The Hotel New Hampshire Part 25

It was the end of June when the midgets made Elliot Park look like a fairground; the once-brightly-colored canvases, now faded to pastels, flapped over the little stalls, fringed the merry-go-round, domed the big tent where the main acts would be performed. Kids from the town of Dairy came and hung around our park all day, but the midgets were in no hurry; they set up the stalls; they changed the position of the merry-go-round three times - and refused to hook up the engine that ran it, even to test it out. One day a box arrived, the size of a dining-room table; it was full of large spools of different-coloured tickets, each spool as big as a tyre.

And Frank drove carefully through the now crowded park, circling the little tents and the one big tent, telling the kids from the town to move on. 'It opens the Fourth of July, kids,' Frank would say, officiously - his arm hanging out the window of the car. 'Come back then.'

We would be gone by then; we hoped that the animals might arrive before we had to leave, but we knew, in advance, we were going to miss opening night.

'We've seen all the things they do, anyway,' Franny said.

'Mainly,' Frank said, 'they just go around looking small small.'

Lilly burned. She pointed out the handstands, the juggling acts, the water and fire dance, the eight-man standing pyramid, the blind baseball team skit; and the smallest of the lady midgets said she could ride bareback - on a dog.

'Show me the dog,' said Frank. He was sour because Father had sold Fritz the family car, and Frank now needed Fritz's permission to drive the car around Elliot Park; Fritz was generous about the car, but Frank hated to ask.

Franny liked to take her driving lessons with Max Urick in the hotel pickup, because Max was nervy about Franny driving fast. 'Gun it,' he would encourage her. 'Pa.s.s that sucker - you've got plenty of room.' And Franny would come back from a lesson, proud that she had laid nine feet of rubber around the bandstand or twelve feet around the corner of Front Street verging with Court. 'Laying rubber' was what we said in Dairy, New Hamps.h.i.+re, for leaving a black stain on the road with squealing tyres.

'It's disgusting,' Frank said. 'Bad for the clutch, bad for the tyres, nothing but juvenile showing off - you'll get in trouble, you'll get your learner's permit revoked, Max will lose his license (which he probably should should), you'll run over someone's dog, or a small child, some dumb hoods from the town will try to drag-race you, or follow you home and beat the s.h.i.+t out of you. Or they'll beat the s.h.i.+t out of me me,' Frank said, 'just because I know you.'

'We're going to Vienna, Frank,' Franny said. 'Get in your licks at the town of Dairy while you can.'

'Licks!' said Frank. 'Disgusting.'

HI.

Freud wrote.YOU ALMOST HERE! GOOD TIME TO COME. PLENTY OF TIME FOR KIDS TO GET ADJUSTED BEFORE SCHOOL STARTS. EVERYONE LOOKING FORWARD TO YOU COMING. EVEN PROSt.i.tUTES! HA HA! Wh.o.r.eS HAPPY TO TAKE MATERNAL INTEREST IN KIDS - REALLY! I SHOW THEM ALL THE PICTURES. SUMMER A GOOD TIME FOR Wh.o.r.eS: LOTS OF TOURISTS, EVERYONE IN GOOD MOOD. EVEN EAST-WEST RELATIONS a.s.sHOLES SEEM CONTENT. THEY NOT SO BUSY IN SUMMER - DON'T START TYPING UNTIL 11 A.M. POLITICS TAKE SUMMER VACATIONS, TOO. HA HA! IT NICE NICE HERE. NICE MUSIC IN PARKS. NICE ICE CREAM. EVEN BEAR IS HAPPIER - GLAD YOU COMING, TOO. BEAR'S NAME, BY THE WAY, IS SUSIE. LOVE FROM SUSIE AND ME, FREUD. HERE. NICE MUSIC IN PARKS. NICE ICE CREAM. EVEN BEAR IS HAPPIER - GLAD YOU COMING, TOO. BEAR'S NAME, BY THE WAY, IS SUSIE. LOVE FROM SUSIE AND ME, FREUD.'Susie?' Franny said.

'A bear named Susie Susie?' Frank said. He seemed irritated that it wasn't a German name, or that it was a female bear. It was a disappointment to most of us, I think - a kind of anticlimax before we'd really gotten started. But moving is like that. First the excitement, then the anxiety, then the letdown. First we took a cram course on Vienna, then we started missing the old Hotel New Hamps.h.i.+re - in advance. Then there was a period of waiting waiting - interminable, and perhaps preparing us for some inevitable disappointment on that day of simultaneous departure and arrival, which the invention of the jet plane makes possible. - interminable, and perhaps preparing us for some inevitable disappointment on that day of simultaneous departure and arrival, which the invention of the jet plane makes possible.

On the first of July we borrowed the Volkswagen bus belonging to Fritz's Act. It had funny hand controls, for braking and acceleration, because the midgets couldn't reach the foot pedals; Father and Frank argued over who would be more dexterous at driving the unusual vehicle. Finally, Fritz offered to drive the first s.h.i.+ft to the airport.

Father, Frank, Franny, Lilly, and I were in the first s.h.i.+ft. Mother and Egg would meet us in Vienna the next day; Sorrow would fly with them. But the morning we were leaving, Egg was up before me. He was sitting on his bed in a white dress s.h.i.+rt, and with his best dress pants and black dress shoes, and wearing a white linen jacket; he looked like one of the midgets - in their skit about crippled waiters in a fancy restaurant. Egg was waiting for me to wake up so that I could help him tie his tie. On the bed beside him, the great grinning dog, Sorrow, sat with the frozen idiot glee of the truly insane.

'You go tomorrow tomorrow, Egg,' I said. 'We go today, but you and Mother don't go until tomorrow.'

'I want to be ready,' Egg said, anxiously. I tied his tie for him - to humour him. He was dressing up Sorrow -in an appropriate flying costume - when I brought my bags down to the Volkswagen bus. Egg and Sorrow followed me downstairs.

'If you've room,' Mother said to Father, 'I wish one of you would take the dead dog.'

'No!' Egg said. 'I want Sorrow to stay with me!'

'You know, you can check check him through with the bags,' Fritz said. 'It's not necessary to carry him on board.' him through with the bags,' Fritz said. 'It's not necessary to carry him on board.'

'He can sit in my lap,' Egg said. And that was that.

The trunks had been sent ahead of us.

The carry-on and check-through bags were packed.

The midgets were waving.

Hanging from the fire escape, at Ronda Ray's window, was her orange nightgown - once shocking, now faded, like the canvas for Fritz's Act.

Mrs. Urick and Max stood at the delivery entrance; Mrs. Urick had been scouring pans - she had her rubber gloves on - and Max was holding a leaf basket. 'Four hundred and sixty-four!' Max called.

Frank blushed; he kissed Mother. 'See you soon,' he said.

Franny kissed Egg. 'See you soon, Egg,' Franny said.

'What?' said Egg. He had undressed Sorrow; the beast was naked.

Lilly was crying.

'Four hundred and sixty-four!' Max Urick screamed, witlessly.

Ronda Ray was there, a little orange juice on her white waitress uniform. 'Keep running, John-O,' she whispered, but nicely. She kissed me - she kissed everyone but Frank, who had crawled into the Volkswagen bus to avoid the contact.

Lilly kept crying; one of the midgets was riding Lilly's old bicycle. And just as we were leaving Elliot Park, the animals for Fritz's Act arrived. We saw the long flat-bed trailers, the cages, and the chains. Fritz had to stop the bus for a moment; he ran around, giving everyone directions.

In our own cage - in the Volkswagen bus - we peered at the animals; we had been wondering if they would be dwarf species.

'Ponies,' Lilly said, blubbering. 'And a chimpanzee.' In a cage with red elephants painted on its side - like a child's bedroom wallpaper - a big ape was shrieking.

'Perfectly ordinary animals,' Frank said.

A sled dog circled the bus, barking. One of the lady midgets began to ride the dog.

'No tigers,' said Franny, disappointed, 'no lions, no elephants.'

'See the bear?' said Father. In a grey cage, with nothing painted on it, a dark figure sat swaying in place, rocking to some sad inner tune - its nose too long, its rump too broad, its neck too thick, its paws too short to ever be happy.

'That's a bear?' Franny said.

There was a cage that looked full of geese, or chickens. It was mostly a dog and pony circus, it seemed - with one ape and one disappointing bear: mere tokens toward the exotic hopefulness in us all. cage that looked full of geese, or chickens. It was mostly a dog and pony circus, it seemed - with one ape and one disappointing bear: mere tokens toward the exotic hopefulness in us all.

Looking back on them, in Elliot Park, as Fritz returned to the bus and drove us forward - to the airport and to Vienna - I saw that Egg still held in his arms the most exotic animal of them all. With Lilly crying beside me, I imagined I saw - in the chaos of moving midgets and unloading animals - a whole circus called Sorrow, instead of Fritz's Act. Mother waved, and Mrs. Urick and Ronda Ray waved with her. Max Urick was yelling, but we couldn't hear him. Franny's lips, in time with his, whispered, 'Four hundred and sixty-four!' Frank was already reading the German dictionary, and Father - who was not a man for looking back - sat up front with Fritz and talked rapidly about nothing at all. Lilly wept, but as harmlessly as rain. And Elliot Park disappeared: my last look caught Egg in motion, struggling to run among the midgets, Sorrow held like an idol above his head - an animal for all those other, ordinary ordinary animals to wors.h.i.+p. Egg was excited, and yelling, and Franny's lips - in time with his - whispered, 'What? What? What?' animals to wors.h.i.+p. Egg was excited, and yelling, and Franny's lips - in time with his - whispered, 'What? What? What?'

Fritz drove us to Boston, where Franny had to shop for what Mother called 'city underwear'; Lilly wept her way through the lingerie aisles; Frank and I cruised the escalators. We were at the airport much too early. Fritz apologized for not being able to wait with us; his animals needed him, he said, and Father wished him well -thanking him, in advance, for driving Mother and Egg to the airport tomorrow. Frank was 'approached' in the men's room at Logan International, but he refused to describe the incident to Franny and me; he continued to say only that he had been 'approached.' He was indignant about it, and Franny and I were furious with him for not spelling it out to us in more detail. Father bought Lilly a plastic carry-on flight bag, to cheer her up, and we boarded the plane before dark. I think we took off about 7 or 8 P.M.: the lights of Boston, on a summer night, were half on and half off, and there was enough daylight left to see the harbour clearly. It was our first time on an airplane, and we loved it.

We flew all night across the ocean. Father slept the whole way. Lilly would not sleep; she watched the darkness, and reported sighting what she said were two ocean liners. I dozed and woke, dozed and woke again; with my eyes shut, I watched Elliot Park turning into a circus. Most places we leave in childhood grow less, not more, fancy. I imagined returning to Dairy, and wondered if Fritz's Act would improve or run down the neighbourhood.

We landed in Frankfurt at quarter to eight in the morning. Maybe it was quarter to nine.

'Deutschland!' Frank said. He led us through the Frankfurt airport to our connecting flight to Vienna, reading all the signs out loud, speaking amiably to all the foreigners.

'We're the foreigners,' Franny kept whispering.

'Guten Tag!' Frank hailed all the pa.s.sing strangers.

'Those people were French, Frank,' Franny said. 'I'm sure of it.'

Father almost lost the pa.s.sports, so we attached them with two stout rubber bands to Lilly's wrist; then I carried Lilly, who seemed exhausted from her tears.

We left Frankfurt at quarter to nine, or maybe quarter to ten, and arrived in Vienna about noon. It was a short, choppy flight in a smaller plane; Lilly saw some mountains and was frightened; Franny said she hoped it would be smoother weather, the next day, for Mother and Egg; Frank vomited twice.

'Say it in German, Frank,' Franny said, but Frank felt too terrible to answer her.

We had a day and a night and the next morning to get the Gasthaus Freud ready for Mother and Egg. Our flight had totaled about eight hours in the air - about six or seven from Boston to Frankfurt, and another hour or so to Vienna. The flight that Mother and Egg were taking was supposed to leave Boston slightly later in the evening of the next day and fly to Zurich; their connecting flight, to Vienna, would take about an hour, and Boston to Zurich - like our flight to Frankfurt - was scheduled for about seven hours. But Mother and Egg - and Sorrow - landed short of Zurich. Less than six hours out of Boston, they struck the Atlantic Ocean a glancing blow - off the coastline of that part of the continent called France. In my imagination, later (and illogically), it was some slight consolation to know that they did not fall in darkness, and to imagine that there might - in their minds - have been some hopefulness implied by the vision of solid ground in the distance {though they did not reach the ground). It is too unlikely to imagine that Egg was sleeping, although anyone would hope so; knowing Egg, he would have been wide-awake the whole way - Sorrow jouncing on his knees. Egg would have had the window seat.

What went wrong, we were told, went wrong quickly; but surely there would have been time to blurt out some advice - in some language. And time for Mother to kiss Egg, and squeeze him; time for Egg to ask, 'What?'

And though we had moved to the city of Freud, I must say that dreams are vastly overrated: my dream of Mother's death was inexact, and I would never dream it again. Her death - by some considerable stretch of the imagination - might have been initiated by the man in the white dinner jacket, but no pretty white sloop sailed her away. She shot from the sky to the bottom of the sea with her son beside her screaming, Sorrow hugged to his chest.

It was Sorrow, of course, that the rescue planes saw. Searching for the sunken wreckage, trying to spot the first debris upon the surface of the grey morning water, someone saw a dog swimming. Closer examination convinced the rescue crew that the dog was just another victim; there were no survivors, and how could the rescue crew have known that this dog was already dead? This knowledge of what led the rescue crew to the bodies came as no surprise to my surviving family. We had learned this fact of Sorrow, previously, from Frank: Sorrow floats.

It was Franny who said, later, that we must all watch out for whatever form Sorrow would take next; we must learn to recognize the different poses.

Frank was silent, pondering the responsibilities of resurrection - always a source of mystery to him, and now a source of pain.

Father had to identify the bodies; he left us in Freud's care and travelled by train. Later, he wouldn't speak often of Mother or Egg; he was not a backward-looking man, and his need to care for us no doubt prevented him from such indulgent and dangerous reflection. No doubt it would have crossed his mind that this this was what Freud wanted Mother to forgive my father for. was what Freud wanted Mother to forgive my father for.

Lilly would weep, knowing all along that Fritz's Act would have been smaller and easier to live with - all around.

And I I? With Egg and Mother gone - and Sorrow in an unknown pose, or in disguise - I knew we had arrived in a foreign country.

8

Sorrow Floats .

Ronda Ray, whose breathing first seduced me over an intercom - whose warm, strong, heavy hands I can still feel (occasionally) in my sleep - would never leave the first Hotel New Hamps.h.i.+re. She would remain faithful to Fritz's Act, and serve them well - perhaps discovering, as she grew older, that waiting on midgets and making their beds were altogether preferable to the services she'd rendered to more fully grown adults. One day Fritz would write us that Ronda Ray had died - 'in her sleep.' After losing Mother and Egg, no death would ever strike me as 'appropriate,' though Franny said that Ronda's was.

It was more appropriate, at least, than the unfortunate pa.s.sing of Max Urick, who succ.u.mbed to life in the Hotel New Hamps.h.i.+re in a bathtub on the third floor. Perhaps Max never got over his irritation at having to give up the smaller bathroom equipment, and his cherished hideaway on the fourth floor, because I imagine him plagued by the sense, if not by the actual sound, of the midgets living over his head. I always thought it was probably the same bathtub where Egg attempted to conceal Sorrow that finally did in Max - having come close to doing the job on Bitty Tuck. Fritz never explained which tub it was, just that it was on the third floor; Max had appeared to suffer a stroke while bathing - he subsequently drowned. That an old sailor who'd come back from the deep so many times should end it all in a bathtub was a source of anguish to poor Mrs. Urick, who found Max's leaving so inappropriate.

'Four hundred and sixty-four,' Franny would go on saying, whenever we mentioned Max.

Mrs. Urick is still the cook for Fritz's Act today - perhaps a testament to the food, and to the life, of plainness but goodness. One Christmas Lilly would send her a pretty handwritten scroll with these words from an anonymous poet, translated from the Anglo-Saxon: They who live humbly have angels from heaven to carry them courage and strength and belief.'

Amen.

Fritz of Fritz's Act surely had similar angels looking after him. He would retire in Dairy, making the Hotel New Hamps.h.i.+re his year-round home (when he no longer hit the road, and the winter circus circuit, with the younger midgets). Lilly would get sad whenever she thought of him, because if it had been Fritz's size that first impressed her, it was the vision of staying in Fritz's Hotel New Hamps.h.i.+re (instead of going to Vienna) that Lilly imagined whenever she thought of Fritz - and Lilly would therefore imagine how all our lives might have been different if we had not lost Mother and Egg. No 'angels from heaven' had been on hand to save them.

But, of course, we had no such vision of the world when we first saw Vienna. 'Freud's Vienna,' as Frank would say - and we knew which Freud he meant. Vienna,' as Frank would say - and we knew which Freud he meant.

All over Vienna (in 1957) were the gaps between the buildings, were the buildings collapsed and airy, the buildings left as the bombs had left them. In some rubbled lots, often the perimeters of playgrounds abandoned by children, one had the feeling of unexploded bombs buried in the raked and orderly debris. Between the airport and the outer districts, we pa.s.sed a Russian tank that had been firmly arranged - in concrete - as a kind of memorial. The tank's top hatch was sprouting flowers, its long barrel was draped with flags, its red star faded and speckled by birds. It was permanently parked in front of what looked like a post office, but our cab flew by too fast for us to be sure.

Sorrow floats, but we arrived in Vienna before our bad news arrived, and we were inclined toward a cautious optimism. The war damage was more contained as we approached the inner districts; on occasion, even the sun shone through the elaborate buildings - and a row of stone cupids leaned off a roof over us, their bellies pockmarked by machine-gun fire. More people appeared in the streets, though the outer districts resembled one of those old sepia photographs taken at a time of day before everyone was up - or after everyone had been killed.

'It's spooky,' Lilly ventured; out of fright, she had finally stopped crying.

'It's old,' old,' Franny said. Franny said.

'Wo ist die Gemtlichkeit 'Wo ist die Gemtlichkeit?' Frank sang, cheerfully - looking around for some.

'I think your mother will like it here,' Father said, optimistically.

'Egg won't like it,' Franny said.

'Egg won't be able to hear it,' Frank said.

'Mother will hate it, too,' Lilly said.

'Four hundred and sixty-four,' Franny said.

Our driver said something unintelligible. Even Father could tell it wasn't German. Frank struggled to talk with the man and discovered he was Hungarian - from the recent revolution. We searched the rearview mirror, and our driver's dull eyes, for signs of lasting wounds - imagining them, if not seeing them. Then a park burst beside us, on our right, and a building as lovely as a palace (it was was a palace), and out a courtyard gate came a cheerful fat woman in a nurse's uniform (clearly a nanny) pus.h.i.+ng in front of her a double-seater baby carriage (someone had had twins!), and Frank read an idiot statistic from a mindless travel brochure. a palace), and out a courtyard gate came a cheerful fat woman in a nurse's uniform (clearly a nanny) pus.h.i.+ng in front of her a double-seater baby carriage (someone had had twins!), and Frank read an idiot statistic from a mindless travel brochure.

'A city of fewer than one and a half million people,' Frank read to us, 'Vienna still has more than three hundred coffeehouses!' We stared out of our cab at the streets, expecting them to be stained with coffee. Franny rolled down her window and sniffed; there was the diesel rankness of Europe, but no coffee. It would not take us long to learn what coffeehouses were for: for sitting a long time, for homework, for talking to wh.o.r.es, for darts, for billiards, for drinking more than coffee, for making plans - for our escape - and of course for insomnia, and for dreams. But then we were dazzled by the fountain at the Schwarzenbergplatz, we crossed the Ringstra.s.se, jolly with streetcars, and our driver began chanting to himself, 'Krugerstra.s.se, Krugerstra.s.se,' as if by this repet.i.tion the little street would leap out at us (it did), and then: 'Gasthaus Freud, Gasthaus Freud.'

The Gasthaus Freud did not leap out at us. Our driver slowly drove right by it, and Frank ran into the Kaffe Mowatt to ask directions; it was then pointed out to us - the building we had missed. Gone was the candy store (although the signs for the former Konditorei -BONBONS, and so forth - were leaning against the window, inside). Father a.s.sumed this meant that Freud - in preparation for our arrival - had begun the expansion plans, had bought out the candy store. But, upon closer inspection, we realized that a fire had destroyed the Konditorei and must have at least threatened the inhabitants of the adjacent Gasthaus Freud. We entered the small, dark hotel, pa.s.sing the new sign by the gutted candy store; the sign, Frank translated, said: DON'T STEP ON THE SUGAR.

'Don't step on the sugar sugar, Frank?' Franny said.

That's what it says,' Frank said, and indeed, entering cautiously into the lobby of the Gasthaus Freud, we felt a certain stickiness on the floor (no doubt from those feet that had already trafficked on the sugar - the hideous glaze from the candy melted in the fire). And now the ghastly smell of burnt chocolate overwhelmed us. Lilly, staggering with her little bags, stumbled into the lobby first, and screamed.

We were expecting Freud, but we had forgotten Freud's bear. Lilly had not expected to see it in the lobby - loose. And none of us expected to see it on the couch by the reception desk, its short legs crossed while it rested its heels on a chair; it appeared to be reading a magazine (an apparently 'smart bear' as Freud had claimed), but Lilly's scream startled the pages right out of its paws and it gathered itself together in a bearlike fas.h.i.+on. It swung itself off the couch and ambled sideways toward the reception desk, not really looking at us, and we saw how small it was - squat, but short; no longer or taller than a Labrador retriever (we all were thinking), but considerably denser, thick-waisted, big-a.s.sed, stout-armed. It rose up on its hind legs and gave the bell on the reception desk a terrible clout, bas.h.i.+ng the bell so violently that the little ping! ping! was m.u.f.fled by the thump of the animal's paw. was m.u.f.fled by the thump of the animal's paw.

'Jesus G.o.d!' said Father.

'Is that you you?' cried a voice. 'Is that Win Berry?'

The bear, impatient that Freud had still not emerged, picked up the bell on the reception desk and whistled it across the lobby; the bell struck a door with great force - with the sound of a hammer banging an organ pipe.

'I hear you!' Freud cried. 'Jesus G.o.d! Is that you you?' And he came out of the room with open arms - a figure as strange to us children as any bear. It was the first time we children realized that Father had learned his 'Jesus G.o.d!' from Freud, and perhaps the contrast this information made with Freud's body was what surprised us; Freud's body bore no resemblance to my father's athletic shape and movements. If Fritz had allowed his midgets to vote, Freud might have been admitted to their circus - he was only slightly larger than they were. His body seemed stricken with something like an abridged history of his former power; he was now simply solid and compact. The black hair we'd been told about was white and long with the fly-around quality of corn silk. He had a cane like a club, like a baseball bat - which we realized, later, was a baseball bat. The strange patch of hair that grew on his cheek was still the size of an average coin, but its colour was as grey as a sidewalk - the nondescript and neglected colour of a city street. But the main thing (about how Freud had aged) was that he was blind.

'Is that you you?' Freud called across the lobby, facing not Father but the ancient iron post that began the banister of the staircase.

'Over here,' my father said, softly. Freud opened his arms and groped toward my father's voice.

'Win Berry!' Freud cried, and the bear swiftly rushed to him, caught the old man's elbow with its rough paw, and propelled him in my father's direction. When Freud slowed his pace, fearful of chairs out of place, or feet to trip over, the bear b.u.t.ted him with its head from behind. Not just a smart bear, we children thought: here was a Seeing Eye bear. Freud now had a bear to see for him. Unquestionably, this was the kind of bear who could change your life.

We watched the blind gnome hugging my father; we watched their awkward dance in the dingy lobby of the Gasthaus Freud. As their voices softened, we could hear the typewriters going at it from the third floor - the radicals making their music, the leftists writing up their versions of the world. Even the typewriters sounded sure of themselves - at odds with all those other, flawed versions of the world, but sure they were right, absolutely believing it, every word tap-tap-tapping into place, like fingers drumming impatiently on tabletops, fingers marking time between speeches.

But wasn't this better than arriving at night? Admittedly, the lobby would have looked better cared for under the mellow glow of inadequate lighting and the forgiveness of darkness. But wasn't it better (for us children) to hear the typewriters, and see the bear - better than to hear (or imagine) the lunging of beds, the traffic of the prost.i.tutes going up and down the stairs, the guilty greetings and good-byes (going on all night) in the lobby?

The bear nosed between us children. Lilly was wary of it (it was bigger than she was), I felt shy, Frank tried to be friendly - in German - but the bear had eyes only for Franny. The bear pressed its broad head against Franny's waist; the bear jabbed its snout in my sister's crotch. Franny jumped, and laughed, and Freud said, 'Susie! Are you being nice? Are you being rude?' Susie the bear turned to him and made a short run at him, on all fours; the bear b.u.t.ted the old man in the stomach - knocking him to the floor. My father seemed inclined to intervene, but Freud - leaning on the baseball bat - got back to his feet. It was hard to tell if he was chuckling. 'Oh, Susie!' he said, in the wrong direction. 'Susie's just showing off. She don't like criticism,' Freud said. 'And she's not so fond of men as she is of the girls girls. Where are are the girls?' the old man said, his hands held out in two directions, and Franny and Lilly went to him - Susie the bear following Franny, nudging her affectionately from behind. Frank, suddenly obsessed with making friends with the bear, tugged the animal's coa.r.s.e fur, stammering, 'Uh, you must be Susie the bear. We've all heard a lot about you. I'm Frank. the girls?' the old man said, his hands held out in two directions, and Franny and Lilly went to him - Susie the bear following Franny, nudging her affectionately from behind. Frank, suddenly obsessed with making friends with the bear, tugged the animal's coa.r.s.e fur, stammering, 'Uh, you must be Susie the bear. We've all heard a lot about you. I'm Frank. Sprechen Sie Deutsch Sprechen Sie Deutsch?'

'No, no,' said Freud, 'not German. Susie don't like German. She speaks your your language,' Freud said in Frank's general direction. language,' Freud said in Frank's general direction.