“Excuse me, but there’s a piece of toilet paper stuck to your pantyhose.”
Both ladies cackled like witches. It’s women against women and men against women in this verdammt world! I was learning a shitload of stuff. (Sam, I know you think I’m dim-witted. I’ve noticed your subtle smirk. Do I mind? Not at all, laugh if it gives you pleasure. I want you to be happy. Please, laugh!)
I decided from now on not to talk but to observe. For the first time in my life.
Eins, zwei, drei, vier, fünf, sechs, sieben, acht, neun. German is a language of consonants; French, a language of vowels. English can’t make up its mind. (Have you made up your mind about me, Sam, you sexy beast you?)
When I beheld myself in the mirror a month later, I no longer felt troubled. I was separate from my former self but now appeared very contained and complete. Huddled over a table at Odeon, I sipped my Milchkaffee and flipped through a glossy magazine. I’d been leered at so much lately that I didn’t have the heart to glare at others. I remembered judging your bony elbows, Sam, and felt guilty. Darcy and Delial were at the counter, talking hysterically. I wanted to reveal myself to them but feared your eyes would open. My friends gesticulated wildly, sometimes staring into the distance and rarely making eye contact with each other. For a moment, I felt sorry for them.
Out on the sidewalk I frequently heard my name mentioned. I’d stop walking and, ear cocked, lean sideways into my own shadow, balancing carefully on my heels.
“Franz, what an Arschloch! I wondered where he went.”
“He’s a prick if there ever was one.”
“He still owes me 500 francs.”
I was amazed to hear myself spoken of unkindly. Since I couldn’t interject, now I was forced to listen.
“Franz came to my place once, stayed five minutes, got his rocks off, and left right away. Not so much as a thank you.”
“The guy’s a total sleeping pill.”
Unable to defend myself, I felt strangely calm.
“He barely notices you. Before he comes, he’ll call you the name of another guy. He doesn’t differentiate between men.”
Didn’t people understand I was the best lay in Zurich? Perhaps the people who’d enjoyed me had been cowed into silence. (I know you want to laugh at me now, Sam. Go ahead! Let ’er rip!)
I touched the corn-cob brooch at my neck and realized it was only you, Sam, who had wanted to make love to me more than once.
Some evenings, cutting bockwurst into bite-sized bits at the Spettle’s counter, I heard stories about my unexplained absence. In one tale I’d been kidnapped by an Italian jewellery heiress and was now tied naked to a bedpost in a room on the outskirts of Milan where she and all the town virgins repeatedly milk me like a cow. “He’ll never escape,” my ex-friend Hugo cried, slapping his kneecap. “Franz’s dick’s probably so sore he wishes he never had one.”
In another story I’d broken a mirror and the shards fell into an open vat of paint. I tried to remove them, but became fascinated by my reflection and accidentally tumbled in. The sides were too slippery to climb and the paint eventually solidified around my body. I was later removed, encased in a congealed beige block, and presently hang in the Kunsthalle Basel. My back is curved, my face pressed against my shins so that my body resembles an O. At first the piece was labelled The Donut, then Pervert’s Halo, then Franz Niederberger’s IQ. “I’m the one who suggested the last name,” Hugo screamed, laughing and slapping his other kneecap, his thigh and stomach. “I’m amazed they used it.”
In the third story, I was putting my paintbrushes away but discovered there weren’t enough jars. I solved the problem by shoving three brushes into my mouth, one in each ear and nostril, and six up my ass. When I realized I could no longer breathe or shit and was, in fact, dying, I refused to remove the brushes—“He’s such a neat-freak,” snickered Hugo—instead, I walked quietly into my backyard and lay under a tree. Rain fell and washed the paint from the brushes that protruded from my body like natural appendages. When the sun came out, the grass was stained every colour of the rainbow and I was dead. “Good riddance to bad rubbish,” Hugo shouted, whacking his shins, his neighbours’ thighs, and my behind.
I preferred this story because of the quiet dignity I displayed entering the garden to die. But when the men continued to laugh uproariously, slapping salt shakers, cinnamon buns, billiard balls, beer glasses, and hot pokers, I wanted to tear off my wig, strip myself naked, and shout, “You stupid assholes, look: I’m Franz. How could I know you never liked me, you dick-shits! Scheiss, you think I’m a mind reader?”
But if I did this, your eyes would reappear in the sky, sterner and fiercer than ever, and send down rays that would pulverize me into a pile of ashes. So I snatched my purse from the counter and, remembering to shake my hips, minced out of the bar weeping a high girlie wail. I wiped tears from my cheeks with a silk handkerchief decorated with buttercups, bluebells, and tiny, prancing fairies.
By the time I got home, I was crying. I felt so lonely. I didn’t know how to make new friends or get a lover. Should I wait for some Arschloch to send me a sheaf of long-stemmed roses? Or hope some loser would throw down his jacket so I could step over a hole in the sidewalk? I was sick of taking steps shorter than twelve centimetres and always aiming my vocal chords at a high D-flat.
Each night, I’d tear off my dress and panties and release my penis from its prison of tape and cotton. From the space between my legs it’d swing forward like an ornery ogre roused from its lair, and I’d breathe a sigh of relief, glad it hadn’t dissolved or been absorbed into my body. Some days I’d stop before a shop window and see reflected, in the distance, the glacier-tipped mountains. Why did nature still frighten me, Sam? For the first time I wondered if it mattered if people didn’t like me as Franz. Nobody liked or knew Veronika, and, as Veronika, I could deal with that. I recognized how dependent Franz was on others’ views. At times Veronika was almost indifferent. Indifference is freedom, Sam.
German has three genders of noun; English has none. German has eight standard plural forms; English only the insipid “s.” Do you love my new complexity, Sam, you hot little horndog?
I decided to take a psychological risk and create a painting. Betsy would scold me if I broke a fingernail or got paint on my dress, so I’d protect my nails with oven mitts and cover my clothes with an apron. With Veronika at the helm, my art metamorphosed. Glowing, yellow squares expanded to obliterate the trees. Returning from the art shop one night, I took a detour to see the Canadian flag at International Park snapping rhythmically in the north wind. Feeling elated and delighted by my courage (Franz had been afraid to go to dark places at night), I turned homeward. Little did I know I was about to have a life-altering experience.
I was sashaying down a deserted street, carrying my can of paint and a bag of breakfast groceries (eggs, bacon, and quark). I heard footsteps behind me, an insidious scuffle-scuffle punctuated by the clang-kick of a trash can. The shuffling sounds blurred, overlapped. There was not one pair of feet but two. Then stifled laughter, muttering, snorts. I walked faster. I passed an Apotheke with an iron grid pulled down over its window.
From behind, a raspy male voice. “Hey, foxy lady.”
I should’ve kept walking. I should’ve kicked off my heels and run screaming up the hill. But I sensed an altercation was inevitable. If I didn’t confront these assholes now, I’d have to tomorrow or the day after. They’d keep following until I turned to face them. Also, I thought the man’s “foxy” comment referred to the stole I was wearing.
I spun round on my heels and said, “I am not wearing fox! This is mink!” The two men were younger than expected, teenagers with puffy cheeks splattered with pink acne. Both wore ripped blue jeans and running shoes. One guy was cute as hell. He had a square, flat-top haircut, the kind I wished I could grow. The other had a moustache like a dirt smudge under his nose.
“Whatever it is,” said the hot guy, “you look pretty nice.”
&nbs
p; I tried not to feel flattered. “I don’t care what you think. I want you both to leave me alone or I’ll call your parents right this minute.” I was so nervous that my high-pitched falsetto was starting to break.
“What you got under that coat?” said the cute one. He stepped forward. He lifted one hand and began stroking the fur on my chest. “It’s nice and soft. Is it as furry as your pussy?”
I was breathing heavily. Should I say something? Should I shriek? The boy’s face was right before mine. His hot breath on my cheeks smelled of beer and onions.
Suddenly the dirt-lipped boy grabbed my forearms and, in one quick movement, yanked my arms behind my back. Cutie grabbed my shoulder and together they dragged me screaming into an alleyway. I was surprised at their strength and my weakness. Since becoming Veronika, I’d stopped going to the gym and my Herculean muscles were becoming pudding-sacs on a stick-body.
In the urine-reeking alley, dirt-lip held my arms behind my back while the other boy tore down the front of my dress.
“Help!” I cried. “Help! Police! Rape! Rape!”
He threw my tattered dress to the ground, ripped down my nylons, and with two able hands, slid his fingers under my waistband and yanked my panties to my knees.
All at once, my penis, crouching in its den, came hurtling forward like a massive javelin. The cute boy gasped and jumped back, as my erect penis pointed at him like an accusatory finger. The other guy released me and leapt to one side. Both boys stared, stunned.
“Stand back!” I said in my man’s voice. “Or I’ll shoot!”
The head of my penis gleamed in the moonlight. Its arrowhead tip looked sharp as a machete.
The flat-haired boy said, “Scheiss! It’s a fucking queer!”
He lunged forward and punched me in the stomach. The cruel gleam in his eye—instantly I remembered when I’d dumped ice cream in your hair. These boys and I, were we equally aggressive? What were they afraid of? What was I afraid of?
Dirt-lip tried to hoof me in the balls, but I grabbed his foot in mid-air, lifted it to my mouth, and drove my teeth into his calf. He screeched, fell to the ground, and I spit out his blood. The other boy struck me on the head with my paint can. My vision blurred. I felt dizzy. Nauseous, I collapsed on the ground and gazed into the sea of cobblestones. The boys unscrewed the can lid and poured the whole blue mess over me. Then they opened my grocery bag and broke the eggs, one by one, on my forehead, and shoved a slab of bacon into my mouth before running off.
My breathing slowly returned to normal and the top of my head stopped throbbing. I spit out the bacon and beheld, up in the sky, your two eyes glowing brighter than any stars. In that brightness was not judgement or censure, but acceptance and love.
Egg yolk slid from my forehead and splattered in my lap, and I understood that, totally humiliated here, I was more like you than ever before. Why had I refused to empathize with you?
Du bist ein sympathischer Mann.
I began to shiver uncontrollably. I imagined the worst that could have just happened, and it was more horrible than what I’d feared from you. The terrors I’d clung to had given me nothing, and in reality, I was like these boys. Fear took up so much space, there was room for nothing else.
As I wiped soggy bacon and blue paint off my thighs, I wondered: would losing the accoutrements of my ultra-civilized life be so bad, if you were watching? Your eyes were as miraculous as snowstorms in August. You’d awoken a generosity in me I’d never felt and these boys would never feel. Your staring eyes had turned me toward Veronika, who I now saw was the steadiest part of me. You showed courage by meeting my hostility with affection. With Veronika at my side, could I be courageous?
Sam, it was impossible to escape you—and why would I want to? From now on I’d step boldly before the firing squad of your gaze and get closer to your country. Forests surrounded my city. Trees blanketed your massive home. I’d let nature consume me at last. That was the final step. But I had to give you something back for your gift. What could I offer?
Veronika’s hat lay smashed. I felt sorrowful because it had actually been a nice hat with a stuffed bird on top. (Is that ridiculous? Please laugh now, Sam. Just a titter?) On the way home, I ducked into a café washroom to clean up. Then I sat at a curbside table nursing a cappuccino. This was, I decided, my last night as Veronika. I was sad to see her go. I’d stumbled upon her by accident, thinking she was a hiding place when she was, in fact, a transition. You brought out the Veronika in me, Sam. Veronika was self-reliant and independent; she listened and watched. She’d never be cruel to anyone. In many ways, she contained the best of me.
But she’d taught me all she could and I would now return to being a man because, as a man, Sam, you saw me most clearly. Thinking over the past few months, Veronika began to laugh. (Veronika has a great sense of humour, Sam.) She laughed loudly, her sing-song giggles echoing about the street. Everyone in the café turned to look. Was the woman mad? Had she gone out of her head? Veronika has the most beautiful laugh in the world, Sam, and I hope someday you’ll be able to hear it.
The next day I awoke shaking. Hyperventilating, I put on a ripped plaid shirt, dirty jeans, and work boots. I boarded a bus and, still trembling, travelled 180 kilometres south of Zurich to the wildest part of my country—the most like your own.
I stood alone on the shoulder of the road, dust filling my eyes as the bus roared away, and stared up at the Matterhorn, Switzerland’s highest peak. I paced there for a full half-hour before daring to step onto the forest trail. Finally, as my boots stamped on the dirt path covered with rocks and bulging roots, I breathed in the pine-scented air. I had become a man again and enjoyed the acrid scent of my sweat and the feel of my cock smacking against the insides of my legs. Your eyes hung in the sky between Mount Alphubel and the Rimpfischhorn.
I approached a wide stream and stopped, suddenly frightened. Veronika came to my rescue and exclaimed, “Oh, goodness.” Her hands flitted in the air like birds searching for a resting place as she carried me across the stream. Then she disappeared inside me. I remembered life before Veronika, cocktail parties with Gucci queens on the roof of the Hilton or grope-fests with strangers in bars that smelled like vomit, my endless visits to Excelsior’s until I’d arrive home with two-dozen shopping bags, fling open the wardrobe door, and cry, “But what can I throw out?” My civilized self would soon be shattered, but what would take its place?
In my pack I carried granola bars, a canister of water, rope, a flashlight, and a hunting knife I’d hurriedly picked up in the toy store next to the bus station; it was plastic but looked authentic. (Sam, you’re starting to chuckle! Good!) I spent the morning wandering forest trails, getting nearer the base of the Matterhorn. But my breathing was constricted, my shoulders locked, my hands fists.
I finally came to the edge of a highway along which cars shot fast as bullets. I looked down and saw a brown toad squatting on the shoulder of the road. He was covered with copper-covered warts. I immediately identified with him because when I was seven years old, I had a wart on my knee. I hadn’t wanted the wart removed and had begged the doctor not to do so; when he lifted his scissors and snipped off the wart, I felt a second head had been removed. I’d held the decapitated wart between my fingers and looked into its face, certain there were eyes, nose, and a mouth there that would speak if given the chance. The toad leapt once, twice. He wanted to cross the road but could easily get hit by a car. I said to him, “Don’t worry, Freundkein. I’ll help you.”
I knelt and scooped him into my hands. He leapt against my upper palm; the rough, spongy top of his head against my skin felt like hardened oatmeal. His tiny feet and round belly were sticky as glue on my lower palm. He was no heavier than a prune. “All right, hold your breath, dear friend.”
I ran into the traffic. Horns blared. I dodged flying cars; halfway across I crouched on a white line while a northbound, eight-wheel tractor-trailer hurtled past in a whirlwind of dust and stones.
Safely on
the other side, I deposited the toad on the gravel bed. Immediately he jumped back onto the road, a BMW heading straight toward him. I leapt forward and grabbed the toad in one hand. A horn blasted, brakes shrieked, and the car veered. A man yelled, “Arschloch!”
Back on the shoulder I held the toad in front of my face and scolded him. “Idiot! You just came from across the road and now you want to go back? You make no fucking sense! Look before you leap or you’ll end up a blood-and-bone pancake.” His black eyes peered unblinking like two ball bearings. I put him down and again he leapt onto the road.
“Jesus Christus.” I jumped out, snatched him up, and again ran to the opposite side of the highway. “You don’t know your ass from a hole in the ground, you know that?”
I put him down on the spot where I’d first met him. Again he jumped onto the road. Swearing uncontrollably, I snatched him up—“Don’t you understand a verdammt thing?”—and carried him across. However, this time I continued straight into the woods. I walked twenty minutes and at last lowered the toad onto a rock in a stream. Just before leaping from my hand, he left a toad turd in my palm. It was a symbol for something, but I didn’t know what.
I returned to the highway and spent the morning helping other animals cross the road. A coffee-coloured June bug was ambling clumsily through the crabgrass on the roadside. I cupped her in my hands, ran across, and placed her on the lawn. I scooped a dozen crawling ants into my hand and later helped a fidgety grasshopper. Each time I placed the animals into the opposite ditch, I exclaimed, “Animals, be free!” Unlike the toad, none of these tried to jump back onto the road. “Animals, you are blessed,” I cried.
The Lava in My Bones Page 15