She did not appear surprised by what had happened to him. When he was finished with his account she said nothing. Several times she almost spoke but didn’t. She wasn’t clear in her mind what she wanted to say. So her only obvious reaction was to nervously wiggle her outstretched foot back and forth. Both of them ended up looking at that foot as if it might know something they didn’t.
“After you died, Vincent, Petras taught me how to go into death and bring you back. But this time I couldn’t do it. That possibility is closed to me.
“Maybe I was allowed to go there only that one time. Whatever the case is, I can’t do it now and ask Petras why these things are happening to me.” She said all this to her wiggling foot. Only when she was finished did she look at Vincent.
He did not turn to her when he spoke. “True, but at the same time, I went into your past and saw how you learned to do it. Or almost—Petras was about to tell you how when you said my name and I was brought back here.”
“What did you learn when you were dead, Vincent? That’s what this is all about. What did you learn there that you might have brought back that will protect our son from them?”
Washing the Buffalo
Leni Salomon was in love and this time it was serious. After that bizarre luncheon with Isabelle and Flora, all that she wanted to do now was find him and go to bed for a couple of hours.
A month ago she would never have imagined thinking such things about this man. His name was John Flannery. Several times over the course of any day Leni found herself saying those names—John Flannery—just to have them on her tongue and then of course to think about him some more. She spent a lot of time, recently, thinking about that man.
To look at him, he was the most unlikely lover she could have imagined for herself. Physically, he was about a hundred miles away from her type. Much to her chagrin, Leni was a sucker for handsome cliches—the smoothies, elegantly dressed guys who were fluent in three languages, wore hair gel, and used those long elegant wallets that had slots for twelve credit cards and only fit in the breast pocket of a jacket.
But this Mr. John Flannery was shortish, roundish, and wore clothes that looked like they’d all just come out of a dryer without ever having said hello to an ironing board. He wore a salt-and-pepper beard and at fifty-four, bore a vague physical resemblance to Ernest Hemingway, of all people. She hated Hemingway’s books.
And he was fifty-four—twenty-two years older than Leni. When she thought about the difference in their ages it almost made her blush. Nevertheless that’s who he was and so be it. Leni Salomon was a pragmatist. She was handicapped. She was pretty. She had married the wrong man years ago but was not brave enough to leave him although she knew she would be much happier if she did. She recognized these things about herself and accepted them for no more or less than they were worth. Now she was in love with a man who already was a man on the day that she was born.
They met on a tram. He’d asked for directions to Sigmund Freud’s apartment. By the time they came to her stop in front of town hall they were laughing. He had already asked her to join him for coffee and she’d said yes. She never did things like that although men tried to pick her up all the time. It was definitely not her style, but five minutes into their first conversation she knew that she must listen to this man some more.
Four years before he had seen the light. Or rather one afternoon at his big desk in Silicon Valley he’d realized that what he was doing was only earning lots of money so that one day he could be old with lots of money.
A week later he had quit his job, cashed in everything, and started traveling. He’d been around the world twice since then and didn’t plan on stopping any time soon. He had seen the ghost of a Buddhist monk in Salyan, Nepal. Learned how to cook from a three-toque chef in Rome, trained a millionaire’s horses in Northern Germany, and helped a woman he’d met in that cooking class build a stone house on the island of Sifnos in Greece. These were the sort of experiences he wanted to remember when he was old. One of the reasons why Flannery quit his job in the first place was the realization that despite having lived over half a century, he had very few great memories. A few perhaps, a small handful, but nowhere near enough to justify the half century he had existed.
When he saw that Leni was lame, John smiled. No one had ever reacted like that before. She was both taken aback and intrigued by his response. It turned out that his mother had had polio as a girl. As a result, she walked with the same difficulty as Leni. He grew up learning to walk slowly so as to keep pace with her. Children aren’t used to walking slow. But early on it taught him patience and to pay more attention to his surroundings. He became much more observant and thus more appreciative of detail than most people he encountered.
Leni rarely talked about herself because she was shy, secretive, and at heart didn’t think she was a particularly interesting person. But she talked about herself a lot that day to Flannery. She talked at the café and more when they were sitting in the Volksgarten afterward. He asked questions that were personal but never out of line or prying. Compelling questions, ones that made her consider carefully before answering, although they were about her and the way she felt or saw things. It felt as if she were looking at herself in a new kind of mirror—one that showed her angles she hadn’t seen before. She told him things that day maybe she shouldn’t have, but afterward she only felt good about their conversation and was eager to see and talk with him again.
At the end of their first meeting, Leni gave him her cell phone number rather than that of the phone at home. Writing it down, she knew she was giving the one and not the other because she did not want to chance John calling and having her husband answer. Naughty, naughty she thought as she handed the slip of paper to Ernest Hemingway.
For a long time she had no idea where their connection was going. Flannery was hugely entertaining, smart, and always insightful. He was bright-eyed alive, wide open to life and its possibilities, even at his age. So many things he said stuck in her mind. She found herself thinking about them throughout the day. Especially after listening to her husband crow or whine about his latest business, blah-blah.
The contrast between the two men was enormous. One was thirty-four, handsome, successful, and closed to just about anything outside his sphere of experience. The other was not, not, not, and definitely not.
Leni’s husband also disliked dogs. One day John Flannery showed up at one of their meetings with Luba, his Great Dane that looked like a black and white Jackson Pollock painting in motion. Seeing the giant animal for the first time, Leni clapped her hands with joy. The dog was as calm as a pond. It looked at you with interest and if you were very lucky, rested its massive head on your lap and closed its eyes. The first time it did this to her, Leni laughed and said it felt like there was a watermelon on her lap.
“I always say I’m walking a jumbo jet.”
“Yes, yes, that too! And you travel with her, this big thing?”
Flannery smiled and stroked Luba’s back. “Sure, why not? They don’t mind her on trains. As long as she’s well behaved and I buy her a ticket.”
“You’ve taken her around the world with you?”
“No, only Europe. I got her in Greece when I was there. She’s been with me since then. Haven’t I told you her story yet?”
Leni shook her head and almost purred with pleasure. She’d always assumed Flannery was Irish, with a name like that, and because he told stories like an Irishman did—riveting, funny, self-deprecating. She couldn’t wait to hear him continue.
“Remember I told you that I went to Greece to help a friend build a house there? Her name was Helen Varcoe. We met in Rome in this cooking class we both took and became friends. What she didn’t tell me till much later was that she was dying.
“There were only two things she wanted to do before she died—learn how to cook a few great dishes from a master chef, and start building this house she’d been designing for years on a piece of land she owned in Sifnos.
“Luba was her dog.” As he often did, Flannery suddenly broke off speaking and looked away into the distance. Over time Leni had learned not to say anything when that happened. She assumed a memory was washing over him, or something needed framing in his mind before he continued. She’d never asked what these abrupt pauses meant and eventually she even grew to like them, seeing them as only another facet of John’s interesting and often unpredictable personality.
The truth was the only reason why Flannery made those pauses was for dramatic effect. He’d done it once the first day they were together and seen how she hung on the edge of her seat waiting for him to go on. So he added it to his repertoire.
“Where is this thing going?”
Taken off guard, she honestly didn’t know what he was talking about. She said nothing for a moment—only blinked a few times and tried to guess his context. “Where is what going, John?”
He pointed to her and then to himself, to her, to himself. He looked straight at her but his eyes said nothing. “This. You and me, Leni. Where is this thing between us going?”
Through years of experience and honed method, she had her lie, fib, excuse, backup, detour, already ready on her tongue before she’d even finished digesting his question. Leni Salomon was so good at lying and avoiding, so adept. Secretive people usually are. She already knew to start her maneuvering with a verbal stall: she would ask What do you mean by that, John? I don’t know what you’re talking about. What thing between us? Next, she’d follow whatever he said with—
No.
Her heart stood up and said a loud no—not this time, not with this good man. No lies, no ingenuousness. A shouting match inside Leni exploded: Her heart yelled Tell him the truth! While the scared rest of her yelled back Are you crazy?
She was almost in love with Flannery. She already adored him. That was the truth. No doubt about it—a few more meetings and chats with him and she’d be in for both her penny and her pound. Was she supposed to tell him that? Yes, exactly that.
Looking at her now, he was as still as an owl. Once in a while his eyes blinked but not as often as she would have wished. He really did look like an owl sitting there, waiting for her to tell a truth that would cause trouble all over the place. Her bad leg began to ache which almost made her smile. Because that leg always seemed to start hurting whenever she got in trouble. She didn’t know why, but it happened regularly; as if even her leg were saying Don’t try to deny it, you’re in a fix.
“What do you think, John?”
He answered immediately. “I was married once. I haven’t told you about it, but I was. I was afraid to tell you because some women don’t like to hear that. They think of it as some kind of black mark on your record if you’re divorced. But it was a very good marriage and thinking back, I wouldn’t change one thing about it even if I could.”
Leni didn’t know where he was going with this but chose not to interrupt. She’d always just assumed John had been married—maybe more than once.
“It ended after twelve years because we simply went in different directions—those things happen. Since then I’ve not been very… social in that way. That’s why it was so easy for me to just pick up and leave America. I had no real ties, no obligations to anyone.
“But when I was in Greece with Helen working on her house, it was sort of like being married again and I liked it very much. That kind of close connection and communication you have with someone you really care for is a wonderful thing. It made me realize how much I had been missing, those years I was alone.”
Leni couldn’t resist asking, “Were you together with Helen?”
He slowly shook his head. “No. Neither of us wanted that. We knew we were only meant to be friends but we were both very grateful for just that. It was more than enough.
“Vienna was only supposed to be a stopover for me. A few days here to look at the Klimt paintings, maybe see an opera, eat some Sachertorte… But then I met you and this thing started happening. Now I don’t know what to do about it.” For the first time in minutes he smiled, then patted his dog again. “I asked Luba what I should do, but she was no help.”
Inside, Leni shuddered but couldn’t tell if it was from joy or fear. She could think of nothing to say. She wanted to say something but nothing was in her head, nothing, other than the great hope that he would continue talking about his feelings.
“Do you know why I brought Luba today and not before? Two reasons—one was that I was afraid you weren’t going to like dogs. Isn’t that ridiculous? So what if you didn’t? But silly or not, it was important to me.
“The other reason was when I woke up today, when I was lying in bed I thought, I’m going to bring the dog today. And if the two of them get along, then I’m going to tell Leni about being divorced. Even if it shocks her, it’s time she knew.
“So it’s all your fault and Luba’s. If you two hadn’t liked each other, you would never have heard this stuff.”
Leni was tongue-tied. No, that wasn’t it. Her thoughts, her words, her desire to tell John how she felt were all as lame as her bad leg now. In a flare of understanding she realized that her helplessness with him was due at least in part to inexperience. That’s right—she simply wasn’t used to being honest about how she really felt. Even with her husband who did not know her well enough and worse, didn’t care.
With Flannery she had entered a foreign land where she knew perhaps ten words in the language and could barely decipher the street signs. The foreignness there was exhilarating and frightening in equal measure. Nothing between them had even happened yet, but still—
“Are you going to say anything?” His voice was soft and tentative, careful. Everything was up to Leni now. Both of them knew that. He had said his truth and it was time for hers. She knew that anything she said now would be accepted as the truth. She could tell a lie as big as the moon and he would believe it because that moment between them was so loaded.
A few days before, John had mentioned a quotation that he loved. On hearing it from him for the first time she did too—“Open your hands if you wish to be held.”
She had no words now but did have her hands and arms. She used them to answer his question. Because she suddenly knew what to do, her face relaxed for the first time since their conversation began. Lifting her hands off the table, she slowly began to draw them apart, as if showing him the size of a big fish she’d caught. But then they spread beyond the size of a fish and went out as far as they could go. She was opening her hands because she wished to be held.
Flannery immediately understood her gesture and grinning, nodded his head eagerly. Seeing that, seeing that he understood what she meant so quickly, Leni had no more resistance to this man. Whatever came now would come. If in the end he hurt her then she accepted that. Like him, she wanted to have brilliant, wondrous memories of her life too. And one thing she had never really experienced was—
A strange look grew on her face. Flannery saw it and was about to ask What’s wrong? but kept quiet instead. He could see that something was dawning on her, something crucial.
Leni brought her hand in and covered her mouth. First she’d thought, I’ve never really experienced a great love. But as that sentence, that realization crossed her mind, two different words jumped in front of them and took their place: Real trust replaced a great love. With a shudder she recognized she had never experienced real trust before. Seeing that was both enlightening and dreadful for her. More than any great love, Leni Salomon saw for the first time, she had never experienced real trust in her life.
If she trusted anyone, she sort of trusted them, whether it was her parents, her husband, or even her best friends Isabelle and Flora. She trusted her work only because it was so precise and relied entirely on her skills. But people, one single person? Had she ever felt 100 percent trust for even one single person? No. Hand still over her mouth, she looked at Flannery but didn’t really see him. Her eyes filled with tears and she began to cry.
I
t was a curious picture: a lovely young woman sitting there with her hand over her mouth, eyes more startled than sad, tears spilling down her face. The middle-aged man sitting near her sees this but does nothing. He does not reach over and touch or speak or in any way try to comfort her. Nor does he get up and walk away because they are fighting. A huge Great Dane sleeps on the ground by the man’s side, oblivious to all of this. If you were watching the couple from afar you’d have to wonder What the hell’s going on? What’s happened between them?
Because their tableau is so mysterious, you stare at them too long. Eventually the man’s eyes slide over to you. Embarrassed, you look away, but not before a moment passes, a flash instant where you two connect. His eyes, his face or demeanor or simply something beyond words, scares the shit out of you. The sensation is so strong that you clumsily stand up, toss too much money on the table for your glass of wine, and hurry off without looking back. If you did, you would be even more disturbed because he is still staring at you, at your back now but just as attentively. It is as if he is memorizing you, writing down your license plate number for some time in the future when he will cross your path again, only then it will be on purpose.
Several weeks later, after that bizarre luncheon with her girlfriends, Leni stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and speed-dialed John’s number on her cell phone. Smiling, she closed her eyes and thought about where he might be. She imagined him in his apartment, those two small but lovely sunlit rooms in the Second District near the Augarten Park. A friend who was working in the United States for half a year had lent it to him. Flannery seemed to have so many friends. He spoke about them with great affection, and judging by the fact that he had been given his apartment rent-free, his friends liked him too. She pictured him standing in the middle of that bright living room reaching into his pocket for the blue cell phone she’d given him half as a joke, half not.
GLASS SOUP Page 9
