THE RED SHOES

More than a quarter of a century ago, and I can still taste the sweetness of the croissant as it mingled with the salted butter. The butter still hard from the fridge, portioned in gold foil with the fine printed label Produit de France. Relics of old tyrannies they called civilisation in gold-wrapped pats of butter. And peanuts, peanuts everywhere, measured out in jar lids for sale on the street and pictured on the back of coins as the economic base. 

Bush taxi to Casamance, where black men in uniform guarded the enclaves of the Club Mediterranée against intrusion by the locals while public beaches were infested with shysters dealing dope and plastic bangles. The vision of escaping the winter in a divided city in central Europe, flying across continents to a land of steamy tropics, lush fruits and palm wine. 

Gratefully back in Dakar, the Café de Paris like a familiar refuge now. Croissant, butter, fresh French coffee, everything tasting finer after the boat trip to the slave island, casting off the past, escaping the wall, abandoning guilt, forgetting families. Liberation, emancipation, relief, release, living for the moment. 

The unguarded moment back in Africa when I mortgaged my future. 

I lived my childhood in a Jewish family in apartheid South Africa. Even fairy tales were conflict zones to be negotiated between sensitivities about race, colour, class, religion and ethnicity, with post-Holocaust trauma threatening every innocent joy. The Brothers Grimm were gruesome and German – enough to condemn them. That left Hans Christian Andersen as almost respectable (if we overlook the tell-tale middle name). 

The Little Mermaid suffering for her sex has pursued me for a lifetime. But much more terrifying was the fate of the heroine of The Red Shoes – my namesake, Karen, brutally crippled for the crime of trying on the tempting shoes. 

Some mistakes are quickly rectified, then best forgotten. The marriage contracted in the Café de Paris, Dakar, and enacted six months later in Berlin, was worth no more than a single poem. 

The pain is in the title: the pain of mutilation when love becomes torture. 

The Red Shoes 

Thanks for painting me 
in the red dress 
and the red shoes. 
The shoes made the picture. 


Later you hung me 
in the Berlin art academy 
and on the oak tree avenue Zehlendorf; 
next to the portrait 
a friend reported 
a notice: 
Karen. Nicht zu verkaufen. 


You hung me in the gallery 
I was your only portrait of a lady 
I didn’t go to see 


you gave it me 
— Yes; but that was then 
and now is 
now I want it back again. 
The moment of giving 
regret starts gnawing 
a gift for you 
is always a loss 

                  coin
tossed in the slot machine: 
NEXT PLAY words light up 
Scheiße. A slim Dostoevsky book 
peeps out your jacket pocket 
you grope, fish out 5 marks 
computer noises crowd the calculation 
three-fifty for a beer 
one for the one-armed bandit 
what’s left sends you 
spinning to the bank singing 
over the tannoy 
I’m just a poor boy 
my story’s seldom told. 

absent from Europe 
outside the Café de Paris 
Avenue Georges Pompidou, Dakar 
you read Der Mann 
ohne Eigenschaften vol. 1 & I 
à la recherche du temps 
perdu vol. 2 
Here comes the beggar 
shuffling on his bum 
look, no legs 
the lapdogs yap at his stumps 
va t’en! va t’en! 

the proprietrice 
as his legless back recedes 
places our Pernods on the table 
pats her coiffe, says, Mes chiens 
peuvent sentir tout suite 
les sales noirs. 
sipping the cloudy liquid 
taste aniseed 
mourn lack of absinthe 
in the paris bar back home. 

you turned my ring 
on your little finger 
traced the line of my left eyebrow 
bowed head softly said 
into the smoky yellow glass 
marry me. 

Nice of you, your Omi wrote 
sending back the wedding snaps 
to think of me but how o how 
will I ever live this down? 
— it’s a shame a crying 
shame the bride wore red shoes. 

In the picture I sat still, long 
feet foremost 
true to lifesize 
in the red shoes: the girl 
in the grim story 
danced and danced 
wild entranced 
until she dropped 
still couldn’t stop — 
chop. chop 
The woodcutter took the first foot off 
and then, in a trice, the other. 

aah. what a relief 
she sat stiff 
stumped. please she asked 
can I move now 
No he said stern 
turned to the canvas 
not till I finish your feet.

© Karen Margolis, Berlin 1988/2010