The
crowd is cheering in loud applause. “Bravo.” Beyond the blinding row of floodlights trimming
the stage, Josephina notices people in the front rows clapping. She bows several times and glances
sideways at her two singing partners holding each one of her hands. Roses land at her feet,
against her dress, strewing the stage with red, pink, and yellow petals. “Bravo!” Josephina
smiles, but her smile is forced. She cannot believe all these people have come to see her. She
stares at the roses, the scattered petals around her. A teardrop oozes out from the corner of her
eye. It streams down her cheek and smudges her black
mascara. She keeps smiling, staring down at the stage, at the broken petals. This is how I feel,
she is thinking, a beautiful and lonely petal.
“Getting
emotional?” her red-caped partner says, noticing the glimmer in her eyes. He takes a step
towards her and hugs her massive body.
“Harry,
please, don’t! . . .” Josephina winces. His breath reeks of alcohol. Before she can free
herself, the tenor sticks his sweaty face against hers and rubs the blackened tears on her cheeks.
Over Harry’s shoulders, Josephina catches sight of the other tenor, chuckling at the scene. She
pats Harry’s back to thank him. Harry does not let go. So Josephina pushes him away. “I
can’t breathe,” she whispers through clenched teeth. Harry spins around. His red cardinal cape
swirls behind him, and he marches out into the dark wings. Josephina
and the other singer bow again and then followed Harry and the crowd’s enthusiasm grows.
Out
of breath, the singers wait in the wings for the second encore. Harry lurks behind Josephina. He
rips a bottle of water from the stage manager’s hand and gulps half of it while the other singer
and Josephina stand by the empty stage.
“You
were brilliant! Callas’s never done a better Lucia,”
the other singer says. Josephina fakes a smile. She sponges the tears from her face.
“Are
you flirting with me, Nikos?”
He
stares at her with a smile. He is so nice to her. So
ever nice to her. She feels she wants to ask him out for tomorrow. She still has no plan for the
weekend. No one has invited her yet. He gives her a
conniving wink. She remembers then that he has no interest in women. He is too handsome. His
elegant posture, his thin and bony fingers, and obvious sensitivity are blatant reminders.
The public cheers them back on stage. Josephina senses Harry’s offensive breath nearing
her. She searches for Nikos’s hand.
“Come
on beautiful, they want you.” Harry seizes her hand
and hauls her back onto the stage. The public’s rapture enlivens Harry’s ebullience. “The
night is mine; the night is ours,” he sings into her ear. She pays no attention to him. He walks
her to each corner of the stage, without letting go of her hand. Nikos clutches her other hand,
and they walk back to the center of the stage, where they bow to the clamorous audience, amid the
uneven cardboard tombs of Lammermoor’s castle. The entire auditorium now stands up. Her large
chest heaves under her gold and black velvet tunic. So many admired, so many friends, and yet no
one to love her. Except an obnoxious drunk. Her loneliness feels unbearable. She keeps repeating
thank you, biting her tongue to restrain the tears from rolling down her face.
The
diluvial round of applause continues. Without moving her corpulent body, she sweeps her hand
around and amasses the roses scattered about. Harry walks around Josephina and picks up the roses
with Nikos. Josephina waves with her free hand, blows kisses, thanks the public over and over
again, and exits the stage. Soon the lights in the auditorium are turned back on and the applause
becomes a loud hum.
Her
face is drenched in sweat. She stands by the stage manager, next to the red-lighted cue book,
catching her breath back. The smeared mascara makes her face appear bruised. She swabs her cheeks,
her temples, with a tissue. Nikos hands Josephina the roses and rushes towards the stairs.
“Catch
up with you upstairs, babe,” he says in a singsong voice. Harry is watching her from the
distance. He too carries a large bouquet of roses. He walks by and without wishing her good night,
tosses the bouquet into a large wheeled trashcan. Then he thumps open the swinging exit doors.
Josephina pinches her lips in disgust.
“He’s
drunk again,” she says to the stage manager. The manager nods. Josephina notices that he only
responds to the voices in his headphones. She moves to the wheeled-trashcan and reaches inside it.
If it’s money you’re after I can lend you some, she hears someone says. She looks up at the
young and blue velvet-robed man, snickering. He towers over her.
“Ah
Rob, people take so much care to buy these flowers . . . It breaks my heart to be so callous.”
“You
can always buy flowers, but not a public.”
“Well,
at my age everything matters. Don’t take things for granted. You’re a lady’s man now, but
you won’t always be.” She hoists herself up by grabbing one the container’s handles. She
picks up the roses from the floor and stays put in front of him. He looks at her with surprise,
and then takes a solemn stride to the side as if he has just understood. He watches her labor
through the doors.
Josephina
is crossing the narrow lobby with her roses. She lifts her dress up over her golden slippers and
climbs up the steep and narrow curly stairs, one step at a time careful, not to trip over the hem.
The two hours singing have exhausted her. She feels morose. The roses are bulky. Some thorns prick
her arm and breast through the tunic. She wants to sit down on the steps and cry. She drags
herself up, gasping towards the top, the scent of roses soaking her clothes. A ballerina appears,
skipping down the stairs. Josephina flattens herself against a wall.
“Watch
it girl, big mama’s causing a traffic jam down here,” Josephina says.
“You
got me tonight. I really thought you were crazy. So convincing. Your voice, oh my God! Beautiful!
You made me cry.” The ballerina watches Josephina’s face. “Looks as if you’ve had your
share too.” They hug each other over the thorny foliage. The ballerina’s thin body and frail
limbs melt in Josephina’s flabby arms.
“You’ve
lost weight again.”
“I
had a few pounds to shed.” The ballerina grins. Her bright red lipstick makes the shape of her
lips look like a heart. “ I’ve got to go. I’m in a rush.”
“The
horse guy again?”
“He’s
taking me away for the week-end. He’s finished renovating his barn . . . But I heard you’ve
got a date with Harry?”
“In
his wildest dreams.” Josephina chuckles. The young ballerina winks and swirls out of sight.
Josephina remains on the landing, her mind in convulsion. I have an unsurpassed talent, I’m the
star of the opera, what’s so wrong with me that I can’t get a partner? She feels she has so
much love to give but cannot find anyone to give it back to her. She looks up at the last flight
of stairs. It seems so steep, so far away.
She
reaches her dressing room’s floor, panting. Alerted by the loud clumping noise on the landing,
her dresser comes out the dressing room. Josephina
lies against a wall, gasping. “Why can’t they put in an elevator?” she mutters to the
dresser who takes the roses from her.
The
corridor teems with singers and dancers getting dressed to go home. Josephina catches sight of
Georg, a middle aged Hungarian bass with a long gray, bushy beard. He is putting his coat on while
looking at his profile in a full-length mirror. Josephina peels herself off the wall and totters
up to him.
“Yes,
you’re still very good-looking,” she says. He smiles without looking at her.
“Just
checking my belly. It’s getting rounder,” he says with a thick Hungarian accent. He fondles
his belly.
“That’s
what makes you attractive.”
“I
thought women love men with . . . what do you call
this: washing-board?”
“No,
women love men who look like men. Besides, with your accent, you’ve got nothing to worry about.
Women love men with a foreign accent.”
“Thank
you, darling,” he says, peeking at Josephina in the mirror for the first time.
“Do
you have anything planned for tomorrow night?”
“Yes.
But it’s top secret.” He purses his lips while fussing with his collar. “We’re only at the
discovery stage.”
Josephina
admires his delicate fingers rippling on the tie. Aware he can see her in the mirror, she smiles.
“It looks beautiful!”
He
checks his watch. “I’m already late and look at this mess.” He curses in Hungarian.
Josephina steps forward to help him out, but Georg takes a step back to inspect his appearance in
the mirror. “Good enough,” he says tucking in his tummy. As she watches him disappear down the
stairs, a feeling of anger overcame her. A knot in her belly. Then she notices Harry in the
distance throwing glimpses at her. She shuffles back to her dressing room, fearing his attention.
Josephina
is sitting on her chair as her make-up artist wipes off the thick white foundation from her face
in silence.
“Ouch,
Nicole, slow down girl, you’re hurting me.”
“Sorry.
I’ve got forty minutes to make it to Grand Central. It’s not too often we’ve got a long
weekend.”
“We
did very well tonight.” Josephina reclines in her chair, eyes-closed. “Three encores.”
“I
know, all these roses,” Nicole says. Her metal bracelets chime as she scrubs Josephina’s skin
with brisk gestures.
“He
hugged me again tonight. His breath stunk. He’s revolting, with his face against mine.”
“I
feel sorry for the guy.”
“Sorry,
and for what? He’s always drunk. Even when he’s not drunk, his eyes look drunk.”
“They
look sad. He’s a sad guy.”
“You
go on a date with him. He’s vulgar and obscene. No class. No manners . . . Just a great
voice.”
“He’s
really a sad man.” Nicole stops scrubbing. She brings her face close to Josephina and whispers
into her ear: Harry has no penis. Josephina looks at her askance, incredule. Nicole shakes her
head to confirm. Josephina cannot speak. Nicole is
working around her mouth. “He lost it in Vietnam. Apparently,
he stepped on a mine.”
Josephina
arches her eyebrows to conceal her surprise. She is tempted to laugh about it, but she feels
guilty for all the things she has said about Harry. There
is no way to take back what she has just said about him. His despicable behavior can be explained
after all. Millions of questions spring to her mind. She does not dare to ask them. Her guilt is
mixed with compassion. She admits to herself that she can no longer look at him the same way.
“Now,
I understand why everyone jokes about our being together . . . Very funny.”
The plastic gloves snaps off the make-up artist’s hands. Josephina reopens her eyes. She
straightens up in the chair and stares at herself in the illuminated mirror. She pulls on her
flabby cheekbone and pushes up her sagging chin. Only a man with no penis could be interested in
someone who looks like me. He is not such a bad looking man. Paunchy, but tall and with a full
head of hair. But what good is a man with no penis
and outrageous manners? Nicole grabbed a small traveling bag.
“Wait
for me Nicole, I’ll just be a minute. These stairs kill me.”
Nicole
waits outside while Josephina changes. Alone, Josephina opens her purse and takes out a small
rounded medical jar. She undoes the top and swallows a small pink pill, without water.
The night is growing cold. Down on the street, fans are still waiting around the stage door
to have their programs signed. As soon as Josephina comes out with her roses, they mob her. Nicole
vanishes in the crowd. Josephina signs the programs shoved in her face. Ten minutes later she is
alone once again in the street waiting for a cab. The
night is cool, and a light cold wind sweeps the street.
She
is looking down the avenue as Harry comes out of the theater, slamming the door against the wall.
He notices Josephina and heads straight towards her, the lapels of his beige overcoat splitting in
two and raising as he gains speed.
“You
were fabulous tonight,” he says.
“Thanks.
So were you” Josephina steps off the curb to better scout the street. She cannot look at him.
Her mind is assailed with the pertinent desire to know what a man without a penis could look like.
She thinks it is amusing, and the thought makes her feel ashamed.
“Waiting
for a cab? Maybe you want to share one?”
“Thank
you, I’m going to a friend.” Josephina camouflages her face with the roses.
“What
about tomorrow night, are you free?”
“I
already have a commitment.” Josephina gazes on down the street, looping the strap of her purse
over her shoulder.
“Too
bad.” Harry pauses and stares at her. “I was going to invite you for dinner.”
Josephina
faces his disheveled head for the first time. “That’s very kind of you. You know what it’s
like, week-ends, everyone’s got plans.”
He
waits for another word from her. She forces a smile on her face. She wants to be nice to him but
is unable. “Maybe some other time.”
Harry takes a card out of his wallet, crosses off a telephone
number and writes a new one.
“I’ve
just moved. Call me whenever. ” A cab pulls up in front of them.
“I’ve
got to run. I’m going to be late.”
Harry
shoves his card into her open purse as she scrambles into the back seat. She throws first the
roses then her heavy body. Harry shuts the door for her and resumes his walk.
The traffic light turns red. Josephina’s cab skulks behind Harry on his way to the street
corner. There, from wheeled-cart, he buys a wiener in a bun, which he splatters with a runny
mustard. He takes a firm bite and the mustard spews all over him. “Freak!” she says to
herself. Her face disappears into the roses whose fresh fragrance calms her. When she lifts her
head again, the cab is on its way.
Josephina’s
house smells like a flower shop. From the front door, the heavy scent of flowers impregnates the
air. She has flower arrangements in every corner and she is bringing more flowers home. She
searches for an empty vase and ends up dropping her bouquets on the dining room table. She runs to
the kitchen to check her answering machine. The little red light is flashing. The caller has hung
up without leaving a message. She now knows she is alone for the weekend. Her mood grows somber.
She trudges to the fridge, pours herself a large glass of wine, and gulps it down in one go. She
grabs her pill jar from her purse, crosses to the bedroom, and places the jar on the bedside
table. She swallows a pill and lies dressed on top of the bed, staring at the ceiling.
She cannot understand why no one is available. No one, apart from a freak, wants to invite
her out. But soon the wine relaxes her, and she falls asleep.
The
sun is already high in the sky when she opens her eyes. She can tell it is sunny by the intensity
of the light suffusing behind the curtains. Her tousled long hair veils her face. She lifts her
head until her eyes comes in line with the clock. Her head drops back onto the pillow when she
realizes it is still early. She has no clue how she is going to get through the day.
She curls herself in the bed and wraps her chubby arms around her shoulders. She lies there
for about an hour without moving, eyes-shut, without managing to doze off again. Her mind is
active. She plans her day. Nothing stands out outside the grocery shopping, watering the plants,
and exercising her voice, maybe lunching around the corner at the deli. Her life lies flat in
front of her, redundant and dull. She sits up and
grabs the romance novel on her bedside table, skims ten pages. Bored, she drops the book on the
floor.
She
gets up and shuffles to the living room. She sighs in disbelief when she notices the roses on the
table have withered overnight. She has forgotten to put them in water and their stems are soft and
pliant, the velvet petals having lost their resilience. She
grabs two vases, fills them with cold water, and places the soggy flowers inside, hoping they will
come back to life. She slouches on the sofa and for a
minute monitors the bouquets sprawled on the table. Then
she grabs the remote control and turns the TV on. She watches short sequences of programs, pausing
less than a second or two before switching channels. Nothing satisfies her. So she gets up and
opens the fridge where she takes out a tub of ice cream, comes back in front of the TV, and scoops
it all out while watching an exercise program.
She
tries to read the novel again. She folds her knees so that her legs fit inside the armchair. She
pulls on her light flowery nightgown trapped under her thighs to make herself more comfortable.
Two pages later, she gets up again and this time puts a disc on, first a show tune from “Guys
and Dolls,” which incenses her, then from “Anything Goes,” which wearies her. She settles
for an Henze’s opera: “Elegy for a Young Lover.” She returns to her seat. The novel still
makes no sense. The dramatic music fires up her agitation. The tragic lovers’ intense wailing is
too absorbing. She thinks about calling Georg. Perhaps his secret date has cancelled. Remembering
his lack of interest the previous night, she changes her mind.
She should not have to beg.
The
clock strikes 1 p.m.. She decides she can indulge in a drink. She pours herself a generous glass
of white wine then walks back to the stereo and turns the volume up. The windows buzz each time
the orchestra leads a deafening charge. Tears come to her eyes. She finishes her glass and stomps
back to the kitchen. She opens the fridge, peeks inside for an instant, and slams the door shut
without taking anything out. She picks up the telephone, listens to the tone for new messages.
Continuous tone. No new message. And her phone is working.
She
bumps into her puffy purse on the floor. She empties it on the table and rakes the contents with
her nervous fingers. She exhales and rubs both of her temples, hoping to regain her composure.
“Damned pills, where are they?” Harry Troma’s card sticks out between a magazine and her
address book. Josephina rescues the card and without hesitating shreds it to pieces. A man without
a penis, is it really all I can get? she thinks. She presses on the pedal of the trashcan and
whisks the pieces in, her bottom lip quivering with anger. Her right hand delves back into the
bag, rummages through the stuff, and comes to a standstill. "God damn pills!"
Back
in the living room, she glimpses around and proceeds to lift each of the couch’s cushions. In
the bathroom, she pops the cabinet doors open, her eyes sweeping the shelves. Nothing. She
shuffles back to the bedroom and notices the medical jar on the bedside table. She pours the
jar’s contents into her hand and washes down a pill with another glass of chilled white wine.
Moments
later, the phone rings. She stretches her body over the kitchen counter, biting her bottom lip in
an effort to grab the wall-mounted telephone with the tips of her fingers. She tips over the glass
of wine. A wet spot on her nightgown makes her nipple visible.
“Allo?
. . . Carl, is that you? Where are you? San Francisco? I was just about to call you . . . To see
if you wanted to go out tonight . . . That's ok, I understand . . . Some other time . . .” The
conversation goes on for another minute. She feels better. Someone has called. She sponges off the
wine dripping slowly onto the floor. She exists for someone. She is not invisible. The little
testimony brightens her mood. Since no one comes to her, she will go to someone. After all, there
is no reward without a little effort.
She
opens her address book and leafs through the pages. She
dials a number. She hears the phone ring and then a machine come on. A man’s voice states that
he is out of town until the end of the month. She
hangs up, turns another page, and dials the number. A short-lived smile flashes on her face when
she hears the voice-mail.
“Hi
Johnny, Josephina. Just checking in . . .It's been a while . . . I was wondering what you were
doing tonight. I thought we could get together somewhere. Well, anyway, let me know. I’m at
home.”
“Allo,
Josephina?” says an affected voice. “I was just walking through the door when I heard your
voice. Tonight, unfortunately, I can't. I've already got a commitment.”
“Oh
who with?”
“I’m
going out with that young Italian guy I told you about.”
“I’m
just having a bunch of people over at Giorgio, I thought of you . . . Well, you might love to join
us afterwards.”
Johnny
apologizes and asks her whom she has invited. Josephina gives him a list of people she makes up on
the spur of the moment. He apologizes once again for his engagement, but promises to pop in if it
does not finish too late, a remark which he punctuates with alluding laughter.
She
opens her address book again and runs through the pages back to front. Selecting someone on the L page, she dials the number. No response. She
dials another number. A woman answers. Josephina hangs up. She
closes her address book, reopens it at random, and chooses a name on the page. The phone rings
twice. Doubting her tactic, she changes her mind and hangs up the phone. She calls Nicole instead.
“Hi Nicole, it’s me and . . .” Her voice fades
out. “Never mind. I just found it. Talk to you next week.” Disgusted, she throws her address
book in the trashcan and pours herself another glass of wine.
Ten
minutes have passed. Josephina is in the large foyer of her apartment, sitting at a grand piano.
She plays an arpeggio with her short, stubby but nimble fingers. She warms up her voice up humming
an Ahhh sound, climbing up and down a scale, then an O sound, modulating the tone up and she then starts singing at a higher pitch. But her
voice shakes and refuses to reach the desired pitch. She hits wrong notes after wrong notes. She
flushes her lungs with a thorough breath and tries to hit the pitches again. Far from relaxing
her, practicing exacerbates her distress. Her hands whack the same chords over and over again with
more and more intensity. The playing grows aggressive and loud, while her words turn into frantic
wailing. In the end, she hammers the keys at random with her fists and collapses on top of the
keyboard in a deafening cacophony, which drowns out her sobbing until the volume dies down. She
remains there, sniveling. At times, her convulsed torso lifts her breast off the keys and gives
birth to new dissonant clanking sounds. She cries for a while longer and finally finds peace by
falling asleep.
She
wakes up a half-hour later, dazed. She opens the fridge, get some food out, and fixes herself a
large salami sandwich. She alternates with spoonfuls of ice cream slurped straight from a tub. She
throws the empty tub into the trash. As the top lid raises, she notices her address book and the
bits of Harry’s card sprinkled at the bottom. She fishes the book and the pieces out and lays
them on the table. Within seconds she has reconstituted the now stained and wet card. She stares
at Harry’s smudged handwriting. She feels terrible for him and begings to tell herself all sorts
of stories. Perhaps Harry deserves a chance. Perhaps there is an incredible person below the
surface. He is extremely talented after all. She
holds her breath and dials his number. At the first ring she puts the phone down. Her heart is
beating fast. She does not know what she is doing. Perhaps, in private, he is not such an evil
man, she thinks, trying to convince herself. She takes a deep breath and dials the number again,
hoping for the machine to come on. Harry answers the
phone.
“Hello
Harry, Josephina,” she says with a great ecstatic voice.
She
sits down confused . . .
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