'OK,' he said. He wondered if he should take off his clothes.
'Jesus, take off your clothes,' she told him. He did, and then crawled into bed beside her.
She lay turned away from him. 'Jesus,' she mumbled.
He lay without touching her until she rolled over suddenly, seized one of his hands and pulled it roughly to her breast. 'I don't want to make love to you,' she said, 'but you can hold me ... if you want to.'
'I want to,' he mumbled. 'I love you, Tulpen.'
'I guess so,' she said.
'Do you love me?'
'Yes, Jesus, I guess so,' she said angrily.
Slowly some instincts returned to him; he touched her gently all over. He felt where they'd shaved her; it was still stubbly. When the baby woke up for his two o'clock nipple, Trumper was out of bed ahead of her, brought the baby back to the bed and put him to her breast.
'No, the other one,' she said. 'Which one's harder?'
'That one.'
'I get all confused ...' she trailed off and cried softly while she nursed the child. Trumper had his memory in order; he held a diaper to her unused breast knowing it would leak while the other was being sucked.
'Sometimes they really squirt,' she told him.
'I know,' he said. 'They will, when you make love ...'
'I don't want to make love,' she reminded him.
'I know. I was just remarking on it ...'
'You're going to have to be patient,' she said. 'I'm still going to say some things just because I want to hurt you.'
'Sure, OK.'
'You're just going to have to hang around until I don't want to hurt you any more.'
'Sure, I want to hang around,' he said.
'I don't think I'm going to want to hurt you much more,' she said.
'I don't blame you,' he said, which made her angry again.
'Well, it's none of your business,' she said.
'Of course it isn't,' he agreed.
Tenderly she said to him, 'You just better not talk very much, Trumper, OK?'
'OK.'
When the baby went back to his basket, Tulpen came back to bed and snuggled up close to Trumper. 'Don't you care what I've named him?' she asked.
'Oh, the baby!' he said. 'Of course. What did you name him?'
'Merrill,' she said, and she bore down hard with the heel of her hand on his spine. The back of his throat ached. 'I must love you,' she whispered. 'I called him Merrill because I think you're very fond of that name.'
'I am, yes,' he whispered.
'I was thinking of you, see?'
He could feel her body getting angry with him again. 'Yes, I know,' he said.
'You hurt me like hell, Trumper, do you know that?' she said.
'Yes.' He touched her stubble lightly.
'OK,' she said. 'Just don't ever forget it.'
He promised he never would, and then she held on to him and he dreamed his two most frequent nightmares. Variations on a water theme, he called them.
One was always Colm in some imagined disaster which always involved deep water, the sea or cold mudflats. As always, it was too terrible to allow him to consciously remember the details.
The other was always about Merrill Overturf. He was in water too; he was opening the top hatch of a tank; it always took him too long.
At six a.m., baby Merrill's wailing woke him. Tulpen's breasts were drenching his chest and the bed had a sour-sweet smell of milk.
She covered herself with a diaper and he said, 'Look at them leak. You must be aroused.'
'It's because of the baby crying,' she insisted, and he got out of bed to fetch the child for her. Trumper had a typical morning erection, which he did not hide.
'Have you seen my new prick?' he said, clowning. 'It's still a virgin, you know.'
'The baby's crying,' she said, but she was smiling. 'Get the baby.'
'Merrill!' he said. How nice it felt to say that name out loud! 'Merrill, Merrill, Merrill,' he said, waltzing the baby to the bed. They had a nice debate about which breast to use; Trumper did a lot of excessive feeling around for the harder one.
Tulpen was still nursing when the phone rang. It was very early in the morning for a call, but she seemed unsurprised; watching Trumper closely, she nodded for him to answer it. He sensed he was being tested somehow, so he picked up the phone, but didn't speak.
'Good morning, young suckling mother!' said Ralph Packer. 'How is the baby? How are your boobs?' Trumper swallowed while Tulpen smiled serenely. 'Matje and me are on our way over,' Ralph went on. 'Do you need anything?'
'Yogurt,' Tulpen whispered to Bogus.
'Yogurt,' Trumper told the phone thickly.
'Thump-Thump!' Ralph cried.
'Hello, Ralph,' Bogus said. 'I saw your movie ...'
'Terrible, isn't it?' Ralph said. 'How are you, Thump-Thump?'
'I'm fine,' Trumper said. Tulpen removed the diaper from her free tit and aimed her nipple at Trumper. 'I got my PhD,' Trumper mumbled to the phone.
'How's the baby?' Ralph asked.
'Merrill's fine,' Bogus said. Tulpen's free breast was squirting his leg. 'I'm sorry I missed your marriage, Ralph. Congratulations.'
'Congratulations to you,' Ralph said smartly.
'See you soon,' said Trumper and hung up.
'You OK, Trumper?' Tulpen asked. There seemed to be one cool eye regarding him, and one warm.
'Just fine,' he said, covering her leaking breast with his hand. 'You OK?' he asked.
'I'm better.'
He touched her stubble and looked at his hand lying there, the way one might look at an old friend with a new beard. They were both naked, except that he still wore his right sock. Baby Merrill nursed fiercely, but Tulpen wasn't looking at him. Her expression part smile, part frown, she was examining closely Trumper's new prick.
Bogus felt pleasantly embarrassed. Maybe they should get dressed, he suggested, since Ralph and what's-her-name, Matje, were coming over. Then he bent down quickly and kissed her lightly on her stubble. She seemed about to ... but declined to follow up this timid beginning. She kissed his neck.
OK, thought Bogus Trumper. Scar tissues take a little getting used to, but I want to learn.
38
The Old Friends Assemble
for Throgsgafen Day
IN THE KINGDOM of Thak, they really knew how to throw a Throgsgafen Day. For weeks before the fest, wild boars lay about in marinades and great elk were hung to ripen on the trees; barrels of eels crowded the smokehouse; cauldrons of rabbits, rubbed with sea salt and apples, were simmered in the fat of a rendered bear; a caribou - of a now-extinct species - was stewed, whole, in a vat stirred with an oar. The fall fruits, particularly the blessed grape, were harvested, mashed, allowed to ferment, strained and sauced, and last year's long-aging brews were rolled out of the cellars, tapped and tasted, distilled and tasted again and again. (The common drink in the kingdom of Thak was a urine-sour, murky beer, a little like our own American beer when flat, mixed with cider vinegar. The special drink in Thak was a distilled brandy made from plums and root vegetables; it tasted like a mixture of slivowitz and antifreeze.)
Of course, Throgsgafen Day actually took more than a day. There was the day before Throgsgafen when everyone had to sample everything, and the night before Throgsgafen when everyone had to prepare to make merry. On the morning of Throgsgafen, small parties were held to compare hangovers, and these flowed right into the main event itself - a continuous meal, lasting some six hours. Then vigorous physical exercise was recommended for the men, whose terrible athletic verve needed some release. This took the form of combative sports and sex. The women took part in the latter event; they also danced and made half-hearted attempts to de-gunk the castle.
On Throgsgafen night, all the lords and the ladies carried great troughs of food and left-over debris through the villages, throwing out scraps to the wretched little peasant children. This was a sobering part of the evening, but the party returned to the castle at midn
ight to toast all the dead friends of Throgsgafens past; this went on until dawn, when a special court of the Council of Elders was traditionally held to determine penalties for all the murders, rapes and other petty crimes which had occurred in abundance over the exhausting holiday.
Our own tame, dry-turkey version of Throgsgafen is indeed an embarrassing substitute, so Bogus Trumper and his old friends were determined to inject the spirit of Akthelt and Gunnel into the affair. A bold gathering was planned. Despite the unpredictable qualities of Maine in November, it was decided that Couth and Biggie had the only castle worthy of housing such a bash.
The presence of large dogs lent an original Throgsgafen flavor to the outing. One of the dogs was Ralph's. He'd bought it in celebration of Matje's growing pregnancy, and also for her protection on the New York streets. An uncategorizable beast named Loom, it made the trip to Maine from New York a bit trying. Trumper drove his Volkswagen with Tulpen beside him holding baby Merrill in her lap; in the crammed back seat, Ralph and his pregnant Matje fought with Loom. A burdened roof rack on top of the car held Merrill's crib, warm clothes, baskets of wine, booze, and such oddities as rare cheese and smoked meats which Biggie and Couth couldn't get in Maine. Biggie was handling the main dishes.
The other dog - Trumper's birthday present to Colm - was already in Maine. A Chesapeake Bay retriever with a thick, oily coat like a used doormat - Couth called it The Great Dog Gob.
Trumper and Tulpen didn't have a dog. 'A baby, forty fish and ten turtles are enough,' Bogus said.
'But you should get a dog, Thump-Thump,' Ralph said. 'You're just not a family without a dog.'
'And you should get a car, Ralph,' Trumper said, aiming his stuffed Volkswagen up the Maine Turnpike. 'A great big car, Ralph,' Trumper said. Loom, the backseat beast, was salivating down his neck.
'Maybe even a bus, Ralph,' said Tulpen.
By Boston there was no room left in the tiny glove compartment for any more of Merrill's awful diapers, and Matje had to stop to pee eight times because she was pregnant. Trumper drove furiously, his dull gaze riveted straight ahead; he ignored the wails of Merrill, Ralph's endless complaints about the leg room and the ominous breathing of Loom. What was I ever thinking of? Bogus wondered. It seemed to him a miracle when they finally arrived at the fog-shrouded sea-house glazed with falling sleet.
Gob and Loom hit it off right away; they romped themselves into a slaver of slush and mudflat muck, and Colm went wild trying to contain the brutes.
This day before Throgsgafen was an indoor day, and the menfolk organized pool games and bantered about who had brought what.
'Where is the bourbon?' Bogus asked.
'Where is the pot?' said Ralph.
'We're out of butter,' Biggie told Couth.
'Where is the bathroom?' Matje asked.
Biggie and Tulpen had a discussion about the smallness of Matje's belly. She was a wrenlike creature whose degree of pregnancy, which was almost term, resembled a small cantaloupe.
'God, I was much bigger,' Biggie said.
'Well, you are much bigger, Big,' Bogus said.
'You were bigger too,' Ralph told Tulpen. She looked at Bogus and saw that he might feel shitty about having no memory of his second's wife's pregnancy with his second son. She went over and goosed him quietly.
Then all the men gathered around Matje and felt her tummy, under the pretence of assessing the child's sex. 'I hate to tell you this, Ralph,' Bogus said. 'But I think Matje's going to have a grape.'
The women arranged baby Anna and baby Merrill in a side-by-side display on the dining-room sideboard. Anna was older, but both of them were still in the phase where all that's required is to sleep them, slurp them and wash their bottoms.
Sightseeing in such foul weather was limited to the two nursing mothers' breasts and Matje's swelling grape, so there was much bad pool and good drinking. Ralph was the first one to feel the effect. 'I must tell you,' he said solemnly to Couth and Bogus, 'I like all our ladies.'
Outside in the rolling fog and sleet flakes, The Great Dog Gob and the uncategorizable Loom wrestled in the slush.
Only Colm was in a rotten mood. For one thing, he was simply not used to so many guests; for another, the babies were placid, boring, unplayful creatures and the dogs in their excited condition seemed dangerous. Also, usually when Colm saw his father, Bogus gave him undivided attention. Now there were just a lot of silly adults talking. It was foul out, but it was better out than in, so to demonstrate his boredom, Colm would track lots of slush into the house and schemingly allow the wild dogs in, almost urging them to break rare Pillsbury vases.
The grownups were finally sensitive to Colm's problem and took turns taking walks with him in the terrible outdoors. Colm would bring back one sodden grownup after another. 'Now who wants to come with me?' he'd ask.
Finally it was time to do something in the way of preparing a minor warm-up feast for the evening - not to compare, of course, with tomorrow's major event.
Tulpen had brought some meat from New York.
'Ah, New York meat!' said Ralph, pinching Tulpen. Matje gouged Ralph with a corkscrew.
After dinner, it was almost peaceful; the babies were in bed and the men were stuffed and woozy. But Colm was overtired, and irritable about having to go upstairs. Biggie tried to coax him, but he refused to budge from the table. Then Bogus offered to carry him upstairs, since he was so tired.
'I'm not tired,' Colm said disagreeably.
'How about some Moby Dick?' Bogus asked him. 'Come on.'
'I want Couth to put me to bed,' Colm said.
It was obvious that he was simply in a mood, so Couth lifted him up and started off upstairs with him. 'I'll put you to bed if you want,' he told Colm, 'but I don't know Moby Dick and I can't tell stories the way Bogus can ...' But Colm was already asleep.
Sitting at the table between Biggie and Tulpen, Bogus felt Biggie put her hand under the table and lay it on his knee; almost simultaneously Tulpen touched the other knee. They were both thinking he might feel hurt, so he said reassuringly, 'Colm's just in a snit. It hasn't been such a hot day for him.'
Across the strewn dinner table, Ralph sat with his hand on Matje's grape. 'You know, Thump-Thump,' he said. 'We could do the movie right here in Maine. After all, this is sort of a castle ...'
He was talking about his next film project: Akthelt and Gunnel. The movie was pretty well planned. They were going to Europe when Trumper finished the script; a production company in Munich was committed to backing it. They were going to take their wives and babies too, though Trumper had urged Ralph to consider leaving Loom behind. They had even thought of trying to include Couth in it as the cameraman. But Couth wasn't interested. 'I'm a still photographer,' he'd pointed out. 'And I live in Maine.'
In a passing, ungenerous moment, Trumper thought that the real reason Couth wasn't interested in the movie was because of Biggie. Bogus felt vaguely that Biggie still disapproved of him, but when he'd mentioned this once to Tulpen, he'd been confused by her response. 'Frankly,' Tulpen told him, 'I'm glad Couth and Biggie won't be coming.'
'You don't like Biggie?' Bogus asked.
'It's not that,' Tulpen said. 'Sure, I like Biggie.'
Now this old confusion passed again over Bogus like a drunk's flush.
It was time to sleep. People groggily faced the unfamiliar upstairs of the great Pillsbury mansion, losing themselves in halls and stumbling into the wrong bedrooms.
'Where do I sleep?' Ralph kept asking. 'Ah God, take me there ...'
'To think that it's only the day before Throgsgafen,' Couth said plaintively.
Biggie was having a quiet pee in her bathroom when Bogus walked in on her. As usual, he left the door open.
'What in hell are you doing, Bogus?' she asked him, trying to cover herself.
'I think I'll just brush my teeth, Big,' Bogus said. He didn't seem to realize he wasn't married to her any more.
Couth peered in the open doorway, mildly surprised.
'What's he doing?' he asked his wife.
'He's brushing his teeth, I guess,' Biggie said. 'For God's sake, at least shut the door!'
Just when everyone seemed to be straightened out and settled in their proper rooms, Ralph Packer appeared naked in the hall. Through the open bedroom door behind him, Matje could be heard enquiring what he thought he was doing. 'I am not going to pee out the window,' he shouted. 'There are bathrooms all over this bloody castle, and I intend to find one!'
Biggie sweetly led the nude Ralph to the right place.
'I'm sorry, Biggie,' Matje said, hurrying after Ralph with his pants.
'Es ist mir Wurst,' Biggie said, and touched Matje's tummy fondly. If Trumper had been there, he would have understood Biggie's Austrian dialect. 'It doesn't matter' was what it meant, but the literal translation was, 'It is sausage to me.'
Trumper wasn't where he could have heard her. He was having delicious love made to him by Tulpen; he was too drunk to appreciate such loving, really, but it did have a startling after effect: he found himself wide-awake and sitting up very sober. Tulpen was deeply asleep beside him, but when he kissed her feet to thank her, she smiled.
He couldn't sleep, though. He kissed Tulpen all over, but she couldn't be aroused.
Wide, wide awake, Trumper got up and dressed himself warmly; he wished it were morning. Tiptoeing to Colm's room, he kissed the boy and tucked him in. He went to look at the babies, and then listened to the other adults sleeping, but it wasn't enough. He tiptoed into Biggie and Couth's room and watched them sleeping in a warm tangle. Couth woke up. 'It's next door, down the hall,' he said, thinking that Bogus was looking for the bathroom.
Wandering around, Trumper found Ralph and Matje's room and looked in on them too. Ralph lay splayed out on his stomach, his hands and feet dangling off the bed. Across his broad, hairy back, tiny Matje lay sleeping like a flower on a compost heap.
Downstairs, Bogus opened the French doors to the pool room and let in the air. It was very cold, and the fog was moving out of the bay. Trumper knew that there was a barren rock island in the center of the bay, and that this was what he saw, revealed and concealed by the shifting fog. But if he stared hard, the island actually seemed to roll, to rise and fall, and if he stared very hard, he could see a broad, flat tail arch up and smack the sea so hard that the dogs whined in their sleep. 'Hello, Moby Dick,' Trumper whispered. Gob growled and Loom staggered to his feet and then collapsed.