Sleeping in Flame

by Jonathan Carroll

  If he wasn't deep in the bowels of the National Library looking up facts on his Anabaptist, Buck was walking the city. He knew more about the place than most Viennese, and would often take me to see some strange Roman ruin or undiscovered junk store way out in the Twenty-third District that sold old war medals and uniforms.

  "The problem with the Brothers Grimm is there's been too much written on them. I got your info for you, but I've been in the friggin' library too long. My eyes feel like old headlights. Let's walk the Ring and I'll tell you what I found."

  Any guidebook will tell you that Vienna is one of the great walking cities in the world. The streets are either wide and tree-lined, or else crooked/narrow and filled with interesting or odd stores. The automobile is part of the city but doesn't own it yet.

  Winter there means cold and mist. It rarely snows hard, but the days are short, cold, and damp. Buck was standing at Schottentor with his bare hands under his armpits and a green camouflage watchcap on.

  "You look like you're going on maneuvres."

  "Yeah? Come on, I gotta get my blood moving."

  We walked in front of the university, past the Burg Theatre and Town Hall.

  "Are we going to hike or talk?"

  "Talk." Still moving, he took a tape recorder out of one of his many pockets. "I use this when I want a quote from a book I can't take out of the library. Listen."

  He turned the machine on and thumbed it to its highest volume. I took it and held it to my ear.

  "'Contrary to popular belief, the Grimms did not collect their tales by visiting peasants in the countryside and writing down the tales that they heard. Their primary method was to invite storytellers to their house and then have them tell the tales aloud, which the Grimms either noted down on first hearing or after a couple of hearings. Most of the storytellers during this period were educated young women from the middle class or aristocracy.'"

  He reached over and took the machine away from me. "That's it for that. I've got a bunch of quotes for you that I'll transcribe and send over, but that's the most important one.

  "The other thing you should know, and this applies to almost all of the Grimm fairy tales, the men changed a hell of a lot of them before they ever saw print. The brothers were big believers in both the unification of Germany and the true German spirit, whatever that is. It meant they took stories they'd heard from their sources and edited them. Took out sexy parts, changed morals around . . . That kind of thing. They didn't want any good German child reading salacious or lewd stuff. Bad for the upbringing. In their way, they really were kind of literary fascists. I never knew that before."

  We stopped at the light in front of the entrance to the Hapsburg Palace and watched tourist busses pull in, eyes and cameras glued to their windows.

  "Have you noticed that, like, every other tourist in Vienna these days is Japanese? What does that mean?"

  "That they have better taste than the Americans who all go to Paris and eat at McDonald's.

  "What about 'Rumpelstiltskin'? What did you find there?"

  "The names to remember are Dortchen and Lisette Wild. No, don't bother writing them down because I've got it typed for you. The story was told in 1812."

  "Where was this?"

  "The town of Kassel in Germany. The Grimms lived there for a number of years and I gather that's where they heard many of their most famous stories. The imaginations of all those nice bourgeois girls. Today we'd call it sexual hysteria."

  "Go on."

  "I looked through fifteen books for you, Walker. Some of them were older than your story. The best I could find was this: The Wild sisters told the Grimms 'Rumpelstiltskin' in 1812 and the only notation I could find about it specifically was it's one of the 'mixed version' stories. That means one of two possibilities: The girls made up or told the story together, or after the Grimms heard it, they took what they wanted from the original and threw the rest out."

  "Or both."

  "Or both, but my guess is the former."

  "Why?"

  "The brothers got their stories from basically two sources: middle-class girls like the Wilds, or low-lifes like the neighborhood tailor's wife. There was even an old soldier named Krause who gave them stories in exchange for old clothes! Now, the books say the girls got their stories from household servants. Even if what they heard was sexy, I can't imagine in those prudish days young girls would have had the courage to tell people of their own class racy stories. Especially if their listeners were of the opposite sex! It just wasn't done. Take a look at what the women wore in those days if you want an indication of their mores. It wasn't the Age of Aquarius.

  "No, my guess is Dortchen and Lisette heard a maid tell a story which, with a little fixing, became 'Rumpelstiltskin.' After the girls had cleaned up whatever parts they thought weren't fit for good ears, they went to the Grimms with it."

  He stopped and grabbed my arm. "Know why else I think that? Because Dortchen ended up marrying Wilhelm Grimm later on. She didn't want to make a bad first impression, you know?"

  "That's interesting. What else, Dave?"

  "Only one more thing. They never stopped revising the tales. It's like the Folios of Shakespeare. First Folio, Second Folio . . . In 1920 in a place in Alsace called the Olenberg Monastery, someone discovered a set of the stories in the brothers' handwriting. Obviously that's become the definitive Grimm, but every scholar I read said they worked and reworked the originals for years. Even when you read them in German, imagine the difference between the 1812 'Rumpelstiltskin' and the last edition that came out in 1857."

  "But there's no trace of the original story that the Wild Sisters told?"

  "None."

  Besides telling me this information, Buck was a quiet walker. If there was a landmark or building worth noting he mentioned it, but otherwise we trudged through the cold in silence. Past the Opera, the Bristol Hotel, the Imperial. At Schwarzenberg Platz we turned right and walked toward the Russian War Monument.

  "Where are we going?"

  "I found a Yugoslavian restaurant down by the Sudbahnhof that serves good sarma. You in the mood?"

  "Lead on."

  He was quiet awhile longer, but as we passed Belvedere Palace, surprised me by asking, "Why're you so interested in 'Rumpelstiltskin'?"

  "A new movie project."

  "What's the story?"

  "It's an interesting idea. Did you ever read Grendel, by John Gardner?"

  "Yes. The story of Beowulf told through the eyes of the monster?"

  "This is similar. The story of 'Rumpelstiltskin' through his eyes."

  "You're writing for Walt Disney these days?"

  "No, but it's got some of the same feeling. In my story, the reason why the little man spun for the girl was so she'd love him. She promised she would if he made her straw into gold. But he doesn't trust her, so he makes her promise to give him her first child, just in case."

  "And she says okay because she wants to be queen?"

  "Right. Now, when she is queen he comes and says keep your promise. She tells him to fuck off."

  "'Fuck off'? That's up to date. Are you making a postmodern version?"

  "Picture this queen as an entirely egotistical, selfish bitch who'd do anything to get what she wants. She dupes the guy into making her gold, but never has any intention of loving him.

  "Plus, here's one of the big twists: Since he's a magic man, he has no sex."

  Buck laughed. "He's dickless?"

  "In sweeter terms, sexless. But he's also a romantic. Believes if they love each other enough, they don't need sex."

  "He sounds dopey. You sure this isn't 'Snow White'?"

  "He is to a degree . . . a romantic dope. But that belief makes him vulnerable, more believable. Much more than a cliche leprechaun who wiggles his nose and makes a pot of gold appear.

  "When he sees she won't love him, he's crushed. But then the bitter, spurned lover part in him comes out. 'If I can't have her, then I'm going to hit her right where it hur
ts.'"

  "Take the kid."

  "Not only does he take the kid, but treats him like a son and teaches him all his magic. Both to spite Mama and because he grows to love the boy. It makes sense. Since he can't have children this is the closest'he'll ever get."

  "That's it? 'The End'? Rumpelstiltskin and son walk off into the sunset?"

  "Not quite. Rumpelstiltskin takes the child and somehow moves them both over into real life. How he does that I don't know yet, but I'm working on it.

  "In real life they live together happily for a while. Then Papa makes his biggest mistake: He allows the boy to grow up. And when the boy grows up he inevitably starts looking at women."

  "The Brothers Grimm wouldn't like it, Walker. You're starting to get sexy."

  "Wait. The boy grows up and falls in love with a woman. Papa gets completely pissed off because that was what got him into trouble in the first place – human love.

  "Holy Jesus, it's true!"

  Buck looked at me. "What's true?"

  "Wait! The boy falls in love with a woman. The old man knows that if it goes further, he loses his son. So he threatens him by saying that if he goes with a woman, he'll get him. But the boy's a boy and ignores Papa. He goes ahead and falls in love and Papa kills him."

  "Kills him? We're still talking Walt Disney here?"

  "Kills him, but then brings him back to live another life. Hopes that by doing it, the boy will somehow have learned his lesson and will go back to loving Papa. But Walter doesn't remember his last life. So growing up, he falls in love again . . ." I stopped walking and looked straight at Buck. "Falls in love again and the old man kills him again. Again and again."

  "Sounds interesting. There's the restaurant."

  The place was smoky and too hot. Tough-looking men with thick moustaches and loud voices sat at tables drinking wine and talking. There was a television tuned to a soccer game in one corner, but no one watched. We ordered sarma and beer and checked out the room. No one was interested in us.

  "Tell me the rest. The story ends with the old man killing his son, ad infinitum? No happy ending?"

  "How would you end it?"

  "I like sad ends. I'd leave it there. Post-modern and existential. It'll be shown at all the film festivals."

  "Don't be modern. Tell me how the Grimms would end it."

  "What are the essential elements of the story? Love is the big one."

  "Bad love, mostly. Selfish or possessive."

  "Okay, then the Grimms would make a point of showing you how bad that kind of love is, and how good love should win out."

  "Give me an example."

  "Am I going to get paid for this if you use it?"

  "Sure. We'll take equal screenwriting credit."

  "That's good. Maybe I could pay my heat bill then. Let's see, you've got your bad love, but we haven't seen much good so far. What about the kid's magic? You said the old man taught him."

  "That's a problem too, because in this world, the kid doesn't remember how to do it. Just knows that he has it in him somewhere. When we meet him it's today and he's only discovered what's up. Who he is."

  "Then let him be in love with a girl who shows him through love. That's kitschy. They'll love it in Hollywood."

  "Too simple. She's just your normal beautiful girl. Reads the tarot, but doesn't know or understand real magic."

  "Make the old man threaten her some way. That'll bring out the fighting spirit in our hero."

  I started to say something but stopped. "What do you mean, threaten?"

  "Go after the girl. You said the boy's finally discovered who he is? Then have the old man tell him he's going to kill the girl if he doesn't go back to their old way of life."

  That bitch in the hospital.

  The baby. The bleeding. The loss.

  Even a father loses his patience after a while. This time you're not going to have another chance.

  I stood up. "Dave, I have to go."

  "The food hasn't come!"

  "Eat mine. Here. This'll cover it."

  "You're a strange boy, Walker. Going home to write? Don't forget my cut."

  Out on the street there were no taxis. I stood there feeling as though I was going to piss in my pants. When I couldn't stand it anymore, I went looking for a phone booth. There was one a couple of blocks down. I called Maris's room at the hospital. She was eating lunch. She felt fine. Said the food there was so good she was sure she'd put on weight. That did nothing to stop my worrying.

  Hearing her voice cooled some of the fire in my stomach, but I knew it was only temporary. Would he hurt her? Was that what he meant by "losing his patience"? Look at what he'd done to Lillis Benedikt. Did he get madder and more vengeful every life I lived?

  I had to move, go somewhere. Stepping out of the phone booth, I looked around and saw the Sudbahnhof standing gray and wet in the mist. I'd go over there and take a train somewhere. To Rax and look at the mountains. Yes, an hour train ride where I could sit, look out the window, and think about this newest nightmare.

  The traffic was heavy, and it took time to cross it and reach the building. Inside, hundreds of people in various stages of their trips bustled by. Two American kids with pastel knapsacks and Mount Everest hiking boots ran for the two o'clock train to Villach. A group of old men with thin rubber briefcases conferred under the arrival/departure board. Turkish and Yugoslavian families with many cheap suitcases and boxes wrapped with heavy cord sat disconsolately on them waiting for their train south.

  There was no train to Rax, so I decided to take the two o'clock, get off at Wiener Neustadt, and walk around there a while. Good, let's go. I ran up the stairs behind the knapsack kids, enjoying their excited, familiar-sounding voices.

  "We'll stay in Villach overnight then catch the morning train to Trieste."

  "What's in Villach?"

  "I don't know. Mountains. Come on."

  Ambling down the stairs toward us was a crowd of football rowdies dressed in the violet and white colors of the Austria Memphis soccer team. There was quite a bunch of them and they all looked drunk.

  "Hey, Phyllis, I want a hat like that. Think I can find one in Villach?" The American boy was middle-sized but weighted down by the sack he was carrying.

  "Amerika! Hey, fucking Amerika!"

  "Don't say anything. Just walk by them."

  The kids looked at me, surprised to hear their own language.

  "What'd you say?"

  "Ignore these guys. Don't say anything to them."

  It was too late. The giant of the group, who looked like a young Hermann Goering, moved over to block our way. His friends smiled and looked at each other knowingly.

  "Hey, Amis! I speak English. Talk to me."

  "Buzz off, Bozo."

  The giant looked at the girl and leered. "Boat-zo? Was Boat-zo?"

  "Just get out of our way."

  He exaggeratedly sidestepped, but when the girl moved by him he grabbed her arm. Pulling her close, he licked her face.

  Her friend, gallant and stupid, moved up. "Cut it out, man."

  The rowdy gave him a hard fast push and the kid fell flailing backward down the stairs.

  While he was laughing, I took two steps up and stuck my fingers in the fat guy's eyes. He screamed. Letting go of the girl, he slapped his hands to his face.

  "I'm blind!"

  Shocked at what had happened, his gang stood where they were an instant, then came for me.

  With no thought at all, none, I curled my hand into a fist with the fingers covering the thumb. Then I put it instinctively to my chin. All of the men were wearing long violet and white scarves. As one, the scarves blew up into their faces and already burning, began melting onto their skin.

  Screams, black smoke, the smell of cooking meat.

  I don't know what I did.

  The American boy was standing again.

  "Go! Run!"

  They went one way, I the other: back toward Vienna, Maris, my father.

  At
the entrance to the station, I stood a moment to catch up with myself.

  A taxi pulled in a slow circle until it was in front of me. It was so close that I had to look. Papa was driving.

  "Out of breath? Not you, boy. I told you you still had your magic."

  He pulled away with a screech. I ran after him but the closer I got, the faster the taxi moved. As he drove into traffic, he stuck his head out the window.

  "Tell me my name, Walter!"

  Orlando leaped into my lap when I got home. I put a hand on his head and stroked his warm fur. He purred. Not looking at him, I made my other hand into a fist, covering the thumb. Putting it to my chin, I tried to remember everything that had gone through my head. I felt the cat's soft paw batting at my arm. Looking down, I saw that his eyes had returned. He could see again.

  3.

  Dear Maris and Walker,

  I'll assume you heard about our earthquake. I once went through a few horrid seconds of one in Peru, but nothing compared to this baby. Strayhorn and I were at the Taco Bell near Beverly Center when it hit. At first I thought it was only my tostada going down the wrong way, but when the walls cracked and the front window blew out I knew we were in for it.

  What do you think about when you're watching your own death? Phil kept saying "This isn't a movie! This is not a movie!" Good old Strayhorn. I froze but he pulled me out of there in time. We stood in the parking lot feeling the ground do the hula under our feet. We looked at each other. What the hell else can you do?

  To make a sad story short, both of our houses slid into the canyon and along with them everything important we owned. So what? We're still alive while too many people out here aren't. Too many friends disappeared and haven't shown up yet. We're assuming the worst, Goddamn it.

  God. That's one funny creature, isn't He? Especially when you see all this suffering and loss. Did I tell you that I used to be a regular church-goer? I was.

  Naturally things have changed. My perspective is very different. Being a famous movie mogul looks absurd in this context. So no matter what happens, I have decided that when I can square away what's left here, I'm going to flee this ruin (parts of it are that bad) and travel. Appropriately enough, our studio withstood the quake. Most of the studios did. Ain't it perfect for Hollywood? That means I'm obligated to finish Wonderful, but that shouldn't take long.