Pihkal

by Alexander Shulgin

  I nodded vehemently, giggling, "Uh-huh, that's it!"

  Nothing reserved any more for Ursula. Thank you, thank you.

  I hiccuped and laughed, and hiccuped again. The hiccups were silver-colored spikes against the rainbowed ceiling.

  CHAPTER 34. THE FOURTH

  On the 4th of July, 1981, in response to approximately 80 invitations to a picnic at the Farm, 67 people arrived. They brought their own meat for the barbecue and several of them brought portable barbecues and some extra bags of charcoal. They came in short pants and slacks and halter tops, carrying hot dogs, hamburger meat, chicken, potato salad, green salad, raw vegetables, cake and jello and ice cream.

  It was a hot day and there were people everywhere I looked. I knew there had never before been a gathering this large on the Farm. Most of them knew each other, but there was an occasional one who had to be introduced, someone who was from outside what we called the network;

  these included a few old friends of mine and two women from the hospital where I had worked the year before.

  Walter had been invited, along with the children, who now lived with him. During the past year, Shura and Walter had become comfortable with each other/ and all of us got together for a pot-luck dinner with friends every couple of weeks, at Walter's house in Marin, as a way of keeping family ties strong.

  Ruth remarked to me, in some surprise, when we found ourselves occupying the same corner of the living room for a moment, "I can't believe Shura actually invited such a crowd! I've never known him to have more than twelve people at a time out here!"

  I told her that it was my idea, and he'd gone along with it just this once. " thought it would be really fun to ask all our friends to a barbecue picnic, you know? He said okay, as long as it was a one-time-only experiment."

  Ruth laughed, "Amazing! Never thought I'd see the day," she beamed at me, "And wasn't it wonderful that Dante and Ginger happened to be out here just for these few days!"

  Dante and Ginger had called Ruth and George a couple of weeks ago and asked if they could stay with them, explaining that they were visiting relatives in the area and had heard that we were giving a picnic, so why didn't they all go to the Farm together? Ruth and George were delighted and offered their spare bedroom.

  Of all the research group, only these two - Dante and Ginger - knew our plans. Because they lived so far from us, they could not have been persuaded to make the journey just for a 4th of July barbecue, and we realized we'd have to tell them, swearing them to secrecy.

  The only others who knew what was going on were Shura's son Theo, my four children, and a very good friend of Shura's, Paul Freye, of the Federal Narcotics Lab, who was going to act today in his capacity as a minister of the Eternal Life Church.

  I had come to feel strong affection for Paul. He was highly intelligent, thoughtful, and had an appallingly unsubtle sense of humor which Shura happily shared, usually over a bottle of red wine on occasional Sundays.

  In the back of the house there was a grassy area below the level of the path. It measured about 20 feet at its widest, and it gradually narrowed to five feet across. It was shaded by trees and relatively cool in the summer. We had laid out old Persian rugs and some big floor pillows, and when people asked what all that was for, we explained that later in the afternoon there would be chamber music. Everyone was very polite, said How nice! and turned back to their conversations.

  At 2:00 o'clock in the afternoon, I gathered my children and gave them their orders, and while they scattered over the Farm, rounding up the guests for a special program to be presented in back of the house - in some cases meeting with blank stares and in others, frank resistance, which had been anticipated - Shura and I locked ourselves into our bedroom and changed our clothes.

  I put on a filmy Indian print dress of rose, gold and brown, made of sheer cotton over a pink slip, floor length; there were dusty pink dance slippers on my feet. Shura wore sandy brown slacks and a new tweed jacket and a tie. We laughed at ourselves in the mirror, at the sweat trickling down our faces, then kissed quickly and left the bedroom.

  We waited at the back door until Brian ran up the stone steps from the place where the murmuring crowd of curious, half-annoyed guests had been politely bullied into sitting down.

  At his wave, we emerged and walked down the steps, hand in hand. To our right, under the trees, stood Paul, who now rang a big brass bell - a relic of Shura's days in the Navy - which had been hung from a sturdy tree branch.

  There was a shocked silence as we walked in front of the guests, and turned to the rug-covered area in front of Paul Freye. He had in his hand the paper on which we had written the words of our wedding ceremony, and in the stunned quiet, his voice, shaking very slightly, said the opening words, familiar and beautiful. I looked to my right and exchanged smiles with my son, Christopher, who was my ring-bearer, and to Shura's left, where Theo stood as best man, his camera on the rug near his feet.

  "Dearly Beloved: we are gathered together to join this man and this woman in holy matrimony."

  Inserted into the ceremony were words of a benediction borrowed from the Apache Indians.

  "That, clasping one another's hands,

  Holding one another fast,

  You may fulfill your roads together."

  After Shura had put the ring on my finger, Paul continued, gradually losing his fight against the tears in his throat:

  "Now you will feel no rain,

  For each of you will be shelter to the other.

  Now you will feel no cold,

  For each of you will be warmth to the other.

  Now there is no more loneliness for you.

  Now you are two bodies/

  But there is only one life before you.

  "Go now to your dwelling place, To enter into the days of your togetherness. And may your days be good And long upon the earth!"

  His cheeks wet, our dear Paul concluded:

  "I join you to one another and to all of us who love you. I now pronounce you man and wife."

  Later, in the kitchen, when Ruth had stopped crying and Leah's nose was losing its pinkness, I explained why we'd done it this way, "Shura said he didn't mind getting married as long as we could do it in such a way that there wouldn't be any big present-giving mess, because he hates that kind of thing, and as far as he was concerned, we didn't need wedding presents and he wanted to keep things simple.

  "So I said why not invite everybody to a picnic and surprise them, and that was the beginning of the plan. We decided nobody except our children would know what was going on - we needed their help, and it would be fun having them in charge of a secret like that. Of course," I grinned at Ruth, "Ginger and Dante had to know why they were being asked to come all that way, and Paul had to be ready to be our minister!" "I don't know when I've been so completely taken by surprise," said Ruth, beginning to sob again. I put my arms around her and hugged, then I leaned back against the sink, folded my arms, and said to them, "I want you both to know - and everyone else in the group, of course - that this marriage won't cause anything to change in your friendship, your relationship with Shura. That's the last thing I would want to see happen. I know that you all love him, and I have no desire to squirrel him away from his friends. That's just not the way I am. I think you had fears of that happening with Ursula, but I'm not Ursula - "

  Leah made an exaggerated gesture of relief, wiping her forehead with the back of a limp hand, as Ruth laughed.

  " - and I don't have to have him all to myself and not share. The more extended family, the better, as far as I'm concerned. He needs all of you, and I want to thank you for being his friends. And mine."

  Horribly sentimental. But they need to hear it. Now get a Kleenex and blow your blasted nose and get out of here so they can talk to each other.

  Ann, Wendy and Brian cornered me and reported with obvious relish that they had watched their father to see his reaction, when Shura and I stopped in front of Paul and it became clear what was about
to happen.

  "His mouth opened," said Brian, "And it just stayed that way."

  Wendy illustrated, crossing her eyes over her hanging jaw.

  "You never saw anyone so absolutely dumbfounded in your life," laughed Ann, holding her stomach, "It was wonderful. Mom. I wouldn't have missed that sight for anything in the world!"

  "Boy," I said, "You guys have a weird sense of humor, you know?"

  I hugged each of them and said many thanks for having done their part so beautifully.

  "Well," Ann remarked, as they turned to go back to the party, "At least you'll never be able to forget the date of your anniversary, right?"

  "Not easily, sweetheart."

  July Fourth. Celebration of freedom. The freedom of being tied forever to the man I want to be tied to forever. Thank you, God and all the Little Gods. 1 send you my joy and gratitude. Bless us and keep us, amen.

  Part Three

  CHAPTER 35. AACHEN

  Both Voices

  (Alice's voice)

  A few weeks after the wedding, Shura was given the opportunity to attend a nuclear medicine conference in the city of Aachen, Germany, and we decided to make the trip together, as part of a honeymoon which would include my first visits to London and Paris.

  I hadn't seen Europe since leaving it as a child, in 1940, on the last refugee ship out of Trieste, Italy, where my father had been American consul. The idea that I was actually going to see any part of Europe again seemed almost too wonderful to be true; I had dreamt of such a return for years with increasing disbelief in the possibility of it ever really happening.

  I was going to cross the Atlantic once more, this time by plane instead of ocean liner, and I was about to see England and France and Germany, all for the first time. I felt a mixture of reluctance and excitement about the Germany part of it; reluctance because throughout most of my life, the name, "Germany" had usually been tied to the word "Nazi," but there was also the excitement of seeing a country I hadn't seen before, a country out of which had come some of the greatest musicians, artists and thinkers of all time. The Germany of castles and rivers and Black Forest elves. The land of Bach and Mozart.

  Shura had told me that we were going to travel his preferred way, with backpacks and no other luggage. That way, he said, we wouldn't be held up in airports, waiting for suitcases, and we wouldn't be frustrated by constantly having to watch baggage. Everything we needed would be on our backs.

  I was known in my family for packing enough stuff to last about a month, every time I planned for a weekend trip, but I was willing to try the backpack method, and there was something really challenging about the idea. It made sense, after all. Nobody wants to babysit a suitcase. And learning experiences are learning experiences.

  The backpacks we bought were large and dark-colored with no metal frames, just lots of compartments. Shura had packed an extra pair of his dark blue corduroy slacks and I put in jeans, a denim skirt and several blouses. I was going to live in denim - skirt and pants - since it was the one material that wouldn't show dirt easily and, of course, it would wear like iron.

  As Shura reminded me, while we folded things into our backpacks, "We aren't planning to attend any formal concerts or go to expensive night-clubs, so our wardrobes can be practical and relatively dull." He added, "No matter what clothes we take/ we'll be sick of the sight of them in a couple of weeks, anyway," to which I had to agree.

  My camera, an old Yashica, was going to be used for documentary purposes, mainly, and to keep track for me when my eyes and mind might be too tired to register important details, as tends to happen on long adventures in strange places. Shura's camera was coming too, in its soft leather carrying case. He would take the more deliberate and careful shots.

  A very long plane ride later, leaning out the window of a hotel on Piccadilly Square, I breathed in the smell of London - sharp, sooty and wet from recent rain. This was the city of my childhood nursery rhymes, and I was on my way to seeing the places I'd heard about from the time I could talk ("They're changing the guard at Buckingham Palace, Christopher Robin went down with Alice,") and to fall completely in love with the British Museum, just as Shura had predicted I would.

  After a few days, we were on our way to Aachen, by plane and then train, and I was finally in Germany.

  Aachen is a very, very ancient city known by different names in several different languages because it is situated at the point where Germany/ Belgium and Holland meet. Its other most familiar name is Aix-la-Chapelle. Apparently its history as a city began when the Romans discovered hot springs in the area and built watering-places and bath-houses around and over what they believed were healing waters. Some of the graceful columns left over from that time are still standing throughout the city, surrounded now by shops, cafes, tiled piazzas and, of course, boxes full of geraniums. (During the long time since I had left Europe as a young girl, whenever I heard or read the word, "Europe," I always saw in my mind red and pink geraniums clustering in a window box, and heard the echoing of church bells.) We first saw Aachen early on a Sunday morning. Having just gotten off the train, very tired and grimy and wanting baths, we were interested only in finding a hotel as fast as possible.

  We looked for anyone who might point us in the right direction, but there were few people to be seen at that hour, as we walked into the town. We both assumed that we would be able to find somebody who spoke English, because everyone back home who knew anything about Europe had said, "Practically all Germans speak English."

  After several encounters with smiling, pleasant-faced citizens, out early, walking their dogs or picking up newspapers, it became painfully apparent that we had landed in the one single exception to the rule. Nobody in this particular place in Germany appeared to speak any English - or French, for that matter - and absolutely no one understood what I had always believed was a universal word, "hotel." The people we came across all gave the impression of being friendly and eager to help, but there was no sign of even the slightest comprehension of anything we said in either of our two available languages.

  Finally, walking down yet one more cobbled street, we saw the sign of a hotel, three stars, which we would ordinarily have considered a bit rich for our blood, but we were too weary to search further, and told each other it probably wouldn't be that much extra. Inside, we found that the young, pretty lady behind the counter spoke heavily accented English and the price was manageable. We sighed thankfully and smiled all over her and took the keys to a room on the second floor with gratitude and relief.

  After showers and a few hours' nap, we unpacked and put on fresh clothes. It was time to explore. We walked some of the city streets, had beer and coffee in an outdoor cafe, and marveled at the huge, old cathedral called the Dom (we also discovered that "Dom" means "cathedral" in German). We went inside for a few minutes, long enough to see the famous chandelier and the little statue of the Madonna in her hand-embroidered gown. It seems that there are certain women in the city of Aachen who commit themselves to sewing magnificent brocaded dresses for the statue, and the Madonna wears a new one every week. The custom is centuries old, and the honor is, when possible, passed down from mother to daughter. This day, the Madonna was wearing a gold-embroidered pink dress with a white and gold cloak.

  The Dom was built in the 8th Century AD, and inside its great walls, there was a many-layered quietness. Soft candlelight reflected deep orange on the polished tops of the pews facing the Madonna. Above the huge pillars loomed comfortable darkness, and we could make out against the shadows the immense circle which formed the chandelier presented to the Dom by Frederick Barbarossa - Red-Beard the Great. Not for the first time and far from the last, I found myself wishing I had read more and could remember more of what I had read, about people like Barbarossa. I had heard the name from when I was a child, and there was a vague mental picture of a big man with red hair who was an important, powerful German chieftain of some kind. Or was he an Emperor? In the Middle Ages - or was it the Dark Ages -
?

  The discomfort of realizing how little I knew, and how much I might miss because of my failure to read more, before the trip, gradually gave way to a delicious feeling of awe. Here we stood, Shura and I, looking up at something which a man of power in a time long, long past, had given to this very building. My back prickled at the thought of that much human time, represented by the simple circle of bronze.

  (A couple of days later, along with the nuclear medicine group/ we were given a private tour of the cathedral's less accessible corners, and found ourselves standing before a marble seat, cut plain, without embellishment of any kind, which had been the coronation throne of the emperor Charlemagne, and we stood with the rest of those who had chosen to go exploring, in silence. It was like facing a closed doorway into another world; a seat shaped simply, its lack of adornment stating, as nothing else could have, the emperor's sureness of his own absolute power.)

  But now, having been in Aachen for only a few hours, we decided to put off a really detailed exploration of the Dom until later; these first hours would be a tasting of the different flavors of the city, a tentative smelling and feeling out of its nature. As we strolled, there seemed to be friendliness and ease in all the faces on the street, and courtesy and smiles whenever we went into a cafe for Shura's lager and my coffee. There still didn't seem to be any English spoken anywhere, though, outside the hotels.

  It would not be until the following day, when I went exploring by myself while Shura was busy delivering his lecture at the nuclear medicine complex (security rules forbade my admission) -

  not until I was a single foreign woman asking for a pack of cigarettes in a kiosk or for a cup of coffee in a cafe - that I would discover that the friendliness and courtesy were totally absent as soon as I had no man at my side. By myself, I was ignored, pointedly overlooked and, in one case, openly sneered at. Interesting.