Stories in an Almost Classical Mode

by Harold Brodkey

  “Oh, pooh,” Louise said.

  “It’s a hypocritical class. You are a woman who has always liked to drink and have since girlhood. How can you condemn anyone who fiddles with their senses?”

  Annetje said, “I hate drunks. They are very ugly.”

  “Alcohol kills and maims far more people than drugs do,” Avram said. “Why are you so defensive?” he went on, exalted with argument; he pointed his finger savagely. “What are you afraid of? Why are you jealous of Annetje’s experimenting with self-illumination?”

  “I am not jealous!”

  “Oh, you do not want this experience,” Annetje said vaguely. “It is terrible. My teeth burn like little fires.”

  “I am not jealous or defensive!” Louise said. “I am protesting this trampling on what it means to be a responsible human being.”

  “Except when drunk,” Avram said, slyly relentless.

  “Except what when drunk, please?” Ulrich asked. Annetje was staring into space.

  “Responsible, darling,” Louise said to him.

  “Yes. I believe in that,” Ulrich said.

  “Even for crimes during the war?” Avram demanded, turning on him.

  “And what of Vietnam?” Ulrich replied instantly.

  “You can compare Vietnam, deplorable as it is, to the camps?”

  “The camps?” said Annetje, terrified.

  “I am sick of the camps,” Louise said.

  “Bad conscience,” Avram said. “If I had any backbone, I would refuse to speak to you ever.”

  “You do not look Jewish,” Ulrich said.

  What a really inglorious evening, Avram thought. He said, “Isn’t that wonderful? But you can tell I’m Jewish because I’m so brilliant.”

  “Oh, yes,” Ulrich said agreeably.

  “Please don’t talk about Jews,” Annetje said in a weak, frightened voice, raising her hands to her temples. With an odd flutter as of an attempt at a normal social charm, she said sweetly, “I am tired of Jews.”

  “Tired?” Avram demanded. “Why are you tired of them? You’ve never been married to one that I know of.”

  Ulrich smiled abruptly at Annetje.

  Louise said, “Are you married?”

  “Yes,” said Annetje.

  “Doesn’t your husband care if you take LSD?”

  “I do not care if he cares or not. Besides, I did it for him. A friend told me, she saved her marriage—she said, you take this drug and you have an insight, you learn to be understanding. But it was horrible. The understanding was like death. Now I cannot eat, I cannot sleep, I think I want to die.”

  Avram said, “There is a theory that LSD interferes with the ego— sometimes that leads to an insight, but sometimes it leads to a view of one’s self as not worth saving.”

  “We all have those feelings without drugs, I am sure,” Louise said snappishly.

  “Not you, Louise,” Avram said. “Your ego is too healthy.”

  “I don’t want to be insulted anymore!” Louise said.

  “Louise is very—how do you say—mature,” Ulrich said.

  “I‘ve learned to live with myself,” Louise said.

  “But the rest of us haven’t learned to live with you,” Avram said.

  “Come, Ulrich.” Louise stood. “We must go.”

  Annetje said, “I don’t want to live with myself.”

  “Well, you just go on taking drugs, and Avram will be very sympathetic,” Louise said.

  “Oh, sit down,” Avram said. “We’ve known each other too long to be insulted by anything.”

  Annetje frowned at Louise. “I think you have a very closed mind. I think it’s terrible to have such a closed mind.”

  Avram had not thought Annetje was following the talk. He was pleased; she was coming back to the real world.

  Louise said, “I don’t happen to think a closed mind is a vice.”

  “Louise,” Avram said. “Come on now.”

  “I don’t fall for all the propaganda that comes down the pike. I don’t believe in that kind of open mind. I happen to think she has the closed mind—a drug closed it.”

  “And I was hoping to help her a bit while her mind opens,” Avram said.

  Louise sat down. “I do not approve of drugs at all.” She lifted her glass and took a straightforward, large swallow—a drinking woman’s swallow. She put her glass down. “And don’t tell me about alcohol!” She sat quite still while the drink moved into her bloodstream.

  Ulrich said to Annetje, “Why do Americans want to change themselves?”

  “Alcohol stood our ancestors in good stead,” Louise remarked. “Avram, you are a very old friend. But I really don’t like intellectuals.”

  Annetje said to Ulrich and Louise, “You are like Germans.” She said it warningly. “They never listen. They thought they knew everything. Sometimes I thought they did know everything, they must be right, because they were so powerful they were winning the war. I was frightened all the time. But they did not win. But we were walking by a road, I was very little, and their planes came and shot at us. Why? It was because we didn’t matter. I hate people who are so realistic.…”

  “You think it realistic to hate a whole nation?” Louise exclaimed.

  Avram thought, Drugs, race, and politics. He began to laugh. No one paid him any attention.

  “Yes,” Annetje said.

  “If you don’t forgive the Germans, why should anyone forgive you?” Louise demanded.

  “Forgive her? Forgive her for what?” Avram demanded. “She didn’t kill twenty million people.”

  “The Germans should have been hanged, all of them,” Annetje said. “They were filthy, filthy—” She seemed close to tears.

  “There is sweet reason and sympathy,” Louise said to Avram, and shrugged.

  “I think it is unfortunate you hate so many people,” Ulrich said stiffiy, “the innocent with the guilty.”

  “They did it first!” Annetje cried.

  Avram stood up and leveled a finger at Louise. “You see! There it is! You heard her. The beauty of it, the simplicity of it—they did it first. Don’t you see? I lean on people like you, Louise, I rely on you, but for illumination we must turn to the drug-takers, the sufferers, the penetrating souls who see right and wrong.”

  “Isn’t that splendid,” Louise said, and took another drink.

  “It was only a very small minority who—” Ulrich’s eyes were on the pale Annetje.

  “Don’t, please, give us that minority nonsense!” Avram cried.

  “It is not nonsense. I was in Germany and I—”

  “Did not know about the camps,” Avram said with disgust.

  “That is correct.”

  “I was in Holland and France and Italy and I knew,” Annetje said.

  Louise said, “Well, of course, we are very sorry for what you went through, but Ulrich went through a great deal, too.”

  Ulrich said, “You cannot believe what it was like when the Russians came—like wild beasts.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake, why not?” Avram said. “Look what your armies had done to Russia.”

  “They weren’t Ulrich’s armies. He was a child.”

  “Annetje was a child, and the Germans would have killed her.”

  Louise said, “What is so sick about this conversation is that we don’t end it.”

  “You don’t know what it is like to be hunted,” Annetje said in a deepened voice, a voice that shuddered. “They wanted to find you and kill you and there was no reason, there was no r—”

  Ulrich said with shuttered eyes, “I think we would all be happier without memories. I try to have no memories.” He opened his eyes and gazed at Annetje. That German wants her, Avram thought with a pang of jealousy. Ulrich said, “So I have come to the New World.” To a rich wife, Avram thought coldly. “We must learn to live together. We—”

  “When I took the drug, at first it seemed like that,” Annetje said. “It seemed it was over, I did not have to remember,
I could forgive the Germans. It was like a great burst of light. I could stop being afraid. But then it turned into a nightmare. There was still wickedness—wickedness goes on and on—my husband is a bastard—I cannot stand it!” She raised her hands to her temples; then, it seemed to Avram, the room went out of focus for her. She said, “Excuse me. I am crazy. I am not myself. I would not wish this on anyone!”

  “Except the Germans,” Louise said sotto voce.

  “Yes, the Germans!” Annetje cried. “I wish they should all be put in a crazy house—”

  “Ah,” Ulrich said sadly. “She is talking about many innocent people.”

  “Yes, she is, you dolt!” Avram cried.

  “There seems to be an insuperable difference of opinion,” Louise said.

  Avram passed his hand in front of his eyes. “Yes. I am ashamed. I am ashamed of all of us except Annetje.”

  “Don’t be ashamed for me,” Louise said, and finished her drink. “I am not the least bit ashamed of anything I’ve said. I’m not avant-garde. I haven’t said anything sophisticated.”

  Avram’s left hand gripped his right one. He said, “It’s incredible. No one has thrown anything.”

  Ulrich said, “She warned me. She said with you one has to be tolerant. You make terrible arguments with everyone.”

  “She did, did she?” Avram passed his hand again over his eyes. “Is anyone hungry?” he said. “I thought we might eat Chinese.”

  “Ah, God, no,” Annetje said. “I can’t. I can’t eat. I will go home.”

  Ulrich asked her, “Do you refuse to eat with a German? Are you angry?”

  “I have eaten with Germans,” Annetje said. “I am not angry. I am not myself. It—”

  Louise said to Avram, “You didn’t ask me if I was angry.”

  Avram said, “We have put up with so much from each other over the years! I tell myself when the time comes you’ll send me CARE packages in the concentration camp.”

  “Oh, pooh,” Louise said.

  Annetje was still talking. “ … the idea of chewing, and in a restaurant all the people chewing, chewing …”

  “But you ought to eat!” Avram cried, argumentatively. “It will help you.”

  “I will make myself spaghetti at home,” Annetje said in a tone of pathos. “Please don’t make me go to a restaurant.” She was near tears.

  “Annetje, you cannot go home,” Avram said. “What will you do? Stare at the walls?”

  “Yes, but that is all right. It is all I can do now.”

  Louise said to Avram, “Perhaps it would be better if Ulrich and I left. You could stay with your friend.”

  “No!” said Avram.

  “No, no,” said Annetje. “I don’t want to be that kind of person. I have asked too much of Avram already.”

  Avram squirmed, he calculated his own villainy, decided it was extensive but not fatal, yet he did not want to be alone with Annetje, he wanted no private responsibility for her at all.

  “I’ll walk you home,” he said. He said to Louise and Ulrich, “I’ll be right back. Please wait for me.” He rose.

  Annetje began to prattle, “It is better this way. I feel much better. I don’t want to interfere. I am very strange just now. I cannot bear myself, really, my strangeness. I know I will get better, I must wait out my punishment—all I mind is when I think it will never end. You know, I cannot bear the feel of clothes just now? I have worn these for five days. I am afraid to touch them, these clothes.”

  Avram thought Louise looked resigned; he thought Ulrich listened at first with mere politeness and then with interest and even lechery. But Annetje went on and on and on, and after a while Ulrich began to utter rude little ironies: “Very interesting, I am sure.… You seem very interested in your own symptoms.…” But Annetje did not look at him.

  Avram said, “Annetje, would you like to wait for me here?”

  “No, no. I feel this apartment has lips.” She laughed.

  “You are very sensitive,” Ulrich murmured.

  “Yes,” Annetje said. “I can hear conversations through the air, I can hear radio waves, I am quite mad.”

  Avram said, “You don’t want to be alone.”

  “But it is better for me,” Annetje said. She stood up. “I cannot be with people. I am too impossible.” She turned to Ulrich and Louise. “I am sorry I am so crazy. Perhaps we will meet at a time when I am more myself.”

  Ulrich smiled politely; Louise stretched her closed lips.

  Annetje slid her arms into the coat Avram held for her. He thought she appeared almost saintly in her obliviousness to the rudeness and contemptuous mood of the two on the couch. Although Louise had been angry before she could possibly have known, her anger was in part justified by how unimportant Annetje thought her—unimportant, unreal, uninteresting.

  ANNETJE HESITATED twice on the stairs in the hallway. “The steps frighten me going down,” she said. “It’s stupid—I’m stupid, yes? The steps are all right, they won’t collapse under me?”

  “I don’t think so,” Avram said. He said, “Will you really be all right alone? Can’t you call someone to be with you?”

  “Everyone is tired of me,” Annetje said brightly. “Everyone I liked I have called and they have been with me and they have gotten tired and left and been angry with me. Five days … They get so bored.”

  Avram minded less than he would have thought, his having been the last resort.

  “I have moods all the time,” Annetje was saying. “They get tired.” She stepped into the lower hallway and blinked, relieved to be free of the stairs. She said, “They owe me nothing. No one owes me nothing. It is John Herbert, that bastard, who should not leave me alone. I sat up with him many times.”

  Outside, the air was still hung with floating drops, visible beads of moisture, faintly pewter-colored with captured light, and very beautiful, Avram thought. The sidewalk was quite wet and held the dim, damp, shapeless reflections of lights in windows and over doorways and of streetlights. Avram thought that Louise and Ulrich were very probably kinder to each other and closer to each other than Annetje and John Herbert. He said, to make it up to John Herbert that he had desired his wife, “You should not blame him. You took the LSD to hurt him.”

  “I wanted to help, I wanted to learn how to be good,” Annetje cried, twisting her head.

  “But you excluded him,” Avram said. “You went off alone. You said he’s been in bad shape lately. It was the same as if you abandoned him, you pushed him away.…”

  “Yes, yes, I see that. Perhaps he isn’t a bastard. I am so paranoid, I imagine so many terrible things. I—” She broke off.

  At the apartment house on the corner, a doorman stood behind the glass door, staring out. Avram said, “I didn’t say he wasn’t a bastard. I only said you excluded him.”

  “Yes, yes. How clever you are,” she said, and leaned more closely to him as if for comfort.

  Avram’s heart began to swell inside him like a piece of fruit, he thought, ripening. He guided Annetje at the corner to make the turn. Too many debits, he thought. He burst into apology. “I am not clever,” he said. “What was I doing when I asked you to join us? How could I not have known! What was I thinking of?”

  Annetje said in a humble voice, “I am so sorry I was so terrible with your friends.”

  Avram halted on the pavement, in the mist. “You were terrible? No, no.” Avram said, “They were terrible.”

  “They were?”

  “They were unforgivably rude. They picked on you.”

  “They did?”

  Avram peered into her face. “My God,” he said. “You are confused!” He laughed, took a step onward, Annetje a weight against his arm. “You have no judgment at ail, you are really quite wonderful.”

  Annetje said, “I thought they had closed minds, but I am so paranoid I thought it was just my imagination.”

  Cars trailed enormous red exclamation points along the wet macadam. Buildings ascended and disappeared behi
nd veils of haze, which they then charged with mysterious, silvery glare. Between the buildings, the sky held patches of diluted red, of watery rouge. Avram said, “There is no ambiguity about it. They attacked you the moment you walked in the door. Annetje, I don’t want to encourage you in a neurosis, but not all of a paranoid’s fears are unfounded.”

  “Is that true? Oh,” Annetje said with a little, wondering laugh. “Yes, that must be true. I see that.” She stopped walking; she breathed. “I am so glad.” She pressed Avram’s arm. They turned and went into Annetje’s

  apartment house. “I thought everything I felt was because I was so crazy.”

  “Well, you can have more faith in yourself now,” Avram said firmly. He was silent in the elevator. When the elevator was gone, he said to Annetje, “There is a genuine irony for you—hostility helped make you better. The evening was not a failure.” It seemed safer to him to be more emotional with her now that he knew he was the last person in her telephone book she had called. “Sometimes it horrifies me,” he said, “that we dare talk about serious subjects—the camps, love, anything. We should leave the serious subjects to poets, who will tell us how to speak of them without lowering them; we should confine ourselves to the weather and the stock market like sensible people.” Annetje was trying, with frightened hands, to work the locks of her door. Avram said, “Annetje, I am sorry I have to go back. I would rather stay with you.”

  Annetje turned and looked up, surprised, pleased, unbelieving, humble. “Would you like to stay with me?”

  “Oh yes. But Louise is a very old friend. You can see she’s decidedly odd—she wouldn’t understand if I stayed with you. I’ll tell you something about her: she never breaks a promise, she is never late for an appointment, she is utterly reliable.”

  “That’s wonderful,” Annetje said. “I would like to know people like that. Sometimes it seems to me I live in a bowl of soup; nothing is solid.”

  “I think you are hungry,” Avram said. “Promise me you will eat, that you will make yourself a little spaghetti or something.”

  “Yes. Maybe.”

  “No maybe. Just yes.”

  Annetje shrugged her fine shoulders. She said, “Your friends seemed very like Germans.” She was frowning.