The Baker

by Paul Hond

  “You are a curious one. Do you always ask so many questions?”

  “No. Not always.”

  “He hurt many people. During the war he was with the police. Since you must know.”

  Mickey nodded; he had a fuzzy idea of what she meant, but didn’t want to expose his ignorance by asking. “Well,” he said. “You’re here now.”

  “Yes.”

  Mickey felt his heart beating. He wanted to tell her more, tell her about his mother’s illness and death, his father’s heart attack, but in light of her foreign dramas his own life seemed small, his losses petty. Still, their exchange of histories thrilled him; it was like a commitment to some deeper involvement.

  “So,” he said, hoping to brighten things up. “I never got your name.”

  “My name? It’s Emilie. People call me Emi.”

  “Emi. That’s nice.”

  “And you?”

  “People call me Mickey.”

  “Mickey?”

  “Ya know. Like Mickey Mantle.”

  She wrinkled her brow.

  Mickey scratched his head. “How about Mickey Mouse?” He grabbed two round pumpernickel loaves and held them to his ears.

  Emi put her hand over her mouth and laughed like a child. Mickey felt his confidence rise. He wished he had one of those long French breads—a baguette—so that he could grip it like a Louisville Slugger and explain Mickey Mantle. He set down the loaves. “If you ever go to New York,” he said, “that’s where Mantle is. Plays for the Yankees.”

  “I love New York. I was just there.”

  “Hell of a town,” said Mickey, who had never been.

  “There was a big manifestation,” said Emi.

  “A what?”

  “You know—many people coming together. To protest.”

  “A demonstration, you mean?”

  “Yes, a demonstration. Against the war. I thought maybe this is the reason you are not in Vietnam—because in your boxing match, you were hurt. Perhaps you suffer from something of the brain, I don’t know what. And so you cannot go.”

  Mickey laughed. “Well, that’s an interesting idea. But the truth is, I’m too old.”

  “Old?”

  “I’m almost thirty.”

  “Thirty? You look younger.”

  “Well, I feel younger,” said Mickey. That wasn’t always the case, but right now it was.

  Emi said, “So. Mickey.” She pronounced it Mee-kee—a wondrous sound. “Do you support the war?”

  Mickey laughed, he wasn’t sure why. “I can’t believe how well you speak English,” he said. “You speak better than a lot of Americans I know.”

  “This is not an answer.”

  “I love my country,” Mickey said. “How’s that?”

  Emi smiled. “But you can disagree with your government at the same time, yes?”

  “I guess you’re right,” said Mickey. The last thing he wanted was to get involved in a political discussion; he wasn’t equipped, and he knew she sensed it. “So where did you learn such good English?” he said.

  “Oh, it’s not so good. But I spent a year in London.”

  “London.” Mickey’s head was spinning.

  “So. Mickey. Would you like to hear me play?”

  Mickey felt a chill. “You mean—the violin?”

  “This Sunday, at eight in the evening. I’m playing in a concert at Rubin Hall, at the Wurther. Do you know it?”

  “Sure,” said Mickey. He didn’t, but he’d find out. “Lubin Hall.”

  “Would you like to come?”

  Mickey scratched his head. “Sure.” He’d never attended a symphony concert, though he’d seen a few programs on television—the Boston Pops, he believed it was, and some performances with Victor Borge, who he thought was terrific. He also owned a few LPs—the Tijuana Brass, Brazil ‘66, Bobby Darin—and could appreciate a good dance number. As for modern rock music, he was in accord with Uncle Morris, who often complained that you couldn’t walk down the street these days without passing some long-haired kid blaring his (or her, you couldn’t be too sure) transistor radio. “Sure,” he said again.

  “Then I will see you,” said Emi. “For the moment I must go.”

  Mickey swallowed. “Okay,” he said, turning on a friendly smile. “Aul revere.”

  “Au revoir. How much do I pay?”

  “It’s on the house,” Mickey said.

  “The house?”

  “A gift. Free. Go ahead.” Mickey handed her the bag of rolls, and was stunned by her reaction; she smiled and turned three shades of red, and damned if her eyes didn’t get a little watery. It’s just bread, he wanted to tell her, not a bunch of flowers. Mickey figured she wasn’t used to people being nice.

  “Thank you, Mickey,” she said. She gave a slight bow, then walked out.

  Mickey watched her go to the curb and put out her thumb. Within seconds she had a ride.

  He thought of her for the rest of the afternoon, forgetting customers’ names, screwing up their change, losing track, so that by day’s end the register was off by three dollars.

  He arrived at the concert hall a good half hour before showtime, wearing a new suit from Hutzler’s that he’d bought on sale earlier in the day. The salesman told him he looked like a million bucks in it, and Mickey was satisfied that it struck just the right note for the Wurther.

  It was an old building, full of marble columns and stairwells, frescoes of harp-plucking cherubs, narrow academic corridors and crumbling statuary. Lubin Hall was on the main floor. Despite his fine clothes, Mickey was a little nervous about what to do with himself around all these highbrow types, not wanting to make a faux pas, such as betraying shock when told the price of the tickets, or doing something foolish with an hors d’oeuvre during intermission. As it turned out, the price wasn’t so bad—no more than he’d pay to sit in the bleachers to watch the Colts. He entered Lubin Hall, a small, intimate space that reminded him of an old-time movie theater, and took a seat toward the back.

  The place filled up. Mickey estimated two hundred people.

  The house lights went down. There was a grand piano in the middle of the stage. Nearby was a single music stand and a chair. Mickey checked the program that the usher had handed him. Brahms, the Three Violin Sonatas. Emilie Lutter, violin. David Shaw, piano.

  It got quiet. The musicians entered: first came Shaw, a young, handsome, light-skinned Negro. He had a big, swaying Afro and long sideburns; if he hadn’t been dressed in a black tux, Mickey thought, a few people in the audience might have run for cover. Maybe looks were deceptive—Emi did have a point there—but this Shaw was a dead ringer for one of those bold, assertive young blacks you saw on the news, waving weapons out the window of an occupied building on some godforsaken campus. Not that Mickey had anything against the colored asserting themselves. They had legitimate grievances. But still, the way they looked; they wanted you to be afraid of them. But he couldn’t believe that of Shaw, who was now bowing deeply to enthusiastic applause. Shaw had won respect the hard way.

  As Shaw took his place at the piano, Emi appeared, wearing a long black gown and a black scarf around her head. She carried a violin in one hand, a bow in the other. The applause was measurably louder for her. Mickey clapped as hard as he could, wanting her to hear him. She acknowledged the audience with a nod. Could she see him? No; she was smiling into her personal distance. Mickey felt a vague dread. This wasn’t the same girl who had come into the bakery. He didn’t know this woman at all. She would have already forgotten him. And yet she had invited him here, she had touched his hand; she revealed things about herself and had nearly cried when he’d given her the bread.

  The applause faded as she took her seat.

  The music started. Mickey’d never heard anything like it. The violin sang a slow, persuasive song, plaintive but urgent, an idea excited by its own beauty. It seemed to be waging an argument against the hesitant, cautious nods from the piano; it coaxed the piano, lured it, really, bringi
ng it to a unison passage that was like a sexual coupling; by the end, the piano was in full support, a convert, a strident believer, allowing the violin to conclude on a short but confident burst of notes, then two decisive strokes—one, two!—before an electric charge of silence. Mickey had been waiting for that moment—the music building inside him, and his sense of Emi’s beauty, so confirmed by the music, also building—waiting so that he could be the first to spring from his seat and applaud with all his heart; and at the very instant Emi rested her bow, his hands flew out from him and clapped briskly together, with such force that it took several seconds for him to realize that his was the only clapping to be heard. He stopped as though he’d been struck with an arrow. Faces turned to him. He froze, horrified, then melted under the heat of his shame, slumping down in his seat.

  Later, he would understand that he had applauded between movements, a mistake he would see others make in the years to come. At the moment, though, he was aware only that he had broken some sacred law. He gripped his armrests. Faces turned back to the performers, who appeared unruffled. When the music resumed, Mickey bowed his head. He dared not applaud again until everyone else applauded, and even then he clapped delicately.

  But as the program went on, another thought occurred to him. Was it possible that Emi and Shaw were a couple? On the face of it, Mickey’d have thought not—you just didn’t see that sort of thing around here—but then you could never be sure with the French. They had a certain reputation, Mickey seemed to recall hearing. But it was the way they were playing together, these two musicians, that got Mickey thinking. There was real passion there, a communication. They looked at each other, nodded, cocked their heads to listen and responded with flourishes of sound. They smiled, frowned, closed their eyes. They were, Mickey saw, making love.

  He sank into a mix of anger, jealousy, self-pity. Shaw? What kind of woman carried on like that? Flirting, inviting him to her concert, inducing him to stand for an hour in front of the mirror, fussing with his clothes; and then to be carrying on with this character. Not that Mickey had anything against the races mixing; he believed in live and let live, and equal rights for all. But somehow he’d been misled.

  When it was over, roses were launched from the first few rows and landed at Emi’s feet. She beamed, a basking diva. Mickey was glad he forgot to buy flowers. He watched to see if she and David Shaw would join hands as they took their bows. They didn’t. Was that a sign?

  Heartened, Mickey rushed up the aisle and went outside. He loitered on the sidewalk, watching all the fancy people walk arm in arm to their cars. If they only knew who he was—a personal guest of the violinist! But the feeling died. How many others were here on the same account—people whom she’d met during her day, talked with, invited along? He felt like a fool. It was bad enough to have clapped in the wrong place; now he was waiting for her, as if it were possible that she’d come looking for him. He was prepared to be punished for his expectations, and already he could picture it: Emi and Shaw, coming out together, hand in hand.

  He then felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned: it was Emi, standing there alone, wearing a furry blue coat. The scarf was gone, revealing a broad, clear forehead that seemed obscene at first glance, like the chin of a formerly bearded man. In her hand was a violin case. She smiled at him. “So,” she said. “Did you enjoy?”

  Mickey’s throat tightened up.

  “Yes?” said Emi. “No?”

  “You were terrific,” Mickey said. He could hardly believe she was speaking to him; she was practically famous. “I liked it very much.”

  “Thanks,” she said. “But it is Brahms who deserves the credit.” She looked over at the stream of people heading toward their cars. “And my pianist as well.”

  Mickey tried to ignore that. The pianist was nowhere in sight; it was only them. But that could change. “You want to go get a drink maybe?” Mickey said, his voice rising like an adolescent’s. “Or eat?”

  Emi looked at him. “Eat,” she said. “Yes. But maybe it is too late for the restaurants?”

  Mickey looked at his watch. It was almost ten. They might be able to get a table at DeNitti’s.

  “Maybe,” Emi said, “we could go to your bakery and have some cake. Can you have a coffee there?”

  Mickey laughed. “No coffee, but I got cake, I got bread, I—hey, that reminds me. Did you ever get around to those rolls I gave you the other day?”

  “Rules?”

  “The rolls, the rolls. The bread. From the other—”

  “Oh, yes, yes,” she said, excited by her comprehension. She grabbed his arm. “The rolls. I am sorry. Yes. They were wonderful!”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. Because they came from you.”

  Mickey scratched his head. The language barrier allowed her to speak directly, without embarrassment; maybe she didn’t even know what she was saying.

  “Well, any time you’re hungry, you should just drop by the Lerner Bakery.”

  “I’m hungry now.”

  “Well then,” Mickey said. He led her to his car.

  Emi did most of the talking. She’d just met David Shaw, she said; they’d rehearsed only a few times. He was an extremely intelligent and interesting man, she found, but also conceited and a bit of a snob. He longed for Europe and didn’t seem to identify very much with current liberation movements.

  “Good for him,” Mickey said.

  “Why good?”

  “He’s a free man.”

  “No,” said Emi. “He only thinks he is.”

  “You can’t tell a man what to believe,” said Mickey. He was happy to encourage any wedge between Emi and Shaw, but there was a trick to doing it without antagonizing her. Mickey wasn’t too sure he could bring it off. He said, “Emilie Lutter, huh? We have similar names. Lerner, Lutter.”

  “Yes,” she said. “But it is pronounced Loo-tay. It is a French word.”

  “Right.” Mickey swallowed, kept his eye on the road.

  The bakery was pitch-black. Mickey parked in front. “Here we are,” he said. He felt more at ease, being on his home turf.

  They walked to the bakery door, which Mickey unlocked with a showy jingle of his keys. Did David Shaw, for all his brains and dash, own his own business? Mickey thought not. He turned on the lights.

  Emi took his hand in hers, then placed it over her breast.

  The next thing Mickey knew he was kissing her. Or rather, she was kissing him. She used her tongue, her teeth; it was all he could do to keep up.

  They licked and bit. Her gown was damp. She slipped her hands under his shirt and shuddered at the wall of muscle. He tensed his abdominals and arched his back, feeling strangely feminine in his movements, his seductiveness. He unbuttoned his shirt and threw it off. She pulled off his undershirt and placed her hands on his pectorals, feeling their shape as though they were faces.

  Somehow they ended up on the worktable, which was covered with a fine dusting of flour that always reminded Mickey of the rosin in the gym. Within moments they were white with it. Mickey raised Emi’s gown and yanked off her underpants, dimly aware that he was responding to certain unspoken expectations of animal force, but wanting, at the same time, to surpass these expectations, to surprise her with other gifts, like the brute puncher who shows he can dance. With gardener’s fingers he parted her skin and slowly lowered his tongue to a moisture that had gathered to itself countless particles of fugitive dust, the yeast of the air, catching and holding it like a sticky carnivorous plant, in whose secret warmth—Mickey could taste it—rose new life, a tangy culture nourished by water and salt. He licked incessantly, his hair in her fists, and when he’d summoned her hips from the table he straightened his back and let her unzip his pants. Dust flew to him.

  “God,” she whispered, holding it. “Mickey.”

  “Don’t worry,” Mickey said. “We’ll take it nice and slow.”

  She was ready for him. She murmured in other languages; she cried his name. Mickey closed h
is eyes and concentrated. He had never felt so big.

  Afterwards, they beat clouds from each other.

  Emi asked him to call a taxi to take her back to her “room.” Mickey was too bewildered to protest—never had he screwed so thoroughly, or climaxed with such violence—though certainly he would have been glad to drive her home. But something in her manner—a hint of ruthlessness in the slow movements of her hands as she pulled up her panties and brushed off her gown—humbled him; he felt a passionate loyalty growing in his heart, an exuberance of subordination. Maybe she had a man at home, Mickey thought, Shaw or someone else, and didn’t want to chance an encounter. Mickey attempted to relish the role (his release seemed to have temporarily cured him of his jealousy), imagining himself a man of liaisons on an international scale. Surely it was better to be the lover than the sap. He zipped up his pants, tucked in his shirt and called a cab.

  They returned to the front of the bakery, where Mickey fixed them some honey cake. They ate in a silence that was like the quiet between sonata movements; civilized, respectful, but tense with both the echoes of the moment before and the anticipation of what was to come.

  When the taxi arrived, Emi kissed Mickey on the cheek. “I’ll call you soon,” she said. But when she walked out, Mickey had a feeling that he’d never hear from her again.

  A day went by, two days, a week. Mickey lost his appetite, could hardly sleep. What had he been thinking? She had her life. He’d been an amusement, a local amusement. Anguished, he called Joe Blank, and they met for beer and crab cakes over at Bo Brooks, and Mickey told him all that had happened, going so far as to say that even if she did call him, he’d turn her away as a matter of principle. “She’s a French whore,” Joe said, crushing a can of National on the table, and Mickey added some choice words of his own.

  The very next day, Emi called. Right away she explained that she’d been up in Philadelphia for musical reasons, and Mickey forgave her instantly. In truth, he’d never been so happy to hear a voice in all his life. Arrangements were made to meet for dinner in Little Italy that evening. Mickey kept this new development to himself; he didn’t need to hear any flak from Joe. Joe and Emi should be separated at all costs, Mickey thought; the two ideas were not compatible, and it even crossed his mind that Joe might somehow become a liability, should things get serious. But that was thinking too far ahead; he had to prepare for his date. Emi, Emi. He sang the word as he dressed. A spot of Brylcreem, a spritz of deodorant, a cool splash of aftershave—Em-i-lee! On the way to the restaurant he bought a single red rose, intent on covering their previous night of passion with the muslin of courtship: dinner, conversation, a brief goodnight kiss. He wanted her to feel he respected her, though he knew, too, that she probably had little trouble—the French being what they were—with making love to a complete stranger; and perhaps it was this alarming fact that led him to pour out his life to her over Chianti and mussels and crumbs of Italian bread, that he might somehow emerge from the fabric of so many names and faces.