She would sweep me off my feet if I touched her.
I was left with words colliding into one another, a stammering, which happens usually when one is trying to do something against all odds.
I asked where she was coming from.
And she latched on to this, to the raw words, as though in doing so she could rescind the exaggerated gestures she had made.
She said, what do you mean where from, where could she be coming from.
And how did she know my name, I asked. It’s a pretty insane thing, but actually I had never introduced myself.
How does she know. Well, she knows everything. In other words, she knows what she wants to know or has to know.
She started down the steps like a scheming prima donna. She must have seen someone do this in a movie or something.
Indeed, we hadn’t been introduced, so perhaps she couldn’t talk to me now.
But she was quickly embarrassed by her revealed beauty which she had just shown me. Her temperament proved weightier and more somber, so she was able to ignore the fact that she had already shared it with me.
And where did she leave Simon.
She said, we’re going without him, because suddenly something cropped up that he had to deal with; he was furious, ranting and raving, would probably break everything in the apartment. Can’t do much damage, though, they have hardly anything. This time they had a really terrible row, they weren’t talking. Until tomorrow for sure. If he wants to, he can come after us; if not, he can stay home and then he’ll drink himself under the table.
He’ll throw up; she’ll have to wash everything he’s wearing.
While her words echoed impassively, bouncing dully off the stained, filthy walls decorated with graffiti and bullet holes, she kept coming down the stairs as if to demonstrate that she was granting me the grace of her approach in well-apportioned doses.
She made me feel like a stupid little kid.
I said I’d told Simon that I’d known this house for a long time.
I asked her if she knew the Weisz family, did she know Ilonka Weisz. Because while I waited I had plenty of time to check the list of tenants, and it seems that almost everybody still lives here.
Protecting herself from my childish flood of words, she laughed. Then, slightly taken aback, she asked what Weisz family, what Ilonka, and she was sorry she’d made me wait so long but she’d thought I was sitting downstairs. They hadn’t lived here long enough to get to know everybody in the building.
Of course, I continued, and I’d be happy to tell her about it one day, but now I had something more important to ask: how was it that she came out of the apartment on the second floor when they lived on the third floor.
Because a friend of hers lives on the second. And was I a police detective. To interrogate her like this.
She couldn’t have thought that seriously, and I asked if her friend was renting a room there.
This really got her going. She protested, why should her friend rent just a room; she lives there, it’s her own apartment.
But my old piano teacher lives in that apartment, Andria Lüttwitz.
There were no more steps for her to take during these superfluous sentences, because now she was standing right next to me on the step above. She flooded me with her fragrance. I should have stepped back, but I could not make myself do that and stayed put like a dumb obstacle. Nor could I keep myself from touching her fur coat, at least with my fingers.
I said, this is mink, as if voicing a professional opinion, and my hand remained where it was.
She responded quite vehemently to my movement, as if she had been waiting for it; she put her gloved hand on my arm.
Yes, it is certainly mink, she said quietly, as if revealing a secret, and how did I know about furs. She borrowed it from her friend because she’d seen that her spring coat had bothered me.
Because of me, I asked, alarmed.
You’re right, it’s not a very attractive coat.
I asked how she had noticed, what sign of mine had she read, and I was ashamed — but she could not reply because suddenly I shouted out, now I know, now it was clear what had been so familiar.
It was Andria who had done her hair.
Yes, she did, but how did I know, and she asked me to go back to the second floor with her and bring the drink bottles she had left there.
That’s what she said, the drink bottles.
Only Inches from Each Other
How did I know, how did I know that Andria also had that same hairdo. Nobody but Andria has hair like that.
Not only that, I also remember, but exactly, how such a hairstyle is made. Because, I admit, I liked Andria’s hair a lot. First, the hair at the top of the head is combed and then backcombed in the other direction.
Sometimes my cousins helped her because they loved digging their fingers into her hair. My role was to hand them the hairclips.
Andria’s hair is really beautiful, she said evasively, as if she’d been suddenly interrupted. And did I know what had made her turn so gray.
It felt so good talking to her that I impolitely ignored this question and kept on talking, saying that the girls, my cousins, also took lessons from her and were much more accomplished than I.
I had to stop taking lessons, unfortunately.
She was swaying her head, smiling at me as if she could see back into those strange times, and saying that I must have been a very peculiar boy.
My hand, longing for a touch, was still sunk into the warmth of her fur coat; her gloved hand was still resting on my arm. It was as though we both were paying attention to this — how some strange power was flowing from one into the other — and noticing how reassuring it was. And as if we both were talking the meanwhile just to keep ourselves from noticing how important this was. At the same time signs of bewilderment and aversion were deepening on her face. She was glowing and smiling, yet she seemed to be receding. I spoke faster, hoping to stop the sun from setting.
I asked why she thought I had been a peculiar boy. I didn’t remember that there had been anything peculiar about me.
Because boys in general don’t notice or remember things like that, they rarely help out by handing hairclips to someone, and they don’t usually say they like gray-haired ladies.
All right, I said, but Andria was different, and the whole thing is much simpler than this. I spent a lot of time among women, since my grandmother and our maid raised me. Grandfather would only take me for a walk, at best. By the way, he usually brought me here, to City Park. I have hardly any memories of men, had no chance to be with them. That’s why I observed things that other boys might not. Or I don’t know, I was always more interested in girls.
She laughed at this; of course there’s this certain Ilonka Weisz. If I told her more about her, she could see better just what sort of boy I must have been.
I got scared; this was an embarrassing subject. I would have liked to crawl onto her bare neck when she threw her head back as she laughed. Between her sparkling wet, beautiful teeth I would have crawled into the dark hollow of her mouth. She had teeth like a wild animal’s. But her laughter seemed more like an excuse to remove her gloved hand from my arm. I also had to withdraw my yearning hand; I spoke even faster, lest the mutual withdrawal become too conspicuous.
I said I knew something about furs because my uncle had a salon downtown, furrier and fellmonger, that’s what people in the trade called the business, but since they took his salon away he’s been working at home.