At Isolde’s, the days passed quickly. The months dropped away like calendar pages, snowy scenes of villages I watched from the cozy insides of taxis, trains, and airplanes. It was work that kept me busy, gave me credibility and money. The studios were all the same. You can get used to the cold gray winter when you’re working every day. Time passes. You keep plugging away and then suddenly you’re walking home after work and you notice that flowers have sprung up everywhere. You raise your chin to the sun and there is still warmth. You can’t imagine where the time has gone.
One fine evening in April, I cut down the Hohenzollernstrasse and into the lush green of the Englischer Garten. This was where I would go when I was feeling moody. I’d often pause on one of the stone bridges and look out over the rapid green Isar. It was narrow but swift as traffic. You had to be careful never to drop anything into it or you’d never see it again.
I always felt safe behind the sturdy, moss-softened railing. I’d
crouch down and put my chin on the velvety stuff and soothe my eyes with the rushing water, giving in to my feelings of homesickness for my parents, my sisters, the dog, my brother, Michael, who’d died. I couldn’t help being touched at the thought of Michael. My throat closed and I let myself cry. Michael had been a cop. At least he’d had that. At least he’d lived his lifelong dream. Very short was his life, though. And violent at the end, shot to death by a useless, weeping junkie.
Just the day before I’d telephoned. “Claire!” my father had cried out with delight. “You’re not in Asia, are you?”
“No, Dad, still in Germany.”
“Germany,” he’d repeated with distaste. He’d blown up plenty of swastikas in Germany. “When are you coming?”
“No, Dad.” I’d spoken with jocular volume to disguise my sorrow at not bearing the news he’d hoped to hear. “I won’t be coming home this month. I’ve got to stay. There’s so much going on!”
“Oh,” he’d said, his disappointment final as a child’s.
“Dad,” I shouted into the post office phone, “you wouldn’t believe the flowers here! I’ve never seen such flowers!”
“Richmond Hill is filled with flowers, too,” he’d said with no guile, just loss.
“I’ll come home soon,” I promised, my throat suddenly tight.
“Make it sooner,” he’d said. Then, “I love you,” always gentle, always kind. “Here’s Mother.”
I could see it all, the Daily News unfolded on the kitchen table, the cups of endless tea, the dog alert to who was on the phone but really only caring how it would affect his walk. And then my mother, loving me, too, but unhappy at the thought of my being over here having fun. Fun! When I ought to be home taking sensible courses in college. I was spared a sermon because long distance intimidated her. We hung up quickly, before the operator intervened. I was glad now to be gone, glad to be spared the shelves of Mass cards my mother kept like literature to be read
and reread, glad not to hear her stifled moans of grief in the night. Or my father’s military posture wane when he thought no one could see.
I pulled my hair back, hard, until it stung. I wiped away my tears and presently I felt better. I needed voices and happy faces, I told myself. I would stop off at the Riding School café. That would do it. I hurried.
I climbed the stone steps, skirting through the busy tables and chairs until I made it to the quieter corner of the stone balcony.
I fumbled around in my sack and came up with my charcoals and pad. I steadied myself, snapped a shot with my old camera as a backup for details, ordered a Kaffee with milk, and lost myself, finally, sketching the faces and figures around me.
“Claire!”
I glanced up, my teeth gripping a pencil pirate-knife style.
“Hi, Chartreuse. Sorry.” I pulled the pencil from my mouth and patted the chair beside me.
Chartreuse didn’t have to be asked twice. He rubbed his unshaven chin, leaned over, and made the slightest thumb smudge on the edge of the horse’s mane, pushing in the direction behind the horse, giving it the immediate impression of speed.
“Brilliant!” I sat back and beamed up at him. “You’re too much. Now, see, why didn’t I think of that?”
“Eet is not in the thought but in ze immediate response, chérie. And …” He paused and I had the feeling he was trying to say something important, “You must try to capture, to convey, what is not seen. What I mean is, the atmosphere is as urgent to communicate as the view. Eh? Do I say it right?”
“Oh, yes, Chartreuse. You say it very well. Tell me. Why did you ever give up painting?”
“Me? I never gave anything up in my entire life. There are so many wonderful ways to spend one’s time.” He shook his head.
“You Americans! You think life is lived from one category to the next!”
“It’s because we watch television stories between the commercials and we think that’s us.”
He swung his guitar around onto his lap and strummed it softly. “Anyway,” he added in his thick French accent, “I can’t afford the paint.”
“Yeah, sure. Maybe if you stopped dealing for a couple of weeks, you’d have a little energy and space.”
“Just a leetle hashish.” He shrugged. “Eet hurts no one.”
“No one but you, you dope.”
He looked at me with his lion yellow eyes. The picture of innocence. “You are not paying attention to me,” he admonished.
Across the room, Isolde’s husband, Vladimir, got up, lit a cigarette, and walked across the restaurant with a young pretty girl. He was a big man, with hands the size of hamhocks. A sculptor. Aristocracy from Denmark and Japan had had their heads done by him. And politicians. So you knew he was well thought of. Isolde wouldn’t let any of his larger pieces out of the flat. She claimed to be so attached to them, although I suspected it was the money they represented. And Harry Honeycutt, the fellow I’d met on the mountain that day, thought so, too. He was always warning her not to let them go. Harry knew about those things, Isolde confided. He was a well-respected arts and theater critic in London, although I found it hard to believe (he was always such a mess around Isolde).
I knew Vladimir and Isolde were still scheduled for a divorce, although the plans to part seemed to be going on longer than the marriage itself. I also knew that Isolde, despite her bravado, was still in love with him. I waved. Seeing Chartreuse, he raised one disapproving brow and kept walking.
I couldn’t help liking Chartreuse, although I knew well enough he was usually up to no good. One day I’d caught a glimpse into
his guitar case. Sterling silver forks and spoons glittered dully from the pocket. I’d not dared wonder where they’d come from. I’d looked away. The truth was, I liked him despite my better judgment. He made me laugh with his irreverent jousts at authority and the establishment. He entertained me with his songs. And he spoke English. It didn’t occur to me until much later that the thing I liked most about Chartreuse was his admiration for my drawing.
“I don’t suppose you could lend me some money?” he said now.
“I’ve already lent you some! Pay me back and you can ask again. Not before.”
“I could sell you my van as collateral. It’s in superb condition.”
“That van again! You don’t sell as collateral. You give.”
“Oh,” he said, not at all offended.
We sat there, me sketching the colorful, unusual faces, he strumming his beat-up acoustic guitar. “This is the life,” I said.
“You are quite sure you are not interested in a leetle rendezvous? At my place? This evening?”
I laughed happily. “I’ve got to give it to you, Chartreuse. You never give up.”
I went ahead trying to capture the leisurely gonging kirk bell, the too blue blue sky, and the nearby bright drone of a well-poised and resolute bee.