At night he listens to that distant fire roaring. During his time with Sonny and Cher, he believed it had been extinguished. How ridiculous—the fire is stone-ringed and eternal, and there are many ways to hear it. He scrutinizes the townspeople. That man buying a plum, can he hear it? That lady with parsley stuck in her teeth? Who else has felt the heat of fire on their feet and the coldness of snow on their foreheads? Sam is in love with everyone now.
He follows roads that head east, hitches car rides, jumps onto the roofs of fast-moving trains, rides abandoned bicycles, pogo-sticks, does cartwheels, crawls on all fours, or swims, his clothes tied in a knot on his head. Halfway across France he notices the countryside starting to buckle. He is nearing the Alps. He is nearing Switzerland. When Sam reaches the sign, “Geneva 50 km,” he kneels and bows his head reverently.
Suddenly one of the new freak heat waves hits Europe and the temperature tops forty-one degrees Celsius. Sam staggers along the road. At night the temperature finally drops and Sam has a wet dream that lasts until morning. He wakes exhausted in a ditch and has to eat a huge breakfast that includes plenty of almonds.
At the Swiss border, Sam sees a wooden hut beside the road. He creeps toward the building, which is empty but for a dog that barks once whenever a truck passes. Since the erosion of trade barriers celebrated by those businessmen on the ship that sank, no one mans the booths that once teetered on all borders. Sam examines the road, the painted line separating Switzerland from the European Union. Stepping across this border is the mirror-image of jumping from the loading dock in the Toronto asylum. The yellow line is cracked in two places. A ladybug crawls along its centre.
Sam arrives in Zurich late in the evening. He’d almost expected cheering crowds waving signs, “Go, Sam go,” announcers screaming through bullhorns, cheerleaders shaking American-style pom-poms in bright bony hands. But the streets are empty. A sheet of newspaper blows by like a phantom; it smacks and is pinned against a telephone pole, its edges fluttering. From a back alley, a cat meows. Sam steps through crescent moons thrown by lamps, passes windows full of hanging plants. A woman in high heels clatters over to a Volvo, ducks her head and jumps in; the car whizzes off, leaving a cloud of blue smoke.
This city, long stewing in the broth of Sam’s imagination and coloured the shades of ecstasy and nightmare, now seems strangely banal. Unbelievably, people lived here without knowing who he was. He approaches the Haltestelle of the tram that had taken him to the airport the very last time. He remembers sobbing, clutching the tram ticket in one hand and Franz’s shirt-sleeve in the other, and he pities his younger self. If only he’d known he would return one day. That day is now. He gazes longingly down streets remembered only in dreams.
A jeweller’s sign pulsates with turquoise light. The splash of water in the Escher fountain sounds like applause. As the steel and stone monuments of civilization rise around him, Sam thinks of his appearance. Should he have gotten a haircut? Do his clothes need cleaning? Maybe he should rest up in a hotel overnight so he’s at his best when he meets Franz. It’s been over a year since they last saw each other, so what’s one more day? No, he thinks, boarding the tram, the world does not stop spinning; he hasn’t hesitated once on this journey and won’t now.
He makes a wrong turn at Seestrasse and misses the trail to Franz’s chalet. He’s troubled that the map in his mind doesn’t match the real Zurich. At the trailhead he dashes up the twisting path. The clearing is lit by the full moon, but Sam does not see chalet walls, windows, or a porch. Where the building once stood are four squat stone pillars and stacks of burnt wood, smashed glass, and piles of ash.
Sam cries out, puts his hands to his face, and sinks to his knees. Franz’s disks and poles, which had filled his grounds, are also gone. Sam can’t bear to behold this scene, clutches his own arms and, choking, hurries back down the trails and into town.
He sprints over to a policeman handing out parking violations, asks, “Herr Wachtmeister, what happened to that house on the hill?
“The Niederberg chalet? It burned down.”
“Was anyone hurt?”
The police officer shrugs. “Don’t know.” He writes another ticket.
Sam rushes into a telephone booth and frantically searches the phonebook for F. Niederberger. Sam phones all five Franz Niederberger’s in Zurich, but none are the one he wants.
He checks into the hotel where he stayed before, buries himself under the covers and prays for sleep.
Only certain diamonds are durable enough to survive fire.
Sunlight on his pillow wakens Sam, and through the curtains he sees the city he remembers. Quaint trolleys full of smiling tourists clatter past, their bells ringing; men with flour-coated forearms carry trays of butter-scented pastry; women with shopping bags run in and out of boutiques as if playing hide-and-seek. Sam notices, in the distance, a white glacier twinkling on a mountainside. “Franz exists in this city,” he states confidently. “I only have to find him.”
Glancing down at himself he notices his giant penis has shrunk to its former size. Unconcerned, he studies the rows of people in identical trench coats on the street below. One of them has to be his lover. Yet the charred chalet is a scar in his mind.
Sam dresses and marches purposefully to the Odeon café where Franz used to drink a Milchkaffee every morning. Sam orders one and surveys the crowded room; if Franz isn’t here, maybe one of his cronies is. He smiles at two men in tank tops. Did they know Franz Niederberger? “Never heard of him.” He asks a man in an Afro wig and then a tuxedoed guy carrying a guitar case. No one knows Franz. Sam is surprised. Perhaps Franz’s circle of friends was tinier than he let on.
By noon he has drunk thirteen coffees, his limbs are jittering, and he stutters when he speaks. The manager threatens to throw him out. “What are you asking everyone? For money? You don’t look like a tramp.”
“I need information about Franz Niederberger. Do you know him?”
The manager shakes his head. Perhaps Franz was here but Sam doesn’t recognize him. Does he have a new look or a startling hairstyle? Has he stopped going to the tanning salon?
He sees a man at the counter with a rooster’s tuft of blond hair on the top of his head. “Darcy!” he shouts rushing at him. “Darcy! Wait!”
The man’s nose is painted with stripes like a parrot’s beak. “I’m not Darcy,” he blurts.
“Oh, sorry. Do you know Franz Niederberger?”
By one o’clock Sam has spoken to eighty-five people. The manager yells, “If you don’t leave right now, I’ll call the police and have you arrested for harassing customers.”
Sam struts defiantly out the door. He’ll come back tomorrow in a disguise. His experience has shown him it’s often easier to be someone other than yourself.
He goes to Franz’s gym. “I’d like a membership,” he says to the desk clerk.
“No problem, sir. You get a complimentary trainer for the first week.”
What if his trainer were Franz?! Sam is disappointed when a slender blond man approaches him. Sam yanks at levers as metal lozenges clatter along poles. The trainer yells, “Concentrate on what you’re doing and quit watching everybody. You’re cruising desperately, and it’s pathetic. Most of the guys here are straight or in couples.”
“I’m looking for Franz Niederberger. Do you know him?”
They check the member registry. No Niederberger.
Sam eats dinner at the café where he’d encountered Heidi. He scans the waitresses and doesn’t see her. If she were here, he could pour out his soul, and she’d tell him exactly what to do. Two Americans are chatting at the table behind.
“I think we can do the lake cruise after breakfast.”
Sam remembers how he’d expected something major to happen in his life when he first got to Zurich and it had. If this, the end of his journey, doesn’t turn out the way he wants, does that mean that everything leading up to it has no value?
At midnight Sam chokes on cigarette smo
ke in Wu-Wu Disco. There is the same dry ice, pounding music, muscle shirts, and sailor’s caps as last time. He snakes back and forth through the crowd, asking, “Do you know Franz Niederberger? Do you know Franz?”
At last the barman, a bare-chested peroxide-blond, nods. “Yes. But I haven’t seen him in at least a year.”
“You know him? The man whose chalet burned down?”
“Oh right, that old place. Filled the suburbs with smoke for days.”
“Was anyone hurt?”
“Hadn’t heard that.”
So Franz must be alive and well. Every muscle in Sam’s body unclenches; he nearly tumbles to the floor. The lone woman behind the bar says, “The owner cleared out all the contents and set it on fire. The police fined him big-time.”
If he was in trouble with the law, might Franz have left Switzerland? Where would he go? The world is enormous. How many countries are there? Sam becomes exhausted thinking about it. What if Franz had gone the opposite way, toward North America, searching for Sam? Did his letter suggest that he no longer feared crossing borders?
The next day, on Bahnhofstrasse, Sam glimpses the man who once took him shopping for clothes. Sam can’t recollect his name but shouts, “Franz’s friend!” He lunges and clutches the man’s shirt sleeve. “Remember me? We went shopping when I was with Franz Niederberger.”
The man’s eyes widen. “Oh, yeah.” Sam recalls that he’s called Delial. “That’s right. You’re the one who changed Frankie.”
“Changed him? What do you mean?”
Delial bites his lip, plucks a petal from the flower in his lapel, drops it to the sidewalk, and crushes it beneath his feet. “Is Franz all right? That’s a matter of opinion.”
“But where he is? Is he in Zurich?”
“Yes, he’s here.”
“He is! Thank God! Where?”
“I can’t tell you.” His lips close firmly then open to say, “I can’t tell you anything. I’m forbidden to.”
Sam clenches a fist. “Listen! I’ve come all the way from Canada. I’m not interested in playing games. You wouldn’t believe what I suffered through to get here.” He’d willingly tell Delial about his adventures but knows he won’t be believed. Little does Sam know that Franz’s story strains credibility more than his own.
“Let’s talk about it in Odeon tonight then. At ten o’clock. At a private table, where no one can hear us.” Delial twists his lips and steps into the flowing stream of pedestrians.
As promised, Delial arrives at the café. His fuschia top is covered with sequins that clatter together when he folds his arms.
After a double martini he says, “Sam, I thought that I have no right to tell you the story of Franz. But I will, because I hope you can change things for him. We all miss our old Frankie so much.” Delial lowers his head; a tear streams down his cheek. Sam lets him have his moment. Delial wipes his face with a napkin, clears his throat, and says, “The sun shines after even the darkest storm. And now I’ll tell the tale of Franz Niederberger. It goes like this: After you left, Franz started behaving oddly. He was often frightened, paranoid and, for a while, disappeared from view.”
“I know all about that. He described it to me in a letter he sent.”
“Yes, he did send you a letter. We know about that. He invited you back, but you took such a long time, such a long, long time to return. You’re here now, but it’s too little, too late. He stopped believing you would ever come, Sam. Time passed and you sent no news. Why couldn’t you have sent a letter? A postcard? A dove with a olive branch in its mouth? He thought you’d forgotten him, or that you’d never forgive his treatment of you, you snarky bitch. Why did you abandon him like that?”
“I didn’t!” Sam says. “There was no way I could contact him. I was locked in an insane asylum, then lost in a forest, and then stuck on a boat crossing the ocean, which exploded because of my stupid, fucking mother. I did worry but assumed that as long as he was in my mind, I was in his. But what’s happened to Franz? Tell me!”
“Some say a tragedy has happened. Some say it’s wonderful. To me it’s such a massive change—and all change, except how hemlines change when the fall line is introduced, terrifies me. First he burned down his chalet to destroy all evidence of his past life. Presently he lives in a tiny apartment just off Viederplatz. He’s practically a hermit; he rarely goes out but has food delivered. As you may know, after he disappeared from view, his early artwork, the spinning wheels, etcetera, have been discovered and Tagesspiegel claims he’s a genius. But he refuses all exposure, no interviews, photo gigs, or television appearances. But worst of all—” Delial chokes, can’t speak.
“Most of all what? What?”
“I can’t describe what’s happened.” Delial grabs his handbag from the counter and storms toward the exit. “And it’s all your fault!” he shouts, racing out. Sam scribbles Viederplatz on the back of a matchbox.
The next morning, he stands in the centre of the square. Franz is in one of these four buildings. Sam imagines Franz sleeping behind one of the walls, his butt rising in the air while an erection dents the mattress. He looks at every list of entry buttons beside every door. None has Franz’s name.
At seven a.m., two Asian men wearing toques cross the square; at seven-fifteen, an old lady drags an empty grocery cart along the cobblestones, then returns at nine-thirty, her buggy full of apples. At one, two, and three minutes after ten o’clock, three men in business suits march past, their lower legs flicking like jack-knife blades. At eleven o’clock, a stray dog runs over and pees against the square’s lone tree, and Sam remembers the dog he saw from the asylum window. Two policemen stroll through at eleven-thirty; at noon, a woman rushes out, her hair tied in scraps of newspaper. Sam doesn’t leave the bench to have a snack or use a toilet fearing he’ll miss something. In the late afternoon, he walks over to a man sweeping leaves to ask, “Do you know in which of these Gëbaude Franz Niederberger lives?”
“Sorry, I don’t.”
He asks tenants exiting or entering buildings. Always the same answer. He wonders if Delial lied to him about the address.
The next morning, he posts himself on the same bench and studies people’s faces more closely. Perhaps Franz made an appearance yesterday but was unrecognizable. He scrutinizes a man’s cleft chin, the nostril of a teenager, the cheek of an old man who scuffles by in broken shoes.
The third day, Sam despairs. Franz is nowhere. At dusk he watches a young boy carrying groceries to the apartment tower. The boy puts a key in the lock; the door opens, and he enters. He reappears a minute later without the bag. He tosses a coin in the air. A delivery boy. Franz’s delivery boy? Sam charges across the square. “You,” he cries. “Were you just at the Niederberger residence?”
The boy cracks gum between his teeth. “What’s it to you?”
“I need to go there. I need to get inside. Please tell me the address. Give me your key.”
The boy crosses his arms on his chest, sensing that, for once, he has some power. Sam has to give him the 200 francs in his pocket, and agree to deliver groceries for the kid all next week. He must wait an agonizing six days before the boy gives him the passkey. The Niederberger delivery is only once a week. Finally Sam has the key in his pocket. The apartment number is 1000. He carries a bag full of eggs, muesli, and orange juice. Franz must be on a health kick.
“You’re not supposed to knock at the door,” the boy says. “Just put the bag down and leave.”
Sam struts confidently across Viederplatz. The key fits the lock perfectly. After stepping inside Sam makes an effort to control himself. He climbs the stone steps. Each clop-clop of his shoes is like the tick-tock of a clock that’s been counting the minutes since his birth, has been ticking throughout this book, and will tick until the world’s end. He climbs to the second landing, then the third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth.
Sam trembles before the door of apartment 1000. It has one eye-hole. he becomes self-conscious.
He combs his hair with his fingertips, tucks in his shirt, cups his hands, and smells his breath—so silly, he who was once a beast in the woods. In his mind he repeats the sentence he’d practised over and over while floating on the wooden plank, “Franz, at long last we meet again. I have crossed the Earth for you.”
He clears his throat. He knocks once, twice.
From inside, silence, then a cough and the creak of a chair. Percussive footsteps approach the door. The spy-hole snaps open and an eye—an emerald-green eye, yes, Franz’s eye!—fills the hole. Sam hears a gasp. The rattling of chains, the door swings open violently, bangs once against the wall.
Franz Niederberger is standing facing Sam Masonty.
But Sam cannot give his speech because Franz is not what he once was. He is what he has become. He has become Veronika.
The story goes like this: one year ago at the foot of the Matterhorn, Franz sent Sam a letter. He returned to Zurich and waited. The sun crossed the sky a hundred times. Each morning Franz put on a new shirt, gelled his hair, sprinkled his neck with lavender, gargled with a lemon-lime spritzer, and sprawled across the divan, his arms spread, an inviting smile on his lips, and his erect penis pointing like a wand toward the closed door. The door never opened. Weeks passed. Months passed. Franz started wearing shirts that weren’t so new or were un-ironed or stained with ketchup. He clutched the VCR remote and watched snippets of soap operas and infomercials all day. The door remained shut.
Huddled on the floor, he glared morosely into the carpet. Little did he know that by this point, Sam had received his letter, escaped from the asylum, and was futilely trying to board planes in Ontario airports. Franz assumed Sam had already arrived in Zurich but was having second thoughts, or didn’t know if he wanted to again involve himself with such a pompous prick. Crippled with indecision, perhaps, Sam was hiding somewhere in the city. One day Franz charged from his chalet, slamming the door so hard the living room window cracked. He hunted every street, searched bars, laundromats, telephone booths, and the city council chambers. He spent a whole month searching for Sam in the Earth Sciences department of the University of Zurich before their security guards threw him out.
The Lava in My Bones Page 28