Voice of Our Shadow (20 page)

“How so?”

“Maybe I had so much faith in you I thought once you returned, everything would immediately be all right again, like I said last night, you know? Did you ever get that feeling about a person? That they can fix anything as soon as they get their hands on it? Yeah, that’s what it was. I thought your return would send those bogeymen way the hell away.”

“Bogey_man_.”

“Yeah, singular. One at a time, huh? Let’s go. This place is beginning to sound like
Born Free
.”

The rest of the day went well as we roamed around town, relishing the feeling that the whole place belonged entirely to us and the snow. We went shopping in the First District, and she bought me a crazy-looking T-shirt at the Fiorucci store.

“When am I supposed to wear it?”

“Not when, Joe,
where
? It’s the ugliest shirt I’ve seen since Paul’s Hawaiian disaster.” She said it as if he were only a step away, and I recalled for an instant all the good times we’d had together in the fall.

As time went on, I noticed how often both of us spoke of him in loving and nostalgic ways. India didn’t want to talk about what he’d done to her while I was away in New York, but the days of Paul alive were always fresh and near to her, and I truly liked being swept back to the days of our joint happiness.

The snow held on for a few more days, and then one of those weird, spectacularly warm and sunny spells came and erased most traces of winter. I’m probably one of the few people who don’t like that kind of weather. It’s false; you walk around looking suspiciously at the sky, sure that any minute now all snowy hell will break loose. But people started wearing light coats and sat with their faces to the sun in parks on the still-damp benches. Horse-drawn carriages were full of smiling tourists, and I knew when they got home they’d rave about Vienna and its marvelous winter weather.

The one thing I did like about it was the change it brought in India. She was suddenly gay and full of life again. Although my longing for Karen deepened by the day, being around India again reminded me why I had been so attracted to her from the beginning. At her best, she radiated a supremely clever and interesting life-view that made you want to know her opinion on everything. Whether it was a painting by Schiele or the difference between Austrian and American cigarettes, what she had to say made you either sit up and take notice or else hate yourself for never having had the intelligence or imagination to see it that way yourself. So many times I wondered what would have happened to us if I hadn’t met Karen. But I had, and she now monopolized my capacity to love.

I thought about her constantly and, mustering my courage one Saturday night, called her in New York. While the phone rang, I moved through her apartment in my mind, an affectionate camera stopping here and there to focus in on things I liked or felt particularly nostalgic about. She wasn’t in. I feverishly figured out the time difference and felt a little better when I realized I’d miscalculated — it was only a little after one in the afternoon there. I tried again later, but still no answer. It made me groan with doubt and jealousy; I knew if I called again and she wasn’t there, my heart would break. I called India instead and asked in a sad voice if she wanted to go to the movies.

When we got to the theater we discovered the film didn’t start for fifteen minutes; I was all for taking a slow walk around the block to kill time. When I moved to go, India took my arm and held me there.

“What’s up?”

“I don’t want to go tonight.”

“What? Why?”

“Don’t ask why, I just don’t want to go, okay? I changed my mind.”

“India —”

“Because this theater reminds me of Paul, all right? It reminds me of the night we all met here. It reminds me of —” She whirled around and walked away. She stumbled once and then strode forward, widening the gap between us with every step.

“India, wait! What are you doing?”

She kept moving. Trying to catch up with her, I noticed out of the corner of my eye an ad in a travel agency window for a trip to New York.

“India, for godsake, will you stop!”

She did, and I almost bumped smack into her. When she turned, the tears on her face shone, reflecting the white lights from a store window. I realized I didn’t want to know why she was crying. I didn’t want to know what new thing I had done wrong, or in what new way I had failed her.

“Can’t you see he’s everywhere in this town? Everywhere I turn, everything I see … Even
you
remind me of him.”

She was off again, with me trailing after her like a bodyguard.

She crossed a couple of streets and entered a small park. It was dimly lit; a bronze statue in the middle was our only companion. She stopped, and I stood facing her back a few feet away. Neither of us moved for some time. Then I saw the dog.

It was a white boxer. I remember someone once telling me that breeders often kill white boxers when they’re born because they’re freaks, mistakes of nature. I sort of liked them and enjoyed seeing such funny yet brutal faces the color of clouds.

The dog came from nowhere and gleamed, a moving patch of snow in the night. It was alone and had no collar or muzzle on. India hadn’t moved. I watched it sniff its way over to us. When it was only a few feet away, it stopped and looked directly at us.

“Matty!” She sucked in breath and grabbed my arm. “It’s Matty!”

“Who? What are you talking about?” The tone of her voice made me scared, but I had to know what she was saying.

“It’s Matty. Matterhorn! Paul’s dog in London. We gave him away when we moved here. We had to because — Matty! Matty, come here!”

He started moving again: in the bushes, on the walk, across the flower bed. In the dark he glowed and moved busily, doing dog’s business. He was huge. He must have weighed over eighty pounds.

“Matty! Come!” She bent down. He came right toward her, wiggling and whimpering like a puppy.

“India, be careful. You don’t know —”

“Shut up. So what?” She looked at me with eyes as mad as fire.

The dog heard the change in her tone of voice and stopped dead, two feet away. It looked at India and then at me.

“Matty!”

It lowered its head and growled.

“Go away, Joe, you’re scaring it.”

It growled again; only this time the sound was longer and deeper, far more feral and threatening. The lips curled back, and it began to wag its stump of tail too fast.

“Oh, God.
Joe
?”

“
Move back
.”

“Joe —”

I spoke in a quiet monotone. “If you go too fast, it’ll come. Go slow. No,
slower
.”

She was in a squat, and it was almost impossible for her to move backward. For an instant I looked around for a branch or a stone I might use to hit it with, but there was nothing. If it came, I would have only my hands and feet; stupid, impossible weapons against the giant boxer.

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.

“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 café. 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 Café 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 café 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.