Daniel Torday - The Last Flight of Poxl West

“We’re here every Saturday night,” she said.

Although I’d begun working at the café I did go to see Johann Schmidt, my father’s business associate, who might have provided me some lucrative work but who told me he would be leaving for the United States in only a matter of weeks. He was sorry he could not be of more help, and he handed me a wad of guilders to absolve himself of whatever guilt he felt. It was enough money to give me some freedom for a month or two, and I did my best to convince him I was simply grateful for his generosity.

The following Saturday, the Tennessee Sisters were to play again, and again I listened. With every song she sang it seemed that the lead singer was looking right in my eyes. I’m sure, looking back on it, that every man there felt that way, but I only knew then that I did. I was leaving for a walk along the Nieuwe Maas when I saw some boy about my age attempting to talk to her. Accosting her, more like. He was speaking loudly when I approached, and when he saw me, his voice dropped to a guttural growl.

“Finally, he has arrived,” Maybelle said. She and this dark boy both turned to look at me. “Are we to go listen to some of the music of Bill Monroe and his brother Charlie now, as you promised? The new LP from Decca Records just arrived from America.”

The boy thrust his hands low in his pockets. His shoulders moved forward and there was a bulge down where he held his hand. We had not talked again since that first meeting. I did not want trouble with this boy.

“You were going to meet me at the front of the café,” I said, picking up her meaning. The pink scar beside her cheek drew brighter as she smiled, took me by the arm, and took a couple steps away from the guttural boy.

“Next time we will decide to speak in either Dutch or German,” she said.

We walked quickly away before the boy could speak again. We walked all the way to the Nieuwe Maas, gas lamps lighting the path to the harbor.

“Will you tell me your name, then?” she said. “I am Françoise.”

“I thought it was Maybelle Tennessee.”

“That’s my stage name. I’m Maybelle, and my partner Greta is Lilly. These names work better with Tennessee than our own.”

“I’m Poxl,” I said. She looked at me. “Leopold Weisberg. Leopold, Leopoldy, Leopox, Leopoxl, Poxl.”

We walked together up the Nieuwe Maas. I told her about Leitmeritz and about my passage on the train from Prague just the week before. We walked near each other as we passed under the lights along the harbor’s edge. Uneven cobblestones lined the embankment.

“What was that boy after?” I said.

“Something he could not afford,” she said. She was looking at her hands when she said it. Now she looked up at me. “But,” she said. “Thank you.”

Now she grew quiet, as if in showing her gratitude she’d ceded some ground to me she wished she hadn’t. In our silence she walked upright and reserved for the first time. In the quiet of the haze lifting off the river, the air lightened between us. I noted something I’d not seen on that evening of our first meeting: In Françoise’s ears were earrings similar to those my mother wore — pellucid amber, shaped like playing marbles, casting tawny shadows on her cheek. Mist grew thick around the yellow glowing gaslights, comingled with Françoise’s earrings. I found myself telling her that my mother had earrings just like the ones she wore.

“It’s not a good idea,” she said, “to tell a girl you’ve just met that she reminds you of your mother.”

I spent some of the wad Johann Schmidt had gifted me on dinner and she talked to me about music I’d never heard of.

“Bill Monroe is not only the greatest American folksinger,” she said. “When he was a young boy, he was cross-eyed. He could not see. This is why he learned to play the mandolin the way he did.” She paused and took a breath. “When I was a child, I was cross-eyed, too. My mother saved all her earnings for many years. We had my eyes fixed. I believe it is why I can hear the music of Bill Monroe so clearly. But you can’t tell they were ever crossed, can you.”

“No,” I said. Over the smell of meat I could detect the heavy scent of patchouli oil on her skin. “No, I would not ever have known.”

5.

One night two Saturdays later, after her set ended, Françoise asked me if I would like to accompany her to a party. She led me ten blocks into the thick of the city and over to Rochussen. Two girls Françoise’s age awaited us. They were her bandmate Greta and their friend Rosemary. The party would be just the four of us, Françoise explained on our walk over. When for the first time I asked her what her friends did, how she knew them, she simply looked at me.

“We work in the brothel,” she said. “We play with our band there at times. And.”

I put my hands into my coat pockets and pushed my fingers against my palms. In Greta’s flat, Bill Monroe was on the phonograph. We drank wine thin as vinegar. Greta arose to dance and pulled me up alongside her. I protested with the little Dutch I had — I told her I was not a dancer, that I would prefer to watch. While my facility with Dutch wasn’t enough to let me argue with them, I could comprehend their conversation.

“So he is that kind, is he?” Greta said.

“I haven’t yet discovered what kind he is,” Françoise said.

“You’ll have to find out yourselves,” I said.

I stood up and took Greta’s hand. Did I imagine I was my tepid father in those moments of action, slipping along the Elbe away from my mother’s flirtations? I didn’t. I pictured myself a painter unafraid to stand in another man’s home without a stitch of clothing, my paint-splattered trousers on his floor, attempting to speak reason to his son. Greta was a substantial girl, her brown hair twisted up like a bundle of kindling. She changed the record to some big-band music and danced up close to me while Rosemary moved against Françoise on the velvet-upholstered sofa on the opposite side of the room.

Rosemary stood and began to dance behind Greta. Then her hands were up under Greta’s shirt. Greta began to kiss Rosemary. I had never seen women kiss each other. They grew more sensual. Rosemary lay Greta down and undressed her, then put her face down into Greta’s lap and pleasured her until she let out a little shriek. This was the first time I had ever seen female genitalia, let alone tended to so. Françoise was watching along with me, and without giving me time to anticipate it, she kissed me. She’d had a lot of wine. I’d had a lot of wine.

“Take me back into Greta’s bedroom,” she said. She pointed behind me to a thin silk curtain.

“Do you think we could find somewhere less out in the open?”

“These are my friends,” Françoise said. Her freckled skin grew bright with embarrassment. “They won’t mind.”

“I can see,” I said. “It’s just that,” I said. I could feel the heat slipping from between us. “It’s just that I haven’t ever seen that before. Or, you know.”

Her face brightened until it was almost brown. I could only imagine the shade of red mine now turned. She took me by my hand. Her palms felt as soft as uncooked rice.

Back at her flat, it was as if Françoise was returning to adolescence. She was nervous, as if this was her first time as well. She turned on a softly glowing lamp. She walked over to the stovetop in the corner of her room, turned the governor on low, and lit a burner with a match. She placed a black teapot on the burner and pulled some chamomile tea from a cabinet above her stove. While I stood silent in a corner, she waited for the tea to steep, poured two cups on the countertop, and then walked over to me.

“I love the smell of this tea, don’t you?” Françoise said.