stories, after eight
CINDERELLA AND HER SISTERS
Baltazzi waits patiently for the Countess and the girls to finish dressing and come downstairs. Patience is something that he’s forced himself to learn over the years. It’s something he recognizes as being a good trait for a man to have—an exceptional trait in any man, actually—but something a man living with four women had better take to heart, he thinks, smiling to himself. A virtuous trait, a voice from somewhere in the back of his mind tells him, and he thinks: As if I was ever a virtuous man. He was never a patient man in his youth either, but age seems to have that effect on people; it makes those things that were once important, appear even less so, he believes. Is that age? Maybe. Or maybe it’s just life catching up with me, and the fact that you can't escape it no matter how hard you try, makes the effort seem even less important?
It comes from living with four women is what that comes from, he tells himself. There's no other way around it. If you say to them you have to be at such-and-such a place by 9:00 pm, then you'd better make sure you tell them 8:30, or even better, 8:00 o'clock.
It was a complex trait to teach himself—a fixation would be a better word for it—(because you can't teach patience, it’s something you have to train for it, like an Olympic event, he realizes). But once he became accustomed to it, he found himself wondering why his past life had to be so hectic. If everyone took things at a slow and easy pace, life wouldn't be so stressful, would it? And life can't be any more stressful than living with four women, can it? He smiles to himself again, and look at his reflection in the mirror across from him. He adjusts his tie.
He’s sitting in the library, smoking a thick, Havana cigar, drinking a cognac, with an open book on his lap—but he's not reading. It’s a book of Shakespeare’s Tragedies, in English. He loves reading Shakespeare because the language is a challenge to him. At the moment, he’s reading Othello, but he finds the inner dialogue distracting. Baltazzi stands firm in his belief that all the great authors should be read in their original language, because it's easier to capture the subtleties of voice that way. Like Goethe. And Melville. And Kant. Baltazzi’s a great believer in voice and character.
He watches as the smoke drifts toward the vaulted ceiling, and looks at the painted cherubs and clouds floating against the blue painted heavens. He wonders how long it took the artist to paint it. They don't look like any children he's ever seen. He knows it was painted more than a hundred years ago, and tells himself maybe children looked different back then? A hundred years ago, he thinks with amusement. Beethoven may well have played these halls, or Mozart even. He watches until the smoke all but disappears, and hangs above him like a blue English fog—or is that the colour of the paint he sees?
He thinks about London, because he's thinking about the fog, and he remembers the fourth Olympic Games he and the Countess recently attended. It was a spectacle he wouldn't have missed for the world, he thinks now. He's always liked London as a city, and he's always liked the English as a people. Maybe that's why he bought the Rolls, he tells himself? He reads English better than he speaks it; he finds his words are halting, and stilted—that’s because he tends to be self-conscious, the Countess tells him—and he has such a heavy accent, he wonders how anyone can understand him. But they do. It had been years since his last trip to London—(he was there for King Edward's coronation)—and returning was something he'd been looking forward to as soon as London was named as the host Olympic city.
And what an idea these Olympic Games are, he thinks as he sips his cognac. The best in the world competing like the Ancients once competed; all the world's wars, and hostilities, halted for ten days, or two weeks—who even knew how long they were with so much to see, and do—and the crowds cheering for both foes and rivals alike, in a competition to see who is the strongest, the fastest, and the best. The world could learn something from the Games, he thinks, but then, maybe the world isn't meant to know, or understand, the concept of world peace? Surely, Mankind would have stumbled across it by now? Maybe in another hundred years, he tells himself.
II
Over the past three weeks, Baltazzi has made every effort to avoid the girls and their preparations for the Emperor's Ball. Let them stay locked up in their rooms, with their dressmakers and seamstresses—as well as the Countess—he tells himself. There's always going to be last minute adjustments and alterations for them to make--and ideas to use--gleaned through fashion magazines brought in all the way from Paris. He tells himself it's saner to stay away, even though he knows it won't do for the girls to arrive in Vienna out of fashion. If bows and bustles are out, and sashes and straps are in, it would be a fashion faux pas that could augur future social embarrassment, and have them referred to as: "Those three girls from the country."
They'll be whispered about, and sneered at, he's sure; laughed at, scorned, and ridiculed in all the important society pages, making it impossible to attract a serious candidate as far as a husband is concerned; or so they believe. Doesn't beauty count for anything anymore, he wonders?
And why is he even bothering to take them in the first place? He doesn't know. There's no real answer that satisfies him. Over the years, he's purposely avoided putting himself into a position that would bring him to the attention of the Emperor. And now he's putting himself into just such a position. He shifts in his chair, and the book slips from his lap, landing on the floor with a heavy thud. He picks it up and lays it on the table beside him, slipping the playing card he uses as a bookmark, back inside.
Things will be easier in the future now that Anastasia's betrothed to the Count, he reminds himself. She'll be married soon—but not soon enough, Baltazzi thinks with a bemused grin—wondering if it will ever be soon enough for any of them. It's enough to drive a man to drink, he thinks with a smile as gets up and pours himself another tumbler of cognac. As if I need an excuse to drink, he smiles to himself purposely as he toasts his reflection in the mirror hanging on the opposite wall.
At nineteen, Anastasia's the oldest of the three girls. She's tall, but she's uncomfortable with her height, standing awkward and stoop shouldered whenever she's confronted with a question she doesn't understand. It's like she caving in on herself, he thinks. Maybe Novak can change her of that habit? God knows I've tried everything in my power to make her stand up tall--everything short of tying a board to her back, he reminds himself. She's a pretty enough girl though, even if she chooses to wear her hair short. Her eyes are dark like her mother’s, with a smouldering intensity of their own that borders on hostility. Her nose is small and dainty, not at all like her father’s, and thank God for that, he thinks. Of course, it’s too big for her, and it turns up too much as far as she’s concerned. She tries to distract people from looking at her nose with a beauty mark to the left of her mouth, near her top lip. And why's that, he wonders? Is it something she’s taken from the pages of one of those French magazines she reads? It's a futile attempt at vanity, if that's what it is, Baltazzi tells himself, because he doesn't see her as anything other than beautiful. But I'm still her step-father when it comes right down to it, he reminds himself, and what do I know about fashion, and beauty, or the hearts of young girls? It's probably better if I don't know, he tells himself.
As he drinks his cognac, he thinks about how any time the girls leave for the city, all the women of the house have to become a part of the event. And why is that? It’s almost as if it's something that concerns them personally. And with thirteen household staff on hand, he has little to say about anything except maybe the final judgment—as if he’s Paris standing in the Gardens of the Hesperides, (but instead of holding the Golden Apple, he's holding a pin cushion). He pictures the whole thing in his mind as something like "Fashion's Last Judgment”and thinks of it as the lost work of some once famous Dutch Master—and the way they all run around in their efforts to please each other. He believes the women are convinced they’ll all die of shame and embarrassment, laughed at as failures if the girls don't show up in Vienna with the proper clothes.
And the Countess is no exception to this, is she, he thinks with amusement? Baltazzi doesn't know if it's because of the girls that she loses herself in the gaiety of the preparations, or if it's something more than that. Perhaps it's as simple as vanity, that harbinger of Old Age standing on life's horizon, beckoning her—waving to her like some overdressed statement of her youth—reminding her that the only way she can hope to avoid any of it, is becoming a young woman again preparing for her first Ball. And when it's all over—when the last button is sewn on, and the last strap adjusted—he knows that between the three girls and the Countess, he'll have to choose his favourite—and give one of them the Golden Apple, when they know the only one he really cares about is Annette, the daughter of his first marriage.
Baltazzi knows this will happen, because it always happens. This is the way of things. His step-daughters will resent him because they think there's nothing they can do to win his consideration. He'll look at them when they're ready—all four of them standing in front of him like they're troops waiting for the Inspector General—but he won't be able to see beyond Annette.
It isn't that I don't see the Countess, or the girls, or the efforts they've all put into dressing themselves; I just don't see them the same way I see my Cricket.
And when he leaves the room, he knows the girls will turn on each other; they’ll refuse to talk to each other, or have anything to do with each other. And the Countess will frustrate herself trying to convince the girls his comments were meant for all of them. And later, when the Countess leaves the room, telling the girls to pack up their things and prepare their riding clothes because they'll be leaving in the morning for Lady Pritchard's, she'll come down and have a few words with him. The girls will look at Annette with a smugness all their own, he’s sure, ignoring her, waiting, knowing Mamma's voice will echo through the hallways soon enough. He'll go back upstairs and heap his praises on all of them, but it’ll be a Pyrrhic victory for them, he thinks—if they even know what it means. Still, he knows it feels good for them to see him standing in front of them with his head bowed, all red faced, even if they know he doesn’t mean it.
Why do girls have to be so difficult, he wonders. Or is it him?
He knows Annette wants her step-sisters to share in her achievements, as much as he knows she wants to hear him say he loves their dresses as well as hers, and how pretty they look. He doubts if she'll ever understand why they have to look so self-satisfied whenever he speaks to them, or why he has to look so uncomfortable. And it's always the same.
He knows Annette doesn’t see what they're doing to him; she doesn’t see how they ridicule and embarrass him. But he’s willing to forgive them their trespasses when he sees his daughter’s smile, knowing she’s pleased because she believes in the sincerity of his praise for her step-sisters; and it does something to warm his heart. He’ll leave the room telling himself he’ll never do it again—he’ll never hold her above them—but he knows he’s lying to himself, so he takes another drink and enjoys the last of his cigar.
He helped raise the two girls from the time they were six and eight years old—he’s watched them grow, and helped to nurture them. He knows the Countess is right when she reminds him they deserve as much of his love as his own daughter; after all, they’re his daughters, too.