Verdammten Bergen

It was on mid-spring nights that the mountains were at their best " deep sleeping and sinuous as they wrapped about the town " promising a purple serenity come morning. It was the purple that always eluded the American. His wife had, Rhineheardt Bonn the neighbor had it, Söllhad it. Blast everything, even that twiddling fool of a doctor had it, yet it did not belong to the American.

There had been a time " eight years ago and before the accident to be precise " when he had thought he loved the town and willingly gave up New York to marry an Austrian girl. Eight years was an eternity now; everything was an eternity after life in a wheelchair, he had decided. Oddly enough, the Austrian girl who had been his wife and caretaker for five of those eight years didn’t see it that way. If the Wilder Kaiser stayed rooted in his place and the sun on Pülven remained rosy, all was well for her, and as neither had changed as she climbed up the ladder to the widow’s keep, her contentment seemed an affront to the American.

“Why the hell did we build the house with a widow’s keep, Maria? Of all the pointless-“

With a shake of her braid crowned head, she kissed his forehead and scooted the wheelchair away from the primitive elevator that allowed him access to any floor of the house.

“Liebling[1], liebling you always forget you were the one who insisted. ‘Just like those places near Nantucket’ you said. Besides, isn’t it so gloriously close to the sky? And what a sky tonight! See how the clouds dapple it like those cows of Rhineheardt’s?”

“Too damned close”, he snarled. “There’s more pressure from above " too close " and He can watch you better. Blast Him and his watching!”

His wife winced, shaking her head again and the light from the open hatch dyed her hair back to what it had been when they first met in that God forsakenly cold train depot, to when she was a school girl with bouncing braids, to when her mother first took her out and up in the sun saturated meadows. It seemed unnatural to the American that it should be the night and dark moon that took her back to that great Before, the same Before that he never tired of mentioning to her as if there was something he felt she could change about it.

The beam was much heavier than Rhineheardt had indicated, he noticed as soon as his sweat soaked hands met the timber. These Austrians " the American never knew what to make of them. Strong, indomitable when working and almost as devoted to leisure. Dinner and champagne with friends had never consumed four hours of the night in New York as the American and his friends found they had more important business than sitting about telling stories that half of them had memorized since childhood or jokes with a well-known punch line. Neither lost its wonder to the Austrians, he had learned quickly after a couple of beer filled evenings spent with Maria’s father, brothers, uncles, cousins, grandfather, great uncles, second cousins, and other male kin whom he could hardly distinguish from another, and he loved that about his Maria " her sense of wonder, something he had infrequently encountered growing up in Manhattan. It was just as easy to resent it though as to bask in its adoring and constant attention. Maria’s family had been shocked to have her return from America with a tall, dark, business minded husband who loved “usefulness” and “order”, yet had welcomed him with all the warmth, hugs " so many hugs! " and beer they could find. Still the American was aware, even as he surveyed the beam, that he was outside of the laughing circles of dancers in dirndls and lederhosen on festival days, regardless of how hard Maria tugged at his hand or how long he managed to sit through dinner. The heck with it, he didn’t even understand much more German than “Genau[2]” and “Danke shün[3]”.

Lifting the beam then, a word weighed just as heavily on his thoughts. Nützlichkeit. Usefulness. If that was what they thought he valued, that was what he could be.

Beam hoisted and cutting through his thin shirt, the American looked for direction from Rhineheardt, but his new neighbor was more concerned with his cows as he saw them amble to Frau Bonn’s peonies, plants which she prided and had given Rhiney strict orders to keep his herd from. Oh well. The American would have shrugged but for the beam. Seeing the next groove for the supports of the widow’s keep, he staggered over, dropping one leg over the existing rafter and began to roll the beam off his protesting back. It rolled and neatly caught the American’s other leg just above the thigh. Rhiney only ceased his herding duties at the sound of what must have been an inhuman cry. The American heard nothing but his stilted pulse and the deep throb of his writhing spine.

“Maria, I want to go back to New York. Now” he added when his wife said nothing. “I’m fed up with all this “alpine air” rot that the doctor keeps spewing. If I was going to walk again, it would have happened before now and he’s just siphoning away more of the money that we need. I want to leave.”

“Come now, liebling, we have had this discussion before. The doctor is among the best Tante knew of in Salzburg and surely you don’t know you won’t walk. Right now, you are only over tired and I’m sure all you must want is sleep.” She patted his arm affectionately. “Now let’s just wheel you back and-“

“Damn it all woman, that’s not what I want! If sleep could help, I would have been a happy, thoroughly Austrian man for eight years. And we have not had this discussion. You keep on evading it and even if I am a cripple, I am not a stupid man, Maria.”

The light reflected from the open hatch into her eyes was lost as she looked east, where the American focused on a miniscule orange-red light from the Bonn home, the only one in that direction.

“Nein[4] liebling, of course not, but I don’t see what good it would do to talk of New York when everything is so pleasant and cozy here. You know how you love Söll and why you just told Mother last month how the mountains here were “incomparable”. Ja[5], that was your word. Incomparable.”

“Of course I said that. I hate them in a way I have never hated any inanimate object before. They don’t approve of my being like this while everyone else is free to do whatever the hell they please. Just remember the feast of Corpus Christi that you all celebrated.”

“But liebling, you were there too.”

“And I couldn’t celebrate. I’m no Austrian, Maria. All I can ever be is American and that isn’t enough for your people. They expect for me to be Austrian and you want it too.” He faced her suddenly, eyes wildly reflecting the red washed moon. “Admit it.”

She twisted her mouth tightly, a habit in the last five years. The American was desperate to have what he believed like a gospel confirmed and pressed on until his wife pulled a frayed thread slowly from her sweater and spoke, as if pulling something from her own self.

“I would not mind if you could walk again, I would not mind if they understood you, and I would not mind if you understood them. You Americans don’t take time for that though and we Austrians don’t care to rush about as you do. I love you as you are now, an American and in a wheel chair, but I would not mind either if you were Austrian and healthy.”

The American’s neck sank down to his breast. “I took time when we first met to show you where the line for Queens picked up” he whispered and tugged himself closer to the edge of the widow’s keep. His wife said nothing, instead gazing at the side of Pülven closest to their house. She had lived there before meeting the American.

“It would be better for you if I was to go to New York, Maria. You might say that your crippled American husband had died and then rejoin those girls in dirndls during the festivals. And there would be those wildflowers on the mountains for you to gather. You could do that with Amilie; she was that friend you had before, right? And damn it all, there would be more for you. I’m not more, only less. Less joy, less sun, less of a life. You do want that Maria. I know sure as hell you do.”

His wife trembled violently, like one of the mountain poplars or aspens. He certainly was correct, the American crowed. If she agreed, then he could go forward with his plan. If Maria said yes, it would be right since he would be helping her. And himself, but that wasn’t what anyone else should know. To them it should seem to be all for Maria " that was right and honorable enough- and the Austrians would respect that.

“Nein.” It was quiet, then gained conviction. “Nein. When I promised to be your wife in that church in New York and then again here before Father Josef, I did not intend to leave you. You and I both, we never intended for the accident to happen either, but that cannot change a thing. I am your wife, Austrian or not and you are my husband, American as you may be. Now I am going to go to bed. Are you coming now liebling?”

The American did not take his wife’s proffered hand. “Later, Maria. Later.” The earlier florid flush precipitated by his outburst had slid from his face, down his neck, and into his chest, replaced by an almost eager pallor. His wife’s process down the slanting ladder was halted by her husband’s next words - crimson, lugubrious words.

“You know, if that b*****d’s mother had never borne him, this would never happen. If I could, I’d damn that b*****d to hell. Both him and his cows.”

She avoided the topic again, as he had known she would, and only called softly up to him, “Be sure to come down soon liebling.” The hatch was dragged closed behind her, the inches of golden light shrinking in her wake. There was left only a red rimmed moon, cloud marked sky, and the American.

He was seldom as alone as he found himself now. Maria insisted on pushing him, though they both knew full well that he could be mobile without assistance. He did not miss her or want company; the moon was enough and the sky’s pressure was abundant. Laughing with all the warmth of dry bones abandoned to the years, the American marveled that he should still was to be “nützlichkeit[6]”. Take any many man pushing about headfirst, briefcase trailing, in Times Square and ask him if he would want to be “nützlichkeit” and work, and you would be a damned idiot if you expected him to want anything other than rest. The American knew all about rest. And he was sick of it.

The railing about the widows keep was low and weak " Rhineheardt has finished it quickly after the accident - and the American, looking down through the moon-bleached wood, found what he wanted. Maria did not know of it, he assured himself, and she wouldn’t know of it until tomorrow at least. Would someone hear him? No, the street was empty.

He looked at the red-orange light that shone from the upper story from the Bonn house. It wouldn’t mind, and neither would the scarlet moon; it whispered in his ear, eager and urging. Only the flaxen glow would object, and that had already been shut away by his wife behind the hatch.

One final glance at Rhiney’s light, the moon, where Maria had exited. Then at the mountains, just beginning to glow mauve.

“Damn you,” he rasped and pulled himself through the railing with one supple gesture. The American did not hear himself scream as the wheelchair left the solid roof. He only heard that choked pulse.