Bliss, Remembered (18 page)

He had me there. “What’s that?”

“Kussen.”

“What?

“Kussen. You kiss better than me.”

“No, I don’t. You kussen much better.”

He drew closer. “Well, let’s see if we can settle the argument.” I mean, can you believe it, Teddy? Every other boy I’d kissed had just sorta moved in and planted it on me. This was like being in a movie. Dialogue, Teddy—dialogue! And, boy, we really did some kussen this time. And after a while I could sort of feel his hand around me kinda hovering, and so I reached up and took it and steered it right down, smack onto my bazoom.

Oh, for God’s sake, Teddy, don’t be such an old woman. Have no fear, I’m not gonna get graphic. My tongue is just loosened up a little by the vodka. And besides, is there no poetry in your heart? You can’t listen to an old lady recounting the sweet memories of young love? Besides, I stopped kissing him long enough to say, “Just for a moment.”

Yeah, wise guy, but I also added: “For now.” And then I tore myself away from him and outta the car and ran through the gate of the wrought-iron fence and inside the Friesenhaus, and I just delighted—just delighted—in all those other girls in their night gowns giving me those looks of censure . . . or envy. My, did I give it back to them.

Talk about a Cheshire cat, Teddy. Talk about a Cheshire cat.

Mom finished her bacon cheddar cheeseburger and—more to the point—her second Bloody Mary, and, true to her assumption, she was ready for a good nap. As soon as we got home and she went into her bedroom, I went to the garden to call my sister.

Now, I must admit, there was a part of me that was upset, even angry, for here was Mom absolutely radiating in this luminous story about her love for this sweet-talkin’, sharp-kissin’ German hunk. I felt hurt for my poor father, that he’d spent fifty years as an adoring husband, but it had all been a chimera, he some sort of afterthought.

But then, there was also a part of me that was absolutely beguiled by the whole fascinating story that Mother had suddenly chosen to reveal to me. I’d certainly never myself had any adventure of the heart like this—nothing so romantic nor so thrilling. I had to admit, as hard as I had fallen for Jeanne, that first great blush of my true love had certainly not reached the poetic peaks of sheer ecstacy that Mother’s own romance had attained.

In this frame of mind, I called my sister. Naturally, right away, when I told Helen that I was alone, outside, she assumed something must be wrong with Mother. “Oh no, in fact she’s on a roll. We just got back from lunch, and she had two Bloody Marys.”

“Jesus, Teddy. What’s the occasion?”

“Memories.”

“What?”

“She’s just having a ball telling me about her whole Olympic experience.”

I could almost visualize Helen shaking her head on the other end of the line. “That’s amazing,” she said. “She’d always skip over that. I’d press her, and she’d pretty much skim over the Olympics, just suffer me in that way of hers, maybe talk about Jesse Owens and Hitler, stuff you could read in a book. Very impersonal.”

“Well, trust me, she’s not leaving anything out now.”

“I’m jealous, Teddy. I always thought mothers were supposed to share the skinny with daughters. And fathers with sons.”

“Well, it’s cross-germination time, I guess. But, Helen, here’s a question. All the time she’s talked to you . . . I mean, I know she never got into the Olympics, but did Mom ever mention a guy named Horst?”

“Horse?”

“No, no. German. Horst—with a
t
.”

Right away, Helen said, “No. That’s a new one.”

“Horst Gerhardt.”

“Sorry, Teddy. What’s the deal?”

“Well, the fact is, she’s really not telling me about the Olympics per se. They’re only the background for this Horst. She could be in Fort Wayne, Indiana, for all she talks about the Olympics. It’s just mein Horst.”

“Who the hell is he?”

“Well, in the word of my new confidant, he was a quote dreamboat unquote.”

“God, dreamboat. I haven’t heard that in years. Not since we were girls, and we’d say to some stuck-up guy, ‘Hey, dreamboat.’ And when he’d smile, we’d say, ‘Not you, shipwreck.’”

“Oh, you girls were mean.”

“It’s a cruel world out there, Teddy. But, go on, tell me about Mom’s dreamboat.”

“Well, trust me: Horst sure fit the bill. Suave. A gentleman and a scholar. Delightful and charming. Silver-tongued, too.”

“Jeez, why couldn’t I ever have met a guy like that?”

“You did. But you just kept throwing ’em back and then casting the net again.”

“All right, smarty-pants.”

“Of course, it’s also possible that the dreamboat might’ve been a dirty rotten Nazi. I haven’t had the nerve to interrupt her reverie and ask that rather rude question. But—”

“Is Mom okay, Teddy? I mean this isn’t her mind playing tricks?”

“Oh no, she’s absolutely as sharp as ever. She’s incredibly vivid. It’s even a little embarrassing.”

“Embarrassing?”

“Let’s just say it’s a little more than I wanna know. Granted, this was into the second Bloody Mary, but she made a point of describing how Horst copped a feel off her the first time.”

“Oh, come on, Teddy.”

“No, I’m serious. Let me ask you, Helen: have you ever in all your long life as a mother felt inclined to describe to any of your children how somebody copped a feel off you?” Helen just answered that with a laugh. “No, I didn’t think you’d ever shared that delicate information. But, more seriously, I feel sort of embarrassed for Daddy. I mean, I know he wasn’t in the picture until after Berlin, but the way she talks about this Horst, it’s like she’s forgotten the lifetime she just happened to pass with the dear father of her children.”

“Come on, Teddy, she’s just reminiscing. Everybody idealizes their first love—and she’s abroad for the first time, and it’s the Olympics, and the guy’s a dreamboat. Mom’s dying, Teddy.”

“I know that, Helen.”

“You watch. She’ll get around to Daddy. Just because she let some German kid feel her up once—hey, you know how much Mom adored Daddy. Come on, was there ever a sweeter marriage?”

“I know. I know. It’s just I had to wonder if she’d ever mentioned Horst to you.”

“No. Never. When I was first dating, she’d laugh about a couple of boys who took her out on the Eastern Shore. You know—‘just us girls’ stuff. But Horst—no. Hey, now you got me interested. Lemme know how it comes out.”

“Oh, don’t worry, you’ll get the full treatment. I’m taping her.”

“You’re what?”

“Yeah, she bought a tape recorder and makes me take it all down.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah. She’s actually written the whole story out, but she wanted to tell me the fun part. Which basically seems to mean the Horst part.”

“Horst,” said Helen.

“Jawow, Frau Emerson. Herr Horst Gerhardt. Handsome young gentleman of romance, charm and mystery.”

After her nap, Mom got all wound up, in the negative, about something President Bush did or something he said or both, and that put her in such a foul mood she didn’t want to talk about Berlin. She even sulked while we watched the swimming that night. But by the next morning, the storm clouds had drifted away, and she was a-rarin’ to go again. She all but shoved the tape recorder at me. “You like a good love story, don’t you, Teddy?” she snapped.

“Of course I do.”

“Well, this one’s picking up steam.”

“I thought Daddy was the love of your life.”

She shook her head at me. “God, you directed all those plays. You’d think you, of all people, would understand drama. A love story is different from the love of your life.”

“Okay, but this Horst—”

“Excuse me: This? He wasn’t ‘this’ Horst, thank you very much. He was Horst.”

“Okay, Horst. But Mom, this is Germany, 1936. They were a bunch of pretty nasty folks. I’m sorry, but . . . was Horst a Nazi?”

She leaned back in her chair and templed her hands, more thoughtful now. “That is, of course, a very legitimate question. And I’ll come to it. But you gotta remember somethin’, Teddy. Here we are in 2004, and we have the wonderful benefit of hindsight. Now, let’s go back to 1936, and put yourself in my shoes. Sure, we all knew Hitler had been terrible to the Jewish people and the homosexuals and the gypsies, too. That was no secret. But here the authorities of the world—of the world, Teddy—had said it was fine for Germany to hold the Olympics, which is supposed to be this great celebration of the brotherhood of man. Okay?

“And I’m eighteen years old, wet behind the ears, just off the boat from the Eastern Shore, and it sure all looks hunky-dory to me. And to just about everybody else, too. Among other things, Hitler had kinda cleaned up the joint. All the ugly anti-Semitic signs were removed, and on the surface it’s all peaches and cream. Keep in mind, too, to most of us, Hitler was just another dictator, because the world was rife with dictators in those days. Dictators were a dime a dozen. Besides, everybody was raving about what a great job Hitler was doing. We still had breadlines in the United States. And Mussolini had the trains running on time. So put it in perspective.”

“Please, Mom, I’m not being judgmental.”

“Oh, I hate that word, Teddy. I can’t believe my own flesh and blood used it.”

“Judgmental?”

“It’s so oily. The only thing worse than that is when somebody pretends to be apologetic and says ‘with all due respect,’ because that’s simply an excuse to be judgmental and criticize.” She shook her head and pursed her lips. “With all due respect . . .”

“Okay, Mother, with all due respect I won’t be judgmental. I was just asking.”

“Thank you. And if you ever call me ‘inappropriate,’ I’ll cut you out of the will. Inappropriate—please!”

“Hey, Mom, let up on me. That’s terribly inappropriate.”

In response, you know what my own mother did then? She gave me the finger, shot me the bird. And we laughed like a couple of old buddies.

“Sorry, Teddy. I’m loaded for bear this morning. You see, the point is, it’s easy to say now that I was suckered. But good night, nurse, I had a lotta company. And look—right now, right now, any fool can see that this jackass in the White House is the worst excuse for a president we’ve ever had, and yet you know the polls—half the people living in these United States in the here and now still plan to vote for him. So go easy on my crowd back in ’36.”

“That’s very well said, Mom.”

She nodded smugly, but then put a more pleasing expression on her face, and leaning forward, downright grinning, she said, “That’s the general, Teddy. But there was also the specific, which was I’m head over heels in love with Horst Gerhardt, who is the best lookin’ thing ever to come down the pike—certainly down my pike—and I’m snuggled up next to him in a car and it’s a moonlit night, and excuse me if I didn’t say, ‘Just a minute, Horst, before I fall passionately into your embrace, what are your views on the Sudetenland?’ Assuming, of course, that I’d ever heard of the Sudetenland.”

“I get the picture, Mother.”

“Good. Yes, I wasn’t living completely in a vacuum, and we’ll get back to some of that.” She paused. “In fact, more than you might possibly imagine. You really have no idea.”

“No idea?”

“You have no idea at all, Teddy.” She said that with such authority that it sounded a little ominous—and so completely out of character. Maybe she realized that, because she quickly got back to the subject. “Listen, of course I was already wondering some about things. Not dwelling on them, you understand, but even a naif like me couldn’t help but wonder a little. But for now, let’s get back to the love story.”