by John Irving
'Tell me what it means to you,' Edith said to Severin.
'She's a woman by whom you would not mind being beheaded. She wouldn't mind doing it, either.'
'"Doing it"? You mean the beheading?'
'Both.'
They laughed. Edith felt astonishingly wicked. 'She had him make love to her before she beheaded him,' Edith said. 'You can tell by her smile.' But there was something lewd about the painting which suggested more, or worse, and she felt like shocking Severin Winter. 'Or maybe she tried to after she beheaded him,' she said. Severin just stared at the painting, and she asked him, 'Which do you think she preferred?'
But it was Severin who shocked her when he said 'During.'
He took her next to the Museum of the Twentieth Century. They did not discuss Kurt Winter's paintings there, either.
'Is Frau Reiner going to America with you?' Edith asked.
'What are old friends for?' said Severin. 'Old friends don't travel with you. Old friends stay when you leave.'
'So you're traveling alone?'
'Well, I might have to take sixty or seventy Kurt Winters along.'
'My mother's position isn't very official,' Edith said. (She had never realized how sneakers make a man appear to bounce.) 'Does Frau Reiner live with you?' she asked.
They were looking at Gerstl's 'The Schoenberg Family', c. 1908. 'A minor painter who made it,' Severin said. 'Of course he had to die first. Not one of his paintings was exhibited during his lifetime. My father, of course, didn't get the chance to develop very much after 1938 ...'
'Will you hold on to your mother's apartment, perhaps for vacations?' Edith asked.
'Vacations?' echoed Severin. 'If you're living the way you want to, the concept of holidays becomes obsolete. Once mother and I took a trip to Greece. We were packing up when Zivan or Vaso asked her if she was going to do any modeling there. "Of course," Mother said. "If someone wants to paint, I want to pose." We were just going to Greece, you see, but my mother liked what she did; she wasn't taking a vacation from anything.'
'And what do you like?' Edith asked.
'Languages,' he said. 'I wish everyone spoke two or three languages and used them - all together. There are only so many ways to say things in one language. If we could only talk even more, make more description, add more confusion - but it wouldn't be confusion, finally; it would just be wonderfully complicated. I love complexity,' he said. 'Take food, for example. I'd like to be a great cook. I want to learn how to cook things better and better - subtle things, overpowering things, delicate and rich things, all things! I love to eat.'
'Would you like to run your own restaurant?'
'What?' he said. 'God, no. I want to cook for myself, and, of course, close friends.'
'But how do you want to make a living?' Edith asked.
'The easiest way possible. I can teach German. I'd rather teach cooking, but there's not much money in it. And I'd love to coach wrestling, but I don't have a doctorate in wrestling. Anyway,' he said, 'how I live matters more than what I do. I have ambitions for the quality of how I live; I have no ambitions for making money. Ideally I'd marry a rich woman and cook for her! I'd exercise every day - for the benefit of us both, of course - and I'd have time to read enough to be a constant source of information, ideas and language. Ah, Sprache! I'd be free to devote myself to the basics. I would prefer to have my income provided, and in turn I would provide quality talk, quality food and quality sex! Oh, forgive me ...'
'Go on,' Edith said. She wanted to be a writer, and what she did mattered more to her than how she lived, she thought. She never wanted to cook anything, but she loved to eat. This man was saying to her that his ambition was to be a wife! 'Please go on,' she told him.
'I'm afraid you've seen all of my father that's here,' Severin said. 'The rest is all privately owned. We could have lunch first.'
'I love to eat,' Edith said.
'We could have lunch at my place,' Severin said. 'I just happen to have cooked up a Gulaschsuppe, and I'm trying a new vinaigrette for asparagus.'
'And there's more Kurt Winter to see at your place,' Edith said helpfully.
'But some of those are not for sale,' Severin said.
'I thought everything was for sale.'
'Just the art,' said Severin. 'All the art is for sale.'
The pornographic drawings and paintings of Katrina Marek were not art, of course; they were his mother and his history; they were his basics - which perhaps Edith understood about him from the first. The ones of Katrina Marek were in the bedroom; art was in the living room.
'Look around,' Severin said as he heated the Gulaschsuppe. She found the real thing in his bedroom, of course: a circus of positions and erotic poses surrounded his neatly made bed. She might have been troubled if she hadn't known the model was his mother. But when she thought about it, she wondered if this shouldn't be more troubling. I think that Edith must have seen Katrina Marek as competition. She sat down on the bed. At its foot was a set of barbells which appeared as immovable as her memory of Frau Reiner's use of her tongue.
When he came into the bedroom to tell her the Gulaschsuppe was hot, he'd finally taken off his letter-jacket, and Edith knew, with alarm, that if he touched her, she would let him. He opened a window on the far side of the bed. Very enhancing, Edith thought. And now he'll--
'Perfect,' he said; from the window box outside he picked up a wooden salad bowl containing the asparagus. 'Keeps it cool,' he explained; 'I never have enough room in the refrigerator.' He dangled a limp asparagus spear in front of her; it glistened with vinegar and oil. 'Taste?' he asked. She opened her mouth and shut her eyes; he cupped her chin, tipped back her head and fed her the asparagus spear. It was delicious. When she opened her eyes, he was banging around back in the kitchen, calling, 'Wine or beer?'
Edith did not want to get up. In some of the poses Katrina Marek appeared to be masturbating; Edith realized she had never touched herself in some of the ways suggested by Severin's mother.
'Wine or beer?' Severin called again. She lay back on the bed, and when she heard him coming, she shut her eyes.
'Are you all right?' he asked.
'I've lied to you,' she told him. She waited for his weight on the bed beside her, but he remained standing. She kept her eyes shut. 'I have no official authority to buy any of your father's paintings, and even my mother is just about the most unofficial person at the Museum of Modern Art. I really don't know a single thing about the museum, except that no one there actually likes your father's painting. And these,' she said, her eyes still closed, waving her arm at the bedroom walls, 'my God, these are appalling.'
She felt him sit down beside her on the bed, but she kept her eyes closed. 'These aren't for sale,' he said quietly.
'They should never leave your bedroom,' she said.
'They never will leave my bedroom,' Severin said.
Edith opened her eyes. 'Aren't you angry with me?' she asked him. 'I'm sorry about the Modern.'
'I never believed it anyway,' he said, which made her a little angry. He just sat there, in profile to her, very properly not looking down at a woman lying on her back. 'But there's you and your mother,' he said. 'You said you might buy some.'
Edith sat up. She was convinced he would never touch her, even if she undressed. 'What would you do if you got a lot of money, anyway?' she asked.
'I don't want a lot,' he said. 'I just want enough to be able to take the paintings I can't sell with me.' He looked around and smiled; she loved his smile. 'That's a lot,' he said. 'And I want enough money to look around for a job in America without having to take a bad one. And,' he grinned, 'I'd like enough to be able to go to Greece before I do any of that. I'd like to leave right now,' he said, and he lay back on the bed and shut his eyes. 'I want to stay in clean little hotels; I want to be on the ocean. It's warm there now, but it's not the tourist season. Nothing lavish, but deny nothing! Eat well, drink well, take some good books along, read in the sun, swim. And when the tour
ists started coming, I'd come back here, pack up and go to America ...'
'Say goodbye to Frau Reiner?' Edith asked.
'And to Vaso and Zivan,' Severin said. 'Tell them I'll be back soon, which will mean,' he said, opening his eyes, 'that I'll be back before they die. But I probably won't.' He shut his eyes again. 'Greece is the first thing,' he said. 'That's where I want to go.'
'And how many paintings does someone have to buy so that you can go to Greece?' Edith asked. He opened his eyes. Edith liked his eyes when they were open, but she liked being able to stare at his mouth when his eyes were closed. 'Close your eyes and answer me,' said Edith. 'How many paintings?' He appeared to be thinking, and she slipped off the edge of the bed, went into the kitchen and turned off the flame under the Gulaschsuppe. She brought the wine and two glasses back to the bedroom with her. His eyes were still closed, and she slipped off her shoes; she poured them both some wine and edged on the bed beside him. She wanted to smoke, but he seemed too white in the teeth and too broad in the chest to possibly approve. He was so narrow in the hips, so small in the thighs.
'Maybe five of the big canvases,' he said. 'But of the five I'm thinking of, you haven't seen two.'
'I'll take your word for it,' she said, 'but I want my pick, for my mother and me.' He opened his eyes and she handed him some wine; he sipped; she took the glass from him and motioned him to lie back and shut his eyes again. He did as he was told. 'Two conditions,' she said when he was lying very still; he opened one eye but she brushed it shut with her hand. She almost kept her hand over his eyes but she thought better of it and rested her hand on the bed close to his face. She knew he could smell the perfume at her wrist; she could feel his slow breathing against her fingers. 'First condition,' she said, and paused, 'is that one of the five paintings be one of these - you don't need to look, you know what I mean. I promise it will never be a public painting; I will never sell it or loan it to any museum. Frankly, I want it for my bedroom.'
'Which one?' he asked.
Edith looked at the one she wanted. 'She's on her back, with one leg lying flat and the other bent at the knee. She's touching herself, very lightly, I think, but her face is turned toward us and she's touching the fingertips of her other hand to her lips - as if she's kissing her fingers goodbye to us or maybe just hushing herself so she won't cry out.'
'She's tasting herself,' said Severin. Suddenly Edith saw the painting. 'She's got one orange stocking on?' he asked. 'The stocking's half off her right foot? Her eyes are closed? You mean that one?'
'Yes,' said Edith, almost whispering. 'That's my favorite one.'
'Well, you can't have it,' he told her. 'It's my favorite, too.' He didn't open his eyes to negotiate. Edith was surprised, but she charged ahead as if her feelings were unshaken. I am completely lost, she thought; I don't know myself.
'Second condition,' she said, 'is that you must answer one question, either yes or no. Either one satisfies the condition. You mustn't feel obliged - just be honest: say yes or no.'
'Yes,' Severin said. When she looked at him, his eyes were open. She tried to put her hand over them, but he caught it and held it lightly against his chest. 'Yes,' he said again.
'But I haven't asked the question,' she said, looking away from him. He would not close his eyes or let go of her hand.
'Yes, anyway,' he said. He already knows the question, she thought, and felt humiliated. She pulled her hand away and decided to ask him nothing more. He was cruel; he didn't know when to stop teasing.
But he said, 'Now I have one condition.' She looked at him. 'You have to come to Greece with me.' That had been her question: Did he want her to come with him?
She shrugged. 'Why would I want to do that?' she said. 'I don't have the time, anyway.' She got up from the bed, found her purse and lit a cigarette. 'Is the Gulaschsuppe hot?' she asked.
'If you didn't turn the heat off,' he said, and rolled away and lay on the bed face-down.
Edith went to the kitchen, turned the heat on under the Gulaschsuppe and banged a few pots around, but Severin didn't appear. She looked at a photograph of his mother with Frau Reiner and the two Yugoslav wrestlers. They were clowning for the photographer, who, Edith dimly thought, might have been Severin. The three survivors were all much younger. She could tell that Frau Reiner had at least once had a body, for everyone in the photograph was naked. They stood in front of an elegantly prepared dinner spread out on a table in several courses; they all had knives and forks in their hands. Vaso or Zivan wore a napkin on his head, and between Frau Reiner's ample breasts, a full glass of wine tilted dangerously. Looking older and more dignified than the rest, Severin's mother stood smiling shyly at the camera, her hands folded demurely over her crotch. She was nothing like that Katrina Marek in the bedroom; though naked, she looked fully clothed.
'Did you take this photograph?' Edith called into the bedroom. And he was supposed to say, 'What photograph?' and she would say, 'This one,' and he would have to get up off that dangerous bed and come out. But he didn't answer. 'Soup's hot!' she called. When she heard nothing, she went back; he hadn't moved since she'd left the room.
'You don't have to buy any of the paintings if you don't really want to,' he said, talking into the mattress. 'And if you really want that one' - his hand waved at the wall - 'you can have it.'
'I want to come with you to Greece,' Edith admitted. He still didn't move.
'I want you,' he said. Edith decided, All right, he's said enough. She dropped her skirt at her feet and stepped out of it, then pulled her blouse off over her head so that her hair crackled. She wore a bra in those days, and she unhooked it and looped it over the back of a chair. Then she tossed her panties at Severin, who still lay across the bed like a felled steer. ('The panties fluttered over one of his ears and rested there like a downed parachute,' she wrote in one of her more forced pieces.) She was preparing to look at him directly when he sat up and stared at her; he came up off the bed very suddenly, awkwardly handing the panties back to her and dashing from the room. She thought that her shame would kill her, but he called, 'Jesus Christ, the Gulaschsuppe - don't you smell it?' Boiled over and burnt, she supposed. 'My God, what have I gotten myself into?' she whispered to herself. When she got under the covers, she recognized her perfume - that is, Frau Reiner's perfume - already on his pillows. He didn't even look at me, she thought.
But he didn't leave her alone long; he returned shedding clothes. She had not known enough men to know that athletes, like women, are used to changing clothes and therefore are smooth and careless undressers. He stood naked beside the bed and let her look at him; she had thought that only women did that, and she pulled back the covers for him so that he would look at her. He looked her over a little too quickly for her feelings, but he touched her just perfectly and was under the covers with her very gracefully. Well, she thought, nakedness is almost a family tradition with him; maybe he will look longer later. Before he kissed her and didn't stop, she barely had time to say, 'I think I'm going to like you.' She was right, of course.
They left for Greece five days later; they'd have gone earlier, but it took that long for Edith to make and send slides of Kurt Winter's best work to her mother. 'Mother,' she wrote, 'I hope the Modern will buy one or two of these. You and I have already bought numbers one through four, and a fifth not enclosed. I am going to Greece; I must get back to my writing.'
The morning they were to leave, Frau Reiner and the Yugoslav wrestlers gave them a ritual goodbye. Edith and Severin were in bed, which was where they could have been found regularly in those five days, when Edith heard Frau Reiner and the Chetniks whispering and tromping about in the living room just as she and Severin were waking up. 'Frau Reiner still has an apartment key,' Severin told Edith, who scowled. 'Mother gave it to her,' Severin whispered. 'And anyway, over the years Vaso and Zivan probably have collected about four keys apiece.' What were they up to out there, Edith asked. Severin listened. The sounds they were making were apparently familiar t
o him; he rolled his eyes. 'It's a kind of family joke,' he told her.
'What is?' she whispered.
'You'll see,' he said; he looked worried. 'It's really almost a tradition. You must take it as a sign of great respect.' Outside the bedroom door she heard thumping and giggles. 'It goes way back,' he said nervously; he put his arm around her and smiled toward the bedroom door. It opened, and into the room blew Frau Reiner, as flushed and beefy and naked as a Rubens. Vaso and Zivan were carrying her, with some difficulty, and they were naked, too. At the foot of the bed they quickly assembled in a group pose which Edith recognized as the one from the old photograph. Only Severin's mother was missing; a space for her separated Vaso from Zivan. They all held knives and forks in their hands, and Vaso or Zivan had a napkin on his head. But Frau Reiner was missing the wine glass; her breasts could no longer have clamped it tight in her cleavage. It must have been sad for Severin to see so much sagging flesh. 'Gute Reise!' Frau Reiner croaked, and the old wrestlers burst into tears.
'They wish us a good trip,' Severin told Edith. Later she learned that the photograph had also been taken at a goodbye party for Severin, when he was leaving for Iowa and a future perhaps bright in wrestling.
Then they were all standing around the bed, weeping and patting and kissing everyone. Edith realized that the covers were peeled back and that she was as naked as they. The old wrestlers seemed hardly to notice her - a professional numbness, perhaps - but she saw that Frau Reiner's close survey of her young body reflected both the sincerity of her affection and the agony of her envy. Suddenly Frau Reiner hugged her with a frightening passion; for a grip on her real life, Edith held on to Severin's thigh while he was being buffeted and cuffed by the bawling old Olympians.
Crushed against Frau Reiner's bosom, a playground of history, Edith remembered her mother's letter, which said, 'He has no surviving family.' Frau Reiner pinned her to the bed; her tears - her sweat? - wet Edith's face; she was at least two weight classes superior to Severin. Edith tightened her grip on Severin's thigh, which, for all the confusion around the bed, might have been Vaso's or Zivan's, and hoped Frau Reiner would not suffocate her. He has no family? Her mother was quite wrong. Edith knew that Severin Winter's sense of family was more ferocious than most. We should all have been warned.