Three Women in a Mirror (29 page)

“Yes, it's as if they were virgins before their abduction. Through the violence of the Romans, they left behind their condition of young girls and became women.”

“Is it always a violent passage, Hanna?”

Once again I was silent.

A long moment went by. Then he continued, “Should they have gone back with the Sabine men?”

“It was too late. They had become wives and mothers. If you try to retrace your steps, you cannot go back to the past.”

“You are right, Hanna. There is no going back, one can never again become what one was. The years change us. And this is something you do not accept. You would like to stop everything, to block everything, to keep everything as it was, forever, just like your artificial flowers frozen eternally in their glass globes.”

Just then, dear Gretchen, a beneficial wave washed over me. It felt euphoric, just to know myself a little.

In the doorway, I asked Calgari, “Do you accept the passage of time?”

“I try.”

“It's hard.”

“There is no other solution. I accept the ineluctable and, better still, I try to appreciate it.”

Dear Gretchen, I will let you meditate on this sentence because Franz is getting impatient. He has already come by twice to remind me that we are going to see
The Nutcracker
at the opera ballet. He is so looking forward to it. Sometimes, this man is as eager as a child; I love it when he behaves like this.

Until the next.

 

Your Hanna

 

 

There was no going back.
The limousine pulled up outside the theater for the premiere public screening of
The Girl with the Red Glasses.

Thousands of people were pushing and shoving along Hollywood Boulevard.

Three hundred yards from the Chinese Theater, where the party was being held, the traffic slowed. The long black, white, and even pink cars kept a respectful distance from each other, making their way at the speed of an injured tortoise: each chauffeur knew that he must not tailgate the car ahead, so that his passenger would step onto an empty red carpet and, in that moment, attract all the attention of the public and the media. The procession was like airplanes lining up to wait until each one could have the runway to itself.

Anny crouched down on the rear seat of the Lincoln the production company had rented. For the time being she was protected by tinted windows, and she wasn't afraid of anyone, but later on . . . How would she get out of the vehicle? Between her front door and the back seat she had fallen down twice. Her ankles seemed to be mounted on ball bearings, she was teetering, reeling, nothing supported her. She had failed to meet her own challenge: a coma. Her endurance in the face of the most lethal cocktails was incredible! What a lame record . . . Her brain had resisted a mix of vodka, gin, bourbon, Mandarine Napoléon, port, and champagne: tonight Anny was not unconscious, she was simply very sick.

Johanna had sensed the imminent danger, and for the last two days she had tried to negotiate the presence of a gallant knight on Anny's arm. But each time her agent suggested someone, Anny turned him down: either she had already slept with him and said he was a has-been, or she hadn't slept with him and suspected he was gay.

“Why should I give such an opportunity to a loser like that? To let him show off on the evening of
my
film! What has he done to deserve that?”

“Listen, I'm not sticking you with a chaperone so that some fame-starved actor can feel like he's suddenly arrived, but to save you. You can't walk without someone to lean on. A playboy would be better than a walking frame, no? At least he won't let you stumble and he'll open your handbag when you feel like vomiting.”

Anny had stubbornly refused. However, three hours earlier, when she had seen how unsteady she was, she had begged Johanna to ask Vuitton Bag to step in.

The Hollywood doyenne had accepted without a qualm, because arriving on Anny's arm would be a guarantee she'd get her picture in the papers. In three minutes she had negotiated an agreement with the agent: yes, she would help Anny walk straight from the car to her seat in the theater; yes she would address the microphones and cameras that intercepted them on the way, but only on condition they would not allow the journalists to take Anny's picture without her. Vuitton Bag knew that otherwise she would disappear from the news, and in that case she would rather stay home.

Anny went by to pick up the old actress, who was wearing a dress that gave a deceptive curviness to her shapeless body: a
popotin
and a brassiere in fluorescent green foam were grafted onto a black velvet sheath dress. As this seemed too sober to her, she had added feathers, and consequently she looked like an ancient vulture disguised as a parrot.

When she saw Anny's astonished face from her doorstep, she knew she had pulled it off.

“It's not bad, is it?”

Even though Anny was drunk, she still hunted for the least hurtful term, and eventually said: “It's original . . . ”

Vuitton Bag climbed into the car, enchanted.

“Do you know, kiddo, that I have three evening gowns, an ugly one, a yucky one, and a dreadful one?”

“And this one is—”

“The dreadful one. My favorite.”

She glanced at Anny, who, despite her stupor, her dead eyes, and her skin, swollen by alcohol, looked ravishing in her dress of gilded scales. She smiled.

“I'm a lucky girl to be seen with you, Anny. It's the ideal foil. You are so ugly that they'll only have eyes for me.”

They laughed, Vuitton Bag because she liked her own joke, and Anny because she hadn't understood. At that moment, she vowed to laugh at every little thing she heard.

There was a thud. A fan had just pounded on the limousine.

“Aren't you afraid?” asked Anny.

“Afraid of what, my chinchilla?”

“Afraid of . . . nothing in particular . . . afraid . . . ”

“When your fear has no object, my koala, it's called anxiety.”

Anny poured herself a glass of whiskey above the minibar.

“So I must be very anxious,” she concluded.

Vuitton Bag, her expression blank, abstained from commenting, and did not stop her gesture: Anny's self-destruction was progressing so rapidly that it was pointless to intervene; however, remembering the length of the red carpet they had to walk up together, she suddenly grabbed the glass from Anny's hands.

“Babe, I'm supposed to help you walk without falling over. However, I have neither the strength nor the age to pick you up. And don't count on me to carry you on my back.”

“Okay, I'll stop,” murmured Anny.

The door opened, and the screams of the crowd gathered outside the theatre burst violently into the car; the blinding light from the projectors made them feel like moles wrenched from the earth.

Vuitton Bag got out first. Laughter greeted her, because the public, like Pavlov's dog, were conditioned to laugh whenever she appeared in public. To be sure of her effect, Vuitton Bag, as a true professional, had made sure to wear the dreadful dress.

Anny Lee clung to her arm. Her usual magic was working. The ovation of the crowd, the popping of frenzied flashes that made her blink, the length of the carpet they must walk—it all nearly made her want to dive with her head down back into the limousine and drive away again, but Vuitton Bag, with a firm claw, had imprisoned her forearm, and forced her to smile for the camera lenses.

They began walking.

Vuitton Bag was doing such a good job that no one would ever suspect that the ancestral dame was actually towing the young woman. As they went up to the cameras they looked perfectly natural. Journalists rushed over to them.

Anny was trembling but managed to keep her features still. At first the journalists reproached the supporting role for chattering more than the star, but Vuitton Bag was so hilarious, so witty, that they went along with the preposterous pair.

When a presenter from the Disney Channel expressed her surprise that Vuitton Bag was answering questions before Anny, Vuitton Bag merely replied, “What are you complaining about? We're giving you a free performance of
Beauty and the Beast.
”

In short, Vuitton Bag was putting everyone off the scent, and Anny felt a bit better.

Then suddenly she saw Ethan.

This time, it really was him.

Taller than everyone else, his peaceful face among the hysterical spectators, he was staring at her intensely. Not thinking, she raised her arms and cried out, “Ethan!”

The nurse's eyes filled with tenderness.

Anny tugged on Vuitton Bag's arm; her companion was on her way to talk to another camera.

“Anny, I've never been a Siamese twin before, don't go rushing off like that.”

“I want to have a word with Ethan.”

She pointed to the blond man.

Vuitton Bag didn't have the physical force to resist, so she went over to the barrier with her.

There, Anny stood close to Ethan and murmured, “Ethan, you've got to help me, please.”

“That's why I'm here.”

Not a quiver of doubt in his voice. He was the incarnation of upright devotion.

Anny continued, “Meet me inside, at the bar. There's a cocktail reception.”

“I don't have an invitation.”

“I'll get you one. You won't let me down, will you?”

“Never.”

No one overheard their private conversation, including Vuitton Bag, who was only a few inches away but was hard of hearing.

Ten minutes later, when they were in the lobby of the theater, Anny asked the manager to let Ethan in, and pointed him out from a distance.

“Don't worry, Miss Lee, go up to the bar, we'll take care of everything.”

Climbing up the stairs was a painful operation for the lopsided couple: Vuitton Bag had hip trouble, and Anny kept losing her balance. Fortunately, they decided to make a spectacle of their difficulty, crying out, laughing, singing and doing a few dance steps, and they managed so well that everyone thought it was a deliberate parody of a musical comedy.

In the lobby, they collapsed onto a sofa.

“We can't move now. You do the princess, and I'll be the queen mother.”

In this new role, Anny managed to put on a good show.

She kept a constant watch out for Ethan. He would come into the room, it would make her calmer to see him, and he would give her an injection to relieve her.

It was time for the screening.

Anxious, Anny felt the fear rising, and the pressure of her career suddenly loomed over her. Zac's film had been getting a flattering buzz, her performance even more so. There were some who said that with this film she was leaving the farm team behind to play in the major leagues. She panicked: if everyone's expectations were so great, their disappointment would be proportional; two hours from now, they would either applaud or compliment her on her costumes.

She wanted to run away.

“I'd like to go to the ladies' room. How about you?”

Vuitton Bag gave a vague nod, somewhat annoyed.

“If I have to hold your head above the toilet bowl, is that in my contract?”

“Please come with me. I'll go into the theater once it's dark.”

Vuitton Bag grumbled, but did as she was asked.

Anny locked herself in, collapsed on the closed toilet seat, and took out her cell phone. With some difficulty, she found Ethan's number.

He didn't answer.

She sent a text message, which said, allowing for typos: “Come find me in the restrooms.”

She could tell the lobby and corridors were getting empty.

She could hear the sound of the opening credits.

What should she do?

She looked at her phone, hoping for a word from Ethan.

In vain.

She had a sudden flash of inspiration. Since she had said restrooms, Ethan must have gone to the men's room.

Grateful she had found the solution, she sat up straight and, clinging to whatever was at hand—toilet paper dispensers, doorknobs, railings—managed to grope her way from the ladies' room to the men's.

“Ethan?”

Her voice echoed against the white tiles.

“Ethan, are you in there?”

She heard someone in one of the stalls. As best she could, she hurried over, skidded, and fell against the door, which caused the bolt inside to open, and she came upon a man in the process of injecting something into his veins.

“Zac?”

The director looked at her, unashamed.

“I'm scared as hell.”

Subsequently she had no more thoughts about Ethan, or rather, her thoughts were all negative: why hadn't he shown up? He had abandoned her, like everyone else! He may have wanted to play the gallant knight, but he was no better than some scumbag dealer, yes, even more worthless, since he'd screwed up on the delivery.

Furious, she slid to the floor.

“Can I have some?”

Zac laughed.

“Hey, do I know you?”

She suppressed a hiccup and said, wincing, “I'm as scared as you are, jerk. Our life is on the line tonight. Two hours from now, you may be a genius, and I may be a great actress. Isn't that enough to freak anyone out?”

 

Ethan's invitation was taking a while, so he was trying to negotiate with the security heavies; they didn't take him seriously, so he tried the hostesses: they didn't like his look. Then the press attachés, but they didn't know who he was.

An hour and a half later the manager happened to be walking across the lobby and saw a tall blond fellow waving to him, and he realized he had forgotten to honor Anny's request. Where was Anny Lee, anyway? He hadn't seen her in her seat.

Apologetically, the manager let Ethan come in.

Ethan happened to turn on his cell phone and found Anny's message.

He rushed to the restrooms; a bearded man came out, walking unsteadily.