‘Go back,’ Boofuls ordered Emilio.
‘But you haven’t –’ Emilio began.
Boofuls snapped, ‘Go back! Otherwise I’ll
never
let you, ever!’
Reluctantly, Emilio left the reflected sitting room and disappeared through the door. The cat Pickle, however, remained, crouched on the sofa with its front paws tucked up. ‘You stay there,’ Boofuls told it, although it obviously had no intention of moving.
Boofuls went to the front door of the apartment and opened it. Standing outside in a sleeveless T-shirt and a pair of excruciatingly tight emerald-green satin shorts was Maria Bocanegra, from next door. Her glossy black hair was wildly back-combed, her purple lips gleamed, and her fingernails were all frosted purple. She wore emerald-green high heels and she had sprayed herself with enough Obsession to over power any aroma that dared to be subtle within a radius of twenty feet.
Miss Loud Pedal, 1989.
‘Yes?’ asked Boofuls, his face white with innocence.
‘Well, who are
you
?’ Maria smiled. ‘Aren’t you just cute?’
‘My name is Lejeune,’ said Boofuls. ‘Martin isn’t here. But you can come in and wait if you wish.’
‘Aren’t you
po-lite
?’ Maria giggled. ‘If all men were as polite as you! But, listen, I can’t stay! I just wanted to invite Martin to my party on Saturday. We’re having a wild, wild salsa party, can you imagine that? And since Martin loves South American rhythms, well I’m sure he’d love to be there! Can you tell him nine o’clock?’
‘He’ll be back in just a minute,’ said Boofuls, straight-faced.
‘Well, if you can’t remember the message I’ll call him,’ said Maria. ‘But I really have to fly!’
‘I’m allowed to offer you a glass of wine, ma’am,’ Boofuls told her.
Maria was captivated. ‘Is that what Martin said? If a ravishing lady comes to the door, you’re allowed to offer her a glass of wine?’
Boofuls nodded.
‘Hm,’ said Maria. ‘How long did you say Martin was going to be?’
‘Only a minute. Do come in, ma’am. I know that he’ll be quite delighted to see you. He’s always looking at you out of the window.’
‘Ye-e-es, I know that, too,’ said Maria. ‘But all right, then, just one glass of wine. I don’t want Rico thinking I’ve been fooling around with a strange man, do I?’
Boofuls opened the door and showed her through to the sitting room. She balanced her way around on her high heels, admiring it. Boofuls stood in the doorway watching her, his hands clasped together.
‘Isn’t this
neat
?’ Maria commented. ‘Very male, though. Nothing around like flowers or cushions or china ornaments. But, you know,
tasteful
. I always thought that Martin was tasteful. And that mirror’s something, isn’t it? Is that an antique?’
Boofuls smiled. That dreamy little smile. ‘It’s supposed to be lucky.’
‘Is that right?’ said Maria, peering at the mirror short-sightedly. She should have worn glasses but she was far too vain. Besides, she scarcely could have fitted them over her sweeping false eyelashes.
Boofuls said, ‘There’s a legend that comes with the mirror that if you kiss your own reflection, you’ll get everything you always wanted.’
Maria laughed. ‘All I ever wanted was a billionaire. Or maybe a millionaire, you know, at a pinch.’
‘Go ahead, try it,’ said Boofuls. His voice was oddly echoey.
‘Aw, come on,’ said Maria. ‘If I kiss that mirror, all that’s going to happen is that I’m going to leave a big fat pair of lipstick lips on it.’
Boofuls shrugged. ‘Martin kissed it, and Fox is going to make that musical about Boofuls that he’s been working on for years and years.’
‘No kidding?’ asked Maria. ‘They’re really going to do that?’
Boofuls nodded. ‘Go ahead. You try it.’
Maria giggled. ‘I feel like such a
fool
.’ But she waggled her way over to the mirror, and bent forward so that she was face-to-face with her reflection. ‘What do I do, wish first and then kiss – or kiss first and then wish?’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘All right, then,’ said Maria, closing her eyes. ‘I wish that I could meet a man with a net worth of one billion dollars, and by the way could he please be good-looking, too, I don’t want some rich old character with a face like a month-old canteloupe.’
She placed her lips against the cold surface of the mirror, her eyes still closed. Up above her, the gilded face of Pan grinned with demonic blindness.
‘
Mmmff
,’ she said. Then – immediately – ‘
Mmmmmffffff!!!!
’ because she couldn’t pull her lips free from the glass.
She waved her arms frantically and slapped against the surface of the mirror with her hands.
But the mirror slowly and irresistibly dragged her in, so that she disappeared inch by inch into her own reflection
. First her face, so that her head looked like a narrow football completely covered with wildly tangled hair. Then – when her head had dwindled into a dark tuft and vanished – her real neck was joined to her reflected neck like an angled pipe.
All the time this gradual process of absorption into the mirror was going on, she kicked and struggled and hammered at the mirror, reaching behind her again and again in a desperate attempt to seek help from Boofuls.
But Boofuls stayed where he was, watching her with a placid smile. He hummed to himself as she disappeared into the mirror.
Apples are sweeter than lemons
Lemons are sweeter than limes
As she was drawn right up against the mirror, Maria pressed against its surface in a final effort to save herself. The heels of her hands skidded across the glass with a rubbery sound. But the mirror’s suction was too demanding for her, and her hands were drawn in, too.
At last there was nothing left of Maria Bocanegra but her ankles and her feet – two separate triangles of human flesh with high-heeled shoes at the bases of them. One foot shuddered as it was sucked into the mirror’s surface; the other remained still. A thin line of blood slid down one ankle and dripped off the metal tip of her stiletto heel just before she vanished completely. It fell onto the floor and remained there to mark Maria’s passing.
Boofuls approached the mirror and stared at the reflection of the brindled cat Pickle sitting on the chair. ‘Now, my beautiful darling,’ he whispered, and held out his arms.
The cat’s eyes, which had been squeezed shut, now opened a fraction. Then it lifted its head and stared at Boofuls haughtily.
‘Come on, my beautiful darling,’ Boofuls coaxed it.
At last the cat rose and stretched and yawned; and then dropped down from the chair onto the floor. It padded up to the mirror and sniffed at Boofuls. Then it sniffed at the single drop of blood that was all that remained of Maria.
‘Come on, madam,’ whispered Boofuls; and his whisper was cross and commanding.
The cat stepped back a little, hesitated, and then sprang. It jumped straight out of the mirror into Boofuls’ arms. Boofuls staggered back two or three paces, because Pickle was so heavy, but he sank his little hands deep into her matted fur and held her up in front of him, and he tugged and tugged.
The cat spat and hissed at him, but he held it fast, and tugged even more forcefully. There was a tearing sound, like a Velcro fastener being torn apart, and he ripped the cat’s stomach wide open, dividing the shaggy fur and revealing glistening flesh, mottled in red and purple. He paused, gasping for breath, but then he tore at the animal again, and now something extraordinary happened.
A woman’s face emerged from the cat’s stomach; a woman’s head. She was completely bald, her eyes were closed, and she was covered in thin slime. But she was thin-faced, with high cheekbones, beautiful and severe; and as Boofuls tore more and more of the cat’s stomach apart, her neck appeared and then her shoulders, and then Pickle’s head was nothing more than an ugly flap hanging from her back, like the dried face of a fox on a fox-fur wrap
.
The transformation was strange and prolonged. As Boofuls pulled the body of the cat wider and wider apart, the woman appeared with all the grace and dignity of a Chinese conjuring trick. When he dragged the last ripped-open remnants of cat away from her ankles, she stood naked and tall and silent, her eyes still closed, amniotic steam rising from her shoulders as if she had just been born.
Pickle was nothing more than an empty sack of brindled fur, like a diseased pajama bag.
Boofuls stepped back, a step at a time, and sat cross-legged on the sofa. ‘Well, madam,’ he said, and smiled, and rocked backward and forward.
The woman remained still for almost a half hour. Her eyes remained closed. Gradually, the slime on her body began to dry. She was very thin, very pale. Her skin was the color of ivory, with a tracery of blue veins branching through it. Her breasts were small and slanted, with nipples that were so pale pink that they scarcely showed. Her hip bones were high and prominent. She opened her eyes. The irises were pale amber; the pupils were wide and unfocused.
‘Miss Redd,’ smiled Boofuls.
Miss Redd smiled back; the taut smile of somebody who had just woken up.
‘We’re back,’ said Boofuls. ‘Aren’t you happy, Miss Redd? After all those years, we’re back.’
Miss Redd arched her head back and then circled it around to loosen her muscles. Then she worked her shoulders up and down. She looked around the room with eyes narrowed, trying to work out where she was; and what day it was; and what
year
it was. She was quite remarkable to look at. She could have been a
Vogue
model. There was something only half human about her; something feline and predatory; as if she had shrugged off a cat’s body, but retained a cat’s soul.
Boofuls came up to her and touched her thigh. ‘Pickle-nearest-the-wind,’ he said smiling.
Miss Redd ran her long thin fingers through Boofuls’ blond curls. ‘Never again,’ she whispered.
‘Why don’t you wash?’ Boofuls suggested. ‘Then I can find you something to wear.’
‘You always were the best of the boys,’ Miss Redd told him.
‘Martin will be back soon … we don’t have long.’
‘Martin?’ asked Miss Redd.
‘He was the one who bought the mirror … and brought it here. Our savior, if you like. He writes movies. He’s going to help us finish
Sweet Chariot
. Miss Redd, it’s happened at last. It’s going to be wonderful. Fox wants to make the picture and everybody loves it and
at last
it’s happened.’
Miss Redd got down on one knee and took hold of Boofuls’ hand and kissed it. ‘My Master,’ she whispered.
Then she bowed her head forward so that her forehead touched the wood-block floor, and repeated, ‘My Master … to whom I give my devotions.’
Boofuls leaned forward and touched the base of her knobby spine with a single fingertip. He ran it all the way up her back, in between her bare shoulder blades. She remained where she was, obeisant; as if she would have stayed there even if his fingertip had been a razor blade, and he had cut her open from top to bottom.
‘You are the lowliest of slaves,’ he told her. ‘You are the most degraded of bitches.’
‘Master,’ she whispered, and opened her mouth wide and pressed it against the floor, licking the bare boards on which her master’s feet had trodden.
Martin and Ramone came up the stairs about an hour later. Ramone was eager to see the real resurrected Boofuls for himself. Eager, but frightened, too. This all reminded him just a little too much of what used to happen at his grandmother’s house. His grandmother used to call herself a witch and mix up potions of rum and gunpowder and licorice root, potions which were supposed to cure everything from plantar warts to pneumonia.
They reached Martin’s door. Ramone laid a hesitant hand on Martin’s arm and said, ‘You’d better not be bullshitting me about this.’
‘You said yourself you were ready to believe anything,’ Martin replied.
‘Well, I’m not sure about that. I mean if I died and I didn’t realize and then somebody came up and told me I was dead, I wouldn’t go much on believing
that
. I’d just as soon they hadn’t told me in the first place.’
Martin was about to open the sitting room door when somebody opened it from the inside, swiftly and dramatically. A tall thin girl was standing there, dressed in nothing but one of Martin’s checkered shirts, tied tightly around the waist with one of his two neckties, the red one, which he used for interviews with the IRS. The black one was for funerals. Around the girl’s head was a turban, wound out of a red hand towel. Boofuls was sitting on the sofa, still cross-legged, like a little Buddha, still smiling.
‘Look who came to see me!’ Boofuls cried triumphantly.
‘Oh, yes?’ said Martin. ‘Who’s this?’
‘It’s Miss Redd!’ Boofuls sang out. ‘I told you she’d come!’
Martin stepped into the sitting room and looked Miss Redd up and down. She looked back at him, her eyes challenging him to speak. Ramone stayed where he was, in the doorway, still wide-eyed at the sight of Boofuls.
It was true, Boofuls was actually alive. He was alive – and he was sitting here talking and laughing just like a normal child
.