Outside the bathroom door, your mother was nervous. 'There's another bathroom upstairs,' she called twice, as if she feared you could get pregnant again, have twins or worse.
And you whispered to me, Biggie, as I sloshed water into my armpits, 'Do you remember, Bogus, when you tried to wash in the bidet in Kaprun?' And my member shrunk from that icy memory.
In the morning, Trumper spoke into his dream, and into the soft hair, nesting on his pillow. 'Do you remember ... ?' he began, but he failed to recognize the perfume and drew back from the figure on the bed beside him.
'Remem ...' the whore said sleepily. She didn't understand English.
After she'd gone, all he could remember of the whore was her rings, and how she'd used them. It was a game she fancied: reflecting little facets of light, caught in the many-faced stones, all over her body and his. 'Kiss this one here,' she'd say, indicating a flickering spot of light. When she moved her hands, the little mirrored edges of light moved with them, tracing bright squares and triangles over her deep-cut navel and down her taut thigh.
She had long, lovely hands and the sharpest, quickest wrists he'd ever seen. She played a fencing game with her rings too. 'You try to stop me,' she said, squatting opposite him on the teetering Taschy bed while she feinted, parried and thrust her flickering wrists at him, scratching him here and there with a ring's sharp edge, but never hard enough to break the skin.
When he was on top of her, she raced her rings over his back. Once he caught a glimpse of her eyes; she was watching her rings' prism patterns chase across the ceiling as she moved under him with slight and careless shrugs.
In the Josefsplatz he stopped walking around the fountain and wondered how he'd gotten there. He tried to remember how much he'd paid the whore, or even when he had. He couldn't remember the transaction at all and checked his empty wallet for some clue.
In his suitcase, the fine smell of mentholated chocolate laced with catnip made him swoon, and he remembered the hashish brick. He imagined paying for his lunch with a sliver of it - picking up a table knife, slicing off a wafer-thin strip and asking the waiter if that would do.
In the American Express office he found himself asking for Merrill Overturf at the information counter, behind which a man tilted his puzzled head, consulted a map in front of him, then a larger map behind him.
'Overturv?' the man asked. 'Where is it? Do you know the nearest town to it?'
After this was straightened out, Trumper was directed to the mail desk. There a girl firmly shook her head; American Express had no permanent mailbox in Merrill's name.
Bogus wanted to leave a note anyway. 'Well, we can hold it at the desk for him,' the girl told him. 'But just for a week or so. Then it's a dead letter.'
A dead letter? Apparently even one's words could die.
On a bulletin board in the front lobby there were little notices about all sorts of matters:
ANNA. FOR GOD'S SAKE COME HOME!
SPECIAL TELETAPE REPLAY NFL GAME OF THE WEEK/ REG. SHOWING EV. SUN @ P.M. 2 & 4/ATOMIC ENERGY COMM., KARNTNER RING 23, WIEN I/U.S. PASSPORT REQUIRED.
KARL, I'M BACK AT THE OLD PLACE.
PETCHA, CALL KLAGENFURT 09-03-79 BEFORE WEDS., ELSE RIDE WITH GERIG TO GRAZ, MEET HOFSTEINER AFTER 11 THURS. EVE/ERNST
To these, Trumper added:
MERRILL, LEAVE SOME WORD FOR ME/BOGGLE
He was standing on the Karntner Ring sidewalk, feeling the warm, springlike weather and wondering why December felt like this, when the man with apple cheeks and a bow tie first spoke to him. The man's mouth was so plump and round that his natty mustache was almost circular. Trumper wasn't a bit surprised to hear him speak English; he looked like a gas-station attendant Trumper had known in Iowa.
'Say, are you American too?' the man asked Bogus. He reached to shake Trumper's hand. 'My name's Arnold Mulcahy,' he said, shaking hands with a firm grip, a rapid pump. Bogus was trying to think of something polite to say when Arnold Mulcahy jerked him right off his feet with a perfectly executed falling arm-drag. For a cherub, he moved very fast; he was behind Bogus before Bogus could get off his hands and knees and had already torn the suitcase right out of Bogus's grasp. Then he slapped a double chicken-wing on Trumper and flattened him right down to the sidewalk.
Trumper was a little dizzy as a result of encountering the sidewalk with his forehead, but he wondered if perhaps Arnold Mulcahy was an old wrestling coach he'd known. He was trying to place the name when he saw the car pull up to the curb and two men get out quickly. Someone stuck his head into Trumper's suitcase and took a deep sniff. 'It's in here, all right,' he said.
The car doors were all open. I'm having this dream again, Trumper thought, but his shoulders really did feel as if they were popping out of their sockets and the two men helping Arnold Mulcahy throw Bogus in the back of their car felt very real.
In the back seat, they frisked him so fast and thoroughly that they could have told him the number of teeth on his pocket comb. Arnold Mulcahy sat up front reading Trumper's passport. Then he unwrapped the hashish brick, sniffed it, touched its sticky resin and licked it with his toady tongue. 'It's pure stuff, Arnie,' said one of the men in the back seat with Bogus. His English was pure Alabama.
'Yup,' said Arnold Mulcahy, who wrapped the hashish back up, returned it to Trumper's suitcase, and then leaned over the front seat and smiled at Bogus. Arnold Mulcahy was about forty, twinkling and plump; among other things, Trumper was thinking that Mulcahy had just executed the best falling arm-drag and double chicken-wing that he had ever had the misfortune to experience in his entire wrestling career. He was also thinking that all the men in the car were about forty, and probably American. They were not all twinkling and plump, however.
'Don't you worry, my good boy,' Arnold Mulcahy told Bogus, still smiling at him. His voice was a poor nasal imitation of W.C. Fields. 'Everyone knows you're quite innocent. That is to say, almost innocent. What we mean is, we haven't noticed you trying to give the dope back.' He winked at the men sitting on either side of Bogus. They released his arms, then, and let him rub his sore shoulders.
'Just one question, son,' Mulcahy said. He held up a little scrap of paper; it was the note Bogus had left for Merrill on the bulletin board at American Express. 'Who's Merrill?' Mulcahy asked, and when Trumper just stared at him, he went on. 'Would this Merrill be a prospective buyer, son?' he asked, but Trumper was afraid to talk. He thought that whoever they were they knew more than he did, and he wanted to wait and see where the car was going. 'My good boy,' Mulcahy said, 'we know you didn't mean to get the dope, but we can only guess what you were going to do with it.' Trumper didn't say a word. The car rounded the Schwartzenburgplatz, circling behind the spot where they'd picked him up. Trumper realized he'd seen too many movies; there was an astonishing similarity between the cops and the crooks, and he didn't know for sure which these men were.
Arnold Mulcahy sighed. 'You know,' he said, 'I personally think we may have saved you from an act of crime. Your only crime so far is one of omission, but if this Merrill character is someone you were planning to sell the stuff to - now that's another sort of crime.' He winked at Bogus and waited to see if Bogus was going to respond. Bogus held his breath.
'Come on,' said Arnold Mulcahy. 'Who's Merrill?'
'Who are you?' said Bogus.
'I'm Arnold Mulcahy,' said Arnold Mulcahy, who held out his hand and winked. He wanted to shake hands again, but Bogus still remembered the falling arm-drag and double chicken-wing, and he hesitated before accepting Arnold Mulcahy's firm grasp.
'Got just one more question for you, Mr Fred Trumper,' Arnold Mulcahy said. He stopped shaking Trumper's hand and suddenly looked as serious as a plump, twinkling man could look. 'Why did you leave your wife?' he asked.
29
What Happened to Sprog?
HE WAS DE-BALLED with a battle-ax. Then he was exiled to the coast of his native Schwud. To remind him of his castration, his lewd wife, Fluvia, was exiled with him. All this was t
he customary punishment for sexually assaulting a member of the royal family.
When I asked her why her gynecologist recommended that she have her intrauterine device removed, she does this infuriating thing with her hot-shit tit - flipping that big bosom of hers as if to tell me that her contraceptive device, or lack of one, is entirely her business.
'When did he take it out?' I ask, and she shrugs, as if she can't be bothered to remember. But I can remember that it's been several times now that I haven't felt its little string touching me in there.
'Why didn't you tell me, for God's sake? I could have been using a rubber.'
She mumbles casually that her gynecologist would not have recommended a rubber, either.
'What!' I scream. 'Why did he recommend that you have the thing pulled out in the first place?'
'For what I wanted,' she hedges, 'it was the first thing that was recommended.'
I still don't get it; I suspect the poor girl doesn't understand reproduction. Then I realize I do not understand the girl.
'Tulpen?' I ask her slowly. 'What is it you wanted for which removing your IUD was recommended?' And of course she doesn't need to answer; making me phrase the question has been enough. She smiles at me and blushes.
'A baby?' I say. 'You want a baby?' She nods, still smiling. 'You might have told me,' I say, 'or even asked me.'
'I've already tried that,' she says smugly, about to flip her tit again, I can tell.
'Well, I ought to have something to say about this, dammit.'
'It will be my baby, Trumper.'
'Mine too!' I scream.
'Not necessarily, Trumper,' she says, flitting across the room like one of her aloof fish.
'Who else have you slept with?' I ask her, dumb.
'No one,' she says. 'It's just that you don't have to have any more to do with the baby than you want to.' When I look skeptical, she adds, 'You won't have any more to do with it than I let you, either, you shit.'
Then she waltzes into the bathroom with a newspaper and four magazines, waiting for me ... to do what?! Fall asleep? Leave her alone? Pray for triplets?
'Tulpen,' I tell the bathroom door. 'You might already be pregnant.'
'Move on if you want to,' she says.
'Jesus Christ, Tulpen!'
'There's no need to feel trapped, Trumper. That's not what babies are for.'
She's in there for an hour and I'm forced to pee in the kitchen sink. Thinking. It's just two days until I'm operated on - maybe they should sterilize the whole works while they're at it.
*
But when she came out of the bathroom, she looked less tough and more vulnerable, and almost instantly he found himself wanting very much to be what she wanted him to be. He was thrown off guard by her question though. She asked it shyly and sweetly. 'If you do have much to do with the baby,' she said, 'if you want it, that is, would you like a boy or a girl?'
Damn him, he hated himself for remembering the crude joke Ralph had once told him. There's a girl, see, and she's just been knocked up, and she says to her boyfriend, 'You wanna girl or boy, George?' George thinks for a minute and then says, 'A stillborn.'
'Trumper?' Tulpen asked again. 'A boy or a girl? Do you care which?'
'A girl,' he said. She was excited, playful, drying her hair in a big towel, flouncing around the bed now.
'Why a girl?' she asked. She wanted to keep the ball rolling; she liked this talk.
'I don't know,' he mumbled. He could lie, but elaborating on the lie was hard. She held his hands, sat down on the bed in front of him and let the towel fall off her hair.
'Come on,' she said. 'Because you've already had a boy? Is that it? Or do you really like girls better?'
'I don't know,' he said irritably.
She dropped his hands. 'You don't care, you mean,' she said. 'You don't really care, do you?'
That left him with no place to go. 'I don't want any baby, Tulpen,' he said.
She frisked through her hair with the towel, which made it hard to see her face. 'Well, I do want one, Trumper,' she said. She let the towel drop and looked straight at him, as hard as anyone, except Biggie, had ever looked at him. 'So I'm going to have one, Trumper, whether you're interested or not. And it won't cost any more than it ever has,' she said bitterly. 'All you have to do is make love to me.'
Right then, he wanted very much to make love to her; in fact, he knew he'd better make love to her, quick. But what mush his mind was! His brain was well trained at evasion. He was thinking of Sprog ...
That old horse-basher, the uprooter of trees, thumping through the royal quarters, bowling over the guard of the royal bedchamber. Then into the lavish bed. No doubt a veiled and perfumed Gunnel lay there waiting for her Lord Akthelt. Enter the five-foot toad. Did he hop on her?
Whatever he did, he didn't do it fast enough. The text reports that Gunnel was 'nearly humbled by him'. Nearly.
Apparently Akthelt heard Gunnel screaming all the way down in the servants' quarters as he lay deep in the lush grip of Fluvia. It never occurred to him that his lady was being attacked by Sprog; he just recognized his lady's scream. He pulled out of Fluvia, flapped on his codpiece and hot-hoofed it up to the royal quarters. There he and seven castle guards netted the thrashing Sprog and pried him loose from the fainting Lady Gunnel with the aid of several fireplace tools.
According to custom, castrations always took place at night, and the very next evening poor Sprog's balls were lopped off with a battle-ax. Akthelt did not attend the event; neither did Old Thak.
Akthelt mourned for his friend. It was several days before he even asked Gunnel if Sprog had actually ... well, got her, if she knew what he meant. She did; Sprog had not. Somehow that made Akthelt feel even worse, which made Gunnel rather angry. In fact, Akthelt and Old Thak had to persuade her from publicly demanding that Fluvia be thrown to the wild boars.
The wild boars were in the moat, for some reason Trumper had never been able to translate; it didn't make any sense. Moats were supposed to be full of water, but perhaps this one had a leak they couldn't fix, so they had wild boars charging around in there instead. It was just another example of what a ragged old ode Akthelt and Gunnel was. Old Low Norse was not known for its tight little epics.
For example, the matter of the legend of Sprog isn't even brought up until pages and pages after Sprog and Fluvia are exiled to the coast of Schwud. The legend says that one day a weary, ravaged traveler passes through the kingdom of Thak and begs for a night's rest at the castle. Akthelt asks the stranger what adventures he's had - Akthelt loves a good story - and the stranger tells this ghastly tale.
He was riding on the fine white sand of the beaches of Schwud with his handsome young brother when the two of them came upon a dusky lewd wench whom they took to be some wild fisherwoman, abandoned by her tribe and hungry for a man. Therefore the stranger's young brother fell upon her there on the beach, as she clearly indicated she wanted him to, and proceeded to satisfy himself. But this only partially slaked the thirst of the wench, so the stranger himself was about to mount the wild woman when he saw his brother swiftly seized by a round, blond, beastlike man 'whose chest could inhale the sea'. As the stranger watched with horror, his brother was bent, broken, snapped, crunched, folded and otherwise mangled by this terrible blond god 'with a center of gravity like a ball'.
The beach ball was Sprog, of course, and the woman on the sand who had laughed, moaned and implored the stranger to take her quick was Fluvia.
One way to look at it was that it was nice to know they were still together after all this time, still a team. But the stranger didn't look at it that way. He ran to where he and his brother had tethered their horses.
Both animals were dead, their chests staved in. They looked as if they'd been hit by a huge battering ram, and beside them lay a log which no man could have lifted. So the stranger had to keep running, because Sprog ran after him. Luckily the stranger had once been a messenger by profession, so he could run very fast a
nd for a long time. He ran with great long easy strides, but whenever he looked back, there would be Sprog, who was so short that he ran like a woodchuck, thumping along on his little stunted legs. But he kept up.
The stranger ran a few miles, looked back, and there was Sprog. He had no style but he had a set of lungs like a whale.
The stranger ran all through the night, stumbling over rocks, falling, getting up, straggling along unable to see. But whenever he stopped, he could hear, not far behind and coming closer, the sound of Sprog thumping along like a five-foot elephant and breathing like a winded bear.
In the morning, the stranger crossed the border of Schwud and reeled into the town of Lesk in the kingdom of Thak. He stood gasping in the town square, his head bowed and his back to what he was sure would be thumping up behind him at any minute. He stood there for hours before the kind people of Lesk took him in and gave him breakfast and then told the stranger that this was why none of the young men of Lesk ever went swimming off the shore of Schwud any more.
'Da Sprog,' said a young widow, making the sign of the toad on her breast.
'Da kvinna des Sprog' (The woman of Sprog'), said a young man with only one arm who had escaped. He rolled his eyes.
That was what had happened to Sprog.
And Bogus Trumper? What had happened to him? He had fallen asleep sitting up, his chin resting on the shelf by the turtle aquarium, his brain at last lulled by the gurgle of the air hose.
Tulpen had curled up beside him on the bed for an hour, waiting for him to wake up and make love to her. He didn't wake up, though, and she had stopped waiting. She'd waited quite long enough for him, she thought, so she lay back in the bed and watched him sleep. She smoked a cigarette, though she never smoked. Then she went into the bathroom and threw up. Then she ate yogurt. She was pretty upset.
When she returned to bed, Trumper was still there, sleeping next to the turtles. Before she went to sleep herself, she got the idea that if only she could find two of those big air-horns that diesel trucks have, she could blow one in each of his ears and scramble his brains so completely that it might wipe his memory clean. She thought that would help.