Chapter Text
Sometimes I dream, just before I wake up, that I am in the house of my father. I jump from the bed and I start running. We’re all running, bumping into each other, talking, laughing - we make such joyful noise! The long awaited day has come - Rivka is getting married, the groom is coming to our house!...
We’re not allowed to meet the groom, not yet; but we can look, can’t we?... I work my little elbows hard, I crawl on my knees and I manage to plaster my face to the crack in the door of our father’s workroom where the two men meet. I stare unblinkingly at the most wondrous sight - two men silhouetted against the dirty window, my father and the young man I haven’t seen before, the groom.
I bite my lips to prevent myself from screaming. What I want to scream is: ‘Don’t marry Rivka, she is dumpy. Marry me, my eyes are blue, I am the prettiest!...’
***
I wake up and I jump from the bed. I shrug my kimono on and I run to the kitchen, the garment swishing around me. I strike a match to put the kettle on, wait for it to whistle, then I flip the light switch.
From our bed, Rosey groans. My poor Rosey, even on good days, getting out of bed for him is like digging himself out from an early grave. Making tea for him is the least I can do.
***
On some mornings he catches me by the tails of my kimono as I swish past, and captures me in a cage he makes from his arms and legs. I don’t want to escape.
I don’t wear knickers, not when at home, so, all he has to do is to catch me and press me to bed with his heavy hot body. I close my eyes and I breathe very carefully lest he thinks I’m going to protest.
I’m not, not ever; but especially not on lazy mornings when he plasters his front to my back and touches me gently, lazily, purring like Rousseu’s tiger would purr as he gets me hard. I am circumcised while he is not; he has had unrestricted access to my bits for more than three decades but he is still fascinated, my Rosey.
This is the wish that I had, the wish that came true.
***
…Not this morning, today’s not a holiday, Rosey has to go to work. I get the slice of cake I got from the deli yesterday out of the fridge, then I run to help him up. Rosey is a little unsteady on his feet right after he gets up (he’s too darn tall), but then he is fine on his own - in the bathroom, splashing away.
I open the window and stick my nose out. It smells like a storm.
…At breakfast he warms his voice up by grumbling, I don’t care what he is grumbling about, I look at him as he shoves the cake into his gob, and then I come to kiss the crumbs away from his stash. Rosey buries his nose in my hair and purrs some more, just a moment more.
We hear the whistle, the train is coming. I usher Rosey to the hall where he inserts himself into his raincoat, I bring his briefcase and his hat. He grabs the umbrella and stomps off.
While the lift carries him down, I run to the balcony and stand in the wind, in the dark, in my open kimono. We live on the 7th floor, I can see the train, slowly making its way to the station. I see men, in raincoats, all carrying briefcases and umbrellas, approaching the station from every which direction, very L.S. Lowry.
I escape back into the flat, throw my kimono to the side, burrow into the still warm bedding and go back to sleep; and as I do, I think: ‘Perhaps it’s best that nobody from my family lived long enough to find out what has become of me.’
***
I dream that I am back in Paris, in Lee’s flat. We’re in the bathroom drinking champagne, doing each other’s hair and makeup and having a wonderful time.
The bell rings, it’s Roland. Lee asks me to go get him because she’s in the bath. I go and I bump into him in the sitting room - he has the key, he has let himself in. He sees me in makeup, with my hair done, wearing Lee’s pearl necklace.
He stops on his tracks, smiles that crooked smile he thinks is seductive; starts rummaging in his coat pocket looking for handcuffs. I freeze, too.
Roland has this thing about him where he thinks no female can resist him, and he manages to fuck most of them on the spot (I don’t know how Lee puts up with it), but, despite the drag, I am clearly not female - my kimono is open, my bits are on display.
Suddenly angry, I blurt:
- That’s right, Penrose, get on your knees and suck it, otherwise I won’t bend.
…And the stupid fuck does it!... Eyes bulging out, mouth open, he starts getting on his knees in front of me. Too late I remember Joel telling me Roland did fuck a boy back in Cambridge, he clearly doesn’t mind sucking dick if it gets him his next threesome!...
I panic, I throw Lee’s pearls at him and rush past him towards the window, hop over the sill and climb down, my fine white arse on full display. It’s not as scandalous as it sounds - the window is to the internal courtyard with a few scraggly rosebushes clinging to life at the bottom. I crawl into them and hide.
…I wait an hour maybe, and then I see them leave in Roland’s automobile, which I can see from my hiding spot. I climb back up, wash my face, attempt to comb my hair, throw my clothes on in a hurry and leave.
I run towards Breton’s place where Lydia the housekeeper still lets me sleep in her room next to the kitchen. She stops me when I want to go talk to Breton, and I can see it myself: he has someone in his office, I can hear voices, see their shadows from the half-closed door.
The shadow of the man in a chair facing Breton, spilling into the corridor where Lydia and I hide, is in the shape of a rose.
I ask who it is, I never heard his voice before - it sounds like a loaded brush about to touch the canvas. I get goosebumps all over me, I want to listen to him, not the words, just the voice, as I paint. I move to where I can see his face through the crack in the door, brow furrowed, cheeks pale and tear-stricken. Instantly I want to paint him so badly, I almost fall to my knees and cry myself.
Lydia pulls at my coat, whispers:
- It’s Monsieur Rosey.
I turn to look at her. She raises her hand and touches her forehead, adding:
- He is quite poorly. In his head.
***
The phone rings and I wake up. I jump from the bed and I run to the kitchen, lift the receiver. It’s Lee.
We talk about this and that - she phones me most days - about the weather mainly, because she has to storm-proof the farm. And then she says:
- Oh, I went to the attic.
I don’t say anything, I listen. She keeps things that have hurt her in the past in the attic, like negatives of the photographs she took in Auschwitz the day it was liberated. She waits a moment, then continues:
- I found the dress, can you believe it?...
I exhale, say that I can’t (I can, she keeps everything). I know which dress she means immediately - the electric blue gown she brought with her from the States when she first arrived in Paris, the gown she wore to the costume party where Roland met her and fell for her.
She let me try it on, it fit me, I was the same size as her when we were both young. I even wore it out once, with her, to see if I could get Rosey to dance with me, when I didn’t know he is a homosexual.
…Lee says:
- Roland is in town today. He’ll drop it off.
Just like that, typical Lee. No concern whatsoever over what the dress could do to me, but I am a grown man and I could still tell Roland to shove it up his arse. Still.
I put the receiver down and have a cigarette.
…Of course, it’s imaginary; living with Monsieur Asthma I can’t smoke. But over the years I had some pretty satisfying imaginary ones.
TBC!
P.S. The details of Roland Penrose’s (surrealist painter) and Lee Miller’s (surrealist photographer, model, muse) sex life are from a book ‘The lives of the Surrealists’ by a surrealist Desmond Morris (really recommend it, and not just for the gossip). Details of Lee’s and Roland’s domestic life are learned from the guide when visiting their home. L.S. Lowry: https://www.kingandmcgaw.com/prints/l-s-lowry . Henri Rousseai's tiger: https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/henri-rousseau-surprised .