Red Shoes: Inspired by a Folktale

This prose piece was first published in North American Review (July, August 1994, Vol. 279, No. 4) It was inspired by Hans Christian Andersen.

Red Shoes

Okay, you see him on the corner. The soldier with the rusty beard, the crippled arm. And a memory is stirred. It could be any corner. Any crippled arm. But it so happens it is the corner by the church on the day of your confirmation. It is that soldier. That crippled arm.

            Yours has been a troubled adoption. The kind you read about in concerned monthly magazines like The Atlantic or Harper’s. Interracial, perhaps. Mixed socio-economic to be sure. Your biological mother — Who knows? A lonely girl, under 18, deceived in love, raped perhaps or hooked on coke crack riddled with AIDS, something. So you are alone in the world. Scavenging the forest, you prick your toe on a thorn. B is for blood. You learn the alphabet. And in time, you learn to make shoes. You sew scraps of cloth, matted leaves, and twigs. You dye them with choke cherry juice. They are crude. So what? You admit it. Homemade. But they are red like burnished apples, like hearts, like red-washed plums. And you have made them yourself. You no longer prick your toes. You make your way in the woods. They are yours.

            Beware of saviors. That’s what you have learned, but too late. One day SHE comes. A woman on the fast track, past 40, with good income. Maybe a husband living at the office, maybe not. She drives a gilded carriage and has an urgent need to experience motherhood. “Climb in,” she shouts from the high seat. Suddenly your shoes seem shameful. You stare at your feet. “I’ll buy you new ones,” she tempts. Who could blame you? An orphan with a difficult life. You hop aboard.

            What happens next is somewhat unclear. Perhaps you get caught up in it all. The teas, the art galleries, playtimes in the park, story time at the public library, summer camp, birthday parties, overnighters in the museum of natural history. Or perhaps you become withdrawn and like nothing so much as to stare out the window and watch birds fly by, off to the forest. Either way, what we know for sure is that one day there’s a quarrel. Something about red shoes and lipstick and what to wear to church. Your stepmother thinks the shoes, the bright lipstick look shoddy, cheap. You have no understanding of good taste. Maybe it’s a question of genes.

            The soldier standing there singing a wig-a-jig-jig song brings it all back. He likes your red shoes. He likes your bright lipstick. His preferences in necklines are similar to your own. What do you think I’ve got here under all this shining glitter? you seem to ask. He invites you to dance. But there’s the problem of his crippled arm. Would you be so kind as to rub it? You would like nothing half so much. He dusts the dust from your shoes and asks you up to his apartment for a drink. Together you sip champagne from one of your shoes. He scratches your itching soles. Have you found love at long last?       

            He invites you again and again. You think, His arm. You think, He needs me. He sings his wig-a-jig-jig song. He asks you to dance before him. He slumps back on the coach and watches, making a sound with his mouth. So this is it, what I’ve been waiting for, you think.  You touch your body. Its power dazzles you. You dance alone. The red shoes. Bright like crimson. Bright like raspberries. Bright like pomegranates.  A whirl of color with loss at its center. A dance you cannot stop. The devil’s shoes.  The fetish that touches your soul.