- It’s not the questions that count, and it’s not exactly the answers. You ask a silly thing: “What kind of fruit would you be?” and you hope a voice on the other side of the dividing panel, one from the row of three men on stools the audience can see but you cannot, will reach through the make-up and studio laughter to give a sign that he knows, yes, this is stupid, but what we want is not stupid: who, after all, knows how to find the person he will love?
I had looked nearly everywhere else and decided that if necessary, and it seemed to be necessary, I would look here, too. I would sit in a tight short dress with my legs placed at an advantageous angle to the camera, crossed at the knees with one high heel dangling from my toes. It’s a favorite pose and successful. The men I was quizzing couldn’t see it but the cameraman was driven crazy. With each question I asked, he returned to dwell on the ankle and bare heel.
Well then. What kind of fruit would he be?
Bachelor Number One? “Something that will make a really great pie. And that’s a promise. I am one dependable fruit.”
Bachelor Number Two? “I’d be plums, I’d be sweet and red and very juicy. And honey, I’m always ripe.”
Bachelor Number Three? “I am a north wind to ripe figs. I am a prophet of the lightning and a heavy drop from the clouds. I am an intoxicated sweet lyre– a midnight lyre, a croaking bell which no one understands but which still must speak!”
I didn’t move but I was suddenly aware of my thighs, of the insides of my arms. Bachelor Number Three had a voice like a cloud speaking, traces of roar and thunder and waves held together with honey-cello. But what did I know about him? He might be ridiculous, I thought. He might be sublime.
When a man is mysterious enough, when I have no idea which things will be good or bad or where the problems will be or even what will happen next, it makes me think that anything might be possible.”