Even though the weather was usually nice and sunny in the day, everything changed at night. There were thunderstorms all the time like I'd never seen before. You could hear them coming sometimes two hours before they hit, outside our window. Whenever I heard the thunder rolling in or saw the scary white lightning over the mountains, I'd pick up whatever I was doing and run for the living room.
The room was yellow. All the furniture was yellow, and I think even the lights were yellow. Daddy said the furniture was by Art Deco, but I didn't know who that was. The important thing was every chair in there was fat and round and friendly. You could fall into them from any position and be comfortable. My favorite I'd secretly named "Sinbad" and everyone knew it was my chair. People even got up and gave it to me when I came in. Sinbad and I were friends. When the storms were blowing and hissing like a monster, we'd leave the doors to the patio open because Daddy liked to watch the rain go sideways, not down, outside. The wind blew it in all kinds of crazy directions and sometimes I got scared, but not really.
The best part of the storms was when they got really bad, Daddy always came into the living room, and sitting down at the piano there, would begin playing along to the rain and thunder. He played the piano very beautifully and knew thousands of different songs and classical music. With every bang of thunder he banged out something nice on the piano. When the rain or the wind blew the curtains up high, he played music by a man named Delius who wrote music that sounded like the rain. Daddy said playing the piano like that was taming the storm, and I never had to be afraid of any storm he could play to.
Since I was always the biggest scaredy cat about the storms, I was always the first one in the living room with my comics or coloring book or whatever I was working on at the time. But sooner or later my brother Ingram, or Mommy, would come in too, and all three of us would listen to the rain and Daddy playing the piano, and it would be like living in heaven for me. There we all were – safe and protected and cozy in the middle of the storm, surrounded by yellow light and my Daddy's music. That was the best part of the summer.
"How long will you be gone?"
"I think only three days. It depends on the production. They told me three days."
She looked at me accusingly. "What if I have problems?"
"I'll be on the next plane. I'm only going to Germany, Maris. They're paying me a couple of thousand dollars to hold up a champagne bottle. It's sort of hard to say no."
"I've seen those champagne ads. Lots of beautiful girls in low-cut dresses."
"Are you being serious or just grumpy?"
"Grumpy. I know you have to go. This hospital isn't cheap."
"Don't worry about that. You know we've got plenty of money from the film."
"Plenty of money lasts an hour when you've got someone in the hospital. I don't want you to go because I'll miss you. No other reason. Even if you're not right here, knowing you're in town makes me feel better. Is that babyish?"
"I love it. I love you too for feeling that way. Listen, I wanted to ask you a question about something else. Did you and your family ever spend a summer on Lake Maggiore in Italy when you were little?"
She nodded. "Yes, near a town called Laveno."
"Do you remember much of it?"
"Pretty much. Why?"
"Do you remember 'Sinbad'?"
"Sinbad? No. What are you asking?"
"I had a dream about you last night. I dreamt I was you in that house in Italy."
"You were me?"
"I was you, and I was in that big yellow living room where you all went when thunderstorms came at night. Your father played the piano to tame the rain."
She sat up fast. "That's right! Oh, Walker, I'd forgotten all about that. It's so mystical. Tell me the whole thing immediately. Every detail."
When I had finished her cheeks were flushed and she wore the biggest smile I'd seen in days.
"That is so . . . It gives me little shivers all over. Sinbad! How could you know about Sinbad? You know why I called it that? Because sometimes I'd pretend it was my sailing ship and I was off on an adventure. Sailing past the Island of the Sirens. I would hold my ears and think I needed lots of wax to hold off their screams. My favorite movie when I was growing up was The 7th Voyage of Sinbad. Did you ever see it? With the cyclops and the princess who was shrunken down by the evil magician? I even remember the name of the actor who played him. Torin Thatcher."
"You sound like Venasque. He knew the cast of every film made."
"Sinbad. I saw that movie six times. Whenever they asked the genie in the lamp to do something, he'd bow and say 'I shall try, my master, I shall try.'
"You were me as a little girl in Laveno. Walker, that must mean something good. Maybe it's a turning point. All your other dreams were so strange and disturbing. This one is only childhood and magic."
"Your childhood. That's the kicker."
"No, that's the beauty! Wouldn't it be something if that happened to us forever? Dream each other's dreams? We'd know each other so well we could be –"
"Identical twins."
"Ha ha. Not funny."
"How do you feel today?"
"Good. Especially after hearing that. I'm sad you're going away, but I'm okay. Listen, there's one thing, though. You don't have to call me from there as much as you do here. It'd be sweet, but eleven calls a day from Germany wouldn't help our bank account."
"There's a lot to talk about when I'm away."
"That's true. How long will you be gone?"
"Three days. I'll take the night train back Tuesday."
"Okay, then five times a day is enough."
The night train to Cologne is strictly business. Night trains to Italy are full of excited tourists and lovers off for a weekend in Venice at the Danieli. Trains north, especially to the heart of German business, are quiet and full of tired men in rumpled suits with their neckties pulled down, looking wanly through their briefcases.
I was in a first-class compartment by myself until a few minutes before the train was due to leave. I had the German edition of the fairy tales on my lap but only because I wanted to read some of the other stories. I had no further need of reading "Rumpelstiltskin."
The compartment door slid open and a woman walked in. When I saw her I thought of a line my college roommate had once said when we were gassing about women.
"Sometimes you see one on the street who's so beautiful you want to walk up to her, put your hand over her mouth, and just whisper 'Don't talk. Come with me.' You take her immediately to bed, never letting her say a word. Because no matter what she says, it's going to spoil that first beauty you saw in her. You know what I mean? Silent, she's perfect."
The woman across from me was that kind of perfect. Dressed in a shimmery black leather coat and skirt, she had a small Oriental face that held a stunning mixture of voluptuous child and innocent woman; long straight hair fell down over her shoulders like a black waterfall. I smiled at her and turned back to the window.
"Is this seat taken?" She spoke English in a high voice.
"No. Can I help you with your bag?"
"That would be very nice."
She was already sitting when I stood to put her Louis Vuitton suitcase onto the rack above. She seemed very used to men helping her through life.