Bruce Bauman - Broken Sleep

She didn’t tell me that night, but later, that she slept with Jesus. There are intimations to all that in the Apocrypha and the Gnostic texts. Jesus was one carnal man. And he was a man — just closer to perfection than most.

Memory is planted in our genes for those who have the ability to commune with themselves. It will be proved that we can transcend our corporeal bodies and through our DNA traverse what you call time. I might or might not be “alive” when genetic historians prove that I am right, but I can and I have transcended “time.”

When Alchemy was about seven months old, I decided he needed to be exposed to the only other living link to our lineage. He, his grandmother, and I needed to have a nice little group hug.

Greta had become more of a legend in some circles, and those who realized she wasn’t yet dead proclaimed her the world’s most famous recluse. I’d been splitting my time between Orient and Xtine’s. When in the city I rewatched as many movies of hers as I could find, and I saw that the camera understood that she could never love or be loved, that her heart was broken — truly broken. All of those doomed soap-opera screen romances fit her so perfectly. Her eyes, her voice, her leaden walk belied by the erect posture that refused to fall under the burden of so much emptiness. I went on reconnaissance missions, tracking Greta’s walking regimen. She often walked alone. Sometimes with a friend. If she saw me, she never let on. She would drift into the upscale antiques and thrift shops and then lunch at Aquavit, a Scandinavian restaurant, or Raul’s, an unimposing bistro on Madison and 66th.

On an overcast late October morning, I said to myself, “Okay, today.” I dressed casually in a longish black skirt, boots, a turtleneck sweater, and green poncho, and tucked Alchemy into his papoose. I followed her from her apartment to Raul’s. I tried three phone booths — someone had stuck chewing gum in the first two coin slots — before I found one that worked. I wanted Bicks Sr. to accompany me, so I called his office on Park and 56th. I begged him to scurry touty sweety to 59th and Lex. I’d never done that before, so he felt compelled to come. I loved/hated New York in the late autumn. Still do. That’s why I wanted to meet her then. More than winter, the dim fall light shrivels my insides.

I stood in front of Bloomingdale’s window with the mannequins in perfect winter wear. The acrid perfumes from the lobby mixed with the Sabrett hot dog stand. The steamy smut wafting up from the subway station, the sobbing rubber from the gnashing wheels of the buses and taxis, the masses of jockeying bodies whizzing by all sounded like a thirty-three record playing at forty-five speed, which is how everyone walks in New York when it feels like rain but it hasn’t yet come. The swirling cacophony made me want to strip and do an antimodern noise dance while balancing Alchemy on my shoulders.

I spotted Bicks Sr. — the man in the Brooks Brothers suit up the street.

“What is so urgent? Is something wrong with the child?”

“He is perfect.” I took his hand and pulled him down the block. “C’mon, Bicks, earn your money.”

The second we turned onto Madison, he slowed down and clasped my shoulder. “Salome, stop. I think I see. Why now? Why this way? This is a serious breach of protocol.”

“Since when do I fucking care about protocol? If I asked, I doubt she’d deign to meet me. And if she did, she’d pick the time and place on her terms. If you catch someone off guard you get to their essence. If you accompany me, it’ll be less awkward for all of us.”

He sighed and his face turned pinkish. “Please, Salome, no scenes. No funny business.”

“I just want her to see Alchemy. I assume she knows about him.”

“If she’d wanted to meet him she would have told me.”

“Since before I was born she’s tried to manipulate me like I’m a cloying extra in one of her movies. I’m her daughter. I’m an adult. We’re equals.”

He looked into my eyes and understood that no lawyer’s chicanery could dissuade me.

We arrived at the front of the restaurant. He halted under a rust-red awning. His cheeks puckered. “Bicks, if she turns you into such a coward, you can leave.”

“Let’s go,” he said firmly. He took my left hand, led me down three brick steps and, ever the gentleman, opened the door to the restaurant. Immediately, we were hit by chalky air. Cigarette smoke hung below the dimmed lights of the low wooden ceiling with exposed pipes. Odors of garlic and pâté breathed from the walls. I thought about my dad and how he would’ve joked, “The food here sure must be lousy, otherwise they’d turn up the darn lights.”

I spotted Greta sitting by herself. Her posture erect, cigarette in hand. She wore a tan double-breasted jacket, dark glasses, and a red scarf draped around her neck. Only years later have I come to appreciate the uses of neck scarves. The glasses were a bit of overkill for someone who wanted to be inconspicuous.

Raul, the restaurant owner, a squat middle-aged Frenchman, cut me off before I got within five feet of her table.

“Pardon me, do you have a reservation?” He pressed his hand against my shoulder. I figure the only way to deal with obnoxious people was to be obnoxious back. I blew at his hand as if were a fleck of dust and flicked it with my finger.

“ Ne touche pas, mon petit steak frites , can’t you see the baby is asleep?” I pressed Alchemy against my chest as his head rested on my shoulder. “We are here to see Lady Garbo.”

Bicks tried to interrupt. I’d never seen the old bat so ruffled, sweating and phumpfering . “This, this is, Salome and her son who and she—”

“William, stop. We do not need you.” Greta stood beside us sans sunglasses. “I think we can do whatever it is she has in mind by ourselves.” She glanced at me, but her gaze ran no lower than my head and did not move toward Alchemy. I looked intently at her. Even she couldn’t defy time or gravity. But despite the mudslide of flesh covered by too much powder and rouge, the face that millions had worshipped remained. Her voice, almost unchanged in pitch and timbre, carrying the freight of an aged soul with only the slightest vibration of the wounded, the perfect emanation of her silent screen presence. Only now, that distinct vibrato’s ache had been replaced by a dull throatiness.

“Raul, we will be moving to a back table.” The owner nodded and set out to move her handbag and prepare the table. She turned to Bicks. “William, you can go.”

“Are you sure?”

“I will call you. Do not worry. Now, please.” He bowed to her like an English butler. She turned to me. “I assume you prefer if it is just the two of us.”

“Three.” I dipped my head and my eyes focused on Alchemy. “He’s not a year yet, but he is here and I will make sure he remembers this.”

“Three, then. Please.” She pointed to the table for four. She followed behind me. I offered, “Do you want to hold your grandson while I take off my poncho?” She shook her head. Raul held him. I sat with my back to a brick wall underneath posters of the French countryside. She sat to my left, facing the front of the restaurant. She asked if I wanted a glass of wine. “Yes,” I said, “red.” I caressed the still sleeping Alchemy’s back while we talked.

“Do you want to eat?”

“Not yet.”

She ordered the wine. The candle at our table lessened the graininess of the restaurant’s light. I could see the broadness of her shoulders under her jacket hiding delicate bones. I shifted my spine and I felt my bones as hers.

The waiter brought my wine. Greta raised her glass but did not touch it to mine. “Chin.” She sipped her wine but did not speak. I could not read her thoughts. Not for one second. I closed my eyes and inhaled her soulsmell. She had none! Nothing repugnant like a man’s sweaty socks. Or remorseful like a European railway station. Nothing entrancing like an old jazz club. Nothing. Either my smell sense was experiencing some Electra complex block or she had no smell. I couldn’t believe it.