Chapter 19. Don’t You Like Birds, Mr. Sedlak?
Don’t You Like Birds, Mr. Sedlak?
“In the end, there are only a few things, really: love, hate . . . empathy, indifference.”
I said this to Richard, looking up from rereading my letter from Dad—posted six weeks ago—the letter that contained the news of Uncle Henry’s death. The train rattled along rhythmically swaying us left-right, left-right, left-right; bearing us toward our destination. We were sitting side by side on the endmost seats that faced opposite to the rest of the passengers with our backpacks on the empty seats in front of us, on our way from Tuzla to Budapest. The coach was only half full and this choice afforded us more leg room. Richard sat staring straight ahead, leaning forward, hands clasped with his arms resting on his knees, occasionally turning his eyes to watch the passing landscape out the window to the right of him. The curves of his muscular arms and broad shoulders gave me a small fleeting enjoyable sensation as always, similar to the pleasure one felt on being handed the first glass of wine of the evening. After a long silence, I continued on with my monologue on faith. I expected him to listen, which he did. I expected no response.
“Why do people always have to put qualifications, limitations on love, on life? Uncle Henry too old; Enesa foolish, grandiose. What does it matter? ‘Oh, you’re too old,’ they say. ‘It’s too late. Grow up; lower your expectations,'” I continued, fanning myself with the letter, flapping it up and down on my lap. “Wrong time, wrong whatever. You yourself are wrong. And, for God’s sake, never bore people with it. Don’t be sincere.” I turned again to Richard, but he kept his gaze straight ahead and his thoughts to himself. But I knew him well enough by now to know that, at this moment, he fervently wished I would shut up. Shut up, but keep talking. He wanted me to shut up at the same time he needed me to voice the argument going on inside himself that was buried too far down for him to articulate. Desire and denial going on at the same time. Uncle Henry trying to make inroads into Aunt Jean. So I didn’t mind his silence.
Neither one of us was willing to speak about Louis. . . . A spasm of sorrow clutched at me as I realized the void ahead without him. I knew Richard was thinking of him. I knew he blamed himself in part, knew how vulnerable he was to critics turning their frustrations outward at him rather than examining their own inadequacies. My inadequacies were legion, and I examined them frequently.
I continued to poke at my seatmate. “People should stop telling other people what to do, what to be. They say they want to construct a paradise, but only one based on their own definition. Enesa’s passion—so brilliant—where did that come from? Where has it gone? It just can’t disappear, can it? And, you know. . . you know Uncle Henry’s love drove that damn train. A force so strong, it has to go somewhere, right? The laws of physics.”
The statue that was Richard spoke, “You kept fireflies in jars when you were a kid, didn’t you?”
“Yes, but now that seems cruel.”
He paused a beat with an almost imperceptible eye roll. “Once they died, they got tossed, right? No one kept them—some dried up crap on a piece of grass. But you refuse to throw them out; you're always waiting for some miraculous reversal of fortune; you want them to light up again.”
‘You are on your own,’ I thought to myself, not for the first time, but I was too exhausted, too spellbound by the rhythm of the tracks to maintain any type of keen emotion for too long. All I could do was succumb to the motion of the train and let my thoughts slosh around—punch in my punchbowl brain.
‘I’m going to conduct a war on paradise,’ I thought to myself, putting my palm on the window and looking out. ‘The cost is too high.’ Letting my hand slide down into my lap, twisting my head to the side and looking up, I fell into a reverie, staring at the clouds as we continued on. I closed my eyes and after a time opened them again, the clouds had stopped their sprint across the sky and were still. I was still, no longer on the train, but standing in front of a kitchen sink in a house high on a mountain top, looking out the window at the very top of the world. Down in the sink was a colander full of long green beans. I picked one up and snapped off both ends, the sound loud in the silence, and put it on top of the pile of the ones already prepped on the side of the sink. I picked up another and snapped it, then another. The pile grew larger, one by one. The clouds remained still and held tight within their domain.
I continued the snapping, thinking one’s departure from this world would not be so bad if from up here in this beautiful, eerie isolation; the wind picking up, the clouds turning golden in the western sky. I turned from the window and looked behind me. Jay and Enesa were there with me, sitting round the kitchen table, Enesa’s elbows on its wooden surface, her chin resting in her palms, listening to Jay fingerpick his cherished National guitar. She never turned around. Jay looked at me from under his lashes, not moving his head.
“I know you were behind those big donations to IMRS,” I told him. Yes, we had been able to transport the Lipizzaners back to their home stable, although to what future was uncertain; and, of course, we only got a fraction of them. The rest remained lost. One stallion, Tulipan Capricia, was headed to the States, a token of gratitude, too precious to be bought, only meant to be given and received. Again, possible because of Jay.
“So, you think when I made it, I dropped everything else? Good opinion of me.”
“No, no . . . not you.” A surge of emotion tightened my throat, and I turned my face away, gazing out the window. “I’ve always loved you in my own way, you know,” I continued. “Loved that you didn’t . . . that you didn’t see just a girl or, worse, a pirate . . . but a sailor out on the open sea.
Jay continued to watch me. “Remember that party after we played Toad’s Place? You and me dancing . . . every man in the room wanted you that night.”
I turned to him, “Did you include yourself in that population?”
“I wanted you the very first time I laid eyes on you.”
“In my mother’s waiting room?”
“The second time I laid eyes on you.” He winked at Enesa, including her in the banter. She seemed to be taking it all in, but unable to respond other than smile at Jay.
“And now you’re all settled with Marta and your new little baby girl. You’ve done well, Jay-jay.”
I looked down to snap another bean. When I turned back again, both Jay and Enesa were gone. Dorenberg sat alone there now, eyes closed, playing his Les Paul, the chords echoing through the room as if brought in by the wind. Eventually, he disappeared as well, though his music continued on. Dorenberg, you were the dream, but we know nothing of you. Birds in the sky, indistinguishable one from the other so far on high, yet we envy them their flight and freedom, and we throw our emotions out to them and imagine their cawing and flapping of wings as the answers to our deepest hopes and desires even though their calls are indecipherable, understood only within the flock, and not meant for us. To give rise to such passion in a young woman’s heart is something, I told him. Those flames are still burning; I carry them for her. Keep those songs coming, Andy. Keep those hands soft, Richard; let us struggle, let us create and love and be different from one another; let our minds go where they will. Allow us our redemption to fail and try again.
Outside the brilliant light softened, turning the darkened house redder as my green bean pile grew higher. The table behind me continued to be visited by images tumbling in and out of my vision, a communal board peopled by those I loved or wanted to love, and I felt the force of a passion like Uncle Henry’s running through my veins. The laws of physics. The laws of love. I thought of the dancers from the mustard-colored building—healing their wounds, rebuilding their postdiluvian world step by step, hand gesture by gesture. Another snap and the air shifted. I lifted my head to inhale the change, like an animal that knows a storm is coming when the sun is still shining; like the great stallion Tulipan Sava when he last raised his head as he lay in that boxcar.
One long bean left, but I believed there was no beginning or end. The wind died down; the music stopped. A thrill of dread ran through me, but I would not allow myself to turn around; I knew all was gone in the silence and the stillness, vanishing into those red slants of light. I raised both my hands and placed my palms over my eyes, felt the water from my task trickle down my forearms, tickling, itching.
Richard was nudging me in my ribs. He whispered in my ear, “Stop the scratching. What are you doing? People are looking at you.” Startled awake, I gave up trying to poke my finger under the brace to scratch my arm, and Richard leaned back against his seat and went back to staring out the window. Eventually I put my head on his shoulder, and after a minute he leaned his head against mine. The train rattled on toward the border.
Image: Allow us our redemption. Source: Photograph by Ᾱn Kassel