Sleeping in Flame Page 4

  "That sounds like the perfect lover. Is that the way things are with you and Nicholas?"

  "No, oh no. We've never touched each other. I have a little fantasy in the back of my head that maybe things would be like that if we were together, but neither of us has ever made the slightest movement in that direction. I think we dream about each other, but never want to go beyond that dream. It'd be too horrible if we tried something in real life and it was bad."

  She looked sadly at her hands. "I've always loved that phrase, 'You can steal horses with him.' Do you think it's possible to find someone like that?"

  "It's like Halley's Comet."

  "Halley's Comet? How?"

  "It comes around once every seventy-five years or so. You have to have a big telescope to see it, and be in exactly the right place."

  "And you think it's that way with love?"

  "Yes, genuine, twenty-four-carat love. I think it's easy to find the ingredients for love, but then it depends on how you mix them. There's so much work involved." I counted things off on my fingers as I cited the different points. "First you have to understand and accept. Then, you have to be best friend, always. Work on overcoming what they don't like in you. Be bighearted when it's so much easier to be small . . .

  "Sometimes the spark for real love is there from the beginning. But too many people mistake that spark for a flame they think will last a long time. That's why so many human fires go out. You have to work so hard at real love."

  My voice fell when I saw a big smile rise on her face. "I'm sounding like an evangelist on television."

  She shook her head and touched my hand. "No, like someone who believes what he's saying. But I'm smiling because I was just thinking of God. When I was a little girl I went through a long period when I breathed God and religion. I could have posed for those religious postcards they sell in Catholic bookstores. But my favorite thing then was to write letters to God. I'd have long chats with Him on yellow paper. When I'd finished one, I'd go immediately out on the balcony of our apartment and burn the letter. I was sure it'd go right to heaven. I worked hard at loving Him, you know? Just like what you're describing. I'm glad you said that."

  We went on talking until each of us had so much information about the other that we tacitly agreed to stop for a while to let it all sink in.

  The day had started out overcast but decided on drizzle by the time we left the cafй. It was early afternoon and I was hungry, but since we'd just spent three hours sitting, it wasn't the right moment to suggest a bite in a cozy restaurant. We walked out toward the Ringstrasse.

  The air smelled of wet streets and car exhaust. Maris walked fast, taking great long strides as she moved. While trying to keep up with her, I looked down and noticed for the first time how large her feet were. Everything about the woman was full size, impressive.

  In contrast, my ex-wife Victoria was a small woman who prided herself on being able to buy shirts in the boys' department at Brooks Brothers. Her hands were slim and pretty; she liked to have her hair done once a week. She often wore dark fingernail polish to bed.

  Maris was by no means raw or unfeminine in the way she looked or carried herself, but seemed to know she was impressive "as is." She didn't need to have perfect skin or fresh eyeliner on to stop your heart.

  "You have wonderful feet."

  "Thank you. They're the same size as my father's."

  As soon as she said this, she saw something that suddenly made her break into a run.

  About half a block down the street, a woman was hitting her child. That was bad enough, but she kept slapping him so hard that the little boy would have fallen down if she weren't holding his arm.

  Maris sprinted toward them. People stopped to watch her zoom by. With no idea of what she was doing, I hesitated for a moment, then followed. When I got there, she had already grabbed the woman by the arm and was shaking her.

  "Are you crazy? You don't hit a child like that!"

  "Don't touch me! I'll call the police!"

  The woman was as tall as Maris but much broader. She had a face like a month-old melon, and bulged through every seam of her clothes. The child hung limp in her hand, but his face was all fear and flutter. Something in his expression said Mama had done this before.

  "Yes! Call the police! Do! I'll tell them what you're doing to that child!"

  A number of people had gathered to watch. The woman looked around for support. All she saw was indifference or hard faces.

  "Look at how frightened your son is! How can you do that?"

  The boy started to cry. Without looking, the woman shook him and told him to shut up. Maris took a step toward her. A fistfight was one second away. Maris stuck a finger in the woman's thick cheek and said if she did that again, she was going to get hit.

  Now, no one talked to this Mama that way. Looking Maris straight in the eye, she shook the child again. Maris slapped her face. The other's eyes flared, then narrowed. She kept looking at Maris while she shook the child again. Harder.

  Watching the two women, I didn't see the man until he'd stepped forward and grabbed Mama by the back of the neck. He was nondescript, middle sized, bьrgerlich. He held the woman so tightly in one hand that she couldn't turn around to look at him when she tried. He ignored her, and spoke to Maris.

  "Go away now. I'll take care of it. The kid's mine, not hers."

  "Do you love him?" Maris looked at the man, then the boy.

  The man nodded instantly. "Yes. He told me she did these things, but I didn't believe him. She's always nice to him when I'm around. That won't happen again, the bitch. I'll kick her fat ass if it does!" Letting go of her neck, he gave her a tremendous slap across the back of her head. It sounded like two hollow wood blocks hitting. She staggered forward, let go of the boy, fell down. The boy squealed in delight and clapped his hands.

  "And you know I'll kick your ass, don't you?"

  Maris walked quickly away, looking once over her shoulder for me. I gave one last look at the family. Papa had the boy in his arms. Mama was just getting up off the ground. Her knees were smeared with mud, and she was trying to smile at anyone who'd look. They were real George Grosz people, and it was plain this event would do little to change any of their lives. In a day, or a week, this important tension and recognition would lose its purpose in the fog of meanness and stupidity that enclosed their lives.

  I went after Maris. She was walking even faster than before, hands deep in her coat pockets. When I caught up, I touched her elbow. She turned quickly.

  "Why didn't you stop me, Walker?"

  "Why? You were right."

  "You're sure? But I hit her! It's so embarrassing."

  "Of course you shouldn't have hit her, but so what? Maybe it was time someone bopped her. Give her back some of her own medicine."

  Her expression said she was unconvinced. She started walking again. "I would never hit a child. Never. No matter how bad it was."

  I wanted to change the subject. "Do you want children?"

  "Oh yes, although I'm getting a little old for it. At least two." She smiled and slowed a little. "Two girls."

  "Girls? What would be their names?"

  Her smile widened. "Names? I don't know. Jessica and Kenyon."

  "Are you okay now about what happened back there?"

  "Not really. My teeth are still chattering a little. Would you take me someplace happy? Do you know what I mean?"

  I lit up at the idea. "I know exactly! There are three places I go in Vienna when I feel bad. I'll take you to all three."

  We caught a tram and rode it around the Ring. Even in the rain, many people were out walking. Open horse-drawn carriages, full of sightseers, wheeled slowly down the middle of the street.

  At Schottentor we got out and walked the Herrengasse into the center of town.

  There are baroque palaces on the Herrengasse: the Spanish Riding School, the National Library, and the Albertina Museum. The Cafй Central, where Freud and Lenin drank black coffee and d
isturbed the universe, is one street over.

  Some mornings, if you're lucky, you can see trainers leading the white and gray Lippizaner horses from their stables on one side of the street to the performance ring on the other side. The sound those hooves make on the stone pavement is indescribable.

  When we passed the entrance to the Hofburg Palace and were about to go left onto the Kohlmarkt, Maris stopped and looked up at one of the statues in front of the gate. I thought she was going to say something about it or the palace, but I was wrong.

  "My God, life is hard, isn't it, Walker? Did you ever play one of those computer games, like Donkey Kong or Lode Runner? They're terrible, because the better you get at them, the more adept, the harder they get and the faster they go. You never get rewarded for your achievements – more like penalized!"

  "Is that an analogy to life, or are you still trying to figure out why you hit that woman?"

  "Both! Yesterday Luc was hitting me, today it's me hitting someone else. Don't you want to get better at life? Learn from your mistakes, make the right decisions, not feel guilty, use your energy in a good way . . ." She shrugged and sighed. "How far are we to your first happy place?"

  "Five minutes. It's a barbershop."

  "Grьssgott!"

  "Uh oh. The American is here!"

  We walked in and sat down between an old man and a teenage boy.

  The two barbers, owners of the shop, were identical gray-haired twins who forever kept up a sarcastic, funny patter with their customers. The place was Vienna's equivalent of a Norman Rockwell barbershop; talk of sports, women, and the stupidity of politicians abounded. Usually there was a group of regulars in there for nothing more than the insults and good feeling.

  "Who's your pretty friend, Herr Easterling?"

  How could I say we'd dropped in for a little cheering up because my new friend had just hit another woman?

  But Maris winked at the barber and asked if she could have a haircut.

  He was surprised, but gestured grandly toward his chair. She plopped down in it and asked for a trim.

  Another man walked in, in a hurry, but stopped halfway across the floor when he saw her in the barberchair.

  "That's the best-looking guy I ever saw in this damned place!"

  Conversations started up again after that, and the good-hearted nastiness of men comfortable with each other returned. Maris said little but smiled the whole time. It was clear she enjoyed being there.

  When the barber was finished cutting her hair he carefully brushed her off, looking thoroughly pleased with himself.

  Outside again, Maris briskly rubbed her head a few times and stopped in front of a store window to check her reflection.

  "They're nice in there. They all get a big kick out of each other, don't they?"

  "Yes. I always come out of there feeling good."

  She started walking. "I would too. What's your next happy place?"

  The next was a pet shop on the Josefstдdter Strasse that sold some cat and dog stuff, but also used bicycles, handmade bird-houses, and diving equipment. The owners were an old couple and a sad-eyed Saint Bernard that must have been twenty. The dog had his own full-length couch, from which he never moved. I never understood how the place survived, because no one was ever in there, and the goods for sale had the lopsided look of things that had sat in the same spot for years.

  The people always asked how Orlando the cat was getting on, so we talked about my roommate for a few minutes. But then, when things got quiet, out of desperation I bought an enormous bag of kitty litter I didn't need.

  Trying to see it through Maris's eyes, first-time eyes, it was both strange-looking and sad. The store smelled of coal stove, big dog, years-long failure, and dusty everything.

  She asked, "What can I buy for your cat?"

  "Well, it's a little hard, because he's blind and can't really play with most toys."

  She asked if they had a ball with a bell inside. The man brought out one as exhausted-looking as the dog. I hadn't the heart to tell Maris that Orlando already had one and hated it. It was beneath his dignity to chase a tinkling ball.

  After that we went to lunch and watched the sky clear to blue through the windows of the restaurant. It was a quiet meal. I didn't know whether that was because of the fullness of the morning, or because somewhere along the line things had gone flat for her. Maybe that flatness was my fault, but I also kept forgetting: Literally, the day before, a man had tried to kill her.

  "You know what I liked about that pet store?"

  "You liked it? I thought I'd really bombed out with that 'happy place.'"

  "Not at all, Walker. I liked the way they treated their dog like a pal and not a pet. I bet they don't have children. Dogs are the kids we've always wanted. They're totally devoted and want to live with you until they die. Not like children who can't wait to take off as soon as they grow up and don't need you anymore.

  "You know what I've been doing for the last five years or so? Writing a daily letter to my daughter, even though she's not born yet. So she'll know what I was like when she grows up. I think it's more important than anything. Kids have to know who their parents are, and were."

  "When would you let her read it?"

  "When she is sixteen or seventeen. Old enough to understand what I was saying."

  "You're crazy about children, huh? How come you've never had any?"

  "Because I never met a man I loved enough to want to share that experience with. I don't care if we were married or not, or even if the relationship ended later. It's only important that at the time we decided to have the child, we were so completely involved with each other that it'd be the absolutely right thing to do."

  She looked out the window and ran her hand through her new haircut. "I've been talking the whole time, haven't I?"

  "I'm glad."

  "I can't tell if that's good or bad. It usually takes me a long time to talk like this with a man. Especially one I just met. But maybe we didn't just meet, you know? Someone came up to me once and said 'Weren't you my wife in our last incarnation?' It was the best come-on line I'd ever heard."

  "What happened to that man?"

  She looked calmly at me. "It was Luc. The one who . . . hit me yesterday."

  "It's four hundred steps to the top, Maris, maybe more. Then we have to walk for another fifteen minutes, straight up. Are you sure you want to do it? It really doesn't matter to me. Honestly."

  We stood at the bottom of a staircase in the Thirteenth District. To our right was the Lainzer Tiergarten, a private hunting reserve of Kaiser Franz Josef in the time of the Habsburg Empire. Now it's a big, lovely park, where strange animals roam free, and you can come face to face with a family of wild boars if you're lucky. It was weeks since the park had closed for the winter. But after Maris insisted on visiting my third happy place, we drove to this far-off corner of Vienna to see . . . a field.

  She looked at the steps and then at me. She let her tongue hang out as if she'd made the climb three or four times that day already. "So what's up there that's worth four hundred steps?"

  "It won't sound interesting if I tell you. You have to see it for yourself."

  She pulled her tongue back in. "Is it the Emerald City?"

  "Better. I've never shown it to anyone. I only go there once in a while: Only when I'm either completely happy or totally sad."

  "Sounds interesting. Let's go."

  She started fast up the stairs, but by the halfway point I could hear her breathing hard. She finally stopped and put hands on hips. "Walker, I'm not in love with climbing four hundred stairs. How come you're not even winded?"

  "I used to do a lot of mountain climbing when I first came here. One of those grizzled old guides showed me how to walk vertically."

  "Teach me." She dropped her hands and gestured toward the stairs, ready to move again.

  I walked ahead and spoke to her over my shoulder. "Walk more slowly than you think you should. Don't take giant steps, because
that'll just tire you. Walk slow and steady, and breathe like that too: slow and steady."

  "It sounds like a meditation from Bhagwan's Orange Book."

  I turned and mugged at her over my shoulder. She reached out and gave my jacket a friendly tug. It felt as if she'd stroked my hand: the same little electric shock that comes whenever someone important touches you the first time.

  We climbed and climbed. The steps were covered with layers of gray and brown leaves so dead they didn't even make that skittery, crackly, dead-leaf noise. Everything had gone out of them, and they were soft under our feet.

  A few other people passed on the way up and, invariably, said the inevitable "Grьssgott!" when we passed. God's greetings. It's a small, nice piece of Austria I have always noticed and liked.

  At the top of the stairs, Maris turned around for the first time and looked behind us. Above the treetops of the Tiergarten you could see wet rooftops and smoke from chimneys, slices of sun reflecting hard off windows everywhere, like flashy clues to God's whereabouts. The air had been washed clean by the rain, and we'd climbed high enough above the city for there to be totally different smells around us – pine, fresh earth that had never been out of shadow, wet plants. After the stairs came a dirt path that wound up and into a forest. Without hesitating we kept on, walking side by side. A man with a soccer ball under his arm and a Great Dane close by came marching smartly down the path. The dog looked like a silver-brown ghost in the dim light through the trees. "Grьssgott! Are you going up to the hill?"