Künstlers in Paradise by Cathleen Schine

Author:Cathleen Schine [Schine, Cathleen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

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“SIX months passed before twelve-year-old Mamie Künstler saw La Divina again. It was again on the beach. She was there with the puppy, who was obsessively chasing the waves’ foam as it rolled in, then chasing it back out. In spite of the large sunglasses and the tennis visor that hid most of La Divina’s face, Mamie recognized her right away, even from afar. So did a lot of others, judging from the extraordinary number of people who fluttered by in that ostentatiously casual way people do when they glimpse a movie star.”

“You take awfully good notes, Julian.”

“I filled in a little. Good so far, right?”

Sophie nodded and Julian resumed.

“Garbo’s disguise seemed somehow to bring attention to her rather than avert it. As if she were wearing a long false red beard. Mamie said nothing, nothing at all, when she saw her. She made no move to greet her or to move closer to her. She was as starstruck as the next twelve-year-old girl. The fact that she’d met Garbo made her shyness worse: What if Greta Garbo, famous movie star, didn’t remember her, what if she didn’t remember giving her the puppy? It would be mortifying. It would break Mamie’s heart.”

“She said that?”

“Yup. Well, okay, she said she would have been heartbroken.”

“Yours is better.”

Did Sophie really say that? Julian heard his own heart pounding, told it to pipe down, and continued.

“Garbo was with two other women, all three chatting away, Garbo most of all. How lively and garrulous she seemed, far more relaxed than she had been at the Thanksgiving dinner. Mamie watched from the corner of her eye, careful not to seem interested, when the puppy, who had grown quite large in the last few months but had lost none of her puppy behavior, the great big, wet, sandy puppy ran toward the three ladies, and Mamie, a well-brought-up child from Vienna, called her back, instinctively, loudly—a dog must not disturb the grown-up ladies, a wet dog must not jump up on ladies! So Mamie called out: ‘Garbo!’

“Because Garbo was, unsurprisingly, the puppy’s name.

“‘Garbo!’

“Garbo the puppy ignored her and leaped up on Garbo the lady who, once she had escaped the flopping wet paws, looked at Mamie with murder in her eyes.

“‘That is her name, Fraulein,’ the girl said. ‘I am most sorry. It is her name.’

“‘It is my name.’

“‘Yes, I am knowing that.’

“‘My god,’ one of the women said in German. ‘Speak German, child. Your English is worse than mine.’

“In German, Mamie apologized again for the dog’s rambunctious behavior and unfortunate name. ‘But you see, you gave the puppy to me. So, I wanted to honor you by naming the generous gift after you.’

“‘Why, you must be the little Künstler child,’ said Greta Garbo.

“‘Little Salomea Künstler!” cried one of the ladies. “‘I met you and your parents on the ship. Do you remember me?’

“‘Frau Viertel, yes.’ She did remember this kind woman from the ship. She shook the woman’s hand and said, ‘You are Salomea, too.

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