The Lady

Short Story

Mr. Verdome was one of those annoying types who seemed to be good at almost everything. With an emphasis on almost, as he wasn’t very good at being good-natured, a characteristic which would have saved him on many an occasion, had he possess it.

His unpleasant personality had always been a handicap, but especially throughout his old age, considering he was sixty-five and a bachelor. His hair had greyed, and his cheeks appeared hollow, as if he was sucking them in. The skin under his chin sagged, and considering his pockets did not sag to any extent, he had to do with his looks and personality alone, and since he didn’t have either, he tended to walk around with the air of an unwanted stepchild. A quirk entirely unappealing to women.

Mr. Verdome had been alone for most of his long life. Since the day of his eighteenth birthday, when his parents gave not him, but themselves a present, and kicked him out. And if it wasn’t for his sudden desire for offspring, he would have done just fine on his own. But at the age of sixty-five, he was experiencing many of the same urges a woman would during ovulation. Whenever he saw a small child, around the age of one, he had to steady his breathe and look the other way out of fear he would leap up and grab it and hug it tight. Or worse still, change its diaper with the steady ease not even a mother possessed.

But he was a logical man, too. A baby would never come, he knew, if he didn’t have a wife. He needed a wife, and he needed one quick. Preferably younger than him, wealthier, and better looking. Perhaps a brunette with a big set of eyes and a big set of... never mind.

Logically, he also knew (though he didn’t want to compare himself to the likes of a tramp) beggars could not be choosers, and at his rate, he would settle for just about anyone. As long as she was, in fact, a she, and resembled a she in every shape and form. He was one of those annoying types who felt the constant need to show his masculinity despite his tiny fingers and little feet.

It took Mr. Verdome several days to device a plan of action. Considering he had no experience to draw from, and no friends to ask. He had to do with his common sense alone, and since he had a lot of common sense, or so he claimed, he did what he thought to be the most common of all senses, which was to approach the very first lady he deemed suitable and ask her out to dinner. The price of a meal was, after all, a small price to pay for a baby. His very own baby. A miniature version of himself.

So, Mr. Verdome planted his rather large behind on a bench in one of the parks near his house one afternoon, and waited. The weather was bleak. It would certainly rain. Nothing Mr. Verdome hadn’t prepared for, he always carried an umbrella, even when the sky was cloudless. Actually, especially when it was cloudless. He distrusted little more than a clear day in Monnikendam.

He lost all sensation in his left bum-cheek as he waited. And waited. None of the women he had spotted thus far tickled his fancy, not enough for him to lift himself up from his sitting position. At around six-o’clock the grumbling and cursing started, something he excelled at. Then, just as he was about to give up, at six-thirty-six to be be exact, as the first drops of rain trickled from the sky, he sighted a creature of approximately thirty-five years, running from one tree to the next, in an attempt to keep her hair dry.

“Madam!” Mr. Verdome shouted.

She swung around.

“What do you want?” she demanded.

“I’m...” Mr. Verdome started, but broke off. What a rude lady. No “what do you want, sir” or “how may I help you?” Calm down, this is supposed to be an exciting moment in a man’s life. Think of the baby.

“I was wondering whether you'd join me for dinner?”

“Absolutely not!” Her voice came out like a screech.

Mr. Verdome flung his tiny arms up and was about to say something horrible to the poor lady were it not for a slight twitch in her left eye and a quick smile playing on her prune mouth.

“Please?” He asked. The word left a bitter taste in his mouth. He solemnly swore never to say it again.

“Which restaurant?” she asked.

“Uhm,” Mr. Verdome struggled to remain polite. He could think of about ninety reasons to dislik her. She had an incredibly large nose for starters. She also smelled funny, though it may have been his own dampened mustache.

“Le Place Colonial?”

If he lived on bread alone throughout the following days he could afford it. Anyway, perhaps she was one of those modern women who split the bill. The lady, who had warmed up ever so slightly under his presence, despite the rain, looked upon him with a newfound tenderness. She, like everyone else in Monnikendam, knew Le Place Colonial all too well, and especially its superb reputation and excellent French dishes.

“And why would you want to do that?”

Mr. Verdome eyed the lady. Excellent question, he thought. She was anything but a stunner. She resemble, to an extraordinary degree, a pumpkin. The stem being her miniature head. But her voluptuous stomach was good for childbearing, there was no doubt about that, and if he did not answer quickly, she was sure to walk on.

“Because,” Mr. Verdome said, raking his brain for something sensible to say, “because you are the most beautiful lady I have ever seen in Amsterdam.”

A grand exaggeration, no doubt, but she believed him immediately. She had always felt greatly underrated, and was now, for the first time, seen for who she truly was: a goddess. Surely he hadn’t phrased it with those precise words, but that was how she heard it.

She smiled, a very wide smile, much to Mr. Verdome’s horror.

They raced along the wet streets of Monnikendam, the lady always a pace ahead.

The restaurant was empty on their arrival, but the waiter still made them sit at the bar while they checked their availability.

 “This is how they get you to buy a drink. The French are sly as foxes, you can quote me on that,” Mr. Verdome told the lady.

She eyed him in much the same way a pumpkin-looking lady would. Not very intelligently. Really, she did not seem to have heard him at all.

“Two glasses of vintage G&M Mortlach, no ice,” she told the barman, with an air of expertise, “and a little taste of your Domaine Leroy Richebourg Grand Cru.”

“Excellent choice, madam,” the barman winked at her. The lady was all talk from that point onward. She was not only the most beautiful lady in Monnikendam, but drinking wine and winked at.

As soon as they sat at their table the lady was up again. Apparently she had to fix her hair in the bathroom, though really Mr. Verdome could not see the point. Patted down hair would certainly not fix her nose. Once alone, Mr. Verdome snapped his fingers, signaling the waiter like a madman. To his horror the menu did not show the prices, and he needed to set some things straight.

“What are, if you don’t mind me asking,” Mr. Verdome asked, somewhat politely, “the... eh... cheaper dishes on the menu?”

“The cheaper dishes, sir?”

“Yes, the less expensive dishes. Do you understand? Ch-eee-per. Do you speak Dutch? You know these are hard times for most of us.”

“Of course, sir. I would suggest omitting the vinegar based dishes. The farmhouse chicken, for example, or our excellent chopped salad as your woman is drinking red wine...” 

“Yes, yes man very well. But, expenses...”

 “Yes, indeed.”

It was too late. The lady had returned from the bathroom and was headed towards the table at an alarming speed.

“Away with you!” Mr. Verdome whispered at the waiter.

The lady had not adjusted her hair one bit. If anything, she looked even more bewildered than she had in the rain. She adjusted her zipper as she sat down.

“Now,” she said triumphantly, “I am ready to feast! Waiter, a bottle of that Domaine Leroy I just tried!”

Mr. Verdome cleared his throat, “I was thinking we could share a thing or two.”

“Share?” the lady looked appalled, “absolutely not. We shall feast.”

She raised her hand and called the waiter over again.

“We are ready for a feast!” she said. Mr. Verdome swore that if she said feast one more time he would pummel the menu upon her pin-head.

“We’ll have anything the chef recommends!” She exclaimed as she threw the menu shut with a great thud, “we shall—”

“Hold it, woman,” Mr. Verdome warned.

The lady told a ‘humorous’ story as they waited for their food. When it was finally over, Mr. Verdome said, “how amusing”, which the lady took as an invitation to go on telling another so-called funny story, then another, and another, until their an enormous silver platter materialized on the table, under which hid a tiny octopus tentacle on an even tinier bed of mashed potatoes. Mr. Verdome thanked the waiter excessively. Even a raw potato would be better than the lady’s pathetic attempts at comedy.

The tentacle was superb, and so was their second course, an infinitesimal circle of beef tartar marinated in teriyaki sauce, and their third course, one-tenth of a chicken wing. And though each dish would have made any normal mouth salivate, the more microscopic plates were placed on their table, the drier Mr. Verdome's mouth became, and the more difficult it was to taste anything. And the alcohol. At least two bottles of vintage Grand Cru must have been consumed, and half a bottle of whiskey. With the arrival of each sautéed carrot and chicken leg the lady became more thunderous and Mr. Verdome more mute.

After the eleventh course, more or less, Mr. Verdome put his glass down and stared with a renewed interest at that remarkable pumpkin person who sat before him. He was angry and he did not feel the least sympathetic. The lady didn’t inspire compassion. She was a fool. She must be a fool. A tremendous and absolute fool. Mr. Verdome had a sudden desire to embarrass her as badly and as violently as he could. Not even his fatherly desires could hold his tongue.

“Do you really think that I find you attractive? Even in the slightest?”

“But, of course!” the lady exclaimed, “you said so yourself. You think I am a goddess!” 

Mr. Verdome wrapped his tiny fingers around his mouth and let out a squeal.

“A goddess? Maybe you misheard me. Maybe I said goodness! As in goodness-gracious-me what a horrifying woman!”

The tips of Mr. Verdome’s ears felt hot. He really was rotten to the core, his parents had always said so. And, now, once he got started, he could not be stopped.

“You? A goddess?” He roared with laughter.

The lady’s prune mouth had shriveled to the size of an almond, but Mr. Verdome had just gotten started.

  “A goddess!” he laughed again, as the waiter came with more whiskey, “and you! Shoo, with you! Don’t you see we are talking?”

“My apologies, sir,” the waiter said, pouring the lady’s glass anyway. Unnecessary, as she seemed to be getting up, with one giant palm on the table, steadying herself.

“Where are you going?” Mr. Verdome asked, suddenly concerned; his anger giving way to logic. He needed the woman to stay, for his baby. He could not bare one himself.

Through her wrinkled mouth the lady managed to muster, “How dare you, how dare you!” She shook with rage.

“Please sit down, I am sorry. You hear me? Sorry.” He felt the food surging up to his mouth.

“Sorry? I am sorry! For wasting my time with the likes of you!”

Easy to say now, Mr. Verdome thought, after you ate and drank for at least four-hundred euros. Money he did not even have.

The lady eyed him for what felt like an eternity. To Mr. Verdome, anyway. Then, with shaking hand, she grabbed hold of her hair and gave it a nice yank, so that the mope encapsulating that narrow face fell swiftly to the ground in one bundle, and gave way to a buzz cut.

Mr. Verdome squealed, then placed a weakened hand to his forehead.

“Excuse me,” she said, staring at him with her raisin eyes, “you may not think I am a goddess, but I am a Queen. The most beautiful, stylish Drag Queen of Amsterdam, of The Netherlands, and all of Europe for that matter! Ask these men, they know me well. Au revoir!”

She winked and waved at the bartenders, who winked and waved back, then kissed the host’s hand, before zigzagging towards the door, twisting her ankle once before grabbing her coat and disappearing into the night.

Mr. Verdome stared out ahead for a long time before getting up, shaking with rage, fear, intoxication. Certain they would not make him pay after the misery he had just endured, he walked towards the door, and would have left was it not for that wicked waiter.

“You forgot this, sir,” he said, handing him a silver platter with the receipt, smiling.

Mr. Verdome was besides himself with rage.

“No, here you are, sir,” he said, and flung his thin arm at the waiter’s jaw, not quite reaching, barely scratching the surface of his stubbled cheek.

Before he could orient himself, he found his small body pinned against the wall, then kicked between the legs, where a hot stinging sensation erupted up through his spinal cord, into his head.

Mr. Verdome let out a satanical squeal. Through the throbbing pain he felt a strange, contrary emotion: relief. He could forget about his baby now. He could finally live on in peace, alone forever.