In an alternate universe (where we happen to have a bureau) Melania’s book, “Melania,” is very different from the one she has published here. Some excerpts…
People ask, how could I? So I am replying, how could I not? Who would not use whatever wiles or guiles of which they are possessing to get out of fucking Slovenia? I had nothing but my beauty. I did what I had to do and I am not making now any apologies.
$$$
We met first at the finals of the Miss East Europe Pageant in Herzegovinia. He owned this pageant. He has walked into the dressing room before it was started. We all knew who he is. We have been warned. I had on just the bottom of my bikini. He tried to grab my pussy but it ran very fast from the room.
“You’re a quick one,” he said. “I like ‘em quick; it’s more fun that way. But don’’t dodge for too long or I’ll get tired of you.”
He lunged again this time for a breast but it flew away, eluding his hand of grasping .
“I am Melania Knauss,” I said. “Is nice to meet you.”
“I know,” he said, panting. “You’re from fucking Slovenia. I’ve been studying you all with my binoculars. They’re Swiss, cost me $10,000. First rate optics. I watched you arrive. You’re gonna win. You’re beautiful.”
“All these girls is beautiful,” I said.
“No, you don’t get it. You’re gonna win. I count the judges’ ballots.
“But they haven’t voted yet.”
“You’re not very bright, are you?” he said. “That’s okay. Very few people have IQs as high as mine. I went to the Wharton School, you know. That's the Ivy League. The top of the pops.”
“So I should very much be impressed of you?”
He nodded, not smiling.
“You should. You will be. Right after the pageant, we’ll have dinner in my hotel suite. My chef is incredible. You’ll wear your crown and your sash. Then we hop on my private plane. I’ll show you all the best places, Paris, London, Rome, Queens. You’ll meet all the big stars. Drink the finest champagne, eat the most expensive caviar.
“And your wife, I will meet her?”
He is waving away the wife. “Oh, that’s over, baby. Finished. Sayonara. The divorce papers just need my signature and poof, no more marriage. Who knows? Maybe you’ll be the next Mrs. Trump. There’s a lot of competition but right now you’re looking good.”
I told him I had to get dressed for the opening number and finally he went out. This was my first encountering with Donald Trump. I didn’t take him seriously. Guys like him always are hitting for me then.
$$$
“Melania,” he said. “You’re gonna be the First Lady.”
I said, “What?”
He said, “I’m running for president.”
We were on the phone. He was in New York, I am in Milano, with my mama. We are here for shopping. I had bought the most beautiful scarfs and gloves at the atelier of genius designer Petrucchio Pontavellicelli but yet I have kept the spending level at two million euros. I am very proud
I laughed. “You are very funny today.”
“No, not kidding,” he says. “Serious. The Democrats are gonna nominate Hillary. Nobody likes Hillary. Her and Bill are totally crooked and anyone who finds out, she has him killed.”
“Pah!” say I. “You are again listening to the conspiritational theories of the potcracked far right.”
“No, it’s true,” he is telling me. “I heard it first-hand from a guy in the street who recognized me from my pictures in the New York Post. All their gossip columnists love me. Cindy Adams told me winning the election is all about raising money and who’s better at that than me?”
“Um, nobody?”
“Ding! Right answer, babe. You may have just won yourself a four-year trip to the White House!”
“I’m telling you right now, I am not living in Washington. Why can’t you be president of France?
“Babe, you’ll love it in D.C. You’ll be the most beautiful First Lady ever. Everybody’s gonna love you.”
“I told you, I do not like this ‘babe’ you are calling me. It is infantilizing of me.”
“Oh, man, have you been watching Oprah again? You know she’s a Commie, right? I call all my—I mean, “babe” is a good old American term of endearment. Sonny and Cher, they did ‘I got you, babe.’ Cher wouldn’t put up with that if it wasn’t cool.”
“Oprah’s not communist. I have seen some commies back in fucking Slovenia. My first boyfriend—”
“Maybe not here, but in twelve of fifteen universes, she is.”
“When you say stats, always you make up them. Anyway, no more babe. I am grown woman.”
“Okay, okay.”
$$$
I do not like escalators. One of them killed my boyfriend, Luka, whom I think maybe was true love of my life. We are in the Maxi in downtown Ljubljana when Luka screamed. He says, “The escalator, she is chewing my foot.” I thought this was joke, but truthfully this escalator had Luka’s foot and would not let go of it. I tried to pull him away, but the escalator was stronger and so it continued to chew and swallowed in Luka’s leg. The blood it is everywhere as the leg is chewed to shreds and then the other leg is pulled in and still this demon escalator keeps to its horrifiable agenda, which is the total consumption of Luka. The moving stairs have stopped but they are still making machine sounds and Luka is soon all disappeared but his head. I bent down for giving him last kiss. He could only gasp and spit a little blood, then the head was no more, also his fisherman’s cap gone as well, but one could hear still these horrible crunching noises as the satanic machinery is chewing the skull of poor Luka.
So you can imagine how I am feeling when Donald Trump is telling me he wants him and I to ride together down the escalator in his building and then he makes the announcing.
Even though Luka’s awful death in fucking Slovenia was now fourteen years already, for me is still strongly traumatic thing. I cried, I explained, I begged but Donald Trump was not budging.
“You’re the wife,” he said. “You belong at my side or, no, slightly behind me.”
“All right,” I said, “but then I am going to Tokyo with Mama for a month.”
“Fine,” he said.
So I rode with him the escalator, saying in whisper, “Serves you right if it chews off your leg.”
But as world has seen, it did not. I did get scared when escalator made unscheduled stop at 23rd Street. “This is supposed to be a fucking express escalator,” Donald Trump shouted with great loss of temper and fuming.
But then it started again and took us down to the waiting paparazzi with no further loss of life or limb, and Donald Trump went on and became U.S. president.
The voice. Nailed it
Never would I ever purchase or read this book, but you’ve nearly made it seem palatable. When TFG goes to jail, I suppose she’ll still be around NYC because of Barron. Hopefully Trump’s real estate will be sold to payoff his debts and she’ll be living in a Queens basement studio just under the 7 train.