The Lonely Hearts Hotel(66)

Rose looked around the room at the paintings. They were all of circus performers. They were colored the pink of a sunset. She stopped in front of a painting of a slender clown in a leotard and a two-cornered hat seated on a red couch. Mimi came and stood next to Rose, looking at the painting.

“This painting! It looks so much like Pierrot. He was my first love. He abandoned me because I wouldn’t put out, I think. Or actually, I don’t even know why he left me or what he thinks of me or why he fell out of love with me.

“It’s so wonderful looking at him now. It makes me remember how I used to feel about him, or that you could feel like that with a man. Just like companions and not like competitors. I stopped worrying about things. It was like I was in a boat and the boat stopped rocking. He made me feel safe so I could have all these dangerous thoughts. I think that might be what love is.”

“I don’t know if I necessarily agree with you. I think you’re just describing one of the eight thousand ways to feel horny. But I do think you should go find him. Just to see what he’s all about, so you can stop mooning over him.”

“I’ve always wanted to. But I never knew what had become of him or where I could find him. But now I see it perfectly. Of course, Pierrot is a clown!”

Then there was a swoosh as water came out from between Rose’s legs and splattered on the floor.

“Oh my God, I’m going to have another baby.”

? ? ?

ROSE AND MIMI HURRIED BACK to the Valentine Hotel. Rose was trembling as she went into the cupboard and pulled out an old blanket. It had been on the shelf when she moved in. It was old, and the colors were unattractive, and the padding inside was not cushy at all. That was probably why it had been left behind. There were strange purple mushrooms on it. She spread it on the bed. She felt as if the blanket had been put there especially for that purpose. She lay down on the strange field.

“Did you know you were pregnant?”

“No!”

“I thought you had a paunch. How far along do you think you are?”

“No idea.”

Mimi knelt next to the bed and took her hand. Rose felt like she had done forty shots of whiskey in a row and now couldn’t throw up. Then she felt as though a great fist were punching her in the stomach, over and over again. It was just like at the orphanage all over again. The girls were always punished worse than the boys.

The pain was terrible. Why didn’t you hear women wailing in pain all the time? She tried to stop herself from screaming out loud. But she couldn’t help it. She yelled and yelled.

“Push, push, push,” Mimi begged.

“Why?” she cried.

“Push, push, push, and it will soon be over.”

She didn’t know if she was pushing. She kept wanting to pass out but then not being able to. Her clothes were wet with sweat. Her knees were bent and her legs were spread. Mimi was looking between her legs. She had never felt so naked. How many people in this world had seen her cunt? How many people had looked at her cunt for answers? As if it were the sort of place where miracles happened.

Mimi swore she could see the baby. She knew more about the baby than Rose did. Mimi had proof that it was a mortal, that it wasn’t just an imaginary pain in her stomach. Mimi promised her that the baby was practically out of her body. So she kept pushing until Mimi, all at once, stopped saying anything at all. She went all quiet, as though she had decided to say a prayer. Rose waited for the baby to make some sort of noise.

Rose wished that she had the energy to sit up and look at the baby. But she didn’t. She couldn’t do anything at all. She couldn’t will her head to tilt forward, and her eyes wouldn’t stay open, and she couldn’t even move her lips so that she could ask whether the baby was a boy or a girl. These were all things that could be figured out in good time.

Mimi would take care of her, she thought. She imagined Mimi standing next to her with a little black mask over her eyes and a whip in her hand—protecting her like the angel that protects the Garden of Eden.

? ? ?

ITS SKIN WAS THIN and delicate as the petals of a flower. It was shocking to look at. Its skin was the color of a galaxy, of a tiny cluster of stars. It kept changing different shades of pink and purple and blue, like an aurora borealis.

You could see that it was animated. It had been touched by the magic wand that was life. You could see its heart beating in its chest. You could see goose pimples on its skin. You could see the little eyeballs moving behind the little eyelids. You could see the tiny fingers move, almost opening, as if reacting to a thought. It was a girl.

There was nothing anyone could do to keep a baby that small alive, and soon its heart stopped beating. Rose washed it off in a bowl of warm water. When it was underwater, it almost seemed to move its arms and legs of its own accord, as though it were a sea creature.

She had never wanted to be pregnant. She had never wanted the baby. But now she was devastated that it was gone. She stared at it like she was a little girl looking at a doll and expecting some sort of reaction from it. She wondered why it had insisted on growing and living inside her. But now that it was out of her body, it would no longer admit that it had been alive.

She, of course, knew the origin of the baby. It was either the child of the man with the donkey mask or of the bear she had danced with at the nightclub.

? ? ?

SHE HEARD MCMAHON’S VOICE in her head: “So you prostitute yourself with a third-rate actor just to be able to afford soup and to live in a fleabag hotel. Wonderful. So that’s why you left me.”