Small G: A Summer Idyll Read online

  A tie for this afternoon? Why not? Rickie donned a pale-blue shirt and chose a blue tie with a red stripe. He thought he had a business date this afternoon, but wouldn’t be sure till he checked it in the studio. That sort of thing, of course, was exactly what Mathilde should remind him of. Lots o’ luck.

  3

  Mathilde was waiting on the steps in front of his studio door when Rickie got there.

  “Oh Mathilde, you are early and I am late!” Rickie tried to assess her state by a glance at her eyes as he fished out his keys. Wettish, new eyeliner, he observed. “Come in. No, you first.”

  Rickie carried on as if it were a day like any other. He did have an appointment at 4 P.M., with Perma-Sheen, a nail-polish firm. Claws, Rickie thought, with a mild twinge of dislike. Cleanliness, a care for appearance and grooming—he supposed manicured nails implied all this. But to live with? And in bed? Clawing a man’s back? Or anything else. No! Of course, nail polish earned money for him, for the manufacturer, the manicurists in beauty parlors. For perhaps the third time that day, Rickie tried to sweep his daydreams away.

  “You look nice,” said Mathilde, as Rickie was putting on the kettle.

  “A business date at four. Mathilde, there are two errands this afternoon. One to pick up those color slides from the Foto Flash people. You know? Can you ring and see if they’re ready? If so—you fetch them. Then the hundred-watts. Six more. Make a note, will you?”

  “Jawohl, Rickie.” Mathilde went first to the fridge and extracted the Dubonnet, what was left of it.

  Rickie got his Perma-Sheen correspondence out. He had a cat idea for the ad campaign, and wanted to make some pencil sketches.

  Mathilde wrote her shopping list and pulled on her cardigan. Rickie felt relieved when she had gone.

  Perma-Sheen. His cat idea. Various colors of polish, a different one for each ad, but the same motif: close-up of a woman’s fingertips stroking or gently massaging a cat’s head. The cat would change in each too: Siamese, Burmese, tabby, marmalade, black, white, Persian. Rickie added color with his pencil crayons. Finally he had four to show.

  Another idea? Of course. Accidents, mishaps, when a woman had to show her fingers. Her handbag drops, everything spills—either on the street or at a dinner party. You can still look your best. Or something like that. Lipstick, comb, purse on a carpeted floor, maybe a man’s hand with jacket and a shirtcuff showing, coming to the lady’s assistance, as her hand, nails done in Perma-Sheen, retrieves her own lipstick (which might match nail polish) from among the objects spilled.

  By the time Mathilde got back, Rickie was in cheerful mood. Lulu remained sound asleep, even when Mathilde entered. “Success?” Rickie saw that she had two items, a big plastic sack and a smaller one.

  “Ye-es,” quavering. Mathilde stuck a couple of slips of paper on the expenses nail on the telephone table.

  Rickie opened the hundred-watt bag and checked that Mathilde had bought the right screw size (she had), then glanced at the color slides, which looked good. During Mathilde’s absence, a comforting thought had come to Rickie: he would not say another word to Mathilde about her “condition.” Rickie judged this attitude to be even tactful, a further relief to him.

  And Mathilde said nothing on that subject during the afternoon, and typed a few letters for Rickie, including a reminder for an outstanding invoice.

  Perma-Sheen, by 4:25 P.M., did not much like his cat idea, but liked the humor of his “You can still look your best” idea.

  Half an hour after the Perma-Sheen man had departed, the telephone rang, and the same man said that his colleague did like the cat idea, and could Rickie come up with two samples, layouts with room for a hundred words in two sizes of type, as he had described?

  The day was shaping up well. But Rickie mentally tiptoed around Mathilde, as if she were someone in hospital, or someone in the delicate condition she had described. And if she were not at all pregnant, not even a little bit? Rickie smiled inwardly. Wasn’t fantasy what made the world go round? All that kept up the morale? Like love, ambition, hope, and trying. All abstract, all fantasy, yet as vital as bread. So Rickie felt.

  He even fancied that Mathilde’s faint smile was one of gratitude for his tact, as she said good-bye that afternoon. They wished each other a good weekend.

  Rickie stayed on at the studio another good hour, working, tidying, drifting, dreaming, as he could do only when alone.

  Back at his apartment before seven, Rickie telephoned his sister Dorothea, who was married to a radiologist and lived in Zurich. Did they, he and his sister, really have to go to their mother’s for her birthday in a week? Was Dorothea going? She was not. She was going to telephone and send a present.

  “Good,” Rickie said, relieved. “I could drive, of course, but I don’t drool down my chin at the thought.” The childhood phrase made his sister chuckle.

  “Rickie, sweetie, you driving—after Mummy’s party!”

  “Oh, I’d stay the night.”

  “Even so! You’re doing all right, dear? Everything fine?”

  Rickie assured her that it was. “And Elise?” he asked. This was Dorothea’s daughter.

  “Still hasn’t finished her thesis—and she’s met a new young man, so we can only hope.” Here Dorothea gave a laugh. “That she buckles down and does it, I mean.”

  Elise was Dorothea’s only child, who was taking her master’s in business administration. “Keep well, dear sister. I’ll sign off. Love to my niece—and to Robbie.” The latter was Dorothea’s husband. As he hung up, Rickie imagined his sister’s orderly and somewhat heavily furnished apartment, leather chairs, dark-wood furniture, much of it gifts from their mother’s and Robbie’s family. Ah, well, pillars of society.

  By nine-thirty that evening, showered and in the same pale-blue shirt and wearing a raincoat, Rickie rang Philip Egli’s bell from a bank of twenty in the building entrance.

  “Rickie!” he shouted into the speaker.

  Someone buzzed him in. Lulu, sensing a party, danced on her feet as she walked, expending energy like a jet plane. Such was her nature. The show! She was a circus dog, from circus stock, and had been stolen from her mother when two or three months old. Out of the lift, and apartment 4G. Rickie rang.

  Philip Egli opened the door, tall but not as tall as Rickie, with wavy, light-brown hair, an earnest, alert face. “Welcome, Rickie! And Lulu! Our honored female guest! Ha-ha!”

  The living room was completely occupied, including part of the floor, and a few fellows were standing. The hum did not entirely subside with Rickie’s and Lulu’s appearance.

  “This is Rickie Markwalder,” Philip began. “Joey, Kurt—”

  “Who needs no introduction,” Kurt said.

  “Heinrich,” Philip continued.

  “Weber,” Heinrich put in from the floor, where he lay propped on an elbow.

  “Peter, Maxi, Fr—”

  “Peter here too!” cried a voice from a corner.

  “OK!” Rickie said, embarrassed as ever by introductions. He knew half the group vaguely, and had been to bed with a few in years past.

  “And that’s enough!” someone said. “Give Rickie something to drink!”

  Rickie had been to Philip’s apartment a few times. Where books did not line the walls, photographs—many enlarged—filled the space, teenaged boys, many naked, gazing forward, some smiling invitingly. Another photo showed two sleeping heads, the rest of the subject under a sheet. The books, apart from a small paperback section, were heavy textbooks with dense titles pertaining to physics and engineering, of which Rickie knew nothing, a deadly contrast to the merry boys. Philip’s family was not wealthy, Rickie knew, so Philip worked hard, not wanting to prolong his education, therefore the expense for his family. Rickie admired that, because Switzerland was full of students who spent years at their theses, dec
ades even, living nicely on parents’ charity and government loans that were essentially interest-free.

  Rickie accepted a Chivas Regal. There were also wine bottles on a table by the window, and beer bottles in a couple of buckets of water. “Thanks,” Rickie said. “Just a splash of water—good. And what’s the occasion for this party, Philip?”

  “Nothing. It’s Friday,” Philip said, pushing up his shirtsleeves, ready to dash off again to attend to his guests. “Well, to tell you the truth, Harry and I exploded—disintegrated. So I’m throwing a party to forget it.”

  “I see,” said Rickie, in his serious baritone, searching for a comforting phrase, but before he found any, Philip was gone. Harry? Maybe Rickie had met him, but he couldn’t attach a face to that name.

  “Lulu!” said a young man Rickie knew as Stefan. “You’re going to do some tricks tonight?”

  “If you don’t press her too hard,” Rickie said with deliberate fussiness. “She’s had a busy week.”

  “Meaning you too?”

  Rickie savored his drink. “Busy enough. Who’s that dealing out the favors tonight?” He nodded toward a corner of the living room, where a young man in a white shirt and black waistcoat was chopping out a few lines of cocaine. Two fellows watched him intently.

  “His name’s Alex. More I don’t know!” Stefan laughed as if he had made a bon mot. “And don’t want to.”

  It was unheard of—drugs at Philip’s. Rickie watched the thin tubes of rolled paper being passed by Alex to a couple of rapt observers. Go ahead, through the nose, Alex’s gesture said. Then he lifted the dinner plate so that his neatly radiating rows could be more easily inhaled. Alex knelt with the lifted plate, like a figure in a religious painting of the Middle Ages. The cocaine accepters had merely to bend a little at the waist.

  Rickie looked over the restless, talkative crowd, meeting the glances of men whose eyes had been attracted by Rickie’s passing survey. One was rather handsome, with short brown hair, but absorbed in the man he was talking with, it seemed to Rickie. And how would Rickie look to this group, he wondered, whose average age was under thirty? He would look like a saggy-jowled, out-of-condition old fellow of at least forty, on the prowl for young flesh. Disgraceful, embarrassing! Dirty old man! Stay home with your dreams of the past!

  In the kitchen, Rickie made himself another drink, not too strong. When he returned to the living room, one fellow, maybe two, gave a sharp whistle, and suddenly “Gaieté Parisienne” was taken up by one after another of the guests, whistling, clapping.

  And Lulu barked and pranced.

  “Let ’er go . . . ! Take it off!”

  Lulu was free.

  “Here! Look, Lulu!” A young man held out an umbrella horizontally.

  Lulu cleared it, circled round and cleared it again, noiselessly, with ease and pleasure.

  Laughter! And some applause apart from the palm-smacking to the music’s beat. Two men stood and made a circle with their hands and arms.

  “Lower!” Rickie yelled. “She’ll hit the glasses back there!”

  Lulu leapt and barked once, circled again to repeat her act.

  Rickie always felt a thrill at this, because he had acquired Lulu when she was such a pup, he was sure she’d never been taught these tricks, they were just in her blood.

  “Wheet! Wheet!” The whole room seemed to be whistling, those who weren’t laughing.

  “That’s enough! Enough!” Rickie broke in, clapping once, standing tall with his arms upstretched. “Lulu needs a break! Come, Lulu, we’ll go on an ocean cruise to relax. All right?”

  Here Rickie pulled some dark glasses from a jacket pocket, and went in quest of his red muffler in his raincoat sleeve. He draped the scarf around Lulu’s head and secured it at her throat. Then he stuck the dark glasses on the bridge of her nose, and fixed the curves of the glasses under the red scarf.

  “Whoo-oops! Ha-ha!”

  More applause.

  “Beautiful, Lulu!”

  She had coiled herself in an armchair with head lifted, and her eyes might have been gazing at a distant horizon. Even Rickie grinned, though he’d seen Lulu so attired before. She did suggest a distinguished actress in a deck chair who might want to be incognito. Now the undisciplined musical background staggered into the waltz from the same Offenbach work.

  Rickie caught a glimpse of himself in a looking glass, a fleeting picture which cheered him: he looked happy, his shirt and tie and straight dark hair contributed to the picture of a rather handsome man, after all. And he had yet to find a gray hair.

  Someone was talking about food. Spaghetti, wieners, were coming up. Bowls of pretzels and Ritz crackers stood everywhere, nearly empty.

  “Alex, what’s this?” Philip asked. “Money?”

  Rickie, rather near, overheard this.

  “Hey, now, no selling in my house, eh? OK if you want to give it.” Philip was on his feet now.

  “Nobody gives it,” said Alex, rising to his feet a little unsteadily. “Not even me. I’m a convenience store.” He said the last sentence in English, and laughed.

  “Sorry, Philip. He just said twenty francs and I had it, so—” This from a fellow on his knees on the floor. The paper tube was still in his hand.

  “OK, I’ll give it back,” said Alex, fishing in a pocket.

  Now Philip was embarrassed. “It’s just the idea of selling—here.”

  Rickie moved closer. “Sure, Philip’s right. It’s a party, and Philip’s not selling drinks, is he? It’s not that Philip is against—that, I’m sure,” he added soothingly, with a glance at Alex’s remaining rows, two.

  “Sure,” someone echoed. “Just don’t sell it, Alex.”

  “OK, I’ll put it away!” Alex’s eyes flashed with anger, because at least six people were looking at him.

  “And no hard feelings, eh?” This drawling voice from the background sounded slightly drunk.

  Rickie moved off to the kitchen in search of a beer. The fridge was full of beer, plus a big bowl of potato salad. But Rickie chose a beer from a bucket on the floor, wiped the bottle with a tea towel, and opened it. Then looking for the bathroom, he opened a bedroom door, and espied two of the younger guests standing before the mirrored armoire, not looking at themselves but kissing in such a delicate, new way, that he thought it must be their first kiss, and he stepped backward and closed the door. The next door was the correct one.

  When he emerged from the bathroom, carrying his beer bottle, the apartment was quiet, except for one angry voice saying, or yelling, “Well, somebody must’ve invited him!”

  “Ja-a—who told him about a party?”

  “Doesn’t even take his hat off in somebody’s house!”

  “What’s he, stoned? Mute?”

  “Who the hell is he?” asked a young voice.

  A frowning young man stood in the doorway to the living room.

  “What happened?” Rickie asked him.

  The young man shrugged. “Doorbell rang—and this guy—” He gestured.

  Willi Biber, Rickie now saw to his astonishment, stood smack in the middle of the living room in his usual garb, dark trousers, old work jacket, and broad-brimmed gray hat.

  Rickie called out, “Willi!”

  Willi in his doltish way replied with a “Hee-aay!” and raised a finger, pointing at Rickie, but whether the gesture was an accusation or a greeting was dubious.

  “You know him, Rick?” a voice asked.

  “I have seen him—in my neighborhood,” Rickie said in the careful manner that often came over him when he was feeling his drink.

  “But did you invite him?”

  “Certainly not!” Rickie replied, loud and positive. “Word of honor.”

  “Come on, fellows, let’s cool it.” This was from Philip. “Carry on
and have fun.”

  “He’s a troublemaker, this guy!” a new voice said. “I’ve seen him at Jakob’s. He’s a basher!” The voice meant gay-basher.

  Philip approached the unwanted figure. “Look, Willi—we’d all be just as happy if you left. OK? Would you like a taxi?”

  “Ja-a!” yelled someone. “A taxi!”

  “I just answered the bell, opened the door,” said another voice on a defensive note. “Am I supposed to vet everyone who—”

  Willi Biber turned slowly, as if trying to make all the faces sink into his memory, or he could have been looking for a face he knew among the dozen men in the room. His gray eyes were dull, and he wore a dazed expression. Suddenly he opened his arms, raised them stiffly sideways, and said, “Faggots!”

  Raucous laughter, mild applause. “We love you too!”

  “OK, I know this guy and it’s out with him!” said a short, dark-haired man, getting to his feet. He came forward like a wrestler, took Willi by the elbows and thrust him toward the door.

  A cheer went up! “Good for you, Ernst!”

  Ernst had helpers. Willi was lifted off his feet. Someone held the door open.

  “Yee-hoo!”

  Wine bottles circulated, people sat down and relaxed and smiled. Philip started the water for wieners and spaghetti.

  When Ernst and his helpers came back, they got a roar of congratulation.

  “A taxi?”

  “No, we let him walk!”

  “If that bell rings again—don’t answer!”

  RICKIE STOOD IN AN APRON, helping Philip in the narrow kitchen. It was as if Rickie had suddenly come awake, after perhaps twenty minutes of blackout, though he had been on his feet all the time. By now there was no one in the apartment but himself and Philip and a man whose name Rickie didn’t know. Philip was carefully putting back knives, forks, spoons in their compartments in a kitchen drawer.