world.’

  ‘And the blue swimming pool. And Boni.’

  ‘No one can become stranger than the person you once loved.’

  ‘I guess so, Mutti.’

  ‘Do you remember the balloons that popped in my face. That was my favourite picture. Mo never made me look more beautiful. I should have stopped then. Now, I look like a toad.’

  ‘You were always beautiful. Perfect.’

  ‘You know what Boni said? “Those who are perfect should be placed in a museum.”’

  ‘Like Nike of Samothrace? In the Louvre.’

  ‘You were perfect to me. That’s why I never wanted another child. Look at you now! So beautiful. Now who would have thought that you would have turned out to be a swan?’

  Madou walks to her dressing table, snaps open a gold cigarette case, and lights an American. She sits on the stool and blows smoke directly into me; she knows that the smoke softens the lines on her face. She speaks to her daughter while she stares a
t her image through the cloud of blue fumes: ‘You know that story you loved so much as a child? The one about the midgets and Snow White, and the talking mirror?’

  ‘They refused to bury her in the cold ground, so they made her a coffin of glass.’

  ‘But in the true German story, it wasn’t the stepmother, it was the mother who was jealous of the daughter and wanted her dead. Do you remember?’

  ‘I have to go now, Mutti. Back to New York and the children.’

  ‘Of course you do. You know what I always say; children come first.’

  Just a Gigolo

  Papi didn’t want their Berlin furniture, and the next time I went back it looked wonderful in Mother’s Paris residence in the Avenue Montaigne, which was small but beautifully formed. She loved her upscale fifth-floor apartment in the leafy, tree-lined avenue, close to the Eiffel Tower, and the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré.

  She had a tiny kitchen and a parlour filled with a gallery of photographs of her family, her lovers, and herself. She called it her wall of death. Her cream sofa was scattered with silk cushions. Mirrors make a room look twice the size, which is why the walls were lined with them, mostly smoky-glass, so kind to the face, she told me. On the side cabinet was her photograph of Papa Hem, and piles of books and newspapers. She lay in her bed, wearing beautiful bed jackets in pink and baby blue.

  She had a new lover.