“Yes I see, Herr S and if you will continue please.”
“Well I was born in Pawtucket, Rhode Island in the U.S.A. on a fairly cool October day, my mother moaned with surprise as she saw her belly give rise to this yelling nine pound prize. Which grew up on what I did not know was the wrong side of the tracks. On which I got my toes continually trimmed as I stood there looking at the goodies on the other side.”
“Do not joke please.”
“Well you won’t tell me anything. I’m just going back over it to see where I went wrong. And took the train to Celibacyville. I mean, Doc, this is five years I’m coming here twice a week. I lie in bed in the morning adding it all up. It’s the price of an expensive car. A thing I have never owned in my whole life. I mean I could have polished it twice a week for fifty minutes. And then when someone wants to marry me and pay me as well, I run. From the biggest gravy train that ever whistled by. I want to get straightened out. And yesterday shows I am not straightened out.”
“Please don’t shout, Herr S.”
“You afraid the neighbours will hear.”
“Do please continue.”
“Now answer me. Are you afraid the neighbours are going to hear.”
“No Herr S, I am not afraid the neighbours are going to hear. Do please continue. But let me warn you, you are showing all the symptoms of being cured.”
“Don’t say that Doc. I’m so lonely. Really really lonely. How do I get this bimbo.”
“There is no formula.”
Samuel S pulling up his brown tightly woven socks and taking a sigh. The fan quietly whirring. Watch ticking. Out the window a whistle blowing. Belonging to the little girl in white gloves with big blue eyes and long brown hair who was allowed to make this sound when her father came home. Her tiny joy at five fifteen every day. For which she waited pushing a little baby carriage round the pebble paths, soundlessly talking to her doll.
“Maybe I’ve had enough for today Doc. But I want to sit here till my hour’s finished.”
“It’s your hour Herr S.”
“I know it’s my hour. I know it annoys you. I just want to sit here and say nothing. Because I’m not getting anywhere saying things. What is it Doc, no one will let me have the good jobs, the good women. I mean look at the big international agency in this town. I mean to say, there is a big breast. Sure I want to gnaw at it. But when anyone sees me eyeing it and coming close, they say go on, we’re chewing here already, go on get out of here. Those are the grabbers at life’s banquet And I’m elbowed to crawling around under the table scooping up the crumbs. Trying to avoid the heels they’re slamming at my outstretched fingers for laughs.”
Samuel S stood outside the oaken doors of the Herr Doctor’s building. His cap set square this five minutes to six this Thursday evening August in Vienna. Where one could walk down Goldegg Gasse feeling you’d just been laid. Here, east of Munich, Paris and Halifax Nova Scotia. Quietly loping through the back streets beneath the spire of St. Stephen’s as the big bell booms six. On the corners of the Kärntnerstrasse the early bird street girls taking up positions. Pale blue and pink cotton dresses, sweaters across their shoulders for late business through the cooling evening. Samuel S taking a sharp right into a short narrow grey street, entering a mausoleum interior of smoky amber coloured marble. He sat down in a booth and laid his arms out on the table, and a momentary forehead on his wrist. A waitress inclining towards this sad form.
“Herr S good evening, are you sick.”
“I am about to scramble my synapses on slivowitz. If I don’t I’ll end up in the blue pair of plimsolls playing the electric piano by the ice cold sea.”
The big bell was booming eight o’clock and Samuel S was standing on his table, bowing after an elaborate dance called the goof’s gavotte which was an antic with the plenty use of the hips and shins. The proprietor aghast as Samuel S demonstrated American football, lesson three, the place kick using a glass of slivowitz as the ball. And asking questions of the admiring crowd, as they licked the plumy fluid from their faces, do you each have someone to love you, do you each have a cherished care. And question time was followed by a song.
Sprinkle me
With anther dust
Sprinkle me
With lime.
Sow me
Beneath the buttercups
After all
The pantomime.
There were cheers and schillings tossed on the table. Viennese present restricting their appreciation to clapping. But their grins were big as Samuel S took off his jacket, and with a cigar in one hand, his yellow suspenders wrapped around his throat and arms spread in a cross he sang four spine soothing Mozart arias in a row, collecting people in from the street, jamming the doorway and sidewalk. Just in time to see Samuel S in his cloud of smoke raise a flag on his big toe and demonstrate a baby’s arse with his squeezed up belly. It was mad. The less hardy turning shyly to peek from between fingers covering the eyes. And in English he announced he was going up shit’s creek, with no engine, no sail, no boat and would they all wave goodbye.
Friday dawn. After the plenty troublesome Thursday. Samuel S stretched spreadeagled unconscious under his table, suspenders still entangled around his throat. A left hand holding a nun in the shape of a little black doll which made him shout out Holy Christ, and throw it across the room. The world looked yellow. Aches in the achilles’ tendons, a dried alcoholic foam in the mouth. A night of tightrope walking above the abyss, and settings forth for Odessa across the frozen wastes with a collection of assorted combs to sell. Then morning. The sun creeping across his wall, a thin ray sneaking through a slit in the curtains. Struggling to the knees. Crawling squelching across the soaked carpet in the hall to wee wee. Life waiting while the liver squeezes the poison out drop by drop. And back again to the groaning horse hair mattress, creeping over the little nun, a note tucked in under her white bib.
YOU SHOULD HAVE YOUR BRAINS EXAMINED
Yours truly, An Austrian Citizen
Samuel S lay on his bed, a vista of grey stains down his cavalry twill trousers, tips of brown shoes scuffed and torn, suspenders flapped out, broken golden wings. Staring up at the ceiling. A cracked plaster medallion, into which one would merge when it was time to go to heaven. On my back here. Nowhere. With nothing ventured. And everything lost anyway. Brains fried instead of examined. Eyes looking in instead of out. Ears barely tuned to the outside world. Agnes Anxiety lurking past the door. Wondering if I’m worth one last cold shiver. The trams squealing stopped. Lapse to sleep. Dream of a rampaging bull rooting up daisies and roaring I’m king of the beasts. Naturally one approached to talk it over and this animal charged. Chasing me across the courtyard and into a barn where I stood trembling on top of the sweet smelling bales of hay. Whispering down to this animal puffing explosions of flame from the nostrils. Now bull can’t we come to an understanding. Lead you to some grass. And the horns came whistling past his own nostrils. Waking once more. Beads of sweat on the brow. Time to wee wee. Momentous effort of the spirit, roll out. Land on the knees on the floor. Stand up, shake the head and waddle to the bathroom.
Samuel S stepping carefully between the still busy little ants in their swampy world between the hairs of his carpet. And getting out of his clothes, like taking off skin. Filling the tub brimming with steamy water. Turn off the tap. Wad up a fistful of toilet paper, and stuff it round the doorbell. Bury the telephone under the gargantuan pile of dirty laundry. Pin the window curtains together, switch on all the electric lights. Cover the armchair with the sheet, the towel. Stack the books within hand’s reach. Take one tome to the bath.
Samuel S lowered himself slowly in the hot water. An ant strayed from the herd was crawling on his leg, climbing to his knee top and zooming in crazy circles there as this island of refuge sank beneath the water. The ant floating, churning madly on the surface trying to swim for shore. It was desperate. Antennae flapping in despair. And Samuel S gently led it up on a finger. Against all instincts to k
ill it. It stopped on the biggest freckle of his arm chewing the mandibles for a moment. And with a flick he sent it flying to safety. Just as two sharp knocks landed on his front door.
Samuel S froze in the hot water. The landlady. Or the police. Who always want to know, if they don’t arrest you, what toothpaste you’re using. Another three knocks.
This is no Viennese, who take the excuse of no answer to question the neighbours about you and if they hear enough, go away satisfied. Another four knocks. The police. Smell me without a shred of respectability. To make me pay for all the drunken damage I did. And spent every penny I got from Amsterdam doing it.
“Hello in there.”
Too hot in this bath to play it cool. Because that is the voice of Abigail. Is there any more point or need for more pain. They feel guilty rejecting you and want to come later to tell you about it at length.
“Hello in there. I know you’re there. I can see the light. It’s me, Abigail.”
Samuel S levering himself out of the bath, dripping across the hall. Wrapped himself in the sheet and towel laid out on his chair, and headed to the front door to avoid the shouting that spread through the paper thin walls.
“What do you want.”
“I want to talk.”
“I don’t, I’m undressed.”
“I just want to say something.”
“What do you want to say.”
“I don’t know yet. But I want to talk.”
“I don’t want to go through the whole thing again. You beat me. That’s enough.”
“That’s pig headed and stupid. Why don’t you face up to things.”
“Face up to what.”
“I want to get to know you.”
“Think of one reason why I should get to know you.”
“You could rest your head on my shoulder.”
Samuel S wiped the perspiration off his brow with the sheet. Take six months in Spitzbergen on an ice floe conferring with a group of Bombay dentists to find an answer to that. Or twenty seconds in Vienna.
“How old are you.”
“Old enough.”
“I’m nearly twice your age.”
“Then stop acting like a Child. Open the door. I want to be friends.”
“That’s the most ominous relationship in the world.”
“What’s the matter with you. Are you a coward.”
“Yes, what are you.”
“I’m Jewish. Three quarters.”
“Well I’m antisemitic, four quarters.”
“O.K. I’ll improve your prejudice for you.”
Samuel S undoing the latches to the door, holding the sheet together around him with his teeth. His first visitor. Dressed in brown, a patterned silk shirt and leather skirt. A large saddle bag slung over her shoulder. And feet in deer skin ankle boots upon which she stopped halfway into the musty dim sitting room and let out a high pitched whistle.
“Holy cow.”
“You wanted to come in.”
“I’ve read about poverty in Europe but this is really for the books. Your hallway is soaking. You look like a spook.”
“If you don’t like it there’s the door.”
“Don’t be so touchy.”
“I don’t ask people to visit me, if they do I take no responsibility for their feelings when they get here.”
“You’re a charlatan. Real charlatan.”
“As I say, there’s the door.”
“I have a good mind to walk right out of here. The only reason I don’t is because this is the filthiest place I’ve ever seen. This place is really dirty. And something should be done about it. What have you got all the lights on for. And the curtains blocking out the daylight. It’s three o’clock in the afternoon.”
“As far as I’m concerned it’s midnight.”
“Can I sit down.”
“Sit down.”
Samuel S waddled to the bathroom. Slapped cold water on his head and slammed a comb through the matted hair, raking a jagged parting on the left slope of skull. life had taken a new turning. Right into a little oasis. Full of foolish figs all figurative and vanishing when you reached to eat. And on top of everything else the landlady is raising snails in a glass cage in the basement. They make noise munching on the vine leaves. The Countess said she went a little strange after dark, foaming over her escargot, but seemed to come around again in the morning.
Samuel S emerged from his bathroom with the chin up, the shoulders back, sunshine beaming from the eyes. A white starched collar over a blue striped shirt. Abigail sitting with her legs crossed. Thumbing through his Guide To Banking. She looks up with brown eyes, her lips faint purple in the light.
“I’m sorry for what I said up on the Kahlenberg. I met some friends of yours and they told me you were under treatment. If I knew, I wouldn’t have said what I said.”
“People say what they want to say. And they always mean it. And then do exactly the opposite.”
“God am I embarrassed. I don’t know what to say. Could we open up a window.”
“They’re sealed.”
“I’m not used to these European smells.”
“This air’s been here for four months and I can see no good reason to change it. Fresh air makes me sick.”
“Do you like living primitive like this.”
“No.”
“Why do you.”
“Because I haven’t the money to live any other way and nobody else will clean it up.”
“You should clean it.”
“I don’t feel like cleaning it.”
“Forgive me for suggesting.”
Samuel S froze. Standing solemnly by his makeshift desk piled high with sheafs of paper. Pull in the outposts of life, the dreams, ambitions, the distant deals. So that some passing grabber swishing his scimitar doesn’t lop them off. End up just being alive, the only thing that matters at all. Feel the way carefully while there are still teeth left in one’s head. Beware reaching for that little flower, its stem earthed to a buried electric cable to send you flying clear across the grassy field. I reach out.
“Why did you come here.”
“To give you a lay.”
Samuel S redirected the blood back down to the toes again, where it bounced. At half past three in the afternoon. Wait for her to waver. Wait for her to wane. While I wobble and wilt.
“Hey watch that. I mean you can’t say that.”
“I said it. Sam.”
“Let me sit down for a second. This situation needs thinking out.”
“Mind if I stand up.”
“No, stand up, wait let me fix you some space.”
“That’s alright. I’m standing.”
“No no, just a second, you need space. Push this chair over.”
“No really that’s alright.”
“Just get rid of this towel and sheet.”
“Don’t go to any trouble.”
“It’s no trouble.”
Samuel S dancing attendance. Unlike all the many years of putting his women under the thumb, once they had been under the rest of him. Find your own seat, open up your own door. Now a whiff of undergraduate days, the carefully drilled procedures, to look white, right and scrubbed, wearing drawers fragrant as the fir forest over one’s Christmas decoration.
“Can I call you Sam.”
“Anything you like.”
“I heard you wanted a lay. Sam.”
“Let’s lay off that subject for a minute.”
“Gee can we go on having a conversation like this. If you want I’ll withdraw the offer.”
“Don’t do that.”
“Well it’s kind of undignified if I got to ask you again.”
Abigail standing belly in, chest out. A neat brown little muscle throbbing at her elbow. Sam S sinking back in his chair. Putting a hand up to the moisture seeping from his brow. In this sea green room. Used just after the war by an eye maker. Who had a bench by the window and worked swiftly through the days blowing up his neat little g
lass bubbles while the client sat near with his good eye glinting in the daylight as the maker took his tiny touches of colour to match up the dead with the living. The landlady said he made hers.
“Are you going to say anything. Sam.”
“Have a piece of cake. It’s stale but no mold yet. I’m covered in a cold sweat.”
“You admit everything.”
“Because I’ve got to come to terms with everything.”
“Boy Sam I’m going to sit down. If I have to wait while you come to terms. And you expect people not to give you a kick in the tonsils in the meantime. For your own good when are you going to wise up.”
“I’ve got my ways of fighting.”
“Only if you know you’ve got somebody you can beat.”
“I see.”
“Christ, I’m sorry I said just what I said.”
“That’s why I’m here for five years. To get straightened out. So I can take those remarks.”
“God, five years.”
“Could take another five years.”
“You can afford that.”
“I’m not affording it. I’m broke. Living on the handouts of some rich friends who can’t face the pain of refusing me.”
A silence. Her brown eyes and my blue. The faint tender knuckles under the skin of her hand, taking up the cake bought in a weak sad moment for dinner and washed down with fresh clear Viennese water.
“Sam, you’re a sort of honest person. Even the way you give me stale cake to eat. Guess I should adapt. I mean my whole reason for coming to Europe was to widen my area of experience. And did we walk into it. Right at Le Havre. I mean an hour off the boat heading for Paris, a French truck driver tried to lay me and Catherine. He said it would teach us about Europe. I told him his breath stank. Then he made a rude suggestion. I was sort of amused but Catherine slapped his face, he didn’t know we knew so much French. Then he threw us out of the truck. I think Europeans are pretty lousy and uncouth. You’ve gone European. It’s wrong.”