" ... You will see fearful shapes in darkness, and wicked voices will whisper in your ear, but they will not harm you, for against the purity of a little child the powers of hell cannot prevail."
Oscar Wilde, "The Canterville Ghost," in Lord Saville's Crime and Other Stories (New York: Penguin, 1954), p. 54.
It was a windy, dark and icy Halloween night. Hansel Finkelstein decided that, as he had just turned twelve, a final "trick-or-treat" adventure was in order before the arrival of adolescent confusions and grim adult responsibilities.
Among strangers, of course, Hansel would have affected an ironic distance from childish pleasures on the ground that the world's troubles preclude any concern with such frivolities.
"Oh, to see the privileged class enjoying its privileges," Fitzgerald writes, "is one of life's great pleasures."
Hansel felt far too "privileged" in a city that offered daily opportunities to witness devastated lives to enjoy his good fortune without a pang of guilt that nourished his keen sense of social justice. Being a "lucky kid" can be a burden for New York children.
Hansel's dad worked in the movie business. Hansel often met famous people and super-rich people, but his dad explained that they were like everybody else -- except a little sillier. Airplanes and fancy cars did not mean much to Hansel.
"Money is important in life," Hansel's dad said, "but spirituality and goodness are more important concerns."
Hansel loved to read. He used his New York Public Library card, every day, right before Hebrew lessons. Standing before the mirror now, flexing the iron-like muscles of his 95 pound frame, Hansel rose to his full height of a proud 4 feet, 11 inches.
Placing his thick black spectacles on the tip of his nose, Hansel tried to look like Kato on the Green Hornet t.v. show that he saw in reruns on "T.V. Land" as he peered into his father's wall-length mirror.
Hansel had a way with the ladies in his sixth-grade class. As an international man of mystery, he tossed an over-the-shoulder smile at any vixens wandering by, donned his elegant and casual ensemble from Eddie Bauer, while offering a wry remark. Women can't resist "devil-may-care" insousiance.
Hansel picked-up his costume and prepared to encounter his best friend and future girlfriend, Gretl Straus -- who was unaware of her good fortune just yet because Hansel was terrified and embarassed to say anything romantic to an actual, real-life "empowered female person" as distinct from a "girl" -- in order to indulge in a shared, if highly ironic, candy-gathering expedition.
Just this once, in exchange for a tiny peck on the cheek, Hansel would divide his bubble-gum pop with Gretl, even the one with the Batman wrapping. Too much indulgence in such generosity was not a good thing. Women are easily spoiled.
What a lucky girl -- I mean female person -- was the not-so-rich Gretl Straus. Gretl lived with her mom on the lower east side. Hansel lived in a huge condo at the Apthorp, Broadway and 79th Street, about a block from his favorite Chinese restaurant.
Gretl was already modelling for The New York Times magazine, Cosmo, and other glossy publications (even though she was politically opposed to capitalism) because her mother needed the money.
Gretl looked like a blond goddess-type in a Tommy Hilfinger advertisement, but she was not stuck-up or snotty, nor a shiksa. In fact, Gretl was really nice and strangely insecure, rarely allowing people to see her wearing the thick glasses that she preferred to contacts.
Gretl was totally hostile to religion. Hansel felt that religion was helpful for parents and other adults dealing with issues.
Gretl agreed to come over around 5:30 P.M. for their expedition. Right on cue the doorbell rang. Hansel buzzed Gretl into the building. He stood at the open door with a look of boredom and "whatever-style" ease to indicate that he really liked this girl. Eagerness would send the opposite of his intended message in the Age of Irony.
Gretl strolled out of the elevator, towards Hansel's apartment, with a big smile on her face (permissible for girls, that is, female persons) and wearing a comfortable Irish-knit sweater under a denim jacket and old jeans.
Gretl looked like she had stepped out of one those nice catalogues sent out for the holidays. She held a big bag from one of the pricey stores she modelled for that contained her costume.
This meant that Gretl would change in Hansel's room, which would be O.K. with his mom, except that Hansel had not engaged in the usual "girl-is-coming-over" decorations that included leaving his Noam Chomsky books scattered over his bed and putting up his "Inception" poster.
Gretl wore a big bunny rabitt costume; Hansel wore a "Rudy-the-Red-Nosed-Raindeer" costume. They each selected a big bag to fill with candy to be obtained from the stores on Broadway, then they'd take out a lot of the candy -- so the bags would appear mostly empty -- when they went to neighbors in their building and in other ritzy buildings who would feel sorry for them and give them lots more candy.
Hansel had considered a career in entertainment law. They had a really nice time making out like bandits -- especially Hansel! -- when they decided to cross the park at 79th Street, emerging right by the Metropolitan Museum.
Many of the nice brownstones on 5th Avenue and further down on Madison were known to be candy gold mines rarely visited by unadventurous kids from the west side.
As Hansel and Gretl were making their way across the park, texting their parents not to worry, listening to their favorite music while enjoying a heated conversation concerning the merits of their respective laptops, they suddenly came upon a person in the best wolf costume either of them had ever seen.
This amazingly life-like wolf -- eyes glittering, saliva sparkling on white fangs and pointed front teeth -- was wearing a black Channel suit, together with a button that said "Vote for Me For City Council."
"Why, hello there!" Said the wolf in a beguiling and very husky female voice.
"Hey," Hansel responded.
Gretl reached for her I-phone and took the wolf's picture sending it, instantly, to her mom for protection as she had been taught to do.
"There's no need to be concerned." Said the wolf.
She smiled a wolfish smile, while lighting a very expensive cigarette placed in a long holder; she wore long black gloves over her suit sleeve as required from female evil wolves, leaned towards them and with a silken intonation whispered: "I am originally from New Jersey."
The wolf came even closer to them speaking these words in a menacing pianissimo, "I've decided to move to the city in order to enter politics in the Big Apple, where the money is best and one can have ... eh, the greatest impact."
"We're trick-or-treating." Gretl was cautious.
"I'd be only too happy to hold on to your candy and keep it safe for you."
The wolf said this while drawing yet closer to Gretl, filling the girl's nostrils with a whiff of cheap perfume and cigarette smoke, also something much worse.
"Perhaps you'd like to leave a trail of candy that you could follow in order to get home later, when it's dark?" The wolf suggested, helpfully.
"Well, duh. We've got GPS on our I-Phones!" Gretl said.
Gretl placed her arms at her hips then tilted her head with disapproval at the wolf's ignorance of technology.
"No thank you." Hansel responded politely, as his father had taught him to do, even when dealing with someone unpleasant or from New Jersey, which may amount to the same thing.
The wolf then lowered her glove to reveal at least six Rolex watches, each available for $60.00.
Hansel had been offered the real thing (a gold-and-silver Rolex), but he'd turned it down because his I-Phone also had a time feature or "app." Hansel didn't need anything so fancy.
Hansel declined the wolf's invitation to hold their candy "in trust" pending completion of a fact-finding investigation of the candy's sensitivity to political issues, or whether the companies making the candy employed a sufficient number of minorities and female persons adopting alternative lifestyles.
Making their excuses the kids strolled past the wolf, heading to the east side, following what appeared to be the yellow bricks of a glittering wet cobblestone road straight through the park.
They failed to realize, however, that this particular wolf sensed a candy windfall in the making and had decided to follow Hansel and Gretl at a discreet distance.
As the children began knocking on doors, they were greeted by friendly strangers along with other kids who compared notes on their pirate booty.
Along with some new friends their age, they came to a white marble townhouse that was decorated with beautiful Halloween stuff: a strawman sat on a rocking chair at the entrance to the property; a doorman smiled and greeted the children dressed as Superman; music and laughter could be heard all the way in the street.
A masked ball was taking place inside this beautiful home owned by a tall man with dark curly hair dressed in green velvet breeches resembling the style of Oscar Wilde. Others glimpsed behind him looked like the authors and characters that Hansel and Gretl loved most -- William Shakespeare and Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, Frankenstein and Mary Shelley, J.K. Rowling and Harry Potter were dancing in the living room, Sherlock Holmes and Arthur Conan Doyle were chatting with Robin Hood.
"Please come in," Oscar Wilde said.
As Hansel and Gretl entered the premises they were dazzled by the beauty of the rooms and impressed by the sparkling conversations of the various guests.
The children had never before experienced such a sense of peace and belonging. Ice cream was available on command, offered by persons also in costume willing to play with the other children in the room.
Pre-Raphaelite canvases and some seemingly genuine impressionist works decorated walls painted in stunning and exquisite colors: Hansel recognized Millais' "Death of Ophelia" and Burne-Jones' "The Death of Merlin," both great favorites of Oscar's youth. There were also Whistler prints and a small Botticelli copy of the Florentine painter's Primavera in Florence.
The children were invited by Oscar to fill their bags with candy savoring all of the tasty treats on silver trays placed throughout his home that came from everywhere in the world.
"I can resist everything," Oscar said, "except temptation."
"These rooms are like yourselves, my darling children, glittering with the charm, innocence, and beauty of youth. I have decorated them myself, in accordance with the advice and suggestions of friends -- like Mr. Pater who is conversing with Lewis Carroll in that far corner of this gracious space."
Oscar pointed to a bald and mustached man chatting with a smaller man in a black suit holding the hand of a girl called "Alice."
"Take my hands, each of you. We will wander through these rooms commenting harshly on all we see. At the conclusion of our perambulations, you may each take one toy (or other item) with you to remember this evening and our little chat."
Oscar lifted a chocolate strawberry then placed it in his mouth with great solemnity.
"A man should be judged," Oscar said, "by how well he eats a strawberry."
Gretl was astonished to see a woman disguised as her favorite author, Louisa May Alcott, who was accompanied by three girls about her own age dressed in nineteenth century costumes.
"That's Joe!" Gretl said. "She writes stories."
Hansel hoped to write stories someday, like Oscar did for his children. As if reading her mind, Oscar whispered:
"You have a wonderful personality. Develop it. Be yourself. Don't imagine that your perfection lies in accumulating or possessing external things. Your perfection is inside you. If only you could realize that, you would not want to be rich. Ordinary rishes can be stolen from a man [or woman.] Real riches cannot. In the treasury house of your soul, there are infinitely precious things, that may not be taken from you. And so, try to so shape your life that external things will not harm you. And try also to get rid of personal property. It involves sordid preoccupation, endless industry, continual wrong. ..."
"The Soul of Man Under Socialism," in De Profundis and Other Writings (New York & London: Penguin, 1954), p. 28 (emphasis added).
They sat together on the floor. Oscar explained what he meant and hoped for them, as if he knew of Hansel's questions about injustice and Gretl's doubts about her beauty:
" ... One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes the wicked have committed," -- wickedness is the only true horror! -- "but by the punishments the good have inflicted; and a community is infinitely more brutalized by the habitual employment of punishments than it is by the occasional occurrence of crime." (p. 31.)
Hansel was reminded of sadistic and cruel persons who relish power as he saw the wolf enter this beautiful room, approaching them with a feline suppleness ...
"My little gems," said the wolf, with an insincere intonation and equally false smile, "I am so pleased to see you both again."
Oscar bid them farewell as he drifted off to greet new arrivals -- a man dressed as Sam Spade and a woman disguised as "The Maltese Falcon."
The wolf placed her long arms on the children's shoulders and they felt a chill enter their bones at her touch. Also, a terrible anxiety and sense of dread was instantly felt in the room.
A smell of something old and fetid accompanied this wolf. The wolf eyed the children's bags of goodies with a kind of lust, salivating at the life that pulsed in Hansel and Gretl.
The three of them emerged into the night, exiting the white marble townhouse, strolling towards Central Park. Oscar waved to the small group from the entrance to his home -- a home that would remain available and open to Hansel and Gretl forever.
As they came to the Metropolitan Museum, Hansel glimpsed a banner anouncing an exhibit of Leonardo's drawings and paintings borrowed from the Louvre featuring Marie Cassat's and Madame Vigee-LeBrun's greatest works. Hansel turned to the wolf and said:
"I'd like to share some of my candy with you."
Gretl agreed and offered some of her own treats. Hansel dipped into his bag providing some of his favorite candy to a stunned wolf who released the children, briefly, as she marvelled at her sudden good fortune.
Hansel and Gretl ran immediately towards the park that embraced them, laughing and waving at the frozen wolf.
New York strollers glanced at the wolf and shared in the laughter. This wolf that wore Prada was not accustomed to being subjected to ridicule. A child's laughter is simply one of the greatest weapons against evil.
The wolf's Manolo Blanik shoes were not made for running. She saw her opportunity to capture the children slipping away, being forced to ponder the reality of her grim and solitary existence in the darkness of her single bedroom apartment, together with the putridness of her inner life.
The wolf dropped the candy she had lusted for on the ground, slithering away, slowly, to her squalid hiding place for one more night.
"Dante described the soul of man as coming from the hand of God 'weeping and laughing like a little child,' and Christ also saw that the soul of each one should be a guisa di fanciulla che piangendo e ridendo porgaloggia. He felt that life was dangerous, fluid, active, and that to allow it to be stereotyped into any form was death. He saw that people should not be too serious over material, common interests; that to be unpractical was to be a great thing: that one should not trouble over affairs. The birds didn't, why should man? ..." (De Profundis, p. 176.)
