Adam’s Lament
He had not played it smart, she was just a tart, though she sang like a lark; but it was no way to start, he’d taken no part in such affairs of the heart, even if he’d been struck by cupid’s dart, and kept in the dark where the cars were parked; because his love lacked art and would make small mark on her hardened heart: oh, she’d played it smart, for her it was only a lark, those affairs in the park, when she’d offered him an apple from a vendor’s cart; well, she’d keep no part of his broken heart because he was getting over the shameful smart of the affair in the park, where he’d bought her a tart from a vendor’s cart, and carved her name on the compliant bark of a birch.
37
All this furniture comes with it?
I guess so. That’s what I understood.
Miriam was alarmed. It doesn’t sound very permanent to me. As though we were hoteling and were planning to stay only a few nights. No need to change the sheets … We shall be so swift as not to soil them … The cream commode, the chifforobe — can we move them if we can’t paint them? And such appointments … Are we renting these pots and pans, this dirty sponge, these spoiled mirrors? This drawer — here — is full of chipped knives and bent spoons. How about the dampness in the basement — are we being lent that?
You said it might be good for plants.
I don’t want to move anymore. I want this sink to be mine, not on loan. You know High Authority will visit one day and say, Look: that scratch is new; is that scratch yours? are you harming this establishment with your foreign fingers?
Really? Do you honestly think a supervisor has ever inspected this building? do you figure on entertaining some busybody of the sort you ordinarily deal with at work? or coping with a landlord huffy behind his outstretched hand?
No, I guess not, because nobody who lived here lived here long. You got a contract, do you, Herr Sonny, from this college?
Yes. I thought you liked this place. I guess we didn’t have to move. We could have stayed where we were, in that itty-bitty box all covered in vines like an arbor, buried in bloom, a butt of jokes, a place that passing cars slowed for, but it seemed to be a big saving … to be rentless … to be rich for a change … in property.
In London, my lad, we were rentless.
Gee, I misread you once again. I thought you were pleased with this place.
You want to misunderstand. I am delighted for the space, such an old distinguished house, my goodness, I’m standing on a floor furniture is made of, in front of a staircase big enough to bounce a ball down …
And a Steinway.
Ach. That old piano, too. It was born in a Bierstube.
Now, Mother, be fair. We could never afford a sofa with three pillows or a piano as pedigreed or rooms so warmly paneled as this house has.
That’s my meaning. It exceeds we minor mortals. The building is too big for you and me to take proper care of — too vast, too costly, Grössen, too much in the movies. It has gobs of history we are ignorant of and foreign to. Besides, the house is falling apart. You can see it. I can sense it. Creaking to a halt. This place is full of groans. Clear to the eaves.
It’s windy out.
Drafts. I share twelve paths of air in the morning when I make my descent of the stairs. In the afternoon, when I take my nap, we go back together like a bad smell. And the radiators knock.
That’s a sign the boiler is working.
They sound like that dreck you’re still driving.
The house, the car, go bravely on.
You always make excuses when I want to see Debbie. The Rambler is … in op — what do you say? — it’s fragile as tissue is to a snort’s nose.
Debbie doesn’t need looking after. I do. What’s for dinner?
I have noticed that in recent years you are always here at mealtimes.
I notice that in recent years there are fewer of them. Breakfast and lunch I have to fix for myself—
— open a box, stir a spoon in a bowl—
— yeah, open a can, drag a spoon through some soup—
Don’t I do dinner for you?
Now and mostly then. What happened to the Würstelbraten and the Faschingskrapfen I love so much?
Oh, ya, then you are prompt as a cold at Christmas. When the pots steam. You remember sometimes to pour me some wine. You smile and lie about your day. It’s nice. You are going to pretend the Faschingskrapfen remind you of Vienna.
Impossible.
Ya. Indeed. Impossible. You have never been there. Many times. But you like to pretend. When you talk to people at parties sometimes, I see you cycle the streets.
I never do that.
Like a newsboy. You know addresses.
I have never memorized a number or cycled a sidewalk. My tires are flat. Besides, your Faschingskrapfen aren’t imaginary. They are merely missing. Along with Krautfleisch and that Steirisches Schöpsernes you used to make.
I used to be invited to your parties.
Everyone was eager to meet you.
Now nein mehr.
You don’t like being given small bites of things. You complained, at the beginning, that all the parties were the same.
They were little and round. Gossip on such crackers as break in the hand. In every drink, small sunken olives. A grimace of cheese spread on office news. Mein Gott! Carrots leaning like oars in a water glass. I tell you, Joey, chitchat about people you don’t know is boring as celery.
When the first wave of greeting is over, it lies quiet on the sand awhile. Anyway, celery is famous for being celery. Perhaps you should teach the faculty wives how Austrians cook.
In the kitchen, you can’t make a living with just drippings. That’s my lesson. Did you ever find a nice white brick of lard in that place Americans call a butcher’s? This town! how badly equipped it is for life! Or see Beuschel or Kalbskopf or a handful of Hirn or a plump Huhn either? What a town, I tell you! Lamb maybe you can find but not mutton. Now what is Beuschel in this dreadful language?
Lights.
So you say. Who’s heard of “lights” in such a dark and barren land! The lights they refer to are a kind of cigarette.
Close. “Lights” means lungs.
At least you don’t smoke.
No, I don’t do that. I cycle down dark hotel hallways.
The common folks of this dreckish and dismal country don’t eat hoofs only haunches, shoulders, and flanks but not kidneys or brains. They are strange. Odder than Amish. Everybody in town drives a truck.
I can’t argue with you there. These locals prefer only the visible parts of their animals. They devour the outsides of things.
Jews love liver.
They aren’t American.
They don’t eat hair or eyes or ears … Americans. No noses … not Americans. Spit out nails.
Who eats hair?
People eat the fruit in scrotums.
Mother!
I could say more about what gets eaten.
Mother! You have become coarse like one of your graters.
While I grew old, you were supposed to grow up.
It’s my skimpy diet.
You can’t have drafts in the kitchen when you are preparing Krapfen. Or cool instruments — you know — bowls must be as warm as your hands, hands you have briskly scolded, and the pastry board should be in the same state, and not gray with the dust of old loaves. You will need knuckles to knead flat those sneaky folds of air, and you must give the dough a few swats with your scrubbled palms. Whap! Like you slap the cheeks of an ass pincher. The skin of the dough will contract. And have the palest lard nearby to fry your dough’s nut in, like some saint — I forget — he requested — you know — he chose the oil that would make him a martyr.