GLASS SOUP Page 6

  The Moon in the Man

  “The moon in the man, eh?” was the first thing Vincent Ettrich ever heard Isabelle Neukor say. She said it to a woman she was talking with. Then she threw back her head and laughed with her mouth wide open. Vincent had been brought over to meet her by Flora Vaughn and Simon Haden. This Isabella had a face three or four years past beautiful. That was the first thing that came to mind when he saw her. After being introduced, he pointed to the heavy coat she was wearing and the first thing he ever said to her was, “Do you know what they call a coat like that in France?”

  She smiled a little and turned to Simon and Flora to see if this was some kind of joke. Eventually she looked back at Vincent. “No, what would they call my coat?”

  “A houppelande.” It cantered perfectly out of his mouth like a dancing horse. “Isn’t that a great word? Hope-eh-lond.”

  Normally she didn’t wear heavy coats but that night it was bitter cold outside. She had just arrived at the party and had not yet taken off her ankle-length gray loden cape. The hood on it was so long that it went halfway down her back. That coat along with her blonde hair, large blue eyes, and cheeks red from the cold made her look either like a fairy tale princess or a dancer in the Ice Capades.

  “And what is a houppelande?”

  “That kind of coat—big and dramatic.”

  “A Dracula coat?”

  “I was thinking more like Dr.Zhivago.” He liked her already. Women who were quick, witty, and willing to laugh at themselves won him easily.

  She began to unbutton the cape. “All right, then I’ve got one for you now.” Her hands were numb and slow from the cold. She cupped them together and blew her hot breath over them before continuing. “Have you ever heard of the tunica molesta?”

  “A torture shirt? Sure. Have you ever been to the torture museum in the Sixth District? All kinds of amazing things there: it’s really worth a visit.”

  Isabelle looked quickly at Simon Haden, her eyes asking where had he found this guy? She’d never met anyone before who knew about the tunica molesta.

  As the four chatted, it was obvious there was strong electricity going back and forth between Isabelle and Vincent. Flora and Simon saw that and it made both of them frantic. But there was nothing either could do about it.

  Ettrich told a funny, surprisingly tender story about his father’s prized accordion collection. And how as a boy, Vincent learned to play the instrument only because he fell in love with one model in the collection named the “Mount Everest.”

  “Can you really play the accordion?” Isabelle asked.

  “Yes, I can. Even ‘Flight of the Bumblebee.’”

  She liked that very much, which showed both on her face and in her body language toward Vincent. Isabelle liked people who could do odd unnecessary things—ventriloquism, play the accordion, figure skate, or repair old wristwatches. She’d fallen in love with one man mainly because he taught her to tango.

  On a table in her living room were a bunch of prized objects she’d made, found, or bought at various flea markets. None of these things had any real value, but Isabelle cherished them all because they were strange, unique, or memory incarnate to her.

  For example there was a red rubber toy man from the 1920s that looked exactly like a figure in a Bruno Schulz drawing she loved. Next to it was a giant tooth from a favorite dog, long dead. A dented Viennese street sign for “Tolstoi Gasse,” a figure of a frog dressed in a ballerina’s tutu, and in an intarsia wood frame was part of a white blotter from her childhood desk. It was filled from edge to edge with a little girl’s drawings, squiggles, cryptic notes to herself… a nine-year-old’s world in her own words and illustrations. Looking at Vincent, this accordion player, this interesting man, she wanted to show him these things and hear what he had to say about them.

  What clinched it though was the music. A few minutes later while they were talking, music suddenly came on in the room. Things quieted momentarily while the crowd absorbed it, then returned to their conversations. The song “These Foolish Things” sung by Peggy Lee began. Vincent raised his head and smiled as if recognizing an old friend. And it was an old friend—one of his all-time-favorite songs.

  Without hesitating, he asked Isabelle if she would like to dance. She thought he was kidding but he wasn’t. No one else in the room was dancing but he wanted to—right now with her to this song. Isabelle was a terrific dancer but had never been the first one out on a floor, never. She looked at her friend to see what she thought, but Flora Vaughn was fighting just to keep a straight face and not go hurrying from the room in tears. Haden knew about Flora and Ettrich’s past affair and he would have been amused by his old lover’s discomfort now if it hadn’t been for his own utter lack of success with Isabelle Neukor. He knew for certain that if he had asked her to dance she would have dismissed the thought out of hand and said no to him immediately.

  Ettrich put his hands up in the classic position, inviting her to join him. She felt like a young girl again—nervous and hesitant but excited too. Thrilled—that was the right word. She hadn’t felt thrilled about anything in a long time but his request brought that emotion rushing back to her. Stepping forward, she matched her hands to his and they began. Flora and Simon moved back to give them more room.

  People nearby looked over and smiled. Dancing—what a good ideal! But not until the song was almost over did anyone else join them. So this couple, these strangers, had the floor to themselves. Ettrich was careful not to hold her too close and she noticed that. To test or maybe to taunt him, she slowly pushed her body closer to his. Just as slowly he moved away so that little was touching between them besides their hands and arms. It reminded her of dancing school years ago, preparing for her first Viennese ball with a boy who was terrified of her.

  Halfway through the song Vincent’s mouth moved close to her ear and he spoke in a quiet clear voice. Not sexy but intimate, only to her. “My parents were the most romantic couple I’ve ever known. Whenever I hear this tune I think of them because they liked it so much. Both knew the lyric by heart.”

  She pulled back to look at him. “Really? I love it when people do that. Are your parents still alive?”

  “No, they were killed in a car accident years ago.” The way he said it chilled her more than the grisly fact. There was such sadness and loss in his voice.

  Without hesitating she asked, “What were they like?”

  Now Ettrich pulled back and looked at Isabelle with surprise. “My parents? Do you really want to know?”

  What touched her was again the tone of his voice: it was both eager and skeptical. He clearly wanted to answer her question; but he was also afraid of what she would do with it. His ambivalent tone asked Can I trust you with this? I want to.

  Part of life is a quest to find that one essential person who will understand our story. But we choose wrongly so often. Over the ensuing years that person we thought understood us best ends up regarding us with pity, indifference, or active dislike.

  Those who truly care can be divided into two categories: those who understand us, and those who forgive our worst sins. Rarely do we find someone capable of both.

  Ettrich did not know this woman but her hand in his was firm and everything about her said I am here—tell me whatever you want.

  In the meantime Flora and Simon had drifted off to the bar where they were both drinking big stiff ones and making forced, desultory conversation. Haden was the first to notice what was happening nearby but couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing. “Look at them. Flora. You have to look, quickly!”

  Flora had her glass tipped up and did not want to look at them, thank you. She had already seen more than enough. Simon was just being his normal shitty self and trying to make her suffer more. The next thing he’d probably do was suggest finding a room somewhere so they could have a quickie as a way of taking some of the sting away from their disappointment.

  “Please, Flora, look.”

  She made an e
xasperated face, slapped her glass down on the bar and looked. The couple were close enough for her to see that Vincent Ettrich’s cheeks were shiny with tears. He made no attempt to wipe them away. He only danced and stared at Isabelle as if she had just said something of the greatest importance.

  “What the hell is going on with them?”

  Flora continued to stare at the dancers while out of the side of her mouth she said, “Look at them, Simon. What do you think is going on?”

  He wasn’t having it. “Oh come on. They met half an hour ago and now he’s crying. Did she step on his foot?”

  Isabelle kidnapped Vincent from the party. They danced on, oblivious to anything but each other. Flora and Haden stopped watching and went back to drinking. Then they began to argue about something stupid. But because both of them were inwardly fuming, ripe for a good fight, they really got into it. Later while she was speaking, Simon deliberately stuck out his arm and looked at his watch as obviously and rudely as possible to display how bored he was with this quarrel. Flora shifted her eyes to find the couple but by then they were gone. She brought this to Haden’s attention, adding the soupçon that this whole damned thing was his fault for having brought Ettrich to the party in the first place. What the hell was he thinking?

  CHOING! One could almost hear the bell ring for round two of their battle. Both came out swinging. When it comes to passion there is no substitute for sex, but anger is a pretty good one. Haden and Flora had been lovers a few years before but that only made them more formidable adversaries now. This time there was no coyness or reluctance in their verbal punches. No sexy hidden agendas or plans either. Because they had already gone through that stuff on their way to the bedroom and eventually out the other side way back when. As a result what ensued now was muddy, ugly, and true. They reached the low point of their relationship in no time at all and by unspoken mutual consent took it even lower.

  Two miles away Isabelle drove fast down the Linke Wienzeile, the dashboard lights of her car glowing in steady blue contrast to the neon and halogen city lights flashing by outside the ear windows. An old Rolling Stones tape played quietly on the car stereo. She wanted to show Vincent something special; she wanted to show him her Kyselak. It would take ten minutes to get there. Neither of them had said anything for a while. It was enough to be together alone now, two people escaping into a glittering city, into an adventure, each of them nervously content, expectant and deeply surprised.

  Vincent looked around, trying to do it as subtly as possible. He believed you could tell a lot about a person by what he kept around him—in his car, on his desk, in his pockets or her handbag. You are what you carry.

  To his delight and secret relief, Isabelle’s car that day was nice-messy. Lots of junk mail and colorful flyers—yellow! turquoise! orange!—spotted the floor. A recent Time magazine and a Viennese daily newspaper were down there too. He’d had to move a couple of tapes off the passenger’s seat before he was able to sit down—Boris Bukowski and Nighthawks at the Diner by Tom Waits.

  Ettrich envisioned her getting the mail on the way to her car. In too much of a hurry to throw these ads in the trash, she’d just dropped it all in here days ago and ignored it ever since. On the dashboard were a small black flashlight and a beautiful, deeply dented gold fountain pen next to an eight-inch-high rubber dancing Elvis figure stuck on with suction cups. Ettrich plunked a finger at Elvis who immediately shimmied and shook.

  “My car’s a mess—I know it. It’s not normally this way. I saw you peeking.” Isabelle didn’t look over but she was grinning.

  “This? This is nothing. I’ll tell you a story that is absolutely true. Once a film company saw my car on the street and contacted me. They wanted to rent it for a movie they were making. Know why? Because in the movie there was a bum who lived in his car. They saw mine and paid five hundred dollars a day to rent it ‘as is’ because it was exactly as they’d imagined his.”

  “I don’t believe that.”

  “I swear to God it’s true. Hand up.” He put up his hand as if he were swearing an oath in court.

  “What was the name of the movie?”

  “Angels at the Bar.”

  “I saw that! With Arlen Ford.”

  “That’s the one. Then you saw my car.”

  Isabelle’s mouth opened in awe. She slowly covered it with a hand while remembering something from the movie. “That scene where the police go to the guy’s car and drag him out—”

  “That was mine.” Vincent reached out a finger and flicked Elvis again who quivered all over.

  “—And they found all those cats living in there with him—” She started to laugh. “My God, that was really your car?”

  Ettrich nodded. “Without the cats, yes. I hate cats. But after the filming it smelled feline for weeks in there. I even took it to the car wash a couple of times and vacuumed the hell out of it but that did no good.”

  “For a guy who owns such a disgusting car, you don’t look bad. And you smell really good. Great cologne. But are you dirty?”

  Unfazed, Vincent answered mildly, “No, just my automobile. I’ve always treated cars like the one drawer in a desk or dresser that I throw things into but never take out again. You know, like ticket stubs, single socks, old ice…”

  “Old ice?” She knew she’d heard him right but the image was so silly and surreal that she wanted to hear it again.

  “That’s right.”

  The silence returned again but both of them were easy and comfortable inside it. Neither felt threatened. Things were just on “screen saver” between them for the moment.

  Eventually Ettrich asked, “Am I allowed to know where we’re going?” But he didn’t really care; he only wanted to hear her voice again.

  “Do you really want me to tell you or should it be a surprise? Actually it’s two things.”

  He thought about that and eventually said, “Keep it a surprise. But I would really like it if you told me some more about yourself. You’ve said almost nothing, you know. Was that on purpose?”

  She shrugged.

  Vincent was not going to let her off with that. “Come on—you’ve got to tell me something.”

  “My father is a doctor.”

  He waited. After some more silent time passed she looked at him and raised her eyebrows. “That was something.”

  “Yes—your father’s occupation. But what I want to know is about you.”

  “All right, here’s something: When I was a girl I wanted to be a ballet dancer. I was very good back then and was accepted into the ballet school of the Vienna Staatsoper. That’s where I met Flora. We were students there together.

  “But I wasn’t good enough and in dancing you know that by the time you’re about fourteen or fifteen. I was good but not good enough. So I stopped and transferred to the American International School here because my parents wanted me to learn English.

  “It’s been that way with a lot in my life. I’m good at some things but never good enough. Never special.” She said it without anger or regret. She was simply stating a fact. Vincent was touched by both her candor and the fact that she saw herself in this uncomplimentary light.

  He knew women like she was describing, but none of them had ever admitted to what Isabelle just had. Because all of these others were attractive too, people gave them much more credit than they deserved for what they’d actually accomplished. Oh, such a pretty woman dances/paints/writes? Then her work must be good. But it wasn’t. In truth it was rarely good. In truth, here was only another (good-looking) wannabe trying to be or create something interesting but failing.

  Isabelle spoke again but he was still mulling over what she had said and missed it.

  “Excuse me. What did you say?”

  She downshifted and the car slowed perfectly. She was a wonderful driver. “I asked if you’d ever heard of an autographist.”

  “An autographist? No. That’s a strange word.”

  “Actually there was only one of them. He
created the term for himself. That’s one of the things I want to show you.”

  Ettrich waited for her to continue. He’d already realized that Isabelle had a tendency to talk in spurts.

  “At the beginning of the nineteenth century here, there was a man named Joseph Kyselak who worked as a clerk at the court registry office, whatever that was. Kyselak originally wanted to be a poet or an actor but wasn’t any good. So instead what he did to get famous was paint his name all over the place. On anything you can imagine—buildings, bridges, furniture… Hundreds of Kyselaks everywhere. I heard he used some kind of stencil or template to do it. Or at least do it faster so that he could escape more quickly.

  “Kyselak called himself an autographist. He even wrote a book that’s still in print about a walking tour he made of the Alps where he wrote his name on top of every mountain he climbed. I have a copy of the book. It’s called Zu Fuss Durch Oesterreich. He became so famous, or I guess notorious, for doing it everywhere that he was called in to the emperor’s office for a royal reprimand. Can you imagine that, Vincent? The head of the whole Hapsburg Empire summoned this one little madman to tell him to stop writing his name on things!

  “Apparently the autographist came in, got yelled at, and acted properly ashamed. But after he left the office, the emperor discovered that he had somehow managed to write ‘J. Kyselak’ across one of the reports lying on the desk.” Isabelle constantly used her hands when she spoke. They made big circles or dove and swooped in the air like seagulls hunting over water. One or the other was constantly leaving the steering wheel to make or emphasize a point. Neither of them could stay put. Her face too was completely animated, completely alive. Reading it, it was easy to see which parts of a story delighted her and which were only a bridge to be crossed to the next really good part on the other side. Ettrich loved her manner and enthusiasm and couldn’t get enough of either.