Then he said, “Let me finish this story. I was about to take a permanent swim in the Blue Danube when you suddenly appeared, looking even better than you did in your movies. I felt like a thirteen-year-old. First, I almost fell off the bike, my eyes bulged out… So I stalked you. I admit it. There you were; I had a camera. I wanted one shot. One great shot of Arlen Ford to put up against all the others of Hell I’ve had to do recently. And then I got greedy. After that one by the river, I followed you home and staked out your place.”
Naturally, I told him that made me very uncomfortable. He said he knew and apologized, but wasn’t sorry. That’s kind of ballsy, huh? I mean, especially if he wanted me to like him. But he did it because they were necessary pictures. That was his word. It wasn’t only me he was photographing; he was trying to take pictures of things that would keep him alive. Good things: movie stars and their red dogs, people in wine gardens, old couples sitting in their Sunday best on a bench by the river. It became a kind of crusade for him. There’s that nice Heuriger down the street from my place, and the Gasthaus that has the good fried chicken? He sat there and talked to people, then watched my house a while. I told him it was weird and wanted to go on with the thought, but his voice hardened and he said, “Wait a minute.”
Lulled by our conversation, I’d forgotten where he was and what was going on around him. I heard him speak another unknown language to someone nearby. A man barked something and Leland said, “Shit! They’re that close?”
I asked, “What’s wrong? What’s wrong?” He said they were about to be a bull’s eye and he had to go. He’d call again when he could. Was that all right? I said of course, but he’d already hung up, and that was that. Imagine what I went through trying to sleep that night!
The next postcard arrived two days later from a town named Mostar, which reminded me of North Star. I went around thinking he’s on the North Star now. All he wrote was:
Two friends meet on the street.
FIRST: “I just married a woman with two heads.”
SECOND: “Is she pretty?”
FIRST: “Well, yes and no.”
That was it. No message, no further report.
“Then I came in from shopping one day and saw the answering-machine light blinking: “Arlen, it’s Leland Zivic. Sorry you’re not there.”
I was furious that I hadn’t been home. So furious that, stopping myself in the middle of my rant, I smiled and said, Well, well, well. What’s happening here, missy?
After that he didn’t call for a while, which would have worried me if the mail hadn’t started bringing things I’d only previously seen typed on the inside of my forehead. His postcards and letters were full of observations, soliloquies, quotes from what he was reading at the moment, more jokes. Altogether in one. I didn’t know who he was talking to, but was glad to hear what he had to say about most anything. Here’s a few:
So many soldiers are crazy—their daily life of war has kicked them in the head and crushed a small but key center of balance and longitude in there that’s critical.
Old men should have gardens. Unlike men, old women have an inner peace. They’ve done their job the best they can and know it; they’ve used their energy-well and are now done. But from the look on their faces, life is never finished for old men; never enough, never complete. So put them in gardens, where they can pretend their work is useful or they’re keeping order. They’re pathetic; humor them.
Seen in a ruined town: a pair of red plastic children’s handcuffs at the base of a tree.
My brother likes reading books about famous failures. They reassure him that no matter how dull his life is, at least he’s safe and sound. He’s in no danger of the kind of self-made catastrophes that destroyed the likes of Fitzgerald or even Elvis Presley. My brother is dull and unmemorable but he’s safe, which is more than can be said for those other dead legends, fireworks and all.
Then this quote from Diane Ackerman’s A Natural History of the Senses:
A breath is cooked air; we live in a constant simmering. There is a furnace in our cells, and when we breathe we pass the world through our bodies, brew it lightly, and turn it loose again, gently altered for having known us.
Cooked air? Photos that showed me parts of myself I was never aware of, letters I carried around and reread constantly… Who was this guy? I tried hard to reconstruct what he looked like, but all I ever came up with was a nice face, glasses, tall. So when he called again, the first thing I asked him was to tell me what he looked like. He said enjoyment, spontaneity, and affection. I went, Excuse me? And he said, You asked me to describe myself. I said, Yeah, physically. Know what he said?
“I knew what you meant. Next question.”
I took a deep breath and said, “Will we ever see each other again?”
“I don’t know. Do you think it’s a good idea?”
I said, “Don’t be coy.”
“Oh, I’m not being coy. If we were to meet and it was a disaster, what then?”
“Well, it wouldn’t be, because we’ve already had our disaster; the day we met I thought you were a camera creep.” He said, “I am. I’m a professional camera creep. I don’t know, Arlen. I love writing those cards to you; they’re my oasis down here, but getting together… ahh, that’s something else.”
“Why?”
“Because we both have expectations. We each know how we want the other to be. But hopes don’t usually work out in real life. As long as I can talk to you in postcards or over the phone, then you’re the Arlen I love from the movies—Lady Cool, pretty… And face it: you were put off by my photos, but I was the one who saw you that way. Why would you want to meet the guy who insulted you?”
I screamed at him that I wasn’t insulted. I loved most of them, and the others… Medusa wouldn’t be thrilled to see herself in a mirror! I told him Maris saw the one of me in the café and said I looked like the Masque of the Red Death!
He laughed and said, “But don’t you love that story? All those dumb people trying to party their way through the end of the world? Death has a sense of humor. He didn’t just come in and bust up their soiree; He dressed up in a costume like them and walked in with a drink in His hand!”
I was not interested in Edgar Allan Poe and asked him point-blank when he was coming to Vienna again. He said he didn’t know and wanted to think about it some more, the shit! I was dying, Rose! I was throwing myself at his feet, and he had to think about it some more. Talk about a smack in the face!
So fade out on that and fade in on Minnie and me sitting out on the front step, taking in the first sun of the day, when he arrived. My eyes were closed and my hands were wrapped around a hot mug of coffee. The best part of the morning. Then I felt her tense against my leg. I slowly opened my eyes when I heard the sound of a car drive up nearby and a door click open. A taxi stood at the bottom of the hill and someone was bent into the back door pulling a duffel bag off the seat. When he had it out, he turned and waved at me. Oh shit, oh shit, there he issssss! I didn’t have makeup on, hadn’t brushed my teeth, and had had garlic soup with dinner last night… Great, huh? Perfect timing. But that’s what he looked like! Everything about his face came back in a second, and I didn’t know whether to stay where I was or go down to greet him. I was calm; not one quiver or tingle of worry. He was finally here. I guess I’d been ready all along.