I lived in an apartment that had previously been a closet in someone's home. I didn't mind the tiny elevator in my building. I welcomed the proximity to Columbia University. The women walking around at all hours were a bonus. It was worth it to use a Coke bottle to shower and cook by placing food over my cigarette lighter. The place was rent stabilized. The monthly bite was tolerable. What more could I ask?
I didn't know how I'd get a woman into the apartment while I was still in it, since there was so little room. For the first few months there was no reasonable prospect on the babe watch, so the issue didn't come up. My starship failed to detect suitable female lifeforms in my building.
Anyway, this particular Friday night I was heading home after a massive sandwich experience at "Artie's." I saw a guy I know selling books at a sidewalk table. I stopped and browsed, searching for something by Jack Finney or Richard Matheson, maybe a great scary Steven King novel that I could read on the subway train in the morning. This guy had a few old items of jewelry, including a cameo broach from, like, the twenties. The broach had a picture of this amazingly beautiful woman in a classic flapper outfit. She looked like a blond Louise Brooks wearing a string of pearls and with big eyes that went right through me. I didn't know whether the image in the cameo -- which was dusty and seemed not to have been touched for years -- was a painting or photograph that had been decorated with watercolors.
I opted for a Scott Turow legal thriller and shelled out five dollars extra for the cameo. I made it home in time to see one of my favorite old movies, Bell, Book and Candle. I must have fallen asleep on the couch because I woke up at around 3:00 A.M., when some pots and pans fell in the section of my "one room paradise with a view" devoted to kitchen events. I turned on the lights and went to see what happened. There was a woman standing in my apartment wearing a long string of pearls and a kind of feather or something in her hair. She was in my bathrobe.
"Hi, I'm Bernice."
She looked like Drew Barrymore with a kind of silent film-style, just like the woman in the cameo.
"You know, Bernice ... like in the F. Scott Fitzgerald story 'Bernice Bobs Her Hair' ... I met him, you know."
"I don't know how you got in here. If you're a junky or something, you should know that I am not interested in anything illegal. I'm a lawyer. I don't need any trouble."
"Oh, don't be silly." She made herself comfortable on my couch. "Can't you tell that I'm a ghost?"
"What?"
"I'm a ghost, silly. I mean, isn't it rather obvious? You've read enough of these stories. You've been to the movies. You know how it works."
She was lying on my couch, staring up at me, sparkling green eyes, perfect smile, dimples on her cheeks.
"If you need medication," I tried to be patient, "I am sure that there are hospitals that provide emergency refills."
"I'm a ghost. I don't need medication, but I do get hungry. There's nothing in your ice box. What do you call it now? 'Refrigerator'? You see, I'm trying to earn my angel's wings. I was a chorus girl when I died in a car crash -- only twenty-five! -- it really breaks your heart. That was right before the Great Depression."
She just stared at me and made this melting little girl's face, drying an imaginary tear from her eyes.
"Do men still like that sort of approach?" She laughed.
"I admit that you're very beautiful, probably somewhat disturbed, not dangerous maybe. I am sure that there are people worried about you. If you tell me the name of the facility where you live, I will do my best to get you home."
I tried to sound reasonable. She thanked me and beamed a smile for the compliment, then shifted into female anger and outrage: "I live in heaven, pal. You're sooo silly ..."
I was stunned and (for once) at a loss for words. Some evil part of my soul was pondering a sexual act --
" -- Don't even think about it, buster. This is strictly heavenly business. I'm here to help you return to your spiritual essence and release your capacity for love (not that kind, you're too one-track-minded!), creative, other-regarding love. If I can bring you to a higher state of consciousness where you open up to the world around you, I may get my wings and a penthouse suite. Heaven looks just like the Waldorf Hotel."
She got up and went to the kitchen where I keep my menus from local restaurants. Bernice was humming an Al Jolson tune.
"Are you telling me that you're dead?"
"Well, I couldn't be a ghost if I were alive, right? I mean, it's pretty elementary. By the way, are you single?"
This was getting out of hand. "I may have to call the police. I don't know what you're planning, but you're in my home and wearing my bathrobe --"
"-- It's really nice. Smells great. You wear eau d'cologne? Most men in the twenties wore terrible cologne."
"Thank you. I got the bathrobe as a Holiday gift from my mother."
"You're Jewish! Me too!"
I thought that the safest thing was to play along: "I would have guessed that you're a Jewish ghost."
She smiled her "Fanny Price smile."
I decided to go with a hunch: "In fact, you probably went to Brandeis University and experimented with the wrong drugs because your parents wanted you to marry a dentist from Long Island, right?"
I had met her type before.
"You really are kind of slow, aren't you? Look!"
Suddenly, right before my eyes, Bernice disappeared. Then she reappeared. Bernice is not unusual in possessing this female ability to be present and absent almost at the same time -- sometimes women manage this effect when having sex with their husbands!
"My God!"
"No, I'm not God. Just a ghost. I'm here for you. You need a nice woman in your life."
"You're definitely Jewish."
"So is God. She's shopping today at Bloomingdales. She said that she needs a new handbag with all the gadgets that she carries around, especially her big cell phone. We didn't have cell phones in the twenties. Now all the apprentice angels get them, standard issue. Hold it, God's texting me!"
I felt dizzy all of a sudden.
"She wants to have lunch this week so I can provide a progress report. You'd never know it, but God looks like Barbara Streisand and she loves to sing."
"You mean religious music?"
"No, Broadway show tunes."
"O.K., that's it. You're out of here."
"You can't throw me out of your apartment because you're my project. Don't you want me to become a full angel?"
She placed her hands on her hips, tilted her head at me, and lifted an eyebrow.
"Look, I don't want you to get in trouble. I will sleep in the living room. You can go into my bedroom -- which is on the small side -- but there's air conditioning. You can wear some of my pijamas and stay here tonight. Tomorrow, you have to go and rescue someone else. That's fair, right?"
"Well, it's a start. I can see that you're going to be a lot of work. You are seriously out-of-touch with your chi!"
Bernice stormed into the bedroom and closed the door. I was just getting to sleep when there was a loud knock at my front door. I got up, groggy and in a foul mood. I opened the door to discover the delivery guy from "La Caridad" on 78th Street. I paid the man $32.00, plus a $5.00 tip.
Bernice came out of the bedroom wearing my pijamas and in my Rolling Stones t-shirt. Without a single word (to me), she took the food from my hand and said something in Chinese to the delivery guy. Then she went right back into the bedroom and slammed the door.
I had forgotten the joy of living with a woman. Somehow, I got to sleep. Next thing I know bells are ringing, trumpets are blaring, birds are singing.
"Good morning, sunshine! Are you ready for our adventure?"
I could only open one eye. My brain had suffered a terrible trauma. One ear had been damaged severely by this blaring wake-up call. Bernice stood before me in a beautiful dress, pastel shades with hand-painted flowers, a twenties' length on the hem line, sporting a parasol and jet black hair now in a Clara Bow-style. Oceans of elegant perfume flowed in my direction, together with a powerful charge of female energy. The smell of coffee and a huge breakfast at my portable tray greeted me as I rose to my feet.
"Bran muffin?"
I have never tasted such a great breakfast.
"Where'd you get this stuff? It's great."
"There's a guy in heaven who used to work as a chef at the 21 Club. He's sweet for me. Anything I want, he cooks up in minutes -- everything is perfect in heaven's kitchen -- and then he sends it to me. I figured you'd need your strength for today."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, first I want to go shopping on Madison Avenue. I haven't been to the shops in ages! I want to see all the new clothes. We got an expense account and bonus from Heaven's accounting office! They think you're a difficult project and they want to help me. I need everything to be right."
I just stared at Bernice. I didn't know whether some terrible stroke had affected my cerebral cortex. I guess the same thing happens when you fall in love because this feeling was just as weird.
"Do you not read the papers? Do you know what's happening today?"
Bernice sat accross from me as I ate. She sipped some coffee from my favorite mug that said: "Juan in a million!"
"No, what's happening today?"
"Shakespeare in the Park, silly. What? Are you hostile to culture?"
"No."
"O.K., so we're going to try to develop your capacity for feelings and higher emotions. For you, this will be very difficult. Most lawyers do not go to heaven. But I love a challenge."
"I like Shakespeare. What's the play?"
"Twelfth Night. Somebody named 'Anne Hathaway' is in it. Isn't that the living end? First, I thought we'd do a little shopping, like I said. That way, I'll be up-to-date in my fashions. All the men will envy you because you're with me. The women will feel sorry for me, of course, but that can't be helped."
I was trying to absorb these new developments. I ate a full hearty breakfast, showered, dressed casually -- polo shirt, khakis, black penny loafers, plus my Mickey Mouse watch from when I went to Disneyworld. I know, I know ... "You're a grown man!"
I agreed to the whole shopping expedition, provided that Bernice would accompany me to the MET Museum to see some of my favorite canvases before heading to the park to see the play. We made the bargain and signed it in blood, metaphorically speaking. I thought that, after the museum, I'd show her to my favorite little French Bistro, not far from "The Corner Bookstore."
We left the apartment around 10:00 A.M. I made sure to stop and say hello to "Sam," our local homeless man, who is a sweetheart. Sam keeps an eye on my place when I am away. I usually get something for him during my morning rush into the local Dunkin Doughnuts. Sam was impressed by Bernice:
"How you doing today, beautiful?" Sam said.
"You talking to me, Sam?"
I couldn't resist the one-liner since I rarely make Sam laugh. He couldn't get enough of it.
"No, man ... you're as ugly as ever. What's she doing with you?"
Bernice loved it.
"I'm her project."
"That what they call it now?"
Bernice took some notes to see if she could "fix up" Sam with a nice deceased woman. Sam is very well informed on current events. We discuss politics in the mornings.
"I haven't been on the subways since before I died."
"The subway could have caused your death in the twenties. It's a lot better now. There's air conditioning."
The MTA guy spilled his coffee when he heard this. The trains are packed tighter than a can of sardines at this hour. We split up the morning Times. I got the "Arts" section; Bernice was perusing the "Style" section. She loves the "Science Times." We agreed to share the news and editorial pages. Bernice is tempted to vote for FDR. He wouldn't be a bad candidate. We went downtown to 42nd Street. Bernice ran to the middle of the block, then she began tap dancing and singing. Bernice is really good!
"Finally, I made it to the Big White Way!" She said. Bernice insisted on walking to the East Side singing in the middle of street, then heading uptown by way of the department stores and boutiques. Bernice wanted to teach me a dance that she learned from Vernon Castle and Bill "Bojangles" Robinson.
We were in the middle of the street and she was dancing -- like in the movies -- cars were honking and tourists were snapping our picture. A police officer suggested that we head over to our favorite lunatic asylum without causing a traffic snarl-up.
Bernice was about to mention the cop's "chi," when I decided to take his advice and, gently, persuaded her to stroll with the rest of the "mortals" on the sidewalk.
"You're no fun."
"Neither is the city jail, Bernice."
The day was beautiful. Madison Avenue in the morning is packed with well-dressed people strolling to offices and meetings, some going to college classes, others window shopping or heading to Central Park for a "play date." I could not believe this woman's effortless elegance and grace, the way she moved efficiently and strongly. Bernice's reflection, like a shadow, mimicked her actions in the "real world" (is it real?), as it glided by on the shop windows when we walked up the street. I walked with twins -- a self and her shadow, Sebastian and Viola all in one -- both involved in an intricate dance with me. The afterlife must be great for good people. The Waldorf, huh? ...
We stopped in some jewelry stores, but made no purchases. Shoes were a religious experience for Bernice. She bought Italian shoes that matched her outfit. Bernice couldn't get enough of seeing them glitter on her feet, like ruby slippers. I loved making her laugh, purchasing an ice cream cone on the sidewalk, seeing her with a smudge of cookie dough ice cream on her nose was priceless. I gently wiped the ice cream away, then I snapped a picture with a disposable camera.
I remember a woman's face many years ago, after a dance, as I drew the hair back from her forehead. I remember seeing her turn away, smile, and wave. Borges said in a short story that, until his death, he would remember the face of Beatriz Viterbo. Beatrice. I close my eyes, sometimes, and see a woman in a wedding gown with a tear in her eyes, looking at me.
Bernice felt that I needed a make-over. We went into several men's stores, none seemed right. She insisted on a new shirt from the "Tie and Shirt Shop" -- all the clothes are English there -- then we set out to find new trousers for me. A powder blue shirt was matched by cream-colored slacks, new shoes, the leather seemed soft and fitted to my foot. Bernice opted for a new watch, then insisted that I get a Breitling. Instead, I selected an Orient watch. We pretended to be Fred Astaire and Ginger Rodgers, improvising a dance number on the sidewalk, earning the applause of some observers. My life became a scene from My Man Godfrey, or Topper.
The hours seemed to disappear. I realized that "The Cafe Luxembourg" on West 70th Street, I think, is a watering hole for movie people. Bernice would love the atmosphere in that place. After a quick lunch, there would be time for a visit to the MET museum, then a light snack at the French place before heading to the theater.
Women who really love you and think that you're "perfect" always want to make a few minor changes in your life. I figured Bernice would insist on brain surgery (for me) before the day was over. Bernice wanted everything to be perfect. She insisted on improving every detail in order to "fix" my problem. I went along with everything that she wanted. I tried to be patient. It all seemed really important to her. I wanted her to be happy.
For some women happiness is "fixing" other people in order to achieve a "perfect" life, like in magazines or movies. I wanted Bernice to feel that she succeeded in her efforts, that her life was that magazine cover, because I wanted to see her smile forever. I wanted Bernice to believe or know that she is a "star" -- for me. And she is a star, always.
Bernice was so concerned about my chi that she seemed unconcerned about li. The idea of balance and harmony, within the self and in relation to nature. We ate together. Bernice ordered my lunch -- no need to ask what I wanted -- because she was sure that I don't eat "healthy meals!" Bernice mapped out a schedule for the afternoon: museum, shopping for groceries, coffee at my favorite French place, where we could talk about the paintings we had seen, finally a DVD for movie viewing at home with "organic" microwave popcorn after the play and more coffee. Bernice explained that she needs "everything to be flawless!"
The meal was superb. Bernice waved to people in the movie business. She explained to the movie actors that their grandparents had been her friends. To movie people, apparently, this sort of behavior seems normal. Kate Winslet and Sam Mendes waved to us as we left the restaurant. Melanie Griffith whispered something in my ear about the power of crystals. Melanie loves my "Antonio" cologne. Robert Downey. Jr. insisted that he had met Bernice's grandfather in a previous life. The two of them compared notes on the chi of the various people in the room.
We made our way to the MET museum, being especially entranced by the portraits painted by the great Baroque masters, Velazquez and Rembrandt. I noticed the merciless, scalpel-like attention to the psyche on the part of the great Spanish painter. His depiction of these powerful persons in their finery and of all that seemed false, uncertain and uncomfortable in their personas somehow reflecting the station to which life had assigned them. Velazquez liked and accepted their money. He clearly did not admire these powerful patrons too much beyond their wealth. These paintings contain a protest at having to associate with and paint these people, even as the artist is clearly fascinated by his subjects. I know the feeling.
The adjacent portrait of a Dominican servant in finery was a scathing comment on these people. Here was a man beneath their notice -- almost like a mouse to these aristocrats -- yet filled with authenticity and more life and intelligence (or genuineness) than they could ever achieve. More than their equal, the artist sees the illiterate servant's simple humanity and delights in it, judging it superior to the pompousness of his ruthless patrons, patrons whose blindness prevents them even from seeing the artist's harsh evaluations of their arrogance and conceit. Superiors?
I am sure that movie people, actors and directors as well as writers, are like Velazquez in their ability to see other people and tell them (all of us) what we're really like. Is that why we care so much about them?
Bernice began to cry before the great Rembrandt self-portrait, which is really the Dutch painter's Hamlet. The work is a meditation on life and death as well as meaning. I think Bernice understood something then about real wealth. She was overwhelmed with a feel for the distance between authentic value and "gaudy display." Perhaps Bernice saw something also about herself that she had not seen in a brief lifetime, understanding my willingness to follow her anywhere, my willingness to accept anything to make her happy.
It was at that moment that I realized that I was here for Bernice. I could have sworn that I heard Streisand singing something about "People who need people ..."
The pieces all fell into place after the play -- which is free for the people of New York and the world -- as we left the Delacorte theater in Central Park to find a coffee shop. Not far from Central Park West, on Amsterdam Avenue, I found a place called "The Illyria Cafe."
Twelfth Night is a holiday gift -- like the toys received by children on "Three Kings' Day" in Cuba, which is the same holiday -- a gift for the "Feast of the Epiphany." I am sure that the play is about unmaskings and revelations, identity and love. This play provides an occasion for the "epiphanies" of love. Shakespeare wishes us to "see" one another and accept ourselves for who and what we are.
People interpret the work -- only tenuously described as a comedy -- as concerned with the mysteries of identity and gender, erotic loss and melancholy. Bernice sat next to me and listened to my whispering monologue as she sipped some iced coffee while trying to keep her eyes from closing. I wonder whether the identities and genders in question are those of our loves rather than ourselves? Are there masculine and feminine loves? Do some men love as women love? While some women feel love only as a man feels it? I remember some lines from Scene IV in the play:
Duke: "There is no woman's sides
can bide the beating of so strong a passion
As love doth give my heart: no woman's heart
So big to hold so much; they lack retention.
Alas, their love may be called appetite, --
No motion of the liver, but the palate, --
That suffer surfeit, cloyment, and revolt;
But mine is all as hungry as the sea,
And can digest as much: make no compare
Between that love a woman bear me
And that I owe Olivia."
Viola: "Ay, but I know, --
Duke: "What dost thou know?"
Viola: "Too well what love women to men may owe.
In faith, they are as true of heart as we.
My father had a daughter loved a man,
As it might be, perhaps, were I a woman,
I should your Lordship."
Duke: "And what's her history?"
Viola: "A blank, my Lord. She never told her love,
But let concealment, like a worm i' the bud,
Feed on her damask cheek: she pined in thought;
And, with a green and yellow melancholy,
She sat like patience on a monument,
Smiling at grief. Was this not love indeed?
We men say more, swear more; but, indeed,
Our shows are more than will; for still we prove
Much in our vows, but little in our love."
Imagine speaking of your love to a person who does not know it is he (or she) that is the object of such devotion, like Viola/Cesario speaking to Orsino. How much must one adore a creature to ache with unbearable pain at not being seen or recognized -- not remembered -- even as one's life is all a gift or offering to, and for, that person? Imagine a love whose every utterance is agony and bliss, equally, which must be chosen (every day) or "chaos is come again."
This play is a tale of longing and loss where one character's love is a woman and another character's love is a man. "Two loves have I ..." The love that is a woman is all for the other; the love that is a man is a receiving of the other's passion. Masculine and feminine loves are no respecters of gender or propriety, class boundaries mean nothing. Our love is all air; the other's love is all earth. Her absence is like a death ...
Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,
So do our minutes hasten to their end;
Each changing place with that which goes before,
In sequent toil all forwards do contend.
Nativity, once in the main of light,
Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crown'd,
Crooked eclipses 'gainst his glory fight,
And Time that gave doth now his gift confound.
Time does transfix the flourish set on youth,
And delves the parallels in beauty's brow,
Feeds on the rarities of nature's truth,
And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow.
And yet to times in hope my verse shall stand,
Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand.
Bernice, slowly, drifted off to sleep and held me close. I kissed her hair which smelled of lilacs and the sea. I noticed that, on our tables, there were some wings made of paper to be placed on the stirrer that came with our frozen coffee drinks. I placed the wings, briefly, in her hair ... like a garland:
" ... [Shakespeare] is able to combine an old theme with a newer one, the theme of rebirth with the theme of sexual love and growth, and the freeing and educative function of erotic ambiguity and sexual disguise. Viola as a boy, though carefully described as high voiced and clear-complexioned, is able to educate both Orsino and Olivia in love, as Rosalind did Orlando in As You Like It, because she is herself in a middle space, [integrated?] in disguise, and in both genders. [Sebastian and Viola are one.] Once again the fact that boy actors played the roles of women on the public stage meant that a boy played a young woman playing a boy -- one reason for the plentiful reminders in this play that Cesario is not a man, but a woman in disguise. ... "
Marjorie Garber, "Twelfth Night," in Shakespeare After All (New York: Pantheon, 2004), p. 508.
