The Luxembourg Run

by Ellin, Stanley

  tournament — he had even come to watch part of the playoff game — but it

  was a surprise to find him, as it were, conducting a tourist party to these

  premises and obviously pointing me out as the main attraction here.

  When he motioned me to join him I strolled over out of curiosity and

  recognized one of the tourists as Shields, a second-string quarterback on the

  varsity team. The other man I didn’t know. An ex-jock from the look of him,

  bald, middle-aged, tossing a football from one hand to the other as he took me

  in. This, said Oscar, was Coach Muldoon of the football team. Kicking coach.

  Oscar had explained my uncanny abilities as kicker to him and Coach Muldoon

  was here to get a look at me in action.

  So, simply for the pleasure of wiping that cynical smile off Coach

  Muldoon’s beefy face, I kicked a few goals for him, Shields holding the ball.

  20

  Twenty yards out, thirty yards, and forty yards, varying the angle on request,

  neatly splitting the bar for an imaginary three points each time.

  When the performance was over Shields said to me, “Money in the bank,

  baby,” and Coach Muldoon’s smile was no longer cynical. He gave me a nod.

  “Head Coach Neiderhoffer’ll be in the Field House five o’clock. You be there

  then. We’ll have a little talk with him.”

  They took themselves off, and Oscar, up to now under twitching selfrestraint,

  burst out with it. The team desperately needed a kicker, he said. The

  hell with soccer; this is what counted, real football. And here I was, sent from

  heaven and eligible. And the payoff? A set of top-price tickets to scalp every

  home game. Alumni waiting to stuff money in your pocket. And best of all,

  there were all those pro teams now on the hunt for any kicker who knew how

  to use that weird sidewinder soccer style I did. The pros! The bonus money

  alone! So what I must now do is let Oscar take over for me as business

  manager on commission. First, he’d talk with Neiderhoffer, squeeze some

  juicy perquisites out of him. After that —

  Grotesque as it was, this picture of my joining the sweaty, crop-headed,

  master-and-slave world of jocks, he was desperately serious about it. Why

  not? A nonpareil hustler, here he was working out the fanciest hustle of all, the

  managership of a profitable jock. Start with Dave Shaw, show what you can

  do for him, build up a whole string of profitable like numbers. After that, man,

  you can bankroll any movie you dream of making. He didn’t have to spell it out

  for me. I knew Oscar’s way of thinking.

  “Sorry,” I told him, “but the answer is no.”

  “Listen to me, Dave. You can’t even begin to guess the kind of money

  that’s waiting for us.”

  “No again,” I said.

  “You owe me two hundred bucks,” Oscar said. “I want to see my money

  right now. The whole two hundred.”

  “After all those papers I did for you?”

  “Two hundred cash,” said Oscar, “or I get my car back. But if you go

  along with this football deal —”

  I saw myself at the training table making conversation with such as

  Shields and Coach Muldoon about the Big Game, and I had to laugh. The laugh

  was a mistake. Oscar said grimly, “You think it’s funny turning down a deal

  21

  like this for both of us? And after I got Muldoon himself to come over here to

  take a look at you? Wait and see.”

  So I not only lost my unpaid-for car but, since Oscar was dictator of the

  Film Society, my unpaid-for membership there as well. I even lost Oscar

  himself for a little while when he abruptly packed and departed our quarters. I

  think what drove him to it was that I took my punishment so lightly. After all,

  how much joy can one get from inflicting deserved punishment when the victim

  yawns through the proceedings?

  But he was back within the week. There wasn’t another dorm room

  available until the end of the term, and I gathered that the boarding house he

  had tried out was too far from the action to be a proper base of operations.

  Now he settled down to a small, self-defeating vicious cycle, where the more

  he sullenly loathed me, the more I was indifferent to it, and the more I was

  indifferent to it, the more he loathed me.

  But silently, all communication cut off between us.

  There seemed no point in confiding to him that of all things I might

  cherish in a roommate it was just that kind of total silence.

  22

  During Thanksgiving week, a letter from

  my mother.

  When I opened it a photograph slid out. My mother and a young woman

  smiling at the camera on the terrace of the Periniades apartment in Rome. My

  mother, alas, had put on much more than the original four kilos she had once

  gone to Bagnio to lose; she seemed, in fact, to be taking on pouter-pigeon

  dimensions. The young woman beside her was beautiful. Dark hair, exotic

  eyes, a delicately featured face.

  Well, well.

  Roma, 20th Nov.

  Darling boy,

  This is all v. confidential, so do not discuss it with your n.

  father.

  In your last note you mentioned that you are not happy about

  the careers planned for you by your n. father or by grandpa. Dear

  Milos is v. sympathetic. Also he has v. extensive interests on the

  Continent but cannot find a young man in the family to represent

  him there. Believes only in family does one find true loyalty. And

  only family member he could persuade to leave Greece and join

  him here is v. young niece, Sophia Changouris, a dear child. But

  while she assists in his office she speaks only Greek and Italian,

  so cannot handle many important matters.

  Milos feels that you — member of family, v. intelligent and

  fluent in languages — should consider joining his business after

  graduation and eventually becoming a partner. To this end he will

  send round-trip fare to Rome and generous expense money, so you

  can share Xmas week with us and discuss all details with him.

  Sophia is also v. anxious to meet you. She is shy about op.

  sex, and Milos hopes you can bring her out of her shell. He asks I

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  send this photo so you will know you are not being lured here to

  become victim of a dragon.

  Please wire your answer immediately.

  Remember all this is v. confidential as yet.

  Your loving mother

  I looked at the photo again. The thought of entering business with dear

  Milos was one degree more abhorrent than the thought of becoming the

  diplomat my father intended me to be or the Dade County lawyer my

  grandfather wanted me to be, but devoting a week to helping bring Sophia out

  of her shell? And with all expenses paid?

  That was a different story altogether.

  24

  At Fiumicino Airport, there they were.

  Milos looked me over doubtfully, and my mother openly expressed distaste for

  what she was seeing. “Really, darling, with that hair and those clothes you

  look like one of those disgraceful hippie ragamuffins in the Piazza di Spagna.”

  Sophia made up for this ungraciousness. Wrapped in a luxurious highnecked

&nbs
p; fur coat, her face flowerlike against the collar, she smiled shyly at me

  as we shook hands. “Did you have a good voyage on the airplane?” she asked

  me in careful English.

  “Yes, thank you.” She was surreptitiously Trying to work her hand free

  of mine, but I refused to let go. “A very good voyage. But I speak Italian.

  Parlo l’italiano molto bene. And Greek.”

  “Ah, no. Always the English, please. I much desire to learn the English.

  You will help me in that, yes?”

  “Of course,” I said.

  Of course.

  What I discovered as day followed frustrating day through that Yuletide

  was that Sophia Changouris had come on a marvelous device for forestalling

  seduction. Linguistics. Start to woo her in Italian and she’d immediately press

  a silencing finger to your lips. Try it in English, and it became a language

  lesson.

  What made it worse were the wasted opportunities along the way. The

  family apartment was often empty and available, and, even more trying,

  Sophia’s own little apartment on via F. Lippi was not merely available, it had

  been made into something so harem-like that it was an agony just to stand

  there, car keys in hand, waiting to remove her from it. But standing there, car

  keys in hand, was as far as I ever got in that apartment.

  We covered a lot of territory around Rome that week, hosted by the

  offspring of my mother’s innumerable friends at house parties, clubs, and

  cafés, and though there was always wine and sometime pot for the asking, it

  seemed that demure Sophia drank very little wine and smoked no pot.

  Meanwhile, Milos was working his wiles on me. Now and again he

  would lead me into a conversation about my future and the reasons for putting

  it in his charge. He dealt in commodities, it seemed, contracting for future

  25

  delivery of goods he didn’t even own today, the cash flow was enormous, the

  profits considerable. And to keep all this in the family —

  I fended him off each time, and in the process of fending him off one

  morning I touched a nerve. He was deep in a description of a coup he planned,

  and, casting about for any topic which could turn him off, I was led to think of

  the Cavalcanti family. I knew they still lived next door because their

  nameplate was over the bell, but they never appeared on the Periniades’s

  doorstep, and no mention of them was ever made. Why was that, I inquired.

  There was a sudden chill in the dining room. Then as my mother started

  a flurried explanation Milos cut in. “I invited Cavalcanti to invest in some

  grain futures a few months ago. Really a gift to him on my part. Last month

  when I handed him his profit he felt it was not sufficient and told me so to my

  face. That, of course, was the end of it between us.”

  “After all these years,” my mother said wistfully. “I still think that if you

  simply went next door —”

  ”No,” Milos said, “we will have nothing to do with those people. Ever.”

  “Yes, dear,” said my mother, although her furtive expression suggested

  to me that she was, against orders, still having something to do with those

  people.

  “Also,” Milos said to me, “it’s just as well you stay away from that

  Umberto. Really a scandal. Already in trouble with the police.”

  “What kind of trouble?”

  “Oh, a political madman that one.”

  “And Bianca?”

  Milos waved the question aside. “Please. No more of the Cavalcantis, if

  you do not mind.”

  I did not mind. Despite some fond memories of plump little Bianca

  clutching my hand with sticky fingers as we strolled Piazza Navona after ice

  cream at Tre Scalini, she was, of course, out of my remote childhood. It was

  Sophia Changouris who was the proper concern for me in my overheated

  young manhood.

  On New Year’s Eve, I found that at last I was making progress in my

  concern. The generations came together at a party given by Milos and my

  mother, the music was eardrum-shattering and blood-quickening, and the

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  champagne, ouzo, and retsina flowed like water. Wine, steadily applied in

  small amounts to my hesitant Sophia, worked its magic on her.

  Timing it near midnight, I pulled a coat at random from the rack in the

  master bedroom and hauled my prey out to the terrace, draping the coat over

  her shoulders against the chill. When I slid my arms under the coat and locked

  them around her waist she said, “Please,” in gentle protest. It was almost no

  protest at all.

  I said, “Ma lei ha freddo, gioia mia.”

  “No, I am not cold.” She giggled. “But your hands, they are cold.”

  Maybe. But they were warming up fast.

  The door of the terrace clattered. Uncle Miles’s tone was peremptory.

  “Young people, it is almost the midnight. Join us, please.”

  Sophia went through the door, but I remained where I was. “Later,” I

  told Milos. “I need the air. Too much to drink maybe,” and he said, “Yes, the

  air may cool one’s blood,” and closed the door behind him after he stepped

  through it, each of us understanding the other.

  Then, to make it worse, I saw I was not alone with my bleak thoughts.

  The door of the apartment beyond the dividing wall of the Cavalcanti’s terrace

  was partly open, a head thrusting through it, an arm beckoning. “Sss. David.”

  “Bianca?”

  “Certo, buffone. Vieni qui”

  After how many years I am addressed by this once admiring child as a

  clown? And come over there for what? “Perché, ragazza?”

  “Don’t ask questions. Just come over here.”

  I vaulted the terrace wall and followed the ragazza into the Cavalcanti

  living room. Empty. “Where is everybody?” I asked.

  “Cortina. For the skiing.” She suddenly went into a convulsive fit of

  sneezing, then said unnecessarily “I’ve got a cold. No use my going with them

  in this shape.”

  She was in pajamas and robe, a big girl now, on the borderline of

  plump. But not bad-looking at all, though the neat Florentine nose was pink

  and the large gray eyes watery.

  We stood there looking at each other. “Well,” I finally said by way of

  conversation, “it’s been a long time.”

  “That’s not my fault.”

  27

  “Ah, come on, bambola —”

  ”And don’t bambola me. I’m not really a kid any more.”

  Through the wall, the remote sound of celebration in the Periniades

  apartment suddenly rose in volume. I looked at my watch. “Twelve o’clock.

  Happy New Year.”

  “Happy New Year,” said Bianca and went into another sneezing fit. She

  finally controlled it. “What’s going on with you and that girl?”

  “Sophia?”

  “Of course, Sophia. Who else have you been carrying on with all

  week?”

  “Oh? And how would you know that?”

  “Everybody knows it. Umberto knows it. And his friends. They’ve been

  seeing you around town with her everywhere. For that matter, anyone can

  stand right on that terrace out there and see what’s going on through your door.

  Like all the work you’ve been
putting in, trying to get her clothes off in the

  living room.”

  “Is that how you caught your cold? Watching the action from your

  terrace?”

  “I don’t think you know about her at all.” Bianca shook her head

  wonderingly. “You really don’t know she’s Milos’s mistress, do you?”

  Again we just stood and looked at each other. Then Bianca’s face

  crumpled as if she were doing a Stan Laurel imitation. “I should never have

  told you! I don’t know why I told you. I am absolutely crazy. And look at the

  mess I am. And letting you see me like this. I must be crazy.”

  “You need something to drink,” I said. “I think we both do.”

  In the kitchen the espresso machine was steaming. There were movie-fan

  magazines scattered over the kitchen table. Bianca hastily cleared them away

  and set down two cups of coffee. Into each she poured a small dollop of

  cognac.

  “Now,” I said, “what about Sophia?”

  “Yes. Well, there’s this Greek tourist agency on the Corso. Athenikos.”

  “And?”

  “Sophia was receptionist there. Their showpiece.”

  “And?”

  28

  “And Milos picked her up right out of the agency. Because your mother

  is such an innocent really —”

  ”Or chooses to be.”

  “Well, whichever way it was, he got bolder and bolder about it. Took

  Sophia into the apartment as a relative, gave her a nonsense job in his office,

  finally set her up in her own rooms. We knew about it all along. Milos needed

  a lot of cash fast and got Papa to go along on the deal with him, so Papa had a

  desk there while it was happening. After the deal was settled and Papa got his

  money back, we just cut off from Milos. What we couldn’t understand was

  why he practically invited you to go to bed with his woman.”

  “I wasn’t invited to,” I said. “And I didn’t.”

  “You didn’t?” Bianca said. “You know, I believe you. Am I being stupid

  about that?”

  “No. But are you sure my mother doesn’t have any idea what’s going on?

  Absolutely sure?”

  “Absolutely. So you’ll have to be the one to tell her. You’re really the

  only one who has a right to.”

  “Tell her? Not a chance.”

  Bianca, her cup poised halfway to her mouth, gaped at me. “Are you

  going to deny she has the right to know her husband is betraying her with that