Max

by Peter Berczeller

  Up to then, I’d only been acquainted with what you could call the “utilitarian” type. My mother, my teachers in school, the ladies who attended temple. Dressed for the weather, sensible shoes, hairstyles right out of Good Housekeeping. Here, I was like a farm boy who meets up with a racehorse for the first time. Who never imagined the ones who pull the plows back home have city cousins like this. She could have been a shoo-in for the Penile Paradox roster. Not all that different from the others who’ve met the requirements over the years. Overwhelming stimulus smothering any possible response. But then, at that stage of my non-development, the Penile Paradox hadn’t emerged yet. All I could do was store my first memory of her until later that day.

  I was the only teenager in the place, and we ran out of conversation almost immediately, the adults and me. That was when I made a beeline for Aunt Florence and Uncle Emil’s stuffed-to-thelimit bookshelves. That afternoon made up for all the times I had to make do with my parents’ friends’ Reader’s Digest collections, or memoirs about the Zionist movement in the 1920s. Tropic of Cancer was a book that caught my eye right away, because of its familiar title. I was surprised at how thick it was, considering there were only a couple of paragraphs about the subject in our geography textbook. I began leafing through it, in case there was more to the subject than they were teaching us in school. I turned the pages, but there was nothing to do with geography that I could find.

  I’ll never understand that title. Otherwise, no complaints. More fun than maps, and a lot less dry. The one who’s telling the story, Henry Miller, goes on and on about his friend Maxie’s sister. Not so much about her, but about her quim. I’d never heard the word before; not since either. A lot of the expressions were completely foreign to me. Words like “orgasm,” and “erection.” Also, if I remember right, “back-scuttle” and “twat.”

  At this point, I hid the book under my shirt and slunk off to the bathroom. You try to look casual, while you’re making for the john with a big bulge sticking out of your belly. Like POW’s masquerading as locals in those WWII escape movies.

  I wasn’t totally ignorant in these matters, just completely. I had carefully examined a few drawings that came across my desk in school. Sent around the classroom via a kind of bush telegraph. Mostly, two figures with a thin rectangle hooking up their middles, like a bridge. Other times, the rectangle went from the middle of one into what looked like the head of the other. Contrary to the old adage, one word in Miller’s geography lesson was worth a thousand pictures. I’ll never forget that afternoon. Meeting Aunt Florence, for starters. Also finding out from Henry – by now we were on a first-name basis, considering he was so ready to come clean with a new reader like me – about the various possibilities hopefully awaiting me. In imitation of Henry, who did it to – and had it done to him by – Rita, the proprietress of the quim, in the vestibule of her house in Brooklyn.

  I’d stayed in touch with Aunt Florence off and on. So now, when I wrote to her that I was coming to Vienna, she invited me to stay at their house. By now she must have been in her early fifties, and was only what you’d call “handsome.” Face still long, a nonspecific hairdo this time around (Lauren Bacall, where have you gone?) dressed mostly in woolen skirts, sweaters, and hiking shoes. Like an Austrian Hausfrau who’s ready to climb a mountain any minute. Not much left of the glamorpuss look that made me so nuts a long time before.

  What I’d been planning to do was rent a car and take trips down to where the St Marton Five were patiently waiting to be subjects in my experiment. I calculated it would take from a few days to a couple of weeks for the laser beam to do its job. At least, that’s how long it took with my rats. When (I wasn’t about to think if) my potential victims killed themselves, that was sure to hit the papers. Especially if they did it at random, one after another.

  I told Aunt Florence I was going to take some day drives outside Vienna. Check out the country my parents came from. She looked all excited when I mentioned what I had in mind, volunteered to drive me around, why did I have to rent a car? Wouldn’t I like some company? That’s all I needed, I thought to myself; a kibitzer for my revenge scenario.

  She almost pleaded to come along. That long-ago Sunday afternoon, if she’d just offered to show me the way to the bathroom, I would have kissed every pearl of her necklace, especially after it disappeared down the trapdoor. Followed by a nocturnal emission in the daytime.

  “No, thanks,” I said. “I usually do my best traveling on my own. It might be hit-or-miss, but I prefer it to a guided tour.” All that bullshit. “But in the mornings, could we do some German lessons?” I said I’d heard translating newspapers works best. Didn’t tell her what I really had in mind; that continuing the same lessons over the phone, when I was back in New York, would keep me up to date about the latest undoings of the St Marton Five.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  ST MARTON

  June 1984

  The day after my arrival, I made straight for St Marton. By now, I was itching to see the place I’d only dreamt about. Whenever I’d tried to imagine it, the lighting was obscure; a sad town, darker than the surrounding countryside. It was like my mind was wearing sunglasses. Would the remnants of the dynamited temple be sticking out of the ground like a sore that refuses to heal, no matter how long it’s been festering? And what about the Judengasse? Was there anything left of the old ghetto?

  Coming from the east, the Vienna side, you roll down a steep hill with a church, and a long, low building that looks like a monastery, on the left. According to my mother, the Judengasse was the street you came to once you reached the bottom. No ruins to be seen there. What I saw instead was a pedestrian mall, with stores on either side. It could easily have been Paramus, on Route 4, only they were playing their own brand of elevator music. Lots of oom-pa-pa and marching songs.

  I’d brought a photo with me that had hung on our living room wall as far back as I could remember. A picture of the Judengasse, the way it looked in the Thirties. You could see a group of four or five people in the foreground, with houses behind them. Also the temple, on the far left, where the street takes off from the square below the church. Erich attached names to the faces for me. Putzl, the Dorftrottel – village idiot – wearing thick glasses and a silly grin. Tibi Steiner, the owner of the shoe store, with a visored cap and a pipe in his mouth. A couple of kids wearing yarmulkes, the Rabbi’s sons. Nussbaum the grain dealer, in a long coat and soft hat. The picture was just a reminder. So I could get an idea of what had been where, before they blew up the houses and got rid of everybody who lived in them.

  First thing I did was walk over to where the temple used to be. You’d think it would leave some vestige of its existence, just some little artefact that managed to escape the destruction. Nothing doing. There was a Konsum supermarket in its place. I looked around for a plaque; maybe in front where they keep the shopping carts. The inscription on the order of “Here we feed the hungry, in the place where sustenance was so long given to the soul.” Some ecumenical bullshit like that. Fahgedaboudit. You seen one fourhundred year old temple, you seen ‘em all.

  A couple of doors down, there was an ice cream parlor with tables set out in front, under a canopy. There was a big sign that said “Sundaes,” with pictures of various combinations pasted up all over the place. One of them grabbed me. Three scoops, different flavors, whole strawberries and a gob of whipped cream covering everything like a cloud. Plus, a little Stars and Stripes stuck on top. Anywhere else in the world, if only because of the flag, I’d have eaten the whole thing. But in this place, with the oom-pa-pa blaring, and the destroyed temple next door hovering over the scene, I couldn’t. Doing it would have meant I’d gone along with what they had done. Torn the Judengasse out of the picture, and put up this country bumpkin Disneyland instead. Courtesy of the people I came here to hunt down.

  Next, I went to look for the jail. According to my mother, it was a couple of hundred feet from the main square. I walked around and around,
but couldn’t see anything that looked like a jail. I didn’t even care about finding the building, I was willing to settle for less. I needed to put my cheek against the wall that propped my father’s head up when he died. Never mind the exact spot. Just to be able to touch the stone would be enough.

  After a while, I came upon a plaque fixed to the gate of a little park. Only one word, “Gefängniss,” looked vaguely familiar. Some dates underneath. 1892-1952. It’s not often they get rid of a jail; usually it’s the prisoners who take the hit. I walked into the park and sat on a little bench. For the first time ever, I was in a place where my father had already been. I had no idea where they buried him. Somewhere underneath where I was sitting? Could they have dug a hole in the ground, dumped him in there, and made everything level again? The same way they used to bury criminals, so the locals could walk all over what was left of them. At least in the early days in Dachau – when they were still killing one at a time – little canisters filled with ashes were delivered to their relatives. Who knew if the remains were the real article? They could have been somebody else’s, or even sand. At least the ones left behind had something to hold onto.

  Coming out of the park, I saw the irony of it. The St Marton Five were my main – actually my only – solid connection with what happened in there. Too bad they weren’t going to be around long enough to tell me some stories about the old days.

  To make me look like a harmless tourist, I even took some shots with the Nikon SLR. A couple of fountains, City Hall, the Emperor Franz Josef memorial. The decoy slung over the other shoulder.

  Waiting.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  AUNT FLORENCE IN CHARGE

  Late June, 1984

  From working with my rats, I knew it took between seven and fourteen days, door to door, between the shot from the laser and the actual suicide. The Chief had only – reluctantly – given me a week off. So I knew from the get-go that I’d have to go back to New York and wait it out. Not that I didn’t have a lot to think about anyway. Most of the amateurs I met up with at the ME, and Eva too, went out with a bang. Hanging from a hook, jumping off a bridge, swallowing rat poison; that kind of aggressive way of getting rid of themselves. But their right locus ceruleus had started burning on its own. “Directed” suicide – where I supplied the electricity that started the fire – could have a different effect. My St Marton rats could end it like a bunch of pussies; sniff at the gas range, or take a few pills. Not enough to do any real harm. Or go berserk. No way to know.

  My agenda was simple enough. Figured on spending part of the day killing my Nazis, and the rest of the time being squired around Vienna by my once-sexy aunt. Not forgetting about the language lessons either.

  The first morning of my visit, I smelled coffee as soon as I opened the door to the hall. When I walked into the breakfast room, there was Uncle Emil, sporting a forest green jacket with epaulets, and matching pants. All decked out, like for a hunt. I haven’t said much about him. Trouble was, the rare times I saw him when I was a kid, he’d only talk to my folks. Me, he treated like a pet dog they’d brought along. This time around, we had a different problem. He kept calling me Erich, and followed me around all the time, speaking Hungarian.

  I asked him where he was going, that it must be some important event. But he was just going to see his buddies at the Emperor Franz Josef club, a high-class daytime nursery for senior citizens. Before leaving, he added a Tyrolean hat, complete with a yellow feather stuck in the band. He looked pretty snazzy, except I began to wonder about the feather. Could it have the same significance as the long-ago yellow star? In case the good old Nazi days come back and it’s open season again for spitting in faces and taking target practice on certain chosen people?

  Aunt Florence was wearing a schmatte, a nondescript housedress favored by Jewish ladies when they’re about to tackle a long overdue cleaning of the toilet bowls. But as soon as the door slammed on Uncle Emil, she excused herself. Came back a few minutes later in a long silk gown with a little fur collar, a peignoir, and that same disappearing-down-her-front string of pearls she had on the first time I ever met her. It still made me wonder about its final destination.

  I felt underdressed. Read somewhere that Vienna etiquette dictates that male houseguests wear pajamas for breakfast. I don’t own any of those, for the simple reason I’ve slept in a scrub suit ever since I was in training. In the hospital, it’s the right outfit for every occasion. The OR, the cafeteria, chatting up a student nurse at the door to some remote linen closet – wherever. And of course, for falling into, or jumping out of bed, without having to perform some complicated toilette while you’re half asleep. Scrub suits do have one disadvantage, though; they don’t come with a fly front. Meaning, if you want to liberate something, you have to first untie the string at the top, and pull down the pants. Usually not a problem, except if you need to present the something in a big hurry.

  Aunt Florence was being the charming hostess. She’d sent Uncle Emil out to the bakery earlier, so I could have still-hot poppy seed rolls to go with my English tea. Also, there were a half a dozen newspapers sitting on a little pile next to her, along with some yellow pads, pencils and a German-English dictionary. Just as soon as she cleared the breakfast dishes, we’d be starting the first lesson.

  By now, it was way too late to be learning German. When I was a kid, it would have been way more useful to speak the language. My parents would be speaking English, when, all of a sudden, like when you twirl the dial on a shortwave radio, they switched languages. That’s what happened when my mother’s friend Barbara went missing during a vacation in the Catskills. She came back a week later, claiming she’d lost her memory. My mother and Erich laughing and exchanging sly looks. Except I was tuned out, which pissed me off. That time, I wished the war was still on. I could have called the FBI to turn in my parents, who I’d heard discussing a mountain range near New York City, in the tongue of the enemy.

  First off, Aunt Florence showed me the newspapers. Wiener this, Wiener that. For obvious reasons, I needed the St Marton paper to be in the mix. I’d need the news from there some day very soon.

  Aunt Florence was a teacher before she hooked up with Uncle Emil. No wonder the first lesson started out so well. Show and tell, repetition, question and answer. That went on for about an hour. I should have realized something was up, the way her face got more and more red. Maybe it’s the heat, I thought, with that fur collar making it worse. And/or change of life. Suddenly, didn’t see how it happened, one of the newspapers came floating off the dining room table. I hate when that happens. It’s a bitch to put a newspaper back together after it’s come apart. It was obviously up to me to crawl under the table and set things right. Which I started to do.

  I was just getting on my knees when, next thing I knew, Aunt Florence was on my back. Not about the lesson. Literally. Jamming my face into the front page I was just picking up in the process. “What kind of a girl do you take me for?” I wanted to cry. Pleasantly chatting one minute, nailed to the floor the next. I didn’t know what to do. This much was obvious: sooner or later, I’d have to turn around and face the music those pearls were making, clackclack, on my thoracic spine. People who are about to drown see their lives flashing by in an instant. With me, it was the immediate future and the possible long-range effects, if I gave in.

  Harboring a hard-on in scrub pants is no walk in the park. Very little give in the material. What you see is what there is. I mean, if you want to send a message to the person it’s dedicated to, all well and good. But if you’re trying to hide it, that’s where it gets to be a problem. So – once I turned over – there was no way I could claim I wasn’t interested. But in what direction was this erection leading me?

  Meanwhile, no escaping the sound of the rustling of the peignoir and the whooshing of the fur collar. “Just listen to Mama, baby, and everything’s going to be swell,” Aunt Florence announced.

  For a brief moment, I was hoping it was all a big mistake.
That she had had an urgent message from my mother, and she chose to tell it to me lying down. Ruled that possibility out right away, seeing as it was 4am in New York and my mother was by then in a nursing home, the administration of which was sure to frown on their gaga patients making middle-of-the-night transatlantic calls. What Aunt Florence was murmuring in my ear brought all my doubts to a head, which were much too important to just sweep under the rug. And not only because all my weight was on it, which made any whisking physically unlikely. Anyway, here was my problem the way I saw it.

  You know already Aunt Florence is not my real aunt. With her, the title is just an honorific. The same way they used to call the bordello piano virtuoso in the old days “Professor.” When I was growing up, attaching “Aunt” or “Uncle” to the names of family friends showed both respect and familiarity. But even if she was just an honorary relative, Aunt Florence being an old friend of my mother’s brought up a very sensitive issue: the incest taboo. With her I didn’t even have the Penile Paradox to help me out.

  That was pretty clear if you looked at things from the viewpoint of my scrub pants. Turned out I’d somehow escaped it with Aunt Florence. First time around, it was all in the abstract anyway; I was too young when I met her. After that, I didn’t see her for many years, by which time the bloom was off her particular rose. In other words, she was already on the downslope from over the hill. Let’s face it, I was in a big-time state of conflicted feelings.