Pennsylvania Station

by Patrick E Horrigan

Frederick continued to stare at him. Finally he asked, “Why?”

  “Why what?”

  “Why are you doing this?”

  “I don’t believe in monogamy. Not between two men. It doesn’t work for me. I’m sorry. I care about you, but right now I need to be on my own. This week. I want to be free to do what I want this week. It doesn’t mean I never want to see you again. But I need to be on my own for a little while. I don’t know what else to say.”

  But he didn’t need to say anything more. Frederick reached for his briefcase and retrieved the ticket. He wanted to make sure Curt had his passport—wanted to advise him to be careful, don’t let anyone, Paolo included, take advantage of you… But it was clear Curt didn’t want parental attention. He saw the waters of the canal behind Curt’s head, the sparkling mosaic of the Palazzo Barbarigo. A gondola drifted by. Venice was the most sordid, the most grotesque, the most vulgar place he’d ever been. You and I will always…it’s just that with Rachel—

  So be it. He had a train to catch. He’d made plans to continue on to Munich. He’d corresponded with a German architect, Reinhard Riemerschmid, a professional acquaintance of Seymour’s and Deborah’s, and arranged to see firsthand how Munich had rebuilt itself since the war. He wasn’t going to let the man down now. He’d made a promise, and he was not one to break a promise (“fifty, a hundred, a hundred fifty, two hundred” in travelers’ checks—that should be enough for the week).

  His only worry now was how to stand up, cross the room, and make his exit while still maintaining his dignity.

  Reinhard Riemerschmid struggled to find words to explain the shocking extent of the destruction after the war. “The sight of our dear city in ruins went straight to my heart, and I felt…”

  As if the idea of Munich in ruins triggered some movement in his bowels, Frederick felt a sudden urge to defecate.

  “…obligated to do something.”

  He looked up at the twin towers with matching onion domes of the Frauenkirche (must have been those sausages he’d had for breakfast), but felt perilously distracted from what his companion was saying. Where was Curt? How had he spent the last twenty-four hours? He imagined him posing nude for Paolo. Then the two of them making love, right there in the studio, under the skylight. He hated to think of it and tried putting it out of his mind. Just concentrate on this, here, now. He wondered how long he could last before making an escape to the nearest toilet or at least a bench to sit down upon. He was sweating and beginning to feel faint.

  “One stood horrified, horrified, and then again horrified. Everything was strange. The sight of the broken Victory Arch on Ludwigstrasse was so ghastly one did not realize it, although it was right before our eyes. We thought we were wandering through an absurd dream. To perceive it as real was completely devastating. It was difficult for our sadness to be selective. We had to deny it. So we no longer experienced anything at all.”

  Ever since his arrival yesterday evening, Frederick had been struck by the cleanliness and orderliness of the city. So little trace of war damage remained, especially here in the historic center, one might think the clock had actually been turned back forty years. But perhaps some buildings looked too well-kept, too clean, the edges too straight, the roofs too sturdy, the whitewash too white—evidence that what one saw wasn’t, in fact, an historic building but a modern replica. New materials, new methods of construction inevitably tipped their hand. Real old age was a sagging of the flesh, a redistribution of the hair, a protrusion of the bones, a shifting, however subtle, in the original, underlying structure. (Had Curt given him up because he was too old? But Paolo, though younger, was surely nothing to look at. He pictured Curt in the arms of Paolo—squat, hairy, paint-splattered Paolo! Concentrate, he demanded of himself.)

  “It must be difficult for Americans to understand. You have never suffered this kind of damage.”

  Not since the Civil War, Frederick said, which was confined largely to one underdeveloped region of the country. True, there was Pearl Harbor, but that never touched the places people live. “The only thing that comes close,” he supposed, “for those who live in a city like New York, is the sight of new buildings under construction everywhere you look. The tearing down of the old and the putting up of the new” (Curt had discarded him for someone new), “even when there was nothing especially wrong with the old.”

  “But there is an essential difference between destruction undertaken in war and demolition in peace time.”

  Frederick sensed the debating instinct and shrank from it. He picked at the cuticle of his thumb. He thought the only real difference was the one between buildings that fell by accident and those brought down by deliberate intention. But before he could decide even to withhold his opinion, Reinhard was heading toward the entrance to the church, explaining along the way the difference between the restoration of this church and that of the Peterskirche, just off Marienplatz (focus, Frederick insisted with himself once more—the discomfort in his stomach seemed to have subsided for now).

  “When the war was over, there were plans to tear it down, until Cardinal von Faulhaber said ‘I cannot imagine Munich without the Peterskirche,’ and this helped to inspire public opinion. The people of Munich were very attached to Peterskirche. It is our oldest church. The reconstruction was a popular success because it was as close to an exact reproduction of the original as possible, and this gave confidence to other projects throughout the city.”

  Once inside the Frauenkirche, Reinhard stopped in front of a bulletin-board display of several photographs showing the bombed-out church as it appeared at war’s end. The twin towers were remarkably intact, but three quarters of the roof was gone, revealing the interior stripped entirely of ornament, matching the surrounding buildings, all of which appeared not only damaged but decayed as if from millennia of steady, constant erosion, like ancient ruins.

  “The exterior was generally rebuilt to its prewar appearance, but the interior required a simpler solution. Too much was lost.” He described various proposals put forth for how to rebuild. He himself had proposed a plan that was “appropriate for the ruins.” He’d wanted to express the departed greatness of the building. “Not to blend in the old with the new but to show the difference between old and new. Make it stark. As a reminder. A constant visible reminder.” There had been other ideas—to subdivide the interior into various rooms for meetings and worship, to leave the roof open and damaged as it was but simply add a flat concrete ceiling underneath, not to rebuild the high altar but to replace it with the figure of a dove. Frederick had now irritated the cuticle of his thumb to the point of bleeding. He put his thumb to his mouth and sucked. Poetic ideas, he thought, and looked at the clean, white interior with its relief-encrusted pulpit (“made of reinforced concrete,” Reinhard explained), modest stained-glass windows, and modern lighting fixtures. As such it was a disappointment, he thought, compared with almost any church you might stumble across in Italy. And to leave the roof broken, unrepaired, he thought—you might as well have abandoned the whole godforsaken city. (Should he cut short his time in Munich? Go back to Venice? Make amends with Curt? It would be too humiliating…)

  “‘Without the Frauenkirche, Munich would not be Munich!’” Reinhard mimicked those conservative Münchners, architects and laymen alike, who lacked vision. “Pretty soon you come to the conclusion that you must rebuild everything as it was before the war—but why stop there? Why not resurrect the medieval fortifications? Then you have, excuse me, Disneyland. Hollywood. You do not have a real historical city. You have childhood fantasy and illusion. You have Neuschwanstein—a nineteenth-century building constructed with the latest technology but decorated to look like a medieval castle” (Neuschwanstein, indeed! Frederick thought, remembering his boyhood fascination with King Ludwig and his architectural folly in the Alps—he would not go back to Venice and lower himself to Curt—he would stand his ground, take a day next week and make an excursion to Neuschwanstein…).

  They wal
ked the aisles of the church and compared notes on the state of historic preservation in Germany and America. The Germans were, of course, decades ahead of the Americans, but Reinhard was critical, it seemed, of all sides of the question: the moderns had no respect for the past; traditionalists, on the other hand, buried their heads in it; reconstruction was, more often than not, a fraud. “Works of art are meant to be destroyed.” The idea was almost incomprehensible to Frederick. “One must confront a disfigured work of art. In the same way one faces old age and death.”

  They had come full circle and stood now at the exit. Frederick put out his hand and braced himself for a grip sure to exacerbate the pain in his thumb. “It was a pleasure to meet you.”

  “Must you go? I was hoping we might have lunch. I wanted to introduce you to one of my colleagues who is very much interested in urban planning. She has visited New York and spoken with some of those people who protested the tearing down of your train station. They are called—what is the name?”

  “AGBANY. Action Group for Better Architecture in New York. It’s an acronym.”

  “Yes, exactly. My colleague—”

  “Perhaps some time next week, I’m here until the seventeenth” (he wondered if Curt would be there to meet him in Rome).

  “I don’t know if she will be available.” Reinhard seemed to sense something was not right. In a final show of collegiality, he urged Frederick to take a look at the Siegestor on Ludwigstrasse, directing him to walk north, past the Hofgarten on the right. “You will see the kind of restoration I am talking about. I would be much interested in your opinion of it.”

  Glad to be free of Reinhard (his thumb had stopped bleeding at last, but the queasiness in his stomach had returned), he proceeded up Ludwigstrasse as suggested. But almost immediately he regretted his quick, capricious departure. Deborah had gone to some trouble to help facilitate their meeting because she’d been curious to learn more about historic preservation developments in Europe, especially Germany, which had sustained so much damage. Well, there was still a chance they might meet once more before he returned to Rome. Unless he made a detour to Venice en route and had to leave Munich early. But intruding upon Curt and Paolo—he imagined actually walking in on them in flagrante delicto—unthinkable! Picture the scene Curt would make. He almost wished he never had to face Curt again.

  There, up ahead, was the triumphal arch whose reconstruction Reinhard so admired. Nearly the entire top half of the arch had been blown off. But rather than simulate the original using comparable stone and replicating the moldings and sculpture, the missing pieces had been filled in with plain, poured concrete. No adornment. Just the original outline of the structure was indicated, nothing more. If anything, it looked like a temporary solution until the right craftsmen and the best materials could be located to finish the job. But the job, according to Reinhard, was finished, it looked exactly as intended. A brutal reminder of war, a withering commentary on the very idea of “triumph.” A triumphal arch left in defeat, like a head gone bald, he thought, instinctively running his fingers through his hair and picturing Curt and Paolo making love under the skylight in Paolo’s studio.

  Suddenly he felt a rising in his gorge. If he didn’t get back to the hotel immediately, he knew, he was going to vomit.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  This law would bring much-needed order and control to the now-chaotic process by which New York City undergoes change.

  The Landmarks Preservation Commission, after much negotiation and many revisions, had finalized its Landmarks Preservation Bill and forwarded it to Mayor Wagner. It had been sitting on his desk since early May, and now it was mid-September. In a city of perpetual change, Wagner was the king of deliberation. Would it take another disaster like Penn Station to wake him up? All he had to do was send the Landmarks Bill on to the City Council, just get it off his goddamned desk!

  But he mustn’t let anger seep into his prose. We need historic buildings in order to understand how people lived at a time so very different from our own. Mustn’t sound strident or hysterical. The materials, techniques and styles of these buildings are virtually extinct. Antagonizing the mayor was the last thing this letter should do. He was already, presumably, on their side. The idea was to keep it that way, build on that good will. He had to choose his words carefully. Though obsolete in terms of maintenance, housekeeping, and function, such buildings provide irreplaceable variety to the cityscape. But when he thought of the Brokaw Mansion, exposed there on the corner of Fifth Avenue and 79th Street, a fine, fragile gem from an earlier era, stripped of its ornament, hacked to pieces, raped (he’d once thought it squat and pudgy but now that it was on the road to extinction, he saw it in a different light)…The apartment towers that replace them are all stamped out of the same mold—a routine economy model, using standard brick on steel or concrete frames, standard plans and fenestration, dictated purely by the speculative formula of maximum profit to minimum investment…he wanted to stand up and shout Stop, don’t do this, it isn’t right! Leave things as they are!

  Frederick slumped in his chair and looked up at the cloud fresco on the ceiling of the reading room at the New York Public Library. He had received a telephone call from Curt last night. Why now, he wondered, after two months of complete silence? Nothing at all for two months, then suddenly, out of the blue, he telephones. And not just once, but five times in a row. He thinks he can lure me back with his tantalizing ways, his promises—probably needs money. Or he’s had another fight with Collin and wants a place to sleep.

  But he hated being insensitive. What if Curt really was in trouble? What if he truly needed help? Why not help him? In spite of the way things ended, he did mean something to him. The past counted for something, didn’t it?

  Nothing between us has to change. It’s just that with Rachel…

  Who was he kidding? How long before he got it through his skull? Curt was a user, a manipulator, a seducer. A sadist and a liar. Never again! Never would he be taken in again.

  Chewing the nail on his middle finger, he surveyed the piles of books and papers before him. He had amassed more information than he knew what to do with. His notes filled several legal-sized pages: “Built between 1887 and 1889 for Isaac Vail Brokaw, multimillionaire realtor and founder of Brokaw Brothers, well-known clothing manufacturer…one of seventy large mansions built around turn of the century along ‘millionaire’s row’…modeled after early-sixteenth-century Chateau de Chenonceau in Loire Valley… Interior: blend of Italian and French influences…lavish entrance hall, Italian marble and mosaic, ornate carvings…foyer illuminated with sunlight through stained glass windows by day, electric globe by night…rooms unusually large for their time…ceilings lined with stone and wood…seven-foot-tall safe concealed behind panel in library, opened by pressing hidden catch in moulding…originally had its own moat but Brokaw enclosed with stone wall after runaway horse fell in… June 10, 1896, daughter Elvira married in sumptuous ceremony in mansion, reported by New York Times…”

  It was nearly closing time and he’d spent far too long drafting his letter.

  Part of two flanking blocks of “Golden Age” architecture, the house belongs to an historical enclave and a total area of unusual civic urbanity. Hence, in the case of the Brokaw Mansion, the loss would be double, he concluded, starting to bite the nail on his index finger, the loss of a precious architectural masterpiece and of the larger ambience of that part of the city.

  Frederick switched off his light and stood up. The reading room was emptying out. Packing papers and sketchpad into his briefcase, he pictured his empty apartment. What if Curt phoned again tonight? What if he didn’t phone? He hardly knew which was worse.

  He decided to get some fresh air and walk up Fifth Avenue to Central Park. His steps unwittingly brought him to the corner of 79th Street, diagonally across from the Brokaw Mansion. He found a vacant bench, took a seat, and opened his sketchpad. He heard a couple of kids playing roughhouse behind him in a sandlot. He dec
ided to sketch the house he’d spent the afternoon studying in the library. He observed the lines of its gables and turrets, its pinnacled dormers and chimneys. Though the pain in his fingers mitigated somewhat his control over the pencil (the flesh around the fingernails had become infected as a result of constant biting and picking, and he’d had to bandage the finger tips), he tried sketching what he saw. But something wasn’t right. The pitch of the roof, was that it? Or the proportions of the whole?

  “Heeelp!”

  (The boys behind him were playing tag and yelling bloody murder.)

  He turned the page and faced a blank. This time he concentrated on the low stone wall around the base, the sidewalk, the station wagon parked in front of the entrance. A woman came out onto the porch and looked across the street in his direction. For a moment she looked like his mother forty years ago, standing on the porch of their house on 13th Street. (“I’m dying!”) He was just a kid playing on the slope across the street, Pop’s Model T parked out front, Georgey Heizmann nipping at his heels. It appeared she was looking straight at him.

  “Freddy, it’s getting late! Come home right now!”

  “I’m coming!” he screamed.

  (“You’re it! You’re it!)

  But Georgey grabbed him by the waist and pulled him to the ground and stuffed his mouth full of grass. He tried to break free, but Georgey’s full weight was upon him. At last he managed to roll over, and still Georgey hung on, and they rolled and rolled back down the hill with the grass in his mouth and Georgey’s hot, sweet breath on his face and the setting sun burning in his eyes.

  “Right now!”

  “I said I’m coming!”

  Whatever became of Georgey Heizmann? he wondered. They’d stopped being friends after their sexual encounter in Freddy’s bedroom—once they both realized their friendship was something more than friendship. They were children, but already they were making existential decisions to last a lifetime.