Trying to Save Piggy Sneed (27 page)

“You would,” said Brennbar. “That's just what I figured you for.”

“I got him right, too, darling,” I said.

“Did you guess
her?”
Brennbar asked me, indicating the woman next to him.

“Oh, she was easy,” I said. “I got everyone.”

“I was wrong on yours,” Brennbar told me. He seemed troubled. “I was sure you'd try to split the savarin with someone.”

“Brennbar doesn't eat dessert,” I explained to the others. “It's bad for his complexion.”

Brennbar sat more or less still, like a contained lava flow. I knew that in a very short time we would go home. I wanted, terribly, to be alone with him.

Brennbares Rant (1973)
AUTHOR'S NOTES

This angry little story was much more fun to write than it is to read. It was originally a part of my third novel,
The 158-Pound Marriage
(1974), wherein the story served as an example of the writing of one of the characters, Edith Winter; it also served as an example of how Edith “fictionalized” her husband, because Brennbar was meant to be identifiable to the reader (of the novel) as an exaggeration of Edith's husband, Severin Winter. Such a heightened degree of playfulness became exasperating to me; it seemed too much a story within a story for its own good — I cut it from the novel.

But before then, an argument ensued — I forget with whom — about whether or not I could write a convincing short story from the point of view of a woman. (The argument must have been with a woman, now that I think of it.) Anyway, I set out to demonstrate that this story could have been written by a woman — namely, Edith Winter — and to prove the point I submitted “Brennbar's Rant” to
Playboy.
The story was not presented to
Playboy
as a story by John Irving; it was submitted as a story by Edith Winter— an unknown writer, who would remain unknown (except to readers of
The 158-Pound Marriage).

A problem arose when
Playboy
accepted the story; they were very interested in who Edith Winter was — and had she written anything else? Peter Mat-son, my agent at the time, had warned me that this might happen, and that
Playboy
might not look upon being fooled with good humor. The confession was made:
I
was the author of “the zitism story,” as it was called; if there were hard feelings, they weren't lingering.
Playboy
published “Brennbar's Rant” — in their December 1974 issue — as a story by John Irving. Edith Winter was thus denied the only opportunity she was given to publish her own work; I had created Brennbar and his rant for
her
— in the end, I felt I had robbed her of something.

When I saw the illustration that accompanied “Brennbar's Rant” in
Playboy
, I sincerely wished that Edith Winter had been the author of the story — the illustration was so utterly tasteless and disgusting. A woman's breast with a thumb and index finger pinching her nipple, only it is
not
a nipple but a pimple — pus and all. “Gross!” said my son Colin; he was nine at the time. For a while, the picture made me want to disown the story, which was foolish because the story was not to blame.

Today I can point to “Brennbar's Rant” as my opinion of political correctness — before there
was
any political correctness so-called. I can also point to it as an example of my opinion of popularity before I was popular, for in the story Edith Winter says, “Popularity is probably the greatest insult to an intelligent person.” Edith was wrong. Popularity is only an insult to those people who presume they are more intelligent than the person who is popular. But “Brennbar's Rant” was written in 1973; I didn't know much about popularity then.

M
y father worked for the Austrian Tourist Bureau. It was my mother's idea that our family travel with him when he went on the road as a Tourist Bureau spy. My mother and brother and I would accompany him on his secretive missions to uncover the discourtesy, the dust, the badly cooked food, the shortcuts taken by Austria's restaurants and hotels and pensions. We were instructed to create difficulties whenever we could, never to order exactly what was on the menu, to imitate a foreigner's odd requests — the hours we would like to have our baths, the need for aspirin and directions to the zoo. We were instructed to be civilized but troublesome; and when the visit was over, we reported to my father in the car.

My mother would say, “The hairdresser is always closed in the morning. But they make suitable recommendations outside. I guess it's all right, provided they don't claim to have a hairdresser actually
in
the hotel.”

“Well, they
do
claim it,” my father would say. He'd note this in a giant pad.

I was always the driver. I said, “The car is parked off the street, but someone put fourteen kilometers on the gauge between the time we handed it over to the doorman and picked it up at the hotel garage.”

“That is a matter to report directly to the management,” my father said, jotting it down.

“The toilet leaked,” I said.

“I couldn't open the door to the W.C.,” said my brother, Robo.

“Robo,” Mother said, “you always have trouble with doors.”

“Was that supposed to be Class C?” I asked.

“I'm afraid not,” Father said. “It is still listed as Class B.” We drove for a short while in silence; our most serious judgment concerned changing a hotel's or a pension's rating. We did not suggest reclassification frivolously.

“I think this calls for a letter to the management,” Mother suggested. “Not too nice a letter, but not a really rough one. Just state the facts.”

“Yes, I rather liked him,” Father said. He always made a point of getting to meet the managers.

“Don't forget the business of them driving our car,” I said. “That's really unforgivable.”

“And the eggs were bad,” said Robo; he was not yet 10 and his judgments were not considered seriously.

We became a far harsher team of evaluators when my grandfather died and we inherited Grandmother— my mother's mother, who thereafter accompanied us on our travels. A regal dame, Johanna was accustomed to Class A travel, and my father's duties more frequently called for investigations of Class B and Class C lodgings. They were the places, the B and C hotels (and the pensions), that most interested the tourists. At restaurants we did a little better. People who couldn't afford the classy places to sleep were still interested in the best places to eat.

“I shall not have dubious food tested on me,” Johanna told us. “This strange employment may give you all glee about having free vacations, but I can see there is a terrible price paid: the anxiety of not knowing what sort of quarters you'll have for the night. Americans may find it charming that we still have rooms without private baths and toilets, but I am an old woman and I'm not charmed by walking down a public corridor in search of cleanliness and my relievement. Anxiety is only half of it. Actual diseases are possible — and not only from food. If the bed is questionable, I promise I shan't put my head down. And the children are young and impressionable; you should think of the clientele in some of these lodgings and seriously ask yourselves about the influences.” My mother and father nodded; they said nothing. “Slow down!” Grandmother said sharply to me. “You're just a young boy who likes to show off.” I slowed down. “Vienna,” Grandmother sighed. “In Vienna I always stayed at the Ambassador.”

“Johanna, the Ambassador is not under investigation,” Father said.

“I should think not,” Johanna said. “I suppose we're not even headed toward a Class A place?”

“Well, it's a B trip,” my father admitted. “For the most part.”

“I trust,” Grandmother said, “that you mean there is one A place en route?”

“No,” Father admitted. “There is one C place.”

“It's okay,” Robo said. “There are fights in Class C.”

“I should imagine so,” Johanna said.

“It's a Class C pension, very small,” Father said, as if the size of the place forgave it.

“And they're applying for a B,” said Mother.

“But there have been some complaints,” I added.

“I'm sure there have,” Johanna said.

“And animals,” I added. My mother gave me a look.

“Animals?” said Johanna. “Animals,” I admitted.

“A
suspicion
of animals,” my mother corrected me.

“Yes, be fair,” Father said.

“Oh, wonderful!” Grandmother said. “A suspicion of animals. Their hair on the rugs? Their terrible waste in the corners! Did you know that my asthma reacts, severely, to any room in which there has recently been a cat?”

“The complaint was not about cats,” I said. My mother elbowed me sharply.

“Dogs?” Johanna said. “Rabid dogs! Biting you on the way to the bathroom.”

“No,” I said. “Not dogs.”

“Bears!” Robo cried.

But my mother said, “We don't know for sure about the bear, Robo.”

“This isn't serious,” Johanna said.

“Of course it's not serious!” Father said. “How could there be bears in a pension?”

“There was a letter saying so,” I said. “Of course, the Tourist Bureau assumed it was a crank complaint. But then there was another sighting — and a second letter claiming there had been a bear.”

My father used the rearview mirror to scowl at me, but I thought that if we were all supposed to be in on the investigation it would be wise to have Grandmother on her toes.

“It's probably not a real bear,” Robo said, with obvious disappointment.

“A man in a bear suit!” Johanna cried. “What unheard-of perversion is
that?
A
beast
of a man sneaking about in disguise! Up to what? It's a man in a bear suit, I know it is,” she said. “I want to go to that one
first!
If there's going to be a Class C experience on this trip, let's get it over with as soon as possible.”

“But we haven't got reservations for tonight,” Mother said.

“Yes, we might as well give them a chance to be at their best,” Father said. Although he never revealed to his victims that he worked for the Tourist Bureau, Father believed that reservations were simply a decent way of allowing the personnel to be as prepared as they could be.

“I'm sure we don't need to make a reservation in a place frequented by men who disguise themselves as animals,” Johanna said. “I'm sure there is
always
a vacancy there. I'm sure the guests are regularly dying in their beds — of fright, or else of whatever unspeakable injury the madman in the foul bear suit does to them.”

“It's probably a
real
bear,” Robo said, hopefully— for in the turn the conversation was taking, Robo certainly saw that a real bear would be preferable to Grandmother's imagined ghoul. Robo had no fear, I think, of a real bear.

I drove us as inconspicuously as possible to the dark, dwarfed corner of Planken and Seilergasse. We were looking for the Class C pension that wanted to be a B.

“No place to park,” I said to Father, who was already making note of that in his pad.

I double-parked and we sat in the car and peered up at the Pension Grillparzer; it rose only four slender stories between a pastry shop and a Tabak Trafik.

“See?” Father said. “No bears.”

“No
men
, I hope,” said Grandmother.

“They come at night,” Robo said, looking cautiously up and down the street.

We went inside to meet the manager, a Herr Theobald, who instantly put Johanna on her guard.

“Three generations traveling together!” he cried. “Like the old days,” he added, especially to Grandmother, “before all these divorces and the young people wanting apartments by themselves. This is a
family
pension! I just wish you had made a reservation — so I could put you more closely together.”

“We're not accustomed to sleeping in the same room,” Grandmother told him.

“Of course not!” Theobald cried. “I just meant that I wished your
rooms
could be closer together.” This worried Grandmother, clearly.

“How far apart must we be put?” she asked.

“Well, I've only two rooms left,” he said. “And only one of them is large enough for the two boys to share with their parents.”

“And my room is how far from theirs?” Johanna asked coolly.

“You're right across from the W.C.!” Theobald told her, as if this were a plus.

But as we were shown to our rooms, Grandmother staying with Father — contemptuously to the rear of our procession — I heard her mutter, “This is not how I conceived of my retirement. Across the hall from a W.C., listening to all the visitors.”

“Not one of these rooms is the same,” Theobald told us. “The furniture is all from my family.” We could believe it. The one large room Robo and I were to share with my parents was a hall-sized museum of knickknacks, every dresser with a different style of knob. On the other hand, the sink had brass faucets and the headboard of the bed was carved. I could see my father balancing things up for future notation in the giant pad.