by Sue Hubbard
EVA
“When the Fuehrer has won the war, he has promised me that I can go to
Hollywood and play my own part in the film of our life story.”
Not long out of the convent, balanced on Herr Hofmann's ladder
in search of files I knew, when you entered the studio you were looking
at my legs, that the hem of my newly shortened skirt wasn't straight.
With your funny moustache, English coat and big felt hat,
I saw my destiny – though you forbade me dance or smoke,
abandoned me to brood and pine, do gymnastics by the lake.
Afternoons I'd shop for Ferragamo shoes, change and re-change my dress,
read romantic novels while you built an Empire to last a thousand years.
Betrothed to the Nation you'd say I was your secretary when you dined at
The Berghof with generals and dukes, refused me marriage for fear your
children might be mad. It wasn't much of a wedding, though I'd waited
15 years. Your favourite black dress and diamond watch, I had my hair
especially curled. Alone amid the long shadows of the bunker, you gave me
my wedding gift, the thin glass vial placed like a fresh-water pearl in my palm.
I understood what was expected as the radio announced the Russians closing
in, saw what you'd done to Blondi. Man and wife for less than 40 hours.
Now I, too, will be etched on the glorious tomb of history,
this trace of bitter almonds smeared like your last kiss upon my lips.
EVE ARNOLD REMEMBERS
Not even a blonde. That came later.
She was born brunette, Norma, a sad neglected child,
her mother in an institution for the crazed.
In the orphanage she told stories – how Cary Grant
was her father who'd carry her off away from
the reek of poverty that seeped beneath
the chipped green doors, the echoing linoleum
scrubbed with carbolic to a God-fearing shine,
those grey-tinged sheets stale with another's breath.
But in front of my lens her skin had that special glow.
The walk, the wiggle, the pout, you know,
were all invented. I shot her in leopard-skin,
lithe among the long grass,
and poised beneath a parasol, her white
broderie anglaise cinched tight to give an hour-glass waist,
then in front of the washroom glass with it hitched,
knowingly, around her thighs.
Even towards the end, dizzy with bourbon and Nembutal
she gave everything she had, as if the camera
was her one true love. Yet when you looked deep
into her eyes she had already become a ghost.
They had to smash in the door with a poker,
found her nude body face down, sprawled
diagonally across the bed, a bottle of pills,
and her left hand touching the ivory telephone
as if there was still one last thing she wanted to say.
OVER THE RAINBOW
June, the Chelsea streets blousy with petrol fumes
and dust, and across the cobbled mews
the private suddenly exposed like a glimpse
of dirty washing as a door bursts open
and she runs flushed, mascara-streaked,
into the evening air. He is her fifth.
Married a hundred days and nothing
but shouting. There are rumours that he's gay.
Next morning he's woken from a drunken sleep
by a trilling phone, discovers the bathroom locked,
the front door flung open. Clambering over the roof
he finds her slumped on the toilet,
dry blood caked around her mouth and nostrils.
They carry away her emaciated frame, draped
like a folded coat across the policeman's arm,
hidden by a blanket. Forty-seven and fading fast,
past the middle way. But oh, how we loved her;
forgave that broken voice, the barbiturate slur
as we watched Dorothy's ruby slippers
bear our childhood dreams to the Emerald City
just a step beyond the rain.