Amalie in Orbit

by Gloria DeVidas Kirchheimer

  “I know how you feel about Ed,” Hannelore calls from the other room. “You think he is indispensable but since we don’t agree, I will not even mention him.”

  “Good.” Amalie is like the sister he never had, the mother he wishes he had. A pal. A good-looking pal. He imagines throwing a ball around with her.

  Hannelore returns with two glasses of Pinot Grigio. “You noticed of course that something funny is going on with those two.”

  “What two? Look at that—cops hitting a girl over the head.”

  “Amalie and Ed. They speak a lot together.”

  Marshall turns off the TV. “Stop making up dumb stories.”

  Hannelore smirks. “You told me to be observant, remember? Years ago. So I follow your instructions. There’s something not—” she searches “—kosher.”

  “What do you mean, ‘kosher’?” She does irk him sometimes. “Don’t use words you don’t understand.”

  “It’s none of my business of course what the employees are doing outside. Die lustige Witwe.”

  The Merry Widow. That’s the extent of Hannelore’s musical culture, Marshall thinks, putting off contemplating what she’s just intimated. “I’m not interested in figments of your imagination. Go on with the list. What do you base that on, anyway?”

  “They had lunch together once. Also she spends too much time in his office. And they sat together on the bus coming home from Vermont.”

  “People have to sit somewhere. Who’s next on the list.”

  “Frank McCullough.”

  “Let’s not count on him,” Marshall says curtly.

  Earlier in the day Hannelore had taken the telephone call from the Wisconsin Historical Society about the microfilms of their Civil War letters. Apparently the material shot by Frank was completely out of focus.

  “Amalie is next,” she says. “Theoretically what she does could be done by a couple of part-time people at a much cheaper rate and we would not have to pay benefits.”

  “We’ll do everything to keep her. Go on.”

  Just as Hannelore suspected. Marshall has his eye on Amalie. Shame on her. The husband hardly cold and Ed Fielding a married man. Maybe something happened in Vermont. No, it couldn’t have. She and Amalie had shared a room and it was only two nights. But maybe at some point during the day…? How long did it take to have sex, especially with Marshall, who was, from her experience, master of the quickie?

  May the better man win, Marshall thinks, seeing Amalie in a new light. And it better be me. “You’re my eyes and ears, sweetie,” he tells Hannelore. “Remember that.”

  Sweetie? That’s a new one. Hannelore hopes it doesn’t preclude sex.

  “We’ll do the rest of the list on Monday. Offer anyone who agrees to move a ten percent raise. Across the board.” Amalie, don’t waste yourself on that loser, Ed. I was the one who got him dried out and put him to work.

  Marshall is fired up, thinking about those almond-shaped eyes, the straight line of those dense brows, the crazy possibility that she laid that body down on the line at the demonstration today. He’s elated. He takes Hannelore’s face between his hands, closes his eyes, and imagines he is with Amalie.

  “I would do anything for you,” Hannelore says, blinking back tears.

  #

  “Was that you?” Marshall asked Amalie on Monday morning.

  “Where? When?” This was going to be a rough day for Amalie. There was a stack of work on her desk topped by a note written in letters as large as an exit sign: READ, SUMMARIZE, FILE, URGENT. H.

  “City Hall. Friday. I saw it on NBC.”

  “Oh, I was watching CNN,” she said evasively. He probably knew she had called in sick. “Look, I can explain.” She hated having being forced to lie. Why should working at a job prevent you from exercising the few principles you had?

  “We’ll talk about it later,” he said, going into his office.

  Now she was in trouble. And here was Frank McCullough bearing down on her like a mad bull, that everlasting porkpie hat pushed to the back of his head. She pretended to be busy but he planted himself in front of her.

  “Think you’re so smart, don’t you.” He screwed up his eyes and leaned into her cubicle so that his face was inches from hers.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Frank.” Amalie didn’t need this today.

  “Is it your business to go telling tales about me? Who told you to go snooping around the equipment room?”

  This man was poison but she had never reported his mistakes, knowing they would be discovered eventually, like the outdated film and the cracked camera he used last week on the U.S. Naval Academy job, which resulted in ten rolls of microfilm with foggy images.

  “The equipment room happens to double as a store room for supplies,” Amalie said. “And I don’t check for technical quality. That’s supposed to be your job.” She looked around to see who might be listening but there was no one.

  “Look, babe, I’ve been in this business for years. I’m the expert here. You just stick to your fancy diddling on paper.”

  “Maybe you should try reading an instruction manual once in a while. And don’t call me babe.” Amalie raised her fist.

  “Hey, hey, I like a feisty babe.” He leaned in further, chin out, inviting her to strike him.

  “Get away from me before I tell them that the FDR material came out backward.”

  “Who told you to open those boxes? That’s my job.”

  “I wanted to check the captions. I wrote them, remember?”

  Hannelore was coming towards them. Frank started to whistle and took off.

  “Ah, you saw my note,” Hannelore said to Amalie. “This should have been done a year ago.”

  “I wasn’t working here a year ago,” Amalie said. And may not be next week. That bastard Frank had shaken her up.

  “I never stay home when I am sick,” Hannelore said. “I hope you are recovered.” That’s hopeful, Amalie thought. It meant that Marshall hadn’t let on to Hannelore that he knew where she was on Friday. “You are behind on the catalog changes. It holds everyone up.”

  “You really think everyone is waiting for me to change Zurich to Munich and 2nd rev. ed. to 3rd rev. ed.?” The wonderful world of minutiae.

  Hannelore leaned down confidentially. “I have been meaning to tell you, Amalie. Lately you are distracted. You cannot let your personal life interfere with your work. Mr. Berger was furious with the mistakes you made in the Book of the Dead brochure.”

  “Which mistakes?” Amalie dared her to say but Hannelore merely shook her head. In the magnitude of mistakes any error Amalie might have made was as nothing. Frank McCullough was costing the company thousands of dollars, buying defective equipment and messing up the filming. Just because he played blues on the harmonica was no reason to be soft on him.

  “I expected great things from you.” Hannelore’s mouth was wobbling. She turned her back and stamped back into her office.

  The whole staff knew she was in a foul mood.

  “It ain’t the full moon, so what is it?”

  “She isn’t getting any, that’s what it is.”

  “It freaks her out to have to move to Vermont. It’s more than ten miles from Saks.”

  “I hear there are hyenas in Vermont. They come into the shopping malls. Sometimes they come right up to your car in the drive-ins. I rather stay here.”

  “You don’t have drive-ins in Manalapan?”

  “Shut up, you fruit. I’m not kidding about the hyenas. My brother-in-law was at a drive-in and he sees this thing through the windshield? He thought it was part of the movie. I swear to God.”

  “Don’t swear. The Pope’s in town.”

  All day Amalie waited for Marshall to call her into his office for a dressing down. She would not, absolutely would not complain to him about Frank’s behavior.

  Reprimanding Amalie, however, was the furthest thing from Marshall’s mind. He really wanted to crown her with roses. Guts is what she
had. Whereas he—? Marshall was disgusted with himself. He no longer even signed petitions. Amalie reminded him of what he used to be. How could he approach a woman like that? For the first time he was at a loss about how to talk to an attractive woman. He could summon her to his office to do the managerial thing and chew her out over the phony sick day. But that would be hypocritical. Maybe they could talk about the medieval medicine treatise—but that would be poaching on Ed’s territory. Hannelore must be wrong about her suspicions about those two. Ed was too passive. He’d never make a move.

  Why not call Amalie in to discuss the relocation? No, that wouldn’t be fair. He didn’t want to put pressure on her. I’m her boss, damn it. But that was no consolation.

  Here is the perfect solution, Hannelore was thinking, brooding over her mail. When Ed to the National Library Convention goes (she was thinking in German) we send Amalie with. Remove two sources of irritation. You needed at least two people at the booth. She herself was barred from this convention by Ed and Marshall, in the same way that the editorial office was off limits. She and Ed had carved up the conventions between them, just like the great nations of Europe. Keeping the balance of power.

  “I saw you on TV,” Ed said to Amalie as he encountered her at the xerox machine. No mistaking that admiring tone. By now she was embarrassed. She hadn’t been in danger, had not been hurt. It was, in fact thrilling. I can do this, she thought. It feels good. I understand the logistics, the forces, the politics. I could hold my own now in any argument with Stewart.

  “It was just a cameo appearance,” she said to Ed. “Let’s not make too much out of it.” If I were sincere, she thought, I’d work among the poor. Then she remembered the man on the subway with the loud boombox and how angry she’d been at the disturbance. And for a moment she was ashamed. Poor guy, no job probably. Wait a minute—let’s not get maudlin and romantic about the poor like Stewart used to do.

  “I understand we’re going to the NLC,” Ed said. “The National Library Convention in Yuma City.”

  “Who’s we?”

  “You and me. One person minds the booth while the other one hustles.”

  Amalie smiled. Just the two of them. Anticipation wafted through her like a Caribbean breeze. The last time she’d been to a professional conference was as a newly-minted M.A., to sniff out job possibilities. Networking they called it. She’d do the same thing again, only this time she had some experience under her belt.

  Chapter 12

  “Let me shake the hand of a celebrity.” Ralph Dobrin wiped his fingers on his apron. “I saw you on the news.”

  Amalie was on her way home from work when Ralph rapped on his store window and motioned her in. The place was empty except for the helper who was sweeping up. “Hey Hoolio,” Ralph called to his assistant. “Mrs. Price here was on the news on Friday. Maybe you want her autograph. Assuming—” he whispered when the boy declined “—he knows how to read. He’s a great kid. We understand each other. All it takes is a little effort and goodwill for people to get along. I’ll give you an example. I’m not keeping you, am I?”

  “My son’s waiting for me.” Not for the first time Amalie wondered if Ralph was given to making anonymous phone calls.

  “I won’t keep you long. Hold on a second.” He quickly changed a couple of prices in the display case with a black marker. “Cost of living increase,” he explained. “So, like I was saying. Last winter my car got stuck on the thruway in a four-foot-high snowdrift. A car comes along and stops. Would you believe a purple Lincoln? A real pimpmobile. But smart. Chains on the tires. These two black guys get out and ask me why I’m standing there in the middle of the highway. Can’t move, I say, but with a little help…You should have seen that Lincoln.”

  “Ralph, I really have to go.” That stack of marrow bones was beginning to look sinister.

  “I’ll make it short. I see these two big guys and I say, ‘Fellows, we can do it. With my brains and your brawn we’ll show everyone how we can work together.’ In a nutshell they put their shoulders to the car and shove. Those guys are made of steel. My car starts to edge out of the drift. ‘Great, you got it’ (I encourage them to give them a little spirit). And that was it.”

  “Too bad it got stolen.” Amalie edged toward the shop door.

  “I got myself a better car. Japanese. Keep it in the garage. Honey, do me a favor and take these chops to the old man.”

  In front of Amalie’s building Elisha the superintendent greeted her with a bare-fanged smile. “Your son he’s come and gone. He said he forgot his key.”

  “Why didn’t you let him in?” Amalie was furious. “Don’t you have emergency keys to all the apartments? It’s the law.”

  Elisha waved his screw driver, an ominous addition to his already unsavory person. “No more laws for this house. House belongs to someone else, someone else got the keys. Soon everybody get a dispossess and I get me a new job with a uniform.” And closed-circuit TV so you can spy on everyone, Amalie thought.

  #

  Today is the day, Alex thinks. What matters is to make a decision, right or wrong. Yesterday a piece of debris had struck him on the head. Perhaps it was a piece of the Russian Kosmos vehicle that had disintegrated up in space. Like the Revolution it had gone off course. Remnants were supposed to have fallen to earth and this one had fallen through the clouds in the vicinity of the Central Park Zoo and glanced off his head. It hadn’t hurt. At first he thought it was a piece off the cornice of the lion house. But he knew it was no ordinary piece of debris because it had struck at the source of his perception. The first proof was an immediate revelation that gorillas were beautiful. Then he felt a benevolence emanating from every creature in the zoo.

  And this morning when he stepped outside for his morning constitutional he had the distinct impression that many of the people who passed him on the street were in love. Alex knew without asking them. Furthermore he realized that most people were in love, requited or not. Imagine the ramifications for history. Along with greed and the need for natural resources and access to the sea, governments could be motivated by love. He was not naive enough to think that love was uppermost in everyone’s mind—obviously not, given the state of the world. The only person who would truly understand the concept was a thinker of the stature of Amalie’s father, Herb Marcus, the eminent sociologist, his old buddy.

  Was Amalie also in love? Who was the lucky man? Alas, he himself was out of the running. Still…Oh God who does not exist, send Amalie up for a short visit.

  The efficacy of prayer was immediately demonstrated as Alex’s doorbell rang.

  “I knew it was you.” He took the bag from Amalie and brought it to the kitchen. “Stay a bit, my dear Scheherazade. Remember when I was ill and you rang the bell every day to see how I was?”

  Amalie was embarrassed. “It’s nothing special.” He seemed to have poured on a gallon of sandalwood aftershave. Though it was supposed to drive a woman mad, it was merely clogging her sinuses.

  Alex took her hand. “Yesterday I was struck on the head and saw the light. Love is all around us.” He paused meaningfully.

  Oh oh, it’s either Jesus or me, she thought.

  “Is it shameful, a man my age?” He was still holding her hand.

  “Of course not, Alex.” He would make a perfect godfather, though Amalie hoped the necessity would not present itself.

  “Oh how your life has changed,” he reminded her, gently guiding her to the couch. “Now you’re in the public eye, playing a heroic part…Surely you’re ready to branch out?”

  The sandalwood was getting to her. Alex was one of her favorite people. Not for the first time she wondered what sex would be like with a man his age. She could pretend it was Stewart. No, that was morbid. Try imagining it’s Ed Fielding.

  “You see, then I can die happy.” Alex spoke as though she’d been following his train of thought.

  “It’s not a matter of dying, Alex.”

  “I have every intention of dying,” h
e said stubbornly.

  “Stop this crazy talk. Honestly, Alex, I just want to shake you sometimes. Look at this piano, full of dust. When was the last time you sat down and played?”

  Alex looked away. “I’ve been getting my affairs in order.” He took a handkerchief out of his pocket and gave an ineffective swipe at the keyboard. “Do me a favor,” he said. “Tell your father, my old friend, to come and visit. That will shake some sense in my head. A man with his intelligence.”

  Amalie doubted that her father’s presence could have such a beneficial effect on anyone. “I’ll pass on the message,” she promised. Right now she had no idea where he was and didn’t really care.

  #

  Hannelore had insisted that Amalie and Ed take separate flights to the National Library conference. No sense taking a chance on losing two employees simultaneously. Since Ed’s plane had been delayed Amalie set up the booth on the convention floor, spotted some likely sales prospects, and chatted with the dashing bibliographer from the Library of Congress who reminded her that they had a date to look at his incunabula. It might be worthwhile, she decided, if he could steer her to some library executives with big budgets. Berger MicroPubs had just completed filming a collection of programs and prompt books from the Elizabethan era as well as some American labor ephemera. Perfect for that Ohio university library.

  Hold it. What was happening to her? She was turning into a company person just when she was contemplating leaving. Was she going to lose her soul? What would Stewart have said. Well, Stewart, I’m having fun doing this, believe it or not. And you also were a company man though your employer was the English department at Columbia U. Good thing Charlie wasn’t around now to jeer at her identification with “the oppressors.”

  Like the pyramids of Egypt the convention center cum hotel was set in the middle of a desert. “Ozymandias,” Amalie thought when she first set eyes on the buildings from the air. Bereft of ornamentation, two slabs rose sixty storeys high, reflecting only each other. Shelley’s lines came into Amalie’s head. “…Round the decay / Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare / The lone and level sands stretch far away.” Visible from afar, as church steeples used to be, the towers provided only illusory relief from the flatness of the landscape.