“Rosetta is a stone,” Alex said, smirking.
Amalie snorted. That was the kind of remark Stewart might make. “I’m counting on you to be there.”
“I will be there.” Alex kissed her hand. The touch of his lips on her skin made her shiver. That she should be so needy, so ready, shocked her.
#
“Now I have certain information,” Rosetta the deputy announced at the tenant meeting the next day, Sunday. “But I can’t reveal it at this time.”
“Why mention it?” Alex said.
Amalie was having trouble concentrating on the meeting. Charlie hadn’t come home last night. They had an unspoken agreement that if he wasn’t home by midnight he was staying with a friend and she was not to worry. But of course she did worry. And they hadn’t parted on the friendliest terms.
“Is everyone aware,” asked Miss Fanchelle, a former postal supervisor, “that touching the United States mail is a federal offense?”
“Yeah, so?” asked the brawny bartender.
Their illiterate postman, said Miss Fanchelle, had told her that soon the mail was going to be distributed by Elisha, the superintendent, and as she had mentioned, it was a federal offense to lay a hand on it. Furthermore—”
“The bills they can keep,” said gouty Mr. Moran.
“My phone bill had salad dressing on the envelope,” a young nursing student said. “Ranch I think it was.”
There was a commotion at the door as a young man shouldered his way in. “Before we go on,” Miss Fanchelle interrupted herself, “who is this stranger?”
Rosetta identified him as a student community worker from the local social services center.
“As long as he’s not FBI,” Alex said. “He looks like the man who rang my bell last week and asked me about the sodium nitrate I was talking about in the supermarket. Because of the bread. You know they make explosives out of that stuff.”
The young man with the crew cut and glassine teeth waved to them. “I’m your liaison.”
“Kyrie—? murmured Alex.
How did they know he wasn’t a spy from the landlord?
“His father happens to be a doctor of forensic medicine,” Rosetta said proudly.
“Could we please get down to business,” Amalie said, exasperated. “We’re trying to plan for the rally, remember?” She hated running these meetings. How come Stewart never had any trouble with them?
“Friends—” The student extended his hands, bitten nails prominent, à la Billy Graham “—what I’m about is community organizing. Grass ruts.” (When did roots turn into ruts? Amalie wondered.) “Tomorrow we’re going over to the Sanitation Union to help them with their struggle.” My God, that sounded like something Charlie might say. “We’ll read from Eugene Debs and give out free beer to the workers. You people in this house are the advanced cadre—”
“What is this, the Russian Revolution?” said irate Mr. Moran. “Let the garbage people do their own dirty work. Hey, that’s a good one, dirty work!”
No, this was impossible. Amalie thought she was going to scream. She had to be calm, calm, she was starting a new job tomorrow, her son had disappeared. Why should she care what happened to this crummy building?
“…With your seven rooms and two hundred dollars rent, what are you complaining about?” Rosetta was scolding polished Mrs. Konarski who looked like her Pekinese dog and was equally crotchety.
The violinist who never spoke was sitting in a corner clutching what he claimed was an Amati violin while his friend whispered into his ear.
And who was this young woman with the ironed hair who was calling for guerrilla street theater at City Hall?
“What is this, a zoo?” Frantic Mrs. Konarski was eager to return to the Eclair Cafe for her rendezvous with an aging aristocrat from the former Transylvania. Moran leaned over to her, fully aware that she was repelled by his undershirt. Was she the one who left the trash outside her apartment, he asked with a leer.
“Enough!” Amalie yelled for quiet. They were here to plan for next month’s citywide demonstration and not the particular problems of this building. That would require a separate meeting. Right now she was asking for volunteers to xerox flyers, make phone calls to absentees, collect more signatures for the citywide petition to be presented to the mayor, dun people for their membership dues, help with the mail—
“Touching the mail is a crime,” Miss Fanchelle cried out.
“But touching the male isn’t,” smirked the bartender.
“They should change the wallpaper in the lobby,” someone said. “Who wants to look at shepherds every day.”
“And those lamps. There are some gorgeous halogens on Canal Street.”
What a hopeless job this was, Amalie thought. The building was about to be taken away from them and they were worried about the decor. It was a miracle that they’d gotten this far. There was no point in announcing the loophole she had found in the landlord’s plan to proceed with the sale of the building. The local Neighborhood Preservation Program had made a loan to the landlord for the express purpose of having building violations removed, but the landlord had done nothing. Amalie had gone ahead and filed the proper papers requesting a review. She wasn’t going to let the matter drop even though the landlord’s managing agent had requested a meeting with her to “discuss this situation like two civilized people,” which she declined to do.
Rosetta’s eight-year-old, Ethan, was waving a poster: STOP ALL WARS. BOYCOTT HOMEWORK. How many of these people were actually prepared to participate in a demonstration? Some of them had already been slapped with eviction notices—all illegal—and were fearful of any kind of confrontation.
As though reading her mind Mrs. Konarski asked for the floor. The landlord was threatening to throw her out because of her dog which she’d owned for eight years.
“Mrs. Konarski,” Amalie said, “I would prefer to deal with this another time. We are in the middle of a general meeting here.” The woman was insistent. She began to cry. “There is no way that he can legitimately evict you,” Amalie said soothingly. “The law says he has to file for eviction within 90 days of finding out about the dog and of course he has known for years that you’ve had the dog. Furthermore”—amazing how quiet the room had become “—you can’t be evicted if you’re over 62. So obviously…” Amalie wasn’t going to embarrass Mrs. Konarski who was well over 70 but dressed like a woman half her age.
Mrs. Konarski drew herself up while the bartender cackled. “I am paying full price at the cinemas. I am not senior.”
“Let’s talk about it another time,” Amalie said, “but don’t worry for now.”
She managed to assign some jobs and extracted a pledge from everyone to contribute to the cost of legal help, if needed. The meeting broke up after the violinist’s friend, a former law school student, promised to make sure the permits for the demonstration were in order.
On her way out, Rosetta took Alex aside and said she wanted to caucus with him.
“Is that what they call it nowadays?” he said, practically shoving her out the door. He stayed behind and began to busy himself with straightening out the furniture and clearing the mess Ethan had made, while Amalie flopped on her couch and watched him. “That woman is always trying to lure me into her apartment,” Alex said. “Do you think she uses octopus ink on her hair?”
Amalie ignored his question. “What is this about the FBI talking to you?” she asked, remembering that Ralph had said something about a couple of guys. She was concerned about Alex but also didn’t want the unsavory taint of the FBI to affect what the tenants were trying to do.
Alex laughed. The FBI guys had intimated that Elisha was keeping a dossier on him. “I’m not surprised. My tape of the ‘Star-Spangled Banner’ played backwards is missing. It’s part of a musical experiment but I should have known that they would consider it a desecration.” He had tried to get them to listen to his harmonica piece based on rye bread one day old but clearly they had no musical a
ptitude. Then they wanted to know about those mysterious parcels in his mailbox, the ones that left little red puddles. They’d been tipped off by Elisha. No wonder Ralph was worried about his dad, Amalie thought.
By midnight Amalie gave up expecting Charlie to come home. This would be the second night in a row. She wandered into his room, a true ethnographic habitat worthy of the Museum of Natural History, lacking only the identifying plaques. On the floor for easy access there was clean and dirty clothing, some of it female. It could belong to any number of nubile girls in his entourage. Charlie was always advising females in distress. Like father, like son.
Stewart Price had died a year and a half ago in a car accident while driving home from an academic conference in Vermont. Amalie was almost sure the accident was the result of a moment’s abstraction at the steering wheel. The police said the car was half turned around, as if Stewart had changed his mind about something. Maybe he had just seen a historic marker or an antique store, or a hitchhiker. Or even an eagle. Amalie hated the way he drove. On trips to New England he was always pointing out the Taconic Mountains on one side and the Berkshires on the other, a never-ending source of geologic wonder to him. Stewart was also the only person Amalie ever knew who could drive while reading the Sunday Times. But there was no newspaper found in the car. Just a woman’s chiffon scarf smelling of Nuit de Rêve. Did it belong to a distressed female who had left it in the car? One of his colleagues or graduate students whose thesis needed stroking? And how would Amalie ever know?
After Stewart’s death, Amalie had thrown out all the files and boxes marked “Stewart: Personal.” Self-preservation in time of grief. But also she didn’t want Charlie discovering something best left hidden. Stewart had kept everything: report cards from grade school (“penmanship deficient,” “difficulty focusing”), playbills (performances attended with other women?), restau-rant matchbooks. Now, the grief dulled, curiosity was back. There were notebooks she didn’t even look into. What would she have found? Violations of their marriage? But to look at someone’s personal papers is also a violation.
Best not to dwell on it now.
Under Charlie’s bed, cushioned in cottony dust is a paperback of Civil Disobedience, plus several medicine vials, clearly labeled—truthfully, one hopes—with “Aloe,” “Ginseng,” “Eucalyptus.” And here’s a do-it-yourself acupuncture kit (unopened, thank God) showing a happy Asian male in a white coat and surrounded by flowers. A backpack with all the compartments stuffed as for a quick getaway. One shelf is an oasis of order with little transparent boxes filled with multi-colored geometric shapes, silver and gold stars, sequins and confetti, remnants of Charlie’s childhood. In grade school he made collages and sold them to his relatives. There was a contest: whoever said they liked his work better than Picasso’s got the prize—a big kiss.
He hasn’t thrown out the empty gerbil cage, an ingenious wire mesh construction with an exercise wheel, watch tower, and an elevator run by pulleys and counterweights. Devised by Stewart, it was home to twelve gerbils, predating Charlie’s antipathy for anything in captivity.
The phone rang suddenly. Charlie? No. Heavy breathing. Then, was that a woman’s voice? “Don’t hang up, please.”
Amalie hung up. Obviously a nut. The phone rang again and she picked it up. Nothing but breathing. She hung up again and decided to keep it off the hook until morning. She’d report the call first thing tomorrow.
Now fully awake, Amalie began to think about Stewart’s accident again. And about all the times he worked late. Maybe there had been a woman passenger who left the scene of the accident, though the police couldn’t find any witnesses. No, he wouldn’t have ridden with a lunatic, someone who would make anonymous phone calls to his wife, though it’s true that he was attracted to women with unusual qualities like perfect pitch and total recall about the Yankees. He also liked women with high cheekbones, an overbite, and of course, youth. Women always flocked to Stewart. Amalie knew his type though she herself didn’t conform to it.
There had surely been many women at the Vermont conference. Amalie could have gone but she hated being the appendage, the faculty wife. Still, maybe it was better than staying home, imagining, and being ashamed later of her jealousy. Oh to hell with it. How important was it anyway? She popped a sleeping pill and hoped she wouldn’t have a hangover from it the next morning, her first day of work.
Chapter 3
Aside from Marshall Berger’s office and Hannelore’s, there were no self-contained offices at Warwick & Berger MicroPubs. Everyone worked in a partitioned space where the walls were just high enough for private activities other than conversation. Dividers were decorated according to individual occupants’ tastes. Outside the comptroller’s cubicle there was a poster illustrating exercises for the back and one denouncing abortion, as well as something like a shrunken head that bore an amazing resemblance to Mr. Berger himself.
Amalie was given a desk just outside of Hannelore’s office. It was positioned in such a way that Hannelore would be able to see her every move. “Now that you are here,” Hannelore said, laying out files, cards, and piles of microfiche, “we will be able to systematize everything.”
Amalie wondered how she would ever be able to make sense out of this mess. Her mind was fuzzy from the sleeping pill and anxiety about Charlie. People kept stopping by, curious about the new employee, but Hannelore shooed them away. Finally she left Amalie alone with an assignment: the alphabetization of German names with and without umlauts and American names beginning with Mc and Mac. The company had not yet decided to computerize and so most employees were still on electric or electronic typewriters.
The chief editor stopped by and introduced himself. Ah yes, Ed Fielding, the only other person who knew the Max Beckmanns. “Welcome to the Manhattan Project,” he said, extending a muscular hand. “Did you know that your predecessor was accused of stealing company secrets.”
“What could possibly be secret?” Amalie asked. “I thought all your materials were in the public domain.”
A tap tapping of heels was heard approaching. “Panzer Division,” Fielding growled and disappeared into the editorial area. For a large man he moved very fast.
Hannelore was very displeased, yes, very displeased that Amalie had been consorting with Fielding. “There are some people you must be careful about,” she said. “They are not loyal.” Despite Hannelore’s tyranny over the staff, Amalie noticed that she never went into the editorial area, hovering at the threshold if she had any business there, as though there were an invisible shield barring her entry.
Around noon, Hannelore stopped by Amalie’s desk to remind her that she was entitled to a lunch hour. “Everybody takes lunch except me.” She laughed ruefully. “I have no time. It’s better this way. I don’t get fat.”
Amalie offered to bring her a sandwich and was astounded to see the other woman’s eyes fill with tears. “How considerate.” Hannelore dabbed her eyes. “There are not many kind people left in the world.”
“I’ll never survive this,” Amalie thought at a lunch counter. She felt as if she had been working round the clock even though it had only been half a day so far. Maybe Charlie had tried to phone her and hadn’t been put through. She called her house from a pay phone but got her own voice inviting her to leave a message. And she hadn’t figured out how to check her messages from an outside phone, being somewhat technologically-challenged as Charlie delicately put it.
After lunch she had the misfortune to ride up alone in the wire cage elevator with Marshall Berger whom she hadn’t seen in the office earlier.
“Relax,” he said, shifting a toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other. “You’ll do fine. I can tell about people.”
Amalie smiled weakly. There were raisins stuck in her teeth so she had to be careful.
“Just don’t get too comfortable at the desk,” he said. “Things may change. How do you feel about the country?”
“Do you mean the United States or places wit
h trees and grass?”
He laughed. “Never mind. Forget I said anything. Carry on.”
When she returned to her desk she found Hannelore rifling through her papers. “I see we think alike,” Hannelore said. “I would have done it exactly the same way.” A large chain of keys swung on her chest as though she were the chatelaine of an estate.
Before resuming her tally of defective microfiche, Amalie decided to call the telephone company about the nuisance phone call last night. “The police could care less, dear,” the operator said. Tracing a call was complicated unless you were a business. She outlined some steps, then added that you were better off getting an unlisted number which cost extra because they would have to leave your name out of the phone book.
Amalie laughed. “Sounds like the old joke about asking for a sundae without walnuts and the counterman says, ‘I’m sorry, we’re out of walnuts, you’ll have to take it without peanuts.…’” She looked up to find Hannelore looking reproachfully at her. On the job only half a day and already making personal calls. Well, this wasn’t the last one she would make. She had people to call at the local councilman’s office and then at the Department of Housing. It wasn’t going to be easy to find time.
The somnambulist from the mailroom dropped a stack of publishers’ brochures on Amalie’s desk. “Xerox them,” said a female voice from the cubicle behind Amalie. Irina, an elegant older Polish woman, came around and introduced herself as the head of inventory control. “Always xerox everything. She loves that. The more copies, the better. Some women love fur and diamonds—I myself love lace—but that one loves xeroxed copies. That’s all my assistant does all day.” She gestured toward a young woman who was murmuring into a phone, while collating a pile of papers with frighteningly long mother-of-pearl talons. “We have high turnovers,” Irina said. “The good ones leave right away.”
“So you two have met.” Hannelore had materialized. “I have something to show Amalie.”
Amalie in Orbit Page 3
