Enno (Part 3)

SHORT STORY MONDAY

Enno

Part 3

One wonders.... I wonder, if our hatred of things in others is chiefly due to our fear of discovering them in ourselves? I cite weakness here. When I’m not guarding myself I find myself intolerant of weakness in others. Stupidity, too. I hate stupidity. Do I fear being considered stupid?

It's not an obsession, but maybe I fear I am lazy as well. I won't allow myself the luxury of rest and diversion. We live but once and have but one opportunity to leave our mark in time.

I remember when I first learned that Marco Polo was not the first to find a road to China. His name has been preserved only because he had the ill luck of being forced to share a prison cell with a writer. Writers love good stories. It gives them something worthwhile to practice their craft on. This was how Enno had impressed himself upon me. He would be the object of my art.

•

Immortality was a recurrent theme in our talks. He claimed that the true immortals were those who most fully understood and embraced the futility of their lives and their work.

But it is not so much the quest for life as the fear of death -- the void and Nothingness -- that drives us. Anything, anything to escape the solitariness of our passage through time toward the predetermined end.

•

He questioned me about my own work, but I couldn't help feeling my answers did not interest him.

This was only natural, of course. He existed in a world of his own. I frequented that world, sought to experience it, capture it, record, it, but could not expect him to have the same interest in mine.

When I expressed interest in his stories, his experiences, he clucked and trilled like a bird, twittering with delight. If, because of some temporary melancholy, I were somewhat less enthusiastic about hearing his autobiographical discourse, he clammed up, even turned on me, accusing me of hating him.

"I am not interesting enough for you, eh?" he said bitterly. My protests would finally win out.
The game -- we both knew it to be as such -- required two players. His role was to act insulted, mine to abase myself. It's a curious thing, these interpersonal dynamics. The eagerness with which I seek the worm position, prostrate, ashamed... And for what reward? The friendships it provides, I suppose.

Was it love or fear, however, that brought me here to seek Enno's company? It would have been easy to say love, my concern for a crusty old man who had no one else save me.

But the truth, always less comforting when faced honestly, remains quite otherwise. Was it not loneliness that compelled me? In my selfishness I needed a companion, lest my earthly sojourn be a tad bit too solitary.

•

At one time his presence in a room produced a dominating impression upon people, no matter how large the room or how many the people.

Today, he is half a man. His physical stature has so deteriorated that he can barely sit up at times. Thus I force him to eat, to take regular meals. "You need nourishment," I say. "Your strength is down."

"I forget how good it is to eat."

He neglects everything but his music. Beethoven, Sibelius, Grieg, Bach. "Bocchhhhhh," he declaims with an exaggerated guttural display.

And if I let him, he neglects me as well.

Slats of light paint a zebra hide across his features as he tells me again of his escape during the war. Only this time I question in more detail. Times, places, distances, dates. His memory is hazy and he chafes at this probing for details. Suddenly it appears I am too interested. There is no middle ground.

"I am wasting your time," he says dismissively.

"No, I'm interested. Please, tell me the story again of how you escaped to Switzerland."

"I was working in a small town in western Austria--"

"What was the name of the town?"

"I don't know. It was a small town. It's too small to be on any map. It was a very small town."

"Where?"

"Somewhere near the border. Less than a mile from the Swiss border."

"How far from Vienna?"

"No, no, no. Vienna is not anywhere near Switzerland. Must you be so stupid?"

CONTINUED

Enno ~ Part 2

SHORT STORY MONDAY

Every story begins with a seed, since only God can create ex nihilo. This story was written at a time when I was taken up with the idea of being the next Hemingway or Fitzgerald, the seed being Fitzgerald's The Crack Up. My guess is that I have been a much happier man having not achieved such fame. Hemingway's life ended in an intimate experience with a shotgun, and the author of the Great Gatsby drank himself to death. Being celebrated does not necessarily correlate to happiness. Nevertheless, having written this during a period when I believed serious literature had to be grim to be serious, I adopted the coin of the land.

Enno
Part 2

Life is essentially tragic, he was fond of saying. I did not accept this thesis at the time, that is, in the beginning, but events persuaded me and in the end I was forced to bow to his undeniable conclusion. "What took you so long?" he asked me when I finally came around. The forked query found its mark and perforated the cloak which served as my last refuge from myself. For you see, it was from myself that I was fleeing. And in Enno, the mirror would not go away. How strange the progression as I was drawn in, at first magnetized, then bewildered and, at the end, humiliated and shamed. It's funny how we never understand the real meaning of our lives until it is too late to do us any good.

•

When things are going well with us we forget how tenuous is the strand that holds us above the abyss.

While I was having the nervous breakdown I learned how helpless helplessness really is. Enno visited me in the hospital then.

"How long will you stay?" he asked.

"This is really the end for me. I don't see how I can face anyone after this."

"You made your bed."

"Yes, I made my bed."

"What are the doctors saying?"

"They are trying to sort out all the lies I have been telling myself. I sound very convincing. The worst is certain to come out," I said. "I don't think I can handle it."

"You can't run away now. You have a family to take care of."

I had no strength to reply.

•

The reservoirs were full, but the dams high and strong. The dry valley waits in vain for the rains of spring.

I can no longer understand why I feel so stonehearted. My heart is not a shell capable of being cracked open, but rather a steel bearing, solid throughout, and inanimate. Not a living organ, but rather granite, basalt, and lead.

Enno's third visit to the hospital (his second visit found me inaccessible) was the first in which we discussed the story I had written about him for Modern Maturity.

"You have created a fiction and called it fact. These are lies," he shouted. "Now what are you going to do about it."

"Show me which part is not true."

He made no effort to answer.

"Show me," I said. "I really want to know. Your name is spelled right, correct? And you are from Poland. These stories, these atrocities you experienced... not true?"

He stood tight-lipped, leaning against the table, his chin thrust forward mercilessly.

"Is it the treatment you don't like?"

"The treatment, the treatment. Dammit, you make me out to be a hero. I am no hero, godammit." He threw out his hand as if violently pushing curtains away from his face and said something in German.

I half wondered why he ever told me these stories. He told me himself that people always said his experiences should be recorded in a book. I had recorded them. Was he going to hate me for this?

"I'm not seeking immortality. Maybe you are, but I'm not. Leave me out of your damn books."

But he knew I wouldn't and I knew he really liked the idea of it.

CONTINUED

Enno

SHORT STORY MONDAY

"I have never produced anything good except by a long succession of slight efforts." ~Andre Gide

Enno

We discover ourselves as we interact with others. Through friendships our true selves find the courage to emerge. Through bitter feuds we discover our capacity for conflict, or lack of capacity. Through struggle we define our strength, or -- to our dismay -- learn of our weakness.

In Enno's case, I found all of this and more, for it was Enno who gave me the courage to let my true self find release. Only later did I recognize what the game we had played would cost me.

Had I once been strong? Or did I only believe myself so? Did I once possess the light of life? Or was I only deceived by flashes from illusory sparks on the retina of my eye?

Magenta tapestries, mauve curtains, lace bouquets and sprigs of baby's breath, honeysuckle and sweet nothings splashed across memory's mantle. I weep alone now, frightened by what will never be.

•

The truth never owns itself, but rather, gives itself away. That is to say, we do not possess truth. We only encounter it.

Even so, there is nothing certain, even in the most profound revelations, for is it not true that yesterday's experience is soon but a dream. Gone, like a mist... and verifications escape us. The enigma of time swallowing up itself like the dragon its horny tail.

So you see, he has fallen prey to doubt. (Of course I am speaking of myself here. I am a writer, and it is a habit of ours to speak in third person as if we are speaking of other people.)

No, that's not entirely true, though in large measure it is to the universal in all of us that one hopes to appeal. Certainly it was the universal in me that Enno touched. That is, the universal sense of the tragic... Thus we returned together to his apartment and poured ourselves drinks while dashing all hope against the unpalatable night.

•

He lived alone at that time, in the days before his fame. How could I have known what lay ahead of us then. We tape our hopes to the wall, but we hardly imagine the good thing will come. Years go by and we are left with only the dust taste, the stench of stagnant waters in the cellar of our souls. We conceal our tears, but to no avail. We find little comfort in this solitary stance.

So it is we find our way back to the society of men. We rub shoulders, make small talk, pay attention occasionally, repeat a joke or two and give the appearance of feeling at home in this world, their world, a world not our own.

Then we meet someone rare, someone complete and full of years, who has lived a life not unlike our own, but in a different span of time. We meet in a chance encounter that has the earmarks of Providentiality. We open our hearts and minds and find a resonance so complete it seems to defy probability and chance. Like two long lost friends finding themselves in an alien land, we rejoiced. How strange it seems now, for he alone was the immigrant.

(How foreign I'd always felt myself from that which surrounds me, suffocates and imprisons me.)

•

Our first affinity was books. "When I was a young man in Poland," Enno has repeatedly told me, "I spent all my waking hours in the library."

We were both lovers of books. European authors best, we both agreed. Americans had clever writers, but few great minds. The American experience is a corrupting experience, teaching us to value only the surface of things, causing us to miss the substance of things themselves. Whether it be art or literature, even music, Americans seem incapable of touching anything remotely passionate in the human breast.

He had come through the war and that, more than anything, sets one apart from most of the American experience. Pop psychology has little to say to survivors of the war experience. He had been a survivor of one of man's greatest invented nightmares. And in 1949 he gained his passage to New York City, freedom's shores.

"No one will believe the truth. So we do not talk about the truth any more." He said this many times, too. "People prefer fictions. Fictions require no commitment. Fictions require no risk. Truth is a risk. Truth demands a stance." Thus was his posture fixed, in an attitude of provocation.

CONTINUED

For One Night Of Love (Part V)

SHORT STORY MONDAY

For One Night Of Love
Part V

The soft clunk startled him. Alyssa had rapped on the passenger door window with her knuckles, then lifted the handle. The door, having been locked, did not yield. Jeremy reached across the seat, opened it and Alyssa, wearing a red silk, quilted robe with a black lining, slid into the car.

Their eyes fought to discover one another's secrets.

"You don't have to say anything," Alyssa said. "I understand."

Jeremy remained silent, wrapped in resistance, staring off into the twilight.

"I knew you'd be confused," Alyssa said, her voice cracking.

He knew she was fighting tears now. They were both fighting tears.

"I'll be all right," he said. The sinking feeling had passed.

"Don't take it personally," she said. "You don't know how things are with my family."

Jeremy reached his hand out and she clasped it between her hands, resting them on her lap. Her head was bent so that her hair fell forward, hiding her face. Several minutes were passed in solemn silence. Jeremy felt as if they were the most beautiful moments of his whole life, and it struck him almost strange that such a passive act could so profoundly move him.

"Why are we so scared to show our real selves?" Jeremy said. "It's like I have all these feelings, and it's like I don't even know what to do with it all."

"You really are sweet," Alyssa said softly, still harboring his hand.

Jeremy closed his eyes and listened to her breathing.

"I have to go," she said quickly, returning his hand and opening the door.

Jeremy got out of the car as well, watching the shadow figure of Alyssa race across the lawn, silhouetted against the half moon risen above the trees. In a short time he saw the flash of lights from her room, on and off, three times. He went inside and returned his own double sign. His last thoughts were of her as he passed into sleep.

There were many nights of signals after that. Jeremy lived for those moments where he was in contact with her, even if only by the brief flashing of lights which had come to symbolize the embodiment of all things bright and wonderful and hopeful and pure. Sometimes he would exclaim, "Let there be light!" as he flashed, with rejoicing, the signal to her. At other times, it was with anguish, for it seemed the day would take a thousand years to pass before he should again see her sign. These were the most difficult nights, and in the pain of longing he wondered if it was worth it, for surely no good thing could come of it in the end and he believed he understood that it really is possible to die from a broken heart.

The night it happened he'd already made ready for bed when the phone rang. "Jeremy?" She spoke so softly he had difficulty hearing her, but he knew it was her. "Can you come here tonight?"

Jeremy answered voicelessly and she, not hearing, said, "Jeremy?"

"Yes," he replied, and he hung up the phone.

He dressed in haste, hitching his belt and buttoning his shirt as he strode down across the yard. The back door had been swung open with Alyssa standing just inside, wearing again the red silk robe, her face colorless. As Jeremy stepped inside the door, the girl flung herself against him, burying her face in the nape of his neck. While her urgency frightened him, the scent of her equally intoxicated him so that he was bewildered and uncertain, even afraid. His shirt became damp with her tears, first on the left and then the right side.

"It's all right," he said to her, trying to sound comforting. "I'm sure things will be all right."

She said nothing and continued to cry, pulling away from him and seating herself on a low couch that stretched along the wall, crying into her hands with her elbows propped on her knees. There was a lamp on somewhere in the house which presented just enough light to suggest outlines for the furnishings in that room. Jeremy placed himself at her side. With his right hand he stroked the back of her head, running his hand over her hair.

When at last she was able to speak, she said to him, "You mustn't make any noise," and he knew someone else was in the house.

Finally, she stood up and, grasping his hand, pulled him to his feet. She led him toward the hallway, down the hall across plush carpets, past woven wallpaper and tapestries, toward the back of the house, toward the room he had dreamed of where paradise must lay. Without a word she led him, and he followed, believing anything was possible. When they reached her room, he followed her inside, and she closed the door behind so that they were standing in absolute darkness, her hand tightly clasping his, restlessly squeezing and releasing. He did not know that in the corner of the room lay the dead body of her father.

CONTINUED