“Who are you? What do you want from me?”
“That would take a long time to explain. I’m Rabbit Hat. Or maybe Air Wair with bouncing soles. I don’t know—what do you think my name should be? Here comes your seat.”
Our backs were turned to the stewardess so it was impossible to see her coming, but a moment after he spoke she touched me on the shoulder and said she’d found a seat for me. I looked at Hasenhüttl and moved to get up, but he stood instead.
“I’m here to fuck you up, Harry. Plain and simple. Wishes aren’t free. There’s always a kick in the ass that comes along with them. I’m yours.” He told the worried-looking stewardess he’d be moving and not me.
As he slid past my knees, I asked, “Why are you telling me this?”
Having reached the aisle, he bent over me. “Because there’s no fear without knowing. You’re never really afraid until you’re sure. Now you know. Now it’s for sure. I’ll see you around.”
What did he look like? An overweight businessman in a dull suit, square eyeglasses, forgettable face. If he said he sold ink or tractors or was a politician in a Communist country, you’d believe it. Rabbit Hat was a good name for him. A big rabbit in a hat.
Several minutes after he left I got up, handed my untouched tray of food to the stewardess, and went back. The tourist section was packed but they’d found him a place between two Arabs. He was reading a computer magazine and didn’t look up.
“Who sent you? Cthulu?”
He ignored me. The Arabs stared.
“Rabbit Hat, I’m asking you a question. Who sent you? What are you supposed to do to me?”
The plane bumped hard and I almost lost my balance. My man pushed his glasses up and rubbed his face. “Think you’d better get back to your seat, Harry. Looks like we’ve hit some turbulence.”
“Answer my question first.” The plane bucked again, swayed from side to side.
Pulling the glasses down, he looked at me coldly. “Answer your question? I’m not here to do what you like, friend. It was nice enough of me to warn you I’m around. I didn’t have to do that. I could’ve just started sprinkling tacks on your path and watched you dance down it barefoot. But now you know. Look, you read the fairy tales when you were a kid. Rub the lamp and a genie comes out, but so do a lot of other things! The greatest thing that can happen in life is your wish comes true. Or the worst thing that happens is your wish comes true. I’m the other side of the wish, honey. The dark side of the moon. I’m the one who can walk on your voice.”
I returned to my seat and watched a film I don’t remember a bit of because the headphones were tuned to a classical music channel and I didn’t change it.
Vienna airport is a nice piece of work. It’s well conceived and small enough so it doesn’t take forever to get out once your plane’s landed. I was one of the first off our flight, but lagged behind so I could watch my new nemesis and size him up better. He brushed past in the flow of others and walked quickly toward passport control. After a cursory glance, an inspector waved him through but I was stopped and they checked my passport thoroughly, even turning it upside down and holding it to the light at one point.
Thus it took some time to catch up with Hasenhüttl at the baggage claim. Although my bag was already in sight, I stood five or six feet behind him and waited till he got his before snatching mine off the belt. I kept the six feet between us while we walked toward the “Nothing to Declare” door to the outside. He passed the last customs officer and the electric doors slid open.
Ambassador “Off-the-Record” Awwad was standing on the other side of the doors, and for a moment I thought he was there for me, but I soon realized he wasn’t. A smile erupted on Awwad’s face when he saw Hasenhüttl, then he stepped forward and grabbed his bag. Simultaneously, a customs officer touched my arm and gestured for me to stop and open my suitcase. Outside, my two pals turned and walked away. The doors slid closed.
“Shit!”
“Bitte?”
“I said shit! You want to look in my bag? Here!”
I HAD TO TALK to someone about this and the best person, if only he’d been alive, was Venasque. Halfway back to town in the taxi I remembered what had happened with Walker Easterling’s young son when I was last here: Nicholas’s magic at the lunch table, the way his parents had unconcernedly let us go alone to the flea market, then climbing the roof there, the way the boy jumped onto the train and told me to listen for … the voice of God? What was it exactly? That part was foggy in my mind. What was most vivid and important was the conviction that Venasque had returned from the dead that day to inhabit this child so as to tickle and point me in a certain important direction.
Was it possible to reach my mentor again through this child? I needed only ten, fifteen minutes to talk, to lay it out and say “What should I do? And if you won’t tell me that, just say if I’m warm or cold here. Is my compass pointing in the right direction?” Venasque. If I could touch base with him I knew he would help. I knew he would want to help. Nicholas Easterling. I had to see that kid, talk to him, try.
I got to the hotel too late to call but was so wide awake and wound up by this new possibility that I dropped off my bag and went out to walk on the Ringstrasse. I passed a man in a phone booth and saw him take off his hat before dropping coins in the slot. I wondered if he always took his hat off before talking on the phone. My father always listened to Verdi’s Masked Ball when he did his income taxes. Venasque had a special spoon he used only for cooking soup. Habits. They keep us so comfortably grounded on earth. With a jolt I realized most of the habits I’d accumulated over my adult life had generally disappeared or changed very noticeably in the last months. Walking in the cold Vienna air, I checked this idea by examining how I brushed my teeth—up and down now, when for years it had been side to side. I startled a couple nearby by proclaiming, “I was always up and down!” From there I mentally scanned a bunch of habits, as well as other personal trivia, and it became disturbingly apparent that virtually without noticing it, great chunks and blocks of what I’d been had either vanished or changed dramatically in the last year.
What did that mean? Was it good or bad? I asked Venasque that question a million times—“Is it good or bad?” At the beginning he answered because I was so confused and needed his help too much. But as I healed and got stronger he’d turn it around, “What do you think, Harry?” Or once when he was cranky, “Jesus Christ, that’s the only interesting thing about life—trying to find out if things are good or bad. You want me to tell you all the time. You’re like the dumb man who’s never had sex. He goes up to someone and asks, ‘What’s sex like?’ This other guy says, ‘Nice, but it always gets me in trouble.’ So the first guy says, ‘That’s all I need to know. I’m staying away from it.’”
In front of a McDonald’s I looked through their beaming, gleaming window and wondered if I was disappearing. First my habits jump ship, which I don’t realize till now, then comes a nervous breakdown that wipes most of the rest of my slate clean … . Carrying these thoughts, I entered the yellow/red happyland of the perpetual cheeseburger. At the counter a tired-looking Oriental girl tried to smile when asking what I wanted. I ordered a Big Mac and a Coke and took them to the nearest table. Say what you will, there’s something comfortably womblike about eating at McDonald’s, no matter where it is. I used to think their garish American “Midwestness” made these restaurants as outrageous and incongruous as flying saucers, especially when you saw them plopped down and glowing on the streets of Berlin or Bangkok. But that opinion changed too one night in Aachen when the only thing I wanted in the world was a burger with fries and I found a Golden Arches and it was great. No matter who you are, sitting at one of those familiar tables munching familiar warm food, knowing everyone around you is eating the same meal, is like a religious ceremony: Let us all now unwrap and eat our hamburgers.
On the last bite of my late meal in Vienna, I realized that disappearing and McDonald’s had a lot in common. Wes
tern culture sends out so many mixed signals it’s a wonder there aren’t more lunatics at large. On the one hand we’re taught to do whatever we can to prove we’re individuals. Hey, short of death, what could be worse than being mistaken for another person? An added benefit is, the more individual you are, the more chance you have at a kind of immortality. Look at Gandhi. Look at Mao. Look at Elvis.
On the other hand, we’re expected to be Republicans or Democrats, Beatles fans, members of the Lion’s Club or Kiwanis, proud citizens of the U.S. of A., France … Trinidad.
What sane society screams that one must be different to be successful, then with the same breath says anyone who doesn’t like hamburgers is a “weirdo”? To yourself be true, but if you’re too true you’ll be alone. Or you’ll “disappear” because the status quo has no use for the genuine oddball. Taking out a pen, I wrote on a rumpled napkin: “Two ways to be invisible—eat every meal at McDonald’s, or be so strange that people make every effort not to see you—bums, real geniuses, etc.”
NEXT MORNING THE PHONE rang while I was adjusting the water for a bath. Telephones make me nervous and excited. Inevitably I overreact when one rings nearby. Scampering naked back into the bedroom, I lifted the receiver prepared for anything.
It was Awwad, or rather his personal secretary, wanting to know if the ambassador or the embassy staff could do anything for me while I was in town. I wanted to say yes, answer these three questions in whatever order you please: (1) Who is Hasenhüttl? (2) What’s Awwad’s connection with him? (3) What does he want from me? Instead I thanked them for their concern and said I’d be in Vienna only a day or two and didn’t think I’d need their help.
I walked back into a welcoming cloud of hot-water steam in the bathroom. Adjusting the tap, I heard the phone ring again. This time it was Fanny.
“You told Hassan I have the temper of a badger?”
“You do. How are you Fanny? How is your mother?”
“It’s nine o’clock there, right? Have you taken your morning bath yet?”
“I was just running the water when the phone rang.”
“Well, here’s something for you to think about when you get in: I’ve decided to marry Hassan.”
There was a mirror across the room. I looked into it and raised my eyebrows, as if to say, “What can you do?”
“Aren’t you going to say anything? Aren’t you going to tell me not to?”
“No, Fanny. You want to marry the guy, do it. But to call up and tell me over the fucking telephone, does not deserve a human response from me! No, I’m not going to stop you. I will tell you I think you’re a coward for not having had the nuts to look me in the eye when you said it.”
“You’re a genuinely dreadful man.”
“Better dreadful than spineless, Toots. I would never have done it like this to you. Never.”
“You’ll never get the chance, Fuck Head.” She hung up.
I walked back to the tub and got in although the water was still far too hot. When I got out twenty minutes later my body looked like smoked salmon. While soaking, I conjured and mouthed three or four hundred brilliantly witty and cruel lines I wished I’d been able to think up while talking to her. The French even have a phrase for it: esprit de l’escalier. The spirit of the staircase; what I wish I’d said a moment ago but didn’t. In my case, what I wish I’d said a moment ago but didn’t because I was too stunned and hurt to respond. Using the phone was her knockout punch. Like a doctor calling to say you’ve got terminal cancer.
“Goddamned telephone!” I moaned, rubbing my neck with a towel and staring into the other room at that guilty black object. It slid so many words from so many voices into your ear and caused so much trouble. Voices. Words. Volume. “Maybe God is volume. Don’t be surprised that all the words are God.” That’s what little Nicholas Easterling had said to me, standing on the roof of that subway train as it moved out of the station. Words. Mysterious ones from a child. Shock words from a lover. And what had the inscrutable Hasenhüttl said to me the night before? “I’m the one who can walk on your voice.”
IT TOOK HOURS TO reach the Easterlings. When I did, Maris said her husband was out of town and she had a cold. Meaning, obviously, go away and call back at a better time. I convinced her it was important, I wouldn’t stay long, and without directly mentioning the boy said it had mostly to do with their “offspring.” She chuckled and invited me over.
The apartment was a quick ride from the hotel. I was there in a jiffy and despite knowing I was coming, Maris still sounded flabbergasted to hear my voice on her intercom.
“How’d you get here so fast? Did you beam up?”
The door buzzed and with a very excited heart, I pushed it open.
Standing at the bottom of the staircase, I looked up and realized the grim fact I would have to climb more than five flights to reach the Easterling apartment. Americans aren’t used to climbing stairs anymore. Or more than one flight, anyway. Tedious and old-fashioned, a long climb is also guaranteed to cause depression because it reminds you in two minutes how grossly out of shape you are. I was beginning to breathe heavily by the third floor and sounded like a dirty phone caller rounding the banister to the fifth. A thin cat with a sweet face stood up there on the landing, twitching its tail.
“Hello there, kitty.” I reached down and stroked its head. It pushed up into my hand and purred. Very nice. My kind of feline. Any cat that behaves like a dog is welcome in my universe. Otherwise not. I contend that an animal that thinks itself superior, yet is content to play with a piece of string for three hours, is lacking in important matters of the spirit.
“His name is Orlando.”
Bent over to pet the cat, I twisted around, looked up, and saw a giant round belly. Peering over it came the beautiful face of Maris Easterling. Although she wore no makeup and her complexion was too pale, she still looked fine. Stupendously pregnant, but fine. Maris Easterling had not been pregnant when I saw her less than a week before!
My spirit said, “Uh-oh” before my conscious mind caught up and began realizing what was going on.
“Hi. You made it up those stairs okay?”
I was staring at her stomach. She was so very, very pregnant under that blue sweatshirt and stretched pair of pants. This woman was not pregnant when we met a hundred hours before.
Rudely, instead of going to her, I sat down on the step next to the cat and rubbed a hand over the top of my head.
“Are you okay, Harry? Those stairs can really kill. Want a drink of water?”
“No thanks. Your boy isn’t around, is he?” But already I knew there was no Easterling child. Yet. No Nicholas. It had been Venasque who led me to the flea market that day, but only that day masquerading as a child not yet born. Once again, my shaman had put on one of his performances for me.
Maris continued smiling at me and then shrugged. “You mean Walker? No, I told you, he’s out of town until tomorrow.”
“No, not your husband, your son, Nicholas.”
“God, how’d you know that?”
Purring louder, the cat pushed into my side. I hugged him into me, as if for dear life. “Know what? What do you mean?”
“That name, ‘Nicholas’! We only decided on names the other night and here you are already knowing it! Nicholas for a boy and Lydia for a girl.” She looked at her stomach. “Do you think they’re nice names?”
“There is no boy yet, is there?” Unthinkingly I looked at her door, still hoping the child I’d met would emerge. But there was no magical son Nicholas yet. Not for months. Not till he was born.
“We don’t know if it’s a boy yet. I was in the hospital and they gave me that test where they can determine what sex the child is? But I said I didn’t want to know. Walker agreed. This’ll probably be the only child we have. We want it to be a surprise.”
Venasque came as the boy for a day to tell me those things about God, volume, words. One day, no more. I was alone now. Did that mean he thought I could handle matters on
my own, or was he limited to one visit, that sole appearance? Was he standing on a cloud in heaven, eating potato chips and shaking his head at how badly I was handling my life?
Maris and I spoke for another half hour. Luckily she was full of enthusiasm for my work and asked quite technical questions about how I’d conceived and achieved a certain this and that in my designs. Running as much on empty as I was, talking about the work, work I’d been listless toward for so long, lit a small pilot light in my spirit.
Before I left she shyly asked if I’d be willing to look at some of her “things,” as she called them. These things turned out to be marvelous miniature cities done from a variety of materials and that showed a real talent for the stylishly preposterous and visionary. From what little I could remember of that time, they also reminded me of the city I was building when I was crazy. One in particular, and I asked if she’d consider selling it.
“Sell Harry Radcliffe one of my cities? Why that one, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“Because it reminds me of a madness I once had and miss, in certain ways.”
“You miss being mad?”
“I miss being obsessed. I like the weather there.”
She touched my shoulder. “You sound so sad saying that. I don’t think crazy people are obsessed. They whirl, but don’t know it. The fun of obsession is stepping back once in a while, catching your breath, and seeing what you’ve been doing in the middle of your tornado. Crazy people can’t step back. They just spin till they go up in smoke.”
A GENTLE WHITE FOG/MIST that had been sitting on Vienna gradually thickened into snow about an hour out of the city. The day had begun as one of those unique winter jewels where the pureness of sky and sun makes you feel life is generous. That lasted a few hours until clouds began scudding in from the west on a nasty little button-your-top-button wind. I was at the train station by then and actually preferred the idea of traveling across a day the color of stone. The express from Vienna to Zell am See was scheduled to take four hours. Leaving early, I hoped to be there by noon. A few days getting the lay of the land and a good whiff of the place was my invariable first step before returning to Los Angeles and beginning preliminary sketches. A professional racing driver I know says whenever he has a race, no matter if he has driven the course a hundred times, part of his fixed regimen is to walk slowly around the track before he even gets in the car. Me too. Without a hundred people around telling and asking me what to do, I visit a new site often, alone, before putting a protractor to paper or poking at a calculator.
Outside the Dog Museum Page 16