Turning
Author(s): Lynda Sexson
Source: The Kenyon Review, New Series, Vol. 2, No. 4 (Autumn, 1980), pp. 100-103
Published by: Kenyon College
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4335151
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TURNING
Lynda Sexson
T nHREE
elderlyladies, elegantlyturnedwithjewels on theirelon-
gated necks, helped one another to hobble from the taxi to the
walk. They came toward the house, their white curled heads
nodding, anticipatedby the little boy watchingfrom behind the curtain.
They looked like a motion pictureof three swans glidingand bobbingon
a pale lake, but caught in a faulty, haltingprojectorwhich was chewing
up the frames of their finale. It was as though these fine creaturescould
not be crippled; it was merely the illusion of a flawed presentationof
them.
Inside the house they settled into Queen Anne chairs; prim but
for their knees which would no longer stick together, they looked like
great water birds, forced not only onto dry land but into humanforms
which did not suit them. The little boy pushed his trucks on the carpet
near them, making highway sound effects for their entertainment.He
peeked into the darkness undertheir skirts, which was like looking into
his View Masterwithout the reels. They turnedtheir heads from side to
side examiningthe boy, like birds who have an eye to each hemisphere.
The boy's mother brought out a decorated cake with four candles, bone china cups for the tea, and a glass of milkwith a strawberryin
it.
"Why, this cake says 'Robert'; the cake has the same name as
you," said the first old lady to the boy.
He giggled and fell back on the carpet. "No," he shrieked, "it's
my birthday,Louise Dear." He followed religiouslytheir pet names for
one another, pronouncing them with formality and deference. They
were Louise Dear, Olivia Sweet, and Ruth Love. Every time he said
those names it gave them rare little reverberationsof pleasure in their
old flesh, like spreadingcircles on the surface of water.
"'Whythen," said Ruth, "this pretty box must be for you. It
says, 'Happy Birthday.' " Robert shredded the wrapping paper and
found a shirt bearing an appliquedlion's face with a yarn mane on the
front and a cloth tail attachedto the back. Robertput it on over his other
100
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LINDA SEXSON
101
shirt. He got the buttons wrong; he watched Ruth's fingers work to
correct his carelessness. Her knobby fingers looked like bleached, brittle twigs. Robert wondered if they could push the buttons through, not
realizing that the lion had been crafted by those same fingers.
His mother lit the candles, the ladies sang, "Happy Birthday,
Dear Robert" like the air rushingfrom leaky organs. Olivia gave him a
package of crayons that wilfully changed colors as they were used.
Robert drew a picture of them on the large drawingpaper that accompanied the crayons. The ladies smiled to see themselves emerge as
armless, floating shapes, with stick fingers at the sides of ruffledheads,
each finished with a distinct and careful navel. He gave the drawingto
Olivia.
"We never expected to receive a beautiful present on your
birthday," she thankedhim. They passed the drawingaroundand cooed
at it.
Louise gave him a package with so many bows it looked like a
little animal. Robert chose to keep it as it was, not to look inside yet.
The ladies laughed and winked.
He served them cake which they faced as birds would face seeds
and crumbs smeared with sticky frosting. Robert waited until they
politely abandonedthe cake; he leaned into Olivia Sweet's lap, wadding
her silky dress into his moist fists, "'Let's have a story now." His
mother gathered the dishes and left them to their ceremonies.
"This is the story," she said vaguely, "of 'The Emperor Who
Had No Skin.' "
"No clothes," corrected Louise.
"No flesh," agreed Ruth.
Olivia's way with stories was to take a great solid wall of a story
and knock a chink in it with one word, makingit possible and necessary
to peer throughthe chink to the other side. Her story, then, was already
told; the chink in the old story was itself the new one. They had only
now to find it out by playing it out.
"Once upon a time," she said, "there was an Emperorwho had
no skin. He looked like ivory carvings and cream colored satin cushions
all laced together with fine red and blue threads. The Emperorwould
have been happy but for two things: he wonderedwhy he, alone, had no
skin, and he longed for a wife. As he was very rich, very wise, and
extremely handsome (the other ladies arched their eyebrows), he came
to realize that he himself was a riddle. So he said, whatever princess
should answer his riddle should become his wife. At last, a beautiful
princess with golden hair and a blue brocaded gown came to his
palace . . ."
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102
THE KENYON REVIEW
"And," Louise took up, "she said to the King, 'I have woven a
skin for you from my own golden hair;just pull it tightly at the top, once
you're in, by this green cord I plaited from the vines that cling to the
church walls. For the riddleof your skin is that it must embraceyou like
a loving wife and find you like a vine findingits way to a tower
Olivia, who knew that stories if not tended could trickle away,
broke in harshly, "But the Emperor tried on the skin and knotted the
cord and looked in the mirror.He said, 'I look like a mesh bag of nuts
and oranges tied with a shoestring in this skin.' He tore it from himself
and the princess left weeping."
Louise blinked several times in the silence until Ruth said excitedly, discreetly dabbingat the bit of saliva escaping the corner of her
painted mouth, "But another beautiful princess came to the Emperor
and told him that she understoodhis riddle. To be without his skin, she
explained, was to be closer to the world and yet without skin was to
never feel its petty pricks and pains. And this princess," said Ruth
triumphantly,"rolled off her skin like removinga silk stocking, so that
she could be like the Emperor and become his bride. . ."
"'Yes," Olivia intervened, "and spilled herself out onto the
Emperor'sroyal carpet. It took twenty royal maidstwenty days, picking
her up and removing her by the thimblesfull."
Louise and Ruth looked at Olivia. Robert, hearingonly the story
told but not noticing the story between the tellers, said, "Another
princess came.'
"Yes," said Olivia, "tell us, Robert, about this princess."
"This princess," said Robert, "was red and blue and green and
beautiful, and said to the King, 'I'm going to give you a good skin to
wear.' And she took off the skin of her best and favorite and big dog and
gave it to the King. The dog died but the King said, 'I like this skin
because it is fluffy and because it gives me a tail to wag.' And he did."
"But Robert," said Louise, "that doesn't answer the riddle."
"Oh, but it does," said Olivia, to Robert'srelief. They all waited
for her to continue. At last she said, "You tell us, Robert." The other
ladies knew then that the story had turnedto one that Olivia could not
swim.
"Well," said Robert, "you know, Olivia Sweet, the riddleis that
animals have good skins and people would like tails."
"There you have it," said Olivia.
"But," complainedRuth, "why was the Emperorwithout a skin
in the first place? That's part of the riddle."
"So we could find him one," said Robert confidently.
"Insufficient, Robert," said Olivia, and he sensed that she
meant for him to say more.
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LINDA SEXSON
103
"So he could look at the inside of himself before he got married
to a princess?" he asked.
"Excellent!" exclaimed Olivia, and seemed about to soar into
the air. "I didn't know the answer to that riddle myself," she confided,
and the other two applaudedthe boy.
"Don't ever forget," said Louise, "to look at the inside of
yourself before you marry a princess."
"'And," said Robert, unable to stop the momentumof his success, "if you wait a long time for a skin you get one with a tail." They
laughedand petted him, but he perceived that his last answer was not as
good as his formerone. He wonderedwhy, as he himselfwould tradeoff
a dozen princesses for one tail.
The ladies rose to leave. He kissed them on their thin, powdered
cheeks and felt how their skins didn't quite fit them and wondered. As
Olivia kissed him she said, "Don't ever, Robert, look for morals after
you find out riddles."'
Squeezed into their taxi, they looked like large fowl stuffed into
a crate for market. They waved their white gloves at the house toward
the space pulled in the curtain.
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