Still Life with Woodpecker (16 page)

“‘Relax, don’t cry. I think I can be of some assistance. What will you give me if I can recover your toy for you?’

“‘Oh, anything, anything. Whatever you’d like most, dear frog. My fine clothes, my pearls, my carriage, even the bejeweled crown I wear.’

“The frog replied, ‘I have no use whatsoever for your clothes or your pearls or even your crown, but I’ll tell you what. If you will care for me and let me be your playmate and companion, let me sit beside you at your little table, eat from your little plate, drink from your little cup, and sleep in your little bed beside you, if you will promise me that, then I will dive straight down and bring back your golden ball.’

“The princess stopped weeping immediately. ‘Ofcourse,
’ she said. ‘Of course. I promise you anything you want if you’ll only bring back the ball.’ But she thought, ‘What nonsense that silly creature talks. As if he could do anything but swim and croak with the other frogs, as if he could possibly be anyone’s companion!’

“The frog, however, as soon as he heard the promise, drew his green head under the water and sank down out of sight in the spring. After what seemed like a long while, he surfaced with a splash, the golden ball in his wide mouth. He threw the ball onto the grass.

“Needless to say, the king’s daughter was overjoyed to have her ball back. She scooped it up, and tossing it and catching it, she ran off with it toward the palace.

“‘Stop, stop!’ cried the frog. ‘Pick me up, too. I can’t run as fast as you.’

“His pleas were futile, however, for croak as he might, she paid no attention. She hurried on home and before long, forgot completely about the poor frog, who was left, presumably, to go on living in the spring.

“The next day, as the princess was sitting at table with the king and all the court, having a fine dinner, there came a pitter-patter up the marble stairs, and then there came a knocking at the door and a voice crying, ’King’s youngest daughter, let me in!”

“Naturally, the princess went to the door to see who it might be, but when she found the frog sitting there, panting, she slammed the door in his face and returned to her meal, feeling quite uneasy.

“Noticing that she was acting a bit strange and that her heart was beating quickly, the king said, ’My child, what are you afraid of? Was there a giant at the door wanting to take you away?”

“‘No,’ answered she. ‘No giant, just a nasty frog.’

“‘Really? And what does the frog want?’ asked the king.

“Tears began spilling out of the youngest daughter’s eyes. She broke down and told her father everything that
had happened the previous day at the spring. When she had finished, she added, ‘And now he is here, outside the door, and he wants to come in to me.’

“Then they all heard the frog knocking again, and crying out:

“‘That which you have promised you must always honor and perform,’ said the king sternly. ‘Go at once and let him in.’

“So she went and opened the door. The frog hopped in, following at her heels until she reached her chair. Then he looked up at her and said, ‘Lift me up to sit by you.’ But she delayed lifting him up until the king ordered her to.

“No sooner was the frog in the chair than he demanded to get up on the table, where he sat, looking about hungrily. ‘Push your plate a little nearer so that we can eat together,’ he said.

“Reluctantly, she did it, and the frog feasted heartily, although for her part, every morsel seemed to stick in her throat.

“‘I’m stuffed,’ said the frog at last. ‘And I’m tired. You must carry me to your room and make ready your silken bed so that we can lie down and sleep.’

“The princess began to fret and moan and cry and complain. She didn’t want that cold, creepy frog in her pretty, clean bed. The king became angry with her. ‘You made a promise in a time of need,’ he said. ‘Now, as unpleasant as it might be, you must honor it.’

“Making a terrible face, she picked up the frog and carried him upstairs, where she placed him on some soiled linen in a corner. Then she slipped into bed. Before she could fall asleep, however, the frog came pitter-patter up
to her bedside. ‘Let me in with you or I will tell your father,’ he said.

“She had had enough. Flying into a rage, she grabbed the frog. ‘Get out of my life, you slimy frog!’ she shouted. With all her strength, she threw him against the wall.

“When he fell to the floor, he was no longer a frog. He had become a prince with kind eyes and a beautiful smile. The frog prince took her hand and told her how a vengeful witch had bound him by her spells and how the princess alone, in her innocent beauty, could have released him. Then he asked her to marry him, which, with her father’s consent, she did. And they went off to the prince’s country, where they became king and queen and lived happily ever after.”

As the story ended, the way that even that unhappy fartre Sartre knows that stories ought to end, a guard strode up to Bernard and tapped him on the shoulder, signaling him to return to his cell. Bernard appeared to be lost in thought. He continued to stare at Leigh-Cheri, smiling all the while, and ignoring the guard. The guard gripped him by the collar—which wasn’t black—and yanked him to his feet. It was too much for Leigh-Cheri. Shrieking, she sprang up and flattened herself against the window, as if she spread herself thin enough she could squish through the loose-knit silicone molecules the way that mayonnaise squishes through the holes in Swiss cheese. Bernard elbowed the guard in the jaw and seized the telephone. He was going to speak to her! Quickly, she picked up the phone on her side of the glass and jammed it against her ear. A whistle had been blown, more guards were rushing up, and she realized that he would be able to get out only a word or two. “Yes, sweetheart, yes?”

“Whatever happened to the golden ball?” asked Bernard.

That’s what he said. “Whatever happened to the golden ball? Argggg!” And then they wrestled him from the room.

OVER THE YEARS,
Leigh-Cheri had had some questions about the story herself. Mainly, she wondered why the handsome prince would want to marry a lying little am-phibiaphobe who couldn’t keep a promise. Leigh-Cheri had thought that frogs became princes through the transformative magic of osculation. Why did this prince escape the frog spell only after being splattered against a wall? Was he a masochist, maybe? In which case, it was small wonder that he was attracted to such an ill-tempered snip, and they probably
did
live together happily ever after, perhaps with leather accessories.

In truth, the story had never made a lot of sense to Leigh-Cheri, and she resented the Brothers Grimm for portraying a princess in such an unflattering light. It was bad enough being dragon bait. For all her reservations about the tale, however, it had never occurred to her to puzzle over the fate of the golden ball. True, the story initially made a big deal about the ball, only never to mention it again, but it was the characters who were important, the ball was just a prop, a toy, an
object
.

Maybe the princess put aside the golden ball until her own children were old enough to play with it, or maybe once she had a prince to play with she simply abandoned her beloved toy (she was certainly capable of that), and it got packed away in an attic, thrown out with the garbage, stolen by a chambermaid, or donated to Goodwill Industries. In any case, Leigh-Cheri had never been curious about it, and the psychiatrists and mythologists who’d analyzed the story—they claimed the spring (“so deep its bottom could not be seen”) symbolized the unconscious mind; the frog, of course (talk about typecasting), symbolized
the penis, ugly and loathsome to a girl-child, but to an emerging woman a thing of some beauty that could contribute to her happiness and fulfillment—those analysts were sure that the golden ball represented the moon, but they never asked what became of it, either.

It was Bernard who’d raised the question, and in the empty days that followed their jailhouse meeting, Leigh-Cheri wondered why it seemed so important to him. The CIA wondered, also. The CIA suspected that the story was a coded message packed with information about revolutionary activity in Max and Tilli’s former kingdom. The CIA submitted its tape of the story—and Bernard’s apparently urgent response—to its experts in the home office. Attorney Nina Jablonski lamented the fact that of all the stories Leigh-Cheri might have told, she had chosen one about a royal family in which a king and queen ended up happily ever after. Because of the CIA monitors, Jablonski refused to ask Bernard why he was interested in the fate of the golden ball, although Leigh-Cheri requested that she do so. “We’re dropping the ball,” Jablonski said flatly.

As a result of the fracas with the guards, Bernard’s visitor privileges were revoked. Moreover, accounts of the incident were leaked to the press. Whereas the media had been politely interested in a beautiful young princess who wished to enlist deposed royalty in the service of environmentalism, they were savagely intrigued by a beautiful young princess who was involved, politically, romantically, or both with a notorious bomb-throwing outlaw. If the Furstenberg-Barcalona monogrammed telephone had, the previous week, frequently tinkled, it now exhausted itself in a monstrous marathon of jangling, although it sometimes could not be heard above the knockings at the door. Were it not for the blackberries, reporters would have camped in the yard.

Max was in a funk due to the constant interruption of his TV sportscasts, and both Tilli and her new Chihuahua developed nervous diarrhea. Chuck was going bananas
trying to intercept all the phone calls and to photograph with a miniature camera the strangers, mostly newsmen, who rapped at the door. Gulietta kept the house running fairly smoothly, everything considered, but she had begun to toot cocaine so prodigiously that often her central nervous system was buzzing in pace with the phone. Oddly enough, Leigh-Cheri was the calmest member of the household. In part, this could be attributed to the love that enveloped her like a silk-lined fever, but it was also due to the fact that on Wednesday, two weeks late; out of breath; embarrassed but making no excuses; flustered but offering no explanations, her menses showed up. It neither called first nor knocked, but stepped through her door, sticky, mortal, its head as red as her own, remained for five days, then disappeared again, leaving behind an exhibition of cheerfully painted tampons and a sustained series of sighs of relief that could have fluttered the flags of every used-car lot in Los Angeles.

In celebration of the proven effectiveness of She-Link, Leigh-Cheri sent out for Chinese food. Chuck snapped a whole roll of film of the Oriental boy who delivered it. “Someday, when conditions are right, I’ll have Bernard’s baby,” thought Leigh-Cheri, chewing a mouthful of fried rice. “and it can have a golden ball to play with, or anything else its daddy gives it except dynamite. But for now …”

For now, her energy was devoted to pestering Nina Jablonski about schemes to see Bernard again before his trial. Jablonski didn’t have the heart to tell her that there wasn’t going to be any trial.

ON LEIGH-CHERI’S BIRTHDAY,
Guilietta baked a chocolate cake and sank twenty candles into the frosting. Although they were too peeved with their daughter to promote a celebration, Max and Tilli appeared at the big oak table in the dining room, where the cake was lit up like an oil refinery, long enough to sing the traditional anthem. They lingered until, with a desperate expulsion, the Princess puffed out the candles. “Zee vhole vorld knows vat her weesh vas,” complained Tilli to her pooch.

Twenty candles on a cake. Twenty Camels in a package. Twenty centuries under our belts and where do we go from here?

For her part, Leigh-Cheri went back downtown and called on Nina Jablonski.

“You have chocolate on your face,” said the attorney.

“It’s my birthday,” said Leigh-Cheri.

“Then let me buy you a drink.”

They went to a fern bar and ordered champagne cocktails.

“To justice,” said Jablonski.

“To love,” said Leigh-Cheri.

“You’ve got it bad, sister.”

“No, I’ve got it good.” The Princess downed her champagne cocktail and ordered a tequila mocking-bird. “Tell me, Nina, you’ve been married for several years—”

“Twice. Twice for several years.”

“Well, do you think it’s possible to make love stay?”

“Sure. It’s not at all unusual for love to remain for a lifetime. It’s passion that doesn’t last. I still love my first husband. But I don’t desire him. Love lasts. It’s lust that moves
out on us when we’re not looking, it’s lust that always skips town—and love without lust just isn’t enough.”

“Anybody can fuck anybody, Nina. But how many people can play together in the fields of true love?”

“Jeez. You make true love sound like some kind of elitist picnic. That’s a smug misconception. Love, of all emotions, is democratic.”

Leigh-Cheri got the notion that Jablonski was chiding her for her monarchal background. She didn’t care. “Oh,” she said, “I’m not so sure about that. I have an idea that love is a lot more exclusive than popular songs have led us to believe. Now lust, lust is democratic, all right. Lust makes itself accessible to any clod or clone who can muster enough voltage to secrete a hormone. But like you say, it doesn’t stick around for long. Maybe lust gets fed up with democracy after a while, maybe lust just gets bored with the way it’s spent by mediocre people. Maybe both lust and love demand something more than most of us have the stomach for. These days, certainly, folks seem more concerned with furthering careers than with furthering romance.”

“You say you’re twenty today?”

The Princess registered the lawyer’s insinuations of immaturity, but though she was unfamiliar with neoteny, she didn’t care about that, either. “Yes, I’m twenty, and, can you believe it, I have no idea how old Bernard is. He has at least a dozen driver’s licenses, each one under a different name and a different age.” With ecological soundness, she diverted into her throat a quantity of tequila that otherwise might have been left to stagnate or poured down the drain to poison the fishes. “Have you ever wondered what kind of driver’s licenses they have on the planet Argon?”