Page 77

'Who thought all Vienna was an elaborate job of concealing sexual reality?' Mother asked.

'Freud?' said Frank.

'Not our Freud,' said Franny.

But our Freud wrote to us:

ALL VIENNA IS AN ELABORATE JOB OF CONCEALING SEXUAL REALITY. THIS IS WHY PROSTITUTION IS LEGAL. THIS IS WHY WE BELIEVE IN BEARS. OVER AND OUT!

I was with Ronda Ray one morning, thinking wearily of Arthur Schnitzler fucking Jeanette Heger 464 times in something like eleven months, and Ronda asked me, 'What does he mean, it's "legal" -- prostitution is legal -- what's he mean?'

'It's not against the law,' I said. 'In Vienna, apparently, prostitution is not against the law.'

There was a long silence from Ronda; she moved, awkwardly, out from under me.

'Is it legal here?' she asked me; I could see she was serious -- she looked frightened.

'Everything's legal in the Hotel New Hampshire!' I said; it was an Iowa Bob thing to say.

'No, here!' she said, angrily. 'In America. Is it legal?'

'No,' I said. 'Not in New Hampshire.'

'No?' she cried. 'It's against the law? It is?' she screamed.

'Well, but it happens, anyway,' I said.

'Why?' Ronda yelled. 'Why is it against the law?'

'I don't know,' I said.

'You better go,' she said. 'And you're going to Vienna and leaving me here?' she added, pushing me out the door. 'You better go,' she said.

'Who worked for two years on a fresco and called it Schweinsdreck?' Frank asked me at breakfast. Schweinsdreck means 'pig shit.'

'Jesus, Frank, it's breakfast,' I said.

'Gustav Klimt,' Frank said, smugly.

And there went the winter of 1957: still lifting the weights, but going easy on the bananas; still visiting Ronda Ray, but dreaming of the imperial city; learning irregular verbs and the mesmerizing trivia of history, trying to imagine the circus Fritz's Act and the hotel called Gasthaus Freud. Our mother seemed tired, but she was loyal; she and my father appeared to rely on more frequent visits to old 3E, where the differences between them perhaps appeared easier to solve. The Uricks were wary; a cautious streak had developed in them, because they no doubt felt abandoned -- 'to a dwarf,' Max said, but not around Lilly. And one morning in early spring, with the ground in Elliot Park still half-frozen but turning spongy, Ronda Ray refused to take my money -- but she accepted me.

'It's not legal,' she whispered, bitterly. 'I'm no criminal.'

It was later that I discovered she was playing for higher stakes.

'Vienna,' she whispered. 'What will you do there without me?' she asked. I had a million ideas, and almost as many pictures, but I promised Ronda I would ask Father to consider bringing her along.

'She's a real worker,' I told Father. Mother frowned. Franny started choking on something. Frank mumbled about the weather in Vienna -- 'Lots of rain.' Egg, naturally, asked what we were talking about.

'No,' Father said. 'Not Ronda. We can't afford it.' Everyone looked relieved -- even me, I confess.

I broke the news to Ronda when she was oiling the top of the bar.

'Well, there was no harm in asking, right?' she said.

'No harm,' I said. But the next morning, when I stopped and breathed a little outside her door, it seemed that there had been some harm.

'Just keep running, John-O,' she said. 'Running is legal. Running is free.'