Stanley Elkin - Van Gogh's Room at Arles

“I beg your pardon?”

“Nothing,” he said, “I was just thinking about all the times I beachcombed sandfruit for breakfast, and how it gave me the runs.”

I withdrew my hands.

“What?” he said. “What?”

“It gives Jane the runs, too,” I told him coolly.

“Look,” said the Prince, “didn’t you just ask whether I was one of those Let’s-Trade-Places sort of princes? Well, I am, Louise.”

“A commoner in every port, is it?”

“No,” he said, taking back my hands and pressing them to his lips. “What, are you kidding me, Louise,” he muttered his demurrers, looking up, “you know me better than that.” He took me in his athlete’s arms. It was thrilling, Sid, thrilling. Well, he was handsome. And all those months in the States living one’s life like a more-or-less nun. And him with all his dark good looks. I tell you I felt like a nurse in a novel.

So, what with this and what with that, we were soon enough rolling round down on the sandy floor of the wicky-up enjoying a bit of the old leg-over, so given up to passion I didn’t realize what happened when we crashed into the hotel bellman’s cart Jane and Marjorie and I used to hang up our clothes and was all we had for wardrobe or even for furniture in that tiny hut, spilling the clothes, tumbling the coats and shifts and dresses and gowns down from where they hung on the rack, Prince Lawrence so excited and lusty I could almost believe his earnest demurrers of just three or four minutes before.

(Was I naïve, Sid? Who’s to say? Anyway, I don’t think so, for what was the morning line on this prince while his two younger brothers and two younger sisters were off sowing their wild oats and getting their names in the papers, making it into the gossip columns with their famous scrapes and muddles that had always the faint air about them of throwbacks to different, gayer times— like ne’er-do-wells running with a fast crowd, and fortunes lost gambling; careless Sloane Rangers sent down from Cambridge or Oxford, or come away with dubious seconds and thirds; his siblings excused or explained away or even written off by their place in the birth order? Only that, baby-boomer prince or no baby-boomer prince, in the curious reign of the peculiarly marked incumbency of these particular sovereigns he was conscientious, notable for the advantage he took of photo ops — and why not with his beauty? — and for his solicitous gestures, his polished idiosyncrasies and special relationships with all his inferiors — well, I was an example, wasn’t I? — and that he might be too good to be true, right down to the impression he gave of having just stepped out of a trailer on locale somewhere, of being this, well, film star got up as a prince, not a hair out of place, all perfected and rested while a stand-in stood on his mark taking the heat for him while the crew got ready, setting the lights, fussing the sound, till they sent a gofer to the trailer to fetch him— “Five minutes please, Prince”—and he stepped out, majestic and grand as you please, his jacket and tie and collar as perfectly in place as they’d be on some little girl’s cutout of a jacket and tie and collar that she tabs on a doll that she’s punched from a book.)

So excited and lusty that at the moment of truth he neither called on God nor made the customary noises and growls and oh! oh! oh!s of satisfaction but shouted out: “IT WAS THAT ALOE THAT BROUGHT IT ALL BACK!”And from somewhere deep within his seafaring engrams and naval neurals actually began to sing— “On the road to Mandalay,/Where the flyin’-fishes play,/An’ the dawn comes up like thunder outer China ’crost the Bay!”

“Good Lord,” he said checking his new watch and jumping up to gather his new things when we had done, “just look at the time, will you! They’ll be waiting for me! Hurry, Louise, but don’t rush. I’ve reserved a seat for you!”

So as least I didn’t make a complete fool of myself, and either luck was with me or I’d had the unconscious foresight to be dressed for the occasion when Larry called me up to stand beside him on the reviewing stand. Even though I was still uncomfortable. And I’m not only referring to my state of mind when I say that — though, as I’ve said, it was out of vestigial patriotism that I was up there at all — but literally, too. Physically uncomfortable. Well, there was sand in my high-heeled shoes, in my stockings and in the dress I was wearing. And though it doesn’t come through well on the videos (thanks to that flower print I had on), not even on that special high-resolution tape the Frenchmen were using for their documentary about Larry, if you know where to look you can almost just see the aloe stains and vague patches of chlorophyll on my dress from when the Prince and I were rolling around in abandon on the frond-strewn clothing-carpeted floor of the unwinding wicky-up.

(Sid, “I’ve reserved a seat for you!” not “I’ll reserve a seat for you.” Sid?)

There was a press conference of sorts, ad hoc, shouted out, summary as an encounter with prime ministers or presidents on the way to their helicopters. The Prince’s unexpected announcement of his engagement was the proximate cause, but it was only my appearance with him on that provisional reviewing stand, or rostrum, or stage, or, considering the occasion, pulpit or hustings even, that the reporters started to call out their questions.

It was to me, not Larry, they called.

“Miss Bristol! Miss Bristol!”

“Miss Bristol?”

“Miss Bristol, over here. Over here, Miss Bristol.”

“Louise? Oh, I say, Louise.”

The Prince squeezed my hand, but thinking he must know me, I’d already acknowledged whoever it was that used my Christian name.

“Yes?” I said. “You, the one standing. Off to the side.”

“The Prince says he obtained the King’s and Queen’s prior consent. Have you met their Royal Highnesses then? And I have a follow-up.”

Out of the corner of my eye I could see how troubled Larry was, but he needn’t have been. I’ve already said that about duty and loyalty. It’s what they say about heroism, too. That you don’t even think about it. That it comes second nature or not at all. That you fall on the grenade or jump in front of the oncoming car to push the child away without thought to the consequences. I was already answering the man’s question.

“Not actually met them,” I said, “but I’ve heard so much about them. What is your follow-up?”

“Would you show us your engagement ring?”

I extended a finger with a loud, fussy-looking costume- jewelry ring on it.

“That’s it?” said a female reporter crouched in the front. “That bauble? That’s what he gave you?”

Smiling, I looked over at the Prince. Who seemed discomfited. To put the best face on it. To say the least.

“Yes,” I said, “hardly the Crown Jewels, but isn’t it sweet? It has incredible sentimental value.”

“Oh, I do love you, Louise!” the Prince curling me to his side whispered in my ear. Then he spoke into the microphones.

“When we get back to London we’ll run up to the Tower and Miss Bristol can have her pick of a proper jewel,” he volunteered shyly.

“Sir? Oh, Sir?”

“Over here please, Sir.”

“Yes, then,” he said, “last question.”

“Sir, Miss Bristol referred to the ring’s sentimental value. Could you describe for us, Sir, what were some of the circumstances under which such meaning come to accrue about a ring what is so obviously a piece of cheap jewelry?”

There was this long, complicated, almost squeezed look of helpless discomfort in the Prince’s eyes. “I won it for her at the fair?”

Because I think I was starting to love him then. Well, not actually love him of course. Not yet. Not so soon. But certainly the beginning of some such feeling.