Cobalt (3 page)

“You're…” Valentine paused as if in careful thought, and experimentally touched the tape that gave her eyes their slant. “You're Warner Oland—Charlie Chan in drag.” Clarisse pushed away his hand. “Maybe not,” said Valentine. “Wait. Luise Rainer in
The Good Earth
. That's who it is, isn't it? Except I don't remember that costume.”

“That's because Luise Rainer wore sackcloth the whole film, that's why you don't remember this costume, you jerk.”

“Who are you then?”

Clarisse flicked her nails at his throat, and then pushed the envelope directly before his face. “Isn't this a clue?”

“Lana Turner in
The Postman Always Rings Twice
?”

“I gave up my job and my apartment to come to Provincetown to live with a cinematic animal,” she said in a low voice, shaking her head. “Valentine, I will have you know that I am a near perfect replica of Gale Sondergaard in
The Letter
.
The Letter
,” she repeated, shaking it in front of his face.

Valentine laughed. “I knew that.”

Clarisse sighed. “Light me a cigarette. My hands have been rendered useless for the sake of authenticity.” She waved her taloned fingers before him. He gave her one of his Luckys and she seated herself beside him. “Well,” she said at last, “who are
you
supposed to be?”

Valentine picked up the bullwhip. “Can't you tell?”

She shook her head.

“I'm Simon Legree.”

“You'd make a better Little Eva. All pinafores and sausage curls. Got a date?”

“Name's Terry O'Sullivan.”

“Do I know him?”

Valentine shook his head. “He had the other place all last week.” Valentine jerked his thumb toward the section of the house behind him.

“How convenient that must have been,” remarked Clarisse.

“Convenient for
him
,” said Valentine.

“You got chased around the pool?”

Valentine nodded. “Fortunately I was working most of the time. But he was always here waiting when I got off, and always here when I got up, and always knocking on the door to borrow something, or return it, or to ask me if I wanted to go to the beach. I thought, Well there's only a week of it, but then he decided to stay in town a couple of extra days—he took his things over to the Boatslip this morning—just so he could go to the party tonight. When he asked me to go out with him on his last night in town I didn't have the heart to say no. Besides, I'm celebrating the fact that he's getting out of here.”

“Who's he going as?”

“Need you ask?”

“Wait a minute,” said Clarisse after a moment's reflection, “if you think that I am going to this party with you dressed up as Simon Legree, and some trick of yours in blackface dressed up as Uncle Tom, you are—”

Behind them, there was a loud crunch on the gravel. Clarisse and Valentine turned and saw, kneeling in the open gate, a short man wearing ragged trousers with a rope belt and a soiled yellow vest over a dirty billowing white shirt. His face and hands and bare feet were carefully smeared with burnt cork. His manacled black hands were clasped pleadingly before him, and he said in a loud voice, “Oh, Massa Legree, please don' beat po' Tom no mo'!”

Just at that moment a large party of well-dressed tourists emerged from Poor Richard's Buttery across the way, and paused to watch Uncle Tom as he advanced, on his knees, across the gravel courtyard. Simon Legree stood and cracked his whip over poor Tom's head, and the Oriental woman, in her great embarrassment, sat with her painted face hidden behind her long-nailed hands.

C
OMMERCIAL STREET AT eleven o'clock on Saturday night was even more crowded than it had been at eleven o'clock that morning. The day-trippers had gone home, but their place had been taken by carousing couples in their twenties and drunk teenagers from towns up and down the curved length of Cape Cod. The shops were just closing, and the crowds at the bars just beginning to pick up.

Weaving their way down the crowded sidewalk from Kiley Court, Valentine and Clarisse and Terry O'Sullivan kept a reasonable distance ahead of Noah Lovelace and the White Prince. Noah was splendidly costumed as King Herod in an elaborate mauve robe, its full sleeves and hem bordered in wide bands of silver. His eyes were thickly lined in brown and drawn out in careful spirals at the outside corners. His full mustache was heavily waxed and swept upward; his beard was oiled, and where it was longest beneath his chin, threaded with pearls. A chaste bronze crown rested atop his head and seemed at ease there.

Victor, the White Prince, was done up as Salome. He stumbled along in a pair of spike-heeled open-toed slippers, trying not to trip on the seven voluminous coral veils that were attached to a brown leather girdle riding low on his slender hips. His tanned midriff was bare but for a gaudy green-glass emerald plugging his navel. A halter, also of coral silk, covered his chest, his flesh taped to give the illusion of cleavage, while the cups were filled to considerable capacity with foam falsies. His auburn wig was a masterwork of ribbon curls. On the very top of the White Prince's head was a silver tray on which rested the severed head of John the Baptist—eyes open, mouth agape, ribbons of veins, nerves, flesh, and muscle spilling realistically from the stump of neck. Heads turned, but the Prince ignored startled stares, catcalls, and good-natured derision alike, so intent was he on maintaining his precarious balance.

“Val,” said Clarisse, when they were somewhat ahead of Herod and Salome, “why do you suppose Noah puts up with the White Prince? I don't think they've slept together in three years. And sexually, in lifestyles, they've grown so far apart. I just don't understand it.”

“Maybe they love each other,” suggested Terry O'Sullivan, tugging at his manacles.

Clarisse looked closely at the man in blackface but said nothing.

When Valentine replied, it was to Clarisse. “I don't think Noah's ever thrown anybody out. He probably thinks the White Prince couldn't get along without him. So it's kindness, or habit, or laziness. They still like each other, after all.”

“The Prince holds onto Noah like an industrial secret.”

“Listen, Clarisse, don't make it your summer project to break those two up. Destroying workable marriages shouldn't be looked on as a pastime.”

“I think it's wonderful when lovers stay together for a long time,” said Terry O'Sullivan irrepressibly. “I think gay people wouldn't have such a terrible image problem if everybody had a lover, and there wasn't all this sleeping around.”

“Yes,” replied Valentine blandly, “but on the other hand, promiscuity is a lot of laughs.”

“You just say that,” said Terry, adjusting his woolly wig, “but you don't really mean it. What happens when you're lonely and depressed? You think some trick is going to get you out of that depression? Everybody ought to have a lover, somebody to come home to, and somebody who helps you wash the dishes, and somebody—”

Here Terry was separated from his companions by a passing knot of lesbians, and Clarisse turned smiling to Valentine. “I think he wants a lover,” she remarked. “I think he wants you.”

“Poor baby!” sighed Valentine. “We'd have a perfect marriage—for twenty-four hours. But how do I tell him?”

Terry hurried to rejoin them. He was shorter than either. “Have you ever had a lover?” he asked Valentine.

“Yes. But he died. We were
so
much in love. He was all the world to me. Then he was taken hostage in a bank holdup, and the police shot him by mistake.”

“Oh, that's terrible! When did all this happen?”

“Two weeks ago,” said Clarisse.

Terry O'Sullivan looked from one to the other, dismayed. “Oh, then you must still be very upset,” he said to Valentine.

“You want to know how upset he was?” said Clarisse. “He tried to commit suicide with a bottle of NoDoz.”

Behind them they heard a shriek, and when they turned it was to see Salome sprawled between two garbage cans in front of a leather shop. Noah was helping him up, and saying in an exasperated voice, “I told you not to wear those damned Spring-o-Lators. They're not even period!”

D
ESPITE THE NUMBER of tourists that may be found there any time of the year, Provincetown still retains the flavor of a New England fishing village, with tiny cramped houses, sandy yards, narrow streets, and the pervasive smell of the sea—and this is especially true at night, when darkness could make you think you were back in the middle of the nineteenth century. The illusion is dispelled only by the number of roving men on the street after three A.M., and the unsubtle
thump-thump-thump
of rock music from private parties in houses on every other street. Straight tourists think of the town as a trove of quaint architecture, curio shops, restaurants, and guesthouses with never a vacancy glued along the narrow rim of a gray beach. When the sun goes down and the shops close up, these tourists return to the Holiday Inn on the outskirts of town, or drive back to Boston or to other, less expensive towns of the Cape, and have no idea that for many other vacationers, the real excitement of Provincetown is only beginning.

The Garden of Evil party was being held at the Crown dance bar, at the rear of the same compound in which the Throne and Scepter was located. Since it was a private party, it would not be subject to the normal closing time of one A.M., but would probably go on all night.

The Crown was one very large rectangular room with three bars. Overlooking the bay behind the place was a deck, partially covered by an awning that surrounded a swimming pool. Its architecture was utilitarian, and the decoration for the party was straightforward: bowers and festoons of red-and-black paper roses, lanterns that shed flattering red light, and on the walls large blowups of primitive woodcuts, red on black, depicting scenes of rapine, torture, and animalistic butchery. A special slide made up for the bar's laser spelled out in wavering green lines, GARDEN OF EVIL.

The cop on the door, his uniform viewed by many partygoers as yet another costume of evil, nodded them through, but not before giving Clarisse the once-over. She smiled appreciatively. Valentine gave the doorman the invitations he had obtained in his capacity as bartender.

Clarisse touched her friend's cheek affectionately with a sharp nail and headed for the bar. She edged between two sumptuously dressed women and got the bartender's attention by tapping the corner of her letter on his forearm. When she had distributed the drinks, she turned and began with interest to look over the party.

The room was crowded. Costumed figures spilled out and in through the two wide glass doors that led to the deck, edged through into the tiny restrooms, and made an attempt at appearing casual while parading across the lighted stage. Some were immediately identifiable, others were not. There was little dancing yet. With the long nails on her fingers, Clarisse herself was hard put simply to hold a glass.

She turned and looked at the personages on either side of her—the two women dressed in high-forties skirted suits, their hair bound in snoods, with careful tasteful makeup of pearl-shaded powder and ruby lipstick. She furrowed her brow, wondering who they might represent. Then she saw the nametags attached to the lapels of their tailored jackets. HI—I'M EVA BRAUN! and CLARA PETACCI WISHES YOU A PLEASANT EVENING they read. Eva had a period camera around her neck, and begged Clarisse for a photograph. Clarisse graciously linked arms with Mussolini's mistress, and smiled for the Leica's flash.

When Valentine and Terry came up, Eva Braun bent forward and kissed Uncle Tom on the cheek, smudging his makeup. Terry introduced her as Ann, his administrative assistant in a Boston publishing house. In turn, Ann introduced her companion, Margaret, from Toronto.

“Oh,” said Valentine, “I was looking in your windows earlier this evening.”

The two women stared dubiously.

“We're neighbors,” Valentine explained. “Clarisse and I have the third portion of Noah's house.”

“Oh,” said Margaret relieved, “I thought…”

Clarisse's brow furrowed. “I think we were all on the ferry together, weren't we?” she asked.

Ann nodded. “Yes. I loved it. They had a great bar. I think bars on boats are great.”

“You think bars anywhere are great,” snapped Terry.

“Yes, I do. But I especially like bars on boats. The only trouble is you have to drink fast so you don't spill any.” As if in illustration, she guzzled off the last of her drink, and set it on the bar to be refilled. Margaret's glass was still quite full.

“We're having a wonderful time here,” said Margaret. “We love Provincetown.”

Clarisse smiled.

“I want a picture of all of us!” cried Ann enthusiastically. She took the camera from around her neck and asked a man dressed as Charlotte Corday to take a photo of the small group. This done, Terry went to the bathroom to check his blackface and straighten his wig. Eva and Clara left to take a walk around outside on the deck, just as Lizzie Borden swept past, the lace of her bodice speckled with blood, and a small ax tucked into her belt. Valentine followed in her wake. “Oh Val,” said Clarisse, grasping his sleeve and pulling him back, “look at Polyphemus over there!”

She pointed to a man standing against the glass wall that looked out onto the deck. His only clothing was a well-fitted loincloth about his narrow waist and a pair of leather sandals laced up to his calves. His shoulders were broad, his chest heavy with muscle beneath a mat of luxuriant tawny hair. Covering his forehead and eyes was a stiff flesh-tone mask, with one stylized eye, glossy and bright, painted in the very center. Slits for his own eyes were effectively concealed in the lines representing folds of flesh. He was talking to Joan Crawford, whose heavy hand rested on the shoulder of a catatonic Christina in white pinafore and yellow sausage curls.