by Lore Segal
“You don’t know Herbert Meadmore? I think …” Ilka flushed. The number Herbert had told her to call was the number underneath the number she had dialed. If this was the number Jules had given her she might be talking to the man whose brother-in-law played golf with the best friend of Winterneet’s lawyer. Ilka said, “Do you know Jules McCartin?” but the man must have removed the receiver from his ear. Ilka heard him calling to someone out in a hallway or a foyer, or it might be a kitchen, “Do we know a Herbert? Charlie, please take the bag from your mother, she has her hands full, as you can plainly see. Joanne, do we know any Herbert? There’s a woman on the phone.” The man’s voice came back full strength and said, “What did you say his name was?”
Ilka said, “Jules McCartin. It doesn’t matter …”
“Hold on.” The man shouted “HERBERT MCCARTIN!” and the woman’s tiny voice, distant and distinct, said, “Into the refrigerator, Charlie, please. You are quite as capable as anybody else in this family of opening a refrigerator door. Get the bag out of the trunk, please, Charlie, close the refrigerator door. Wasn’t it Herbert Something, on the Hellenic cruise that we went with to—what’s the restaurant called—on Samos or was that Skiathos? Ask her if he went on a Hellenic cruise.”
The man shouted, “Why the hell don’t you come and talk with her?” and the tiny voice shouted, “Because I’m the hell putting the goddamn ice cream in the goddamn freezer.”
Ilka said, “It doesn’t matter …” but the man in her ear said, “Did Herbert go on a Hellenic cruise—Joanne,” he yelled, “was that four years ago?”
Ilka said, “Herbert has never been to Greece. I don’t know about Jules McCartin.”
Now the woman had taken the receiver. “Do you know Mary Anne Popper? She was on our cruise.”
“No I don’t,” said Ilka. “What a lot of people there are that one doesn’t know!”
“That’s a fact,” said the woman.
Institute people were expected to make a portion of time available to the university. Would Ilka like to teach English 206, Conversational English, Thursdays 6-7 in Philosophy Hall, Room 777?
Ilka said, “Good evening,” put down her books, and made the mistake of catching the eye of the plump, freckled woman, front row, center seat, who was never after to let Ilka go. Ilka was aware of the pull of the orange-brown gaze as she addressed, lamely enough, the eight adult students: “We’ll go around and introduce ourselves. Tell the class your name, please, and where you come from. I will begin. My name is Ilka. I was born in Vienna.”
“I am coming also from Vienna but after I have lived always in Montevideo!” said the woman in the front row.
Ilka said, “‘I come from Vienna. After that I always lived in …’”
The freckled woman asked, “Which Bezirk you are coming from?”
“‘Which district,’” enunciated Ilka, “‘do you come from?’”
“From Twenty-one,” said the freckled woman.
Ilka said, “Please, tell the class your name.”
“Gerti Gruner,” said the woman.
Gathering her books at the end of class, Ilka avoided the hot and unremitting gaze from behind the students who had come to stand around the teacher’s desk, but Gerti Gruner walked out the door and walked down the corridor to the elevators beside Ilka. She placed herself in front of Ilka and said, “When you have your hours in your office?”
“Oh,” said Ilka, “I don’t rate an office. I don’t have hours.” She leaned back to increase the distance between Gerti Gruner’s eyes looking at too close a range into Ilka’s eyes. Ilka closed and reopened her eyes and Gerti Gruner was looking into them. Ilka took a step backward and Gerti took a step forward to reestablish the original range and said, “You come to my house, isn’t it? I cook Viennese.”
Ilka said, “Well, thank you! Maybe some time when the semester has settled in.”
Gerti Gruner came down the elevator and walked out of the building beside Ilka. Ilka stopped and said, “Well, good-bye.”
“Which way you are going?” Gerti Gruner asked Ilka.
“Which way are you going?” Ilka asked Gerti Gruner.
“I am going that,” said Gerti Gruner.
“Well,” said Ilka. “I go this.”
“I can go this also,” said Gerti Gruner. She walked with a tight, short-stepping walk. Ilka felt her bobbing along. They passed the Bernstines’ house, and the Bernstines were sitting on their covered porch with Alpha and Dr. Alfred Stone. They saw Ilka and waved. Ilka and Gerti passed the Ayes’ house, and they were sitting on their lawn with the Zees.
On Friday Ilka called the number Leina had given her, which had not answered the first time, and they didn’t answer. Ilka lay on top of the Rasmussens’ slick green cover. After a while she dialed the number Jacquelyn had given her and was shocked when a woman’s voice said, “Yes?”
Ilka said, “Could I speak to Norma?”
“This is Norma.”
“Oh. Hi! Jacquelyn Rosen told me to give you a call.”
“Oh? Yes? How is Jacquelyn?”
“Jacquelyn is fine. She told me to call you and say hello. I’m new in Concordance. And Jacquelyn told me to give you a call.”
“Well, isn’t that nice of you!” said Norma. “Give Jacquelyn my love when you see her.”
“Jacquelyn is in New York,” said Ilka. “I’m a new assistant at the institute.”
“Well, if you write to Jacquelyn,” said Norma, “give her my love.”
“I sure will.”
Saturday Ilka called Leina’s number, which had not answered the first or the second time, and they did not answer. So much for them.
Sunday Maria Zee called. Winterneet should be back from the Coast Tuesday and they might be having people over. Would Ilka look on her calendar and see if she would be free Tuesday?
Ilka’s calendar showed that she was free Tuesday. She was free Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday, but on Thursday Ilka waited by the elevators to go up to her class. All the elevators were going down to the basement cafeteria.
“That’s Murphy!” said a black woman whose grand woolen skirt Ilka had been admiring. The woman wore a witty jacket with a lot of zippers. She met Ilka’s smile with a lift of the left corner of her mouth.
Ilka said, “You know German?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“German has a phrase: Die Tücke des Objekts. ‘The spite of the inanimate object.’”
The woman laid her head back with a marvelous laugh. Both elevator doors opened and Ilka followed the interesting black woman into the left one and said, “My name is Ilka Weisz. I teach English for Foreigners but I’m really with the institute.”
The woman said, “Sylvia Brandon. Sociology.” Both women raised both corners of their lips.
Ilka looked up Sylvia Brandon in the directory and wrote her—Ilka thought it was a charming note—telling her that she was new in Concordance and asking her to have a cup of coffee in the cafeteria next Thursday.
Maria Zee called Friday. Winterneet had not returned from the Coast, but they were definitely wanting to have Ilka over and would give her a call.
There was no answering note from Sylvia Brandon. Ilka was surprised.
Ilka dialed Leina’s number. Try just once more. A man said, “Marty Friedman.”
Ilka said, “Leina told me to give you a call. I’m new in Concordance.”
The man said, “We must have you over. Let me put Sally on.”
Sally Friedman said, “It’s just my brother is coming in from Toronto Wednesday. It’s not that I don’t love the little boys, they’re darling, eight, six and two, but I just started a new job …”
“I know what that’s like!” said Ilka. “I’m new at the institute.”
“I’ll give you a call,” said Sally Friedman. “What did you say your name was?”
Thursday Gerti Gruner backed Ilka into the corner of the elevator and asked her when she was coming to Viennese supper in h
er house.
Ilka said, “You know how it is, starting a new job.” Gerti Gruner bobbed along the street beside Ilka. The Bernstines’ porch was dark. Ilka and Gerti passed the Ayes’ house and they were sitting on their lawn with the Stones and the Bernstines. They did not see Ilka. Gerti Gruner said, “You like Schlagobers, yes?”
Joe Bernstine called Ilka to invite her to a reception for the Shakespeares on Sunday. He hoped Ilka was free.
Sylvia Brandon did not, and appeared not to be going to, answer Ilka’s note. Ilka puzzled and puzzled about it: A stupid cup of coffee! Why would this woman even bother to not have it? Had Ilka’s note been offensively charming?
The next Thursday Gerti Gruner looked Ilka in the eyes and asked her if she knew the Türkenschanz Park. Ilka backed a step away from her and said, “I don’t remember much about Vienna. I left when I was seven.” Gerti stepped a step closer and said, “In the Türkenschanz have I been every Sunday afternoon with my Opapa and Omama.” They walked along the street. Gerti said, “Every Sunday there have always come to the Türkenschanz all the whole Vienna aunts, uncles, and my cousin Hedi and my cousins Albert and Roserl.”
Ilka said, “I remember the Kaffeehaus corner Josephstädterstrasse. Every table had a glass with rolled wafers that looked like pencils.”
“Hohlhippen!” said Gerti Gruner.
“Before we left, the waiter counted how many were left and my father paid for the ones I’d eaten.”
Gerti said, “Every time when they have brought a cup of coffee, they have brought also a glass water and afterwards counted the glasses. All the aunts and uncles always knew that we were all the whole Sunday afternoon at the Türkenschanz and they have come with the cousins and have sat and have drunk coffee. In the evening have we ordered always Schnitzerl.”
Ilka said, “Sacher Torte and my father read the newspapers on bamboo sticks they kept on a rack on a marble column. Here’s where you came in”—Ilka drew the geography of the Café Josephstadt corner of Josephstädterstrasse in the Eighth District in Vienna, on the air of Concordance, Connecticut. “Here was the window. Here was the door where the waiters went in and out, here was the marble column with the rack of newspapers, and here is where we always sat.”
Gerti said, “You come to my house. I make Wiener Schnitzerl. I make Sacher Torte with Schlagobers.”
Sunday Joe Bernstine walked Ilka and Martin Moses, a tall young man whom Ilka had seen around the institute, out onto the covered porch to meet Leslie Shakespeare. The new director had a fine head, and eyes so blue Ilka could look through them to the sky behind his back. Having nothing particular to say to the two young people before him, the new director said nothing, looked at each of them with interest, and shook their hands. They passed back into the living room to allow other people to come out and be introduced.
Ilka and Martin Moses stood where they could watch the new director out on the porch, talking to a circle of people, surrounded by the circle of people waiting to talk to him. Martin Moses said, “I should have said something to him. I couldn’t think of anything to say!”
Ilka said, “You know those Egyptian sculptures that have one figure a different order of magnitude from all the other figures? They’re perfectly realistic! Leslie Shakespeare is larger than anyone at this party, and I bet he was only another skinny schoolboy. Joe Bernstine is quite a small person but he outweighs …”
“Me,” said six-foot Martin Moses.
“The senior wives take up more room,” Ilka said. Ilka and Martin Moses watched Mrs. Shakespeare talking with a group of junior people who from time to time laughed. Ilka had had nobody to listen to her theories since New York and she said, “I bet you Socrates is always the largest person at a party, but so are Rockefeller, Helen of Troy, and the King of England. Which one is Winterneet?”
“Wouldn’t know him if he bit me,” said Martin Moses.
“As soon as we know which one he is, he’ll be the largest person at this party. Which is Winterneet?” Ilka asked Joe Bernstine, who was passing.
Joe said, “He couldn’t make it. Very bad cold. I was on the phone with him this morning. He was upset. He’s fond of Leslie.”
“How did they meet?” asked Ilka, but Joe had moved on to rescue a guest who was standing by herself: Sylvia Brandon in her grand skirt. She wore a beautiful silver sweater. Ilka wanted it.
Martin Moses was saying, “Never been to a party yet where Winterneet has actually showed up. If you’re free Friday come to a shindig I’m throwing for a lot of graduate student types. Winterneet is guaranteed not to show. Winterneet is not invited. I’m going out and say something to Leslie Shakespeare.” Martin Moses walked out onto the porch, and Ilka went over to Sylvia Brandon and said, “I’m Ilka Weisz.”
Sylvia Brandon said, “I’m Sylvia Brandon.”
Ilka said, “We met at the elevators when they were all going to the basement.”
Sylvia Brandon said, “I’ll get our statisticians to do a study of the laws of improbability.”
Now Jenny Bernstine cried, “Someone be brave! It would be a public service to start the salmon. Sylvia! Ilka! Somebody!”
People were moving in from the porch. Ilka saw the new director momentarily alone, slipped out, and said, “I have a theory,” and told him about the Egyptian sculpture. It seemed to take a very long time.
The new director said, “I understand that we’ve got you teaching in the adult program at the university.”
“English for Foreigners. I’m a foreigner,” said Ilka in despair: once embarked on this routine of self-conscious inanities there’s no way back to good sense and propriety. If Ilka had met herself at this moment, at this party, she would have written herself off as an ass and walked away. The new director with the beautiful head and the English voice did not walk away and seemed not to be looking for some better opportunity over Ilka’s shoulder. He regarded her attentively, without pretending to any peculiar interest. Ilka understood that she was talking to a patient man who might choose to distinguish between an ass and a person showing off at a party. Ilka said, “Talking to you makes people nervous. I wonder if my students feel like that talking to me?”
Leslie Shakespeare’s eyes widened ever so slightly; he could be seen to be thinking. He said, “Probably so.” Ilka was relieved and sorry when Joe Bernstine came to fetch his guest of honor. “Leslie, we need you to circulate. We need you to come in and eat.”
The new director said, “Well then, that’s what I’ll do.” He looked behind him, saw nobody, and putting his hand not on but just in back of Ilka’s back, moved her through the door ahead of him: he was not going to leave anybody alone on the empty porch.
“It is possible,” Ilka said to Martin Moses at the buffet table, “that our new director is a nice man.”
The day after the reception Alpha Stone called to invite Ilka for drinks. Sally Friedman called. Her brother and the little boys had gone back to Toronto. Was Ilka free for dinner? Alicia Aye invited Ilka for cocktails, and Thursday Gerti looked Ilka in the eyes and asked her if her blouse was from Vienna? Ilka said, “I was seven when I left Vienna.” Gerti Gruner said, “This pattern is reminding of the blouse of my Tante dead in Belsen,” so then Ilka asked Gerti if she would like to have a cup of coffee in the cafeteria. But where had Gerti Gruner gone?
Ilka saw Gerti’s back diminishing down the perspective of the corridor in pursuit of a man who stopped and turned out to be Professor Zee. Professor Zee’s right leg and right shoulder remained set in the direction in which he had been, and would have liked to continue, going. He was leaning a little backward from what Gerti was saying to him at too close a range. Whatever she was saying had a certain length and several parts. Ilka watched Gerti’s head and plump shoulders working with that slight agitation which accompanies the act of speaking. The elevator came, opened, and closed. Professor Zee’s mouth opened. What he said was brief. Gerti’s shoulders went back into action and when they ceased, Professor Zee walked on. Gerti Gruner tu
rned, increasing in size up the corridor toward Ilka. “I ask Professor Zee when he has his hour in his office.”
The cafeteria was a depressed area. There was a coffee automat and a sandwich automat. Ilka revolved the display of sad buns with their evil fillings and said, “Hope must certainly spring eternal. Every time I come down I’m looking for something wonderful to have materialized.” But where had Gerti gone? Ilka saw her backing Professor Sylvia Brandon into the opposite wall. Gerti Gruner’s shoulders went into converse with Professor Brandon, who was looking directly at Ilka. Ilka could tell that Sylvia Brandon did not recognize her.
“Winterneet is not invited. Pizza is in the kitchen,” Martin Moses said as he welcomed each guest at the door. The rooms were small. There were too many people in the kitchen. Ilka’s triangle of pizza behaved like Dali’s watch and kept folding away from her mouth. Ilka carried her glass of wine into the other room. Martin Moses was sitting on a mattress on the floor with an attractive lot of younger people leaning their backs against the wall. He budged everybody over to make room for Ilka. He had a gallon bottle of white wine on his lap and topped off Ilka’s glass. The young people were high and tended to hilarity. The mattress was covered with a lightweight cotton throw that had an Indian pattern and tended to bunch. Ilka kept wanting to smooth it back over the exposed black-and-white ticking. The mattress was inching away from the wall. Everybody got up to push it back, and that’s when Ilka saw Gerti Gruner standing in the doorway. Gerti was staring at Ilka. Ilka asked Martin Moses to change places with her and sat down with her back to Gerti.
Martin Moses asked, “Why is Gerti Gruner staring daggers at you?”
“Because she keeps inviting me to supper and I’m never available and here I am in your house, at your party. That’s horrible, isn’t it—talking about her right behind her back?”
“Behind your back, actually,” said Martin Moses.
Ilka said, “I have a theory that Gerti Gruner used to be a plump, pretty Viennese girl with one of those delicious chins, so she thinks when she wants something she is going to get it, and what she wants is me.”