Chapter Twenty-Seven
In Burger King words ensnared the artistic ascetic for she too succumbed to polite requests and smiles. For whatever chimerical ideas she had about isolation in Antarctica she knew that too little society, as too much of it, would be deleterious. She too would have been an incontrovertible loose canon had she not maintained some sociable traits; and so she sat down at their table despite not wanting to do so. "Rick, if you weren't seated with your father I wouldn't have recognized you. Heavens!" Heaven—it was a word that nobody believed in and everybody used. She put her elbow on the table, chin in a palm. Then she focused her intensity sociably, basking him with it gently in the rays of her orbs. She knew that her gesture was probably an affected one, oblivious to the fact as father and son might be, but she did not think its contrived essence as being all that important. Hers was like one of Peggy's few favorable gestures, only she had improved upon it. Instead of using this gesture for situations where there was an affinity of values she used it, on occasion, to further rapport. By pretending to care more than one actually did one couldn't help but emulate and believe in the skit, making the dubiously real in fact real. With a deep albeit contrived sense of caring, she said, "I haven't seen you for so long. Are you still friends with Nathaniel?"
"So-so," said the boy ruefully.
"Well, don't worry. Everybody meets new people and are attracted to those new influences for a time which help them grow. I'm sure you and Adagio will be friends again. I bet he likes you very much. I know I do." Then to MF she said, "So you guys are taking in Rome?"
"Yes and other bits here and there. We were in Venice a couple days ago. Nice—well worth seeing as I'm sure Florence would be. The problem is that a man can spend the whole trip traveling from one city to the next. So…I've decided that I and this big guy will just stay here in Rome for the rest of the time. Are you here all by yourself?"
"Yes, here all alone. Tell me about yourself. There's got to be a lady friend somewhere here in Rome."
"No." He smiled bashfully. " Just here with my son."
She guessed that the widower was being faithful to the memory of his wife by not pursuing any other relationship outside of an occasional sexual liaison with a whore like herself. She liked the assumption and it made her feel closer to him. To some degree she wanted to ferret out the truth on this matter but the assumption gave her such a warm feeling and she too liked her endorphins and dopamine. "Nathaniel is at home staying with Hispanic Betty."
"Hispanic who?" He chuckled.
"Hispanic Betty. Well, that's my name for her. My assistant — a lovely person in her own way. She's illiterate in both languages but again in her own unique way a lovely enough character. I give nicknames to everything. Nathaniel is Adagio and my cat, Friskie, is Mouse. Nathaniel will be fine with Hispanic Betty. Did you guys just come from the museum?"
"No, we've been sitting here waiting for you for days. Finally we can go into the museum now that we have an expert to show us around. It's been rough sitting."
She laughed. "Wow, Michael! You knew I'd be on this very speck of the planet within this time and space. Handsome and charming as well as psychic. I'm impressed." She laughed again as she glanced at his playful smile. It occurred to her how much of a human's life was consumed in frivolous exchanges of happy feelings. There was really no substance in it at all. She turned back to Rick who was as yet free from being overwhelmed in the sensual impulses that created the libidinous ego, lascivious sociability, and the lustful lies of human will that willed the stimulation of the pleasure receptors of the brain at all times. "You and your father will have your eyeballs shooting out of your sockets when you begin the art tour in this beautiful city, I promise."
The boy laughed with a feral, garrulous confidence. "Now it's my eyes out.
Before it was gettin' hair on my chest if I ate your stuff."
She smiled. "You remember. It was called 'Shit on a Shingle.' To MF she explained, "That's a nickname for one of my domestic dishes. It's also known as beef and gravy on toast." To Rick she added, "And given time it will grow hair on your chest. I promise." She began eating her veggie burger.
"Mrs. Sangfroid," said Rick, "what are you eating? It's orange."
She looked at the edge of her burger. "More like raw sienna, golden ochre, cadmium yellow, and goldenrod dark…hard to explain the color. Saffron the closer you dig into the corn. This vegetarian hamburger probably isn't all that nutritious fried with hamburgers but here we are as guinea pigs within modern existence."
"That's a heavy one from a sandwich. Tell me what you mean," said MF.
"Well, I mean that we don't grow our own food so we are reliant on what others present to us as good and we follow the masses into places like this out of convenience and laziness. We are like cognizant teddy bears on an assembly line to have our apertures plugged up with plastic eyes but there is nothing we can do about it. Anyhow, two cheers for Burger King. Hip hip hurray! Hip hip hurray!" She laughed, more amused and interested in herself than anyone else.
"You don't eat meat, Gabriele?"
"Not much," she said.
"Okay," MF said disapprovingly.
"Whether or not animals have any value outside of becoming a product to serve to us doesn't matter so much to me. I think what I think but you can't prove it one way or the other. I just feel that having the attitude that everything exists to serve human pleasures and appetites stunts any enlightenment one might hope to get on this planet. It's not the animal rights perspective but my own."
"Good for you. I admire that," he lied. Their conversation paused and she saw that MF had removed both onions and pickles from his hamburger. She watched both males sink their fangs into the aesthetic round bits of carcass. She told herself that there was indeed something atavistic about it.
"Dad hates vegetables—won't ever eat them."
"Is that a fact!" said Gabriele.
"That isn't true; and don't talk with your mouth full!" rebutted MF irascibly.
"We never have tomatoes in the refrigerator."
"We have Ketchup. It is tomatoes plus."
Gabriele laughed. She as marginally enthralled with the charm of their bantering. Then, like the sound of crickets, the human noise became monotonous. Still, it was better than being deaf, and it bedizened her ears like large cheap earrings containing bogus stones.
"I saw you when you gave your lecture in Albany," said MF to Gabriele as if wanting to change the topic.
"I know. I saw you there. I wanted to catch you but there were droves of people and one reporter swarming all over the place."
"I understood that. It's okay."
"Did you drive up just for that?"
"No, my parents live in Albany but I wanted to see your work and listen to you."
"Wow, thank you" she said humbly.
When they finished eating and were walking to the museum he said, "So, you were in Thailand before coming here. What were your impressions of it?"
"Hmm…I guess that before I went there I half-way wondered if it would be comprised of people without wills the way the Buddha rejected self saying it was an illusion—but no; it was full of mall hoppers and people pacing here and there anxiously with their cellular telephones, eyes glazed over, totally self-absorbed like in the states although perhaps less of them…a lot of poor seeming so quaint from my vantage point but probably not from theirs. What's your impression of Italy so far?"
"Well, it is hard to say with so many tourists. If they get rid of the tourists one can have an impression."
She laughed. She liked that answer. It seemed to her the correct answer; and since he seemed to her a conduit of reality, she felt that he was enmeshed with her somehow. She did not want to believe in fate but here they were together in such an unexpected place. The strangeness made her a bit superstitious. "How long will you be here?"
"Maybe a week. And you?"
"Not long. I can't afford it and Nathaniel won't pick up the phone or reply to email so that troubles me."
"Anything wrong?"
"No, I'm sure it is a bit of resentment about me going on this trip."
"Won't Hispanic Betty answer the telephone?"
"Are you kidding? No, she refuses. She dusts around a telephone like it's a snake and moves to a different room when it rings." He laughed.
She led them into color, perspective, and forms of Masters who had died long ago. They led her to a planetarium, the coliseum, and then a small amusement park on the outskirts of Rome. After Ferris wheel and a roller coaster rides she and they were addicted to motion and so they went on the water log ride as well. As they came down a miniature waterfall they were drenched. From these rides she knew that she was thrust into further action. Without consciously choosing it, she was now on a womanly ride of feeling great pleasure in the company of a man and something resembling family. It occurred to her that this was the ride that all broken adults with battered children inside them went on. From love and establishing a family of one's own one could break from the wretched past. One could remove the glass fragments from the exploding glass house of family, bandage wounded childhood, and could at last distance oneself from memories of the guardians of hell. The ride would be that of a new family and beginning, a type of forgetfulness.
All this time had gone by and still Sang Huin woke up from nightmares with a sweat glazing his forehead. He could not help but remember driving his battered sister to her lover's mansion, dragging her up to the door, watching her faint on the stoop as he pushed the doorbell, and then watching from his car as the wife discovered his delivery.