Boogaloo On 2nd Avenue

by Mark Kurlansky

  Almost against his will, Nathan was tapping the ever more belligerent beat, imagining the long, rigid body of Moellen jerking push-ups— "Fins, Zwei, Drei..."—all the while laughing while the big mixer kneaded dough to this now fierce Teutonic beat. It had all gone wrong, and now the symphony itself was about conquest: "Ein Held zum Siegen"—a hero going to conquest.

  Even Beethoven in the nineteenth century, when Germany was just an idealistic dream, understood that these beautiful themes would turn ugly, turn harsh, become goose-stepping. Or was that not what Beethoven meant at all? It didn't sound like that when Bernstein conducted. Was Bernstein closer to Beethoven? Beethoven was deaf when he wrote the Ninth. At the Ninth's premiere concert, a singer named Caroline had to tell him to stop conducting because the orchestra had finished. She pointed to the audience applauding, which he also had not heard. But maybe Beethoven had known. Nathan could spend hours on such issues, if only he didn't have customers.

  Robbie Herzog, who had not had a job for as long as Nathan had been running the copy store, walked in the door.

  "How's the job hunting, Robbie?"

  "Things are looking up," said Robbie, cheerfully tossing several sheets of paper on the counter.

  "New resume?"

  "Yup. Thirty copies, please."

  Nathan ran off the copies while wondering how a man who had never worked could have a three-page resume. He charged him $3, which Nathan calculated would more than cover the shop's cost.

  Then he was back to Oggún with his thoughts. Was it such a certain fate? Had Germany been doomed from the start? Was that why so many Germans wrote about the role of fate in history? Are Germans all damned? Is Karoline damned, too?

  Oggún held his hammer and stared blankly.

  Was it a coincidence that she had the same name as the singer? Karoline, Caroline Ungher. That was the singer who had told Beethoven the symphony was over. Why had he remembered that name? Cristofina would want to know. Dr. Kucher would certainly want to know. Was there something wrong, something perverse, in their relationship? And had it all been hidden for almost two centuries in a symphony everyone listened to but now he was hearing for the first time?

  Unexpectedly, footsteps. Pepe Le Moko vanished behind reams of paper. It was Ira Katz, his shirtsleeves rolled up for summer.

  "Hi, Nathan. Nice to see you."

  It was interesting. What Dr. Kucher would have called a "clue." When Katz walked into his shop, Nathan experienced, for only the briefest moment, the feeling he had on subways. Suddenly the shop seemed very small and he was reminded that it lacked a rear exit. But unlike in the subway, the feeling passed very quickly

  "I'm sorry. I'm thinking about it, but I still haven't made up my mind."

  "Don't worry about it, Nathan. This is my day off. I just wanted to come down here. You know, more and more, I just love this neighborhood. I think it's going to be the place. You know what I'm doing here?"

  "Getting something photocopied?"

  Ira slapped the counter and laughed loudly. "That's good! See, I just like the whole ambience of the place." He attempted the French pronunciation on "ambience." "No, Nathan, I am looking for an apartment," Ira said with tremendous enthusiasm. "I am ready to buy!"

  Nathan stared at him with no particular expression. He wished that he, too, like Pepe, could just vanish behind the shelves.

  "You don't happen to have any leads in the neighborhood?"

  "Not really," said Nathan. "My parents own a lot of property, but they're not selling." Why did he say that? Now his father would have Ira Katz after him, too.

  "Where do I find him?"

  "He's definitely not selling."

  "Maybe he just hasn't had a good enough offer. How do I find him?"

  "He turns down great offers all the time."

  "He's in the book? Seltzer?"

  "Herchl Seltzer."

  "Okay. I'll see you around the 'hood."

  "Tell me, if this neighborhood is such a cool, happening place to be, why should we sell?"

  The question momentarily froze Ira Katz in the doorway. He turned around and stared at Nathan. He seemed to be studying his molecular composition. Then he walked up to him, putting his face directly in front of Nathan's, as though he needed a closer look, and whispered, "For the money, stupid."

  If he took only buses, how would he know when he was cured? So Nathan courageously descended the staircase to the Lexington Avenue line. The subway ride to Dr. Kucher was without incident, which he announced victoriously to Dr. Kucher, who then told him that it would not work like that. To herself, Kucher resented the way people looked for a quick cure and had no interest in the "road to self-discovery." Pulling on the too tight waistband of her skirt where it was strangling her low-fat-tea-cake-bloated belly, she told Nathan that he should not look for a cure. In time he would learn how to deal with the attacks. But she did think that testing himself was a good idea.

  "Work with someone you trust."

  "Trust to do what?"

  "Trust to save you. Isn't that what trust is?"

  Yes, Sarah would have understood immediately If you trust someone, it means they can be depended on to catch you when you fall or pull you back when you start to go over.

  "Why don't you try your wife?"

  "How do you know that I trust my wife?" It was a short-lived victory, coming back at Kucher with a Kucher-like question. The moment was ruined by the eager way Kucher reached for her notebook.

  "I was just joking," Nathan protested.

  "Why do you find that funny?"

  "I don't."

  "You work with someone you trust. You allow yourself to give up control, go down in the subway, or other things, and he or she will be there to help you if it doesn't work out."

  Nathan took out a small package and put it on her desk.

  "What is that?" she said suspiciously.

  "Try it. A present. It's called a sün torta. It has rum buttercream and walnuts."

  He had made it with Karoline, but he had never told her a word about Karoline. He didn't know why, but he wanted to see if he could get her to eat the pastry he had made with his lover. Dr. Kucher's eyes widened and filled the pink glasses frames. They shifted to the corner of the desk where the package stood. Somehow she knew this cake was a trap. Just thinking of it made her belly press harder into the waistband. When doing doctoral work in Vienna, she had succumbed to pastry. Not that she had been thin before. But studying in the afternoon in cafes, especially one called Demel's, had rounded her even further, which always made her laugh—a little joke—because her professor at Columbia had told her that study in Vienna would "round her out."

  "Where does it come from?"

  "The best baker in my neighborhood—" He started to say "a German" but realized that she was tricking him into talking about her. He had said enough.

  Dr. Kucher tried to imagine the significance of the cake—also the flavor and texture. Behind her desk, she pulled her blouse out of her skirt to relieve the pressure, reached under the shirttails and pulled at her skirt to give a little breathing room, momentarily exposing soft, pink rolls of flesh.

  Is she doing this for me? Nathan wondered, catching a glimpse. He thought she might be cute, all pink and roly and naked. Then he realized he was being perverse. "I think too much about sex," he confessed.

  "Are you thinking about it now?" she asked, still thinking about sün torta.

  "Of course, I'm talking about it now." Nice save, he thought to himself.

  Nice save, she thought to herself, and wrote on the pad, "Typical agility." For the rest of the hour, she refused to look at the package. When the hour was up, she said, "Tell me something, what causes a slump?"

  "A slump?"

  "A slump. Everything is working pretty well. The pitchers are in form. The batters are getting on base, and suddenly Darryl Strawberry can't hit a ball. Why?"

  "Look, this is the Mets. What do you want? They may win, but they are going to make you sweat for i
t."

  "Think about someone to help you."

  "I will."

  "And try to remember your dreams."

  "Oh, let me tell you about the cheese."

  "Next week."

  "Okay"

  As he was walking out the door, he looked back and saw her opening the wrapper and examining the light and dark layers from several angles. She picked it up and took a bite.

  "Oh my," he heard her say involuntarily, and she took another bite. "Oh, my God." She tasted again. "Mmmm ..."

  The human mind is like a thicket. Many things blow by, and it is almost impossible to predict which ones will snag on a branch and remain. And so, while riding the 6 train, not to his wife but to Karoline, the phrase that had stuck in his conscious mind was "or other things." Dr. Kucher had said, "Go down in the subway, or other things, and he or she will be there to help you." He wanted Karoline to help him with the "other things." He was even a little excited about his idea, until the train changed rhythms, began to mark out a slower beat, and then slowly... stopped.

  The hiss of the air conditioner, more silent than silence, was all Nathan heard. That feeling, which was becoming familiar, rose from so deep within him that he could not discern the location. The search, a physical inventory, for the location of the synapse from which this sickening, jellylike panic oozed—this search offered a distraction. Was it from his stomach? Or was it from his chest? Were his lungs still working? Could they bring him enough air? Was his head, being pounded as though by a steel hammer, about to give out?

  "Ladies and gentlemen, we have a train in front of us. We should be moving shortly." A good announcement. It was comforting. Now if they would only start moving he would be all right. In the meantime, was it possible that he had forgotten how to inhale? He could not recall ever having learned the technique. Now the skill might have vanished from his repertoire and he would suffocate, drown in his seat on the number 6 train. He opened his mouth and attempted to suck in. His lungs filled. Everything was working.

  He felt a sudden jerk. The train had lurched a few inches, but then it stopped again. Why were they playing with him like this? He wanted to seize a conductor—where were they, anyway?—and vent his wrath. "You think this is a game! Move this fucking train now!"

  Then the train began slowly rolling—an easy, soothing kind of roll. He would be fine. This was not so bad. He had dealt with it. He was learning, just as Kucher said he would. He wished Kucher said more. She was a sly one. But she had eaten their pastry He could tell that she liked his dreams, but she didn't say why. Nathan thought about his new program "with someone you trust." Not the subway, but "other things." Someone he trusted would not be Karoline. But wasn't that the point? He could risk anything with Sonia. After all, hadn't they already risked marriage? And parenthood? But what would he risk with Karoline?

  By the time the train reached the Astor Place stop, Nathan was smiling. He almost forgot to get off the train.

  Karoline seemed most excited when she baked Hungarian. Hungarians were the true hedonists. It showed in their cakes. If she was going to mix sex and pastry, the Hungarians made the best cakes. But she expressed all this to Nathan simply by saying, "Haven't you noticed we're at our best when we bake Hungarian?"

  "Best baking or best sex?"

  She smiled and said, "The total performance is what counts. And I have something perfect today," she added while grating chocolate. "You are lucky, because this is not something I would do in the summertime. But we had a special order."

  They were going to make a Rigó Jancsi. "It's perfect for us. In fact, this should be our cake. Like other people have a song."

  Nathan realized that this was as close as she had ever come to saying something sentimental about them.

  Rigó Jancsi, she explained, had been a Gypsy violinist from the Hungarian town of Székesfehérvár. Once again, she had perfectly pronounced the unpronounceable. "He had unruly dark hair that fell in clumps, soft dark eyes that always looked a little confused, a lean and slightly hunched body" Nathan wondered if she was deliberately describing himself

  "He was the kind of man you just wanted to touch, to grab by the throat, and to take, that way that women weren't supposed to. Rigó Jancsi was trouble. And worse, he played the kind of violin that was so sweet a sound, your eyes would just start shining like puppy eyes. When he played, he could destroy all your resolve.

  "He moved to Paris and played in one of those restaurants in the eighth arrondissement"—she pronounced that perfectly as well—"with mahogany dividers and etched glass and art nouveau fixtures giving off amber light."

  That a great pastry maker would also be a great storyteller was the kind of thing that would seem obvious only to a true pastry lover. It was striking that her artfully composed words could sound perfectly conversational, as though she were the Brothers Grimm, just chitchatting. For Nathan, the way she could tell a story was another one of those things, like her baking, like her pronunciation, that she did so well that Nathan knew he had to have this woman—that it couldn't stop.

  "And people would come to this restaurant to be seduced by this Gypsy—not literally seduced, but the combination, the perfect balance of being melted by his violin while being warmed by the dark game dishes for which the restaurant was famous—venison stewed with its own blood and chops of baby boar with earthy-tasting wild mushrooms and slightly sweet little chestnuts. Then they were sent into near sleep by their cellar of old and black Bordeaux—people came there to be put into this very delicate and lovely stupor.

  "Among the people who went to this restaurant was an aristocrat— a very wealthy man, very well-known throughout Europe, the kind of man who was clandestinely photographed for the European magazines that poor people read to dream of another world. A little bit older, but not bad looking. He was tall and had a very strong jaw for an aristocrat."

  Karoline stroked Nathan's jaw as she said this, leaving him to wonder exactly what kind of jaw he had and how she would rate it. All the time she was telling this story, she was grating enormous amounts of chocolate into a very large double boiler.

  "The princess herself was considered extremely beautiful but of a different type. Her hair was the color of vanilla satin and her skin was even lighter, delicate looking, like tissue, and her eyes were a brilliant, pale blue. She looked so white next to the Gypsy, it looked as though if he touched her, he would leave dark marks on her skin. This is what most shocked people later. It was 1895. They were all bigots then.

  "The prince with the jaw and the white princess started coming to the restaurant every night. Every night Rigó Jancsi spent a little more time playing at their table while they sipped their Haut-Brion 1878— the last good year before the vineyards were wiped out."

  "Save the wine part for the cops," said Nathan.

  "No, I just save the wine for them."

  But Nathan couldn't help but wonder if the story had that wine detail because she had practiced it on Joey Parma. Had she had him over to make Rigó Jancsi, too?

  "The blond princess, the Princess Chimay stared at the Gypsy violinist as though she were looking at a chocolate torte. She sipped her wine and ate her bloodied deer, the dark sauce sometimes lingering on her shiny lower lip like a dark stain against her white, white skin.

  "The prince with the nice jaw noticed his wife licking the Gypsy with her eyes, but he was an aristocrat and he could not let anyone see him noticing—you know, like a WASP. He looked perfectly content with his perfect profile seated in their booth, eating and sipping and watching. He would quietly bring up fabricated anecdotes about their two little children to try to remind her that she had two little children whom he had always thought she loved very much. But she did not even hear him.

  "Start separating about eight eggs," Karoline ordered Nathan. "One night, with all of the restaurant's fashionable clients watching, including several novelists who were not likely to overlook this, the blond princess slipped a ring off her finger—it looked like one of
her eyes, a brilliant, pale sapphire, surrounded by diamonds—and handed it to Rigó Jancsi, who slipped it onto the smallest finger of his bow hand, not missing a stroke as he played Brahms's Hungarian Rhapsody The prince did not flinch. Not even his eyes betrayed the least concern. But he knew his home had been destroyed.

  "Beat the eggs stiff in that mixer. Not stiff, but to a soft peak. A little stiff, but falling over. You can use a little sugar.... The Princess Chimay started having secret afternoon meetings with the Gypsy in his little studio where he practiced the violin. He would play the violin and then take off her clothes and make love to her, and then, both of them naked in the bed, he would play more until she wanted him again, over and over again. Neither of them could stop. Soon she didn't care about the prince anymore. She didn't care about her two beautiful boys with blond hair and handsome jaws. She and the Gypsy ran off together. Disappeared.

  "Now take about ten ounces of butter and put it in the other mixer with the paddle attachment on medium speed until it's all soft and smooth.

  "The Hungarians heard this story because a Hungarian writer had been in the restaurant the famous night when Princess Chimay gave Rigó Jancsi the ring. And the Hungarians loved the story Hungarians love pork fat and goose cracklings and eating big piles of whipped cream in the afternoon. And they love stories like this. A famous pastry maker in Budapest made a new chocolate torta—this torta—and named it Rigó Jancsi, and it became one of the most famous cakes in Budapest, making the love story even more famous.

  "When Hungarians are cooking, they have trouble knowing where to stop. But in storytelling, they always know the exact right spot. So the Hungarians went on eating Rigó Jancsi with coffee every afternoon and never heard the rest of the story."

  "What is the rest of the story?" Nathan asked anxiously, unable to decide which he wanted more, the story, the storyteller, or the story's cake.

  Karoline handed him a pot of chocolate and a ladle. "Three ladle-fuls slowly added to the butter while the paddle is beating. They ended up hating each other. To the princess, he was the man who had robbed her of her babies. And he, he felt like a prisoner. He owed her because of what she had given up. And she didn't leave with the family jewels. There was the ring and not much else, and he had to keep playing the violin in provincial restaurants because he couldn't work in Paris anymore. Finally he left her and went off to seduce other women and get other jewelry, and she was completely alone.