The Yellow Sailor

by Steve Weiner

  Rohmer winked.

  “Very.”

  Bernai tap-tapped toward the village. It was hot. Shutters were closed. At pig farm Brendl, Frau Brendl slit a pig’s testes, hooked them to a wire, and blood dripped into tin cans.

  A girl in a dirndl dress sang at a roadside shrine. Bernai stopped to listen. She had flax-blond hair. When she was through Bernai tipped his hat.

  She curtsied.

  “What is your name?”

  “Marta Kellerman.”

  “You’re very pretty, Marta Kellerman.”

  She curtsied.

  “Untertanigster Diener,” she said. “Your most obedient servant …”

  She kept her right hand behind her back.

  “What is wrong with your hand?”

  “I put it in a wringer. I was very young. Now I hide my hand.”

  “Why?”

  “So nobody sees it.”

  “But you are very nice. You will fall in love and marry,” Bernai said.

  “I will have two husbands.”

  Bernai laughed.

  “Why?”

  “One for Saturday. One for Sunday.”

  “You’ll break their hearts.”

  “Why?”

  “Because men break.”

  Bernai put on his hat.

  “Be careful, Marta Kellerman.”

  Bernai went down wood stairs into a rocky ravine. He sat by ferns wet with spray, on a marble bench carved with a woman weeping at a broken column. Enjoy the fawns and satyrs and what else may be in the woods. Look, an old seat, that preserves for you the woods. Live, play in security. Nobody will ever disturb you again.

  Bernai read Grillparzer.

  “It is so pleasant.”

  An Austrian couple came down the planks. They were plump. They wore green hats with long feathers, green socks and sandals. Behind them came their daughter.

  She giggled.

  … schwul …”

  She was about fifteen. Bernai saw only sunlight. She was that beautiful.

  Bernai left the ravine. He tapped into the village. The Old Doctor’s House had yellow roses. Sankt Johann’s cracked steeple was covered in morning glories. Two priests led a breeding ram. One saluted Bernai. Bicycle Club Felsenstein wheeled past. A cowherd drove cattle.

  “Heidi heidi.”

  Bernai crossed the village square. Dust shimmered in a Roman trough. There was a monument to a plague. Bernai followed a creek. swans floated backward.

  The Yellow Hussar was a yellow clapboard tavern with white trim. Bernai opened a picket fence gate. Inside, chromolithographs of châteaux stood over racks of Austrian wines. A Hapsburg muzzleloader hung by a door to a beer garden. Bernai went into the beer garden. Jugs of creams and cheeses stood on a marble table. A woman slapped wet cheeses in a soggy mesh. Austrian soldiers in capes bowled under oaks.

  Bernai sat at his table. He dipped a pipe in a Balkan skull filled with tobacco. He ordered “Berlin beer”: sweetened with raspberry and served in a bowl.

  “Mostschädel,” Bernai called. “Booze skull!”

  A Swiss soldier turned.

  “Sit with me,” Bernai said.

  “No. I’m with Markus.”

  Bernai turned to a blond soldier.

  “Mordbube!” Bernai said. “Death boy!”

  “No, I’m with Joachim.”

  Uhlans hauled a red leather cannon with ornate handles across the creek. Bare-chested Austrian soldiers with dynamite boxes crossed a white bridge. Cavalry splashed over the white rocks.

  A brown-eyed corporal did one-arm pull-ups from an oak. Bernai signaled a waiter.

  “Who’s that?”

  “Corporal Sedez.”

  Bernai raised an eyebrow. Corporal Sedez came. He had brown hair, soft lips.

  “Your name is Sedez?”

  “Yes.”

  “Hungarian?”

  “Polish.”

  “Please sit.”

  Bernai ordered a second Berlin beer.

  “You were in the Balkans?” he said.

  “I was.”

  “What did you do there?”

  “Reprisals.”

  Athletes in leather trousers ran by with axes. Sedez wiped his face.

  “Schwül weather,” he said. “Humid weather.”

  “Schwül weather,” Bernai said. “Homosexual weather.”

  Sedez repressed a smile.

  “Could we get together?” Bernai said.

  “When?”

  “Tonight.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Why not?”

  “I was restricted to the village and barracks,” Sedez said.

  “Why?”

  “I misbehaved.”

  “Did you?”

  “Well, I did.”

  “Your captain is a friend of mine,” Bernai said. “ten P.M. Do you know where Kurhaus Traibaisen is?”

  “The end of the road.”

  Bernai left. A line of Austrians swept the corn with bayonets.

  Bernai lunched at Kurhaus Traibaisen. The dining room was yellow with white trim. The roses were in bloom. Frau and Fraülein Reidinger sat by the French door. Judge Pollander from Krems sat with Herr Klingwohl, a banker from Graz. Herr Prinzl, an alcoholic, ate alone. Prinzl picked his teeth behind a hand. A bird got trapped behind the French doors.

  Bernai opened the Wiener Zeitung.

  At Kalvarienberggasse 12 tram driver Hans Leimlich threw water at the street sentry. Just that way, Leimlich shouted, his wife had thrown soup at him. She had tuberculosis and was killing him by spitting in the soup. Leimlich showed his tongue. It was black, with spots.

  Bernai chuckled.

  “That’s marriage for you.”

  Dr. Dehmel made the rounds, greeting guests. He was Jewish. He had a round face, a trim mustache, and strong forearms. Bernai turned the page.

  Street watchman Karl Winter opened a door to find vehicle driver Franz Hofer on the floor of Flat 12, 132 Wilhelm-gasse. Hofer’s wife leaned against the kitchen sideboard. Her right arm was cut off. Hofer told police he had been in deep sleep when somebody hit him with an ax. Somebody dragged him into the kitchen and turned on the gas. He wore, stumbled back to the bedroom, got an ax, and chopped her arm off.

  Dr. Dehmel came to Bernai’s table.

  “Good afternoon, Herr Bernai,” he said. “Will you join me for bathing after lunch in St. Pölten?”

  “Of course.”

  Dr. Dehmel squeezed Bernai’s shoulder.

  “Good.”

  At three P.M Bernai carried a wicker basket with sandals and bathing trunks to Dr. Dehmel’s study. He knocked.

  “Entree.”

  Dr. Dehmel roused from a nap on a red settee. His study had red curtains by the rose garden. A photograph of a blonde woman was on his desk.

  “You have a new friend?” Bernai said.

  “I do.”

  “She’s Austrian.”

  “So?”

  “You’re Jewish.”

  “So?”

  “Do her parents know?” Bernai said.

  “They’re dead.”

  Dr. Dehmel rubbed his eyes. He yawned.

  “Where did you meet her?” Bernai said.

  “At Eliza. By Cherubini.”

  “In the foyer?”

  “No. We met afterward outside Schönbrunn. We had both stopped for a military crossing.”

  “You got to talking?”

  “In a light rain.”

  Bernai turned the photo away.

  “Let’s go.”

  Dr. Dehmel drove Bernai to St. Pölten. An Austrian federal government train rumbled across the field.

  The Volvo entered St. Pölten. Onion-domed steeples—Franziskankirche—Karmelitinnenkloster—stood over the streets. Men of the electrified tram wore shoulder braids and visored winged-wheel caps. They stepped off a streetcar from Wagram. Workmen dug an underground railroad from Kremsergasse. Unemployed men stood by the Vienna Gate. A kitchen for the poor wa
s crowded.

  Dr. Dehmel parked in the market square. They walked down Linzerstrasse. There was an institute for English ladies; it had green awnings and iron filigree balconies.

  A Romanian couple dragged a crying boy. She saw Bernai and pointed to the boy’s dark, wet crotch.

  “He peepeed!”

  She dragged the boy away.

  “Why did she tell me?” Bernai said.

  “I don’t know.”

  St. Pölten municipal pool was in an ocher building with murals of the wine district. Bernai and Dr. Dehmel went into the changing rooms. A Serbian woman mopped the floor slats. Bernai undressed.

  “You should try the Hellenic side of life, Dr. Dehmel.”

  “I’m happy as I am.”

  “Are you?”

  “Yes.”

  “No, you’re not. Come with me next week to Klub Hermes,” Bernai said. “We have fantastic parties.”

  “Bah. Homosexual propaganda.”

  Dr. Dehmel put on black swimming trunks.

  “You look like a foreigner,” Bernai said.

  “I am.”

  “So am I.”

  They went out. The pools smelled of sulfur. Old men washed their toes at a fountain. Racecourse women passed.

  “See those racecourse women?” Bernai said.

  “Yes.”

  “Take a close look, Dehmel,” Bernai said. “The racecourse ‘women’ are men.”

  They bathed. They lay under an oak tree. Sunlight filtered on them. A boy played a guitar and sang O du östereicher.

  “You’re making a mistake, Dr. Dehmel.”

  Dr. Dehmel nestled.

  “Mude nun steh ich am Ziel, Von der sinkenden Sonne vegoldet, lodet das gastliche dach endlich, zu Ruh und Genuss,” he recited. “Weary, I stand at my goal, made gold in sinking sun, and the inviting roof beckons me to peace and pleasure.”

  “The rest,” Bernai said. “goes like this. Gottliche wunder der Nacht, Wie Stern an Stern sich entzundet, Ach, und die Sehnsucht schwingt sich ins unendliche Fort. God’s wonders of night, how each star ignites another. O, and desire moves with unending power.”

  “Yes, it is intense.”

  “Everything sordid is gilded,” Bernai said. “Including your friend. Including you.”

  “It’s not sordid.”

  “It is.”

  “Well, I don’t agree.”

  “I’m older than you, Herr Doktor Dehmel. I tell you, it is.”

  They went back in. They undressed.

  Protect public life.

  “Would it be an insult to imagine a seduction in which your friend had a part?” Bernai said.

  “It depends.”

  “On what?”

  “The imagination.”

  “An evening at Kahlenberg.” Bernai said. “Red sun on Vienna below. The city under a purple haze. Heat blows in from the steppes. Fields are burning in Hungary.”

  “Go on.”

  “She has changed you.”

  “How?”

  “You’ve been shifted.”

  “Yes. I know.”

  “The wrong way.”

  “Maybe.”

  Prevent cliques.

  “So,” Bernai said. “You take her to a room—”

  “Enough—”

  “—where the concierge wishes you and your ‘wife’ good night.”

  Bernai showed teeth.

  “She is so beautiful,” he said. “You’re Jewish. You’re ugly. Outside the oak trees take on a sinister significance.”

  “Why?”

  An awful truth comes to you.”

  “What truth?”

  “You don’t like women.”

  “Impossible,” Dr. Dehmel said. “After all the euphoria? The dread?”

  “A terrible day is coming.”

  “Is it?”

  “And now what?” Bernai said.

  “What?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Keep men’s groups emotionally healthy.

  Bernai was dressed.

  “Let’s go.”

  Dr. Dehmel drove out of St. Pölten. A field train crossed the St. Pölten plain: two railroad cannon, flat howitzers, a grenade wagon.

  Bernai napped. There was a knock.

  “Entree.”

  A Polish drummer boy in a blue jacket, saber, black shoes, came in.

  “Come.”

  The drummer boy climbed on Bernai’s knee.

  Little drummer boy, you’re the world to me

  Dressed in your blue uniform

  Little drummer boy

  Kiss me in sweet harmony

  Bernai woke. The room was empty.

  “Onanie, sodomie,” he said. “The dumb show of Kurhaus Traibaisen.”

  A key turned in the lock. Whoever it was went away.

  A blackmailer wrote. Bernai telegrammed one thousand German marks.

  It was ten P.M. Lilacs rustled at the latticed window. Bernai dressed in a black robe with pink-and-blue floral designs. Corporal Sedez tossed pebbles from the courtyard.

  “Through the little window,” he whispered. “Through the big window.”

  “Come up.”

  Sedez climbed the lattice and came in through the lilacs. He stood smiling, hands on his hips.

  “Sedez, darken the room …”

  Sedez turned and drew the curtains. He looked to Bernai over his shoulder.

  “I cannot stoop, sir,” Sedez said. “The uniform—”

  “Is tight. I know. Take it off.”

  Sedez took it off. He turned. He laughed.

  “Do you like me?”

  “Du Schlingel,” Bernai said. “You naughty fellow.”

  Corporal Sedez kissed him.

  “No, I must kiss you first,” Bernai said. “It is not permitted that you kiss me first.”

  “Exactly so.”

  Bernai kissed Sedez. Bernai poured red wine. He played the gramophone, German lieder. Sedez toasted Bernai. They drank another glass. Bernai kissed him.

  “Pfiffikus,” Bernai whispered. “Sly boy …”

  “Oh!”

  They fell on the bed. Bernai kissed him. Sedez gasped.

  “Such tendresse—”

  They got on their knees.

  “Woman’s pelt!” Bernai said.

  “Rape stallion!”

  A Yellow Hussar on a Lipizzaner clattered on the roof.

  “Just a little more …,” Bernai said, “a little bit more …”

  The Lipizzaner clattered up, rolled back, clattered up.

  “Almost there … almost there …”

  “Wait!”

  “No. There!”

  Sedez’s brown eyes dilated.

  “Be thou me!” Bernai shrieked.

  “Gott in Himmel!”

  The Yellow Hussar was gone. Sedez’s head sank.

  “I delight as a woman,” he panted.

  “Yes.”

  They lay on the bed.

  “I was geklatscht—smashed in—” Sedez said.

  “And I—”

  “Yes?”

  “Annihilated.”

  Sedez stroked Bernai.

  “Yellow Sailor …” he whispered.

  Bernai woke. It was morning. He got up and opened the curtains. It must have rained. The lilacs were wet.

  “Were you engaged, Sedez?”

  “It was in the air.”

  “It was in Posen.”

  “There were parties every day.” Sedez said. “Schnapps, beer, tobacco—the barracks was a shambles.”

  “I know.”

  “You weren’t there.”

  “I am everywhere,” Bernai said. “I know everything.”

  “Yes.”

  “You wanted to marry her?”

  “Is it necessary?” Sedez said. “This interrogation?”

  “Yes.”

  “Ach.”

  “‘Ach’? Sedez, you are so articulate. It’s a simple question. You wanted to marry the girl? Or not?”

 
; “My superiors did not approve.”

  “Why not?”

  “She was not intellectually suitable.”

  Bernai lighted a cheroot.

  “Dance.”

  Sedez danced. They were soon in tabagre: a stupor of pipe tobacco.

  Sedez jumped up and down on the bed, waving the blanket.

  “I am your darling!” he shouted.

  Bernai jumped up on the bed.

  “No! I am your darling!”

  Bernai and Sedez jumped up and down. They threw the blanket over one another.

  They had a schnapps. It was time to go. Sedez dressed. Sedez bowed. Sedez left. Bernai telephoned his art dealer in Vienna and bought The Battle of Wagram.

  CLUMSY LOVE

  NICHOLAS SEDUCED a red-haired Polish waitress, Bogusia Frycz, in Bad Duden in her room on the second floor of a restaurant on the Mulde. The Mulde went north, east of Leipzig, and joined the Elbe at Dessau.

  “Don’t take off my clothes,” Bogusia said.

  Nicholas took off her clothes.

  “Don’t—”

  Her eyes focused.

  “You’re hurting …”

  She has to come, too.

  “Ow …”

  Because she’s not a prostitute.

  “Ow! …”

  But she won’t come.

  Nicholas was not able to satisfy her.

  “Kohanie…,” Bogusia said.

  She touched his cheek.

  “It means … darling,” she said.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You’re confused,” Bogusia said.

  “I am.”

  “With strong convictions,” Bogusia said, “there is no confusion.”

  He looked out the window. Troops reorganized. They carried rifles on tripods, twelve rifles hooked together for automatic firing.

  Bogusia put on a green skirt with a wide black belt and an embroidered blouse. She had green eyes, too. They looked inward, as though she had secret plans.

  “Are you hungry?” she said.

  “Jo.”

  “Frau Rosengarten will give us pastry. She won’t like you, but she won’t say anything.”

  They went downstairs. Frau Rosengarten unlocked a sideboard of sugared biscuits, chocolates, fruit, and almonds.

  “Have a sweet,” she said.

  “No. Thank you,” Nicholas said.

  “Have a sweet.”

  “No. Thank you.”

  “Have a sweet.”