Excerpt from The Book of Faces

CELL

It’s the part of the film (Charade) after Audrey Hepburn has lumped ice cream on Cary Grant’s suit (though she doesn’t offer to lick it off) so he takes a shower fully dressed in her bathroom because she’s trapped him there (we can understand why) for a kiss (or something) but got (doesn’t it figure) slapstick instead.

I know that moment.  Cary Grant should walk out in a housecoat with a towel wrapped around his neck, saying something funny, something irresistible.  Because she’s just heard something awful on the phone.  Was it about the nature of men?  Always more names than fit on a passport, more features that fit in a damp bathrobe.

He doesn’t just walk in, though.  Just like her husband (whose name she didn’t even know) never walked back in (someone threw him off a train).  So it makes sense to see her instead, to see her everywhere (women make the best spies).  When the door opens, no one’s there.  She never gets to walk out of the frame (not even in Givenchy).  She doesn’t get to walk into time.

No one gets to walk into the dark with eyes open.  Into the shadowy closet of water where a thousand perfect souls swim like notes in the air, glimmering in a great chain that swirls upward, waiting to cycle back to life on the pulsing cell of the eye, of the mind at night, seeing what it does in the dark.  No one sees angels.  No one hears voices, no less explanations.  Machines tick seconds on an ageless band spiraling into itself.

She picks up another cigarette (just breathe).  Paces a silver cell: space without time.  Savors the smolder that never kills, never burns.  That’s the magic of the place (take me with you).  She waits for the next one, the man who will come out of the darkness in satin.  There’s always another one coming out, another one passing through.

ROMAN HOLIDAY

You need a break and so do I, I’m
just what you want, you’re nothing

I need and we don’t even realize: I
don’t mind.  I’d tell you the truth but

that’s less interesting.  You already
know it all: you read your papers.

I’ve driven through crowds, I’ve seen
the wreckage I make with my face:

how’s that for a lead? I’ve cut my
hair and I’ve drunk champagne. I’ve

slept in your bed: what comes after that?
Now a question for you: what are you

running from?  You’re patient.  You let
me in, you’ve let me ruin my life. I’m

glad. I’m something wonderful, you’re
something mean, and I don’t know

which is which: how selfless of you.
Give me a cigarette—I’ve got a wish

to make.  I’ll let you sit down, but you
know you can’t stay: neither can I. I’ve

got to be in some pictures: I’m all
arranged. We could both use some

time but I can’t take a break from what
I am and what I do I do for someone else

entirely.  I love you for the honesty you
can’t give me as you love me for the grace

with which I withhold from you the love
to which you have no reasonable claim.

I’m a story you can’t track down and you’re
inclined to roam.  Rome is a mouth in a cave
that will swallow me and my lies.  In another
life I’d be the frog and you would be my

princess.  In another life I would sleep forever.
You don’t understand me, but you’re patient.

I need a break—I’ll break into you.


HOW TO BE A STAR

1. Name your goldfish George, your dog Famous, your cardinal Richelieu, your fawn Ip.

2. Collapse into (Marcel le Bon, Lord James Hanson, Gregory Peck, Humphrey Bogart, William Holden, Mel Ferrer, Fred Astaire, Gary Cooper, Anthony Perkins, Peter Finch, Burt Lancaster, George Peppard, James Garner, Cary Grant, William Holden, Rex Harrison, Peter O’Toole, Albert Finney, Andrea Doti, Sean Connery, Ben Gazzara, Robert Wolders)’s arms.

3. Try diamonds. Try Paris, try Rome.  Try New York, try London.  Try singing, try dancing.  Try Givenchy, try Valentino.  Try older, try younger.  Try men, try women.  Try too hard: don’t bother at all.  Try flowers.

4. Take up a habit: dogs or clothes, praying or eating—don’t stop eating.

5. Learn the right tune: “Isn’t It Romantic”—“La Vie en Rose”—“Fascination”—“Wouldn’t It Be Loverly”—“Moon River”—“Charade.”  Sing, and the moon’s reaching for you.

6. Arrange poignant childhood experiences: paternal abandonment, devotion to ballet, war, Nazi invasion and occupation, malnutrition, near starvation, disappearance, liberation.  Arrange poignant adult experiences: depression, anxiety, anorexia, troubled marriages, miscarriages.  Arrange poignant golden years: flowers, children, land mines, charity.

7. Always know which side of your face to show.

8. Make brassieres a thing of the past.  Wear ballet slippers.  Show a bit of neck, a bit of shoulder.  Dress down before you dress up.  Forget makeup. Don’t go blond.  Find the right hat for the right hair.  Do your own hairdo at home.  Go for Givenchy.  Diamonds after forty, skirts before.  Go new wave if you can.  Don’t just wear: live.  Try Valentino, Lauren, Ferragamo.  Look good in everything.  Look good in nothing.

9. Be discovered by Colette, bankrolled by Paramount.

10. Encourage emulation.  Inspire idolatry.  Be a muse, be a nymph, be a sprite, bewitch me.  Rise from obscurity.  Set trends.  Break habits.  Make statements.  Count blessings.  Distribute kindnesses.  Arouse devotion.  Devote yourself to nobility.  Ascend, ascend, ascend.

From The Book of Faces. Copyright 2005 by Joseph Campana. All rights reserved.