Mrs. Beast Read online

  Being pathologically curious, as all fairy tale beauties are, she hobbles toward the ruckus. Peeking around a corner, she sees two of the dwarf men climbing a ladder that leads to an immense cedar wood tub. Steam rises from the water’s surface. The two jump in fully clothed and join the five others who are in various stages of peeling off, dousing, and wringing out their clothes. An iron pipe runs from a rock face into the tub, and a sluice box runs off the front. Even without the benefit of sunlight, Beauty catches the twinkle of gold dust drifting through the sluice water, which lands on a stretched sheep skin, literally a Golden Fleece.

  Clothes thoroughly wrung, the men turn their attention to cleaning their bodies. From seven hooks mounted on a center pole, they remove seven long-handled brushes. The brushes are scrubbed into scalps, swabbed between toes, shoved bristle to bristle against beards.

  “Uh-oh—bubbles. Who blew wind?”

  Beauty recognizes the voice as Gunnard’s. Groans and disgusted utterances follow the question.

  “Dog smells his own first.”

  “I didn’t do it! Look at that grin on Herman’s pus.”

  “Brother, what did you have for lunch?”

  “Pressed possum, melt in your mouth.” Herman smacks his lips loudly.

  “Gonna melt my eyebrows off, you pig.”

  Beauty covers her mouth to stifle a giggle.

  “I et a venison sandwich. Still got some left from the fourteen-point I bagged with my bow last October. Perfect shot, it was, the kind you see in your dreams.”

  “How about Wolfgang’s shot at the turkey two years back? Bet Max still sees that one in his dreams. Show us your scar, Maxie.”

  Beauty spies as Max shoves his head under the water and raises his behind like a diving duck. She can’t miss the red, V-shaped scar on his white globe cheek.

  “You guys will never let me live that down. If I hadn’t been dozing off, if Max didn’t sound exactly like a turkey with those big lips and double chin . . .”

  Max’s gobble now pierces the air, and from somewhere, far off in the fog-shrouded woods, a turkey hen sounds her plaintive reply. The men roar with laughter, and it’s contagious. Beauty laughs into her hands. How long has it been, she wonders, since I laughed joyfully?

  She pictures the Beast tickling her feet with his shiny black talons, running his long, rough tongue along the length of her sole.

  Slap-flap of wet feet striking wood and Beauty lifts her gaze just as Ojars shouts, “Look, Pieter’s got a stiffy.”

  Beauty turns away, her cheeks crimson. A falling pebble cause her to look upward, and there, at the tower window is Snow White, her blue eyes veiled, her blood-red lips parted, her snowy breast heaving as the dwarfs scamper buck-naked to their seven doors.

  * * *

  Dinner is served in Snow White's cottage. The decor is Spartan: no crocheted doilies, no knick-knacks, and no rugs on the swept stone floor. A circular staircase, which the Grimm psychologist claims, is symbol for sexual experience, leads to the tower room.

  In contrast to the sparse furnishings, the lengthy dining table is heavily laid: twelve bowls brimming with vegetables and fruits, four loaves of oat bread, a pound of cottage cheese, two pitchers of goat's milk, two pitchers of beer, and a sizzling, twenty-pound roasted goose.

  Snow White sits at the head of the table, Beauty at the opposite end. She would have preferred a seat somewhere in the middle, but Snow White has set out place cards with names written in red ink. In between the beauties are the seven dwarfs, their seven wives, and numerous children. As Snow White ceremoniously hands the carving knife to Lars, a slice of light flashes from the blade across Beauty's eyes and she drifts in thought to another dining scene.

  Each evening during her first week with the Beast, she entered the dining hall to find a table set for one with translucent china, a crystal goblet, gold serving pieces, and dishes the Beast had ordered. Grimm dishes: Loffelerbsen, a stew of dried peas, onions, leeks, potatoes, pig's ears and snout; Blutwurst and Milzwurst, blood and veal spleen sausage; Eisbein, Sauerkraut, pickled pigs knuckles and cabbage. Concealed behind an ornamental screen, the Beast watched Beauty eat to the accompaniment of Wagner's Die Meistersinger Overture. On the seventh evening, she invited him to join her.

  "I'd ruin your appetite," he growled.

  "Sir, I'd be glad for the company,” Beauty said honestly.

  The Beast shuffled to the table. "Chair!" he barked, and a chair appeared opposite Beauty. The initial face-to-face encounter with his peeled-grape eyes, purple cauliflower nose and jagged yellow teeth in bright blue gums made her stomach churn. The Beast asked, "Do you find me very ugly?"

  "Yes, I do," Beauty had replied. "However, I believe you are good. I have known men more monstrous than you. I prefer your face over pleasing ones that conceal false, ungrateful, and corrupt hearts."

  "Will you be my wife?"

  Beauty simply shook her head.

  The Beast's roar shattered crystal in every castle room. Beauty sat mute and white as the tablecloth, until the Beast spoke softly. "You don't eat enough. Are you trying to die of starvation?

  "No. I'm not accustomed to this heavy fare."

  "You don't fancy the food? Woman, ask for whatever you want. You are queen and mistress here."

  "Poires au Roquefort," Beauty said hopefully, and two cheese-filled pear halves appeared on her plate.

  She savored the tangy cheese and sweet pear, rolling it over her tongue. "Radishes and chard, jeannots, Coquilles Saint Jacques," she chirped. Vegetables, biscuits, and scallops materialized on the table. Beauty was stabbing the last scallop when she remembered the Beast.

  "Please excuse my rudeness. Care to try some?"

  The Beast sneered. "That's rabbit food. Kalbskopf!" he shouted and a pair of calf's lungs sprawled over the table. He swiped them up with his talons, sank his fangs into the meat and tore off a blood-dripping mass. Beauty couldn't touch her Gateau de Riz au Caramel.

  How those dinners changed, Beauty muses at Snow White's table, recalling the night affaire d'amour began, when éclair custard plopped onto her décolletage and the Beast's tongue flicked out fast as a frog on a fly. And on succeeding nights, she remembers the truffles she'd slip from her open mouth to his, or one wild strawberry nibbled from her navel. No matter how exhausted they might be après-dessert, he always asked, "Will you be my wife?"

  On the fourteenth evening, Beauty wiped blanche mange from her chin and answered. "I'll always be your friend. Try to be content with that."

  "I'll have to; I love you very much, and I'm happy that you want to stay. Promise you'll never leave me."

  I didn't keep my promise, Beauty thinks and feels tears stinging her eyes, maybe if I had . . . Gerda nudges Beauty with a sharp little elbow and offers a platter of sliced goose.

  "You've outdone yourself tonight, Snow," Pieter pipes up, rubbing his palms together.

  After three failed attempts at cutting her slice of goose, Beauty lifts it with her fingers and discreetly pokes it into her mouth. The flavor and texture remind her of when Violet recommended chewing hickory bark to cure Beauty’s toothache. With a spasm of nausea she closes her eyes and breaths deeply through her nose until it passes. Silence falls over the table as thirty sets of jaws work over the goose: eyes squint, cheeks redden, heads and Adam's apples bob. Snow White slams her fork on the table and cries, "It's horrid!"

  The girl at Snow White's left swallows so hard her eyes water. "I think it's grand, Auntie Snow."

  "Me too," Wolfgang adds, stabs a second potato, and turns to Beauty. "Snow used to cook our meals, did the sewing and cleaning too before we all were married."

  "She'd never cooked, nor cleaned, nor sewn a stitch in her life, being born a princess," Max says. "That's something Snow White and Beauty have in common, they're both princesses."

  Snow White settles her icy gaze on Beauty. Because they watch and wait, fairy tale beauties are expert at the art of unmasking true feelings and hiding their own.

>   "By marriage," Beauty is quick to say noticing that Snow White's expression is similar to that peasant woman's before she yanked her daughter's hair. "I was not born a princess. I cooked and sewed and cleaned when I lived in the country with my father and sisters. After I went to the Beast's . . . Prince Runyon's palace, magic provided everything I wished for."

  Snow White twists her red lips into a grimace. "If it was so great, what are you doing here?"

  "Recuperating," Sigrid states and spoons cottage cheese into the mouth of her toddler. Beauty wants to answer, if only to convince Snow White she's not a threat.

  "I'm on a quest. Six months ago, the palace was a paradise. It is no longer. When I find Elora the Enchantress, I can set things right again. As soon as I'm able, I'll be on my way. In the meanwhile, I’m most grateful for your hospitality." Beauty wants to ask why Princess Snow White is living with the dwarfs in a forest commune, but intuition tells her to hold her tongue.

  Snow White claps slowly, punctuating the mockery in her expression.

  "A pretty speech from a pretty girl. You can set things right, can you? All on your own? When did you begin your quest? Yesterday I believe, and it's going smoothly so far, right?"

  "Well, I. . ." Beauty begins, but Snow White cuts her off.

  "Stop being kind, gracious, and loving, or your princess virtues will be the death of you. This I know from experience," Snow White hisses, lifting her glass of beer.

  The little girl seated next to Snow White points her tiny finger at the front window and shrieks with fright. Pressed to the pane is the gaunt face of Queen Vanita, her nose streaking soot up and down the glass as she dances. The light from her red-hot shoes, glowing upward through her chin, makes her skull resemble a rotten Jack-O-Lantern.

  Snow White leaps from her chair and bolts for the staircase, a corner of the tablecloth clutched in her hand. Glasses shatter on the stone floor, the goose bounces three times and lands in the tinder box; boiled potatoes roll, and creamed peas slide down Max’s beard. Beauty leans close to Gerda and asks, "Is she Snow White's mother?"

  Snow White's heels scrape the floor with such force that blue sparks fly. She whips about and glares at Beauty. Kicking potatoes on the way, she stomps to Beauty's side, raises her hand and slaps Beauty hard.

  "That--that thing is not my mother! My mother is dead," she screeches and dashes back toward the staircase. Her pace slows only an instant when Beauty murmurs, "So is mine."

  * * *

  Elora the Enchantress lights an after-dinner Coheba cigar and walks away from her crystal ball, Croesus faithfully following. Her bell-bottom satin lounging pajamas swish as she enters the Deco drawing room and stretches out on the sofa. Croesus rests his chin on the cushion.

  "Tell me, do you harbor any fantasies in that fuzzy brain about your mother?" Elora asks and blows a smoke ring that encircles Croesus's nose. The dog shakes his head and sneezes.

  "Good boy." Elora scratches his ear and he leans into her hand, groaning with pleasure. "Because you never had one. I thought you into existence upon returning from a banquet at Queen Nefertiti's. You sprang from my head fully grown, so I guess that makes me the closest thing to a mother you have."

  Croesus flops to the floor, paws up, exposing his belly.

  Elora ignores him and pours a glass of Mandarin Napoleon from a Lalique decanter. "Have I ever given you the slightest inclination that I have even one maternal instinct?" she says dryly. "And have you suffered for lack of a mother's care?" The silver flecks in Elora's eyes spark and Croesus quickly sits at attention.

  Elora puffs her cigar thoughtfully, "Yet Snow White and Beauty seem wounded over being motherless, even though they have no idea what their lives would be like if their mothers had lived. I knew their mothers, and something I'm sure of is that Beauty and Snow would not have grown into resourceful and determined beauties under their mothers’ tutelage. Still, they romanticize what might have been, imagining a Barbie-dream Mom in a Barbie-dream house."

  Croesus cocks one ear and lays a paw on Elora's lap.

  "Wait a minute, Buster. Tinkering with the lives of mortals is one of the perks of being an enchantress. Granted, sometimes that tinkering benefits the occasional deserving individual, but it has nothing to do with mothering." Elora taps her ash nonchalantly. "Let us not forget that nine times out of ten my spells are devious, sinister and spiteful." Elora points her cigar at Croesus, and the hound jams his head under the sofa.

  * * *

  Tucked snugly between the flannel sheets in Gerda's guestroom, Beauty cannot sleep. She sees Snow White's blue eyes cold with malice and hears her voice, frosty with contempt. At least now she has some insight into Snow White's aversion to mirrors and to strangers. After dinner, the dwarfs had told her part of Snow White's story.

  Many years ago, Snow White's mother, Queen Marie, sat beside a window working embroidery. Snowflakes were falling like feathers from the sky. Marie pricked her finger and three drops of blood fell onto the snow. She said to herself, Oh, that I had a child as white as snow, as red as blood, and as black as the wood of my embroidery frame. Marie's wish was fulfilled upon Snow White's birth: a baby with skin white as snow, lips red as blood, and hair black as ebony wood. The queen looked at the babe, named her Snow White, then she died.

  Five years later, her father, King Albrecht, married Vanita, a handsome and high-strung woman. Every day she stood before her magic mirror and asked: Looking glass upon the wall, who is the fairest of us all? The mirror always answered: You are fairest of them all. However, the day Snow White reached ten years of age, the mirror answered: Queen, you are full fair, 'tis true, but Snow White fairer is than you.

  According to the dwarfs, from that moment on, envy grew in Vanita's black heart. She commanded the huntsman to take Snow White into the woods and kill her. Deep in the forest, Snow White pleaded for her life and promised to disappear into the wild wood. She ran until nightfall when she found the dwarf's cottage.

  At that point in the tale, Ojars had cleared his throat vigorously and said. "‘Twas 'fore we were married. Just me and my six brothers lived in the little cottage, the only house back then. We came home from working the mines and there's a pretty little girl snoozing on Max's bed. Next morning, she told us her story, and we said she could stay if she'd cook, wash, make the beds, sew and keep the place tidy."

  "No wonder she found you men wives." Brunhilde chuckled.

  Beauty smiles and fluffs her pillow. What good company the dwarfs are. They told her how they worried over leaving Snow White alone all day. Knowing the queen would consult her mirror, they warned her not to open the door to strangers.

  "Vanita's first disguise was an old peddler woman," Gunnard said. "She was selling laces, the kind womenfolk use to fancy up their blouses. She knocked on the door, and gol-dern if Snow didn't let her in. The old witch laced Snow's ribs so tight the breath was squeezed out of her."

  "That's why we were checking your bodice this morning, Beauty." "Who's telling this story?" Ojars scowled at Gunnard and silenced him for the moment. "We loosened the ties and she snapped to. Twice more Vanita tried to kill her: the second time with a poisoned comb, the third with a poisoned apple.

  “That’s why we checked your hair and your . . .”

  “Gunnard! She’s not a dunderhead like some people in this room. We didn’t know about the apple then. We found her on the floor; tried everything, but couldn't revive her. She was too precious to bury, so we built a glass coffin and set it on Gold Mountain. She was in there a long time, and she didn't look dead. One day, many months later, a prince rode through the woods and up Gold Mountain. He took a gander at Snow and said, Let me have the coffin, and I'll give you all the gold in the world. I said, Not on your life, Bub."

  "Yeah, that's just what he said, with the same mean face too," Gunnard added. "Then the prince said, real pitiful, I beseech you to give it to me, for I cannot live without looking upon her. Before we could answer, his footmen hefted the coffin up on their sh
oulders."

  Beauty smiles at the memory of Ojars explaining how Gunnard stuck out his foot, tripping one of the men, which jostled the coffin, and the bite of poison apple flew out of Snow White's throat. She opened her eyes, threw open the coffin lids and said, Oh dear, where am I? The prince answered, You are near me and I would rather have you than anything in the world. Come with me to my castle and you shall be my bride.

  According to the dwarfs, the wedding had been splendiferous. Queen Vanita had been invited without knowing the identity of the bride, and she walked right into the prince's trap. His guards locked her feet in red-hot, iron shoes in which she must dance until she falls down dead. Gunnard jerked his chin and sputtered, "Twenty years and the she-devil hasn't died yet."

  Then the narration had stopped. Beauty had looked expectantly at each of them, waiting for more. Finally she asked, "Snow White lives here; what became of the prince who loved her so?"

  Ojars and Gunnard shifted uneasily in their chairs. "We've told you all we can," Eva said.

  Beauty throws off the quilt and sits up in bed. Lately, she's too warm one minute and too cold the next. She gathers a lock of hair and swirls it against her cheek that tingles still from Snow White's slap. Did she run away from her prince? I wish I had the mirror. Might Runyon be wondering where I am and if I’m safe? Does he miss my company? Once, he missed me so much, he nearly died.

  Months ago, she had looked into the mirror and seen her father's face ashen with illness, wheezing her name. She had run to the Beast in despair and cried, "I will die of grief if I don't see Father again.”

  The Beast had hung his huge, boulder head. "I'd rather die of grief than distress you. Go, but you must return in one week. Put this ring on your table before going to bed and you will wake in your father's house. Do the same in seven days to return to me."

  The following morning, Beauty awakened in her father's house. So great was his pleasure in seeing her alive and well that he regained his health in two day's time. Daisy and Violet, now both miserable wives, came to call. With bile-churning envy they eyed Beauty's dazzling gown and her face and figure that had grown even lovelier. They put their heads together and plotted to detain Beauty so the Beast might grow angry and devour her. They showered her with affection and Beauty was so beside herself with happiness that she forgot her promise to the Beast.