Dazzle The Complete Unabridged Trilogy (130 page)

She'd cried and sniffled throughout the last ten minutes of
Anna Karenina,
and when the lights finally came up she'd
hurried outside so that no one could see her tears. It was then that she ran into him. The tall, tousle-haired young man with
the round wire-rimmed glasses. They both tried squeezing
out through the one open door at the same time. That being
impossible, he had stepped aside like a gentleman to let her
through first. She stumbled out into the bright winter sunshine, a tall, deceptively waiflike bundle of gleaming straight
black hair and puffy army field jacket, all giant pockets and military patches, and mascara-streaked cheeks. She dabbed
her eyes ineffectually with her fingertips.

The very sight of her touched the Gallic cavalier in him, and
he came up beside her and solemnly held out a clean, folded
handkerchief. Wordlessly she snatched it from him, turned
away, and blew her nose in a noisy honk.

'Do you always cry at the end of tearjerkers?' he asked with
a strong French accent, his S and TH sounds coming out as
buzz-saw Z's.

She turned around slowly and blinked. 'I only cry at wed
dings and funerals,' she sniffed. And then smiled slightly.
'And unhappy endings.'

'And that was one of the grandest unhappy endings of them
all.' He touched her cheek. 'You have another streak there.'

'Oh.' Quickly she wet the handkerchief with her mouth
and smeared the spot under her eye some more. 'There.' She
raised her smudged face. 'Now am I presentable?' She looked
at him, her eyes still moist.

'Eminently.' He grinned, finding the black smear terribly attractive. 'Did you come for all the last five days of movies?'

She shook her head. 'I just found out about them today.
Did you see them all?'

He nodded.

'I suppose you're a
...
a Tamara fan.'

'Oh, I can take her films or leave them.'

'Then you don't like them?'

"They're interesting historically, but I think they're over
played. Like Garbo and Dietrich. Too much mugging.'

'That was the style of the time,' she said loyally, jumping to
her mother's defence. 'If she made movies now, they'd be
different. More natural.'

'At any rate, that's academic, wouldn't you say? The point
is, she is not making any more films. Perhaps it is for the best.
Better to create an aura of mystery than to fall flat on her face
with failure eh?'

'She wouldn't fail!' Daliah cried staunchly, her emerald eyes
flashing gemlike sparks. 'She would never fail!'

He laughed. 'It seems I have found her most loyal and devoted fan.' He paused. 'How would you like to have a cup
of coffee?'

She looked at him dubiously. 'How do I know I can trust
you?'

'Because we'll go to a restaurant or a coffee shop and not
my home. You can always scream for help or go running out.
What do you say?'

She nodded.

'I know a nice little Polish restaurant over on First, where
babushkas serve strong tea and homemade pirogis.'

'Sounds too ethnic . . . too
serious.
Do you know what I'm
really
in the mood for? What my greatest weakness on earth
is?'

He smiled slightly. 'I haven't the faintest idea, although I
would like to find out.'

'McDonald's or Burger King french fries! Tons and tons of
those air-filled greasy french fries accompanied by loads and
loads of salt. Once I start on them, I can't stop till I burst.'

'Is there anything else I should know about you? Such as
your putting chocolate sauce on rice, or mixing crème de
menthe with ketchup, and pouring it over green beans?'

She made a face. 'Really, you are quite abominable!' But
she smiled and locked her arm through his. 'Where is the
nearest junk-food franchise?'

'Over on Third, near Sixth Avenue.'

'Well, what are you waiting for? Steer me there at once.'

'Do you mind if we walk?'

'I'd love to walk.' She tossed her head in that peculiar way
she had so that her hair whipped around, and when they turned
the corner, she tucked her chin down into her chest against the bitter gusts of the buffeting November wind.

They sat on the plastic chairs on the second level of the
overheated McDonald's for over an hour and went Dutch on
six cups of coffee and four orders of fries. She finger-fed him
his across the table.

'I think the girl behind the counter downstairs is taking pity
on us,' Daliah laughed when she came back upstairs with yet
another tray of coffee and fries. 'She tried to sneak me a couple
of burgers on the sly.'

'Did you tell her you have a weakness for their fries?'

'I did, but I don't think she believed me. She probably thinks
fries is all we can afford.' Daliah uncapped the plastic lids off
the two containers of coffee and settled back. 'Now, tell me
about yourself,' she ordered. 'You know, the things I don't
already know.'

'You don't know anything about me. We've only just met.'

'Oh, but I do.' She got busy tearing open the tiny paper
containers of salt in order to make a pile to dunk the fries into.
'You're obviously French, and your English is so good it tells
me you've been living here for quite a few years. Your jeans
are tattered, but that doesn't tell me anything, since it's chic to wear jeans that are coming apart all over. Your ancient
scuffed black motorcycle jacket with the waist belt hanging
loose may be a favourite jacket, but your scarf is coming apart
and the heels of your shoes are worn down. The sole on the
left one is starting to come apart, which I gather means you're
rather financially strapped, and that cable-knit sweater, which
is made of the best Irish wool, was obviously a gift, since a
man would never think of buying himself an expensive sweater
like that one. It was probably given to you by a well-heeled girlfriend. Also, long hair is stylish, but yours hasn't been
styled, so you obviously don't have to look your best at what
ever it is you do. And those little round Heinrich Himmler
glasses you insist upon wearing give me the feeling that you
don't really care how you look. They're ugly but functional.'
She sat back, smiled sweetly at him, and stirred her coffee
with a plastic stick. 'How am I doing?'

He looked startled. 'You should be a detective. All that
shows, huh?'

'It definitely does.' She nodded, reached for another fry, dipped it in the pile of salt, and munched it thoughtfully.

'Sodium is bad for you.' He gestured at the salt.

'I never eat salt,' she declared.

'You are eating it now.'

'I only eat salt when I have fries. Then I can't seem to get enough.' She made it sound like a confession. 'Most times I
eat very, very healthily.' She eyed him curiously and then
nodded to herself. 'Let me see . . . you're an unemployed
actor?'

He laughed, showing his strong white teeth. 'Close, but not
quite. I studied filmmaking at NYU until I discovered I could
learn more, as well as earn a decent living, by working for
film companies rather than studying. So you see, I'm rather
employed.'

'That explains your rattiness, then. Theatre trash.' She nod
ded solemnly to herself. 'Are you working now?' She reached
across the table and profferred a fry.

Dutifully he opened his mouth to accept it. 'I'm production
assistant for a German movie company that's filming here,' he
said, chewing and swallowing. 'Eventually, though, I want
to direct. And you? What are you?' He held her gaze. 'An
unemployed actress?'

'Semi-employed. I'm with an Off-Off Broadway repertory
group, but right now we're between shows. We don't go into
rehearsal for another three weeks.'

'What is the group called?'

'The Actors Outlet Ensemble. We're on MacDougal
Street.' She looked at him hopefully. 'Maybe you've heard of
us?'

'Let me see, the last play was
Wilde Night,
loosely adapted
from the essays of Oscar Wilde?' She nodded exuberantly, her
eyes shining, and he looked at her more closely.
'You!
Now I
recognize you! You were one of the reciters in white face and
dressed all in black so only your face could be seen! You were
the one at the far end who stole the show!'

There was a pleased look on her face and she stopped mun
ching for a glorious moment. Then, pretending nonchalance,
she slowly continued chewing on a fry. She thought it tasted
extraordinarily good, better than a fry had ever tasted before.
She adored rave reviews.

Suddenly he leaned excitedly across the little table. 'Tell you what. How would you like to be in a film?'

She stared at him, at first not knowing whether she should
take him seriously or not, and then burst out laughing. 'Oh, come on!' she said. 'If that's a variation on the old "Come up
and see my etchings" routine, it's hardly original.'

He looked slightly hurt. 'I don't have to resort to such cheap
routines,' he sniffed. 'For your information, women tend to
find me very attractive.'

She adjusted her facial muscles into an expression of con
trition. 'I'm sorry.'

He looked at her earnestly. 'I'm serious about the film. I
wrote the script three years ago, and have been waiting for
the right person to come along. I think you could do it. I know
you could, after the way you performed onstage!'

'What's it about?'

'Well, originally I wrote it for the stage as a one-woman
monologue in three acts. Then, after I became more interested
in films, I rewrote it for the screen and added a few characters. Basically, it's a tour de force about a German woman in Berlin
at ages eighteen, forty-two, and seventy-nine. It starts out in
the present, when the old lady tells her life story to her grand
son, and then flashes back to her past. The way the story comes
out is that she is despicably cruel and anti-Semitic. Only at the
end do we find out that she is really Jewish and suffering from
overwhelming guilt because by pretending to be Aryan she
survived the horrors in which most of her friends and a lot of
her family died.'