I’ll fast-forward now to a point near the end of the film, after everyone in the troupe but Rocky, Lulu, and Lola had been captured or killed.
Night. An unnamed square in an unnamed European city. Rocky, Lulu, and Lola were hiding in the dark shadows of a recessed doorway. Here, and throughout the tense moments of their flight, we heard ominous snatches of music. Perhaps it was the first, allegretto, movement of Shostakovich’s Concerto no. 1 for Cello and Orchestra. The moonlight caught the planes of Rocky’s cheeks, so that we could see his scar and stubble, and highlighted the places where Lulu’s wet, torn skirt clung to her thighs and buttocks. Lola was injured; she had twisted her ankle when a heel of her shoe broke while she was fleeing headlong down an alley wet with highly reflective rainwater.
I was sorry that the gorgeous Lola had twisted her ankle, but I couldn’t help feeling that it hadn’t been wise of her to persist in wearing high heels throughout the film, even when she was holding off a gang of attackers with a machine gun, although I had to admit that the shoes must have been of remarkably good quality to stand up under all the hard use she’d given them, and I could understand now my mother’s wistful yearning for a pair of imported shoes, but, in a way, I was gratified to see the shoes give out at last, since it lent a note of realism to their flight, which had included some skin-of-the-teeth escapes that bordered on the miraculous.
I whispered to Margot, “I didn’t think those shoes would hold up much longer.”
“Shh,” she said.
The shadowy doorway.
Rocky: “I didn’t think those shoes would hold up much longer.”
Lulu: “Shh.”
Lola shifted in the dark, seemed to sag, as if there was no strength left in her, and moaned softly. Rocky tightened his grip on her and drew her limp, compliant body up along his, much in the manner of the apache dancers we had seen in an earlier café scene.
Rocky: “Come on, kid, don’t give up on me.”
Lola murmured something indecipherable and straightened herself up. This brave display of sheer willpower made her skirt tear along a seam from ankle to thigh, exposing one of her lovely fish-netted legs.
Sitting there between the Glynn twins, staring at the astonishing leg of the panting, swooning, rain-dampened Lola, exposed to her thigh, I began getting a twelve-year-old’s erection. I glanced to either side of me, sidelong, to see whether the girls had noticed. I squirmed a little.
Martha poked me in the side and whispered, “Stop fidgeting.”
The shadowy doorway.
Rocky: “That’s it. Over there.”
He nodded in the direction of another shadowy doorway, across the square or plaza, which was lit by street lamps, making the crossing hazardous.
Rocky: “Look, I’ve got an idea. It’s kind of crazy, but it just might work.”
Lulu: “What is it, Rocky?”
Rocky: “The way to get across that lighted square is to go as if we belonged there—openly.”
Lulu: “Openly? Have you lost your senses, Rocky?”
Rocky: “I don’t think so. We’re going to cross that square like a trio of swells, finishing up a night on the town, barely able to walk. Think you’re up to it, girls? Can you screw up your courage and pretend to be gay?”
Lulu: “Yes! I’m sure I can do it!”
Rocky: “How ’bout you, Lo? Can you manage it?”
Lola (putting on a brave face): “Sure thing, handsome. You know me, always ready for a good time.”
They exchanged grins and winks, and the handsome Rocky swaggered across the square, or, more accurately, staggered, as a young man given to swaggering would if he were drunk, with a girl on either arm, and he managed to make it quite convincing, even to make it look at times as if the women were carrying him, though in fact he held them upright and nearly forced them to cross the square, pushing them on when their spirits flagged. Holding Lulu and Lola the way he was, his hands were awfully close to their breasts, which with each deep, frightened breath, swelled beneath their blouses, which were torn and wet with rain. I began to fidget again. Martha smacked my leg.
[to be continued]
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