Some Girls_ My Life In A Harem Part 5

"You're s.h.i.+tting me."

"No s.h.i.+tting. Terrible going to gym that way. Stair-master. Terrible."

"Oh, Yoya so shy," teased Lili.

"Yoya so shy," Yoya concurred. I couldn't tell if she was being sincere or sarcastic. Maybe both. Maybe she was truly shy in her heart, but under the present circ.u.mstances it was comical to say so.

I didn't need Yoya to tell me that the fulcrum of the room was Robin. Everything was a show put on for Robin, an audience of one. The men, even his closest friends, were his paid playfellows as much as the women were. But Robin didn't seem to have any interest in me, so I turned my thoughts to audiences I imagined would have a greater appreciation for my talents. I drank champagne and studied the crystal prisms of the chandelier while I schemed about my acting career. How would I get the killer audition? How would I meet the right people? How would I make meaningful art? Where was that a.s.shole Sean and did he miss me uncontrollably? Would he take me back when this was all over and done with? What was going on over at the Performing Garage? How was Penny's show coming along? What would I wear while gracefully accepting my Academy Award even though I thought they were trite and gauche?

Eddie surprised me out of one such reverie by plunking himself down in the seat next to me and blurting out a question in the typically blunt Bruneian way.

"You will sing tomorrow night?"

It wasn't really a question. If Eddie was asking me to do something it was because he had been told to do so by Robin. I looked over at Robin and saw both him and Fiona nodding at me with encouragement. I decided the two of them were having a little joke, but I was happy to be singled out for anything that proved I wasn't just a piece of furniture.

"Of course. I'd love to."

Eddie acted overjoyed. People around the parties, even the sensible ones like Madge, always behaved as if every little thing was so life-and-death. It was as if my refusal would have been followed by a summary execution.

They didn't know that I was a singer of sorts. I'd grown up singing along with my father's piano repertoire every night of my life. I'll bet you a dollar I can sing any show tune you can name. And I can usually put on a show entertaining enough that you won't even notice I don't have a particularly good voice.

When I started out this grand singing career of mine, I was the One. Technically, there were two of us, but only technically. We stood in front of the other performers, making our own row. The rest of the seven-year-olds in group 5A wore top hats and carried canes that had been smeared with Elmer's glue and rolled in red glitter, but ours had been rolled in gold. Randy Klein and I got the gold hats and canes.

I suspect we were cast as the Ones simply because we already knew the words. I had the alb.u.ms from A Chorus Line, Cats A Chorus Line, Cats, and Grease Grease, and I could sing each score by heart. Every song had an accompanying dance number rehea.r.s.ed to perfection for an audience of attentive stuffed animals lined up on my bed. Whatever I lacked in talent, I made up for in dedication and enthusiasm. If you asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I responded that I wanted to be the white cat in Cats Cats, the one with the spotlit dance solo at the top of the show.

As the camp talent show approached, a special period each day was designated for practice. Our counselor sat cross-legged in the corner of the basketball court and rewound a tape in a battered boom box again and again, chewing an enormous wad of Bubblicious while calling out the counts and the steps.

Canes out. And. Bounce up and down from the knees.

One. Singular sensation, every little step she takes.

And turn.

Dadadadadadada.

Bounce again.

I found the dance routine embarra.s.singly easy. We took a rest every five minutes, during which we drank apple juice from crumpled boxes and scratched our mosquito bites through our tights. I was annoyed with the constant breaks, with the lack of commitment. The other girls were bored and slow, watching the feet in front of them rather than learning the steps. Being the One made me bossy.

"Don't forget to smile. Smiling is the most important," I told the other girls.

I didn't care that they rolled their eyes. I didn't need them to like me. I needed for us to be good. I needed for everyone to love us when the day of the show came. Randy felt the same way. We practiced our side-by-side box step when we were on break. We insisted that we do a kick line for the last bars of the song, just the two of us.

My plan was for my parents to see me s.h.i.+ne and change their minds about allowing me to go to Stagedoor Manor the next year. I wanted to go to the sleepaway theater camp, not the camp with the endless afternoons full of soccer games and lanyard making. Everyone knew that girls from Stagedoor Manor went on to be in the casts of Annie Annie and and Really Rosie Really Rosie. The kids in Broadway shows slept late and went to special schools and lived their nights floating between the orchestra and the scaffolding, the scenery and the audience, in that magical kingdom where conflict is resolved by big dance-number finales. That was the kingdom where I wanted citizens.h.i.+p.

In response to my ardent begging, my father said, "If you want to be an ice skater or a dancer or a gymnast or something special, you have to get up at four in the morning and practice every day before school and you have to have no friends and never do sports or eat ice cream or go to parties or have boyfriends. If you want to be like that blind girl in Ice Castles Ice Castles, you will never go to college and you'll ruin your feet and your back and your career will be over by the time you're thirty. It's okay for a hobby. Don't get out of hand about it."

He was just trying to be merciful, trying to spare me the heartbreak. I was too chubby for ballet; it was a waste of time. I was too uncoordinated for ice skating. I was too mediocre to really sing. "Don't try and you won't fail" was his motto. But I had seen Ice Castles Ice Castles and I knew that he had missed the point. and I knew that he had missed the point.

I knew that when my parents saw me as the One, my strong voice clearly leading all the others, my gold-glitter cane sparkling in the afternoon sun, I would convince them that I was tailor made for a life of singing and dancing, that I would happily ruin my feet. I didn't care if I had to wake up early. I didn't even like boys or ice cream that much anyway. They would see me s.h.i.+ne and, even to my dad, my destiny would be undeniable.

On the day of the show, my parents were there, front and center. They snapped pictures and mouthed the words. I was adorable. They were delighted. They showered me with kisses and praise. But when I pushed again, I got the same response about the early mornings and the ice cream. In spite of my stunning debut as the One, I never did make it to Stagedoor Manor and was instead condemned to a purgatory of campouts and color war. But my father did indulge my thespian aspirations up to a point. After all, his hobby corresponded with mine.

Years later I stood next to his baby grand in the living room, rehearsing my song to audition for the school play.

"You're no fantastic singer," my father said. "So you've got to pick your song well and then you've got to sell it."

A successful stockbroker, he was an expert on selling nothing. Together, we chose "t.i.ts and a.s.s" from A Chorus Line A Chorus Line for that particular audition, perhaps a strange choice for a fourteen-year-old, but it did its job. It didn't get me the part-that went to my friend Alexis, who actually could sing-but I was the one who got the laughs, who got the attention. I was the one people talked about. So that's what I learned to do. I still can't ice-skate worth a d.a.m.n, but I can sell it. Whatever it is, I can sell it. for that particular audition, perhaps a strange choice for a fourteen-year-old, but it did its job. It didn't get me the part-that went to my friend Alexis, who actually could sing-but I was the one who got the laughs, who got the attention. I was the one people talked about. So that's what I learned to do. I still can't ice-skate worth a d.a.m.n, but I can sell it. Whatever it is, I can sell it.

I pulled aside Anthony, the keyboard player.

"What's Robin's favorite song?"

"Well, he likes a couple of Malay songs. American songs? I don't know. What can you sing?"

"I'll sing a Malay song."

"How long do you have?"

"Tomorrow night."

"Too hard. Can't do it."

Angelique, the queen singer and rumored to be the unrequited love interest of Prince Sufri, overheard us and interrupted.

"Sing 'Kasih.' It's his favorite. You can learn it. I'll help you."

Angelique took a sheet of blank paper out of one of Anthony's many three-ring binders. She found a pen behind the bar, wiped the counter in front of her, and began to write out the words phonetically. She had the bubbly handwriting of a junior-high girl.

"It's a love song. 'Kasih' means 'darling.'"

Then she went over every word with me, correcting my p.r.o.nunciation. Anthony handed her a ca.s.sette tape and she wrapped it in the lyric sheet.

"Just sing it simply," she said. "You can do it."

I was touched by Angelique's encouragement. As she pressed the ca.s.sette into my hand, the thought flew through my mind that she'd make a good mother one day.

When I returned to our seating area, Serena narrowed her eyes at me.

"You're singing tomorrow?" she asked. "What are you singing?"

"'Kasih.' "

"Oh, G.o.d. Did Anthony tell you to sing that? Did he tell you Robin liked it or something? I hate those horrible pop songs. I'm singing tomorrow, too."

"What are you singing?"

"At home, I'm a jazz singer. That's what I do. I'm singing 'Fever.' He loves it when I sing 'Fever.' I used to sing it for him all the time."

Anthony and I arranged to rehea.r.s.e the next day at four. That night I lay awake while Destiny slept next to me. Never troubled by insomnia, she would put on her cheetah-print eye mask and be asleep three seconds after she lay down. I envied her.

How was I going to learn a song in another language by the following night? I should have just picked a s.e.xy little retro number like Serena had. I started out with confidence and wound up with a sour stomach that kept me awake.

I set my alarm early the next morning and quietly played the song over and over on the downstairs stereo, lying in front of the speakers and stumbling through the lyrics while my housemates slept upstairs. I pretty much kept at it all day until I went up to the main house to meet Anthony. I walked into the deserted palace by the front entrance. Daylight streamed in through the tall windows and flashed off the water in the fountain. The fake flowers, which usually looked real in the strategic evening lighting, showed their seams, their plastic dewdrops.

A door was open to the left that had been closed the first night I saw the entry hall. It was a ballroom, with a chandelier the size of a small car. A man waxed the floors with a machine. I thought of my grandmother's favorite joke for party entrances: A ball! said the queen. If I had two, I'd be king.

I made my way through the carpeted corridors and downstairs to the party room. It was spotless and empty, waiting once again to fill with women. I've always liked rooms when the party hasn't started yet. Even more magical are theaters during the day, before the doors open, before the show begins, when the house lights are on and you can see the rafters and the scuffs on the floor. I love the feeling that anything could happen. After the party, when anything already has happened, there's usually the inevitable fact to face that anything wasn't all you'd hoped it would be.

Anthony accompanied me while I sang into the mike and smiled at Robin's vacant chair as I flattened the melody and fumbled the lyrics again and again. I could see Anthony was dubious.

"Do you know any other songs?"

"I can do it."

I sang it right once through and then wrong again.

"Okay, maybe I can't do it."

"Too late." Anthony looked at his watch. "You'll be fine. Just make it up if you forget it."

"Super. He'll love that."

On my way out I walked up to the ballerina sculpture. I remembered reading somewhere that the girl who had posed for this turned out to be a prost.i.tute, and that prost.i.tution was the fate of many failed dancers in the time of Degas.

I ran my finger along the edge of her bronze slipper, where it met her foot. If you are rich enough, you can own art like this. You can put it in a corner where no one will ever see it, except a pa.s.sing girl-half a woman, even-who once wore the same shoes and imagined herself a swan.

Every time Serena sang the word fever fever she shot her palms out in front of her and did a little dip with her hip. I was happy to note that she was no jazz singer. she shot her palms out in front of her and did a little dip with her hip. I was happy to note that she was no jazz singer.

A new woman had joined us at our table. Her name was Leanne and she was a soap-opera actress from Hong Kong who was half Chinese, half English, and all smoky s.e.x. She had sleepy eyes, loose, wavy hair, and a British accent attached to a voice that was thick with cigarettes-kind of Janis Joplin meets Princess Di. She wore a simple, floor-length Armani gown. It was not her first time in Brunei. Like Serena, she had a mysterious past there, but unlike Serena she was completely open about being in love with the Prince. She admitted as much to me within five seconds of meeting me. She slouched back on the couch, an arm on each armrest, a posture of elegant surrender.

"I gave up a movie role to come here but he doesn't know it. I can't stay away. Last time I left I swore it would be forever but I couldn't stand the broken heart."

There was something real but not real about Leanne. I instinctively believed she loved him but I also knew an actress when I heard one. We actresses write terrible dialogue for ourselves.

Leanne and Serena seemed close, conspiratorial, joined in common vitriol for Fiona. Earlier in the evening I had overheard them talking about her. Serena said that Fiona had been caught casting some Filipino voodoo spells in her bedroom. It was the only explanation: That cow had used witchcraft to ensnare the Prince. Did she get fatter as well as older? How old was she now, anyway? They were frightening, and so familiar-common as dirt, these mean, mean girls. And what was I? The opposite? Nice? No. What was the opposite of mean? Weak?

Eddie approached me.

"You will sing next?"

I had dressed in my best vintage ensemble and decorated my eyes with thick strokes of liquid liner. I imagined myself a slightly chubbier Audrey Hepburn from Funny Face Funny Face. This was my chance to s.h.i.+ne. And even if I blew it, at least I wasn't doing jazz hands and singing some tired Peggy Lee song.

When Anthony began the intro, my brain emptied. I forgot everything we had worked on. I was sure I was about to be the star of a living nightmare, the kind in which you wind up on stage with no memory of what you're supposed to be doing up there. I didn't panic; I had faith. I know something about performing. I know that when it seems like the avalanche is about to roll over you, you face into it and keep both arms swimming as hard as you can. You smile and you sell it.

"Kasih dengarlah hatiku berkata/Aku cinta kepada dirimu sayang . . ."

The Prince flashed an impenetrable smile at me as he tapped a finger on his leg. Next to him, Fiona smiled, too. What was her deal? She didn't seem to be the dragon lady that Serena and Leanne made her out to be.

I finished the song and the room broke into a round of applause. My Thai friends even cheered. The smile on Serena's face was that of the runner-up in the Miss America pageant who had been so sure she was just about to claim the crown. As I pa.s.sed the Prince and bowed on my way back to my seat, he reached out and grabbed my arm. I stopped and faced him, still bent at the waist, my head inclined.

He took my hand between both of his, dry and soft and perfectly manicured, and said, "Beautiful." Then he let go.

"Yes, very lovely," said Fiona.

I was from New York. I worked around movie stars. I was not unaccustomed to attention from almost-successful actors and the occasional after-party rock star. This touch, this crumb of approval should have meant nothing to me. But I must have been brainwashed during the course of a week, because one Midas touch from the Prince and I glowed all night.

After the lights dimmed and the disco started, I headed to the ladies' room for a lipstick touch-up. A painting caught my eye that every other night I had pa.s.sed right by. It was a cla.s.sic Orientalist portrayal of alabaster odalisques and their brown-skinned servants lounging by a harem bath. I had studied this kind of painting in art history, had a.n.a.lyzed each racist, imperialist brushstroke. And here was a romanticized, nineteenth-century Western portrayal of a harem hanging one hundred and fifty years later on the wall of-a harem. It was positively postmodern.

A harem. Why hadn't I realized it before? We were neither party guests nor prost.i.tutes. We were harem girls.

chapter 11.

Even locked away in a jewel box of a room on the island of Borneo, in my dream the gestapo was pounding on my door. n.a.z.is had figured prominently in my nightmares ever since, at eight years old, I read The Diary of Anne Frank The Diary of Anne Frank. In my dreams I was Anne, with my ear pressed to the floor, listening to the boots on the stairs as they marched up to take us away. In my dreams I was Anne and I was already dead but I was wandering through piles of shoes and fillings. I was looking for the suitcases. I knew mine was in there. I was trying to find it so I could leave.

As a child the night terrors had seeped into my waking life. Thoughts of the Holocaust obsessed me. Anne Frank's diary led me to other books that didn't leave one with a hopeful view of the human heart. I remember one book in particular from the town library, with a Star of David in flames on the front and a map of the camps printed on the inside cover. There were photographs inside. You know the ones-grainy black-and-white, the shadows between the ribs the blackest black, the naked skin on the piles of bodies the whitest white.

I was sure it was only a matter of time before the Holocaust happened again, and I wondered how my family would react when the n.a.z.is came for us. How can you tell who you really are on the inside? We all like to believe that we'd be brave. We'd be the hero in the movie, the one who sacrifices himself to save others, the one who does the right thing when the world around him is wrong. In the movie, the right choice is clear. And we leave the theater feeling good about ourselves because we can say, Me, I'd do the right thing.

No one says, Me, I'd be the coward. Me, I'd rat out my neighbor to save myself. But that's what people do, mostly. Even at eight I knew this.