The Woman Who Married a Cloud: The Collected Short Stories (21 page)

“Look, Francesca. Just wait, huh? Christ. Think about your daughter!”

The woman looked at the girl, then back at me. “You can sleep with her too. Would you rather that? I can leave!” She laughed high and fully, winked at Heidi, then began to button herself back up. “See, honey, sometimes you don’t need me. You just have to find a computer man.”

“Hey, just stop.” I finally had the presence of mind to stand up and start for the door.

“D-d-d-d-don’t go, please!” The girl grabbed my arm and held on hard. Her face was fear and shame. She got up out of her seat and put her arms around my neck. “Please don’t go, please! I’ll m-m-m-m-make her g-g-g-g-go aw-wa-wa-wa-wa-way!”

I hugged her back and, slowly easing her arms from around my neck, pushed her back into her seat at the same time. When I had her there, I turned to Francesca. Who wasn’t there. Who wasn’t anywhere. I was standing with my back to the door, so there was no way she could have gotten around me to get out.

Torn between a strong urge to get the hell out of there, and big curiosity to know what was going on, I more or less froze where I was and waited for something to decide the next move.

The train began to slow and the loudspeaker announced that we were pulling into Rosenheim, the last stop before Munich. I sat down. Heidi slid over next to me. Then she did something so erotic and wrong that I shiver to think of it, even now. Very gently, she took my hand and slid it under her skirt, between her legs. It was there a milli-second before I tried to pull it away. But couldn’t because she held it there and she was much,
much
stronger than I. That power, more than where my hand rested, was what scared me. What was she, eleven? Twelve? No twelve-year-old had that much strength.

When she spoke it was in a very normal, un-stuttering girl’s voice. “Didn’t you like her? Tell me what you like and I’ll make it for you. I promise. Whatever you want!”

“What are you doing, Heidi? What are you doing?”

Her hand tightened on my arm. It was so, so strong. “Didn’t you think she was cool? The colour of her hair and the way she smoked those Camels? That’s how I’ll do it. That’s what I want to be like when I’m old. That’s how I’m going to make myself.” Her eyes narrowed. “You don’t believe me? You don’t think she was cool? That’s what I’ll be like and every man will want me. They’ll all want to touch me and listen to me talk. I’ll have lots of stories and things. I’ll be able to say whatever I want.”

“Why can’t you say it now?”

She squeezed my hand till I cried out. “Because I stutter! You heard! You think I was
kidding around
? I can’t help it.”

Trying to prise her hand off mine, I gave up. “Why can you talk normally now?”

“Because your hand’s there. Men are going to want me all the time then because I’ll talk like her. I’ll be beautiful and I’ll talk beautifully.”

“You made her?”

Her hand loosened a little. She looked at me, wanting a reaction. “Yes. You don’t like her? All men like her. They always want her. Whenever she asks, they say yes. And if they want her then they’ll want me too. ’Cause that’s what I’ll be like.”

I had two choices—to play along and pretend or tell the truth and hope ...

“She talks too much.” Heidi stopped squeezing my hand but kept it where it was.

“What do you mean?”

“She talks too much. She’s boring.”

“B-B-B-oring?”

“Yes. She talks about herself too much and a lot of it isn’t interesting. I stopped listening to her. I was paying more attention to you.”

“Why? You didn’t think she was pretty?”

“Pretty but dull.”

“The other men didn’t think that! They always wanted her! They always took her!”

“Not all men are the same. I like a woman to be interesting.”

“More than pretty?” It was as if she were asking me things from a questionnaire. I had little choice but to answer her.

In fact, the rest of the way to Munich she questioned me about “Francesca”. How did I like her voice? What about her body? What was wrong with her stories? Would I have wanted to sleep with her if she’d been alone?

I never found out who the woman ... “was”. I did not want to make the girl angrier or more upset than she was, for obvious reasons. I answered her questions as best I could and, believe me, there were a great many. I answered her right into the Munich train station where she stood up as the train was slowing and told me she had to go. Nothing more, nothing else. Sliding the glass door open, she gave me one last small smile and was gone.

What do I think happened? I think too many things. That she had an idea for the perfect woman she wanted to be and created her out of her unhappiness to take her place until she could grow into her adult skin. But she was young and made mistakes. What the young think is cool or sexy we grown-ups often smile at. That’s one thought. Or she was a witch playing her own version of “Panic Hand”, a game I naturally looked for but never found. Or ... I don’t know. It sounds completely dumb and helpless, but I
don’t
know. I’m sorry if you’re unsatisfied.

I saw her one last time. When I got off the train I saw her running down the platform and into the arms of a nice-looking couple who were delighted to see her. The man wouldn’t put her down and the woman kept giving her kisses. She never turned around once. I kept my distance.

But I walked far behind them and was glad she didn’t see me. Then there was Celine. And look who came with her so late at night! Fiona. The wonderful Fiona—Celine’s daughter.

I
T HAPPENED LIKE THIS
. William Linde had never had any money. Until he was thirty, he wanted everything but got nothing. Silver cars that blow by you at night in the fast lane, their dashboards distant cities of green light glowing secret messages.

That’s what he wanted: silver cars.

Women stepping out of limos, stepping out of expensive stores, stepping out of airports into sunlight behind dark glasses.

That’s what he wanted: women in dark glasses.

There’s more, but you understand.

Linde worked hard but it did no good. He put in his time but what he got paid the bills, and that’s all. You dream when you’re poor because you’re sure expensive things make life better. They do, but when you’re rich, that “better” comes with its own limitations.

What else is new? Innocently, Linde saw only the silky, magazine-page shimmer of models with tall blue drinks, real brass fittings on suitcases, the unreal purple of the lavender hills in the South of France.

He had a girlfriend—I forget her name—who taught him a valuable lesson: if you can’t have money, watch what They do with theirs, so at least you’ll know what to do when you get yours. Linde was sure some day he would get his. There was no question about that.

They
went to museums. They used certain expressions. Their hair was cut just so. They said they read Shakespeare. He made a list three pages long. They sent food back to the kitchen. Parked their cars at odd angles, indifferent to whoever they might be inconveniencing.

What delighted Linde when he was finished was realizing he could do some of this! If he saved, he could have his hair cut
there.
A collection of Shakespeare cost nothing, and neither did museums. Anyone can learn expressions.

Many of Them were also going through a phase where they pretended to be living hard on the earth instead of a few inches above it. Despite all their money, they dressed in rough corduroys and workshirts. Denim dresses. The men grew three-day beards and went to openings without ties on. Their women wore skirts made out of sweatshirt material and rubber jewellery. The rich
are
different, but sometimes they pretend they’re not, for a while. This was one of those times. Lucky Linde!

He was a quick study and made faking-rich his hobby. Whenever there were a few hours free, he read
King Lear
and even memorized lines from it, just in case he was some day tested and could prove he knew
his
stuff!

But where the greater malady is fix’d,

The lesser is scarce felt. Thou’dst shun a bear;

But if thy flight lay toward the roaring sea,

Thou’dst meet the bear i’ th’ mouth.

He learned to recognize Their brands of perfume, where they shopped, what kind of omelette to order.

His “roaring sea” was poverty and its mad, lethal reality. If pretending to be affluent was false and desperate, pressing his nose up against impossible glass, then he would willingly meet
that
bear in the mouth, any time.

The magic of the story is this: Linde won the lottery. Bought a ticket for five dollars and won twenty million. Twenty million dollars! If you wanted to get rid of that in a year, you would have to spend almost fifty-five thousand dollars a day. Or you could buy a jet plane, an apartment building, the debt of a small African or Caribbean nation. Linde took his to a magician.

“What will you do if I give you this money?”

The magician was old and wise and had once created money for himself, but it only got
him
into big trouble.

“I don’t want your money. What do
you
want? You got everything you ever dreamed of. Go buy a Porsche. Women with sunglasses are waiting for you at the airport. Take the Concorde!” He looked into Linde’s eyes and saw that the other had what he’d always wanted, sure, but that that reality scared him terribly.

“I want to go back to when I was young and poor, but this time I want to go back with this money in my pocket. Can you do that?”

“Yeah, but it won’t change anything. Haven’t you ever read Ouspensky? He wrote a whole book about that. You’ll act different, but you’ll be the same person, so it won’t make any difference.”

“That’s not a bad beginning, though.”

“Come up with a really good idea and I’ll do it for you for free.”

Linde looked at him suspiciously. “How much do you normally charge?”

“Depends on what I’m asked to do. Usually if it’s something like what you just said, about a thousand dollars.”

“Why a thousand?”

“Because if it were less, you’d be suspicious, and if it was more I wouldn’t be competitive.”

“Do you have any suggestions?”

“Well, on first glance, it seems to me you’ve spent an awful lot of time studying how rich people act rich. It’s like a guy who wants to be an actor studying how actors play at being actors. But a guy like Marlon Brando don’t act: he just
is
Marlon Brando, and that guy is a terrific actor. Right?

“Rich people don’t know what they’re doing when they’re being rich, they just are. What you want is to find out how
that
feels.”

Linde was relieved. “Exactly! Can you make me feel what it’s like to
feel rich
?”

“Sorry. That’s out of my line. You’ve got big money now. How
does
it feel?”

Linde looked at the floor. “Like I shouldn’t have it. Like it belongs to someone else and I only found it in a bag on a park bench.” He shook his head. “Like I should give it back.”

“Nonsense!” The magician, whose name was Venasque, slapped Linde on the knee. “Wait a minute! I just thought of something.” Getting up, he put out his hand for the other to stay where he was and left the room. He came back soon carrying a leather jacket. “Here, put this on.”

Linde stood up and slipped it on. It looked like one of those World War Two bomber jackets with a fleece collar and scrapes and scratches everywhere.

A moment later the jacket began growing hair.

The process looked like a time-lapsed nature film of how a flower blooms in the spring.

Linde saw what was happening and threw the jacket off, clear across the living room. Venasque calmly retrieved it.

“What the hell
is
that?”

“A Virtue Jacket. If you put it on and it grows hair again, then you’ve still got some integrity in you. If none grows, then it’s dead. Somewhere in you, you’re still good. Confused, but good. A twenty-million-dollar virtuous man. What are you going to do with it?”

Linde could no more easily answer that question than decide what to do with his future.

Venasque, who tried not to give people hints into heaven, pitied the other because it was so obvious his confusion stemmed from his goodness. Linde had spent so much time thinking about being rich that he was unsure who he really was—a potential saint.

Knowing this, Venasque shrugged off his principles a little and gave the other a bump in the right direction.

“Ever notice how you never have the same amount of money in your pocket as you thought? When you look in your wallet, you thought you had ten bucks, but there’s thirteen? Or eight? Where does that other money go? The money you thought you had? Ever think about that?”

“No.” Linde’s face showed nothing—no light bulbs going off behind his eyes, recognition swimming up from his guts to his mind, nothing.

Venasque shook his head. Maybe the guy would never end up a saint. Just rich and dumb. That’s what happens after you’ve been rich a while: whatever good and challenging confusion (and questions) you might have at some point disappears. You grow smug and comfy in all that good fortune. Why think about “Why me?” or “What’s the point?” so long as your pockets stay full?

And that was the ingenuity of their plan. More and more people become rich, fewer and fewer people think about what that means. But Linde would have to find that out for himself. Venasque had, but just barely.

“Listen carefully to me, Linde. Where does all that extra money go? You think it’s spent? Or lost between the cracks? Think about this—you
did
have ten bucks. The fact you got eight or thirteen when you look is something else. Go home and think about that. End of discussion.”

Linde sat in his apartment, more confused than ever. He knew Venasque was the real thing—there was magic and intuition shooting off him like a 4 July sparkler. He spoke in riddles and clues, he was humble.