India managed to move two or three feet. With all the courage I'd ever had in my life, I slowly slid over so that I was standing between India and the dog. It was growling continually now; I wondered if it was rabid. I didn't know what to do. How long would it stand there? How long would it wait? What did it want? The growl turned into a kind of snapping snarl, and it sounded as if something were hurting the dog from inside its body. It turned its head left and right, then widened and narrowed its eyes. If it was rabid and bit me . . .
I realized for the first time I was chanting, "Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ . . ." under my breath. I didn't dare move. My hands were splayed flat against the sides of my legs. My fear had turned into a thick, evil taste in the back of my mouth.
Someone whistled, and the dog snapped at me in a madness of fast little bites at thin air, but it stayed where it was and moved only when the whistle came a second time.
"Very good, Joey! You passed the Matty test! He passed, India!"
Paul stood at one edge of the park. He was wearing the Little Boy top hat, white gloves, and the most beautiful black overcoat I had ever seen.
The dog bounded up to him and jumped high at a hand Paul had raised in the air over his head. The two of them disappeared into the dark.
5
"Joseph?"
"Karen!"
"Hello, love. Is it okay to talk?"
"Sure, just let me sit down."
Karen. Karen was on the other end of the line, and Karen was the heaven that made everything right again.
"Okay, so tell me what's up? Tell me everything. I tried to call you."
"Hey, Joseph, are you okay? You sound as if you just got your teeth pulled."
"It's the connection. How are you?"
"I'm . . . I'm okay."
"What does that mean, okay? Now you sound as if all your teeth were pulled."
She laughed; I wanted the sound to go on forever.
"No, Joseph, I'm really fine. What's goin' on there? What's happenin' with that Miss India and you?"
"Nothing. I mean, nothing's going on. She's all right."
"And you?"
Oh, did I want to tell her. Oh, did I want her there with me. Oh, did I want this all to be over.
"Karen, I love you. I don't love India, I love you. I want to come back. I want you."
"Uh huh."
I closed my eyes and knew something awful was about to come. "What's with Miles, Karen?"
"You want the truth?"
"Yes." My heart raced to match the beat of the heart of a man about to be hanged.
"I've been stayin' with him. He's asked me to marry him."
"Oh, God."
"I know."
"And?" Don't say yes. God in heaven, don't say you said yes.
"And I told him I wanted to talk to you."
"He knows about me?"
"Yes."
"Do you want to marry him?"
"The truth?"
"Yes, goddamn it, tell me the truth!"
Her voice went cold, and I hated myself for snapping at her. "Sometimes I think I do, Joseph. Sometimes I do. What about you?"
Shifting in my seat, I banged my calf on the leg of the chair and nearly fainted from the pain. It clouded my mind badly, and I groped for something clear and right to say to stop the best thing in my life from going down the drain.
"Karen, can you wait before you tell him anything? Can you wait a little while longer?"
A silence followed that lasted a hundred years.
"I don't know, Joseph."
"Do you love me, Karen?"
"Yes, Joseph, but I might love Miles more. I swear to God, I'm not trying to be coy, either. I don't know."
I sat in my room and smoked. The radio was on, and I smiled bitterly when India's song from our night in the mountains, "Sundays in the Sky," came on. How long ago had that been? How long ago had I held Karen in my arms and sworn to myself I wouldn't go back to Vienna? Ever. Everything was in New York. Everything. But how close was I to losing it now?
As had happened several times, the face of a white boxer raced across my mind, followed by the sound of India screaming. I knew somewhere inside I should have felt proud for having saved her that night, but the experience only made things seem more futile. How do you defeat the dead? Do you tell them to fight fair, no tricks or crossed fingers behind their back? What good was it to put up your two dukes, only to discover your opponent had a hundred, and another hundred, waiting when the first ones tired. I asked myself if I hated India, and knew I didn't. I didn't even hate Paul. It was impossible to hate the insane – like being angry at an inanimate object after you've banged your elbow on it.
I heard the refrigerator click on in the kitchen. A horn beeped in the street. Some children in the building screeched and laughed and banged a door. I knew it was time to talk to India. I would stay and help her all I could, but in return she would have to know that, if Paul's siege ended, I would not stay with her any longer than I had to. It would hurt and confuse her, I knew, but my ultimate allegiance was to Karen, and I could not ask her in all good faith to wait for me so long as I was being dishonest with India. Before we hung up that night, Karen asked if I was staying in Vienna because I was India's friend or because I was her lover. When I said "friend," I knew it was time to start acting truthfully, all the way around.
I asked India to meet me at the Landtmann. She wore a moss-green loden coat that came down to her ankles and black wool gloves that suited her perfectly. What an attractive woman. What a hell of a mess.
"You're sure you don't mind being here, India?"
"No, Joe. They have the best cake in town, next to Aida, and I owe you at least two disgusting pieces after the other night.
"Remember the first night we met? How we sat out here and I complained about how hot it was?"
We stood with our backs to the door of the cafй. The trees were bare; it was hard to imagine them in full bloom. How could nature shed its skin so completely and then recreate it so exactly only a few months later?
"What are you thinking about, Joey?"
"The trees in winter."
"Very poetic. I was thinking about the first night. You know what? I thought you were kind of nerdy."
"Thanks."
"A good-looking nerd, but a nerd."
"Why in particular, or just generally?"
"Oh, I don't know, but I forgave you because of your looks. You're very cute, you know."
If you want Vienna to live up to your romantic expectations, get off the plane and go directly to Cafй Landtmann. It is marble tables, velvet seats, floor-to-ceiling windows, and newspapers from every interesting part of the world. It is, to be sure, one of the places where people go to look at one another, but it's such a large cafй that even that doesn't matter.
We chose a table by a window and looked around a while before either said anything. When we did, it was at the same time.
"In –"
"Who was –"
"Go ahead."
"No, you go ahead, Joe. I was only going to blabber."
"Okay. Are you in the mood to talk? I want to tell you something important."
She bowed her head, giving me the floor. I had no idea if this was the proper time to bring up Karen Mack, but like it or not, I had to.
"India, when I was in New York, I was with someone."
"I kind of thought so by the way you've acted since you got back. Somebody old or somebody new?"
"Somebody new."
"Uh oh, they're the most dangerous kind, aren't they? Before you go on, tell me her name."