Here the revision reads like liner notes. . . . Much like the broken promise to Freia, goddess of youth, love is denied, the treasure lost, and so forth with dwarfs and the deadly curse that doesn’t play well in the game room.
Doc’s waxy eyelids close tight as green twilight rises in the Festspielhaus in Bayreuth just as the composer dictated each and every aspect of the production. Then darkness, deep slashes of the coming light. He finds his way to the chair, the one and only taken from the back terrace, placed here for his purpose. His purpose is to listen to Das Rheingold, to hear the maidens’ mocking laughter . . . hei-a! hei-a! hei-a!. . . till Freia swims upward toward the watery spill on the rocks.
Varner, she called him, one letter short of genius, but maybe he was a genius, the student who came from America to study Deutsche Physik. “Secure then are we and free from care. . . .” The flowers, the wine, the long train ride from the University at Leipzig all paid for with his small stipend. He was her prize, a young lover to stick like a flower behind her ear. And when he returned to her not long after the war, it was with combat ribbons and medals of victory pinned to his chest. He carried with him the picture of a little boy with his mother, a common pie-faced girl, pretty enough in an apron over a maternity frock. There is this in his favor: the medals and ribbons were only on display when he first went to visit his soprano still in Bayreuth. She was now teaching, but there were few students. At night she sang in a cabaret, cynical lyrics dodging defeat. He brought her food, not flowers, brought her news of his discoveries, ongoing intelligence, poor foolish man no longer a student telling her that Hitler never had a go at the bomb, never had the magician’s pot of uranium 235, implying the Science Volk never had the wit or the nerve, not even the man he had studied with, the great Heisenberg. And when the Captain went back to his work on the secrets that would never be fully disclosed, just bandied about in biographies and thoughty plays, Mother Goose who flew through the air on a very fine gander, sits this night in her workroom above Central Park turning the page while the Rhine maiden—ha . . . ha . . . ha . . . ha—accuses he who the sway of love for-swears. . . .
I take a turn round my room, tripping over the rag rug, shuffling in my slippers through printouts and postcards, return to my desk, to the pad stolen from my husband, work on to the end
—as the soprano, the wanton in darkness, having wrapped her strong thighs around the body of Varner, ach Varner, meine liebe. Turn the page: that bitch now reaches to the black telephone, whispers to her lover, the loyal party member who had worked on the German rockets built by concentration camp slaves. And with misinformation on the bomb never made, he attempts to discredit the testimony of the American Captain in the name of their Führer . . .
But now the storyteller, given to happy endings, throws off the shawl, flips to a fresh page.
In the cellar of a grand suburban house, an old gentleman—much honored, the life of the lab with his discoveries behind him—sits so straight in his chair with the sharp pain of a ruptured disk, he might be a man of military bearing. He has taken off his flannel bathrobe, folded it neatly in his lap as though he is at a performance. For the purpose of this story, he is in the second tier of the opera house designed by Richard Wagner to suit the grandeur of his work. The record that Doc listens to is as perfect as the day he bought it at Sam Goody’s on Sixth Avenue, one of his many trips to the city for Bell Labs that combined business with pleasure. He remembers his delight in discovering it, the Deutsche Philharmoniker rerecord ing of Das Rheingold, of course. His interest is in the opening scenes in which his Freia abandons herself to laughter—hei-a ja he . . . hei-a ja. He believes he can distinguish her sweeping high notes from those of the maidens, believes that she was in her prime, though the original recording was cut at the end of her career. She is young to him always. Die Minne macht ihn verrückt . . . ha! The cruel pain of her laughter, yet he would give his heart for the gold. He grasps the stiff arms of the chair. Tonight, the slow retrieval, the smudged vision of his wife, bundled in her bathrobe when she found him sitting Indian style on the floor of the playroom, head bowed to the magnifi cent rise of the maidens’ mockery, his eyes tearing up.
“It is that sort of music,” he said.
Next day she placed this stiff iron chair close to the speaker, breaking up the set perfect for lunch on the patio. When matters cultural were on the table, as though they both must shoulder the blame, she confessed her addiction to museums, reported with an indulgent smile, “My husband is devoted to Wagner, from his student days, you know.” Apparently she found his emotion reasonable, never questioned why only Das Rheingold in the game room—hei-a . . . hei-a—for love had lost him his wits!
I throw the yellow pad aside. My scrawl unreadable as a secret code of childhood. Drawing the shawl close, Old Mother Hubbard, Gam mer Gurton makes her way back to bed, heart thumping. I have breathed upon the old catastrophes, the mutilations and disfigurements of my story, perhaps not in vain. Now, now the old inner tube will give out, as good a time as any for that drama. My husband turns toward me in his sleep, mumbling, arms held forth as though begging an embrace. I tap him lightly. He flips back to his dream. A streetlight stripes the ceiling through venetian blinds. How efficient the linen shades in my parents’ bedroom closing out the sun the whole Summer long. Natasha at last came to love Pierre. My heart returns to a neat pit-a-pat, its constant revision. See again, Captain Varner at attention, the record spinning. Or see the son come down to save the old scientist who taught him to respect predigital, the value of 78s. All that old stuff. Grandma moving in. I understand how I came to be in the creaking wicker chair with the delicate scent of my mother’s eau de cologne defeated by the ash of Lucky Strikes, Bill’s butts in the souvenir ashtray, ’39, the World’s Fair.
Daybook, October 31, 2007
Intermittent drizzle, seasonal chill. Today, a mild bout of the blues. My brother mangles a song: Tomorrow, tomorrow . . . a persistent strand of gray, the offending book not quite forgotten. If gloom settles in, I’ll attempt to climb to Belvedere Castle at the topmost pinnacle of the Park. Scanning the panoramic view—Ramble, Shakespeare’s Garden, Sheep Meadow, Zoo—I’ll sight the arrogant towers of El Dorado and the looming skyscrapers of midtown, which could not be imagined, not by Olmsted or Vaux in their precisely drawn perspective, nor by the German laborers blasting the natural rock ledge to perfect a greensward in the uptown wilds of the city, nor by the Irish squatters who, with their rutting pigs, were displaced from the swamps, nor by the black folk of Seneca Village—all sent packing—many who owned their parcels of land, treasured their houses, stores, churches, and Colored School No. 3, all removed for the people’s Park. No chance against the might of Eminent Domain. So, the Park and its urban surround. Perhaps the mythic dimension of our city of the future would not come to mind until the Great Depression when Willy Pogany dipped his brush into a pot of tarnished gold to illuminate the mural in our lobby.
I’m walking over the bones of the villagers; their lost Seneca dutifully posted, its legend on a placard of Central Park green, determined to record the shapeless present with its small discoveries in this my book of last days. Let history with its monumental events tell its own story. No soul-searching in the merely personal. In my pocket an old postcard, a tinted photo of Bethesda Terrace sent to my mother by some chap, not my father. 1912, Dearest Loretta, Class for me? Well I guess. Matt Leary. The trees bleed green into the washed-out sky. Paint-box blue, the healing waters of the fountain. She would have been only sixteen. I head south with my map of byways and overpasses. Raincoat, binoculars—fitted out for this day’s discovery I follow the Bridle Path to Strawberry Fields where the lone word says it all: IMAGINE. The worshippers are out early, enchanted by this spectacular memorial of their past where the truest stories live on.
Where were you when the madman killed Lennon?
Teaching Moby-Dick to freshmen who gave me grief. I believe we had come to Sunset, XXXVII, or choose to believe it now,
Ahab’s all loveliness is anguish to me, since I can ne’er enjoy.
When a man first walked on the moon?
Santa Barbara ’69. The baby-sitter pulled granny glasses down on her nose. My father’s got moon dust. I never believed a sample of the precious grit was dealt to an untenured astronomer, a dented Ford Escort dead on its rims in his driveway.
Your witness to history is wisdom of hindsight.
Score one for my brother.
We have closed the house, the Levittown ranch in the Berkshires, pre-Sheetrock. The garden nearing its end. A daylily protected by the fence held its final bloom tight. Lady’s mantle gone soggy. The first time we’ve done this, drained the pipes, cleared the fridge of cheese ends, onions, celery best not to mention. Bitter marmalade, ketchup transport to the city. Crackers in a tin, denied to the mice, though in the Spring we’ll find stuffing pulled out of the sofa, books chewed at the spine, candles gnawed to the wick. The few will lie dead in their tracks. The little house sits across from the town cemetery. You went for a last walk through the gravestones to the top of the hill. It’s not much of a climb.
You said: Best not chance it.
Not even for the view stretching to yonder? Last time I was allowed to garden, digging in the new laurel, a funeral procession drove up to the height where the old families of the town are laid to rest. The bagpipes sounded cheery, then wheezed to a dirge.
Well beyond the middle of the journey of my life, I’ll not come to a dark wood, just the loop in a clearing of memory. Back-braiding to the college girl who tossed Greek tragedies away and took Dante as her poet. I find her wonder and despair at the discovery of greed, usury, fraud unconvincing. She misplaced her faith, that’s all. Hell passed in a term, became plain-spoken outrage at corruption whatever the current scene. Soon she will find some relief in preparations for the terrarium, for the grandchildren, of course; here and now will see again the stars. Pebbles sprinkled with charcoal from the iron stove in the country, soil tamped with sphagnum moss. They will choose stones and sticks to create their landscape, form hills and ravines. Wood ferns and lichen brought down from the garden; from the florist, a bromeliad and the bird’s nest fern that delighted Columbus, all to be arranged in the giant brandy snifter, well misted with tap water. A rain forest sporting botanicals, the exotic blooms that heaven allows. The Park across the street not yet in Fall glory.
Daybook, All Saints’, November 1, 2007
Your wax teeth, my fright wig, cheap goods meant to fool no one. Amusing the children who came to our door last night, that’s all we were up to. You had no patience with teenagers who grabbed the Mars Bars and Snickers, leaving the stale corn candy for little kids. Two polite girls—twelve, thirteen?—done up in tawdry silk rags, rattled their UNICEF canisters. You stuffed dollar bills through the slot of goodwill.
Gypsies?
Summer of Love. We don’t do Gypsies.
In the lobby I’ve seen these girls exchange conspiratorial glances, sniggering at El Dorado inmates. An unearned innocence in their crisp school uniforms, Academy of the Sacred Heart. Still, they alone collected for the world’s hungry children. You were left with a wad of singles.
We feared superheroes, believed in their transformation. So truly other, unlike the actor who paced in front of our building this afternoon as I was about to take off for the Park. Cell phone at ear, shouting—Pay to play, pay to play?—impatient with the doorman who could not conjure a taxi out of chill air. Saint or sinner, he plays himself always. To be kind, which I’m not these days, I see him as an accomplished Everyman, his face a rubbery mask, different yet always the same. An honorable tradition: Cary Grant, John Wayne. I’m disclosing our addiction to old movies. Chaplin then, his performance trumping the limits of time, conjuring laughter from pratfalls, his sly smirk of victory. Same old, same old, yet a tear trickles down my cheek when the little fellow in the bowler hat struts down the road to his next adventure. Twirling his cane, undefeated, he is incredibly brave. I’m hopeful for him always as the screen reads THE END.
When you left for the office with those singles stuffed in your wallet, I squirreled away our feeble disguises, the presumption they will come into play next year—your nerdy wax teeth with exaggerated overbite, my Raggedy Ann wig of orange wool, forgetting I still wore the retro note, my mother’s graduated pearls. Our jack-o’-lantern deliquesces on the front hall table. Old fools, not ready to cut out the fun, nor wise enough to distinguish holiday from holy day.
The first of November was once holy to me. It’s my backdrop, you know, a worn tapestry hung in a ruined castle of faith meant to keep out the cold, or simply to display the daily rituals of the church. Now faded and frayed, yet the RC calendar with its surfeit of stories can still be read. All Saints, honoring the list of miracle workers, virgin martyrs, self-flagellates, popes not on the A list, Jesuits converting the indigenous to the blessings of their Lord. All of them winners, all saints, thus the crowd scene: (Apocalypse 7:2-12) the tribes, each with their twelve thousand believers in white robes, their foreheads marked with the indelible tattoo of Salvation. A spectacle best seen in high definition, but in the days of my belief we had only the grainy black-and-white TV. Often a ghostly gray shadow drifted across the screen, a twelve-incher set in the sun parlor, that chill appendage to our little house with uncomfortable cane chairs and struggling plants. Let me put it this way, I will attempt, in defiance of the doctors’ orders, to honor the day by walking the full distance to view secular saints of my trade, the choice few in the Park who stand watch over the language they honored.
LITERARY WALK
I set off on my way to Shakespeare, leader of the pack. He stands alone in his circle at Poets’ Corner, go figure. I can’t honestly say I was breathless in anticipation, just tentative as usual these days. I had lingered in my back room, writing notes toward the possible end of my days, or end of my Park project, turning through old photos of the Mall freshly planted with scrawny elms, of Ladies strolling the broad Promenade in fine shawls, girly girls chasing hoops, gents in fine equipage. I leafed through plans of The Greensward as submitted to the Park Commission by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, 1859, but found little satisfaction in my CP collection—the sepia photo of a single boat upon the Lake, an overexposed shot of Mall in Its Prime, or that tinted postcard of Bethesda Terrace sent to my mother (1910). The print on our bedroom wall—Skaters in the Park, Winslow Homer, Harper’s Weekly Magazine—no longer enchanted. I wanted to sit on a newly refurbished bench under the mighty elms that lead to the poets, not saints but they would have to do. Or simply to prove that I might, like the little tramp, go on to the next adventure.
Well aware of the paternal note in your voice. Take a cab.
Or the bus to 59th, then walk across? That would be cheating in the game of can-do.
I stalled in my back room, looking for a note on Fitz-Greene Halleck, one of the poets portrayed beyond life size, the only one you might not know. Then again, your head is full of curiosities—orts, bits, Scrabble words, the full complement of jurists on the Warren Court, lyrics of “Red River Valley.”
Halleck, the popular poet?
Absolutely. But the only poet with the indignity of a small sign of identification stuck in the ground. We have forgotten his newspaper versification, devalued his celebrity. The stiff cloak thrown over his chair might be that of a Roman Senator abandoned in a schoolroom play. His ink has solidified, pen hangs in midair.
Where’s Whitman?
Good question.
Where’s Emily?
Smoothing the folds of her lawn dress as she climbs the stairs to her virginal bedroom in Amherst. She’ll look down from the narrow window above her desk, a moody saint on a bright cloud of words.
So, a luminous Fall day, sun riding high when at last I walked directly across the street from our sandstone twin towers. I checked out the fading leaves of my favorite viburnum in the world, turned right on the Bridle Path, cut down to the grassy knoll, once Sen
eca Village. A woman sat on the cold ground, book clutched to her breast. Sobs choked in her throat, then spilled forth. The low pitch of her wailing.
Dismissing my inquiry and all I had to offer, crumbled Kleenex. No, no thanks. A tidy woman, even in her distress she smoothed a strand of pale hair off her forehead, brushed at the knees of her gray flannel slacks. Her smile apologetic, as though to admit how shameful, crying in public. She tapped the book, the cause or answer to a sad story?
Marie Claude, Marie Claude! She called as though scolding a child. Whatever tragedy started the waterworks in the Park, she turned from me in her sorrow, then caught at my sleeve, a deliberate gesture, as though to say, Take note: I’m in control now. Giving me the once-over. I wore the old black coat, splattered jeans. She allowed me to help her up, her mist-gray sweater the softest cashmere. I don’t often traffic with strangers in the Park, nod at a permissible distance, offer faint smiles to children. But we were not strangers. We were known to each other by caste. There, I’ve said it. We shared the downward glance of well-brought-up girls, feelings guarded, protective demeanor.
The Rags of Time Page 13