1.
Sarah Naaktgeboren's mother was an architect
“She fled Vienna in '38
“She snuck home once before sailing to the States
“‘I may have been crazy,’ she told me, ‘but those bastards weren't going to give
their bitches my rings’
“She made it to Chicago, where she studied with Mies
“She liked his style, but his buildings leaked”
I mention the woman I used to see each night, the one I thought survived
Theresienstadt
Sarah laughs
“That was Helen Jandl
“You may know her memoirs, Ghost Writer and Why Am I Not Dead?
“She also wrote The Bloody Bed
“The whole first edition of that was printed in red”
Bhob says, “Someday everyone who remembers will be dead ... ”
He gets up and peers out the window
“It's still raining pitchforks”
“Meat for the flowers,” I say, quoting Oslomon
He puts on Bird with Strings, takes a pebble from his desk and hands it to me
“Doesn't this look just like Edmond Jabès?”
Sarah stares into her glass
“Grandmother hated her violin teacher, but everyone in Vienna was a musician
“Once a young man asked if she knew Wittgenstein
“She thought he meant the pianist
“Klimt lived down the street
“Everyone painted, too
“No one made much of it”
Bird cuts out; lush strings kick in
“The sad part is in her dementia she begged for her violin”
“Rain's not letting up,” notes Bhob
“We can run to Gallus Gallus or I can heat some beans”
2.
Sarah's husband Dadis is an architect, too
Their house looks just like every other Dokesburg windmill
Inside, it's steel and glass and polished stone and apparently sourceless ambient
light
Dadis is a Cypriot Greek
“I used to swim in the light,” he says
“Now I swim in the rain
“I make it up to myself inside my buildings”
This light is made of Bach
Dadis points to an abstract painting
“It's called Architects in the Land of the Dead
“My sister gave it to me
“She gave me this Botero Odalisca, too”
Sarah half laughs
“I don't know how that poor woman ever gets out of bed”
I've heard from Eric Szorora
“Grenadine will be free in a week
“The family wants me to translate the rest of her poetry”
Dadis says, “It's sad her grandfather died while she was in prison”
Sarah speaks of her next project
“It swirls around Chagall's Le Violiniste Bleu
“It's personal," she says
“One of those birds that's perched upon his knee's my mother newly dead
“The fiddler plays ‘The Long Bright Days Of The Short Summer’”
Her finger runs circles round the rim of her glass
Her eyes are bright with tears
Later, taking me home, Dadis stops the car in the middle of the bridge
“Shes a very private person,” he says, “so don't tell her I told you this
“It's breast cancer ... we just found out ... ”
We sit and watch the rain rain down
I can't control the quivering of my lip