Amalie in Orbit

by Gloria DeVidas Kirchheimer

  When Romulo realizes what he has done, he is horrified and calls for sackcloth and ashes. The message is received on the royal barge. When the serving woman withdraws, the queen sings a lullaby to her asp. The nurse, who has been listening behind the arras, reveals herself. The boy is frozen in his bodkin. His sister, who is really his aunt, now tells him the story of his birth. He vows to find the old gypsy or die in the attempt.

  Loretta is praying in the cathedral, hoping to find solace from her debauched life. Outside, the boy is proclaimed king amid shouts from the populace. Carlo vows revenge as the curtain falls.

  Amalie likes being at the opera by herself. Listening to music and looking at art should be done alone. She didn’t always appreciate Stewart’s analysis of a given piece or a painting or a play. He resented the fact that she never wanted to engage in a discussion after going to an event. But opera made her want to make love as soon as they got home. All those delicious arias about repression.

  During intermission she scans the audience. The usual collection of stockbrokers, courageous older women, male partners, tourists in shorts and fanny packs. Don’t they have a sense of decorum? This is the Metropolitan Opera. They probably think that if they’re dressed in their most slovenly outfits no one will mug them on the street. That looks like Ed Fielding in the first tier. Amalie lifts her opera glasses and stares. No doubt about it. His daughter did say he was in town. Who’s that tall job next to him? Amalie recognizes the type, the kind with no hair on their arms, long legs that look good in jodhpurs, and a complexion that’s had all the advantages. She looks familiar. Perhaps Amalie has seen her around the neighborhood. One of the graduate students and/or trophy wives. Ed could have called me, Amalie thinks.

  The woman stands and winds a scarf around her neck. Amalie gasps. It’s the same scarf as the one that was found in Stewart’s car. She’s sure of it. Same bold floral pattern. The woman says something to Ed and then heads out to the corridor, probably to the ladies room.

  Amalie leaves her seat and quickly rushes down the stairs to the first tier area. The line for the ladies room is horrendously long, as usual, and there is the familiar discussion about taking over the men’s room. The woman is considerably ahead of her. But that’s the scarf all right. The bell signaling the end of the intermission is sounding. The woman turns around nervously, sees Amalie and smiles. Then ducks into a stall. When she comes out, Amalie is washing her hands. “Hi,” the woman says. “Don’t I know you from Columbia?”

  “Not me. Maybe my husband.” She’s about to name Stewart but stops herself. Suppose the woman shows a sign of recognition. Does Amalie really want to know? But she can’t help saying, “I know that scarf.”

  “Isn’t it lovely? I had one like it but I lost it so I hunted all over until I found a replacement. The original was a gift.”

  Amalie follows the woman out and they part at the staircase. Amalie has to go up a flight. She’d like to say that the original scarf is in her possession. Even through the plastic bag where it is sealed in, it still retains the odor of Nuit de Rêve. But this woman’s scent was different.

  She said it was a gift. Could it have been given to her by Stewart? If he was playing around, how did he avoid being seen? Wherever you go in New York you run into people you know. Unless they went to her place…

  Enough fantasy. Let’s not make an opera out of it, Amalie thinks as she sinks into her seat. The people have triumphed. Loretta is consumed with jealousy, unaware that Romulo has blinded himself out of grief. The damned peasants, those happy folk, are still dancing. The dead mezzo-soprano raises her head from the floor to acknowledge the applause.

  So many women are out alone at night, cheerfully boarding the bus, programs in hand, keys in the pocket, ready to open a door swiftly or gouge a purse snatcher in the eye if necessary. Before Stewart died, Amalie was reluctant to come home alone at night so she usually stayed home if Stewart wasn’t able to accompany her. She’d missed so many events and was determined to make up for lost opportunities. Amalie keeps her money in a belt, right over her stretch marks. By the time she gets off the bus there is only a handful of passengers left, crowded toward the front near the driver, avoiding the malo-dorous hermaphrodite spread over three seats in the back who is being watched by the driver through his rearview mirror.

  When she gets home, Amalie digs out the plastic bag containing the chiffon scarf and throws it into the trash.

  Chapter 16

  Hannelore has a little house in Bristow with geraniums, a fireplace, and a Doberman who is not happy. He howls every night in response to the calls of the untamed dogs that belong to the poor people living in the woods, not far from Berger MicroPubs’ headquarters. They seem to be encroaching on company property.

  “Those gypsies should not be allowed to live like that,” Hannelore tells Marshall who is lolling on her braided rug with his strategic plan.

  “What do you want me to do with them? Ship them off to a camp?”

  She rubs a fist in her eye. “Why do you do this to me? If you hate me so much, why don’t you fire me?”

  “The company needs you.” He makes a note. “Did you know that Herb is doing a study on the impact of parking lot design on interpersonal violence in the family?” If Marshall can’t have the daughter, at least he’s made a friend of the father. “Do me a favor and get that animal of yours to shut up.”

  Hannelore leads the Doberman outside. “Poor Hund,” she croons as the dog licks her face. “You are lonesome just like me. Nobody to talk to.” At least in New York there was Amalie Price. But Hannelore is glad that Amalie decided not to move up here. This way, Marshall is all hers, more or less. Hannelore decides to apologize to him for being such poor company.

  “Yeah?” he doesn’t look up. His shirt is unbuttoned to the waist. She would like to kneel down and bury her face in his chest.

  “I’m sorry if I am edgy, Marshall. It must be the full moon.”

  “Have you considered a silver bullet?” He laughs to himself. She’ll never catch on to American humor.

  “I am going for a walk.”

  “Take a flashlight.”

  “There is nothing to see.”

  Alone, Marshall contemplates phoning Amalie whom he has scarcely seen since they moved even though he’s in New York often enough. When she first told him that she wasn’t going to Vermont, that she was job hunting, he was desolate. And when she landed the job with the Mayor’s Task Force, he congratulated her unreservedly. She generously claimed that the study guide she’d worked on for Marshall on land sales in dynastic Egypt had impressed the people at the mayor’s office.

  Not true, of course. But it showed the kind of woman she was. Marshall thinks again, with sorrow, that he never took that hike in the woods with her. Whenever he phones she’s cordial but guarded. “Come off it, Amalie,” he said to her once. “You have to admit there was some electricity between us. Why don’t I come over next time I’m in town. I can give you a firsthand report on your dad. I think he’s sweet on Hannelore.”

  “Marshall, what do you do in the case of an industrial tenant who’s leasing the premises—like you did downtown—but who’s filing for bankruptcy. You must know about these things.”

  He pictures Amalie in her office overlooking City Hall Park, wheeling and dealing with developers and officials. A woman with executive potential, as he knew from the start. As far as he knows, she hasn’t been at any tenant demonstrations lately. Maybe she regards them as a conflict of interest now, given her new position. He hopes she hasn’t switched her allegiances. Someone has to set the example.

  Marshall does believe that in her own way Amalie is doing good work. According to a recent article in the Times featuring the Mayor’s Task force, Amalie’s old building has been rescued from the wreckers even though almost everyone has moved out. Amalie Price, executive assistant to the deputy mayor who supervised housing matters, had instigated an investigation that revealed irregularities in the landlord’s records
. Ms. Price had discovered that the landlord failed to have the building inspected for asbestos and therefore did not obtain the necessary certification prior to the sale of the property. Consequently, the prospective buyer has called off the deal. Pending a future sale to another owner, the building is being restored to its former splendor which, said the reporter, in this case meant hot water and an elevator that worked.

  Now, Marshall’s hand hovers over the receiver. He doesn’t want to wake her. On the other hand, she may be out with some guy. Sure, why not. Marshall misses the city with its demented night sounds. This damn bucolic quiet makes him nervous. The only sounds you hear are distant church bells chiming every hour and the barking of those wild dogs. They’re going at it full voice tonight. Must be the full moon as Hannelore said. She didn’t take the flashlight. Crazy beasts with all that yapping. Something has set them off. They seem to be in a frenzy.

  A scratching at the door. It’s Hannelore’s Doberman. “What’s wrong, Hunding?” The poor animal is bleeding over his eye. He can hardly stand. Didn’t she take him with her? “Where is she, boy?” The dog is whining, salivating, bleeding. “What’s happened? Which way? Show me.” The dog refuses to move. He cowers, shivering, a look of terror in his eyes.

  #

  “Don’t be surprised at my new domestic arrangement,” Herb Marcus said when Amalie arrived at his house in Bristow, which wasn’t easy to find. She’d taken a number of wrong turns and had been pointed “up the road a piece,” each time she stopped to ask for directions. The house turned out to be a miniature Swiss chalet with an ornate balcony and a hot tub in a glass-enclosed room. It showed signs of recent use, with towels thrown over a wooden bench along with a pair of rubber thongs.

  “What’s different? Last I heard, you had someone coming in twice a week to sweep and warm up your prepackaged dinners.” Herb Marcus looked splendid. Maybe that waitress was working overtime. Amalie was genuinely happy to see him, surprised at her own emotion. Yes, she had come primarily to see him. And if she ran into Ed or Marshall at the local general store, that would be fine. She’d ask Ed how he liked the opera.

  “I had better prepare you,” Herb said. “Do you remember Hannelore Links?”

  “Could I forget her?”

  Hannelore had had a terrible experience a couple of weeks earlier and barely escaped with her life. She had wandered into the woods and was attacked by those savage dogs. In her fright she ran and stumbled into Herbert’s yard. After they sewed her up at the Rutland hospital, she refused to return to her own house. She could not be alone. “I was only too happy, too happy. She is an amazing girl.”

  A red pickup truck drove up. “Ah there you are, Liebchen,” Herb threw open the door as Hannelore ran up the steps. Amalie scarcely recognized her in her flannel shirt and work boots. There were bare-looking spots in her crown of white hair with just a little fuzz growing. “So now I am the ugly duckling,” Hannelore said cheerily. “I gave my city clothes to Najeed—you remember Najeed, no? She goes back to her country soon—there is a change in the government and she will be safe.”

  As Hannelore prattled on, Amalie could hardly believe that she had moved into Herbert’s house. At the very beginning, just after the accident with the dogs, Herb confided when Hannelore was out of the room, he had given up his bed for her. But now, from the fond looks that passed between them at dinner, it was clear that he was back in it.

  Amalie knew that Alex Dobrin had visited Herbert in Vermont with a view to possibly sharing a house with him. He must have been desperate, she thought. When she phoned Alex to ask if he was actually going to do it, he snorted. “Your father has these high-falutin ideas and besides I’m not a twenty-five-year-old female blond. I don’t want to be disrespectful, he’s your father after all, but he is something of a woman chaser.” The next time Amalie called she was given the number of Fernmeadow Estates in Long Island. “They have me accompanying the folk dancing,” Alex said when she reached him. “The food’s not bad. They’ve taken away my belt because I told them I would rather kill myself than be among the living dead. I hear you sweet-talked the landlord into saving the building. You should move back in.”

  “You should move back in,” she said.

  Alex laughed. “It wouldn’t be the same.”

  “You’re right, of course.” Then Amalie told him that the gargoyles on the building had been removed to avoid the risk of having bits of sculpture fall on passersby.

  “How could you let them desecrate the place like that,” he said. “Your husband loved those figures.” As though she personally were responsible for the changes. No point telling him that the landlord refused to put money into repairing the sculptures. Alex seemed to be under the impression that she was in cahoots with the landlords, just because she hadn’t turned down the chance to live in a clean, bright, functioning apartment. “I know those Title Eights or Sixes or whatever they want to tell you to confuse you. What a racket. It makes me want to write an oratorio.” Good, Amalie thought. His sources of inspiration were still fresh.

  “We speak in German together,” Hannelore was saying. Your father is so—wie sagt man, bescheiden?” She turned to Herbert.

  “She says I am modest.” He blushed. “But of course you know I am not.” He cast a lingering look at Hannelore when she excused herself to clean up. When father and daughter were alone he said, “I hope you are not shocked by this arrangement.”

  “My blessings, Dad.” He looked so cheerful, so happy. And he wasn’t criticizing her for anything. Not yet, anyway.

  “Too bad it didn’t work out with Alex,” Amalie said.

  He waved his hand. “The man has some bizarre notions, especially about music. When he came up to visit he showed me his score for a sonatina that was based on a photograph of the Secretary of State. Now, I ask you…No, he was fine as an infantryman but now he’s simply a cranky old man.” And you are not, I suppose, Amalie thought. “Marshall wants to see you,” her father said. There is always a place for you at the company.”

  “I have a job, remember?” Herb still had a long way to go, keeping track of important family matters. But she no longer felt resentful. Let him be self-absorbed. He’d had a tough life.

  “We have expanded tremendously,” he said.

  We? What a Svengali that Marshall was, luring her eminent father to this little town. She wondered if his original vision of a social experiment was being implemented. Brook Farm, New Harmony, Oneida, he had said like a man possessed. Or was it just a medium-sized business providing employment to some local people?

  “Your friend Mr. Fielding is supposed to drop by to pick up some notes from me tonight.”

  Amalie looked at her watch. She was staying at a motel nearby. How come Ed couldn’t wait until Monday morning to pick up notes from her father? Were these people always working? That wasn’t healthy. “Don’t overdo it, Dad. I don’t want to have to worry about you.”

  “Oh I never felt better. Hannelore watches over me. She scolds me when I do too much. She scolds Marshall too when she thinks he takes advantage. Not just of me, but of anyone in the company. They love her. She is angelic.”

  “Excuse me?” Hannelore angelic? Amalie shook her head.

  Back at the motel room she found two messages on the room’s answering machine. One was from Ed whose voice was slurred. Was he drinking again? He hoped they could get together soon. Yeah, maybe. She wasn’t interested in being on the rebound of a messy divorce. The other message was from Marshall. “Give a guy a break for old time’s sake. I’ll wait to hear from you.”

  When Amalie awoke in the middle of the night the other side of the double bed was implacably empty. Of course it was. It always was empty even when there was a man in it who was not Stewart. She sat up, shivering. Amalie thought that grief was supposed to recede, the edge softened. But it kept hitting her at the wrong time in the wrong place. Early forsythia, a tugboat on the river, a headline on the sports page. Stewart was always there. Charlie’s voice on
the telephone, so like his father’s. Stewart had been her only love. Nothing would ever come close, no matter how populated the other side of the bed. She just had to focus on work, lay off the scotch, get on with it. Other people do.

  #

  “So, Marshall, how’s your great American experiment?” It’s mid-morning on Sunday and they’re sitting in a restaurant at the local mall where the waiters move around on roller skates. There are new lines in his face and his beard is shot with grey.

  “Yeah, well, we have profit-sharing and some decisions by consensus.” He doesn’t sound very enthusiastic. Maybe he’s given up on his dream of creating a new model of enlightened commerce. “If you stay another day, I’ll take you on a tour of the place. You’ll recognize some of your old co-workers. Oh, but I forgot you have to get back. Still fighting for tenant rights, aren’t you.”

  “Different venue now. I’m off the street.” She looks up at the atrium, the sun pouring light onto the struggling bamboo plants in the middle of the mall. A picture of herself at work floats through her mind. Meetings, projects, decisions affecting hundreds, maybe thousands of people. The major irritant is her boss but she isn’t about to complain to Marshall who might take the opportunity to suggest that she come back to work for him. Occasionally, she had thought of doing just that when the departmental politics got her down.

  “I saw that piece in the Times about your investigation of those realtors,” Marshall says. “Nice work. Maybe they’ll move you up to deputy mayor.”

  “Not a chance.” But it’s not so far-fetched.

  “I’ll never forget how you looked on that news report when you were demonstrating at City Hall, what was it—two years ago? You were way up there for me.”

  Amalie bursts out laughing. “Funny you should say that. In case you don’t know it, Marshall, life on a pedestal has its limitations. You could be toppled at any time.”