Sleeping in Flame

by Jonathan Carroll

  Victoria's first lover? Naturally, an actor I introduced her to, who owned a lot of Josef Hoffmann-designed furniture.

  Having an affair is like trying to hide an alligator under the bed. It is much too dangerous and big to be there, it sure doesn't fit, and no matter how carefully you try to conceal it, some part of the beast inevitably sticks out, is seen, sends everyone running and screaming.

  The last time we traveled together was to America to get a divorce. Victoria said divorce was never having to say you're sorry . . . again.

  After it was over, my family urged me to stay with them in Atlanta awhile, but I used pain as my excuse to escape to Vienna: My friends were there, my work, everything. So I returned to the town as if it were an old best friend who would put its arms around me and, over drinks, listen sympathetically to my problems.

  I was thirty, and that is a turning point for anyone, even those not freshly divorced and out on the track again.

  Nicholas and some other nice people were wonderful. They squired me around, fed me lots of delicious meals, often called late at night to make sure I wasn't leaning too far out the window . . .

  At one of those dinners, someone asked me if I knew how flamingoes got their color. I didn't. Apparently those funny, long-legged birds are not naturally that psychedelic coral pink. They're born a sort of dirty white. But from the beginning, they exist on a diet of plants rich in carotene, "a red hydrocarbon." If you are a flamingo, you turn from white to pink when you eat enough carotene.

  Anyway, the image fascinated me. I kept thinking I had gone through almost a decade with Victoria, largely unaware of either our original colors or the shade our relationship had eventually turned us after all that time together.

  And almost more important, what color was I then, back in Vienna, alone? To go from a good marriage to a stranger's bed was a pretty big change from a "carotene diet." It is not only God who is in the details, it is also very much us.

  It was time for me to pay attention to those details. Next time around, assuming I would be lucky enough to have another chance at a shared lifetime with someone, I would know the color of my skin (and heart!) before offering it to another.

  Did that mean carrying a hand mirror with me at all times so I could see myself from every angle? No, nothing so drastic or inane. Self-examination is usually a half-hearted, spontaneous thing we do when we're either scared or bored. As a result, whatever conclusions we reach are distorted either by a clumsy urgency or a listless sigh. But in my own case, I simply wanted to be less surprised by what I did after I did it.

  About six months after I returned to Austria, luck, like a boomerang, came flying back to me on a wide slow arc. The movie I had been commissioned to write was shot. For some unknown, delightful reason, it did great business in Italy and Spain. Its success led to another Nicholas Sylvian-Walker Easterling collaboration that happened at just the right time. I also liked the idea of this new one more, so the actual writing came much more easily. It was a romantic comedy and I was able to plug many of my own good memories into the story. Another time, those memories would have left me feeling blue and failed. But integrating them into a film world that ended happily, with a long kiss and a fortune in the pocket of the lovers was the best way to relive that part of the recent past.

  The film was never made, but it led to another producer, another script, and a basic assurance that, for the time being, I would be able to rely on the writing profession to keep me going.

  I bought a small, sunny apartment on Bennogasse, two black leather chairs that looked like matching pistols, and a blind cat from the Tierheim that somewhere had picked up the mysterious name Orlando. He came when I called and spent the first week in my new home walking carefully through the rooms like an astronaut just landed on a new planet. He was the salt-and-pepper gray of week-old snow, and spent most of his day asleep on top of an old baseball glove I kept on the edge of my desk. Orlando's greatest, his only, trick was knowing when the telephone was going to ring before it did. If he was asleep on the desk, a few seconds before the call came he would lift his head suddenly and move it left and right, as if a fly were somewhere in his neighborhood. Then, ring! I liked to think that being both a cat and blind made him privy to certain small cosmic secrets. But the longer we lived together, his early-warning telephone look appeared to be his only talent in that direction.

  I also tried to make the days more orderly and worthwhile. Wake up, exercise, eat, write, go for a long walk. . . . In certain ways I felt like a lucky survivor; someone just out of the hospital after a dangerous operation or terrible illness.

  A direct result of all this reshuffling and reappraisal was that, despite meeting a number of attractive and interesting women, I did not want to get involved in any kind of relationship then, not even just to "fool around." Sex with new faces held little appeal in those days, although that had been one of the prime causes of my dead marriage. There were so many other things that needed to be sorted out and understood before I visited the Land of Ladies again.

  Four months later I was married again.

  2.

  The whole ride in from the Munich airport Nicholas talked about the woman he wanted me to meet. It was characteristic though, because whatever Nicholas liked, he liked whole-heartedly and described in glowing, mountainous terms.

  "Do you know Ovo, the fashion photographer?"

  "Sure, he's the guy who does models parachuting out of planes in ball gowns, doesn't he?"

  "That's right. Maris York was his main model for two years. You'll know her face when you see it, I'm sure."

  "Is she beautiful?"

  He frowned, hesitated before answering. "Beautiful? I don't know about that. She is six feet tall, has hair as short as yours, and brown eyes that are a miracle. But no, she's not what most people would call beautiful. But she's the kind of woman you see someplace and wish you were going to spend the rest of your life with."

  I laughed and nodded to show I was impressed. He wasn't finished.

  "She drives an old Renault R4 with no heater and the radio is always broken. The wires stick out of the dashboard. You love her even more for that car."

  "Have you ever been together with her?"

  He looked at me as if I had said something terrible.

  "Hell no! It would be like blowing out the candles on a birthday cake."

  "What is that supposed to mean?"

  "Walker, some people you touch and some you dream about."

  Herr Nashorn looked like a goldfish in aviator glasses. We had coffee and cake in his office and talked about films we'd all enjoyed. It was get-acquainted chatter, and we were all waiting to see who would be the first to mention our project.

  In the middle of the gabbing, Nicholas stood up abruptly and asked if he could make a telephone call. He winked at me, and started dialing from a phone in the corner of the office.

  While he called, Nashorn began talking to me, so I couldn't really hear what my friend was saying. But when he reached her, his voice went low and sexy, and his face was truly happy.

  "Herr Nashorn, where are we eating lunch, and at what time?"

  "The Vier Jahreszeiten, I guess. About two o'clock."

  "Good." Nicholas held the receiver up and pointed to it. "Do you mind if I bring a guest?"

  We waited half an hour before ordering. She didn't show up. The food came, we ate and talked, she didn't show up. Nicholas went twice to look for her, but came back both times shaking his head.

  "It's not like Maris to do this, damn it. I wonder if something is wrong. It has me worried."

  "Did you call her?"

  "Yes, but there was no answer."

  After lunch we went back to the office and spent the afternoon talking, but Nicholas was clearly preoccupied with his friend and not much help selling our picture. Every half hour he got up to call again. Nashorn didn't like these interruptions one bit. He kept shooting exasperated, annoyed looks at one or another of his associates every time
Nicholas excused himself to go to the phone.

  I did what I could to keep the ball rolling, describing wonderful scenes I already had in mind to write, suggesting actors I thought would be right for the different roles. Whenever someone made a suggestion or comment, I listened carefully and even pretended to take notes.

  Someone said you should never be a housepainter because others all think they know how to do it and, as a result, will always be telling you how to do it better. The same is true with making movies. Some of the things said in the meeting that afternoon were so dumb and off-base that I frequently had to gulp to keep my exasperation down.

  Fortunately, Nashorn was very interested in making a movie, and despite Nicholas's strange behavior, our meeting ended with the boss of Nashorn Industries smiling and actually rubbing his hands together.

  "This kind of work is what I like. Lay the plans and then get going. I think we can pull something together here, Mr. Sylvian. And Mr. Easterling, you have the right ideas for the screenplay: clever, funny, and sexy. Don't forget those sexy parts though – that's what makes people like me go to the movies!"

  Everyone shook hands, backs were patted, and finally we were out on the street in an adamant winter rain before either of us spoke again.

  "'Don't forget the sexy parts!' Nicholas, are we really going to have to work with that dope?"

  "He's just an asshole, Walker. Don't worry about him. We'll take his big money and make our own film. Come on, I've got to find a phone. I want to try her one more time before we go to the airport. What time is the flight?"

  I looked at my watch. "A little under two hours."

  We walked some blocks in the rain before spying the ghostly yellow block of a lit phone booth. While Nicholas called, I stood outside and tried to shield myself from the mean, icy drops that were coming down like ball bearings.

  He reached her and gave me a big thumbs up. But he spoke only a few words before shouting "He did what?" and slamming his hand hard against one of the walls. The booth shook.

  With the phone to his ear he looked at me and said, "The fucking guy tried to kill her!"

  I didn't know which fucking guy he was talking about, but assumed he meant the man she was living with.

  "He killed me" is one of the more overused phrases of our already hyperbolic times. As a result, it has lost most of its punch. People use it to say "killed" in business, in bed, on the golf course. I've learned not to pay attention when people use it, but the look on Nicholas's face behind the wet glass said there was no fooling around here.

  He spoke for a short time into the receiver, looking at me while he mumbled and nodded and tightened his lips repeatedly. Suddenly, he hung up with a bang and came out.

  "We've got to meet her at the Kдfer. She'll be there in twenty minutes."

  The streets were jammed with five o'clock traffic but we found a taxi. It was a brand-new Mercedes full of that great mystical new-car smell.

  "Do you want to talk about it?"

  He nodded. "She's been living with a French guy for about a year. Luc something. He thinks he's a director, but the only films he's ever made have been industrial shit about how to work a computer or a storm window. I don't know where she got him, but I never liked him. He's about five feet five, spends most of his time lying around home complaining, and walks around in T-shirts in winter so you'll see his muscles. A real weekend Rambo, you know?

  "Anyway, she got smart about two months ago and threw him out of her house. Since then he's been following her everywhere she goes. Stands outside her apartment all night, shows up in every restaurant she goes to, calls her up and threatens her –"

  "Threatens her? How?"

  "Hey, listen, a couple of days ago he broke into her place and tried to rape her! Tore off her clothes and threatened to stab her with a pair of scissors if she didn't come across. Jesus Christ, she's such a sweet woman. Wait till you meet her. How could somebody do that? She was able to talk him out of it, but then today he grabbed her on the street and started hitting her in the face. Said no one ever left him. Can you believe it?"

  "I can believe it if he's a madman. How did she stop him?"

  "Started screaming. Luckily, a couple of cops showed up. He ran away! Ran away. The guy is forty years old and he runs away! But when she went back to her apartment, he called her and said he was going to get her, no matter what she did."

  Nicholas patted my knee and shook his head. "A nice man to get involved with, huh?"

  The Kдfer is a Munich "in" spot of the first order. It is full of people wearing leather, jewels, or very little. During the last part of the cab ride Nicholas cheered up some, and was smiling again as we went through the door of the restaurant.

  It felt as if all the people there were waiting: for their date, for the right moment, for whatever they felt was their due. I have always felt uncomfortable in places like that, places where no one tastes the expensive food or drink because they are too busy watching the door to see who comes in. I was thinking about that as we made our way across the room to a staircase leading to the bar.

  As we were about to start climbing, Nicholas turned to me and said something exciting, but which later turned out to be eerily prophetic.

  "Walker, now you are going to fall in love with a unique woman." He said no more and moved up the stairs. I followed, curious as hell.

  The bar was small and crowded. People were making lots of noise, drowning each other out. Watching the action and looking for a unique woman, I lost sight of Nicholas, who had drifted off to the left somewhere. It was very hot in there, and I decided to check my coat at the stand on my right. Moving toward it, I had to go around a high metal table that was there for people who couldn't find space at the bar.

  Standing at that table was a very tall woman dressed all in black except for a round red velvet hat that looked like something a bellboy would wear. The first thing that entered my mind was how wonderful it would be if she were waiting for me. Her face was cloud white, her eyes dark, large, and memorable. The funny hat was pushed forward and down tight on her head, but thick eyebrows said she had black or very dark hair. She was smoking an unfiltered cigarette. When her eyes saw me they were indifferent. This woman definitely wasn't waiting for me. I tried to hold those eyes with mine, but she suddenly saw something over my shoulder that made every feature on her face brighten.

  Someone put his hands on my shoulders from behind and 1 felt myself pushed toward her.

  "Nicholas!"

  "Hello there!"

  They embraced and I watched her pull him in with a giant bearhug. So what? This woman was Maris York. Sometimes life hands you a big tip.

  "I am so glad to see you."

  "Me too, pal. Maris, this is my friend Walker Easterling."

  She continued to hold his arm while we shook hands. She gave me a good shake: strong, totally there.

  "It's good to meet you, Walker. It was so nice of you to come."

  It astounded me how poised and happy she looked. A couple of hours ago she had been attacked, but now she stood there like the unruffled hostess at a diplomatic cocktail party.

  "Hey, what's that?" Nicholas pointed to a dark mark below her right ear.

  "A souvenir from Luc. I think my jaw is going to be a hell of a sight tomorrow. I'll look like a boxer who lost."

  "Wait a minute. Let me get some wine and then we can talk about everything." He walked to the bar. Maris watched him closely. When she turned to me she was crying and smiling at the same time.

  "Please excuse me, Walker. I just –" She put a hand to her eyes and brusquely rubbed tears away. "It's so good to see you two. After Nicholas called this morning I was so happy. Then this stupid thing had to happen." She rubbed her eyes again. "I was really lost today. I thought I was going to drown."

  "Are you all right now?"

  "I want to be all right, but I'm still pretty bad. I wish we could have met under different conditions."

  Nicholas came back with a large bott
le of white wine and three glasses. "So, have the police caught him yet?" He handed her a glass with wine to the top.

  "No, and I don't think they will, either. If I know him, he's on his way to France by now. He's been in trouble with the police before. Whenever something bad happens, Luc zips back to Paris. He's got family there. At heart he's a big scaredy-cat."

  That did it. That she should call the man (monster?) who'd so recently tried to kill her a "scaredy-cat" made me love her. Believe me, it was that simple.

  The keys that unlock the heart are made of funny materials: a disarming phrase that comes out of the blue, nowhere, a certain sexy walk that sends you reeling, the way someone hums when she is alone. My father said it was the way my mother danced with him.

  Nicholas and Maris continued talking while I stared at her and tried to figure out what to do. When I tuned back to their conversation, he was asking what she was going to do.

  "Stay with a friend. I want to leave town as soon as possible because I don't know when he'll be back. I don't know where to go yet, so I'll have to figure that out first."

  "Do you want some money?"

  She reached over and touched his cheek. "No, but thank you for offering. When I was home I took all of my cash and checks and passport, just in case. I'm not going back to that apartment. I'll call my friend Heidi and have her move my things to a warehouse, or something. Wherever Luc is, he won't leave me alone anymore. I didn't tell you a lot of the things that have happened. I used to think he was just angry and hurt, but he's really crazy, Nicholas."

  "Why don't we take you with us to Vienna?"

  I said that.

  Both of them looked at me with the same expression: Huh?

  Nicholas drank some wine, then looked at his watch. "He's absolutely right. Let's go, Maris. We've got forty-five minutes."