“One? I’ll book a table. I’m pleased, Rickie! I need cheering up!”
Rickie didn’t ask what had happened. Dorothea was never very depressed about anything, never had been.
For this occasion and because it was Sunday, Rickie put on his next to best suit, a dark blue summer worsted, kept his clean shirt on, and added a striped red-and-cream tie, conservative and proper. He could not take Lulu, so he gave her a light lunch for consolation, and said good-bye.
Rickie walked. He felt full of energy, happy, optimistic, and he was walking directly away from snooping Willi Biber’s terrain, from Renate Hagnauer’s too. Rickie opened his jacket and strode on. He greeted two of the neighborhood denizens, Adolf, a retired baker, and Beata (he had forgotten her last name), a widow exercising her elderly St. Charles. Finally Rickie paused at a curb, and let the breeze erase the moisture that had gathered on his forehead, under his shirt. Ahead of him, beyond some tall pavement trees, a woman sat on her windowsill, polishing the panes. Rickie decided to take a taxi the rest of the way, if he could find one or find a stand, but he came to a tram stop first, pulled his bus-tram carnet from his wallet, and got on the next to Bellevue.
Familiar streets drifted by, residential with prim window boxes, red geraniums dotting the gray cement façades, then more and more shops at pavement level: household pots and pans, appliances, dummies modeling wedding clothes, shops that offered handbags, suitcases, then a haberdashery. Rickie got off at the stop before Bellevue. He still had time to spare, and he felt like walking. It was such a splendid day!
An eye-catching male figure approached and Rickie assessed it: about thirty, looking like a male model in a cream-colored raincoat with cuffs partly unbuttoned as if to prove that the buttonholes were real, porkpie hat, Tattersall shirt with yellow silk tie, and Gucci shoes. Rickie glanced behind him for a photographer and saw none. A few meters on, a couple of stoned hippies—or simply moneyless teenagers in worn-out jeans and scruffy, waist-length denim jackets—leaned against a building, attempting to share something with trembling fingers. A cigarette? A line of cocaine? No one paid them any mind, and no one had paid the swank menswear advertisement any mind either. That was Zurich.
Not far ahead, Rickie saw a man on a ladder, working with a screwdriver on a flagpole socket. Rickie hesitated only briefly—a ladder to walk under was always a temptation—and walked calmly on under the ladder, careful not to touch it.
A passerby noticed, and smiled. When Rickie turned to look back, the ladder was slowly sliding down the building front, as the man descended.
Whack! The ladder fell flat on the pavement.
The impact jolted the man off his balance, and he rolled onto his back, looking stunned. Another man offered him a hand up, and still another righted the ladder.
Rickie hadn’t touched the ladder, he was sure. Suppose he had walked under at the time to get hit on the head, or his neck pinned between rungs?
Then the heavy door of the Kronenhalle, with its brass handle, a few steps up to restaurant level, then the full display of dark and heavy wood panels, partitions, tables covered in white linen, raftered ceilings of the same—not dark from old tobacco smoke or fireplace soot like Jakob’s, but deliberately stained dark. There was the glint of silverware, the sparkle of stemmed glasses, and a discreet hum of Sunday noon voices, a far cry from Saturday night at the Small g.
“Frau Keller,” Rickie said to a headwaiter in black who had approached him. “She has a table.”
“Ah, Frau Keller!” The restaurant knew Dorothea Keller, but not him. “This way, sir.”
Back and back, past the well-dressed patrons toward a cozy corner table. Dorothea had seen him first.
“’Ello, Rickie!”
“Dorothea! How goes it?” Rickie took the chair the headwaiter had pulled out for him. “Thank you.”
“I am well and you look very well,” Dorothea replied. She wore a pale blue cotton dress with white piqué trim—classic, fresh and pretty—and a heavy necklace of what looked like many twisted gold strings.
Costume jewelry, Rickie knew, but the effect was excellent. “And you,” Rickie said, “look not a bit depressed.”
His sister sighed. “It’s only Elise, and she always pulls through. Doesn’t she?” Dorothea went on, getting it off her chest before their lunch began. “She went off to Zermatt where a man friend of hers has a flat. Just for a change of scene, she says, and she took her work with her, that I know . . .”
No, it wasn’t a new affair, Elise was still in love with her steady boyfriend Jean-Paul, but young people always manufactured such drama. “And I can’t even call them young, if Elise’s twenty-five and Jean-Paul’s thirty and gets his Doktorat this year.”
“I don’t like his name, Jean-Paul, sounds like a pope.”
Dorothea laughed.
That’s why she liked to see him, Rickie supposed, he could make her laugh. Her family troubles were not so much: Elise delaying completion of her thesis by another few months? What was new about that?
“I have news,” Rickie said. “Last night—”
A waiter stuck a huge menu on stiff white paper in front of him, practically into his hands, and Dorothea got the same treatment.
“A drink first, Rickie,” she said.
“Very good. A Bloody Mary. Cheerful to look at—along with you.”
“Zwei Bloody Mary, bitte,” Dorothea said with a sweet smile to the waiter. “Then we shall order. You were saying, last night—”
She looked at Rickie with level dark eyes. Her hair was puffed out softly round her head. Dorothea looked younger than fifty.
Rickie took a breath, expecting criticism, something negative, but unable to suppress it. “I met the most handsome—boy. Well, I’m sure he’s twenty.”
“Oh Rickie—” deploringly, eager for more. “Just a little on the young side!”
“Lives with mum in town—and may not even be schwul.”
“Oh. Then—” Dorothea looked as if she had been expecting an orgy, and was therefore disappointed.
“He is so handsome, I’m sure comes from a rather good family, has his Matura,” Rickie continued, at the same time thinking that Teddie’s arriving in the company of a car thief didn’t sound too respectable.
“And what does he do?”
The old story, or problem; the boys were stumbling around, finding themselves. Rickie said it bluntly, “Stumbling around—finding himself.”
Dorothea shook her head. “Aren’t they all?”
“His mother apparently doesn’t mind. Teddie phoned her last night to say he was all right and would be home this morning. And—I should add, he has rather nice manners.” Rickie could see that this was a plus in Dorothea’s mind. He sipped more of the excellent Bloody Mary. “He stayed the night—chez moi.”
“Really. And you don’t know—” Dorothea’s mouth turned up at the corners in a provocative smile.
Rickie said that Teddie had slept in his bed, and he on the living room sofa. This did amaze his sister.
“You are watching out about—you know,” she said.
She meant the HIV-positive business. Before Rickie could answer, the waiter returned, and this time they made up their minds and ordered.
“Yes,” said Rickie, when the waiter had gone. For the past month and a bit more, Rickie reckoned.
“Taking your vitamin pills.”
“Oh yes,” He shrugged. “Vitamins. Safe sex. Oooh, la! Can’t do any more.” He was immensely grateful that his sister had stood by him, when he learned that he was HIV positive. It was like a death sentence, the only question mark being when? Neither of them had to say this.
“What kind of wine?” Dorothea was examining the list with the aid of a monocle on a black cord.
Rickie was unpleasantly reminded of Renate in Jakob�
��s, peering at the little bills before she paid them. After they had chosen the wine, Rickie told his sister about walking under the ladder that morning and the ladder falling immediately afterward—wham!
Dorothea was alarmed, until Rickie assured her that the man had not been hurt at all. “I saw him standing up—smiling!”
“Rickie—you’re always taking chances, and one day—”
When their lamb chops and tournedos arrived, they talked of family things, events in Dorothea’s country house on the lake of Zurich. Robbie had acquired more tropical fish, meaning another aquarium had been added to the living room. Rickie rather liked gazing at the tiny royal blue or quite transparent milky little fish in their bubbly, illuminated water.
“Because Robbie’s a radiologist,” Rickie said, “maybe he likes looking at their spinal cords without having to X-ray them.”
“You might be right! He talks about retiring—but that’s as far as it gets. Fifty-nine! He could afford to retire. But no, up at the crack of dawn, into the car and driving to the hospital. All he reads is medical journals. But—”
“But?”
“He’s an indulgent husband. Never says no to anything I want. That’s something.” She smiled.
It was during these minutes with his sister that Rickie felt convinced that he had fallen in love with Teddie. Yes. That important phrase. That feeling that didn’t come every year, that some people said they’d never had. That madness based not on how pretty or handsome someone was, that mysterious power—Rickie realized that he was under that influence, which was both pleasant and dangerous.
And to be practical, he hadn’t Teddie’s telephone number. Of course, it might be in the book, and Stevenson being not such a common name in Switzerland, he might find it.
AT ABOUT THAT TIME, Luisa Zimmermann and Renate Hagnauer were looking at a “German paintings and drawings” exhibition at the Kunsthaus, half a kilometer away from Rickie and his sister. Renate—besides enjoying the vast display of talent in the form of painting, sculpture, and photography that the Kunsthaus offered—felt it her duty to introduce Luisa to the cream of the art world, to educate her. Incredible, the gaps in Luisa’s knowledge, and not merely in regard to the visual arts. A person would think that she had come from one of the pocket villages of Switzerland, in the notch of some valley where people never read a book, seldom went anywhere, and in the past perhaps had intermarried with appalling results. Luisa’s childhood had not been that benighted, but neither of her parents had cared about art, good music, or books, that was plain. Luisa was even reluctant to talk about her family. Fortunately, the girl had a liking for good classical music, which was a blessing. The rest needed prodding.
“You see—this Kandinsky—this spiral so delicate and perfectly balanced. Probably not the first he made to achieve this. The kind of perfection a machine could not achieve! He achieved it, freehand, no pencil first, I feel sure.”
Luisa looked closely, appreciative, taking pleasure from the drawing, Renate could see. Renate had spoken softly, not wanting to annoy other people with what to them might sound like a lecture.
Renate made a quick and almost furtive sketch of a woman’s beige dress. Handmade Italian, Renate could see from across the room. She pointed out her find to Luisa, and waited patiently until the woman turned and she could see the front. Interesting collar, one button, two pockets. Renate sketched.
Several minutes later, they were having cappuccino and apple torte at one of the little tables in the café section on the ground floor. Renate’s treat for the young Luisa. The girl did seem in cheerful and relaxed mood today, interested in the show, and not in the least impatient when Renate had wanted to see the very last room of it. Not daydreaming either. Or was she really daydreaming about the boy she had met last night? The good-looking boy with the dark hair?
Renate fitted a cigarette into her holder, lit it. How would she bring it up again? Plunge ahead and repeat it, she decided. “You know, Luisa, if you are dreaming about that boy you danced with last night—”
“I wasn’t!” said Luisa, waking up. “I was thinking about something quite different.”
“I told you already—Willi saw him leaving Jakob’s with Rickie about one in the morning. Willi said they went into Rickie’s apartment house. No doubt for the night.” Renate sighed with an air of futility. “It would be the same story over again, if you—if you got to know this boy any better. Or if you were stupid enough to fall in love with him!” Renate became excited as she spoke, and forced a laugh. “A homo is a homo—forever.”
Luisa looked at Renate and said, “I was thinking—about—something else.”
Renate stirred in the plastic chair. “Why do you speak to me in that tone? I don’t care for it.”
11
Monday morning. One of the first things Rickie did was telephone a locksmith in regard to his balcony door. Dorothea had asked him yesterday about it, and Rickie had had to admit that he hadn’t got round to the repair. Dorothea was appalled, she’d visited him six or eight months ago, she reminded him, and been surprised by its state, and he still had done nothing? Then a lecture on the dangers the drug addicts presented now, after the government and the police had cleared them out of the Platzspitz, where they had been able to obtain clean needles at least, and meet their dealers. Oh, Rickie knew. The park had become such a slum really, a dealer’s paradise, a public toilet too, that the police had been ordered to clear them all out, take the addicts by busloads back to their homes, often in small towns. But a great many of them had made their way back to Zurich for their drugs, and they were still hanging around, nearly three hundred of them daily drifting in Zurich’s streets, according to a recent news bulletin that Rickie remembered. Street holdups, mugging at knifepoint, had come back, Rickie knew. Not to mention that he could see a few almost any time of the day or night in the St. Jakob’s church area, sleeping in a nook somewhere, or sitting on the pavement propped against the building, too far gone to stand up to beg.
Anyway, by eight-thirty Rickie had telephoned the locksmith company and made an appointment for ten-thirty that morning. He had said it was urgent, because Rickie knew Dorothea would ring him this evening to ask if he’d done it. Then Rickie had his breakfast at Jakob’s, with newspaper and Appenzeller, and as happened most mornings, Renate and Luisa arrived before ten, got their usual table, and before Rickie departed, he was able to give Luisa the most discreet wave of his fingers, and she a big smile to him, as he exited by the main door with Lulu on her lead.
Star-Brite. His ideas. Rickie put his three sketches on the table. They were little more than doodles, but sometimes these won the day. These had action.
Mathilde was opening the post.
“If the Star-Brite man telephones, Mathilde, make a date with him—anytime this afternoon.”
“Really? I thought Friday.”
Rickie was pleased she remembered. “Things got changed. If I’m not back by noon—I’ll phone you, OK? C’mon, Lulu.”
The locksmith was only five minutes late, a fortyish man in beige work clothes with a tool kit. Rickie let him in the front door and into the apartment, and explained the problem—instantly apparent, of course—something broken inside the lock; the key kept turning without moving the bolt. A new lock. So be it.
Rickie had absently looked the man over on first sight, as he usually did—was he gay? This time definitely not, he thought. Not a handsome type, at any rate. So many were gay, and when Rickie forgot to size a man up, something odd could happen, like the gay policeman coming back to his house that night and knocking. Rickie realized that if this one had been gay, even given him a positive sign, he would have declined, because he was dreaming about Teddie.
It would take at least half an hour, the workman said. Rickie stayed, made hot water for instant espresso. The workman didn’t want a coffee. Rickie stood sipping, looking out h
is bedroom window, and was shocked and annoyed to glimpse through the leaves Willi the Snoop directly across the street, staring up at the workman on the balcony. What else had he to do, of course, but patrol the neighborhood—for gossipy purposes, and at public expense, considering that national health insurance was certainly contributing to the dolt’s upkeep?
Rickie tried to repress his anger. Good, at least, that Renate would learn in a matter of hours the earthshaking news that Rickie Markwalder’s balcony door lock had been repaired—provided Willi wasn’t too dim to realize what the workman was doing! There was the workman’s little van below, saying “Schlosserei Kobler” in red letters on white, to give Willi a hint.
He yielded to an aggressive impulse, and raised the window, put his hands on the sill. “Hi, Willi!”
Willi heard and saw him, Rickie could sense. But no word, no movement from Willi. His heavy brown shoes hadn’t moved on the pavement.
Rickie kept staring at him, remembering that Willi had said a murderer had come in that broken door. Rather Renate had invented that story, and Willi had probably helped to spread it. He watched as Willi drifted off, giving one backward glance after a few steps, as if nothing but Rickie’s repair job interested him at the moment. Except reporting it now, of course. Rickie hoped Willi would spread it all over the neighborhood.
The workman did accept a small beer when the work was nearly finished. Finally, collection of tools, sweeping up of metal fragments with Rickie’s broom, and the man was gone. Great! Perfect. He did feel more secure, and he could make a good report to his sister.
“Let’s go, Lulu!”
Lulu leapt to her feet, ready for her lead.
Back to the studio, and Mathilde informed him that the Star-Brite man had telephoned, and she had made an appointment for 3 P.M. That was fine.
“Anything else?”
“This bill—needs a check. And someone called Georg phoned around eleven-thirty. Said he would call back.”
“Just Georg?” Rickie asked casually, though his heart had jumped.
Small G: A Summer Idyll Page 10
