by Carol Birch
“It may be true,” she snapped, “but do we really want to listen to this kind of thing at the table? That was horrible, Massimo.”
“Herr Professor, Herr Lent,” said Massimo, “what did you think of my story?”
“A vile story,” the professor said, “obviously.”
Theo’s face, which had grown disgusted during the telling, was now detached and amused. “I can see what you’re getting at,” he said, “but that story is only vile for us. For poor old Jacopo it’s neither here nor there.”
“But that’s horrible,” said Julia, sickened. “Massimo, was he a very bad man?”
“Not so bad,” he said, coloring. “For the times. Not the worst of them.”
“Why did they hate him so much?”
“Who knows.”
“Now I wish I didn’t know that story,” she said.
“And yet, Herr Lent, Herr Professor, they will tell you this is not so bad. They will say this corpse is no more than an old sack.”
“Oh, but of course this is as old as the hills,” the professor said. “It comes down to human nature in the end, and its genius for humiliation. That is why Hector dragged the body of Achilles ’round the walls of Troy. That is why the conquering army defiles the corpses of the conquered, that is why the heads of traitors were displayed on—”
“Enough,” said Friederike.
Theo smiled at Julia. “It’s grisly and filthy and unpleasant,” he said, “but it didn’t affect poor Jacopo in any way at all.”
“It feels to me as if it did,” said Julia. “They should have left his body in peace.”
“What’s so disgusting,” the professor said, “is the intention of the beasts. The enactment.”
Massimo smiled for the first time. His face revealed itself to be friendly and wryly cheerful. “But what if I could see the future,” he said, looking at Theo, “what if you were Jacopo de’ Pazzi? And I say to you: I see this for you. This is what they will do. And what if you knew that I was right and that this was in front of you?”
Theo laughed. “Well, you are a card,” he said.
“You make believe that your soul would not recoil.”
A filthy thought. The man’s got a vile mind.
“Were you laughing at me,” she asked when they got home, tossing the veil aside. He still got a shiver seeing her magnificent head, all beast, released from its constraints. He followed her into the bedroom where she pulled out all her flowers and feathers roughly, throwing them down on the dressing table with a carelessly graceful gesture. “For keeping Yatzi?”
“Of course not. Do I ever?”
“You’re always laughing at me,” she said, taking off her pearl cross, “you tease me all the time.”
“Only in a nice way.”
“Huh.”
He picked up Yatzi, smiling. “Hello, old boy!” he said jovially, “thanks for holding down the fort. Everything fine?”
“See?”
He laughed. “You don’t believe me,” he said. “I find your medieval mind charming. I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
“There’s nothing wrong with it!” She took off her earrings, her choker, her bangles. “You’d stop children playing with their toys,” she said.
“No, I wouldn’t.” He sat down with his hands behind his head.
“Anyway, you’re just as bad. What about your Venetian umbrella?”
“That’s not the same at all.”
“Yes, it is. You were so miserable when you lost it.”
“Because it was a nice umbrella. I don’t credit it with a mind.” He laughed.
“I don’t credit Yatzi with a mind. It’s the same thing. People get attached to things.” She stood up and walked to the closet. “There’s nothing wrong with it.”
“Come here,” he said, catching her hand as she passed by, pulling her toward himself and kissing the top of her head. “Aah!” he said, “you’re so small!”
The truth was, he was no longer repelled. Such a good old stick, Julia, truly brave. If it were him, he’d have cut his wrists at puberty, most like. And in fact, when you got to know her, you saw her in a different way. Not that you could ever forget what she was, of course, just that she came to seem less monstrous, more strangely normal. She was just Julia, and he never got tired of looking at her. Her face at times—a most peculiar thing—almost beautiful. Like the head of a tremendous wild creature, other, unearthly, impossible.
Still couldn’t kiss her on the lips though. Not a true all-out kiss on the lips, the real thing. Couldn’t do it as if she were just any woman. But she was as strokable as a puppy, as sleek as a pony in places. He could do everything with her but kiss her on the lips. Kiss her face, yes. Play with her hair. Find the sensitive spots where the hair grew sparse at the bend of an arm or knee, tickle them softly—in the dark she was a warm shapely thing, a plush doll, easy to slip inside.
“Theo,” she said when they were all snuggled up, frosty moonlight sifting in through the pale curtain at the side window, “you know at first I didn’t really believe you loved me, but now I do.”
“Of course I do.”
“I know you do. You really do, don’t you?”
“Of course.”
He heard the sound of her smiling.
She fell asleep, and he stayed awake, staring with a half smile and glazed eyes at the shadowy forms of the dressing table and cupboard, the porcelain bowl and jug, all made mysterious in the clear moonlight. Their apartment was on the third floor of what might once have been a palace, the rooms were so high and wide. They’d done well. It was a fine apartment, and a nice part of Vienna. Hermann had found it for them. They had it till July, then it was more touring: Poland, Czechoslovakia—Russia, if all went well with the contacts there. There was a fellow in Moscow, a theatrical agent, Volkov.
The walls were thin. One o’clock in the morning and the people next door were still talking, two or three earnest male voices burbling steadily on, breaking out once or twice into bursts of high-pitched laughter. Lately Theo had been troubled by a certain mental tic, an irrational tendency whenever there was sudden laughter to think it was directed at him. Didn’t matter that it was impossible most of the time, didn’t matter that it was a bunch of kids squawking at Punch and Judy oblivious to his existence, still he thought they were laughing at him. Nonsense, of course. Stupid feeling. Since he married her, of course, it was hardly surprising. Who cares? They can think what they want. He turned over in bed, closing his eyes. They’re all the same, he thought, everyone, doesn’t matter who they are, even Hermann, even that Friederike, all thinking it. It’s in their eyes. Do they do it? Do they really do it? My God, the man must be mad!
And if I’m a madman, thought Theo, at least I’m a rich one.
Julia loved Vienna. She had money. She wore beautiful dresses. Why should she not wear beautiful dresses? Why not layer on the jewelry she sent him out to buy. He was good at that sort of thing, could usually pick out something nice. She liked the trips to the theater in the carriage, the long streets of pale-colored stone, the high whiteness of the buildings along the boulevard leading to the park, and the people strolling around on a Sunday in their best clothes, she among them, veiled. She liked their apartment, with the shops on the ground floor, a haberdasher’s and a baker’s and a coffeehouse, the grim gloomy stairs that appeared so dark from under the thick veil that without Theo’s arm to guide her she never would have gotten home. It grew lonely under the veil. The people she encountered were indistinct. Some seemed like workmen, some were more genteel. Across the landing lived the mother and pregnant wife of an officer of the regular infantry, respectable, friendly ladies who no doubt speculated upon the condition of the strange, veiled little girl who sometimes walked out on the arm of the fashionable dark-haired gentleman with cocky eyebrows. She liked the intricate looping and scrolling on the wrought-iron balcony outside their rooms, and the way from there she could see mountains and forest rising far away above the high
rooflines. She liked hearing all the different accents of the people in the streets, the sense of a million comings and goings.
Most of all she liked the fact that she was staying in one place for a bit. Everything had been fleeting, changing, faces, places, coming and going, fading in and out. Theo had been the only constant. His round boyish face swam up before her eyes whenever she closed them, and she gave thanks to St. Jude and whatever it was she got from John Montanee. She never worried that the powers would fade. They’d given and would not take back. There was a semblance of routine now, church on Sunday (she made him take her), the knowledge when she closed her eyes at night that in the morning she would wake to the familiar aromas rising up from the ground floor, coffee and new-baked bread, that she would not have to clear her head and wonder for a moment where she was. There was a peace to life after the excesses of Prague. Hermann Otto came ’round occasionally and played cards with Theo, but the drinking was not desperate. And now and again, Friederike called in the afternoon, bringing a book from her library for Julia to read. Since she had seen Friederike’s library the night of the dinner, a tiny cozy room with nothing but books, an easy chair, a fireplace and a corner table, she wanted one of her own. It would be peaceful and nice to have a room like that where you could just sit. Not have to do anything but read a book and from time to time look at the fire, gaze into it and dally around in your mind. Somewhere a picture began to form, not only of the room, the fire, the way it would smell and look, the color on the walls, deep blue, but around it a house, not terribly big, warm, with soft rugs and bowls of flowers. She lived there with Theo, and whenever they had to go away on tour, no matter how far, they always came back to it. And whenever they got back, she would go into her library and just sit and feel happy.
But the time went too fast.
A week before they left, Friederike called in a carriage and they drove out, through the meaner streets and the factories, past the garden fences and nice houses, through the building works and then the meadows, toward the foothills of the Wienerwald. They drank wine in the garden of a vineyard. Friederike knew the owner, who had clearly been prewarned. His eyes scarcely flickered when Julia raised her veil for the introduction. A polite tall man with a long doglike face, he shook her hand, smiling politely. She lowered her veil, and he led them to a table in a private part of the garden, bowed and withdrew.
“You really don’t need to cover up here,” Friederike said, putting her hand on Julia’s gloved one. “You must be sweltering under there.”
“Not at all. I’m used to it.”
“There’s really no need.”
Still, it was a public place, it was a warm summery Sunday and people were out and about, so she kept her veil down. Both of them were highly recognizable. Look, people would say as Friederike glided past, it’s the Cricket! Friederike’s picture was everywhere, the critics raved, the public flocked.
“I know,” said Julia, “but it’s better if I keep it on.”
“As you wish.”
They were quite high up, and from their table they could see the white town in the distance beyond the trees, the high roofs glinting in the sun. There was a blue jug full of overblown yellow roses on the table. The owner brought them a dish of fat black olives and a carafe of wine so red it was almost black. A flock of pigeons rose up from the nearby woods. “I’ll miss you when you go,” Friederike said, “but I’m sure you’ll be back.”
“I’ll miss you too,” Julia said, “you’re one of the few.”
“The few?”
“Yes. People look but they don’t see me. You do.”
“I think that’s one of the nicest things anyone’s ever said to me,” said Friederike, turning pink. And yet, thought Julia, she wouldn’t miss her anywhere as near as much as she missed Cato. A woman friend, her own age, things to talk about, books, the stage, wine in the Wienerwald, and yet…
The way Friederike looked at her, so frank and warm. A cultured woman, bright, quick, sharp, poised.
And yet, she still got a stab in the chest when she thought of that child on the road with good old silly Ezra and poor lost Berniece. Child! He was in his twenties, Ezra reckoned, but he could have been any age. It didn’t matter, child he was. Ezra wouldn’t let any harm come to him. But how heart-wrenching they seemed now those three, muddling through, fragile, tiny, vanishing into a past that receded like an echo.
No, she wouldn’t miss Friederike like that.
Julia sipped, expert at lifting the veil just enough to raise the glass to her lips but not to be seen.
The wine went to her head.
“I’m very lucky,” she said suddenly.
Friederike smiled. Wonderful it must be, Julia thought. To look like that and be sure about everything.
“I’m seeing the world!”
“You certainly are.” Friederike adjusted her hat, a fine wide affair with a brim that performed a wavelike contour above her eyes. “I’d like to go traveling one day,” she said. “I’ve never been out of Europe. I envy you.”
She envies me.
Julia looked aside. There was no one in sight, their patch of lawn was hidden away from the other customers behind a small shrubbery. Leaning forward, she lifted her veil. Friederike’s smile widened. “I like to travel,” Julia said. “I want to see so much more of the world. And then one day when we’ve saved up a lot of money, we’ll settle down, Theo and me. Then I’ll go back home and visit, and they’ll all be amazed. I’ll walk in with Theo and say, ‘Here is my husband.’ ”
There must have been a village nearby because the church bells had started to ring. Julia remembered the time she wore Marta’s blue dress and nearly ruined the wedding. There would be no ostentation, she thought, just expensive elegance. Something simple, shot silk, dove gray, palest blue. Touches here and there of a muted shimmering silver. And white lace-up boots, and her hair done simply with just a feather or two, and a few small white flowers. “I know what everybody says,” she said. “They think he’s in it for the money. They can’t believe anyone could really love someone like me. But they’re wrong.”
“Of course they are,” said Friederike.
You could see she wasn’t sure. Actress that she was, you could see she didn’t believe. Didn’t matter what he did, no one ever would.
But Julia did.
“Is Mexico very beautiful?” Friederike asked.
“The mountains are. We could see them from the town. But you know I didn’t see as much as you might think. I could never just go out like other people.”
Those days. Solana. The boys, Clem, Elisio. The iguana, the moon, the figs squashed on the stones. A world away.
“I think when we settle,” Julia said, “Vienna would be a very nice place to consider.”
“Oh, do!” said Friederike.
“How was it?” Theo asked.
“Lovely.”
“And you stayed veiled?”
“Of course.”
“Friederike thinks I have real talent,” Julia said.
“And why wouldn’t she?” He swiveled his collar ’round and pulled out the stud.
“She should know.”
“I dare say.”
When they finally left Vienna, Friederike gave Julia a copy of the book on which her great success was based.
“Here,” she said, “something to read on the journey.”
La Petite Fadette. She had signed it: For dear Julia, from Friederike (The Cricket). Happy Memories!
It was good, Julia thought. Unusual.
When did you ever get a heroine like Fadette? No one liked her. They all laughed because she was brown and ugly like a cricket, and her little brother had crooked legs. But then it turned out in the end that she wasn’t really ugly after all, not once she’d had a wash and put on a nice dress and started talking nicely and behaving like a lady. And she had a beautiful soul. Then everyone fell in love with her, and she married young Landry, the hero.
“You know, we’re
forgetting who we are,” she said.
“I’m not.”
“Yes, you are, you just don’t know it.”
“That’s a meaningless thing to say.”
She could be so fucking annoying.
“So what are you saying? You want to break up?”
“No, of course not. But you’re here all the time.”
“Well, you’ve never said anything before.”
“Look, Adam, there’s no need to fall out or anything. It’s no big deal. All I’m saying is—”
“Oh, Christ, she needs her space, she needs her space,” said Adam scornfully. “We all know what that means, don’t we? I think about what you want all the time.”
“I’m sorry, but that’s just not true.”
“Why are you being like this?”
“Like what? Like myself?”
“You weren’t like this last week.”
“Of course I was. You just didn’t notice. I told you I didn’t want that stupid telly in here, and you wouldn’t listen. This is my place. I don’t want a stupid telly. If I have a telly I watch the news, and then I’m miserable all the time.”
“OK, I’ll move it back downstairs then.”
“It’s not just that, Adam. It’s the smell of paint too. It’s getting to me. You should paint downstairs.”
“So you don’t want me to paint you anymore.”
“You know it’s not that. I just want you to do it downstairs. I could sit for you down there instead of here, and then this would still be my own place where I can come, and I can have it how I like.”
“You should have told me if I was getting on your nerves.”
“You don’t get on my nerves. It’s just one or two things. It’s just things have changed too much. Too quick. I just want some—”
“You should have told me.”
“I tried to.”
“You’re being really unfair. You never said a word. You knew how it was. How I was. I love you to fucking pieces, and you know it.”
“Stop it,” she said, “I just want you to spend more time in your own place. We never made an arrangement for you to be up here all the time. It doesn’t mean you can’t come up here at all. That would be ridiculous.”
